Lizzie walked away from Abby, went towards the front stairs. Up she went. Abby cried out, made a red-fox vixen scream like something being dragged from her, pressed her hands into her face, shook her head, no, no, no. She straightened herself, dried tears on her sleeve. I heard the buzz of a fly in my ear.
Abby walked to the front stairs, walked until I could hear her overhead. My stomach cramped and I rocked forward, gave a heave, had the mutton soup come out of me and onto the carpet. How it made my eyes water. The fly buzzed, landed in my vomit. I heard Lizzie and Abby speak, heard Abby say, ‘If you’re going to stand there . . .’ I heaved again and Lizzie spoke. The room spun, everything hot, and I held on to myself, and everything turned to dark.
I woke to blinding sun, tasted salt carpet on my tongue. How long had I been out? Outside, two children screamed on the sidewalk past the house, long echo laughs chasing one another. ‘Don’t do that to your brother,’ a woman called. That way of being with a sibling. My lips turned a smile.
I was about to crawl from under the table when I saw Lizzie in an armchair in the sitting room. She slumped, sat leg-wide, made her skirt stretch into a tug of war, was lifeless-looking into the carpet. She’d removed her apron. Lizzie whispered to herself, little lisps of tongue over lip. How long had she been there? Had she seen me? Lizzie rubbed her forehead, tugged at her hair, kept quiet in a quiet house. My leg began to ache, tired from curling. Soon I’d have to move through the house. Lizzie reached into her lap, got out a half-eaten pear and sank her teeth into flesh. Sloppy-mouth. She bit again, pulled her feet together. Bite, she sat straight. Bite, she cracked her neck. Bite, she licked her lips, slurped herself into a smile.
Lizzie stood, went to the kitchen, and threw the pear into the sink. I crawled slow to the other side of the table, my hands dived into my own vomit. Cold, gravel-thick. What it took for me to stay silent. Lizzie pulled a spoon from a drawer, stuck it in her mouth, disappeared from sight. I could smell the deep pit of myself on my palms. Lizzie came back to view, raspberry jelly jar in hand, scooped her spoon deep into syrup fruit, made glass tink. Where had Abby gone? Lizzie ate jelly, emptied the jar and left it on the counter. She stretched her arms above her head and, like that, she left the kitchen and sometime later the side door opened, slammed shut. Lizzie was a strange little creature.
I crawled out from under the table, could hear Lizzie and Bridget speak in the yard, a mumble rush. With things the way they were, I couldn’t stay in that part of the house. I’d be caught. Getting to the backyard without them catching me wouldn’t be easy. I’d have to hide somewhere else in the house until Andrew came home. I headed to the front stairs, climbed up. Heat ate me like a crow. There was a dollop of syrup-red on the banister. I touched it, let it spread over fingertip then brought it to my mouth. I tasted fresh blood, the kind that sings. There was an open door to a room and I went inside, saw another red dollop on the doorjamb. I touched, brought fingers to mouth, tasted again. My cheeks recognised the tart metallic. I had tasted blood like this so many times before.
I stepped further inside, noticed something white lying by the radiator. I went closer, knew before I picked it up what it was. The underside piece of skull was coloured blood, its flesh still holding on to strands of greying hair. I lifted it to my face, inhaled; a tiny scream inside my nose and mouth. Someone had been dealing out punishment without me. I looked over my shoulder, heat slapped me across the face and I dropped the bone to the floor. ‘What is going on?’ Outside, the two children screamed, laughed.
I saw the bed then, a small spatter of blood on the white duvet cover, two neatly ironed pillow shams covering feather-down pillows, a chunk of plaited hair in the middle of the bed and, beside that, another piece of skull. The taste of metallic sulphur on my tongue. I slowed towards the bed, picked up the bone and held on to it. ‘My, my. What a treasure trove we have here.’ I leaned on the bed, felt the mattress depress underneath me. That’s when I saw Abby lying face first on the ground, her body caught part way between the dressing table and bed.
