Fall Girl

by Toni Jordan

  ‘That’s not to mention the stings that didn’t come off. The months we were all hungry and didn’t have fuel for the cars. Beans. God, if I never eat another lima bean it’ll be too soon. The times we were too hungry to sleep. Ava once took a job as a barmaid, to bring in some cash. Sydney went fruit picking. Your father was furious with them; to him, it was a betrayal. He thought if they just held their nerve another job would come along. They were thinking about putting food on the table. They had four kids.’

  As she speaks I have a vision of standing next to Sam in the front yard, crying, watching Syd and Ava and the cousins drive away. Julius’s face pressed against the back window of the car as he waved. Cumberland Street seemed sad as well, empty without them, hollow and echoey. And I remember the beans, or rather the feeling of sitting down at the table to see a plate of them, white and split from boiling, with some bitter green on the side. ‘Dandelion,’ I say. ‘I hated the dandelion.’

  ‘But you were hungry enough to eat it. And nettles, and boiled pigweed.’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’

  ‘That’s because as soon as each meal was over we never mentioned it again. Your father only ever talks about the good times—the celebrations and the champagne. He had this game: he’d scoop a bean up with a fork, about to feed it to you, and then you’d ask him what kind of bean it was. “Oh, this?” he’d say. “This is roast pork-flavoured beans.” And the next mouthful would be chocolate cake-flavoured beans. Or pancake-flavoured beans. You and Samson would laugh and laugh. You thought it was the best game in the world. He almost had you both believing you were eating anything but beans.’

  I have a memory, now, at the far edge of my mind: me and Sam, smaller, laughing, waiting for the next crazy flavour Dad would make up. ‘I remember.’

  ‘And no one mentions the flow of things in and out of this house. None of you kids have ever asked why things just appear and disappear. One year your father buys antique tables and fine china and silverware. Jewels for us both, real emeralds, not the rubbish he peddles. Then the next year he sells them again. I walk through this house like it’s haunted. I see the spaces on the walls that were once paintings. The silk Persian rug that was in the sittingroom? I loved that rug. Once we had no plates. No plates! We ate dinner off saucepan lids with the handles unscrewed. In this house, things come and they go.’

  I don’t remember eating off saucepan lids. The rug I do recall: turquoise and gold, with glittering tassels and pile soft as a kitten. She’s right. Once day the rug was just gone. Why didn’t I ask?

  ‘Perhaps I did know. Or perhaps I didn’t want to.’

  ‘You’ve always idolised your father. Mention something often enough, especially to a child, and it becomes their whole world. Memories are very easy to manipulate Della, you know that.’

  ‘So we had hard times. Everyone has hard times.’

  ‘When you were small you wanted a puppy so badly. Your father said we couldn’t, in case we had to leave in a hurry. You don’t remember all the tears you cried over that. And you don’t remember crying because you wanted to go to school. You used to sit and stare out your window, the way you were when we came in just now, watching all the neighbours’ kids head off to school. I had to sew you a pretend uniform, you’d wear it every day. You’d sit at the kitchen table with your books piled in front of you, barely big enough to see over the top, and every day you’d beg me to make you and Julius a packed lunch in the morning. Then you’d run outside and eat it under the apple trees, talking to the air, pretending you were surrounded by other kids. You insisted on calling me Miss de Bois, instead of Ruby.’

  I shake my head a little to wake up. ‘Dad loves us and wants to protect us. Should I be upset about that? I wanted to go to school, big deal. Millions of kids who do go to school wish they didn’t. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  Ruby is sitting there, dressed in a cashmere sweater, with diamonds in her ears, talking about lima beans. It’s hard to feel sorry for her. ‘Look, Ruby. I’ve had a very trying day and this is all ancient history.’

  ‘Not so ancient. Just because you live in this house doesn’t mean you know everything about your father’s life, or about my life. In many ways, Della, you’re still a child. You and the others. The only reason we’ve kept our head above water has been the money that you six kids bring in. And then there’s your mother.’

