Angel of Brooklyn

by Jenkins, Janette

  And then how many times had I met Jim in the Coach and Horses to wet a baby’s head? Four? The first was all laughing and hearty slaps on the back, and almost drowning Jim in beer, and then he’d start singing, his hair often dripping with ale, and that voice could set a man dead in his tracks, because it was so rich and unexpected. The next time a baby was born, our celebrations were quieter, more humble affairs. And then there’d be the wake.

  Jim sang here. Sad songs, which could have the men weeping for all they’d left at home. And what is it we miss? Loved ones of course. And simple things. The smell of the world from the open back door. Freedom of movement. A bed. A plate of clean bread and cheese. Then there were the happy songs, to keep our spirits going. Then later, he talked a lot about the babies he had lost. He said he could remember each face perfectly. The chaplain prayed with him. And so did I.

  Jim was a good man. On Wednesday 26 July, he was sent along the line. It had been silent for some time, an eerie kind of silence that meant there was trouble brewing. From our positions we could hear it all going off, and then we were shelled.

  A few hours later, several men returned with the stretcher-bearers. ‘We’re not all here,’ they were saying. ‘Most of us have gone.’ Then all hell broke loose, and the shells were coming over in no uncertain fashion. There was little I could do. The other line had collapsed. There was no sight of Jim, though a man called Dorgan swore he had seen him alive.

  Almost a week later, and with no real hope, we were able to dig our way over, and his body was eventually recovered. How I felt when I saw what was left of him under that scrappy piece of tarpaulin I can’t tell you. His face was only just recognisable. His limbs gone. His torso like a battered piece of meat. I wanted to scream and shout, to cry and beat my chest, but I did little more than retch and carry on with my duties. This is what it means to be a soldier in this army and part of me was shamed.

  For Ada’s sake I ask you not to speak of this. Save her from the truth, because what good would that do her now? She that has been left with nothing, not even a child to comfort her in this her darkest hour. And please never speak of the other things I told you. The Frenchwoman. Keep your word to me, as I had promised Jim faithfully, and so let them both rest in peace.

  I am well enough, I have a tiny shrapnel injury which isn’t worth writing home about, a scratch on my back that was dressed. My spirits have been low for some time, but I constantly think of home, that great sheet of water, and you.

  I must end now. Bosley is here, and I must hand this over. I don’t know why I want to escape the eyes of the censor. For once, I want to keep my thoughts private, and between us.

  And they, my thoughts, are with you,

  I love you.

  Your own,

  Jonathan Crane

  THE ANGEL OF BROOKLYN

  Brooklyn, New York

  Summer Season, 1912

  THE BOOK WAS heavy and it was bound in soft kid leather, like the one that Mr Cooper had shown her, but the title wasn’t Filles, like the books that had gone before it, it was simply Angel, because all it contained was Beatrice Lyle, standing in her wings, her eyes the colour of cornflowers, her hair tipped in gold.

  She’d turned the pages slowly. She’d looked at the angel with her lily, her outstretched hands; the glance over the shoulder that was supposed to be coy, but actually looked mysterious, as if she was looking at someone else. The girl standing in the picture appeared pure and blessed, and perfect, there was not a mark on her skin, not a mole, a vein, or any of those tiny heart-shaped freckles that sat across her hips. When it came to the podium, wouldn’t those men be disappointed? Would they ask Mr Cooper for their money back?

  She had stared at Angel for hours. She liked the feel of the book. It was heavy and it looked real, legitimate, a book that could be flanked by the classics, pressed tight between Scott, Defoe and Thackeray. Why would it have to be hidden? It didn’t seem right. Weren’t there nudes all over New York? They were hanging in the county hall, town hall, in libraries, in dimly lit galleries where scholars went with tablets, scratching things in pencil and poring over their notebooks.

  Beatrice was about to brave the podium wearing a set of wings based on the original model, but lighter.

  ‘And a pair I can afford,’ Cooper told her. ‘The price those other wings cost, they might as well have been made out of gold.’