Her body was shaped like an S, face buried in folded arms, legs straight, stiff. Blood haloed around her head, a thick red honey-stick in the carpet. I crawled off the bed and kneeled beside Abby, rocked her shoulders. My fingers sank into flesh and I stared at the back of her head. Thick cuts like tree roots led all the way to the beginning of brain. I stuck a finger inside one of the incisions. The cuts were ferocious, and I moved my fingers in and out of bone track, and wiped them on my trousers. Papa always said not to waste spilled blood.
I looked around the room, looked for clues as to who had sorted Abby out. I didn’t like the idea that John might’ve asked someone else to help solve the family problem. Did Lizzie know Abby was there on the floor? I stroked Abby’s back, thought of Mama. I looked at the bed, at the small piece of skull bone, and reached for it. It weighed the price of gold in my hand. I held it to my nose, breathed it in, smelled a hint of violet flower. I placed the skull bone inside my trouser pocket for safe keeping, to show John what had happened while he was gone.
I was at the top of the stairs when I heard Bridget and Lizzie speak.
‘Miss Lizzie, have ya seen this? There’s a terrible mess in the dinin’ room.’ Bridget was quick.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Someone’s been sick all over!’
‘Show me.’ Lizzie, like she was on a deer hunt.
I needed to find John, needed to find Andrew. I headed downstairs, through the banister caught sight of Abby, under the bed. I heard Bridget say, ‘I’m worried ’bout Mrs Borden. What if this is her vomit?’
I wanted to call out, ‘She’s here. She’s dead.’ But I couldn’t get myself caught.
‘Perhaps it is,’ Lizzie said. ‘Perhaps she’s been very sick.’
‘Let’s go check on her.’
‘Oh, we can’t. Mrs Borden left. She had a note from an ill relative and she’s gone to help.’
‘I didn’t see anyone come,’ Bridget said.
‘They came.’ Lizzie hesitated.
Voices trailed, a door opened.
I went down the stairs, my shoes, echoes, only to find empty rooms, no one in the piano room, no one in the sofa room, the dining room. No one in the cupboard under the stairs. Someone had made that blood upstairs, had made things complicated for me. It wouldn’t be long before Abby was found, before police arrived. The time to deal with Andrew was running out.
The clock struck ten. Andrew would be home at one. I couldn’t chance hours in the house. I’d have to stay in the barn. I headed for the basement, descended, and when I touched a foundation post, I felt something wet, slightly sticky. I tasted. It was Abby. Someone had taken her blood underneath the house. There was an itch inside me, one that wanted to hunt. I made calculations—police would arrive and would search the house, would search down here. I took towards the double doors that led to the backyard, grabbed and pulled. My luck—they were unlocked. I let them open a crack. I peered an eye outside. Lizzie was by the pear arbour, picking, eating, letting pear flesh fall to the ground. Time passed and she dropped the pear core, came towards the basement, made me quick-step behind the doors, push myself up against the wall. She walked by me, wiped her hand across her mouth, brought with her the smell of grass, of hard sweat, and didn’t notice me at all. Lizzie went up the stairs and into the kitchen. I got myself out of the basement to the barn. I needed a good hiding place. A pigeon on the barn roof sounded and I looked up. That’s when I saw the crawl space above the loft. Coffin length. I climbed the stairs then jumped up, pulled myself into the little space and rolled against the wall. Abby’s skull piece dug into my leg.
I heard a woman wail morse code in the backyard. Scream, scream. Something unexpected. I wasn’t sure I was hearing things right. Then a short time later there was brute panic outside. ‘Make them all stand back on the sidewalk. Don’t let anyone onto the property.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I writhed to the ed
ge of the crawl space, saw the barn door was open. Someone had come in. I hunched myself down, took a look out the loft window. A crowd was gathering on the street, police paced up and down the side of the house.
I gave the window a little push, pigeons sounded in trees, and Bridget was escorted into the middle of the backyard by an officer, his hand a rock on her back. Bridget cried and the officer said, ‘Please take your time, but do tell me if you saw anyone follow Mr Borden home.’
She shook her head. ‘No, sir. I just let him in and then Lizzie called to me a short time later that someone had killed her father.’
Someone killed Mr Borden. This unexpected thing. What was going on in the house? John better not have changed his mind, done this by himself. I moved away from the window. I noticed the changes to the barn floor below—a lady’s journal strewn on the ground, large boot prints, sections of dust wiped away. Someone had definitely been there. How had I not heard anything? The barn was the heat of sun-fire, and an officer yelled, ‘Stand back. Stand back.’
