Angel of Brooklyn (2 page)

‘The shop is at the back. Through here.’

The other room was light and airy. There were scales and well-stocked shelves. An advertisement for HP Sauce had been pinned onto the wall, and on a scrubbed pine table was the row of headless mackerel and a plate of oily guts.

‘My husband does the meat down in the cellar. He’s not exactly a butcher. The butcher comes with his cart on a Friday. Eleven o’clock sharp. My husband can do you a rabbit, and the odd bit of game. But he leaves the bacon and such to the experts. He couldn’t kill a pig. He doesn’t have the know-how, or the equipment.’

Beatrice shook her head, not quite knowing what to say.

‘Whatever must you think of me?’ said Ada. ‘I must smell awful.’ She went to rinse her hands. ‘Anyway, what can I get you?’

Beatrice couldn’t think, then suddenly she remembered. ‘Eggs?’ she asked. ‘Eggs and orange marmalade?’

‘Hen eggs? How many? Half a dozen?’

‘A half-dozen would be good.’

As Ada busied herself with the eggs, two women appeared at the top of the cellar steps. They were giggling and talking, but as soon as they saw Beatrice, they abruptly stopped, looking flushed and embarrassed.

‘Got everything you wanted?’ Ada asked them.

‘Yes thanks,’ said the one in the grey tweed coat. ‘I’ll settle up on Thursday.’

‘Right you are then, Madge.’

‘Oh,’ said Beatrice, with a tremble in her voice. ‘You’re Madge? My husband’s mentioned you.’

Madge pressed her basket tight against her plump waist, looking worried. ‘And why would that be?’

‘Your Frank might owe him something,’ said the other woman, swallowing a smile.

‘Oh no,’ rushed in Beatrice, ‘it’s just that I only arrived here a few days ago, and he’s been telling me about the people here, the ladies in particular, and he happened to mention there was a Madge, and an Ada.’

‘What about a Lizzie?’ The other woman smiled shyly, pushing her hand through her springy brown hair.

‘Yes, Lizzie too.’

‘Lizzie might look like a baby,’ said Ada, ‘but she’s five years older than me.’

‘Well, I’m Beatrice. Beatrice Crane.’

‘You married Jonathan?’ said Madge. ‘You’re the foreigner?’

‘I’m an American.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Lizzie. ‘I really can’t believe it.’ Both women stared at her, their mouths slightly open in awe.

‘I don’t suppose you’ll be putting the kettle on, Ada?’ said Madge. ‘We should do something. We should celebrate.’

Ada Richards took down a packet of tea and scooped some into a pot.

‘American,’ said Lizzie, chewing over the word. ‘Do Americans marry in churches?’

‘As opposed to wigwams,’ said Ada, pulling out the chairs. The women laughed as Beatrice looked at them and smiled, her heart pounding, her face a little warm.

‘It’s just that we thought he’d marry at St Barnabas, like we all did,’ said Lizzie, quickly sitting down. ‘And his ma and pa are buried in its yard.’

‘We married in the town hall, in Brooklyn, New York.’

‘The town hall?’ said Madge, scratching her head.

‘It’s a fine town hall. Very grand and churchlike.’

Ada poured the tea. ‘Churchlike is better than no church at all,’ she said, pushing a cup towards Lizzie, who seemed most in need of refreshment. ‘And town halls are very important.’

‘Oh, I can just picture it.’ Lizzie spooned in some sugar and began to stir vigorously.

‘Bolton has a nice town hall,’ said Madge. ‘It looks like a palace.’

They drank their tea in silence for a while. The tap dripped slowly into the basin until it seemed that Ada could no longer stand the noise and went to turn it off. Beatrice felt hemmed in, her elbows nudging Madge at one side and Lizzie at the other; she could feel her cup rattling in its saucer.

‘Your hair is very light,’ said Madge suddenly. ‘Have you used a rinse?’

‘No,’ said Beatrice, pulling at a strand. ‘This is how it grows.’

‘Well,’ said Madge, ‘it’s lovely.’

‘Didn’t you mind?’ said Lizzie. ‘Didn’t you mind, coming all this way, and leaving your family behind?’

‘My mother’s dead. And my father too.’

‘So you’re an orphan?’ Lizzie’s hand flew up to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You can’t be an orphan at her age,’ said Ada, not looking at Beatrice, but at the shelves behind her; she straightened a couple of tins. ‘The thing is,’ she went on, ‘if Jonathan’s father hadn’t passed away like that, he never would have got itchy feet.’

