The Death of Me

by M. J. Tjia

  He raises his hands in the air. “I know. I know. You are very strong. Very formidable.”

  She looks for anger or irritation in his face but sees none. She places a skillet onto the top of the stove and waits for it to heat up. “And you said that Bundle’s sister was fine?”

  The cook shrugs. “That is what he said.”

  “So he must have been lured away.”

  “That is what Bundle believes.”

  Which means their trespassers have watched the house. Know their movements. Probably even waited for her to go on her afternoon walk. Her back stiffens at the thought. She stirs the meat, fragrant smoke rising from where it sizzles. She watches it brown but, in her mind’s eye, she’s picturing the criminal couple lying in wait, perhaps strolling up and down the street or, more likely, biding their time in a coach. A burning smell reaches her nostrils, breaking her reverie, and she sees that the beef is blackening at the edges. She whips the skillet from the fire and spoons the meat onto a platter.

  “Burnt,” she says.

  “No, no. Just a little charred.”

  She frowns down at the dish. It smells delicious, almost as it should. But she knows it will never be exactly right. That these things cannot be wholly recreated so far away in time and space.

  Agneau picks up a piece of meat between his thumb and finger. His bottom lip shines with a little grease as he chews. “Delicious. Next time we will compare recipes for preparing frogs’ legs. Yes?”

  She nods. “When the rice is ready, put a little of the cabbage on top, and then the beef on top of that.”

  “Where did you learn to cook like this?” He tilts his head to the side, resting a hand on the kitchen table.

  “From my mother.” Before they moved to her stepfather’s house. When times were more simple. Happier.

  “How long have you been here?” he asks. “In England?”

  Her smile is grim. “A long time. Long enough to remember when it was very difficult indeed to find bean sauce.” Never comfortable with talking of the past, she turns the subject to him. “How long have you been working here?”

  He pulls a face as he thinks. “Eight, no, nine, years.” He pours a glass of claret, offering it to her, but she shakes her head no. “You would like the south of France, where I am from. It is warmer than here. Perhaps I will take you there one day.” His eyes smile as he salutes her with the wine glass.

  On her way to the third floor, Amah passes through Heloise’s rooms to pour herself a small glass of Irish whiskey. Earlier, she’d helped Abigail clean up the mess and replace Heloise’s things. Even neatened, though, her dressing room is a riot of colour and clutter. Hat ribbons trail the racks and baskets of feathers and silk flowers, butterflies and birds line the walls. Pages ripped from fashion journals are tacked to the wall and litter the dressing table. Shoes – bejewelled, leather, suede, lined with fur, boots, slippers, sandals – fill the boxes of a wall cabinet.

  But Heloise’s bedroom is neat, elegant yet impersonal. Amah takes in the smooth carpets and the plumped up, sumptuous bed and she is surprised by a dip of loneliness. She thinks back to that day long ago when she first found Heloise – her Jia Li – missing from her small room. Her girl, gone. Even before Amah had confirmed that Heloise’s brush and favourite night dress were absent, Amah had known that the girl had left her for longer than a few hours. There was something about the room. Some essence of her shining girl lost to the shadows in the corners, muted by the dust motes that floated by the beam of Amah’s lamp. Rage and alarm hammered in her ears as she scrabbled through Heloise’s things, wondering where she could be. Who to ask for help? What to do?

  Amah takes a sip of whisky. Presses her eyes shut, willing herself back into the present moment. She hears a carriage rumble by on the street below. A boy calls out, perhaps with the evening paper. She lowers her nose to her glass, breathes in the whisky’s fumes. Takes another sip. Feels her shoulders ache with the loosening the alcohol brings to her body. She walks back out into the corridor, closing Heloise’s door gently behind her.

  In her own bed chamber, Amah changes into her nightgown and washes her face. Leaving the curtains open wide – she wakes long before sunrise, after all – she climbs into her bed, pushing the pillows up against the bedhead to lie against. She picks up her book, The Cricket on the Hearth, and it flips open at a page creased from the rough treatment it had received at the hands of the intruder. She smooths the fold with her fingers, and then turns to the page she is up to.