I noticed small blood droplets patter along the floor of the loft towards an old, heavy blanket. I followed the trail and lifted the blanket: an axe head, blood-thick, was covered in tiny grey hairs, human moss. The metal had been snapped away from the handle, the piece annealing from use. ‘My, my, my.’ Underneath blood, underneath grey hair, two long strands of auburn hair. I picked up the axe head, smelled it. That caramel static stench. ‘My, my, my.’ Someone killed Abby. Someone killed Andrew. I’d have to keep the axe, take it to John, demand answers, demand my payment. I put the axe head in my trouser pocket.
Outside, voices. I took another look from the window, saw two police officers. One kicked the dead pigeon in the yard, the other helped himself to a pear from the arbour. He turned around. Blue-purple eye. I knew him, knew my work. The officer from yesterday. None of this was working to my favour. I jumped up, pulled myself back into the crawl space, lay on my stomach, found it hard to breathe. I thought about John. We’d have to have words. I listened to them all, listened to pigeons on the roof.
ELEVEN
BRIDGET
3 August 1892
LATER THAT DAY I was sweeping the kitchen floor when I heard voices trail from the back stairs. Mr and Mrs Borden. I wondered if she had told him about me leaving, what he might think. It would be nothing for Mr Borden to replace me. I was a girl among girls who had replaced a girl. But he would care about the money, would care that I had been receiving more than my worth.
I swept the floors, hunkered the broom underneath the stove, forced the straw bristles as far as they could, collected soot, collected black-green rot food scraps over the white-painted tiled floor. Out came a small piece of orange skin, hard and dried. I put the orange peel under my nose, bitter citrus. Someone had been feasting and I hadn’t noticed. Eating in secret, burning the remains. Lizzie. This was something she would do. I sniffed the peel again. A memory of fruit.
Last summer when Mr and Mrs Borden went to the Swansea farm, Lizzie and Emma bought southern fruits from a Boston market. Orange, peach, apricot. The eating that had been done on the side steps. The smell of orange, burst juice tang, a dance for the tongue and nose. The way peaches wept down fingers, wet lips. The sisters bent over their parted knees, sat a way Mr Borden would never allow. They slobbered the fruits, suckling babies. Emma had asked that I keep watch, make sure nosy neighbours wouldn’t drop by for a visit. Oh, how I was happy to be outside, to be near deliciousness. Emma and Lizzie sat close together, their elbows hitting. They didn’t seem to notice how their bodies knocked against one another.
‘This is as good as the orange I ate in Rome,’ Lizzie said.
Emma rolled her eyes. ‘How many times are you going to bring that up?’ They laughed, like sisters do. Like I had done with mine.
‘Until I’m tired of talking about it.’ Lizzie grabbed another orange from the basket, dug her nails into the skin and ripped it open. Peel to the ground. It was a colour rarely seen back home. Lizzie split the orange in half.
‘Bridget, would you like some?’ Juice, fingers.
‘Are ya sure?’
Emma nodded. ‘Have you eaten one before?’
‘Not really.’ In another house I worked, the lady there went through a southern mourning, wanting to go back to her Florida childhood. She got herself some oranges and I made her marmalade, made her Madeira cake. I licked orange peel and juice from my fingers, the closest I got to eating the fruit.
‘Let us treat you,’ Lizzie said, the way you would to a guest at your manor home.
I took the orange and my teeth went in. It was like sour sugar. My fingertips were sticky. I ate it all.
‘Have you been to Rome?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Lizzie, don’t be rude.’ Emma wiped her mouth.
Lizzie gaped her mouth. ‘How is that rude? I’m making polite conversation.’
‘No, miss. I’ve not been anywhere ’cept home and America.’
‘Well, you could one day.’ Lizzie matter-of-fact.
‘Lizzie . . .’
‘She might marry a rich man.’ Lizzie grinned.
‘Where do I meet ’em? Not in the kitchen.’ I laughed at that, at how Lizzie believed that someone from her walk of life would notice me.