  The room becomes deathly still, as though she just smashed a glass or slapped me. I don’t have to listen to this. I can just stand up and walk down the stairs. Or I can order her out and shut the door. It’s my room.

  ‘My mother,’ I hear myself say. ‘What about my mother?’

  ‘I know you thought it was somehow disloyal to your father,’ she says. ‘That’s why you never asked about her.’

  ‘I’m tired Ruby. Can’t we do this some other time?’

  Ruby leans across and takes the bear out of my hands. She flattens the fur across his ears and straightens his tiny bow tie. ‘She bought this bear for you, before she went away. It was always your favourite.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ I say. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘She couldn’t face it,’ Ruby says. ‘The idea of going inside again. That first time almost killed her.’

  ‘Inside again,’ I say.

  ‘Prison.’

  She waits awhile but I can’t speak. There is nothing I can say.

  ‘That first time was only eighteen months, but she could never stand enclosed spaces. She would have been out sooner if she had told the lawyer that she had two small children at home but you know your father. All his rules. We must leave no trail. But I’ll tell you one thing. She must have been terrified of going back in, to leave you and Samson.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense. If she was only in prison for eighteen months, why didn’t she come back? Why isn’t she here?’

  ‘Your father was always so proud of his family tradition. He didn’t understand how anyone would want to live any other kind of life. She couldn’t run any more stings, pick any more marks. She couldn’t bring herself to. Yet she didn’t want to deprive you and Samson of this house, your cousins, where you belonged. She’d changed. She thought she was the one who was wrong. So she just left.’

  I ask her how she knows this, but even as I move my mouth I have my answer.

  ‘She did come back, when she was let out on parole. But I was already here.’

  A woman, locked away from her husband and children for eighteen months. The isolation, the separation, the fear. The joy of rushing back to her home to see them when she was finally released.

  Finding another woman in her place.

  ‘You were already here,’ I say.

  ‘You mustn’t blame your father, Della. Your mother was gone a long time. He couldn’t visit her. That kind of thing involved paperwork and identity checks and he would never submit to that. And he never let you and Samson go. He thought it would be bad for your psychology, to see the inside of a prison. They don’t call us confidence artists for nothing, do they? That’s what it takes above all else. And he had work to do. In those days men didn’t raise children themselves, and most of his stings required a partner.’

  ‘I saw her. When she came back, I saw her.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. She only opened the door a sliver to look in on you. You were asleep.’

  ‘I’m very tired, Ruby.’ I lie down on my bed and rest my head on the pillow. ‘I need to sleep now.’

  ‘She wasn’t angry at me. She was very sweet, very happy that I was here to look after you. She wasn’t angry at your father either. She knew he was living the only way he knew how. She was the one who wouldn’t play by the rules, she knew that. She just looked in on you both and packed some things and she left. The last I heard she took a flight to London. She had some family there: her parents, and a brother. He was a printer, I think. He had his own business. In Manchester. I heard she wasn’t coming back.’

  I can tell by the way her feet are plan
ted on the floor and the grim line of her mouth that she has done what she was resolved to do. Why she has chosen right now to tell me this, I can only guess. All I do know is that they were things I did not want to hear. Not ever, but especially not now. But I have heard them and it is too late.

  ‘Please Ruby. Please go away.’

  She comes over and sits beside me, and she rests her palm against my forehead in a way that, although I don’t remember, I feel that she has done before. As though I was a small child she was checking for a fever.

  ‘Della, I love your father very much. I have from the first moment I saw him. He says this life of ours is the best life in the world. I don’t disagree with him, but then I’ve known no other kind. The family I grew up in was just like this one; I first met your father on a job. But you have choices. Before you take this money from Daniel Metcalf you have to know that this is the life you want. The reality of it. Not the rose-coloured way you’ve always seen it.’

  ‘You think the idea of going to prison has never occurred to me before? I’m a grown woman. I know the risks.’

