Dark Fires Shall Burn (10 page)

She looks over at Sally, curled in a ball near the wall, snoring. The girl doesn't look much older than Frances in this creeping morning light, the dark eyeliner of last night gone. She wonders how old all the girls who live there are.

Pictures of Clark Gable are stuck on the wall, and she fingers them gently, their edges crisp and brittle. She has the same up in her bedroom, pulled out of
Life
and
Picture Post
. Perfume bottles of pale pink and chartreuse glass stand in concert on a dressing table, along with various tubes and pots, and she checks over her shoulder to see if the girl is still sleeping. She is; Frances registers the steady rise and fall of the curve of her back. And so she sits down in front of the mirror and sticks her fingers in the makeup, just to try it. She rubs the colours into her skin — peach on her cheeks and lips, coal-black on her eyes. Her mother doesn't have any of this stuff.
‘Why would I waste my hard-earned on nonsense like that?'
She can picture her mother's face, tough as a boilermaker's elbow.

The sleeping girl stirs and Frances drops the powder guiltily, an incriminating cloud puffing from the compact. She inches down the stairs, but no one is waiting for her. Breakfast plates are piled in the sink.

She unlatches the door and gains her bearings, the full memory of the wild night coming back. The shooting did not seem real, like a scene from a gangster picture. Surely it had been some frightful mistake. She walks up Church Street and then without thinking she is in the cemetery again, as if drawn back somehow. St Stephen's spire crests above her shoulder as she sits in the patchy grass. Her hands knead dirt as she starts to cry. Frances can feel roots from the scraggly bushes spool between her fingers, and a slater meanders over her knuckles. She cries so hard, her whole body seems rubberised, like her jaw can't close and her eyes open at the same time. Sniffling, her face covered in snot, she decides that a whipping is better than a day and a night alone out here. The squid-tree shakes its branches like a carnival skeleton.

When she opens the front door, her mother is standing in the corridor, arms full of a squirming Thomas. ‘Oh my good Lord! And where in God's name have you been?' she demands, bug-eyed, and grabs a good pinch of flesh from Frances' upper arm through her cardigan. ‘Where have you been? Hmm? Answer me!' Thomas starts to grizzle and flail in her arms.

‘Owwww!' Frances twists away, nursing her arm.

‘I am going to beat you sorry, Frances Margaret. Teach you to go off like that. Anything could have happened! I've been up all night.'

Frances stares at a spot of dried milky baby sick on the floorboards.

‘Look at you, you're filthy.'

‘Sorry, Mum,' she mutters.

‘Getting about the neighbourhood like that. And giving Thomas to Ada! What must people think?' her mother frets. ‘Who saw you? Where have you been?' She plucks at her arm again. ‘Hmm? Where have you been?'

‘I slept at the school,' she lies smoothly. ‘Then I just sat near St Stephen's all morning.'

‘The cemetery,' her mother exclaims. ‘That place is a tip. You'd never know what's in there. I won't have you playing in it.'

‘Sorry, Mum,' she repeats dully.

‘I've had a gutful of you. A gutful,' Mrs Reed hisses. ‘If I find out you're fooling around with some lad, Frances, I tell you …'

‘No! It's not like that, Mum, I promise.'

‘What —' Mrs Reed looks at her properly for the first time and turns white with anger. ‘What is that on your face?'

‘What? Oh, nothing.' Frances' hands shoot up, rubbing at her pinkened lips and cheeks.

‘The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids.'

‘No, Mum. I swear to you —' Frances begins but her mother slaps her across the face. The connection is solid. The sound, like a bullwhip, sends her tottering backwards.

‘If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty,' Mrs Reed recites, chin quivering.

Frances presses her palms against the wall and leans her forehead against it for support. She thinks of the toad-mouths and the people sneering at the Negro and the beautiful wound of his woman's lipsticked mouth and feels the rise of something blazing. ‘I can quote the Bible too, Mum,' she says in a voice she does not recognise. ‘Wives submit yourselves unto your own
husbands,
as unto the Lord.'

The words explode forth and she flinches, anticipating the strike. When she opens her eyes she sees her mother has turned her back on her. Mrs Reed stands motionless for a moment or two and then, like a sleepwalker, glides over to a chair and sinks into it.

‘I'm sorry,' Frances says quietly.

Mrs Reed flicks her wrist as though at a fly and looks hard at some speck on the ceiling, her face the queerest shade of grey.

Frances feels winded. ‘Mum?'

‘Go to your room.'

TEN

The Reed girl is gone when Templeton returns from work in the afternoon. Instead he finds Sally sitting alone on the step of Lennox Street, picking her fingernails, with a record blaring from inside.

‘What are you doing?' he asks.

‘Nothing.'

‘Did she talk to you before she left?'

‘Who?' Sally asks, not looking up.

‘That girl,' he says, exasperated. Sally could be so self-involved. ‘Who
saw
.'

‘No,' Sally says sharply, leaning back against the doorframe.

‘Well —'

‘Shhh!' She points in the direction of the music. Fats Waller's muted trumpet crackles under the needle.

Just for a thrill you pulled the sun from the sky. Just for a thrill you put rain in my eye.

‘Did she say anything?' he tries again, but Sally smacks him on the leg.

‘I said shut up! I'm trying to listen.'

He glares at her. ‘Ow! What'd you do that for?'

‘Shh. Go away, Lucky. I don't feel like talking to you right now.'

‘What's wrong with you, then?' he asks, annoyed and confused. ‘I just asked about the girl.'

‘I don't care about her. I don't care about you. Leave me alone.'

