Mrs. Engels (23 page)

“I'm taken in a wrong sense by everybody,” she says. “That's why I'm stuck here with nobody calling.”

She doesn't set out to be a whine. I'm sure she comes down on herself for it afterwards and vows to change and be different. But it's a power stronger than her. For there's a part of her that hasn't matured, a part yet too wet to understand that, as helpmeet to a man, a woman must be ready to cease to be the first. She must be thankful for his fondness, but never count on it as her sole right and title.

The average man wouldn't stand for her, but our Frederick endures her by digging out the truth and by making her share in it. “If you are lonely, Mary, couldn't you call on the girls from the mill? Your old friends?” He also has an appetite for indulgence that I've scarce seen in others, though if you ask me, he indulges her
too
with his pets and his coddles, for in the end it's her who exhausts first and has to be put to bed. If it's one of their nights, he does the honors, but ten times of the long dozen it's left to me. Once I've given her the Godfrey's and sent her off, I go back down and finish with the house, and if he's staying a bit, I bring him a drink.

“You are too kind,” he says to me. “How did we ever manage without you?”

“I'm sure you managed grand.” I take the rug from the couch and put it over his legs. He hams a kiss of gratitude on my hand, and I can't keep from a smile.

“Mary could learn from you,” he says.

“Oh?” I says, turning away to tend the fire.

“She would only have to watch you for a day to learn how the true proletarian copes. She who has not lost the spirit which is her class.”

I hang the poker and the blower, pull the elbow-chair over to sit next to him. “Mary watches me plenty, Frederick. I can swear you that. But she'll only ever learn for herself and in her own time. She'll not have anything pushed on her.”

He looks into the new flames reaching high. “There is a truth,” he says.

I sip my drink and he does the same, and you'd have to be stone not to notice the charge that goes between us.

“Was it difficult for you, Lizzie, with this Irishman?”

“Arrah, it was and it wasn't. The way I look at it, you can't change the bodies that walk the world, but only help them. And if they end up not wanting your help, well then at least you know. And knowing, you can decide things for yourself.”

He laughs a good sort of laugh. “You are a strong woman, Lizzie.”

“No stronger than anybody would be in my place.”

I tip us another short and throw on the last bit of log. He keeps me up long after both are gone, trying to convince me of some argument or other.

“You know, Lizzie,” he says when final he rises to leave, “I look forward to our little chats.”

“I do so myself,” I says.

I guide him over to the door, for he's gone and drunk himself into a stagger.

“Easy now,” I says, keeping hold of his arm while he gets his coat on.

There's a moment, then, when it's like he's pulling me towards him. But I don't know. In the late hours things can look different to what they are.

Soon after, there's a visit from Lydia. She knocks on the door but won't come in.

“Can't you step in a minute, for Jesus sake?”

She shakes her head and plants her feet.

“Arrah, Lydia. Frederick's gone and Mary's in bed. No one's going to bite you.”

“I'll bide here for you.”

I sigh out a holy curse. “Right then,” I says. “Hold on.”

I wrap myself up and, before leaving, poke the fire up so it'll be warm when I get back.

We head to the nearest pub. She lets me pay. Doesn't put a hand near her pocket.

“We miss you in the place,” she says.

“I miss you too.”

“You do in your hat, you've landed the life.”

“I'll have to find a situation of my own soon. I can't live off him forever.”

“A situation of your own? Lizzie, my love, Manchester has already talked all it can talk about you. Its mind is set and won't be changed. You might as well ride the hog as long as it lasts. You've naught to lose now.”

I look at the heads lined along the counter, pretending not to listen. “Mind your own effin' businesses,” I call out to them, and take our drinks to a table where we'll not be wigged.

“How's Jamie?” I says.

“Well, he's the reason I've called on you. We're going to be wed.”

My heart sinks to my stomach. “Ah, Lydia, that's great news. When'll it be?”

“In the summer. St. Mary's and then back to the house.”

“Ah lovely.”

“Will you come, Lizzie?”

“I'd not miss it.”

“You're certain now?”

“Of course.”

“I'm only saying because Moss will be there. Him and Jamie go back.”

“Don't worry about that. I've no grievings with O'Malley.”

“That's good, Lizzie. I'm glad.”

We hug and clink glasses, and when we're over with that, I get another round.

“Will I tell Mary as well?” I says when I'm back.

“Nay,” she says. “Don't.”

“She'll find out, Lydia. It'll hurt her not be asked.”