  ‘Knowing something in your head is different from feeling it in your gut. This is not about your father’s rules. This job has downsides as well as the upsides. Sacrifices and risks as well as champagne and caviar. And yes, you might go to prison. You might have to take money from someone when you don’t really want to.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I do want to take the money. I do. The people we take money from are rich, stupid, greedy or lazy. And they deserve to lose it. That’s all.’

  ‘What you choose to believe is up to you, Della. You don’t have to listen to anybody. You have to make up your own mind.’

  ‘Please. Ruby. I have responsibilities. I have to get the cheque. I have to.’

  I shut my eyes and when I open them again she has gone. I am alone in my room, alone with the wardrobe that holds all my outfits, with the hidden cavity in the floor that holds all my passports. I look down at my hands, still wrinkled from the bath. They are not scientist’s hands. They are not secretary’s hands, or nurse’s hands, or hippy’s hands. Yet I am all these things. Perhaps I have my mother’s hands but I have no way of knowing. When Ruby says I should make up my own mind, I can only wonder which mind that is.

  I have slept until dark and the house is quiet and I am resolved. I need to talk to Sam. I creep down the stairs and knock on his door.

  ‘Come,’ he says. He is kneeling on the floor amid trays of chemicals, washing cheques. Dad would kill him if he found out. We are not supposed to do this in our rooms in case we spill solvents on the carpet. There is a bathroom downstairs fitted out like a darkroom with bottles of bleach and acetone and hydrochlorides, especially for this. I shut the door behind me.

  ‘Hey.’ He looks up and takes off his gloves. ‘You look better after your sleep.’

  ‘Save it. I didn’t say anything in front of Dad but we came that close to tanking on this, thanks to your big mouth.’ I shove a pile of clothes and books on to the floor and lie on his bed, hugging one of his pillows to my stomach.

  ‘Yeah. I heard. The others are back and Julius told me all about it. Look, Della. I’m sorry about that. I had no idea Timmy would try to find you, much less to propose. I know I teased you about it. But really, it’s ridiculous.’ He laughs then, a lot, and stops to wipe a tear from his eye. I don’t laugh.

  ‘Ridiculous, how?’

  ‘That you would make a wife for him. For anybody. Imagine you in an apron, making dinner. Ironing a shirt. It’s hilarious.’

  ‘Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Queen Victoria. He wanted to marry me, not make me his bonded slave.’

  ‘Get you, Germaine. That’s your sexism, not mine.’ He stretches out his legs and folds his arms. ‘I didn’t say you’d be making his dinner or ironing his shirt. You can’t even do those things for yourself. None of us can. You might be able to become anyone you want and speak however many languages but you couldn’t live by yourself for two minutes. And I don’t think your prospective husband planned to move in here to Cumberland Street and sleep in your single bed.’

  ‘I could learn. People learn to do those things.’

  ‘Why would you want to? Marriage, children, housework. Mortgages, for God’s sake. Leave those things to other people. We’ll never have to worry about them. We’re the lucky ones. We’ll just live happily for the rest of our lives right here in the bosom of the family. You and I, Della, will grow old together.’

  I rest my face against the pillow. It smells of my brother and makes me remember the childhood we spent together, playing and fighting. I will never be alone as long as he’s alive. So much of who I am and what I do is also part of him.

  ‘You’re right. Whatever Ruby says, I know you’re right.’

  ‘What does Ruby say?’

  I smile at him. ‘Never mind. But if you ever tell anyone where I am in the middle of a job again, we won’t have a chance to grow old together. Because I will kill you with my own two hands and hide your body where no one will find it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he says, and I know that is the closest I will get to an apology. Now is the perfect time to ask my favour. So I tell him.

  I tell him everything I feel about Daniel, the thrill of this, the exhaustion. I tell him that this job seems like life and death to me and I can think about nothing else. I tell him everything except what happened in the car park.

  ‘I want to know what’s going on, Sam. I need to. Will you help?’

  ‘As if you have to ask,’ he says.

