“Do you feel better now, sweetie?” James asks.
“Yes,” answers Lily.
Trixie curls up between Frances and Lily; James tucks them in and turns out the light.
Back in her room, Mercedes is finishing Jane Eyre again. She was thankful when Frances returned her favourite volume apparently unscathed. Now, with that mixture of satisfaction and regret with which one comes to the end of a beloved book, Mercedes turns the last page only to find Frances’s unmistakeable scrawl on the flyleaf. It is an epilogue, wherein Mr Rochester’s hand, severed and lost in the fire, comes back to life and strangles their infant child.
Mercedes closes the book and merely sighs. She is past weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is abundantly clear that her two sisters are working their way through everything that is of the slightest value to her and ruining it. Mercedes is resigned. For now. Someday she will marry someone wonderful. Perhaps not Valentino. But wonderful nonetheless. She will have her own family and they will be civilized. Frances will be allowed to live with them, but it will be Mercedes’ castle. And her husband’s too, of course. But not yet. Daddy needs her. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee….
“If you were a fish, how come you couldn’t breathe?”
Frances hasn’t touched her milk. It’s on the bedside table wearing a wrinkled skin.
“I was drownding.”
“Fish don’t drown.”
“You were in it, Frances.”
“In the creek?”
“You were little.”
“… I know.”
“What were you holding?”
“Nothing…. I don’t remember. Go to sleep. It was just a dream.”
Lily’s hand glows red around the Bakelite Virgin — conductive scarlet threads beneath the line of life, of fate, heart and mind, her palm bleeding light.
Later that night Frances is awakened by a weight on her chest. She opens her eyes and looks into Trixie’s intent face staring into her own at a range of about an inch. Trixie’s black paw hovers white-tipped and frozen in mid air. A wizened slimy strand of something like the throw-uppy bit of a raw egg dangles from the corner of Trixie’s mouth. Frances blinks and Trixie turns back to the glass of tepid milk on the bedside table, ignoring Frances, wiping her milky face, dipping and drinking.
The first time Ambrose comes to Lily he is naked except for the decomposing bits of Frances’s old white nightgown in which he was laid to rest. The shreds cling to him here and there, fluttering slightly because there’s a bit of a breeze when Ambrose arrives. Safe and soundless in his garden womb, he has not been dreaming because he has not been asleep. He has been growing. His body is streaked with earth and coal but otherwise he is pale as a root. Although he is exactly the same age as Lily, he is full-grown like a man whereas she is still a little girl. This is because their environments have been so different. What colour is his wispy angel hair beneath the dirt and soot? Reddish. He is standing at the foot of the bed. Frances is asleep. Lily is somewhere in between. She must be; to see such a thing, and not scream? To see such a thing and know it can’t quite be a dream, because there is the foot of my bed; there is my sister sleeping; there is my rag doll; and here is Trixie curled between us with one eye open. And there is Ambrose. Although Lily does not yet recognize her twin.
“Who are you?”
Has she spoken this? She must have because the man who is looking at her from the foot of her bed opens his lips to reply. And as he does so, water gushes from his mouth and splashes to the floor. Now she screams. Now she is “awake” — back in a state which is a definite place on a map. Here is the place called Awake. On the other side of this line is the country of Asleep. And you see this shaded area in between? Don’t linger there. It is No Man’s Land.
Lily is safely back in Awake and expects to see Frances’s exasperated face looming over hers. She expects the overhead light to snap on for the second time and for Daddy to pick her up again and wonder how she could possibly have two nightmares in one night. But there is no light, and Frances is still asleep. Lily did not scream after all. Although the sound of her cry was enough to wake her up, it was apparently no more than a whimper, because the house around her is still breathing regularly, expanding and contracting, dreaming. And see? There is no man at the foot of the bed. There’s no water on the floor as there would be had he truly been here.