‘Outta the way then,' he says, barging past her into the house. The upstairs room is empty, Annie and Dot nowhere to be seen. He comes back down and sees Sally bent over, head on her knees, nodding in time to the music.

I held your heart for just a day
.
But when you left and snatched it away
.
You made my heart stand still
.
Just for a thrill.

The half-drunk brandy is on the dresser. He goes inside to retrieve it and, sitting on the step near her, holds it out. She ignores it.

‘Here. I'm sorry. Have a drink.'

‘Don't want one. My head still hurts from last night.'

‘Well, it'll do you even more good then. Hair of the dog that bit ya. What is that funny thing that Dot says? “He who smokes and drinks doesn't get roundworms”?' He guffaws and punches her arm.

She ignores him, so he helps himself. ‘Don't mind if I do, in that case.'

She watches him take a hearty sip and light a cigarette. The music stops and the rotations caesurae.

‘Give me some then. I'll have a smoke as well. I'm out.' She nudges her empty packet with her shoe.

‘Nah.' He holds the bottle and the cigarettes above his head. ‘Not unless you tell me what you're upset about.'

‘It's Dot and Annie,' she says, creasing her face into a scowl. ‘They're fighting all the time. And Jackie …' She sighs. ‘Well, let's just say I liked it better when it was just the four of us.'

‘I think Dot wants that too. I think she wants to kill him.'

‘She's been going off like a frog in a sock. She'll get herself bloody killed more like. Now give it here.' She kicks him in the shin and puts a palm against his face, taking the packet out of his hand.

‘That's not fair!' Templeton says in mock outrage. ‘I can't hit you back. You're a girl.'

‘Since when has that stopped you?' She lights her cigarette, inhales, and laughs.

‘I don't hit girls.' He looks up at her seriously. ‘That's for bastards like Jackie.' He pauses. ‘And I'm too strong now. I'd hurt you.'

‘Oh yeah? Show us ya muscles.'

‘No.' He frowns, crossing his arms.

‘Go on then. I reckon I could still take you.'

‘Piss off.'

Sally launches at him, trying to roll up his shirtsleeves. In the tussle, her cigarette falls into her lap. She swears. ‘Careful, you tit! Look what you made me do.' She smiles crookedly, brushing ash off.

‘You started it.'

‘Did not! So, you're a man now, are you?'

‘Yes.' He shoves her and takes the bottle back from her side.

‘Been with a girl yet?'

‘Sure.'

‘Who?'

‘You wouldn't know her.'

‘I know everyone. Who? Come on. What's her name?'

‘I forget.' He shrugs.

‘Right.' Sally raises her eyebrows and snorts like a horse. She stands up.

‘Where are you going?'

‘I've got to put another record on, silly.' He follows her inside and closes the door to the wind. ‘What do you want? Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey?'

‘Neither. I've heard both of those a hundred times.'

‘Well, what do you want to do then?'

‘I don't know. We got anything else to drink?'

‘I have gin upstairs.'

‘How'd you get that?' he asks, impressed.

‘Fingered it from some idiot's pocket while he was on top of me,' she says matter-of-factly. ‘I figure that's what you get when you don't have the manners to even take your coat off. Do you want some?'

He nods and she fetches it, returning with cups and her hair loose and free. She pours the gin out and puts on Al Dexter.

‘This one's old, too,' Templeton complains. He drinks and watches as she sways her hips to the music, dancing on tiptoes, with her hands cupped and outstretched as though holding the shoulders of an invisible partner. She's singing along, and gradually her movement changes to a swagger and her voice drops to a husky baritone.
‘Drinkin' beer in a cabaret, and dancin' with a blonde, until one night she shot out the light, bang! That blonde was gone!'

Templeton laughs at her and claps.

‘Come dance with me.'

‘Nah.' He stares into his cup.

‘Go on. It's alright if you don't know how. I can teach you.'

He makes a show of resistance, but she drags him up on his feet and places his palms on her waist, resting hers on the nape of his neck.

‘You have to get closer, stupid!' She steps in so her face is only an inch from his. ‘You can't do it bent over with your arse poking out.'

He feels his cheeks turn uncomfortably hot. He can smell her unwashed hair and the see liquory spittle on her bottom lip where she runs her tongue over it. He focuses on the steps and follows her feet about the floor, stiff with concentration.

‘You dance like a girl,' she says finally, and throws up her hands.

‘I do not!' he replies, indignant, and sits back down on the chair.

‘Blokes are meant to lead. Not the other way round.'

‘I was just about to! I was getting the hang of the steps. You were teaching me!' He is furious.

‘Sure.' She rolls her eyes. ‘
You
can be the girl, if you want.'

‘Alright. For a lark.' Templeton blushes. He minces over to her, pretending to lift a skirt, and high-kicks the air. ‘
Lay that pistol down, babe! Lay that pistol down. Pistol packin' mama, lay that pistol down!
' they sing together, jumping around in a circle. The record stops and they sag against the wall.

‘You're not bad at dancing,' she says after she catches her breath. Sweat mists her pink face.

‘Piss off.' The gin sloshes in his gut. He shoves her, only half-playful.

‘Better than most blokes.'

‘Shut it.'

‘You've never done it with a girl. Have you? Come on. You wouldn't have the first clue. Probably wouldn't even know what to do with it.'

‘Leave off, Sal!' A lump climbs his throat. The fun is getting spoiled.

‘I knew it! I knew it.' She's grinning with satisfaction.

‘Yeah, well, you don't have to go and tell everyone.'

‘Are you kidding? I'm going to tell them that you tried to make up some mystery girl — I'm gonna …' She stops when she registers the look on his face. ‘Aww, Lucky, I'm just messing with you. I won't tell. I swear. Hey now, I'm sorry.'