  She had vomited. Pacing around in a dressing gown she had her hands pressed together, as if she might be praying.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Nancy. ‘Just sit down for five minutes. The first won’t be in for at least twenty minutes. Have a glass of water.’

  ‘I have to keep moving,’ she’d said. ‘If I stop, I only feel worse.’

  ‘You still want to do it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Yes. What did I say? It’s just stage fright. That’s all it is now, it’s stage fright.’

  ‘The first on the list is a man called Mr Lambton,’ said Nancy. ‘You’re lucky. He’s extremely courteous and he’s never been any trouble. He’s been coming since we opened.’

  ‘I won’t look at him,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘No. There’s a black spot on the wall the size of a nickel, I usually look at that.’

  ‘What if I start shaking?’

  ‘Then you move a little.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t move?’

  ‘When I say move, I mean you turn your head or your shoulders, or you take a small step to the side. You don’t have to do a dance.’

  ‘How will I know when his time’s up?’

  ‘Marnie will ring the little bell.’

  ‘What if he’s seen all the postcards? He’ll know I’m not that perfect.’

  ‘Who is? It’s the real you he wants to see, and you’ll be flooded in blue light, and that always helps.’

  ‘Blue light? Won’t that make me look cold? Or dead?’

  ‘Will you just stop and listen to yourself?’ Marnie appeared with a small glass of hock. ‘Drink this and shut up. Jeez. You’re worse than all the divas at the Met.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nancy. ‘She’s joking.’

  The angel was in position before the door opened. Billy nodded, turned round and stood facing the curtained-off door. She felt safe with Billy. In front of him she didn’t feel naked, he looked so solid and trustworthy and ready to do battle for her honour. Nancy came and spruced up her wings.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  When Mr Lambton appeared through the drapes she couldn’t help looking at him. What sort of man would pay to look at naked girls? In one swift glance she had taken him in. He looked prim, a bookish kind of man with buff brown hair and a jewelled tiepin. Married, certainly. Mistresses, probably. He was well dressed and wore an expensive-looking fob watch. He folded his hands on his knees like he was sitting in church waiting for the priest to begin his morning sermon. She stood looking at the nickel after that. What did she think about? The way the man’s boots creaked. The words of ‘O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing’. Then she counted her heartbeats until the bell rang on number 64, and the man rose from his seat, bowing towards her and Billy before disappearing silently through the curtain.

  ‘I’m going for a quick cigarette,’ said Billy. ‘The next isn’t due for another five minutes.’

  Beatrice sat on the edge of the podium with a wrap across her front. Five minutes. It wasn’t worth unhooking herself from the wings. Nancy appeared.

  ‘He was more than happy. He bought the full set of cards. How was it?’

  ‘It wasn’t at all bad, he looked nice, a gentleman.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to be looking.’

  ‘Oh, like you never do. What about the dish from Montreal?’

  Nancy blushed. ‘He took me out once or twice last season – just don’t tell Cooper, he’s bound to bite my head off. He was sweet all right. I took him over to
Franny’s, we ate crab salad and played gin rummy all night, and he didn’t beat me once.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘He was an honourable gentleman,’ said Nancy. ‘Though heaven knows I tried to change his mind, he wouldn’t hear of any shenanigans, which I suppose is just as well, though it didn’t stop me being heartbroken when he went and caught the train.’

  ‘I’m going to keep my eye on the wall from now on,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Good idea, but you won’t.’

  That first night was the quietest she’d ever know; a blushing boy, still in his pale summer cap, hardly looking at her at all, biting his lip and peering over his shoulder as if someone might catch him; a grey-haired stick of a man, wiping his face with a handkerchief; she went through the lyrics of two Wesley hymns and Joanna’s recipe for butter cake and thirteen beats of her heart before the bell rang for that one. There was a man who looked like a teacher. A man too fat for the chair, he tried to squeeze himself into the seat, but thought better of it and spent his four minutes holding onto its back, tapping his fingers which Beatrice noticed were like uncooked sausages. The last man of the night kept sighing. It made Beatrice want to giggle, but she kept her face straight. He smelled of the tobacconist’s on Main Street in Normal, and she remembered the jars of twists, the rows of new pipes, and the man behind the counter, his moustache stained yellow, his eyes with milky lenses.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Cooper. ‘They all bought something to take home with them – even the little runt managed to cough up for “The Lily”.’