  Reading of the cricket reminds her of a poem her mother used to recite to her when she was little. A Chinese poem, of cricket song and a thatched roof. Of grieving cicadas. Her mother’s voice catching on the words alone in all this empty forest.

  Again, that dip of sadness. So much of her life spent with others, but with the wraith of loneliness trailing her steps. Those years in Liverpool, however, interspersed with light – warm, glorious light – that had blazed in her heart so strongly she still feels its remnants flicker from time to time. Its heat, right now, making her think of Agneau’s strong hands, kneading dough, handling sides of mutton. Wondering what it would be like to feel him cupping her waist, or the flat of his hand hot on her thigh. She blinks. What are these thoughts?

  She rolls onto her side and stares out at the dark sky yawning above the house across the road. Remembers a night, chillier than this, when her back was burrowed into another’s warmth. His heavy arm wrapping her close. She wonders what he is doing right now. Can he see the same stars as she gazes upon? The ones that are in the shape of a stingray, or those bright stars that slither into the darkness. Is his sky black like hers, or covered with milky cloud?

  She wonders if a person can ever go back. If she wished for it hard enough, if it would one day return. What would it change though? What’s done is done. Amah thinks of the times Heloise has fretted about missing a ball or sulked over a failed investment, and how she tells her daughter that regret is a waste of time, a waste of energy. But mostly Amah knows that regret can sup on the soul, morsel by morsel, until it’s as brittle and emaciated as a cicada shell.

  CHAPTER 5

  From the carriage, Rue de l’me Damnée seems as cheerful and festive in appearance as a carnival. Bright lights, some encased in coloured glass, gleam upon the road, and the houses are as garish in colour as jockeys’ tunics at the Grand National. Once we are strolling its uneven pavement, though, it’s clear that the moon is kinder than the light of the sun would ever be. The merry bunting is dirty with age, and the stench of sewerage and cat piss reeks from dark, narrow alleys. The street is quite crammed with buggies, people and refuse.

  I take Violette’s hand and place it on my elbow, as we tread across the muddy cobblestones. I walk with that swagger so many men adopt: chest out, slight spring to the step, like a rooster with an eye out for a luscious morsel of some sort. I pat my moustache to make sure it is still in place.

  “Maisons de passe, Comtesse,” Violette says to me, nodding towards the low-set lodgings on either side of the road. Disreputable houses. “For soldiers’ women. Grivoises.”

  Grivoises. Yet another rung in that charming ranking system.

  The curtains of the first house we pass are wide open, and we are able to peer right into the well-lit living room. A woman smiles down at me through the glass and pulls the bodice of her gown down to her waist, revealing a plump, pendulous breast. She winks, then pulls the bodice back into place. At the next house, there are two women, arms entwined around each other’s backs. The blond girl lifts her partner’s skirts to allow us a glimpse of her quim, while the taller woman plucks the girl’s blouse down to uncover her tiny nipples. It’s much the same at each house along the row, except for one, where a man, dark and ruddy in the face, is seated on an armchair facing the window, and all we can see of the woman is her bare arse, while her head bobs up and down in his lap.

  Violette blows a raspberry and laughs, bounding ahead along the malodorous street, weaving betw
een other carousers. She has to ask first a tobacconist and then a boy selling boiled eggs for the way to the Dernier Livre. He points towards a ramshackle, two storey building. Its sign, swinging from the eaves, is painted with five gold coins.

  Anticipation prickles my skin as I tug at the red and white striped cravat that I’ve tied about my neck. Somerscale had given it to me; said that, according to the letter they intercepted, this was how the crook would recognise me. He’d told me to tie the cravat around my wrist, or attach it to my bonnet, not knowing that I’d be disguised as a man.

  I glance around, not quite sure if I’m feeling jumpy from the excitement or apprehension. I feel like there are eyes on me; I can almost feel their scrutiny quiver against the back of my neck, and I wonder again if I’m being followed. Could Somerscale’s spies truly be onto me? I’m nudged from behind as two drunks approach the tavern, and a group of revellers, both male and female, stumble past, squealing and shouting. The Dernier Livre’s doors fling open and a man bursts through, stumbles to the side of the road, where he hacks up into the gutter. Three horses, tied to a rail, shy away, the closest one bumping shoulders with Violette. She shoves both the horse, then the man, out of her way.