“I can't, Lizzie. I'm sorry.”

On the walk back, before parting ways, she says, “How is she, anyhows?”

“Mary?”

“Aye.”

“The same, only worse. She has ideas of a babby.”

“Heaven save us, that's all she needs.”

“Don't worry, it won't happen. I don't think she can, if you catch my meaning.”

“Well, thank God for His cruel mercies.”

It takes me weeks to warm up the courage to tell Mary about Lydia and Jamie. Then when I do, it happens easy as morning waters.

“Mary, I've something to tell you.”

She's scouring the coppers and humming a sunny-sounding air, and she's been like this for a number of days now, up at the crack and cleaning and cooking and shopping and caring after Frederick, and I don't know if it means she's turned the corner on the bad or if she's gone all the distance into it.

“Mary, can you hear me?”

She stops her humming and beams over at me. “I can hear you grand, Lizzie, what is it?”

“It's Lydia.”

“What about her?”

“She and Jamie—”

“Are going to be married?”

The rag falls from my hands and into the bucket.

“Is that what you've been wanting to tell me all this time? Tip-toeing round me and looking for your moment?”

I feel ashamed and hide my face.

She lets me squirm on my stool for a long minute before bursting into wild laughter. “My darling Lizzie! What on earth were you afraid of? This news calls for a celebration!”

She throws her work down and hares out of the scullery. I follow her and, in the parlor, find her uncorking a bottle of Frederick's good stuff and pouring from it into two tall glasses.

“To love,” she says, raising up.

“To love,” I says, gulping down in one.

When the bottle is polished, she runs up to her room and spends the rest of the day sifting through her clothes, and sewing and stitching.

“We're going out,” she says when she appears some hours later, dressed to the neck.

“Out?”

“To celebrate.”

“Mary, are you all right?”

“Grand, only I'm sick of the sight of these four walls. It's time we got off our bunches and saw a bit of the world.”

“We?”

She throws one of her old gowns at me. “Here, wear this.”

“I will not. Your size doesn't even fit me.”

“I've taken out the waist. The length ought be fine.”

So stunned am I, so caught, that I don't resist when she pushes me into my room and starts pulling at my laces.

“Slow down, Mary.”

“We'll be late.”

“Where is it you think we're going?”

“To Trafford Park.”

“You're joking, aren't you?”

“I happen to know they're showing some famous pictures there tonight.”

“And what would
you
be wanting with famous pictures?” No sooner is the question out than I've answered it myself. “Did he tell you that's where he's going?”

“He said he wouldn't be home for dinner, so I've put two and two together.”

“Nay, Mary, what he
actual
said was he'd be dining at the Club.”

“Club, my arse. It's to Trafford Park he's going. Anyone who's anyone, that's where they'll be.”

The roads to Trafford are so choked, the cab has to let us out on a distant bend. We hold up our hems and walk it.

Says Mary: “What did I tell you?”

The hall is new and has glass walls that don't topple only by a high miracle. There's a queue at the door to get in. Mary walks up to the top and declares herself the wife of Mr. Frederick Engels, mill owner.

“Mr. who?” says the livery man, but Mary scorches him such a look that he lets us in anyhows.

Inside is baking with the crowds and the lamps lit high. Some of the women have come without their crinolines and are walking with their dresses straight and dragging.

“Is that for fashion or to save space?” I whisper to Mary, but she pretends not to hear. She's on her tippies and peering out over the heads for Frederick.

A spot of sand on an effin' beach.

Determined still, she takes my hand and leads me round. What pictures I can see through the gaps are natural and blessed as to their kind; the frames huge and gold.

“We're going in circles,” I says when we pass for the fourth time the archangel with his mickey swinging.

“All right, cease your moaning,” she says, and asks a man for the direction to the refreshment room.

“Just over there,” he says, pointing to the throng to the left of the fountain.

“Nay, not that one,” says Mary. “The first-class place.”

He frowns. “Ah well, that's outside in the tent, madam, but—”

We push out.

“What has the rich bodies so fascinated about tents?” I says.

Mary shuffles forward and puts on not to be with me.

It turns out recommendations are needed to get in. The man at the entrance is making
no exceptions
. After some wheedling, however, he allows Mary five minutes to find her husband.

“But heed me, madam,” he says, “if you do not come out after that time I will go and look for you myself.”

