Gypsy (22 page)

Amy was second-generation American, of Dutch descent, but she’d left the family farm in Connecticut because her father was angry with her for walking out with someone he disapproved of. She had told Beth ruefully that the man in question wouldn’t run away with her, and she’d arrived in New York alone. But she appeared to have done all right for herself: she and her friend Kate were always going out, they had nice clothes and they were happy and friendly. Beth often felt a little envious of them as they seemed to have far more fun than she did.

‘Tea! Just what I could do with, it’s like a crazy house down there,’ Amy said as she came into Beth’s room. She looked like a farm girl, tall, with broad shoulders and a wide, flat-featured face and flaxen hair. ‘They’ve got even more of their family in now! I ask you, how can six people share one small room? As for getting into the kitchen…!’

Amy was referring to the Irish family who had a room in her apartment. There had been two adults and two children from the start, but with another two moving in it had become impossibly crowded. As Amy already shared her small room with Kate, and there were five people in the third room in the apartment, Beth could guess how difficult it was to get into the shared kitchen.

Amy flopped down on Sam’s bed and while Beth poured their tea, she ranted for a while about her neighbours. She suspected one of the Irish family was pouring slops down the sink. She said they took her food, and there was always a child crying. ‘I’ve got to find somewhere else to live,’ she finished up. ‘It’s unbearable.’

Beth felt a great deal of sympathy for Amy and Kate, and she was very aware how lucky she and Sam were to have to share only with the Rossinis, who were middle-aged, quiet, clean and good-natured.

But Amy was never one to dwell on her own problems for more than a minute or two. By the time she’d drunk her tea she was making Beth laugh with a story about the grocer round the corner who had been caught with another woman by his wife.

‘Where’s Sam?’ she asked a little later. ‘I hardly ever see him these days. Has he got a lady friend?’

‘I expect so,’ Beth said. ‘But he hasn’t told me anything about her.’

‘She’s a lucky lady, whoever she is,’ Amy said with a sparkle in her eye. ‘He’s real handsome.’

‘If he’s not careful he’ll find himself having to get married,’ Beth retorted.

‘I’m sure he knows how to prevent that.’

‘Can you prevent it?’ Beth asked innocently.

‘Of course, you silly goose.’ Amy laughed.

‘How?’

‘Some men, the more thoughtful ones, withdraw in time,’ Amy said airily. ‘But I wouldn’t trust any of them to do that. They can use a sheath too, but they can split and men don’t like them. But most women I know use a douche afterwards. Or there’s a little sponge that you pop in before you get going.’

Beth had got to like Amy in the first place because she was so direct and open, but she blushed with embarrassment at these intimate revelations. ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked.

When Amy’s expression tightened, and she didn’t come back with one of her usual quips, Beth felt she had to apologize. ‘I didn’t mean to be nosy, I won’t ask you anything more.’

Amy looked back at her and sighed. ‘I wish I’d had someone when I was your age to ask such things. But I didn’t, so I got pregnant.’

‘What did you do?’ Beth asked in a scandalized whisper.

‘An old woman in the know got rid of it for me,’ Amy admitted. ‘It was soon after I got to New York. It was terrible. I thought I was going to die.’

‘That surely must have put you off men?’

The older girl chuckled. ‘Sure, for a while, but then I met another charmer. Only before I let him get anywhere near me, I got some advice from one of the girls at Rosie’s.’

Beth’s eyes widened with shock because she’d overheard some men in Heaney’s talking about Rosie’s, and it was a brothel.

‘Don’t look like that,’ Amy reproved her. ‘Not many of us have got a talent like your fiddle-playing to keep us. For some of us it’s the only way we can keep a roof over our head. I soon wised up to that and went to work at Rosie’s.’

Beth could hardly believe what Amy had just admitted. She had never asked her friend what she did for a living; she just assumed she worked in a store for her clothes were smart.

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’ Amy threw back her head and laughed at Beth’s shocked expression. ‘I thought someone must’ve told you by now!’

‘I don’t really talk to anyone but you,’ Beth said feebly. ‘I would never have guessed. I mean, you’re so nice.’

