‘We have all kinds of seafood.’
‘But potted shrimp? Made with real butter?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘Thought not. You see, it’s a real English delicacy,’ said Ada. ‘So, what else have you got on that shopping list of yours?’
In the cellar, Jim Richards stood smoking a cigarette, his fingernails jammy with blood. Above his head, rabbit pelts hung like shapeless stoles, and across the scored table, the shiny limbs glistened in the swinging yellow lamplight.
‘I know who you are, Mrs Crane,’ he said. ‘I’ve been listening in.’ He sniffed, wiping his hands across his messy front, cigarette sticking to his dry bottom lip. ‘Hope all this gore doesn’t offend you?’
‘Not at all. In fact, I’m kind of used to it, my father was fond of taxidermy. It’s not for the faint-hearted.’
‘You’re not squeamish then?’ He raised his narrow eyebrows. ‘Rabbit only today. Mind you, there’s a lot you can do with a bunny. Have it on the house as a welcome-to-England present. And here’s a foot for luck.’
She nodded her thanks quickly, as he slammed down the knife. The foot felt warm and bony in her hand.
Back upstairs, Madge and Lizzie had gone.
‘Didn’t you want an onion?’ said Ada. ‘You can’t make a good rabbit stew without an onion.’
Later, sorting through her wardrobe, Beatrice stopped to press her cheeks against the collars of her dresses. She put her shoes and boots in pairs, slipping her hand inside, feeling the ridges her toes had made, examining the soles, wondering if a little piece of Coney might have made it over here. She found the menu from Franny’s Oyster Bar and, lying across the bed, she started reading it out to the wall.
‘“Open all year round! Walk right in and get yourself a real fresh taste of the ocean! We have the biggest juiciest clams. We have oysters with pepper sauce, oysters with lemon zest, West Coast octopus, sea urchin eggs, blowfish tails, crawfish, winkles, ink squid, barn-door skates, salmon cheeks, cod cheeks, cod tongues, sturgeon liver, blue-shark steak, squid stew, clam chowder, lobster tails.”’ She threw the menu down. ‘Franny Nolan was my friend and she’d have done potted shrimp if I’d asked her.’
Anglezarke stretched out into moorland, scrubby hills, grey, violet, black-brown in the distance. Its water sat brooding, waiting for the light to start bouncing off those small choppy waves, bringing it to life.
Liverpool felt as far away as America, with its docks, and the movement, that thick bitter brine, and the fumes that settled in the air, hanging like a stained piece of cloth, in yards where she’d seen couples kissing behind Costa Rican crates and off-duty sailors queuing for new tattoos. Of course, she’d heard all the screaming, the belly-laughing, two boys fighting, then four, crashing, dark faces, men snapping braces, and women with too much rouge and feathers in their hair, weaving arm in arm, like showgirls after the show.
‘I thought that was England,’ she told Jonathan, who’d finally arrived home in the car, his face burning red from the cold.
‘Liverpool? What do you mean? Of course that was England.’
‘It looked interesting.’
‘What, that filthy place? No one goes to Liverpool, unless they’re on their way to somewhere else.’
‘We could travel? You have all those little guidebooks just sitting on your shelf.’
‘But we’ve only just got here, my darling. You’ll get used to Anglezarke eventually. Come now, hop in and I’ll show you some of the countryside in this beautiful motor car – my father gave it to me, you know, said I should enjoy it.’
Beatrice stepped into the passenger side, slamming the door behind her.
‘Forget the damn countryside. I want to see some buildings.’
‘Fuel isn’t cheap. We can’t go too far.’
‘All right, OK, any building will do, just so long as it’s not in a field.’
The thin gravel road circled the reservoir, winding into town, where the buildings were small, crouching against the road with all their shutters closed.
‘Look at them,’ she sighed. ‘They hardly scratch the sky.’
He showed her his office, above the printing shop, with its thick frosted glass and the painted gold scroll saying Bonds. A shop selling neckties promised credit, value for money and real silk linings. A closed cafeteria had its board still up, with a chalked High Teas, Bean Soup and Freshly Cut Sandwiches.
At the edge of the pavement, boys folded their arms and squealed at the sight of the motor.
