‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dreaming of peaches for days.’
The women huddled together. They were looking back at the light shining in the Cranes’ bedroom window, Ada remembering how she’d once climbed onto Jonathan’s shoulders, and how she’d felt tall and full of the sky, and they were joined up like a giant, until he was laughing so much that his knees gave way, and as soon as she’d slipped to the ground he’d gone running back to wherever he’d been before, brushing down his shoulders, and Ada already forgotten.
‘It’s only just getting dark,’ said Madge, looking up at the sky. ‘But you can see the moon and stars already.’
‘It’s getting dark all right,’ said Ada, ‘but I don’t mind walking in the dark.’
They wanted to stay outside, to look at the water, and the deepening indigo sky. Why go back now when Lizzie’s mother had the children? At home their small summer fires would be dying, their rooms empty, and their single supper plates were already washed and stacked beside the sink.
‘It might be over by next week,’ said Lizzie. They were sitting on the wall, linking arms. ‘Next week we might be celebrating.’
‘You’ll give yourself an ulcer if you keep on thinking like that,’ said Madge, absent-mindedly rubbing her stomach. ‘All that hoping for nothing.’
‘But it has to end sooner or later,’ said Lizzie. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Ada took a long look over her shoulder. ‘Some people don’t even know that it’s started.’
‘I think you’re wrong about Sergeant Crane,’ said Lizzie.
‘No I’m not,’ she said.
A breeze began to whip across the water, making thin grey waves. An owl swooped from the trees. Silent. White. Then suddenly the moon disappeared as they pulled their elbows closer, pressing themselves together, until it felt like they were breaking.
BE GOOD OR BEGONE
Brooklyn, New York
16 July 1911
THE BROOKLYN AIR was thick and heavy, and she felt all the weight of it as she pushed her way towards Renton Street, the address on a piece of paper screwed up tight in the warm sweaty crush of her hand; she’d already asked twice for directions, but the first time the man spoke no English, and the other, a woman fanning her face with a chop suey house menu, shrugged her shoulders and shuffled into a tiny piece of shade.
She walked a little further. Her small heavy case was biting into her palm, and her feet were cramped and pinched inside her boots.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to a man washing down a window. ‘I wonder if you could help me? I’m looking for Renton Street.’
He turned round and wiped his forehead with the window rag. ‘It’s full of grime but it’s cool,’ he explained, ‘and I’d rather be filthy and cool than dying of the heat. You looking for Renton Street you say?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you want over there?’
‘A hotel,’ she said. ‘The Galilee Hotel. Do you know it?’
‘I don’t know no hotel, but I do know Renton Street,’ he told her, wringing out the rag and dipping it into the pail of murky water by his feet. ‘This place is full of pickpockets, so keep your eyes open and all your wits about you. Next block up, take a right.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s the Russians,’ he said, turning back towards the window, ‘the Russian gypsies are full of tricks, and they can con you, and you think you’re being entertained whilst they’re emptying out your pockets. You’ve got to admire them,’ he grinned. ‘Those gypsies are dripping in style.’
She shifted a little. There was nothing in her pockets to pick, apart from a torn white handkerchief that was none too clean, and a gum wrapper.
‘You watch how you go now.’
She walked a little further past a row of brownstones and a man sleeping rough on a pallet. The back of her neck prickled with the heat, the sky pressed down, and all she could think of was an icy glass of water and a bed.
Renton Street looked empty. The houses on either side were thin and shambolic. A shop selling sliced Italian sausage had thick iron bars on the door.
The Galilee Hotel was at the end of the block. It was a tall narrow building, the fancy masonry, the flowers and diamonds were broken at the edges, and the paint was cracked and blistering on the sills. A sign in the window (cardboard, handwritten) said, Be Good or Begone. Beatrice tried to smooth out the creases that had been sitting in her clothes since yesterday and nervously pulled on the bell.
A woman appeared, and in the haze, and with the pale blue wash of her dress, she might have been floating over the doormat.
‘I’m Beatrice Lyle, from Illinois. My brother arranged everything. Elijah Lyle. Did you get my letter?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, opening the door a little wider. ‘You’re the preacher’s sister, I have been expecting you all day. I made a simple light lunch, just in case you should appear on time, but as you didn’t, the lunch will now be supper.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ she said, ushering her inside. ‘The good Lord provides and nothing goes to waste.’
She led Beatrice into what appeared to be the parlour. It was a plain room, with four hard-backed chairs and a table. A bunch of white flowers (unidentifiable) were wilting in a pickle jar.
‘Questions first,’ the woman said, producing a notepad from her pocket. ‘Glass of water later.’
Beatrice nodded, and unstuck her lips.
‘My name is Miss Flood, I am the proprietress, I am not the owner. The Galilee Hotel is owned by the Methodist Mission of America. You are still a Methodist, I take it, as stated in your letter?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then you’ll understand and believe in our rules, as well as abide by them?’