I'm glad to stay outside. The air is a blast of goodness after the heat and the rot. I find a dark place and watch the bodies going in and out. When the tent flaps are pulled back, I get glimpses of the larry. Frederick's there. She's right about that at least. I light on him dancing with a body that isn't Mary's.

Now: dancing with Mary.

Now: pulling her aside by the elbow.

Now: I can't see either of them anymore.

Mary comes out well after the time granted her. “Right,” she says, grinning huge and happy, “ready for home?”

Back at the house she demands a cold bath and insists on sitting in it for longer than can be healthful. I'm still there trying to coax her out of it with a warm towel when Frederick comes in. He opens the door to the room and stands leaning on the frame. He's dead silent except for the smell of spirit and cigars roaring across at us.

Mary takes the sides of the bath and pulls herself to a stand. I rush to cover her, but she swipes the towel away, and now, like a drunk waking from a stupor, I see for the first time what the whole of Manchester can't have missed: a hump where her belly has swelled. I clasp my mouth and step back, for though she's received the beginnings of many, it's a shock to see her gone large.

Oh, Mary Burns, what species of mother will you be?

I don't think I've ever seen Frederick with a look on his face so dirty and black. I watch him for as long as he stays there, unable to speak except to wipe his mouth and glower. I watch him and what I see is a man who understands, as I do, that it's all very well to be sincere and to hate falseness, but we also have to get on in the busy world.

Says Mary when he's had his angry moment and is gone: “It'll all be fine once the babby is born. He'll come round to sense then.”

Her new happiness, I live it like a purgatory. When at night I sit with my drink in the kitchen gone cold and listen to her snoring above me, it feels like we're souls waiting to be damned. For no matter which way this goes—a babby lost or a babby born—one thing is for certain, we're bound for a bad place.

Suffer, Lizzie, and be still.

June

XXI. Church

The Commune in Paris has fallen. Tens of thousands have been killed. And we—we!—have become famous on the back of it. Notorious, overnight. Now when people pass the house, they peer in and try to see through the blinds. I can't go two yards without someone making a comment on me. Or get onto a bus without a mole fluttering at me over his paper. The milkmaid won't call. The butcher cuts my orders from the bad end. And the baker, he near throws my bread across the counter. Men watch us: two of them, at the bottom of the Hill, with notebooks, taking down the comings and goings. Unsigned letters arrive, threatening our lives. Yesterday a brick come through the parlor window. “Foreigners, go home!” said the bit of paper wrapped around it. We're famous, aye, and it's a terrible aggravation for the nerves, and it's all Karl's fault; who else? During the whole life of the Commune he stayed silent,
observing
. And now, as soon as the thing collapses, he comes out with his article, his mighty effin' address about the Commune being a foretoken of the coming World Revolution, and it goes public, spreads like a wood fire, and everyone gets to thinking
he
is the mind behind the doings. The puppet master pulling the strings. The leader of an international Communist conspiracy.

“Conspiracy?” I says.

“That is what they believe,” says Frederick.

“And what, may I ask, are you doing to change their minds?”

“We have made it very clear, Lizzie, that our Association is a public one, that we have no interest in secret plots and conspiracies. The fullest reports of our proceedings are published for all who care to read them. Anyone may buy our rules for a penny.”

“Don't give me that, Frederick. You're enjoying it. The attention. The rumors. And I don't like it. It's dishonest. What did we have to do with the Commune? You said yourself, there was naught we could do from here to help the cause in Paris. As for Karl, the state he was in, he was unable to mastermind the evacuation of his own bowels. We didn't do anything to bring the Commune about, and he can't go around claiming we did. It's not right.”

“That is not what Karl is doing, Lizzie. His address does not claim anything for us. You speak from a place of ignorance. And, for your information, although contact with Paris was difficult, we took advantage of every opportunity to help the Commune leaders in tactical and strategic matters. And if anybody should ask, this is what you must tell them. You must keep your false ideas and your prejudices to yourself.”

“Christ, Frederick, I can't talk to you when you're like this.”

Today Karl is to read his address at the Club. We're all going to give our support.

“The French won't like it when they get wind that Karl is taking the credit.”

“Stop worrying your head, Lizzie. Many members of the Commune were also members of the International. And for those who were not, a shilling laid out in pamphlets will teach them all they need to know about us. They themselves will come to see that the Commune was child of the International,
intellectually.
”

The Club is packed with bodies and all languages spoken. The usual faces are here: the London comrades, the women, Jenny in the first row. But there's also a whole lot from the outside. Newspapermen. Police agents. Local shopkeepers. Reactionaries. Wags. I stand at the back near the door.

