Angel of Brooklyn (18 page)

‘We’ll see you back at the Lemon Tree, a saloon is not the kind of place for Beatrice to be visiting, even if she is with Normal’s John Wesley.’

‘They’ll kill him,’ Beatrice said, walking on.

‘Sure they will, like a lamb to the slaughter, but the boy’s got to learn.’

Beatrice was exhausted. Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling with its dusty yellow paint, and a crack that looked like a hand, she tried not to think of her brother in Frankie D’s Saloon, shouting out his sermon to men with bloodshot eyes.

Her father was napping in his room. She was tired, but she couldn’t sleep for five minutes in the Lemon Tree Hotel, where the man at the desk was reading about the Chicago Cubs, shaking his head and sighing at the week’s poor results, an old man in a striped collarless shirt was coughing in the backyard, rooting through the boxes, and in another room a baby was crying, and a woman with a creak in her voice was singing a song about her poor departed papa. Was this place ever quiet?

She pulled on her boots, now tight against her ankles; she took the thin silver key and pulled her door shut. Downstairs, the man with the rattling pages was drinking a cup of coffee. She could see the street through the plate glass in the door, its flat brown colours, splashes of crimson and the sunshine hanging like a rinsed-out piece of muslin was something you could slice through.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the man behind the counter.

‘Hmm?’ He didn’t look up.

‘Could you tell me where the nearest church might be?’

‘What?’

‘I said …’ she began, as the man lifted his head at last, biting his lip and then looking somewhere else. ‘Do you know where the nearest church is?’

‘What kind of church?’

‘Any church.’

‘Well, miss; I guess what I’m trying to say is, are you a Catholic, or Baptist, or a Jew, or something else entirely?’

‘I’m nothing,’ she told him. ‘I just want some peace and quiet.’

‘You’re nothing? You don’t look like nothing to me. St Pius,’ he said. ‘Will he do? He’s the nearest. Turn right out the door, take the first right and St Pius will be looking at you from his shiny white tower.’

The air pressed against her face while billboards advertising chewing gum flashed between billboards advertising shaving soap. A
Tribune
had been taken by the wind, its old news rising as she looked out for Elijah, her eyes aching. She took a right turn. A marble saint holding out his thin pointed hands balanced on a block of white stone. The bricks looked cool. Plants with yellow leaves were curled around the steps and the door was slightly ajar.

Inside, the silence was sudden and her footsteps were so loud she moved down the aisle on tiptoe. The church was almost empty. A woman in a black coat was kneeling near the front and a man was lighting a candle. Beatrice sat towards the back, closed her eyes and drifted. She pictured Joanna making a pudding, a vase of pink flowers, Cormac Fitzgerald twisting his cap in his hands, a breeze in his flame of red hair. He was laughing. He was always laughing. He had radishes in his pockets and shiny purple beans, like Jack before the beanstalk, and when she opened her eyes she was sure she could see him, standing by the font, his hands in holy water, but after she’d blinked a couple of times, it wasn’t Cormac, it was the woman in the long black coat genuflecting at the altar.

She felt better. Back outside, the wind caught in her hair and woke her. Through the forest of faces, she saw a red-and-grey muffler, and then Elijah stumbling with his hands in the air, as if he was calling for help.

‘What’s the matter?’ she breathed. ‘What’s happened to you?’ She looked him up and down, but there were no signs of any obvious
bruising
, no broken bones or bloodied lips. Elijah was intact, his hair still slick with the cream he now shared with his father.

‘I can do it!’ he shouted, pushing her towards Harlech Street. ‘I really can do it! The Reverend Malcolm Henderson was right. I can reach out and grab them, and if it wasn’t for the liquor they’d be saved.’

Back in the lobby, they sat on a worn overstuffed sofa, the same dirty green as the walls. Elijah was panting. There were vibrations in the air coming from his skin like static electricity.

‘They didn’t want to brawl?’

‘Not at all. Heck, they liked me. You know, I really think they liked me. But boy, it wasn’t easy. I had to shout to get their attention. I started telling them about temptation, and how it’s a weakness that brings them closer to the Devil, and how it separates their souls from their God, and how they can be saved. They laughed, but then they started slapping me on the back and finding me a stool, and then they started saying, “Hush up, hush up, let the boy say his piece. Can’t do any harm if we just sit right here and listen.” Of course, there were some who didn’t like what they were hearing, but they’d taken so much whiskey, they were swaying around like grass in a breeze, and what did they know anyway?’

‘So you saved them?’ she asked. ‘Your sermon worked?’ They were alone. The man behind the counter had vanished. She could smell tobacco smoke coming from the office.

Elijah shrunk a little. ‘I don’t think “saved” is exactly the word I’d use,’ he admitted. ‘But I certainly gave them all something to think about. We ended with a prayer.’

‘A prayer?’ she spluttered. ‘You actually got those men to pray?’

‘Beatrice,’ he said, getting to his feet and pacing up and down, ‘what is a prayer anyway? All right, so they might not have got down on their knees with their hands clasped and their heads bowed, but as I was saying the words, it seemed like they were listening.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s a start.’

‘Yes, it is a start, and it was certainly an unforgettable experience. I’d never been inside a saloon bar before, and it was like another world. There were ladies in there, you know, I could see them in the background. They were wearing frills on their dresses and their shoulders were bare. It was all so very immodest.’

‘Really? Perhaps you should go back in there and save them?’

‘You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking,’ he said.

That evening they ate in the hotel restaurant, a small L-shaped room, without a view of any kind, but their father had said that the meal was included in the price, so why waste another cent and boot leather? Most of the other tables were empty. Their father, it seemed, had lost his new enthusiasm, he’d scrambled back in on himself, and as they went through the meal – the bowl of tomato rice soup, the tough piece of beefsteak, and the soggy apple pie – there were no more stories about monkeys dressed as soldiers, how Jed Adams was an idiot, or how wolves were his next big project. He was quiet, leaning on his elbows, looking down at his plate like the man Beatrice knew from Normal, who hardly left the outhouse. She tried to bring him back.

‘You’ll have to write a letter to the zoo,’ she told him. ‘They need telling, and who’s to say that Ephraim Colt doesn’t know all about taxidermy, and its benefits?’

He grunted.

‘I’m going to write about my preaching in a journal,’ said Elijah. ‘People like reading about these things. They find the words inspirational.’

‘Isn’t that a little premature?’ said Beatrice.

‘It has to be recorded,’ he said, picking at the meat that had caught between his teeth. ‘Because in ten years’ time, when I’ve had a little more experience and I’m writing a serious book, then I can look back on these humble beginnings and use them as a prologue.’

‘Where did it come from?’ their father said, suddenly looking up and scratching his hair, which was starting to look a little wild.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m talking about God. How did that happen?’

Beatrice put down her fork. The room was quiet. She was sure the woman on the next table was listening, while sawing at her steak.

Elijah didn’t say anything for a minute, his face had reddened, and his eyes were staring at the painting on the wall, an ugly-looking picture of a dog. ‘God happened like your taxidermy,’ he said at last, throwing down his napkin and pushing back his chair.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean,’ said Elijah, ‘is He came to fill in a hole.’

That night Beatrice slept badly. The room was too hot. Pushing open
the
window, she watched a handful of stars over the dark city roofs. She breathed in the cool night wind, listening to the traffic, the woman in the room above her head pacing up and down. Someone was laughing. A man shouted, ‘I’m on the late shift again! Would you look at this list! It ain’t right, I’m telling you. My lady friend will kill me.’ Beatrice wrapped her arms around herself. Lying on top of the bed sheets, she watched the curtains flapping back in the breeze like thin white sails.

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.’