by Gavin McCrea
I sigh and follow him in. Lift the newspaper off the seat of the armchair. “Is this it?”
“Which? Ya, thank the devil.” He whips it up. “I wish people would keep their hands off things.” He puts it under his arm, where he had the other papers before. “Right, Lizzichen, I’m off”—hand brushing light on my arm, whiskers tickling my cheek—“I’m with Karl for dinner tonight.”
“But I’ve ordered fowl. Spiv is going to roast it.”
“Have it yourselves. Or I can send Jenny down to help you.”
“Nay, nay. I’m sure the girls will be happy with an extra helping.”
“Superb.”
“Don’t forget these.” I give him the papers from the writing desk.
“Ah, ya, thank you. Bis bald.”
I wait till he’s halfways out the door. “Oh, but, Frederick—?”
He twists and looks at me over his collar.
I point to his shoes, all scuffed and muddied. “You’re not going out with those looking like that, are you?”
He looks down and curls his toes up. “I don’t have a clean pair left. These will have to do.”
Being so peculiar about his appearance—his lines he likes straight and his colors in tune—I thought he’d be pleased to have his eye drawn to the lapse, but I see now I’ve only nettled him further. A flush comes to his cheeks, and his response is mottled by it, and it makes me feel down-low and contrite, for I remember now that I promised to polish them yesterday, and it’s only on account of his high manners he’s not mentioning it. There’s people, I know, that write down their tasks in a ledger, and the hours for doing them, but I count on my own brains, and I’m not a machine, time and times there’s things that slip through.
“Come on, then,” I says. “Take them off and I’ll do them this minute. I won’t have Jenny saying I send you out on your business looking like a rural.”
“I have a cab waiting. They are fine as they are.”
“Sit down there now. Flick of a lamb’s tail and they’ll be done.”
I draw him over to the chair by the occasional table and put him into it. He moans. Throws his papers down. Takes out his watch and studies it. But he stays sat all the same.
I’m about to ring the bell for Pumps to bring the polishing box when the earwigger herself comes running in with it. “Here we go, Uncle Angel,” she says, and kneels in front of him. “Give me your foot here and we’ll get those spick and span for you.”
The bell-cord still tight in my grip, I glower down at her. “I’ll do that, Pumps, thank you. I’m sure you’re busy at other things.”
“Not at all,” she says. “I can’t think of any task that would better merit my attending.” She smiles up at Frederick and takes his foot onto her pinny. He meets her mooning face and—begad the weakness of men!—his arrangement softens.
“Pumps,” I says, coming to stand over her, “this is something I’ve promised Mr. Engels to do and I’d like to do it.”
“For godsake, Lizzie,” he says, chucking an arm at me, “let the girl do it.”
I’m still holding the newspaper I took from the armchair. I slap it now against my skirts and take the chair on the other side of the table. All right, let her do it, but she’ll need watching over.
While Pumps works, he fans himself with a magazine, sending the smell of spices across. “What would I do without you, Pumps?” he says. “You’re a good girl, you’re learning well.”
She looks up at him, and they beam at each other, and it’s enough to make the juices rise from your stomach.
He lets her work for as long as he has the patience. “I’m going to be late,” he says when it’s final exhausted. “Are we nearly there?”
“Nigh on, Uncle Angel,” says Pumps. A few more lashes of the brush and she lifts his foot down to the carpet. “There we are. Good as new.”
“Thank you, mein Liebling,” he says. “Good enough to eat from.” He leans over and kisses her on the cheek.
She reddens and bows down, hides her face under the fringe of her bonnet. “You’re some fine charmer, Uncle Angel,” she says, putting the tubs and the brushes back in the box.
He tips his head and grins. Gets up and stretches. Puts his papers under his arm. “Don’t wait up!”
He’s gone—slam!—and I’m left with the task of bursting the little grubber’s head, though I find now I don’t have the energy for it. She mutters something about clemming for a smoke, and I let her go.
