Angel of Brooklyn

by Jenkins, Janette

  Tuesday

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Elijah said on the morning train home, his voice muffled by the large stained handkerchief that was used more to hide his face than to comfort it. ‘I’ve had aspirin. I can hardly feel a thing.’

  ‘You look like something raw,’ said their father. ‘You should have quit whilst you were ahead.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Beatrice. ‘You were lucky they didn’t kill you.’

  ‘I’ll heal,’ he winced. ‘I’ll heal.’

  ‘Still, you’ve learned a good lesson,’ said their father, opening up one of his bird catalogues, and then reaching for the coffee. ‘Girls who wear feathers and show off their shoulders usually have someone else to look out for them, and they sure aren’t asking to be saved.’

  ‘So that’s that,’ said Beatrice, throwing her dirty clothes into a sack for Mrs Oh. ‘I didn’t want to go on that trip, but now I sure don’t want to be back.’

  Elijah was sitting on the end of her bed. His jaw was black and blue.

  ‘Chicago is full of sinners,’ he said carefully. ‘I thought Normal was bad, with people drinking behind closed doors, and the post office was broken into last week, and Ronnie Weaver is playing around with Jeannie, the candy-store girl.’

  ‘He is?’ said Beatrice. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I buy a lot of candy.’

  It was raining. The world outside looked drab. A fly the size of a thumbprint went skating over the glass. Their father had holed himself up in the outhouse. He didn’t need the hair cream any more.

  ‘I’m going to Cicero tomorrow,’ said Elijah. ‘Three weeks in Cicero, and then I’m going to ask for a placement right in the heart of Chicago.’

  ‘Look at you,’ she said, handing him a bottle of witch hazel. ‘You want to go back there and take your chance with the drunks every night?’

  ‘No one said that preaching was going to be easy.’

  ‘Still, at least you’re doing something and going places.’ Beatrice slumped. ‘I’m going to be stuck here in Normal forever.’

  He dabbed his face and winced. ‘Ouch. You never know what’s around the corner.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘More dead birds. Or a wolf.’

  Wednesday

  Books and pamphlets had appeared around the breakfast plates. They were left on the windowsill and in tall dampening piles by the sink. The Anatomy of the Mammal. Dissection. Skinning. Skull Cleaning with the Dermestid Beetle. The Practise of Salting and Tanning.

  Elijah, before leaving for Cicero, had an idea. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before,’ he’d said. ‘Why don’t you go and buy an animal from the farmer? Tom Hayes will sell you something, he’ll be glad of the money. Surely a small calf would be good enough to practise on? And the slaughterhouse would kill it for a very small charge.’

  ‘A calf? Why would I want to recreate a calf?’ their father had said. ‘I’m not making leather. The hide is too thin; it would need a lot of tanning. If I wanted to start tanning, I’d go and get myself a deer. At least a deer would be something fine to look at on its mount.’

  Beatrice could not get away from it. Standing in the butcher’s store, passing the time of day with Johnny Eckel as he sliced through the veal, her eyes were trained on the animals hanging from the ceiling on thick metal hooks. Hollowed pigs. Fatty rumps of cows. Hooves still full of brown farmyard mud.

  ‘That brother of yours away again?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where to now?’

  ‘Cicero.’

  ‘You ever get away?’

  ‘Not often,’ she told him, putting the soft parcel into her basket. ‘Though I just got back from Chicago.’

  ‘Ah, now there’s a place,’ he beamed. ‘A city full of meat.’

  She bumped into Bethan Carter, newly engaged to a boy called Victor Bloom. She was smiling, and showing off her ring.

  ‘It was his grandmother’s,’ she said. ‘It’s a token. I would have preferred something new, but Victor’s awfully sentimental. We’re moving out to Cairo as soon as the wedding’s over. He has a job on the railroad.’

  ‘Egypt?’

  ‘No, silly, Cairo, Illinois. The railroad’s booming and Victor’s been promised rooms in a house and a real good chance of promotion. He has a brother. Henry. You must know Henry Bloom?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You ought to meet him,’ said Bethan. ‘You want to get yourself a beau and settle down. I can’t wait to leave home, and my brothers, who still drive me mad to this day. So what do you say?’