  “Now, now, missus,” says a man, in English, stepping from the tavern, “don’t you worry yoursel’ none. He’s no more harmful than a ladybug in a blizzard.” He speaks with a lazy, American drawl.

  He saunters forward but trips, falling to his knees next to the other man, and stays there a few moments, howling like a hyena with laughter. He’s so drunk, it takes him two goes before he can struggle to his feet again. By now a couple of stableboys and Violette are laughing at his predicament too. Once standing, he nudges the other fellow with the tip of his boot. He’s a tall man, his blond hair worn long and stringy under a misshapen derby hat. “There’s no saving him, madam,” he says to Violette. “Do you know him, too? Michelle, or some such lady’s name, he said his name was.” He grins down at Violette, an admiring glint in his bloodshot eyes.

  She looks at him, uncomprehending, so I say, in a hesitant manner, as if English is not my mother tongue, “We have never met this man, sir.” I shrug, and lead Violette past them in through the front doors of the Dernier Livre.

  The taproom is quite small, but terribly crowded. People stand in clusters or are seated at the five or six wooden, round tables that are available. The air is redolent with stale body odour, the pong of boiling onions and damp feet and I am sorry that I cannot fan my face with my scented sandalwood fan. When we walk towards the bar at the back of the room, the soles of my feet stick to the floor with each step.

  As we wait to catch the eye of the barmaid, I glance around the room and almost immediately notice two men standing in the corner. They have their faces lowered, but one of them – the thinner of the two – has a straw hat on. I feel a tingle in my fingertips. Is he the man from outside Somerscale’s? The same man I’d spied from our suite? He throws his head back to gulp his beer, and his gaze meets mine fleetingly, and then takes in Violette, who is primping her curls with her fingertips. He nudges his companion and says something. They both stare at her for a few moments more.

  A hand claps me on the shoulder. “Not got your rot-gut yet?” The Yank again. He leans against the bar, his sleeve soaking in a puddle of spilt drink. Violette watches him distastefully as he sways next to her. “Lemme buy you a drink. Name’s Ripley.”

  “But where is your friend, mon ami Ripley?” I ask, using my fake French accent again. I avoid sharing our names with him.

  He stares at me, vacant for a moment, then guffaws. “That screwy chap outside? Skedaddled, he did.” He bangs the counter to attract the barmaid’s attention. “Time to smother the parrot, I reckon. My new pals here will have one too,” he says to her, nudging me sharply in the arm.

  The barmaid’s a dark, young thing, and her heavily kohled eyes are bored as she pours three glasses of absinthe. Before she can continue, the American drunkard swipes up one of the glasses and swallows the emerald green liquid in one mouthful. He punches his fist against his chest. “Phew-ee,” he says, pushing his glass forward again. “Pour me another one, would ya?” He takes a handful of coins from his pocket and plonks them down on the bar, where three roll to the floor next to the barmaid’s feet.

  The girl stares at him for a moment then rolls her eyes, before finishing off our drinks with water and sugar.

  Sipping my absinthe, now a pleasing pear green, I glance around the room again while the confounded Yank blathers on to an uncomprehending Violette. The man with the straw hat approaches the bar and orders a tankard of bitter beer, and I see his gaze steal towards my maid again, before he returns to his companion across the room. Violette’s laughing in a coy manner at something Ripley says about the curl in her hair just as a new group of people enter the tavern, pulling up chairs to the already teeming tables. From what I can see, most of the Dernier Livre’s patrons are exceedingly tight, as they shout at each other, merrily sloshing sherry and bitters across the tabletops and floor. Mostly, the crowd is made up of ripe, ready women, and their soldiers, some still attired in red and blue uniforms. I just can’t peg anyone in particular for our contact. As our noisome companion regales Violette with a long story about his horse back home, a boy, no older than six years, tugs my trousers and points to my feet. I nod and surrender my boots to his brush and polish, readying a coin for him in my fingers.