I gather up my ends and make the window in time to see Frederick climb into his cab. But there’s only a flash of him to catch, and it strikes a chill in me, the fact that I see less of him now I’m living with him than in Manchester when he had us separate; the fact that we were better off the old way, better friends to each other. And there’s other facts, too, that come dashing towards me like the rain against the glass, but I turn from them and come away, for I’d hate for him to look back and see me here, watching at his coattails.
December
XII. The Holy Family
Like flies on gristle, the mad bodies of London swarm the Zoo. A thicker brew of hatters in this corner of the Park than in the whole rest of the city. In the parrot house, weird old women trill and chirp and throw buttons to the birds. In the aquarium, gents softened by idlement leer into the murk and, by the looks of it, dream of sprouting fins of their own. The reptile house, the giraffe house, the camel house, the pelican house: little asylums, all, for those nuts with the shillings to spare for the turnstiles; wealth enough to be separate and peculiar, the busy world not daring to put on them or hinder their temper. It makes me queasy to be here, in and among them, and I worry that Tussy’s love of the place is a sign she’s headed the same way.
“I beg you, Auntie Lizzie,” she said. “Come with me to see the moving crib.”
“The what now?”
“The moving crib. Every year before Christmas they build a stable and fill it with exotic animals. And instead of statues, they have real people playing the holy family.”
Am I the only one who sees it?
I agreed to come, against my own wishes, for I was afraid that alone she’d be approached, or in her innocence would do the approaching herself and, by there, get herself into situations. I’m so fond of the poor child, I’d hate to hear of her tricked or fouled. “All right, all right, the Zoo it is,” I said, and no sooner was it out of my mouth than I began to look forward to the hours spent away from the house, and to the hand-holding and the secret whispers. “We’ll bring a picnic, make a day of it,” I said.
But, of course, by the time today arrives around, bright and free of rain, she’s assembled herself an entire army of keepers, in the middle of which I vanish, bare noticed.
Frederick leads us down the paths with the confidence of a man who has come to see this Christmas spectacle before. With his women, it’s probable; the ones he fears will go to the bad if they’re not given proper distraction. He’s dressed light for the freezing weather, in a frock coat built for September. Beside it, Karl’s broadcloth suit, buttoned up to the whiskers, appears a solemn demand for respect: from the season, from the people, from the animals the same.
Scattered around are the comrades Tussy has convinced to come. One of them, a young strap I don’t have a name for, looks to have tied invisible twine from his sleeve to Janey’s, so firm does he stay by her, so little does he let her drift from his air. To watch it makes my heart sink, for I’ve seen it before, the clever and quiet eldest girl dashing into the arms of a rake, not for love or money but to avoid remaining at home as help to failing parents. My wager is she’ll be engaged before we even realize.
Two others, old enough to know better, are making circles around Tussy like stalking dogs. She puts a sweat on them by darting from cage to cage, pointing at the fur and feathers, lecturing on the ins and outs of the mating business, and now, for breaks, insisting they repeat the English names of the beasts till they can say them proper and with no foreign slurring.<
br />
Pumps is climbing a railing to get a better view of something. I watch her and worry that I’ve made a mistake by allowing her to come while keeping Spiv at home. She’s getting used to the little privileges that come with having Burns in her blood and it’s hard to know whether that’s right or wrong.
Jenny is far off with the women Jaclard and Goegg. I’m being tanned by her, I can tell. Every time I come near her, she turns her head towards the bars and puts on to be interested in the life going on behind them. And her face: a window once wide open, now closed fast. Her behavior is no mystery to me, of course. She acting like she is because I refuse her invitations. Because I don’t call to see her. Because I’ve not turned out the way she’d planned.
Walking alone, I follow the company into the tunnel. Our noses closed against the reek, our eyes lowered against the loiterers in the shadows, we soon come out by the deer paddock.