  ‘Say to what?’

  ‘Henry, silly. Shall I set something up? You and Henry Bloom? Just think, we could be sisters-in-law!’

  Beatrice shook her head. ‘I’m too busy,’ she said. ‘I’m too busy to be looking for a beau.’

  Bethan pulled a face. ‘Too busy doing what, Beatrice Lyle? Housekeeping for your father?’

  ‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Thing is, I’m just not really interested.’

  Bethan turned. Her cheeks were bright pink. ‘Well,’ she huffed, ‘it just isn’t right. Who do you think you are? Everyone wants to be married.’

  When Beatrice was almost home, she saw Bob Rickman, the neighbour.

  ‘You get to that menagerie?’ he asked. ‘I told your papa all about it. We were there last fall. Myrna wanted to bring a monkey home and keep it as a pet, but I told her, I said, Myrna, don’t you think we’ve got enough with Bess in the twilight of her years?’

  ‘The monkeys were sweet,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Sure,’ Bob winked. ‘But not half as sweet as you.’

  The kitchen looked different. The books and pamphlets had disappeared. The table had been scrubbed, she could smell disinfectant, and propped against the fruit bowl was a worn-looking copy of Human Anatomy. Beatrice flicked through the pages, and puzzled. There was a marker in ‘The Ribcage’. She thought about it. She felt her own bones, sitting like a basket underneath her dress. Animals had ribcages. They worked the same. Was there any real difference? Humming, she rinsed the piece of veal underneath the faucet. She waved at Bob Rickman, who was walking up and down the line of the fence, whistling.

  Thursday

  A letter arrived. The envelope was narrow and blue, and the sender address said, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago. She studied it. She held it up against the light. Then she steamed the envelope open.

  Dear Mr Lyle,

  The keepers and staff of Lincoln Park Zoo thank you for sharing your interest in taxidermy. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with any specimens to practice on. It is stated in our regulations (1896) that we are not allowed to pass on any creature. Please do not send a money bill for any transportation, as none will take place. In answer to your pertinent question, we have no demised large birds, particularly the turkey you saw in our local birdpen. The turkey is not ill, as you suggested. Nor do we have any other ‘miscellaneous’ creatures.

  Thank you once again for taking the time to write to us.

  Yours in good faith,

  Ephraim Colt,

  Governor

  When her father had read it, he threw it desolately into the air. He looked tired. There was a thumbprint of blood on his forehead.

  ‘Fools,’ he sneered. ‘The whole damn lot of them are fools.’

  ‘It’s only Thursday,’ she said, looking at the ink that was smudged around the stamp. ‘When did you write to the zoo?’

  ‘When we were there,’ he said. ‘I got it hand-delivered.’

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ she asked.

  ‘Not at all, there are other ways to get yourself a carcass,’ he told her. ‘And I can think of plenty.’

  ‘Not hunting?’ Bethan Carter’s uncle went after the whitetail deer in Pike County. He once hit a fellow hunter by mistake, shooting him in the shoulder. They became firm friends. It was on the front page of the Chronicle.

  ‘No, I’m not a natural hunter,’ he said
sadly, shaking his head, and rubbing his unkempt whiskers. ‘Guns unnerve me, and anyway, I don’t need a huge magnificent creature to show off to the world.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m still busy with a tern I found the other day, and only a little mangled, yes; I think a cat must have got it.’

  Folding clothes in her room, she thought about Bethan, who would soon be Mrs Bloom. She envied her, but not for Victor, who was a sallow-looking boy, with small dark eyes pushing too close against his nose. No, she envied Bethan Carter simply because her life was moving forward, and she was going places, even if it was only to Cairo, Illinois, where the railroads were booming.

  In her linen drawer, she found one of her old empty notebooks. Sitting by the window she wrote in it.

  Beatrice Lyle. Aged 17.

  Seventeen years in this house has left me full of dust. I am always surrounded by dead things, there are so many of them, and they have been sitting here so long, I just don’t see them anymore.

