by Clare Flynn
As she was examining herself, Mrs McCarthy appeared. ‘Yes you had a right good kicking. The doc said you must have put up a hell of a fight to get such a beating. You must have got someone pretty mad. If you ask my opinion, you’d have been better giving in and letting him have his way with you. At least it’d have been over fast enough and there’d have been no outward signs.’ The woman shook her head. ‘But then if you’d my luck, you’d have been knocked up in another sense!’ She laughed, still shaking her head. ‘Men! They have it easy.’
Eliza spent the next few days in a laudanum-induced haze until she decided that pain would be preferable to having only fleeting moments of consciousness. Pushing the proffered spoon away she said, ‘I don’ want any maw of that stuff. It makes me too dwowsy. I wan’ be awake. I wan’ get up. I must go to find news of Jack.’
‘You can’t just stop taking it like that. Need to do it bit by bit or you’ll be as sick as a dog,’ the woman warned.
Mindful of the probable cost of the medicine and fearful of its effect on her, Eliza refused to listen to the advice and that night it was as if she had entered the bowels of hell itself. The narrow cracks in the ceiling enlarged and opened up into gaping fissures. Hideous creatures crawled out and ran down the walls and over the bed. Huge rats with gigantic teeth. Cockroaches as big as cats with black eyes and red pupils. Babies with the heads of dogs. Green slime ran down the walls and a tide of filthy water swept into the room and engulfed the bed. Mrs McCarthy transformed into a cackling crone with blackened teeth and eyes that dripped blood. When Eliza looked at her it was as if she could read her thoughts – and she didn’t like what they were. Her friendly Irish landlady had become a creature of terror. Then it was worse. Jack appeared, hand in hand with Mary Ellen and the pair were laughing at Eliza. She cried out to Jack but he turned away from her.
Eliza was sweating. Shaking. Skin crawling. Terrible itching. Make it stop. Go away. She screamed out for help.
‘You sound like the Banshee herself. Didn’t I tell you stopping the laudanum sudden, like that, was a bad thing? Here, just a wee drop to see you through till morning.’ As the drops of laudanum slid down her throat Eliza slipped into a deep and undisturbed sleep.
Gradually the nightmares subsided and the doses reduced. Eliza sipped the bowls of broth her new friend brought her and even managed to swallow some bread soaked and softened in the soup. The inside of her mouth stung where her teeth had smashed into her lip and the gaps where they had been were sore and stinging and still bled.
Each morning she swung her legs out of the bed and tried to walk across the room. At first, her tentative steps took her only as far as the end of the bed before she slumped back, exhausted and dizzy. She wept with frustration.
Eventually Paddy McCarthy, whom Eliza recognised as the smoking man she had seen on her first night outside the tenement, appeared at the foot of the bed and announced that he was going to carry her up the six flights back to her room.
‘And what is she supposed to do when she gets up there? How can she get herself up and down those stairs to fetch water and use the privy?’ his wife said.
‘She’ll never be able to do it if she stops here. You and the kids can fetch and carry for her till she’s well. I’ve had enough. I’m sleeping in my own bed tonight with my own wife. A man shouldn’t have to share a bed with his sons.’
He picked Eliza up as if she were a piece of flotsam on a beach. She wanted to protest at the indignity but she knew she was too weak to walk, so she swallowed her pride and let him carry her.
She felt a mixture of relief and fear about returning to her own room. She had become dependent on Mrs McCarthy and wanted to regain her privacy and self reliance, but she was frightened. Afraid of what would become of her. Afraid of what she would see when she eventually looked in a mirror. Worried that she may never be whole again. Then there was the matter of her teeth. She would have to buy false ones. How would she pay for them? Her money had almost run out. Her attacker had stolen her purse with twenty dollars in it. What was left would be needed to pay the rent, pay Mrs McCarthy a contribution for food and board - plus the doctor’s fee for the laudanum and dressing her wounds while she was unconscious.