Frederick takes the stage first. He introduces Karl with stories of the big man's early life and education in Germany, his activities here and abroad, his role in the International. There's a polite applause before Karl himself gets up. We're expecting a bit of a joke, to clear the atmosphere, but he does no such thing. Clears his throat and reads straight from the page. Dry and serious. There's some murmuring. A bit of giggling. And now when Karl gets to his piece about the Commune being the glorious harbinger of a new society, someone burps to try to get a laugh up and disturb the solemn mood, but that's the extent of it. There's an ordinary applause when he's finished. Some cat-calling, but less than you'd think, considering.

Karl lumbers off and Frederick gets back up to take questions. They come in the guise of insults, most of them. But Frederick is quick with the right responses, just enough honor and sincerity to take the sting out of the attacks. He doesn't get riled, nor does he resort to insults himself, and this—when he has the public to himself—is when he's at his most seducing. He can handle his words like no one else, and even if you don't catch their meaning first time, you hold on to them, somewhere, they've been said with so much believing.

When the questions run dry, he takes a turn at a speech of his own. He holds no paper. It all comes from his mind. He walks up and down, away from the lectern, and uses his limbs to make signs in the air. He opens his jacket, and now it comes off, and there's a power about him, and to hear him you'd think he's a religious man. I can't say he knows better than the priests, but his words come out as good as Bible words: familiar and true. As he talks on, my mind wanders over them, dips in and out of them, and I fall to thinking about Mary; how when Frederick came along she made a show of flinging her Church off like a worn-out shimmy. She stopped going to Mass as soon as she worked out his bent, and was quick to tilt her scorn over those who keep at it, no different than a drinker sworn off the lush who judges harsh those who still have their noses in it. But she clung—for dear life, she did—to the superstitions. The ghosts and the whispers. The spells and the fairies. She didn't ever lose that.

I'd catch her picking a bit of bread off the ground and making the sign of the cross over it, then kissing it and saying a Hail Mary.

“What in Jesus' name are you doing?” I'd say.

“Just in case,” she'd say.

And when I'd find her burning candles to the Sacred Heart or dousing cabs and train carriages with holy water: “You never know. It's best on the safe side.”

And I believe it'll be the same with Frederick. Sooner or later he'll have need for the faith he's turned from, and will come back to it. The prayer I hear in his speech is proof, if I needed more, that his religion hasn't had its day. Already, I know, there have been moments in his life when the strong arm of God has pushed him onto his knees. I only hope that, when the next moment comes, the Lord will give him the wisdom to know it's wasted breath to pray for the soul of a dishonest woman, and that he ought do the right thing by me well before time.

I leave before the speeches are over. Jenny looks to be next in line, and I just can't be looking at her, spouting off in a room full of men. I go outside and look up and down the road. I know St. Giles to be close, and I need to find my way there. I've decided to have another look, this time with a clear head. I was mistaken the last time. I tripped up. The pubs were the wrong idea.

I get directions from a girl in a fancy drapers. On my way I don't pass a single English subject but only foreigners going about without proper covers. There's bad bodies among them, and they think me one of their own. From a shop door, an idling scamp whistles at me. A dark mop with a tray of wax birds comes into my path and won't let me pass till I give her out some words. Hooers cackle from the upstairs windows. From under some awning a man—a foul streak of oil—steps out and opens his coat to show a line of spectacles hung. When I give him a penny, he tells me where the Catholic church is found.

On the pew farthest to the back, a row of bodies is biding for confession. I've not come for that, so I go farther up. To save my knees from kneeling, I perch on the edge of the pew and lean forward over the armrest. In front: the high altar dressed in white and gold, the tortured body of Christ. Behind: the slide of the priest's grille, footsteps, whispered penances.

Of the sacred life of the Calvins I know little, but I'm up on this much: they don't like bodies to shrive themselves to priests, and in this they're the same as the England Protestants. Me, I think if you can stomach it, there's probable value to be got from it. How can you tell yourself straight to God and know He's hearkening? What good can you draw off a Jesus that lives only in your head? What advice?

I put my chin to rest on my knuckles. It's hard to set about this right.

Soon tired of sitting, I go and put a shilling into the box under the Blessed Lady, light a candle. “Mary is our heavenly Mother and the Maker of all things. She knows every person and every thing, every thought and every secret we commit. She's the here and after, the present and future. She's the every place. She who believes in her can't be unhappy, for she can't be alone.”