  I wonder about ghosts. Especially when the house creaks and the windows start to rattle in the wind. Do birds have ghosts? Do they sail through the house when we’re sleeping? The turkey, pecking. The raven. The plover with its stack of empty eggs. Do they all come to life? Does my mother?

  I miss my mother. I miss her every day. I never thought it would be possible to miss someone this much. Someone I didn’t ever know.

  Who could take me away from here, like Bethan and her Bloom? Would I ever dare let someone into this feathery mausoleum?

  At lunchtime, her father paced up and down, waiting for his veal to be fried, reading The Structure of Bones, turning his hands, and then flicking at the air.

  He chewed his food noisily. ‘This sure is a good piece of meat,’ he told her, jabbing with his fork. ‘When did you buy it?’

  ‘Just yesterday.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing like veal. See how pale and drained it is? It’s young, you see, a baby, yes it’s most delicious and tender.’

  Beatrice washed the bathroom floor. She spilled a tub of Epsom salts. She folded all the towels that had dried hard and snappy on the line. Her arms ached, and her forehead.

  That afternoon, the anatomy book was turned to here, ‘The Human Skull’. Her father didn’t appear at supper time, when it was reported in the Chronicle that an eighteen-month-old boy had gone missing that morning from the centre of Normal. His parents were said to be distraught.

  She’d had too much coffee. Her hands were shaking, her mind was blurred and her eyes ached. Hadn’t she heard the front gate creak around ten o’clock? There was a bag of fruit candy on the table. No one ate fruit candy. The anatomy book had vanished.

  ‘I’ve brought you a little bite to eat,’ she said, knocking at the outhouse door, with a plate in her hand. It was cold, and she was shivering. The bread and cheese were jumping.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I’ve brought you something to eat.’ She could hear him chopping and cursing to himself.

  She knocked again, and he answered, keeping the door closed tightly behind him.

  ‘This,’ she said, holding out the plate, ‘see, I’ve brought you this, a little bite to eat.’

  ‘Did I ask for food? Take it back, I’m not at all hungry.’

  ‘You’re still working on that tern?’

  ‘Tern? What tern? Oh, that,’ he said, looking over Beatrice’s shoulder. ‘Yes, I’m still working on that tern.’

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’

  ‘No, I would not. I’m busy. Awfully busy and I’m not to be disturbed. Not by you or anyone.’

  ‘All right.’ She turned.

  ‘Beatrice, has anyone been to the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then good. And if someone does come knocking …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just don’t let them in; that’s most important. I haven’t any time for people just now. And neither have you,’ he said.

  She paced up and down, barefoot in her nightdress. She wrapped one of Elijah’s old sweaters around her shoulders, looking out of his bedroom window with its good view of the road. Squares of light hung in the air. The hazy yellow windows of the houses down the street. Old Mrs Blaze. Pat and Dolly Fisher. Had they read the Chronicle? Had they tutted over their fried-chicken suppers about that poor missing child?

  She pressed her head to the glass and waited. What had her father been doing? The shadows were like long arms stretching and pulling her in. There would be strings of people. Swaying lanterns. They’d soon kick that door down. One, two, three. There’d be no real point in hiding from them. The house was small enough. The outhouse was frail. They’d find him. They’d find everything.

  Friday

  She stayed in bed all day, annoyed by the light that came filtering through the curtains. She could hear Bob Rickman in his garden. She slept. She dreamed about saloon bars in Cicero. Polar bears on ice caps. Wolves. The sky was full of birds, and they were shouting.

  Saturday

  Her father was still in the outhouse, and although she was sure she could hear him crying, Beatrice felt better. The early-edition Chronicle was happy to announce that the missing boy, Nathaniel Scott (18 months, Normal, Ill.), had been found. Oliver Marshall, a retard from Bloomington, was being questioned and detained. Late in the afternoon, it rained. Myrna, the woman from next door, appeared, looking dishevelled.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked. ‘Can I come in?’

  Beatrice hesitated (she was thinking about her father). ‘Of course,’ she said eventually, ‘sure, of course you can, come in.’