Paddy McCarthy set her down outside her door. She thanked him and he grunted in acknowledgment and raced back down the stairs, presumably keen to ravish his wife. Once back in her miserable little room Eliza sat on the tea chest and counted the money she had left - just eleven dollars.
Now for the thing she had been dreading while she had lain in the McCarthys’ bed – it was time to look in the mirror. She pulled a small bone-handled vanity glass out of her holdall and took a deep breath.
The bruising covered the whole right side of her face. It had probably already faded but she gasped in horror at the extent of it. Worse still was the swelling. The right side of her face ballooned out into a purple protuberance under a sunken eye, which itself was narrowed to little more than a slit. She touched her cheek gently with one finger and cringed with the pain. The swelling unbalanced her face making her grotesque. She tilted the mirror and turned her head – her left profile was almost normal, apart from a little bruising and a few scratches, but head-on and in right profile she was ghoulish – disfigured, damaged, distorted as though the mirror were part of a fairground attraction whose reflection transformed people into strange and fantastic sub-human beings. She flung it across the room where it hit the wall and shattered into pieces. Seven years’ bad luck. She’d be lucky to get off so lightly. Her whole life was bad luck. Everything ruined. Everything lost. No future. No hope.
There was a knock on the door. Two men stood on the threshold behind Mrs McCarthy.
‘You’ve visitors, dearie. Father Connolly and Dr Flaherty. The doc treated you when they brought you in. And Father is from Holy Innocents, where you were headed when it happened.’
‘That will be all thank you, Caitlyn. I’ll see you at Mass tomorrow.’ The priest, a short, stocky Irishman, dismissed her friend quite rudely, Eliza thought.
The doctor put his bag on the floor and nodded at Eliza. ‘You must have put up quite a fight, young lady, to come off as badly you did.’ He listened to her chest with a stethoscope and took her pulse. ‘Very good. You’ve a strong constitution. Let me take a look at that face.’
She cringed and made her hands into tight fists to stop crying out as he gently probed the surface of her damaged cheek and peered inside her mouth.
‘You’ll live! Get as much rest as you can. It will take some time for the bruising and swelling to go down. Are you bathing it in witch hazel?’
She nodded.
‘Once the swelling’s gone you’ll look much better, but I’m afraid you’ll never be the belle of the ball again. I don’t believe in beating about the bush, Miss Hewlett. Honesty is always the best policy. Your eye socket is damaged and will likely be sunken compared with the healthy one. Same goes for the cheekbone. It’s collapsed and will never be in symmetry with the other side. I’m very sorry.’
The priest spoke then. ‘Never mind, my dear. What’s inside is more important than outside. God sends these things to test us and we must not be found wanting. Mrs McCarthy tells me you’re a teacher. She said you were on your way to ask me about finding a job when this terrible accident befell you.’
‘Not an accident. Attacked by a man.’
‘Yes, yes, very unfortunate. No doubt one of the Eye-ties. A good Irish lad would never do a thing like that. Those Eye-ties may be of the same true faith but they are uncontrolled hooligans. And as for the Jew boys and the coloureds? Don’t get me started.’
The doctor coughed. ‘You were going to talk to Miss Hewlett, Paddy, about the teaching situation. And we have to be getting a move on if we’re to get the rounds done before…’ He raised his hand to mime downing a pint of beer.
‘Yes indeed. You’re a good man, Seamus, always keeping me on the path to righteousness. So let’s talk about the teaching, Miss Hewlett, or E
liza isn’t it?’
At last there may be something positive for her to hang onto, to work towards. The chance to start work and earn money as soon as she would be well enough.
‘Much as I’d like to help you, I’m afraid I can’t,’ said the priest.
Eliza’s heart sank.
He continued, ‘We already have a full quota of teachers at Holy Innocents and the trouble is finding the pupils for them to teach. When a child can be put to work washing rags, boiling bones, or rolling cigars, there’s few parents will give up the chance of a few extra dollars for the sake of an education for their kids no matter how much I tell them they should from the pulpit.’