‘Whores can be as nice as anyone else,’ Amy said with a touch of acid in her voice. ‘We don’t advertise what we do by walking around half naked with our faces painted either.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Beth said quickly. ‘I meant I thought you worked in a store or a restaurant.’

Amy rolled her eyes skywards. ‘Honey, I thought working at Heaney’s would’ve opened your eyes! Few of us girls set out to be whores, but when you’re hungry and you ain’t got no place to call home, it ain’t so bad to take a few dollars for givin’ a man a bit of lovin’. Why would I be a maid, or work in a store for five or six dollars a week when I can make that much with one trick?’

Beth was floored. It did of course make sense of why Amy seemed to know so much about men, and indeed why she was often home during the day. She was trying to find something to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing or disapproving when Sam arrived home, and Amy immediately got to her feet and said she had to go.

Not wishing to let Amy think she was too prim and proper to deal with such a revelation, Beth went to the door with her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You just took me aback.’

Amy put her hand on Beth’s shoulder. ‘I guess you’re still a greenhorn. You see, I thought you knew and I was so glad that you liked me despite it, but I guess that’s the end of us being pals?’

‘Not at all,’ Beth said, and meant it. ‘I like you even more for being honest with me. I just feel a bit foolish that I hadn’t guessed before. But you’ve given me an awful lot to think about.’

‘Quit thinking and have a lot more fun,’ Amy said with a wide grin. ‘Your brother’s got the right idea.’

She was gone before Beth could ask her exactly what she meant by that.

Some little time later Beth was making tea and a sandwich for Sam before he left for work when she heard a strange swishing noise coming from their room. She hadn’t questioned where he’d been all night, because he’d been washing and shaving, and anyway her mind had been on the things Amy had told her.

But as their room door was partly open she put her head round it to see what the noise was. To her surprise he was sitting at the little table by the window, playing with a deck of cards. As she watched, he shuffled them, then did what looked like elaborate tricks with them, swishing them into a row upon the table, each one partially overlapping the next.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Just practising,’ he said without turning his head, and flicking the row of cards so that they all turned over together.

‘Is it a trick?’

‘No. Just stuff a dealer does. I’m not fast or slick enough yet. But I’m nearly there.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’ she said, coming right into the room.

He put the cards down and looked up at her. ‘Because I want to be a dealer. I want to learn everything about gambling, poker, roulette, faro and all the rest.’

Beth felt her little world had just turned upside down. First she found her only girlfriend was a whore, and now Sam was talking about becoming a gambler.

She could accept that Theo gambled — for gentlemen it was part of their way of life. But Sam had been brought up warned about the evils of it. Their father wouldn’t even put a shilling on a horse, for he always said it was a slippery slope.

‘I want to work in gambling houses, not to throw my money away in them,’ he said, giving her a sharp look as if daring her to disapprove. ‘There’s good money to be made in them; the house never loses.’

‘Has Heaney got anything to do with this?’ she asked.

‘No more than seeing how much he makes from the games at his place,’ Sam retorted. ‘That’s why I have to stay late — he gets me to serve drinks to the players. I’ve been watching them closely.’

Beth slumped down on to his bed. She felt panicked for suddenly everything seemed threatening.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Oh, for God’s sake don’t go all holy on me, Beth! Gambling is big over here, people don’t think badly about it, so why should we?’

‘Don’t you ever get afraid about losing the values we used to have?’ she asked.

‘That we had to remember our place? To kowtow to the gentry? To be poor but honest? You tell me, Beth, why shouldn’t we be rich? Is it written in the stars that because our father was a shoemaker, we shouldn’t aspire to more than that?’

‘I suppose I’m scared we’re getting corrupted,’ she said weakly. ‘You know very well, even if you won’t admit it, that we’re bound to Heaney, and he isn’t a good man.’

‘I know he’s using us, but we can use him too, Beth. You’re gaining experience and practice while you play for him, and I’m learning all about gambling. When the time is right we take all that experience and move on, out of New York and on to Philadelphia, Chicago or even San Francisco. We came here for adventure and to make our fortune, and that’s just what we’re going to do.’