The sun came through the tree canopy, was only a whisper on the shoulder. A small white dog ran past us down the street. The cotton mills steamed in the distance. The smell of fruit, a secret feast. I didn’t question how they got the money for it. I licked my fingers, let the afternoon be.
There would be no summer fruit for me this time. The girls had kept it for themselves. Mr and Mrs Borden kept up their talking and I scooped up the dust and the mess in the dustpan, put it in the bin, threw the peel on top. The clock struck three thirty. Borden voices continued from upstairs and so I went towards them, one step at a time, quiet. It was Mr Borden speaking as I neared their bedroom door.
‘I dare say she won’t keep another flock of pigeons again.’
‘When will you tell her?’
‘Before long.’
‘Andrew, you should do it sooner. She’ll be upset.’
‘They’re pigeons! She can see them all over Fall River if she really misses them.’
Lizzie had started collecting the dead flock in the fall, when she’d found a pigeon with a broken wing in the backyard. She’d asked me to fetch a small wicker basket and so I did. The bird was placed inside and she put the basket in her room. She cut long strips of her bedsheet, bandaged the wing.
Lizzie asked the father of one of her Sunday school pupils to build her a small aviary. Mr Borden was not impressed. ‘You’re inviting trouble. Get rid of it.’
‘No! Don’t be savage. It’ll be eaten alive out there.’
The bird healed and the collecting began. It seemed easy to do: offer up food and wait to close the cage. The pigeons fattened and I thought about them in a pie. Every now and then she sang the morning to them, sang, ‘As the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing,’ and she cooed and tweeted, cooed and tweeted.
‘I don’t want to even think about what she’ll be like if any of them escape,’ Emma had said.
‘It wouldn’t be that bad, would it?’ I asked.
Emma looked at me, like she was seeing right inside. ‘You don’t know my sister.’
Back behind closed doors Mrs Borden told her husband, ‘I just don’t think you should let it be a surprise.’
‘Like finding out John is visiting.’
‘I hadn’t a clue, Andrew.’ Mrs Borden’s defences were up.
‘That child has a nerve sometimes.’
‘You can’t stop them from seeing family.’
‘He doesn’t feel like that anymore.’
‘Being angry won’t help.’
I waited on the back stairs a little longer, waited to hear my name, waited to hear Mrs Borden’s anger, but there was nothing more and so I gave up, headed back to the kitchen. A turning of a key,
the sound of a shoe kicking the bottom jamb of the front door as it opened. I stuck my head around the corner, saw Lizzie come into the house, remove white gloves, hang her parasol in the cupboard under the front stairs. I moved to the sitting room, said, ‘Hello, Miss Lizzie.’
‘Hello.’ Not a smiling face.
‘Somethin’ the matter, miss?’
‘Nothing. It’s hot is all.’ Her cheeks were red, rounded like apples.
‘Would ya like me ta fetch ya water?’
‘Sure.’ The way she said things, all dour. Lizzie was on the down. I got her water, got her a slice of fruitcake for extra. I handed her the water, held onto the plate. ‘Are Father and Mrs Borden here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are they?’
I jerked my head towards the back of the house. ‘In their room.’
‘Now I’ll have to listen to them all afternoon while I’m in mine.’ Sweat beaded along her hairline. Where had she been?
‘Maybe ya could go in Emma’s room?’
‘I’m not going to be cooped up in that shoebox.’
‘Sorry, miss.’
She looked at me and gulped her glass of water, didn’t stop for breath.
After she finished she said, ‘Bridget, do you have by any chance any prussic acid?’
‘I’m thinkin’ I don’t, miss. Why?’
‘I need some for my seal-fur cape. I was thinking while we’ve suitable heat I might clean it, dry it outside.’
Lizzie wasn’t great at cleaning such delicate things. Oh, she’d ruin it, then I’d have to fix everything. ‘Ya should see the pharmacist.’
Her eyebrows laced together. ‘Don’t you think I would’ve thought of that already?’
‘Yes, miss.’
Lizzie snatched the plate of cake from my hands. ‘You’re no use to me.’
She took herself up the stairs, slammed her bedroom door.
The door opened again. ‘You’ve left your garbage in my room.’
The rags, the bucket. I’d forgotten. ‘Feck,’ I whispered. I ran up the stairs.
See What I Have Done Page 16