Lily doesn’t tell anyone about this dream because it is too scary to tell. Even though the dream of Frances in the creek with the dark bundle and the bright blue fish caused Lily to cry out and wake the whole house, the dream of the Water-Man from which she awoke with a whimper was much more frightening.
A Child’s Prayer for a Happy Death
O Lord, my God, even now I accept from Thy hand the kind of death it may please Thee to send me with all its sorrows, pains and anguish.
O Jesus, I offer Thee from this moment my agony and all the pains of my death….
O Mary, conceived without stain, pray for us who fly to thee! Refuge of sinners, Mother of those who are in their agony, leave us not in the hour of our death, but obtain for us perfect sorrow, sincere contrition, remission of our sins, a worthy reception of the most holy Viaticum and the strengthening of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Amen.
BY SISTER MARY AMBROSE, O. P.
“Prayer for a Happy Death” is from a children’s paperback called My Gift to Jesus. The prayer is the last one in the book — which makes sense. The book was a gift from Mercedes to Lily for no reason. About twenty minutes ago Mercedes came in and said, “Here, Lily, here’s a little gift for you for no reason in particular.” Then Mercedes went to Helen Frye’s house.
It’s a hot sunny day and Frances and Lily should be down at the shore — Lily in the old English pram and Frances pushing it on the run, careering over rocks and pebbles, splashing through foam, both of them screaming with terror and joy. But instead they are dressed up in togas and turbans from the linen closet, confined to the house because Daddy says it’s not safe to play outside. In fact he has driven Mercedes over to Helen Frye’s house on Ninth Street and he plans to drive her home again too. The miners’ strike has dragged into June and turned ugly.
Special company constables have been on the rampage: drunken goons on horseback wielding sticks and guns, knocking people down in the street — women, children, it makes no difference. The bosses are now a monopoly called the British Empire Coal and Steel Company, “Besco”. This time, not only have they cut off credit at the company stores, they’ve cut off New Waterford’s water and electricity. For the past week, sweating bucket brigades have stretched from the few wells to houses throughout town. At New Waterford General Hospital children lie parched amidst a new outbreak of all the old diseases with the pretty names.
People can’t haul buckets indefinitely with so little to eat to keep up their strength. And the resumption of the almost daily sight of small white coffins has convinced many that their last drop of strength might be better spent hammering the guilty parties.
Once James dropped Mercedes off, he drove to Sydney to buy bottled water and kerosene with strict instructions to the girls to “keep inside”. Apart from missing out on the sunny days, the girls haven’t minded so much. It’s been fun using only lamps and candles again, “like in the olden days”. Frances would venture out on her own, but Lily is so worried by this prospect that she has already sworn to tattle if Frances risks it.
Having tired of playing “Arabian Nights,” Lily and Frances are now poring over My Gift To Jesus. Like her sisters before her, Lily is already a good reader. But she hasn’t had a chance to read the little book herself because Frances grabbed it, turned to the last page — as is her habit with all books — and read it aloud. Lily has understood everything in the happy-death prayer except for one word.
“What’s a viaticum?”
“It’s a holy word for clean underwear.”
“Can I see the book now Frances?”
Lily reache
s, but Frances pulls the book away and explains, “When you’re about to die and the priest comes and gives you extreme unction, he takes a set of clean underwear out of your drawer and blesses them. Then he puts them on you. Or if it’s an emergency and there’s no priest, anyone can bless the clean underwear. That’s where Fruit of the Loom underwear comes from, it comes from the Hail Mary when you say, “Blessed is the fruit of thy loom, Jesus.”
“Did I get clean underwear that time when I almost died when I was a baby?”
“Yup.”
“Blessed by Father Nicholson?”
“No, by me — Lily, look!” Frances has just noticed the name on the title page of My Gift to Jesus. “This book was written by a nun called Sister Mary Ambrose!”
Lily gasps obligingly, “Does she know our brother?”
“It could be a message to us from Ambrose himself.”