  ‘At least they didn’t laugh.’

  ‘I’ve had one laugh at me,’ said Marnie.

  ‘Nerves,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Either that, or I looked like an ape.’

  They drank wine that night, all of them crowding onto one of Franny’s boardwalk tables, pouring red wine until the sky felt sharp and the moon started tilting. There were bowls of clams and oysters. Celina’s pretty girlfriend fell asleep on her shoulder. Even Lottie, the girl with the stiff upper lip who was in charge of the season’s appointments, drank so much wine and water she had to spend the night above the oyster house dreaming she’d been thrown into the hold of a liner. Three days later, Beatrice Lyle was famous.

  Word spread quickly. Those nights when she was behind the scenes, changing Nancy into a geisha, or Marnie into something that might just resemble a lady from the Orient, the men looked so disappointed, sitting chewing their fingernails, flicking over the cards of Japan and the desert, trembling over the ones slotted into the back of the box, still sharp-edged and ink-smelling. Those cards would have to do for now, but where was the angel in real life? Where did she live? Was she here? Was she sitting behind the curtain? They’d heard so much about her. There’d been whisperings in clubs, saloons and barbershops. The tattooist had etched more angels in the past week than he’d done for six months; all of them blonde and blue-eyed, they were flying over shoulders, kneeling on forearms and praying on bulging chests.

  The disappointed asked to see Cooper, who would offer them double appointments, and some would try to pay for triple, though Cooper would have to decline. ‘I’m sorry,’ he’d say, ‘I can’t expect my angel to stand still for twelve minutes. It’s inhumane.’

  ‘She could sit down? Lie down?’

  ‘She could float?’

  ‘Hover?’

  ‘Dance?’

  ‘She could kneel at my feet, or wherever she feels most comfortable.’

  ‘Eight minutes is enough,’ said Cooper. ‘What if I came in first and last?’

  ‘Then I could come second and next to the last?’

  Mr Cooper rubbed his chin and thought about it. ‘Don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘It seems like a fair enough solution all round.’

  ‘What do you mean, envious? I’m not envious of Beatrice,’ said Marnie. ‘Why should I be envious? I don’t want to be famous. I don’t even want to be looked at any more come to that, though I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it. No. All I want is a man who’ll look after me a damn sight better than my da ever looked after my mam. He doesn’t even have to be handsome, though I wouldn’t like a baldy. Don’t laugh. I have a thing about eggheads, probably because my da was one, and he was a real bag of shite.’

  ‘She’s my friend, my pal,’ said Nancy. ‘She hasn’t changed, not one bit, of course, she’s too nice to be in this business, but aren’t we all? I’m not a bad person. I have morals, and if I lie down with a man, then I do it out of love. We all need some loving in our lives.’

  ‘True,’ said Celina. ‘But I’ve never liked men in that way, they’re so flat. Their faces hurt. They smell of oil or liquor, or they stink of chewed cigars. I like curves, real curves, breasts, soft skin and shampoo. I couldn’t be jealous of Beatrice, because if the truth be known then I’m more than a little in love with her, and that girl could pierce any heart, man, woman, cat, dog …’

  ‘I just don’t want you feeling put out,’ said Cooper, not daring to admit that perhaps he was a little in love with Miss Lyle himself, though surely she was young enough to be his daughter, and wasn’t he almost stepping out with Violet Murphy? He’d taken her dancing. He’d bought her a box of fancy crystallised fruits and he’d even made friends with her mother.

  ‘I’m not put out,’ said Marnie. ‘I’m beat.’

  ‘True,’ Nancy yawned. ‘I’ve never sold so many postcards in my life.’

