By the Rivers of Brooklyn (14 page)

“He said about seven-thirty,” Jim said. “Is it just Harold and Frances or have you got a whole crowd invited over?”

Ethel turned her back to him and began slicing bread at the counter. “Same crowd as always, Jim, you know: Harold and Frances, Jean and Robert, Dick and Eileen. Sure, we haves the same people over every Friday night. You'd think you'd be used to it by now.”

“Sometimes, at the end of a hard week, a man likes a bit of peace and quiet in his own house, not a crowd of people traipsing in and out,” Jim said into his plate.

“Can I get down now, Mommy?” Ralphie said, with just an edge of a whine in his voice. She looked past the broad blue of Jim's shoulders to where Ralphie sat, pale and small and tired. It was on the tip of her tongue to say he hadn't eaten enough supper but she stopped herself. There was no time to fight this battle tonight and the sooner he went to bed the better. “Go on, get down,” she said. “You can play for a few minutes and then go to bed.”

“I want to play with you, Daddy,” Ralphie said. “Come on, Daddy, play with me.”

Ethel was always amazed how well Jim took this pestering. He said, “Wait a minute, Ralphie, and I'll come out and we'll set up your toy soldiers, all right?”

Ralphie kept dancing around him pleading, “Now, Daddy? Are you coming now? Come on, Daddy!” Ethel herself couldn't ask Jim two questions in a row when he came home from work without him flying off the handle at her, but he put up with all Ralphie's foolishness.

It was funny how different she and Jim were about having company. Ethel was the one who invited their friends over, who planned and did all the cleaning and getting the sandwiches ready and looked forward all week to this one evening when they'd be able to sit back and relax and have a few games of cards and a little grown-up conversation. Jim mumbled and grumbled and complained. Yet once the crowd was there Jim was the life of the party, telling all the stories, making the other fellows laugh, even flirting in a harmless way with Jean and Frances and Eileen. Ethel usually found herself sitting quietly on the edge, watching and listening, slipping off to the kitchen to put the kettle on, sometimes having a little bit of a headache from all the loud voices and the smoke from Dick's and Jim's cigarettes: Friday night was the one night in the week Jim would have a few smokes. It was as if Ethel liked the idea of company better while Jim liked the actual company.

Part of it was that they always played cards and Ethel was never very good at it. Of course she had been brought up to think card-playing was a sin, so she'd never learned anything but Rook, and even though Jim had explained over and over that hundred-and-twenties was the same game with different cards, that didn't help much. She'd never been any good at Rook either. “I just don't have a head for cards,” she'd say, and no-one ever wanted her for a partner because she forgot what trumps meant or what card it was.

Usually Harold took her as his partner just to be kind. She would sit a little dazed as the cards were laid down, trying to follow the game but never really catching on. She felt a little guilty at the sight of the hearts and clubs and diamonds and spades, knowing that they were of the devil and also wondering why nobody else had trouble telling the clubs and the spades apart and why they couldn't just be different colours like the Rook cards. She was glad when the card part was over and they just sat back and talked.

A good bit of the talk was news from home. All four of them were related in one way or another – Eileen Mouland was a cousin of Jean's on her mother's side – so they knew a lot of the same people and shared the bits and pieces of news in letters from home. And they swapped news about friends and family here in Brooklyn. None of them had any friends who weren't Newfoundlanders; they lived in a web of crisscrossing lines of relations and old friends.

Harold asked about Rose. “Has she been around here lately? We haven't seen hide nor hair of her since the summer,” he said.

“No, sure, we hardly ever sees Rose unless she takes it into her head to come visit; it's not like you'd run into her anywhere,” Jim said, for Rose, unlike the rest of them, had no friends from back home and seemed to live in an entirely different world. “She was over here…what was it, Ethel? A few weeks ago?”

“She came over one Sunday at the end of August,” Ethel said, “but she only stayed half an hour, and we never got no news out of her. I don't think she's with that Italian anymore though.” She went into the kitchen to see if the tea was steeped.