Lily gazes in wonder at the title page while Frances deduces.
“Ambrose is working through that nun, and he also made Mercedes buy this book and give it to you so you’d know he’s watching over you.”
They look at one another, united by the discovery.
“Does he always see me?” asks Lily.
“Yes.”
“When I’m bad?”
“Yup.”
“Is he going to tell God?”
“God knows everything anyhow.”
“Oh yes.” This had momentarily slipped Lily’s mind.
“Ambrose sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.”
“Like Santa Claus.”
“That’s blasphemous, Lily.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t tell me, tell God.”
Lily folds her hands, squeezes her eyes shut and whispers, “Sorry dear God,” following it up with a rapid sign of the cross. Making the sign of the cross after a prayer is as essential as putting a stamp on a letter. Otherwise your message isn’t going anywhere but prayer limbo.
“Frances, you know what? God is really Santa Claus and Santa Claus is really God.”
“No he isn’t, Lily.”
“But God gives us gifts and knows everything and so does Santa.”
“Yeah, but Santa Claus doesn’t give people leprosy and earthquakes, stupid, he doesn’t give them the Titanic sinking or people getting their legs chopped off!”
Frances turns her attention back to the book and ignores Lily.
“Frances?”
No response.
“Frances?”
“What!” Slapping down the prayer-book.
“Is Ambrose going to bring me presents?”
“A lump of coal if you’re bad.”
“But what if I’m good?”
“Ambrose doesn’t really care if you’re bad or good, Lily.”
“Oh.”
“He just cares if you’re okay. If you’re happy.”
“How come?”
“Because he loves you.”
Frances looks straight at Lily. Lily puts on her most seriously attentive face.
“Don’t you know who Ambrose is, Lily?”
“He’s our wee baby brother who died.”
“He’s your guardian angel.”
Lily’s forehead puckers. “Everyone has a guardian angel, don’t they, Frances?”
“Yes, but most people don’t know who theirs is. You’re lucky. You know who yours is. And that he’s your very own brother, and he’s watching over you. And he loves you. He really loves you, Lily.”
“Don’t cry, Frances.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Yes you are.”
Frances wipes her eyes. Her throat constricts. Yes, she’s crying. Why? She didn’t feel sad until she started crying.
“Frances? … Frances, let’s go up and look in the hope chest.”
But Frances is crying.
“Frances, do you want to give Raggedy-Lily-of-the-Valley a bath? You can. I’ll let you give her a bath if you want…. Do you want to wear my brace? You can, I’ll let you.”
Frances has dropped My Gift to Jesus. Lily picks it up and reads silently, poring over the bright pictures. When Frances feels better, Lily will ask her what INRI means. It’s the thing written on the scroll that’s always nailed at the top of Jesus’s cross. INRI.
I’ll ask Frances, thinks Lily. Frances will know.
Late that afternoon, Mercedes comes home crying too, but for a different reason. In the car she told Daddy it was because she and Helen had been talking about all the poor children in the hospital. James simply nodded. Mrs Luvovitz has informed him that girls of this age are likely to become emotional. The last thing one ought to do is tell them not to cry. He watched Mercedes get safely into the house, then he turned the car around and headed back downtown, having forgotten to drop by the post office.
Mercedes tiptoes up to her room and closes the door quietly. She doesn’t want to have to see anyone or explain anything. She lies face down and weeps into her pillow. Today a miner called Mr Davis was shot dead. There was a riot at the power plant out on Waterford Lake. The miners went there to flush out the company police and turn the water and lights back on for the town. The miners had sticks and stones and cinders. The police had guns and horses, but the miners won. Except that some got shot and poor Mr Davis who wasn’t even in the fight was killed. He was on his way home with milk for his youngest, they found a baby bottle in his pocket. Now there are seven more fatherless children in New Waterford.