  That’s when I notice one man who stands out from the rest. He’s seated at a table by himself, not far from where we stand. His skinny frame is engulfed by a drab coat, and what with the whiskers that cover his face and the wide-brimmed hat pulled so low onto his brow, it’s difficult to make out his features. Only his hands, claw-like as they grasp his tankard, reveal that his age is advanced. I adjust my striped cravat, but can’t be sure if he looks my way or not. Momentarily, another man blocks my view, opening his coat wide, so I can see his inner pockets are lined with silver spoons, tongs, chains and even a little clock. I shake my head. I don’t want any of his stolen wares.

  Our American friend is telling us of his home in some place called Bushwick as he takes swigs from a bottle of brandy. I do hate a man who jaws too much, and Violette looks to be heartily tired of his charms too. Luckily, his ‘pal’, Michel, stumbles back in through the front doors, and makes a bee-line for us, attracting the Yank’s attention. Michel shoves his way between Violette and me, and leans against the bar.

  An old woman, with bright beetle eyes, shoves a basket of daffodils in my face. “A pretty flower for your love?” she says to me, in French. I wave her off. Hell, I didn’t realise men were so hassled. Pedlars just never seem to leave them alone. I always thought women were the more heavily harassed when out in public, although in a different manner, of course. I watch the frightful Ripley steal his arm around Violette’s waist, which he hastily removes with a loud laugh when I pull her to my side. He immediately starts to prattle on again, something about Michel, who droops over a tumbler of beer at the bar between us. He stinks of vomit and horse manure.

  I order another round of absinthe. An older man has joined the barmaid to serve drinks. Someone calls him Bernard, begs him for credit, but the tavern owner just shakes his head and continues to polish a pewter mug. It’s clear from his swarthy skin and the sharp angle of his chin that he’s the barmaid’s father. Once prepared, she pushes our drinks towards me across the counter, and her eyes catch mine as she strokes her fingertip down the side of my outstretched hand. A smile lilts the sly puss’s mouth. Her father glares at me, and grunts something to her.

  “Michelle here – dang unfortunate name – was telling me there’s a fortune to be made in some place called Otago,” Ripley says loudly, trying to catch my attention. I lend only half an ear to his talk of a far-off gold rush as I scan the room again. I try to search out who might be our elusive contact, but nothing jags my attention. I give the Yank a brief smile, which encourages him further. “Bottom of the world, that is. J
ust waiting for our ship to be ready. You should join us. Plenty of gold for everybody, so I’ve been told.” He goes to put his glass on the counter but misses, so it smashes at our feet.

  Violette laughs, and I look to the barman to see if he’s incensed, but his attention has been diverted to the other side of the room. Tables scrape across the floor and vicious squeals fill the air. We surge forward with the rest of the patrons for a closer look at what is causing the racket, just in time to see a brutish fellow, front tooth missing, haul a woman across the floor by her hair. She breaks free, her yellow hair a weedy tangle, and howls with rage. I gasp when she kicks the man square in the guts. He’s so drunk that, despite his superior size, he topples back onto the filthy floor. A girl, her face red with tears, tries to pull the woman back, but loses her grip on her arm. She beseeches a rat-like man to intervene, but he just smirks as he watches the fun. The blond woman continues to kick her assailant until she falls across his broad body and, taking his chance, he grasps her by the hair again, and bangs her head against the floor, one-two-three times, until a blotch of blood blooms on her forehead. Clenching my fists, a dark veil of fury closes in upon me. The crowd and noise fade. I step forward, my hand feeling for the pistol in my pocket.

  A hand grasps my arm. I scowl up at Ripley. “Let go of me!”

  “Nah,” he says, pushing me back. “I reckon this is the time for a real man to intervene.”

  His movements are surprisingly quick for a man who’s imbibed the number of drinks I’ve witnessed him throwing back in the last half hour. He scoops the moaning woman up from the ground by the shoulders and presses her into the arms of the bawling girl. Bending back down, he grabs the brutish fellow by the collar and heaves him to his feet. Although of much the same height, Ripley doesn’t have the bulk of his opponent, but he still manages to strike a heavy fist into the other’s fat stomach, so that the bully folds over, spittle dripping from his wet mouth. Ripley then knees him in the noggin, so the big man falls onto his back again, and writhes on the floor like an afflicted cockroach.