‘You won’t just go off one day without me, will you?’ she asked fearfully.

Sam moved over to sit beside her on the bed and hugged her tightly. ‘Beth, you are the only person in this whole world I really care about. You’re not just my sister, you’re my dearest friend. I will never go anywhere without you.’

Sam had never been one for flowery speeches, and knowing he meant what he said made Beth burst into tears.

‘Don’t cry, sis,’ he whispered, stroking her hair. ‘We’ve done just fine so far, and we can do better still.’

Chapter Fifteen

After Sam had told her of his aspirations to run a gambling house, Beth sat by the window looking at the view of the rooftops and the grey sky above them, thinking of all the people she knew back in Liverpool. She wondered what they would make of how she and Sam were living.

She had written to the Langworthys every two weeks since they arrived here, and she knew that she was guilty of adding a kind of glossy veneer to everything. She used the word ‘hotel’ rather than ‘rooming house’, she described Central Park and Fifth Avenue rather than the Lower East Side. While she hadn’t exactly told lies, she had created an image of Heaney’s as a select establishment and implied that Ira’s shop just sold clothes, not second-hand ones. She’d jubilantly announced their move into the apartment, but failed to add they had only one shared room.

Her justification for her omissions had been that everyone back home would be distressed if she described the poverty she lived amidst, and be worried for her safety if she was a little more frank about Heaney’s. But now she was seeing all those people she cared about in her mind’s eye, she felt they would be even more alarmed by the changes in her and Sam than by how they lived.

They certainly wouldn’t approve of her flaunting herself in scarlet satin, or that she had a few tots of rum most nights she played at Heaney’s. They’d be appalled that she’d made friends with a whore, and that the man she wanted was a womanizer.

As for Sam, they’d be shocked that he stayed out all night, and planned to have his own gambling house. Mrs Bruce would be opening her bottle of smelling salts!

It made Beth sad to think she was leading the kind of life her old friends would never approve of, yet she had no intention of returning to being an overworked but virtuous laundry maid. Every time she got up on that stage she felt like a bird being set free from a cage, and she loved being admired and applauded.

The only part of her old life she really missed was Molly.

That was a dull ache inside her which never went away. Yet at the same time she was very glad her little sister was safe in England for this was no place for a small child.

Beth turned away from the window and looked objectively at the room. It struck her that the decorative touches she’d added to it represented how things really were. The blue counterpane which acted as a curtain between hers and Sam’s beds was tied back for now with a red velvet ribbon to give it a semblance of elegance; the theatre posters hid the stained walls; the brightly coloured dresses she wore in Heaney’s were a decoration too, and every week she bought a bunch of flowers to make the room seem more homely.

But these were like the veneer in her letters home. They only masked the fact that the place was grim.

It struck her that Sam, with his sensitive nature, had probably been aware of this from the day they moved in. Maybe that was why he was so dead set on becoming rich, so that they wouldn’t have to pretend any more or be ashamed of anything.

Beth didn’t hanker after very much more than she had now, just a quieter place, a room of her own and a real bath. But then, she did want to go home one day to see Molly, and she certainly didn’t want to go back like a poor relation. So maybe she ought to start thinking ahead and planning, like Sam was doing.

That night she played better than she’d ever played before. Her whole body seemed to be overtaken by the music, and she danced around the stage, whipping up the crowd to a near frenzy. The applause was deafening, no one wanted her to stop, and Pat Heaney had to get up on the stage to bring it to an end.

‘Ain’t our little gypsy swell?’ he shouted out to the crowd. ‘She’ll be back on Monday night for you again, so make sure you don’t miss her.’

He came out into the back room to bring her money as she was mopping the sweat from her face and neck. ‘You were great tonight,’ he said with far more warmth than he usually displayed. ‘You’ve come on a treat since you started here.’

He held out her money and she saw that it was around seven dollars. But she had seen dozens of dollar bills fluttering into the hat.

‘I think then that’s it’s time you began paying me better,’ she said impulsively. ‘Or at least give me the hat to count up the money myself.’