‘Are they loons?’ she asked.
‘Just boys.’
‘Could have fooled me.’
‘Boys in New York are the same.’
‘In New York,’ she told him, ‘it takes more than an automobile to get them so excited.’
*
She wrote a letter home. She didn’t like the paper she found in Jonathan’s desk, it was far too thick and yellow; the ink smudged.
January 18, 1914
Dear Nancy,
England is empty. I am always hungry. I miss the little things, like saltines, muscatel, and music. We have a whole house to ourselves and no one either side. Imagine that. It sure is a one-horse kind of town. The noise comes from the animals. Sheep, cows, and birds. Lots and lots of birds. I do miss Clancy’s ponies. I even miss the elephants. I never thought I’d miss the elephants.
The people here are strange. The young women talk and act so old. Oh you should hear them. They are wrapped up in each other and walk like the nuns at St Xavier’s. But I am trying, Nancy.
We are having a party here Saturday night, and I have promised J that it will be nothing like the night at the Alabama Hotel, but that was a good night, wasn’t it? The night when all the stars came out.
Well, Nancy, I must go heat more water. Washday here is a little like slavery, and I have the red arms to prove it.
Write soon like you promised.
Your best friend,
Your Bea x
Jonathan had six gramophone records.
‘Caruso? Say, have you nothing lighter than this?’
‘He’s really very popular.’
‘Sure he is, but he hardly starts the dancing.’
‘There won’t be any dancing,’ said Jonathan. ‘Remember? It’s not that kind of party.’
Beatrice was trembling as she paced up and down, moving things. She’d chosen a plain blue dress and matching kid leather shoes. She was wearing a bracelet of freshwater pearls, drop pearl earrings, jasmine scent.
‘Just keep things simple,’ Jonathan told her, fussing with his cufflinks. ‘No need for a neck full of clanking beads and whatnot.’
The kitchen was brimming with food, and she busied herself arranging it in the dining room.
‘The girl could do this,’ said Beatrice, straightening the plates.
‘What girl?’
‘The girl we need to help us run this house.’
‘We said we wouldn’t have a girl. We agreed.’
Sighing, Beatrice plumped up the watercress. She pushed the small veal pies into a circle, checking her fingertips for grease. ‘It’s hard for me,’ she told him. ‘I’m really not used to this way of life. Not any more. I lived in boarding houses, I bought all my food ready-made. We had radiators. Electricity.’
‘Well, that’s the New World for you,’ he said.
‘I have calluses.’
‘You have hand cream.’
‘Rose-scented calluses? Is that what I came to England for?’
By twenty past seven they were sitting side by side, hypnotised by the clock’s loud tick and the pendulum.
‘They’ll come,’ said Jonathan.
‘Still, they sure like to keep us waiting.’
‘They’ll be here.’
‘Does everything look all right?’ she asked, screwing up her forehead.
‘Everything looks perfect, my darling, and have you seen what I’ve put on the mantelpiece? I found those postcards. All of them. The Ste
eplechase. The Boardwalk. Luna Park by night.’
‘Luna Park by night?’
‘You sold me those postcards. That’s how we met. I thought they’d like to hear about it.’
The doorbell rang and Beatrice stood up before quickly sitting down. Jonathan went to open the door.
‘You stand when they come into the room.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ she said, standing up again.
They all came, as Jonathan knew they would. Before they’d had Beatrice to gawp at, they’d had his father, and, with their limp bunches of grapes and bottles of milk stout – ‘to put some flesh on your bones’ – they’d brought their curious eyes, weighing up the ornaments, the paintings, the red Persian rug that sat in the room like a thick flying carpet.
Beatrice smiled meekly at all the congratulations, and the talk about foreigners.
‘We thought you’d have skin like a gypsy, and look, you’re whiter than me!’
‘Have you always spoken English?’ a man asked, narrowing his eyes.
‘Oh, I’m afraid I can only speak American,’ she smiled, but the joke fell flat, and the man backed away.
She tried to remember their names. Lizzie and Tom Blackstock. Madge and Frank Temple. Elsie Ward. Ada and Jim Richards (his bloody nails now scrubbed and full of carbolic, which he picked out all night). Lionel Bailey. Jed and Cora Matthews. The man in the corner was Jeffrey something. Then Mr Foxton from the quarry. Emily and Nathaniel. The man with the walking stick. Charlie.