  ‘And that’s why,’ said Cooper suddenly, ‘I’m giving you all a raise.’ He hadn’t planned to, but the words had tumbled out.

  ‘You mean all of us?’ said Celina.

  ‘Why not?’ said Cooper. ‘The money is pouring in like sunshine.’

  ‘But isn’t it all for Beatrice?’

  ‘Beatrice might be on the pictures, she might be standing in her wings, but it’s a team effort,’ he told them, patting his top pocket, looking for a cigar. ‘Someone has to distribute advertising material, and that entails a lot of walking and some persuading, someone else has to take bookings, let the gentlemen inside, as well as selling the everyday items – I see the little girl with the sand pail is selling awfully well at the moment. Billy has to keep extra guard. And then there’s the pouring of the wine, and the entertaining that needs to be done whilst the angel signs her pictures. Yes,’ he said. ‘You all deserve a raise, and I want to say thank you for everything you’ve done.’

  ‘Can we go now?’ said Celina. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting a girlfriend.’

  ‘Of course you can go,’ said Cooper, trying his best not to look too shocked. Celina with a pretty girlfriend would take some getting used to. ‘But if you’d like to stay, then supper is on me.’

  ‘It is?’ said Celina. ‘Well … I might as well eat first, the girl can wait, she’s let me down a couple of times and I really fancy a ribeye.’

  ‘You don’t have to keep buying us food,’ said Nancy.

  ‘I know, but I don’t like eating alone.’

  ‘We can pay for our own,’ she told him.

  ‘I could run to a small hamburger,’ said Celina. ‘All right, all right, I can pay for a steak.’

  ‘Next time,’ said Cooper. ‘Next time.’

  So now Beatrice worked most evenings, and the other girls were eventually phased out, though they didn’t seem to mind, they were being paid much the same, and in between fluffing feathers, making appointments and emptying out ashtrays, they could sneak off for ten minutes here and there, they could make their own appointments, eat a bowl of chow mein, put their heads around a dancing show, or say a quick hello to Franny who’d be waiting later on with a tray of chinking glasses and stories about men who after one beer too many were convinced those wings were real.

  Of course, not all of her visitors were gentlemen. Surely that went without saying? She’d had men rubbing at their crotches, she’d had them whispering, ‘open your legs for me’, ‘bend over’, ‘kiss me’. She’d had men crying into their handkerchiefs, or their outspread
hands, blubbing at their guilt, because it was the first time they’d seen a woman naked, because even their wives of twenty years kept some part of themselves covered, and the lamps would be extinguished, or because she looked so good and wholesome and clean, not like the woman he’d had standing up for half a dollar, swaying and tasting of gin underneath the boardwalk that time when he was desperate. Oh, she’d had a lot of men crying over her.

  ‘You’ve taken to this, like a duck takes to water,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again, when it comes to the mystery of allure, you’re a natural.’

  And so it seemed. When the last man of the night had vanished, slotting his precious cards into his wallet, she would lift off her wings, sign more pictures, then, feeling light-headed, she’d walk over to Franny’s. And with her hair pinned up, her dress down to her ankles, she would look like anyone else, though she’d seen men blush and turn their heads away, or nudge the other fellow at their side, or stand open-mouthed, or start smiling like a loon, but none of them had bothered her, they’d merely let her pass.

  She liked to go dancing. At the side of the hall, she would sip her glass of wine, letting the music flood through her. The dancers on the floor had a kind of giddiness that was infectious, and she would be grabbed up by the hands, or by a stuttering young man, or a friend, and she’d either shake her head or be swept along with them. She never looked at the time. She slept for most of the day.

  ‘You must come and listen to this,’ said Nancy one night through the music. ‘Come outside, come quickly, come on, all of you.’

  And so they were led away from the dance hall to the other side of the boardwalk where an accordionist stood on his silver-painted box, his boy selling sheet music, collecting up the change.

  ‘What are we here for?’

  ‘Just listen,’ said Nancy. ‘Just listen.’

  The man pushing and pulling his accordion was looking at the rooftops, tapping his left foot, singing.