Frances followed her in to help. Frances was quiet tonight, like she had something on her mind. Maybe it was only worrying about work and money, which all the men were talking about again now. Or maybe – could she be having a baby? She and Harold had been married over a year. It was about time, but it would be better if they waited till things picked up a little. As Frances took down the teacups and laid them in the saucers Ethel wondered if she should ask what was wrong, or let it go till Frances was ready to talk.

But it was Frances who said, “You're quiet tonight, Ethel, anything on your mind?”

“No, girl, just wore out, you know, after all week. Or, if you don't know, you will when you've got a couple of youngsters.” That would give her a chance to talk, if it was babies she had on her mind.

But Frances only said, “Yes, I s'pose they must be a handful.” As Ethel lifted the teapot off the stove she could see Frances darting little glances at her, like she was trying to work herself up to say something. It couldn't be a baby, after all. That wouldn't be so hard to tell to your sister-in-law and closest friend.

“I don't s'pose Jim is much help, working queer hours and all,” Frances said, filling the pink lustre jug with Carnation milk.

“No, he's late getting home these nights. Well, I s'pose you know what it's like yourself, since him and Harold got this job. They're working the men all hours, weekends and holidays and all. Some nights he don't even be home to his supper. Sure, you know one night last week it was eight o'clock before they were home. But it's better than him having no work at all.” Ethel lowered her voice. “Like poor Dick and Eileen. I don't know what they're going to do if Dick don't find something soon.”

“We're some lucky Jim and Harold got jobs,” Frances said. “I worries all the time what will happen when this job is over, don't you? Especially when we got so much of our stuff bought on time: half our furniture, our vacuum cleaner, the icebox. We'll lose it all if we can't make the payments.”

Ethel nodded but said nothing, busied herself filling the sugar bowl. She didn't believe in buying on time. Jim would have done it, but Ethel put her foot down. They had saved for their icebox and they did without a vacuum, but everything in the apartment was theirs and she had no worries about losing it. She thought Frances was foolish for buying on credit, but it was no good telling anyone that; they all wanted everything right now and all the best.

Frances set out the teacups on the tray and Ethel carried it out to the living room. It wasn't till later, when they were all gone, that she remembered that Frances had had something on her mind, and she didn't think it was anything to do with the icebox being bought on time.

She had another chance to find out, though. On Sunday Jim left early; it was his turn to work the Sunday shift. Ethel took the children to church and then Frances came round after lunch to ask if Ethel wanted to take them to the park. “Harold's home trying to fix our radio,” Frances said. “He likes fooling around with that electrical stuff and there's no money for a new one, so good luck to him. I tells him I misses hearing my stories, so I hope he can get it working again.”

“Oh, he's not working with Jim today?” said Ethel, heading out the front door with Jimmy in the carriage and Ralphie running ahead of them. Frances hesitated and gave her a funny look, and Ethel wished she hadn't spoken. Jim might be getting more hours than Harold, which meant more money for her and Jim, less for Harold and Frances. Better not to mention it. “Ralphie! Slow down!” she yelled. “Come back here and hold my hand!”

They walked up Flatbush Avenue to the park and began strolling down the wide tree-lined paths, towards the zoo where Ralphie was dying to go. Above the noise of the children and the park the two women kept up a steady stream of talk, but after awhile Frances fell silent again.

“Is everything all right with…with you and Jim, Ethel?” Frances said suddenly.

“All right? What do you…well, you know, we're struggling to make ends meet just like yourselves, like everybody I s'pose, but we're no worse off than anyone else. We're getting by, I guess. Why?”

Frances frowned and looked away, like she was sorry she'd opened her mouth but determined to go on. “No, I don't mean money, I mean…between yourselves, you know, is everything all right?”

Ethel wondered what Frances was working up to. Maybe she and Harold were fighting, was that it? They weren't newlyweds anymore, for all they were so cuddly and sweet with each other. “I s'pose so, girl. We gets on all right,” she said.

“Mommy! Mommy! Can I go on the carousel?” Ralphie was tearing ahead again.

“I don't have no money for no carousel!” Ethel called back.

“You don't need no money, it's free!”