Jonathan poured the ladies another glass of wine.
‘Oh, we never usually,’ said Madge, holding out her glass. ‘My cousin’s just joined the Temperance Society. What he’d make of all this, I don’t know.’
‘Ada makes a lovely lilac wine,’ said Lizzie. ‘It gives you such nice dreams.’
Candles filled the house with a buttery kind of light. Close to the fireplace, a man had all the attention. It was Lionel, with his small hunched shoulders and flat grey hair.
‘All this electricity,’ he was saying, ‘we don’t want it. It will make the birds fall out of the trees. Make fires. Create blizzards. And, you mark my words, it will hurt the innocent.’
‘You really believe that?’ said Frank.
‘Believe it?’ said Lionel. ‘I know.’
‘But electric light is just wonderful,’ exclaimed Beatrice. ‘It’s everywhere. In Luna Park alone there are a quarter of a million light bulbs. It’s a magical sight. Really it is. People stand gasping every night.’
‘It’s an amusement park,’ Jonathan explained.
‘An American amusement park?’ said Frank.
‘Yes. They call it the electric Eden.’
‘Good heavens.’ Lionel screwed up his eyes, as if all those lights had reached him.
‘It’s a marvellous place all right,’ said Jonathan.
‘Really? But what’s so wonderful about an amusement park?’
‘I don’t know. They make you feel alive.’
Frank rolled his eyes. ‘I like Blackpool. It tastes different.’
‘Another drink?’
‘Not for me,’ said Lionel, putting down his glass. ‘I have to be getting along. Being out at such a late hour only upsets my routine.’
Beatrice glanced at the clock. ‘But it’s only just gone nine.’
‘Ah.’ He tapped at his pocket watch. ‘I’ve things to do. The dogs don’t know what a party is. They’ll want walking. And I have to read a certain amount of my good friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, before my brain will tell me that I’m tired enough for sleeping.’
‘You really know Conan Doyle?’ said Beatrice.
‘We correspond from time to time but we haven’t met, so to speak, in the flesh. Well, I’ll take my overcoat from you now, and bid you all goodnight. Another Mrs Crane in the house, eh? I’ll have to get used to it. I dare say that I will. You are indeed a pleasant-looking woman, I can’t deny you that. Goodnight to you, goodnight.’
Beatrice could feel the draught from the door, making the candles flutter like gigantic yellow moths, before grabbing the back of her neck.
‘Are people helping themselves to food?’ she shivered.
‘Oh, yes,’ Ada told her, ‘they’ve been nibbling all evening. The pies look very tempting. Pork?’
‘Veal.’
‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘they almost look too perfect.’
Beatrice found the men in a huddle drinking port and puffing at their cigars. Jonathan smiled as she walked into the small clouds of smoke.
‘Now here she is again. My wife. She’s quite the conversationalist. She’ll certainly tell you what’s what.’
‘Are ladies allowed inside the smoking room?’
‘Of course,’ said Jeffrey, offering her a chair. Pale and blond, with wide grey eyes, he moved between the furniture like a dancer with oil on his shoes.
‘What we’d all really like to know,’ said Tom, ‘is how did you find him? Was he somewhere making a daft silly fool out of himself?’
‘A what silly fool? What was that word?’ Beatrice laughed, scratching the side of her head. ‘Another strange English word?’
‘Well, it means thick in the head, of course. Acting silly.’
‘Oh, I get you,’ she smiled. ‘No, he wasn’t “acting daft” as you say. Not then anyway.’
The men laughed and sucked on their cigars.
‘So how did you meet?’ asked Jeffrey.
‘I sold him some postcards.’
‘You don’t look like a shop girl,’ said Frank.
‘I worked in a booth, on the boardwalk, at Coney Island.’
‘The what?’
‘Promenade. She means promenade.’
‘I had to work. You see, my mother died when I was born, and my father was killed in a house fire. My brother Elijah went to Chicago to preach. He was drawn in by the church and I haven’t seen him since. After that, I just had to get away. And I chose New York.’