  I dress with infinite care, as though for a wedding, as though for a funeral. I paint my toenails and fingernails afresh, I wax my legs. My hair is straightened and coaxed into a French twist. This dress is my favourite from my society-girl wardrobe: off the shoulder, tight waist, flare in the skirt. Emerald velvet. It is unsuitable but I will say I am on my way to another engagement.

  I sit in my dressing gown on a brocade stool in front of the mirror and lower my eyes as though it was an altar, and as I hold the mascara wand I see my hand is shaking. Ruby brings me solemn tea with her head down, zips me up, says nothing. This has an air of ceremony. In a few hours, this job will be over. I will be home safe with the money and my father will be opening champagne. I am dressing for my memories of this final time I see him. I am dressing for Daniel Metcalf ’s memory of me.

  I leave my room with plenty of time to spare. As I walk down the stairs I am aware of noise and movement: someone is in the shower and some of the bedroom doors are shut. I leave the house without speaking to anyone. I want this whole night to slow down so I can remember every moment.

  I am conscious of walking down the hall, unfastening all the bolts on the front door and locking them again. On the way to the car I see a light flickering in the largest apple shed. There is movement down there, a dragging noise. For a moment I think I should ignore it and continue on my mission but instead I walk down the verge so the stones of the drive make no sound and do not scratch my patent leather heels. Through a chink in the door I see my father and Beau piling ropes and shovels and folding tarpaulins on to the back of a truck.

  ‘Della, go away. This is a secret,’ says Beau, when he sees me at the door. He positions himself in front of a large crate and spreads his arms.

  ‘Oh well. I suppose the time has come,’ my father says. ‘It’s all right, Beaufort. Come in, my dear, come in. And shut the door behind you.’

  When I step into the light, Beau whistles long and slow. ‘Hurly burly,’ he says.

  This is the cue for my father to say what a girlie and when he doesn’t, I look up. He has paled, and his eyes are closed. He has almost collapsed back on the truck behind him and one hand has gone to his chest.

  ‘Dad,’ I say, and I step towards him.

  He opens his eyes and gives me a flat smile. ‘I’m fine, my dear,’ he says. ‘You startled me for a moment, dressed like that. You are the image of your mother.’

  I swall
ow. He is not dressed for manual labour: he is pressed and preened for going out, an old-man version of me, yet it’s clear he isn’t taking the Mercedes. I walk across the shed to the back of the truck. I open boxes and peer under tarpaulins.

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ I say. ‘Ropes, pulleys, picks, shovels. Are you two planning a little grave-robbing?’

  ‘What an uncouth suggestion,’ my father says.

  ‘We’re treasure hunting,’ says Beau.

  I scan both their faces but neither is laughing. ‘Treasure hunting,’ I say. ‘Right.’

  I think: how can I get this equipment off them and take it away, without them noticing?

  I think: is it legally possible to get someone, two people in fact, committed to an institution against their will? Or maybe I could just lock them in here for a few weeks and slide food in under the door?

  But more than anything else, to my shame I think: how can I be lifted out of here? Levitation? Cyclone? Act of God? How could something just swoop down out of the sky and carry me away? I feel I am standing on the tracks and I can see the lights of the freight train bearing down upon us all and I doubt I have the strength to save everyone. And then I think: I am a coward.

  ‘No, dear. Don’t sit. You’ll crush your dress.’ My father takes my arm and dusts my skirt, tugs the hem back into place.

  ‘It’s the greatest job in the whole world,’ says Beau. ‘It’s going to make us millions and millions. We’ll be famous.’

  ‘Famous,’ I say.

  ‘Although notoriety is always something I have avoided,’ my father says, ‘this job will be so monumental as to be worth sacrificing my anonymity. One might almost say that this is the job for which I have been saving my identity. I confess I haven’t felt so alive since I was a small boy, travelling in a horse and buggy with your grandfather selling Ol’ Doc Grayson’s Magical Elixir good for bursitis, thrombitis, arthritis and anything that ails you at country fairs. Those were the days, my dear.’