But that’s not why Mercedes is crying. This afternoon, Helen Frye’s daddy came home with a bullet in his wrist. While Mrs Frye took the bullet out, Mr Frye took a long drink from a medicine bottle and told Mercedes that he was “most regretful, because I know you’re a nice girl, Mercedes. But I only have the one child, see, and I can’t have her associating with the Pipers.”
Mercedes’ eyes filled up and her face felt scalded. She felt mortified, as though someone had caught her in a shameful private act, but she could not think of anything she had done wrong. Mrs Frye just continued digging in Mr Frye’s wrist, while he turned white but didn’t flinch and spoke in a kindly voice, words that cut Mercedes apart. He said Mercedes’ father was a bad man. A bootlegger. A scab. An enemy of this town. Then Helen was told to go upstairs and Mercedes was asked to wait in the front room until her father came to pick her up in his automobile.
Now Mercedes curls onto her side and catches sight of Valentino perched in his frame on her dresser next to the china figurine of The Old-Fashioned Girl. Valentino invites fresh tears but they are tears of consolation. At least I still have you, my love. And The Old-Fashioned Girl reminds her how nice her daddy is. He is, he is a kind good man. And if — if — Daddy is forced to do certain things, it is only because he loves us so much and we don’t have a mother to look after us. Fresh tears. Mercedes can hear Mumma singing, and this is too much. She covers her head with the pillow and forces the sound from her mind. She banishes the memory and focuses on what is important: my family. Helping my father, who is a good good man; who looks after his crippled daughter all day long. If Mr Frye and everyone else could see Daddy with Lily, then they’d know.
Mercedes has grown calmer and her eyes drift now to the picture of Bernadette in the grotto with Our Lady of Lourdes. Bernadette has been beatified. Someday she will be a saint. They dug her up and she was sweet as a rose — that’s the odour of sanctity. She was a little crippled girl too. Maybe people hated her father as well.
Mercedes has cried herself almost to sleep, but before she tumbles under, a plan forms in her mind. Tomorrow she will take Lily for a walk. They will go together to the hospital — not to the wards, she doesn’t want Lily to catch anything, just to the reception area. And there Mercedes will have Lily give all their old story-books and clothes, as well as several pies that Mercedes will bake, to the poor children suffering upstairs. Then people will see…. What a good man….
It took James an unusually long time to drive to the post office because
several streets were impassable. Rocks bounced off the hood of his automobile and a horde of young men descended and began to rock it to and fro. He gunned through them but found Plummer Avenue likewise swarming. A bunch of dismounted company police were being kicked, prodded and paraded towards the jailhouse. Women ran behind the prisoners, brandishing hat-pins and using them, too. There would be trouble tonight.
James drove to the Shore Road, parked and made it on foot through side-streets back to the post office. He could have put off the errand till tomorrow, but he considered that the post office and half the buildings on the main street might be burned to the ground by then, and he was expecting money.
He enters the post office, collects his cash and is about to leave when, “There’s a letter here too, Mr Piper.”
James reaches to take the envelope from the clerk. Mail is fairly rare. Packages and pictures sometimes come for Frances — James vets them before handing them over, he has confiscated more than one bottle of “Coca Wine: for brain fag and listlessness.” At the moment, the post office is buzzing with the day’s events and people are glued to the windows watching the mob go by, but it all fades to silent stillness around James as he catches sight of the name on the front of the envelope: Miss Kathleen Piper.
He loses consciousness for a split second. Like a blink inside the head, accompanied by the flash of a camera. Then the sound of excitement floods back in around him and for an instant he thinks the uproar is all about the fact that someone has sent a letter to Kathleen Piper. Someone has written to my daughter, not knowing — or perhaps knowing — she is dead.
Just the sight of her name. In letters scripted by a living hand, so unlike the letters carved in stone at the edge of town — this is why the light in his head flashed and faded on the fleeting notion that she was alive after all. That must be what insanity is like, thinks James. Except that the flash lasts for ever. Maybe that would be good.