“I haven't seen you here before.”

He wears no whiskers. He's bare out of his time.

“No, Father, you wouldn't have seen me. I'm new to this place.”

“Father Killigad.” He touches his chest. “I'm the priest here.”

“Hello, Father.”

He looks up at the Mary, crosses himself. “Will you put me in your prayers?”

“I will, Father, if that's what you want, but it might do you more harm than good.”

He doesn't laugh, but doesn't get nettled either. He's used to us, being Irish himself. “Putting someone else in your prayers is a great gift.”

“Even if they've asked you to do it?”

“Even then.
Especially
then.”

He joins his hands—palms pressed flat like a pup in preparations for his Holy First—and bows his head. The strain in his face, he must be pushing one out for me.

When he's done, he touches my arm and leads me over to the top pew. “Will we be seeing you for Mass?”

“Sunday is a hard day for me, Father. At home like. And it's a bit of a way. I can't always get free.”

“Are you being prevented?”

“Prevented? Only by the housekeeping, Father.”

“Forgive me. I ask only because there are some who feel obliged to hide. I know maids who fear losing their positions.”

“If you knew my name, Father, you'd know my position.”

“Oh? And what is your name?”

“Engels. Wife of Frederick Engels.”

He shakes his head. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Engels. The name means nothing to me.”

We sit in silence a time, equal in the eyes of the Lord.

“Would you like to do penance, Mrs. Engels?”

“I'm not big on the officials, Father.”

“How long is it since your last?”

“A long time.”

“What sin is it that you're afraid to confess?”

“There's naught in me that God doesn't already know.”

“But have you asked His forgiveness?”

“In so many words?”

“There's nothing the Lord won't absolve, Mrs. Engels, but you must ask Him. He'll not intervene without a plea. You must own up to your sins, admit you've done wrong. You must show Him you know you're a sinner.”

“Well, if He doesn't know that for Himself, Father, He's deaf as well as blind.”

He sighs, folds his arms across as if to say, “What is it about our lot in England?” He stands and goes around the pew to loom over me. Clasps his hands in front. “Sunday Mass is on the hour, eight to midday. I hope to see you there soon, Mrs. Engels.”

“Father, just a minute. I'm being contrary. I'm sorry.”

“You're being nothing I haven't seen a hundred times before, Mrs. Engels.”

“Listen, Father, you're right. What you're saying, I'm agreed with it. Would you take my confession now?”

He is triumphant. “Follow me.”

When we're good and settled in the box, he slides back the grille.

“If I was God, Mrs. Engels, what would you tell me?”

“I'd tell you to try my life for size, see if you'd fare any different.”

“Do you think your life has been harder than anyone else's?”

The knees are at me already. Nowhere to put your arse. “Nay. I've been lucky. Luckier than most.”

“If God was to live your life, how would He live it differently?”

“I suppose He wouldn't be on His own so much.”

“Jesus spent long periods alone, Mrs. Engels. He suffered as we suffer.”

I look down at the shadow of my hands, cut across by light from the gap where the curtains don't full meet. “I fear London doesn't agree with me, Father.”

“How so? You are lonely here?”

“It's worrying my mind.”

“London is?”

“I thought it would be a fresh start. But it's the same, isn't it, no matter where you go? I thought I'd be a stranger, a face in the crush. But it's all pursuing after me.”

“You feel London is pursuing you?”

“Nay, Manchester is pursuing me. London is watching me.”

“Mrs. Engels, I—”

“Jesus, would you listen to me? I'm bare making sense.”

“Who is following you, Mrs. Engels?”

“Nobody, Father. Only the past.”

The wood creaks when he shifts to bring his face close to the grille. There's not a nook in the church the sound doesn't reach.

“Are you here with a message, is that it, Mrs. Engels?”

“I'm looking for someone, Father.”

“Yes?”

“Moss O'Malley. He came up from Manchester some years back. A man of strong faith.”

“O'Malley? I don't know him myself, but I can send the word out. We have many friends in the Church. Voices carry quickly. Are you wanting a meeting? What's your message?”

“I don't know. I've naught prepared.”

“Should he find you?”

“He could, I suppose, if he wanted.”

I give him the address.

He repeats it back and now pulls the panel half across, whispers something so low I can't make it out.

“What's that, Father?”

Slam.

Black.

Am I off, or are such manners political in a priest?