‘Why New York?’ Jeffrey pulled a strand of tobacco from his pale top lip.
‘I read plenty of magazines and people in magazines talk a lot about New York. And you know something, they’re right. It’s a wonderful tall place, full of opportunity. I was lucky. A man called Mr Cooper let me work in his booth. I hadn’t much experience, but he could see that I was honest.’
‘Aye,’ they nodded.
‘You look honest all right,’ Frank winked.
‘And that’s how we met. Jonathan bought some postcards.’
‘These,’ he said, fanning them out. ‘These are the very cards I bought from her.’
‘So, you sold him these postcards,’ said Jeffrey, ‘and that was it? Did Cupid shoot you right in the heart there and then?’
‘More or less,’ said Jonathan, looking at his wife.
‘Mary Pickford’s American,’ said Frank.
As they handed round the cards, they glanced at her, feeling the swell of the ocean, the taste of the exotic pouring through the ink.
‘It does wear you out after a while,’ said Jonathan, swirling his glass of port, throwing the last thick bite of his cigar onto the fire. ‘You never saw so many people at one time.’
‘Not like here,’ said Jeffrey with a frown. ‘I do hope you’ll like it here, Mrs Crane.’
‘Why shouldn’t she?’ said Frank. ‘Life’s just grand, and the air’s clean. There’s plenty of work for us and all the Irish. We’ve just bought ourselves a fancy new gramophone. Wonderful thing it is. We dance all night, me and Madge, and it sends the kiddies to sleep.’
‘I met your little boy,’ said Beatrice. ‘He gave me a daffodil.’
‘I’m sure he couldn’t help himself,’ said Jeffrey.
‘Aye,’ said Tom. ‘A flower, for a flower.’
By eleven, there was a lull in the house. Glasses stained with lines of red and amber had been pushed across the table. Ashtrays held pyramids of warm grey powder. There was a stain on the tablecloth, a tattered port wine daisy. Eyes were being rubbe
d. Lizzie had taken off her sister’s borrowed shoes.
Madge was in the kitchen. ‘I wonder,’ she said, licking pastry from her lips. ‘Could I make up a plate for Mary? It seems a shame she missed out. I don’t suppose you’ve met her? She’s ill. Never leaves her room.’
‘She doesn’t? Well, of course, go right ahead, take whatever you think she’ll like,’ Beatrice told her. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘No one really knows.’ Madge forked up some ham. ‘But she’s as pale as a sheet all right, and her legs are thinner than cotton. We all look in from time to time.’
‘Maybe I could too?’
‘Good idea. She needs entertaining.’
Beatrice watched Madge making up the plate with cold meats, Lancashire cheese and a broken slice of pie.
‘Have you got a tea cloth I can borrow?’ she asked. ‘To keep the food from spoiling?’
Ada appeared, grinning triumphantly. ‘Here, use this,’ she said, handing her a large paper bag, printed with the words Swift & Son, Fine Bakers and Confectioners.
‘Thanks,’ said Madge. ‘That’s very handy, that is.’
‘They were all mixed up,’ said Beatrice, looking hard into the fire. ‘Mr Cooper told me about the rich and poor in England, and those in between, and how they all lead very separate lives. Tonight they were all mixed up.’
‘It’s like that here. I admit that it’s strange, it isn’t at all usual, but everyone knows everyone.’
‘Apart from me.’
‘Apart from you,’ he said.
Jonathan yawned. He could feel his head crackling. The cigars had made his throat ache.
‘Congratulations, my darling,’ he said, stretching out his arms to her. ‘It was a success. You pulled it off all right. I’m going up. What about you?’ His shoulders made a clicking sound.
‘I think I’ll stay down here.’
He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Well, goodnight for now, my darling.’
As soon as he’d gone, she closed her eyes and pictured her America. She folded her hands in her lap and willed herself to relax, until eventually the images came floating, and she was standing outside the Galilee Hotel, 16 July 1911, wearing a cheap grey suit, her coat all creased, and a sign in the window (cardboard, handwritten) said ‘Be Good or Begone’. She didn’t go inside. She was just too tired for that.
Angel of Brooklyn Page 2