The priest glanced at the doctor, avoiding Eliza’s eyes, then shook his head. ‘And to be honest, Eliza, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same in their shoes. Times are hard.’
Eliza was crushed by disappointment. She didn’t think she could take any more. What was there left for God to test her with? Hadn’t she suffered enough?.
The priest went on. ‘When you’re well again, maybe you should try moving out west. People are more established there. Place more stock on education. Five Points here is full of people on the move, on the move up and on the move west. It’s just a way-station. A place where folks try to set themselves up for a future out west where there’s land and space and more opportunities. No time here for the niceties such as schooling. The way I see it – as long as I can get some of them along to Mass on a Sunday that’s the most important thing.’
‘I could shpeak to pawents. Get childwen to come to school.’
The priest looked sideways at the doctor and back to Eliza. She thought she detected a slight rolling of the eyes, but in the gloom of the room she couldn’t be certain.
‘Well, we’ve plenty more sick souls to call on before we’re done, haven’t we, Seamus?’ the priest said. He made the sign of the cross over Eliza’s head. ‘Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper.’ May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost descend upon you and be with you always. Amen.’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, tin medal and placed it in her hand. ‘Here you are, Eliza. It’s Saint Gregory. Patron saint of teachers. Say a few prayers to him and who knows? And don’t forget to say the Rosary each night before you go to bed.’ He winked at her, then he and Doctor Flaherty left the room.
18
Searching for Work
In the days that followed the visit from Father Connolly and Dr Flaherty, Eliza tried to find work - but only after beginning every day with a trip to the office of the shipping line to find out whether any messages had been sent to her. The clerk there knew her by now.
‘Never give up, do you, lady? Don’t you think it’s time to forget this fellow, whoever he is?’
She tried to hide her irritation. Every day her feet seemed to drag a bit more slowly on the pavement as she walked there, but every day as she entered his office she allowed herself to feel hope until she saw his slow shake of the head. Hope was all she had left. Hope and love and trust that one day Jack would at last get word to her.
Pain from her injuries, and her weakness after being so long confined to bed, meant she could look for a job for only an hour or two each day. She went from school to school, making enquiries but everywhere met with the same response. There was no shortage of teachers. She was also conscious of the way people drew away from her, evidently repulsed by the distorted contours of her face and the still not completely faded bruising. On top of this, she was talking with a lisp caused by her missing teeth and was as yet unable to pay for a set of dentures. While missing teeth was by no means unusual, she had always been proud of her strong, white teeth.
She was fearful of the streets of New York and recognising and understanding this, Mrs McCarthy instructed Connor to accompany her wherever she went. Eliza was unconvinced that a small boy would provide any deterrent to a determined assailant, but nonetheless took some comfort from having his small dirty hand in hers as she made her way through the unfamiliar streets of the city.
One day she asked Mrs McCarthy why she, like so many other parents, refrained from sending Connor to school.
‘I’d rather he’s with you. At least I know where he is then. When he does go to school he runs away. The teachers don’t care. They don’t even notice he’s gone half the time. I’m that fed up with it.’
Eliza decided to repay Mrs McCarthy by offering to teach Connor some lessons. He was a bright lad and knew his letters and could add and subtract well enough. She asked him why he didn’t like school.
‘I do like it. But I want to go with Fergus. I don’t want to get ahead of him. I want to wait till he can come with me. He’ll be mad if I learn stuff he doesn’t know.’
‘You do know Fergus isn’t coming back, don’t you, Connor? You know he’s gone to heaven?'
‘No, he’s not.’
‘Your ma told me he took ill on the ship coming to America and he’s up in heaven now. You’ll be with him again one day when you go to heaven.’
‘He’s not in heaven.’ The boy’s tone was definitive. ‘Father Connolly says he’s in Purgatory. I want to go there and get him out.’