‘Yes.’
Miss Flood laughed a little. ‘You don’t know what these rules are,’ she said, covering her mouth with her fingers. ‘I’d hold my tongue and look at them before agreeing to anything, if I were you.’
She handed Beatrice a slip of paper. The rules went over the page. Beatrice read the first three, No Alcohol. No Tobacco Products. No Callers. The rest of the rules appeared in a blur, as her eyes skimmed over the words, Noise and No, No, No.
‘You agree to all these rules?’ she asked. ‘You believe in them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then sign your full name here. Your room is on the third floor. You’ll find a jug of water to refresh you, though I doubt that it’s still cold. You are lucky,’ she went on. ‘You were supposed to be sharing with a Miss Brownlow, but Miss Brownlow has now left us.’
‘She has?’
‘Yes. She is now somewhere in Sheepshead Bay, doing nothing at all that is good for her.’
On the way to her room Beatrice passed dusty hollow squares where pictures had once hung, candlesticks surrounded by mounds of tallow drippings, and a large oilcloth banner that proclaimed, Put Down That Glass & Go.
‘Here we are,’ said Miss Flood. ‘Room 9.’
The room was larger than Beatrice had been expecting. There were two iron beds – one stripped – a chair and a plain set of drawers. The window looked onto the street, and the buildings opposite, with all their shutters and pulled down blinds, seemed to have little life inside them.
‘Mealtimes are printed on your guest sheet,’ she said, pointing to a large piece of paper sitting on the lopsided bureau. ‘Everything else is explained. If you require me in between times, my room is Room 1. Please knock.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank the Lord,’ she said, without the slightest hint of irony.
Beatrice collapsed onto the bed. Every bone and muscle ached. She untied her boots. The water in the jug was warm and tasted dusty, but it ran down her throat and uncaked her tongue. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, because surely she was ready for it?
Her eyelids were heavy, but her head was too busy. She was in New York. The place people wrote about in those monthly
magazines, where buildings sat tall, side by side, shining in the light like arms full of jewellery. Where were those buildings? The houses on Renton Street, Brooklyn, were taller than most of the houses in Normal, but they were dull-faced and crumbling, and as for the windows, many of them were cracked and broken, patched up with brown paper card, and all of them scorched with the dust. She yawned. Perhaps those other, shiny buildings were just around the corner. When she felt rested, she would go out and she would look for them.
She woke to the sound of someone hammering on her door. She had a crick in her neck and her arm felt numb from where she’d been sleeping on it. For a few seconds she was in her room in Normal, with the birds just outside, peeping around her door with the eyes that saw nothing.
The hammering again. Rubbing the back of her neck, she went to see who it was. An oldish-looking man with flat grey hair and a threadbare suit shifted from foot to foot. His shoes were the smartest thing about him. They were all buffed up and shiny, and she couldn’t take her eyes off them, until she remembered that she hadn’t even washed her face or changed out of her clothes, and she must look such a mess.
‘I’ve been sent to get you,’ he said.
She looked up from his feet, surprised. ‘You have?’
‘It’s time for dinner,’ he told her. ‘Six thirty p.m. sharp.’
‘It’s that late?’
‘It is.’ He held out his hand. ‘Elliot Price.’ He bowed from the waist. ‘The redeemed Elliot Price.’
She tried to do something with her hair. She could feel it slipping over her forehead and falling over her collar. ‘The redeemed?’ she smiled, adjusting her hair clips and following him out onto the landing.
‘That’s right. I was an actor on the vaudeville circuit, serious roles you understand; I was never much of a hoofer, even in my early days, though goodness knows, I tried. I played all the heavy dramatic scenes, they were my specialty, and I made something of a name for myself. Do you ever go to vaudeville?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Never mind, you’re missing nothing, and neither am I. It’s where I fell from grace. Those bleary-eyed characters got to me, and they wouldn’t let me go. Men who’d lost their sons. Kings who were losing their lands. I played Hamlet for three whole seasons, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that I brought him home with me. Night after night, I was melancholy, and I was always asking myself questions that could never be answered. When it all became too much, I sought solace,’ he told her, pausing for a second by the large oilcloth banner. ‘And I’m sorry to say I found it in the wrong place. I hit the bottle. I was sozzled from morning till night. I began to slur my words. Those lovely long vowel sounds I’d become so famous for were sliding all over the place, and there was not a thing I could do to stop them.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Never mind sorry,’ he said, opening the door to the dining room, where it appeared the rest of the hotel sat waiting for her, ‘I was saved by the Lord. By the Methodist Mission of America, who told me to put down my bottle and start looking at the Word. Not the word of Mr Shakespeare, or those other great dramatists, whose characters I was slowly but surely murdering, but the word of the Bible, the only true piece of literature that’s been printed and bound in a book.’