“This way,” Frederick calls out, and marches us towards a stable where a small crowd has gathered. A collection of forlorn-looking boys in sandals and robes and false beards are stood, shivering, around a cot lined with straw. The Virgin Mary has blue paint around her eyes and red on her cheeks and a shadow where her fluff has been sheared. The Babby Jesus is a doll in winding sheets. The Wise Men have gold slippers and blackened faces. Scratching around the sad scene is a collection of impossible animals. Trunks, tusks, horns, hooves: it’s all there, a ridiculous array. Saddest and loneliest of all is an animal half-zebra and half-donkey standing on three legs in the corner of the stall. Tussy lures it over with some grass she’s pulled up from someplace.
“I consider that nothing living is alien to me,” she says when, final, it takes her offering.
It chews. Flaps its lips. Trundles back to its place. Lifts its tail and pisses a gush.
“What is that thing?” I says.
“It’s called a quagga,” she says, reading from the plaque.
Fact: the hippopotamus is the only thing worth the fare.
Frederick suggests taking tea in the rooms by the bowling green, and we agree.
“Everyone, follow me!”
Jenny takes Tussy by the hand, steers her onto Frederick’s arm, leaving her admirers to tussle over Karl’s attentions. Karl humors them the length of the llama pen (it’s Tussy, again, who tells us what they are), before breaking away and coming across to me.
“Do you mind, Lizzie? Can I beg the favor of a word?”
“Of course, Karl. What can I do for you?”
He applies just enough tug on my arm to draw me to the back of the pack. I watch Tussy move farther and farther away and, trapped like a bird, curse myself for having left the nest at all.
“As you can probably see,” he says, “my wife is not in the best of shape.”
I look at Jenny giggling onto Frederick’s shoulder. “I’ve seen her worse.”
Karl can’t hide his surprise. “I must object, Lizzie. Please do take into consideration that she likes to put on a good face. I can assure you the woman is—”
Suffering. I get it. The lot of the thoroughbred.
“My wife loves company,” he says. “Even when the season is over and the days are shorter, she likes to receive guests and to get out as much as possible. True, she is beginning to understand that she must cosset herself a little more and not try to make every single event. But, on the other side, when she spends too much time at home she becomes, well, she becomes weary and crabbed, and her temper fires quick at the trigger. Like one of these animals here.” He looks around and rubs the back of his hand in a fretful way. “Please do call on her, Lizzie. She would benefit greatly from your company. We all would.”
“I’ll do the best I can, Karl. I’ve a house to run.”
He turns and, with desperate eyes, searches me through.
“I’m sorry, Karl. What I mean to say is, it would be a pleasure. You don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure Jenny is well looked after for the winter.”
He sighs and smiles and lands one on my cheek. “Thank you, Lizzie. I just wanted to mention it.”
“Of course, Karl. Any time.”
The bogwork done, he brightens. “And now we have Christmas to look forward to, don’t we? We’re delighted you will be joining us. We are inviting all the comrades who have no families to go to. Making it special for them. I guarantee a ruckus. I know Jenny will love to have you there. And Nim will appreciate the extra help from Pumps and Camilla.”
He grins and pecks me again, his beard dipping down into my collar and tickling my neck, and like a ninny I let out a titter, but inside there’s a fury bubbling, fired by the feeling that, once again, I’ve been tricked.
“What’s this about Christmas at the Marxes?” I says to Frederick when I get him alone later.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Nay, you didn’t. As usual I’ve to find out from the wrong people.”
“Are you angry?”
“What do you think?”
“I thought you’d like the idea. Less work for you.”
“Oh, by the willful ass of Mary and Joseph.”
“You don’t want to do it?”
“Of course I don’t want to do it! Our first Christmas in London? Spent with Jenny and the whole wide world? Why can’t we have it alone, as a family, quiet-like?”
“All right, if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Nay, it’s too late now. You’ve already committed us.”