‘Still, it seems he’s always wanted to travel,’ said Beatrice. ‘He collects guidebooks, and you should see them all, it’s crazy, really, he has dozens of the things.’

‘He’s twenty-five years old,’ said Ada. ‘He went all the way to America. He came back. He’s scratched his itchy feet.’

‘Guidebooks?’ said Madge. ’What do you mean, guidebooks? He never goes anywhere. He won’t even come on our annual outing to Morecambe.’

‘And he loves potted shrimp,’ sighed Lizzie. ‘We always bring some back for him. Morecambe’s famous for its potted shrimp. They make it for the King. Do they have it in New York?’

‘We have all kinds of seafood.’

‘But potted shrimp? Made with real butter?’

‘Not that I remember.’

‘Thought not. You see, it’s a real English delicacy,’ said Ada. ‘So, what else have you got on that shopping list of yours?’

In the cellar, Jim Richards stood smoking a cigarette, his fingernails jammy with blood. Above his head, rabbit pelts hung like shapeless
stoles
, and across the scored table, the shiny limbs glistened in the swinging yellow lamplight.

‘I know who you are, Mrs Crane,’ he said. ‘I’ve been listening in.’ He sniffed, wiping his hands across his messy front, cigarette sticking to his dry bottom lip. ‘Hope all this gore doesn’t offend you?’

‘Not at all. In fact, I’m kind of used to it, my father was fond of taxidermy. It’s not for the faint-hearted.’

‘You’re not squeamish then?’ He raised his narrow eyebrows. ‘Rabbit only today. Mind you, there’s a lot you can do with a bunny. Have it on the house as a welcome-to-England present. And here’s a foot for luck.’

She nodded her thanks quickly, as he slammed down the knife. The foot felt warm and bony in her hand.

Back upstairs, Madge and Lizzie had gone.

‘Didn’t you want an onion?’ said Ada. ‘You can’t make a good rabbit stew without an onion.’

Later, sorting through her wardrobe, Beatrice stopped to press her cheeks against the collars of her dresses. She put her shoes and boots in pairs, slipping her hand inside, feeling the ridges her toes had made, examining the soles, wondering if a little piece of Coney might have made it over here. She found the menu from Franny’s Oyster Bar and, lying across the bed, she started reading it out to the wall.

‘“Open all year round! Walk right in and get yourself a real fresh taste of the ocean! We have the biggest juiciest clams. We have oysters with pepper sauce, oysters with lemon zest, West Coast octopus, sea urchin eggs, blowfish tails, crawfish, winkles, ink squid, barn-door skates, salmon cheeks, cod cheeks, cod tongues, sturgeon liver, blue-shark steak, squid stew, clam chowder, lobster tails.”’ She threw the menu down. ‘Franny Nolan was my friend and she’d have done potted shrimp if I’d asked her.’

Anglezarke stretched out into moorland, scrubby hills, grey, violet, black-brown in the distance. Its water sat brooding, waiting for the light to start bouncing off those small choppy waves, bringing it to life.

Liverpool felt as far away as America, with its docks, and the movement, that thick bitter brine, and the fumes that settled in the air, hanging like a stained piece of cloth, in yards where she’d seen couples kissing behind Costa Rican crates and off-duty sailors queuing for new
tattoos
. Of course, she’d heard all the screaming, the belly-laughing, two boys fighting, then four, crashing, dark faces, men snapping braces, and women with too much rouge and feathers in their hair, weaving arm in arm, like showgirls after the show.

‘I thought that was England,’ she told Jonathan, who’d finally arrived home in the car, his face burning red from the cold.

‘Liverpool? What do you mean? Of course that was England.’

‘It looked interesting.’

‘What, that filthy place? No one goes to Liverpool, unless they’re on their way to somewhere else.’

‘We could travel? You have all those little guidebooks just sitting on your shelf.’

‘But we’ve only just got here, my darling. You’ll get used to Anglezarke eventually. Come now, hop in and I’ll show you some of the countryside in this beautiful motor car – my father gave it to me, you know, said I should enjoy it.’

Beatrice stepped into the passenger side, slamming the door behind her.

‘Forget the damn countryside. I want to see some buildings.’

‘Fuel isn’t cheap. We can’t go too far.’

‘All right, OK, any building will do, just so long as it’s not in a field.’

The thin gravel road circled the reservoir, winding into town, where the buildings were small, crouching against the road with all their shutters closed.

‘Look at them,’ she sighed. ‘They hardly scratch the sky.’

He showed her his office, above the printing shop, with its thick frosted glass and the painted gold scroll saying
Bonds
. A shop selling neckties promised credit, value for money and real silk linings. A closed cafeteria had its board still up, with a chalked
High Teas, Bean Soup and Freshly Cut Sandwiches
.