  ‘I’m simply going out of my mind,’ said Myrna. ‘We both are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t your father tell you? We told him to tell everyone. Bess has gone missing. She’s been missing now for days.’

  Beatrice sat down, feeling cold. From the kitchen window she could see the outhouse and the plume of grey smoke from its chimney, flattened in the rain.

  ‘Has she wandered off?’ she managed.

  ‘Never has done before, and the poor girl’s blind and lame, and needs all our care and attention, has done for years. We really don’t know how it could have happened. We let her out for ten minutes. The gate was locked, and the garden’s so secure.’

  ‘Perhaps she was stolen?’

  ‘Who’d want to steal an old Labrador?’ she said. ‘Unless it was some kind of awful prank?’

  ‘People are cruel.’

  ‘We’ve made notices. We’re keeping all our fingers crossed and hoping for the best.’

  Beatrice sat in Elijah’s bedroom. She looked at the pictures of Christ that her brother now kept hidden in a toffee tin. He was holding out his bloody hands. His hair was golden. Sometimes brown. He looked forgiving. In the light from the rain, he looked sinister. Beatrice closed the lid. He was nothing more than a picture.

  By seven o’clock it was getting dark. Beatrice was reading a women’s magazine. The words about fabrics and smoked-chicken salad, made her feel better. She read an article called ‘Resourceful Women’ and a short romantic story called ‘Gina Westcott Dares’. Towards the end of the last paragraph, when the heroine goes riding through her thwarted love’s garden party on a sleek black gelding, Bob Rickman came leaping over the fence. He was banging on the outhouse door. He had Bess’s red collar in his hand.

  ‘Open up, Lyle!’ he was shouting. ‘I know you know something!’

  Beatrice knew the end was coming. Pulling on her blue felt beret, tucking her hair behind her ears, she felt unnaturally calm. The rain was soft. The garden was shining with it.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, running outside. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  Bob held the collar in the air. ‘This,’ he said, triumphantly. ‘What was it doing in the trough next to the outhouse? And why won’t he answer the door?’

  ‘He’s busy,’ she said. ‘He’s working on a tern.’

 
; ‘A tern? What in hell do you mean by he’s working on a tern?’

  ‘It’s a bird,’ she told him. ‘He’s making it into a model.’

  ‘Open up, Lyle!’ he shouted, rattling the door. ‘Bess! Are you in there? Bess!’

  Beatrice was getting soaked. She could feel the rain dripping down her face; it clung to her neck, falling into her collar.

  ‘What in God’s name is he doing?’ said Bob.

  ‘Working. He doesn’t like being disturbed.’

  ‘I’ll give him disturbed.’

  Bob Rickman forced the door, with one sharp kick of his boot. He stood in the gap not moving. The air was full of smoke. Beatrice gave a sudden gulping cry.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bob, falling to his knees. ‘Oh my God, oh my good God …’

  Ethan Lyle was standing in a pool of dark blood. His arms were dripping with it. On his messy workbench, Bess’s head was sitting on a fixed metal pole. The golden bloody skin was hanging on the back of a chair. In the shadows, the rest of the dog was boiling in a pot.

  When he could move again, Bob Rickman lunged at the dumbstruck Ethan Lyle, who went flying towards the back of the room, where Bess’s ribcage and hind legs were bubbling.

  ‘You bastard!’ Bob yelled. ‘You crazy murdering bastard!’

  Ethan Lyle was not a big man, he soon crumpled and slipped, gripped around the shoulders by Bob’s wide and shuddering hands. When he eventually found his voice Ethan said, ‘There’s so much to it, I never realised, I never realised, there was so much to it.’

  ‘Why?’ Bob cried. ‘Why?’

  He couldn’t answer. Bob’s hands had moved up towards his neck and were holding him tight, so tight that Ethan, struggling to hang onto his life, managed to lose him for a second, before tumbling into the shelf stacked with chemicals. Boxes fell. Bottles smashed. Liquids hissed towards the brazier where they were caught up in the sparks. Ethan slipped. Something tore in his ankle.