“We can change our plans. I’m sure Jenny would understand.”
“Nay, we can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Blessed be, Frederick, for a man who claims to know the destiny of mankind, you understand diddly-dick about the laws of womenfolk.”
Where the greatest crime is to have your own mind.
XIII. An Irish Lie
I know I ought to go up to her. There’s things she’ll want me to do. A list. To buy and to do. But I can’t rouse myself to it. Tomorrow the spirit might be in me, but not today. Today my duty is to my own. My own place. My own house. And Lord knows it’s long overdue a laundry wash.
“Frederick, I’m going to need your help.”
He’s bent over his desk, scribbling. “Uh-huh,” he says without looking up.
Sighing, I get down and check under his chair for slut’s wool. “It’s going to be a busy day, Frederick.”
“I understand. If you need a hand”—he waves the free one in the air over his head—“all you have to do is ask.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here doing, Frederick. I’m asking.”
“Ah.” He turns his eyes up and looks at me through his fallen fringe.
“It’s laundry day,” I says, “the last before Christmas. And I’ve no intention of putting it off or getting the woman in. If we’re to get it done before suppertime, we’ll all have to pitch in our bit.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Follow me.”
“Now?”
“Take that plate and those dirty glasses with you.”
Down in the scullery Spiv is bent over the washing book.
“Sir,” she says, “what are you doing here?”
“He’s going to help,” I says.
He winks.
She looks him up and down, a lick of scorn, before getting back to her list.
“Right, Frederick,” I says, “you can start by sorting the pile out into aprons, collars, shirts, body linen—and what’s else?—nightclothes, pinnies, and petticoats.”
“I am not certain I—”
“Any muslins, colored cottons, or woolens, leave to me. Unusual-looking stains, put them at one side and I’ll have a look.”
“But, Lizzie, I have not yet eaten lunch.”
“You’ll be having a big dinner.”
“I do not think I will make it that far alive.”
I take the old cheese from his plate (he’s still holding it, of course, for he has no idea where to put it down) and p
ush it into a bit of yesterday’s bread. “There, that’ll keep you going.”
The aggrieved look he pulls doesn’t prevent him from stuffing it in.
“Spiv, where’s Pumps?”
She nods towards the storeroom.
I shake my head, not grasping.
“Hiding,” she says.
“Oh, by the burning hole of Moses.” I pull on the storeroom door but it doesn’t come. “Pumps, let go of the handle.” I try again, but it stands with. “Pumps!” I bang on it with a fist. “Get you the blazes out of there!”
The silence of a cringing animal.
“Mr. Engels is here, do you want him to see you acting the brat?”
A yelp, the sound of things falling from the shelves. The door gives, swings open.
“Git!” I says.
She stays cowering in the gloom.
“I said, git!”
Keeping herself as far from me as the area allows, she creeps into the light. A scarf is tied round her face to cover her nose and mouth.
“What in the name of—” I tear it down: a line of blisters across the top of her lip.
“She’s been at the arsenic again,” says Spiv.
“Shut up!” Pumps screams.
Spiv mimics her—Shut up!—before turning to Frederick. “She spreads it on her lip to burn her runner off.”
Middle-chew, Frederick lets his mouth fall open, crumbs and wet bits falling. He puts a hand to his own whiskers, hides them away, as if they too were in danger. You forget they can be a shock, the home doings, when you’re not used to them.
Pumps runs crying from the room. I follow her out. “Spiv, I’ll deal with you later.”
She shrugs, dips her pen in the pot, scribbles something down.
“Frederick, when you’re done separating, take the sheets out from soaking and rinse them. Spiv’ll show you how. We’ll be right down.”
He swallows and gawps like a man out of his depth, a man sunk too deep.
I find Pumps upstairs, slumped and sobbing.
“The consequences of vanity,” I says.
She buries her weeping puss deeper into the crook of her elbow.