Eliza sighed and silently cursed the stupidity of the priest. ‘A little boy such as Fergus won’t have done enough to be in Purgatory for long. He’ll be up in heaven now. I’m sure of it. Purgatory is mainly for grownups to atone for their sins. And once they’ve shown they’re really sorry they get to go to heaven. Little boys, if they go there at all, will only be there for a few hours – just long enough to tell God they’re sorry.’
‘Father Connolly came to school and said every time we do something naughty that’s another year in Purgatory. Fergus and me was always getting slapped by Da for being naughty. I worked it out and it adds up to about thirty years. And Father Connolly said Purgatory is a kind of prison. So I’m going to get Fergus out of there. I think it’s in Ireland cos I know there’s a big prison there. My Uncle Danny’s in there. And I want to get my baby sister, Annie. She’s gone to Ireland too, but she’s in a different prison.’
Eliza frowned. ‘What happened to Annie?’
‘She died when she was just a tiny baby and hadn’t had time to be baptised so she’s still got Original Sin and isn’t allowed into heaven. She’s had to go to Limbo. Father Connolly says if you don’t get baptised you can’t ever go to heaven. You have to stay in Limbo. I cried when he said that and Sister Monica said it was all right cos Limbo is quite a nice place, full of little babies and they’re all happy. But I don’t want her to be on her own without the rest of the family. She’ll be lonely. And it’s not fair. She can’t help it that there wasn’t time to baptise her.’
‘But didn’t your Ma or your Da baptise her themselves when she got ill? If there isn’t time for the priest to do it, anyone can do the sacrament in an emergency.’
‘She died in her sleep. When we all woke up in the morning she was already cold.’
Eliza, having had no success with finding a teaching position in a school, set about looking for one as a governess. Very quickly she realised that anyone who could afford the services of a governess was not going to choose one with missing teeth and a battered face. Who could blame them? She resembled a losing, bare-knuckle fighter.
Once the swelling subsided, it revealed a flat plateau on one side of the face, a marked contrast to the high cheekbone on the other side. The bruising had gone but the right eyeball had retreated back inside the hollow of her skull, giving her a narrow-eyed shifty look. She knew that, were she to be placed in the position of those from whom she was seeking employment, she would probably be uncomfortable choosing a woman with a face so damaged. So how could she expect strangers to take a chance on her?
She went to Holy Innocents to pray. The church was silent. A cool haven away from the heat and bustle of the streets. There was a scent of incense lingering in the air, m
ixing with the smell of melting wax from the bank of candles. She dropped a few cents in the box and lit a candle, then knelt down in one of the pews and bent forward, her hands clasped in prayer. She asked God what she should do next. Begged him silently to give her some kind of sign, but was met with only silence. No one else was in the church. She looked around her at the fading flowers on the altar, at the heavy curtains hanging over the confessional box, at the plaster statues that stood sentry around the church and at the Stations of the Cross. She took out her rosary beads and went through all the mysteries, until her knees ached and the words of the mumbled Hail Marys ceased to have meaning. With no answer to her prayers, she left the church.
Leaving the building, her forehead damp from the holy water in the font, her foot caught a stray bottle on the pavement and it rolled into the gutter. Connor, who had been waiting for her patiently at the back of the church, bent down and picked it up.
‘I’ll get a cent for that,’ he said.
As he was about to stuff it in his pocket, something made her ask him to let her look at it. The brown bottle was embossed on the front. Dreschner beer, from the German Brewery of St Louis, Missouri. She swallowed, not wanting to accept what it meant, but forced to admit she had received her sign.
19
To Middlesbrough
Jack’s arrest at the Liverpool docks did not lead to a lengthy detention. As soon as the ship was safely out of harbour Father O’Driscoll slipped some money to the police officers and they went away. They didn’t take the handcuffs with them and Jack had to suffer the ignominy of traveling back to Bristol in MacBride’s coach with the cuffs still binding him – a long and miserable journey. It was only when they were installed in Victoria Lodge that the priest removed them.