“Go on then!” She turned back to Frances, who was pushing Jimmy in the carriage, looking down at the ground. “Frances, what is it, is something on your mind?”

Frances blew a little sigh out between her lips like a small gust of wind. “I don't know, Ethel, I been struggling with myself over whether to say anything, even praying about it if you wants to know the truth. Harold told me not to say a word but…he told me something last week. Something…something about Jim.”

“About Jim?” Ethel echoed. This was a turnabout; she didn't know what Frances was talking about at all.

“Ethel…look, I think you got a right to know. Harold says…Harold says Jim's been…well, Jim's not working late every night he says he is. Like last week, Harold wasn't home eight o'clock no night last week. And he says Jim doesn't have a shift today. He made that up, Harold says.”

“What?” Ethel's mind raced, trying to put this together in a way that made sense. It never occurred to her that Harold would not be telling the truth: if Harold said it, it was true. “What is he up to then? Why would he tell me he's working when he's not? He's not…he isn't going out drinking with that Dick Mouland is he? When we hardly got two coppers to rub together?”

Frances shook her head; she looked like she was going to cry. Two horseback riders trotted past, little rich girls in matching riding costumes, erect as princesses. Ethel watched them and their glossy brown horses while Frances fumbled for words. “No Ethel, it's not that, it's…oh, Harold says Jim got a girl. Another woman.”

“A woman?” Once, a week or so ago, Ralphie had been running towards her, full tilt. He got her right in the centre of her stomach with his hard little head, right in the gut. She felt like that now, punched in the gut, and then thought,
Ralphie
. She hadn't seen him since he asked to go on the carousel. She scanned the heads of children atop the bobbing horses. “Where's Ralphie? I can't see him, Frances! Is he–”

“He's there, he's right there on the carousel.” Frances pointed, and laid a hand on Ethel's arm. Ethel saw Ralphie waving, then looked down to see that Jimmy had fallen asleep in the carriage. Ethel opened her mouth to speak and found to her horror that her throat was tight with tears that would spill over if she said a word.

Frances rushed on. “Harold says…he says he's going to have words with Jim. Try to straighten him out. I didn't know…I wanted to talk to you. Maybe you want to talk to Jim yourself.”

“No. No.” The tears were here already and Ethel wiped them fiercely on the back of her glove. Ralphie was climbing off the carousel horse and running towards them. She tried to make her voice, her face, normal again as he approached. “Tell Harold he can do what he wants, say what he wants to Jim. I'm not saying nothing to Jim about it. I wouldn't know what to say.”

Jim wasn't home for his supper. Ethel put it on a plate and laid it in the oven for him. She put the boys down to bed herself. She stood for a long time by Jimmy's crib, watching him sleep, his face so like Jim's, but round and babyish and innocent. Then she went out to sit on the daybed next to Ralphie, tracing the soft curve of his flushed cheek with a fingertip, wishing he would open his eyes so she could see their startling blue.
Bert's eyes
, she thought again, though Jim's were the same colour. Bert's eyes were so clear and honest; Jim's were always winking and laughing.
This is what comes from marrying the wrong man,
she thought clearly.

Two weeks later – two weeks of sleepless nights, Jim working late, she and Jim mostly silent or snapping at each other, two weeks when the apartment was filled with things that were not said – they were all at Harold and Frances' apartment one Friday night playing cards. Ethel was in the kitchen helping Frances with the tea, wondering how the boys were doing at home with Jean's young niece Carol Ann watching them. When Frances went out, Ethel stayed in the kitchen, tidying things away, and the noise from the living room was so loud she didn't even notice that Harold had come in with an empty teacup which he laid down on the counter.

“Ethel,” he said, very quietly.

She looked up at him. Even the way he said her name made her happier than she had been in weeks. It reminded her of that good time before he and Frances were married, when he stayed with her and Jim and there was so much talk and laughter in the house. Harold was standing very close, just a foot or so away. His grey shirt was unbuttoned the top two buttons, and she looked at the hollow of his throat and smelled his nice clean smell of soap and air, like laundry just off the line. He put a hand, brotherly, on her shoulder.