At the edge of the pavement, boys folded their arms and squealed at the sight of the motor.

‘Are they loons?’ she asked.

‘Just boys.’

‘Could have fooled me.’

‘Boys in New York are the same.’

‘In New York,’ she told him, ‘it takes more than an automobile to get them so excited.’

*

She wrote a letter home. She didn’t like the paper she found in Jonathan’s desk, it was far too thick and yellow; the ink smudged.

January 18, 1914

Dear Nancy,

England is empty. I am always hungry. I miss the little things, like saltines, muscatel, and music. We have a whole house to ourselves and no one either side. Imagine that. It sure is a one-horse kind of town. The noise comes from the animals. Sheep, cows, and birds. Lots and lots of birds. I do miss Clancy’s ponies. I even miss the elephants. I never thought I’d miss the elephants.

The people here are strange. The young women talk and act so old. Oh you should hear them. They are wrapped up in each other and walk like the nuns at St Xavier’s. But I am trying, Nancy.

We are having a party here Saturday night, and I have promised J that it will be nothing like the night at the Alabama Hotel, but that was a good night, wasn’t it? The night when all the stars came out.

Well, Nancy, I must go heat more water. Washday here is a little like slavery, and I have the red arms to prove it.

Write soon like you promised.

Your best friend,

Your Bea x

Jonathan had six gramophone records.

‘Caruso? Say, have you nothing lighter than this?’

‘He’s really very popular.’

‘Sure he is, but he hardly starts the dancing.’

‘There won’t be any dancing,’ said Jonathan. ‘Remember? It’s not that kind of party.’

Beatrice was trembling as she paced up and down, moving things. She’d chosen a plain blue dress and matching kid leather shoes. She was wearing a bracelet of freshwater pearls, drop pearl earrings, jasmine scent.

‘Just keep things simple,’ Jonathan told her, fussing with his cufflinks. ‘No need for a neck full of clanking beads and whatnot.’

The kitchen was brimming with food, and she busied herself arranging it in the dining room.

‘The girl could do this,’ said Beatrice, straightening the plates.

‘What girl?’

‘The girl we need to help us run this house.’

‘We said we wouldn’t have a girl. We agreed.’

Sighing, Beatrice plumped up the watercress. She pushed the small veal pies into a circle, checking her fingertips for grease. ‘It’s hard for me,’ she told him. ‘I’m really not used to this way of life. Not any more. I lived in boarding houses, I bought all my food ready-made. We had radiators. Electricity.’

‘Well, that’s the New World for you,’ he said.

‘I have calluses.’

‘You have hand cream.’

‘Rose-scented calluses? Is that what I came to England for?’

By twenty past seven they were sitting side by side, hypnotised by the clock’s loud tick and the pendulum.

‘They’ll come,’ said Jonathan.

‘Still, they sure like to keep us waiting.’

‘They’ll be here.’

‘Does everything look all right?’ she asked, screwing up her forehead.

‘Everything looks perfect, my darling, and have you seen what I’ve put on the mantelpiece? I found those postcards. All of them. The Steeplechase. The Boardwalk. Luna Park by night.’

‘Luna Park by night?’

‘You sold me those postcards. That’s how we met. I thought they’d like to hear about it.’

The doorbell rang and Beatrice stood up before quickly sitting down. Jonathan went to open the door.

‘You stand when they come into the room.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ she said, standing up again.

They all came, as Jonathan knew they would. Before they’d had Beatrice to gawp at, they’d had his father, and, with their limp bunches of grapes and bottles of milk stout – ‘to put some flesh on your bones’ – they’d brought their curious eyes, weighing up the ornaments, the
paintings
, the red Persian rug that sat in the room like a thick flying carpet.

Beatrice smiled meekly at all the congratulations, and the talk about foreigners.

‘We thought you’d have skin like a gypsy, and look, you’re whiter than me!’

‘Have you always spoken English?’ a man asked, narrowing his eyes.

‘Oh, I’m afraid I can only speak American,’ she smiled, but the joke fell flat, and the man backed away.

She tried to remember their names. Lizzie and Tom Blackstock. Madge and Frank Temple. Elsie Ward. Ada and Jim Richards (his bloody nails now scrubbed and full of carbolic, which he picked out all night). Lionel Bailey. Jed and Cora Matthews. The man in the corner was Jeffrey something. Then Mr Foxton from the quarry. Emily and Nathaniel. The man with the walking stick. Charlie.