‘Amen,’ said a woman on the nearest table. She was sitting straight-backed, and staring at her shiny empty plate.
‘Mrs Mitchell,’ said Elliot. ‘Mrs Mitchell is another permanent guest. Mrs Mitchell, let me introduce Miss Beatrice Lyle. You are a Miss?’ he added. You don’t look like you’re married, and I see you aren’t wearing a ring that means you are promised?’
‘No,’ said Beatrice shyly, ‘I’m not married.’
‘I was never a drinker,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘I’m here because I was married to one, and under the influence of it he took everything, including my three sons, who followed their father like sheep, and went to live with him in some dreadful flimsy shack of a house on Hawaii.’
‘Hawaii?’ said Beatrice. ‘My goodness.’
‘He read a book about the Sandwich Islands,’ she said, opening out her napkin. ‘Said he liked the look of the palm trees, but I know for a fact he had no real interest in those trees whatsoever.’
‘No?’
‘No. Palm trees, nothing. It was the nearly naked natives circling their hips in those little grass skirts with those fancy scented flowers tucked behind their ears he was thinking of.’
Beatrice shook her head. The other guests were politely looking away. Elliot guided her towards an empty table.
‘You can sit here with me,’ he said. ‘This table has a good view of the street, and though it might not be Broadway, or west of Chatham Square, it still has its God-given qualities. Like that tree,’ he nodded. ‘And that hazy strip of sky.’
The sky was certainly hazy, and even at this hour the heat still poured through the glass, turning the small pat of butter into a rancid yellow pool.
‘In my actor days, I used to eat out all the time,’ he said. ‘A three-course meal at midnight was nothing out of the ordinary, though it played havoc with my digestive system, and I was nursing an ulcer for years. Actors work very strange hours, they move from place to place, and they like to be sociable. Sociable didn’t suit me in the end. Sociable wore me down. I never knew when to say no. Of course,’ he added, ‘not all actors are demons. I knew some lovely actors who preferred a cup of tea and an early night, but I have to say, they were very few and far between.’
‘It sounds exciting, the world of the theatre.’
He frowned. ‘But my dear girl, have you not been listening? The theatre was my downfall. It very nearly killed me.’
‘I didn’t mean –’
‘For what we are about to receive,’ began a voice on another table, which started a wobbly chorus, ‘may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’
‘Fish,’ said Miss Flood, hovering with a tray. ‘Fish, boiled potatoes and cabbage.’
‘Most nutritious,’ said Elliot, rubbing his hands together. ‘What kind of fish is this?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Flood, ‘but it’s white.’
Elliot Price looked satisfied as he carefully sprinkled a little salt onto his three bruised potatoes.
‘Miss Lyle,’ said Miss Flood with a smile, ‘I managed to rescue your lunch.’
Her lunch had been two cheese sandwiches. The bread was hard and curled, but Beatrice thought they looked better than the fish, which appeared to be little more than a steaming pile of bones.
‘So what brings you to this place?’ Elliot asked. ‘We all have a story to tell. Apart from Mr Brewster,’ he nodded towards a man in the corner, ‘who refuses to divulge any more than his surname, and who’s to say it’s his real one?’
‘It isn’t much of a story. My brother is a preacher. My father died in tragic circumstances, and I was left alone.’
‘Really?’ he said, widening his eyes. ‘How tragic.’
‘There was a fire,’ she told him, picking at the bread. ‘I have no other family, at least none that I could really turn to. Afterward, I tried keeping house for a while, but it was difficult, and lonely. I closed up most of the rooms. An elderly neighbour employed me, and I ran errands and kept her company, but then she died. My brother went to Chicago, where he’s preaching and working with the Church. I wanted to get away from Illinois altogether.’
‘And you chose Brooklyn?’ he said.
‘I wanted to come to New York,’ she explained. ‘My brother arranged all the details. It was either this, or Hoboken.’
‘Hoboken,’ said Elliot, using the handle of his knife to scratch behind his ear. ‘I know that place. You made the right decision.’
‘I don’t know. Have I? It doesn’t look like the New York I was expecting.’ She glanced outside the window, where a woman in a dirty grey dress was dragging her children in a line; she had five, and at least two of them were crying.
‘But thi
s is Brooklyn,’ he told her. ‘This is the real thing. It’s New York without all the hard glamour and the falseness. Was that what you were after? The glamour that is Broadway, Manhattan? Times Square?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Brooklyn’s a good place to start again,’ he told her. ‘Almost everyone in Brooklyn has come from someplace else.’
‘I was born here,’ snapped a voice from behind them. ‘I was born around the block, and my father too.’
‘Miss Stanley was born here,’ said Elliot. ‘A true Brooklynite. Let us not forget.’
‘Though my mother came from Poland,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Warsaw. But she soon lost her accent, and she always made sure that she looked like an American.’
‘Bravo,’ said Elliot, scooping up some cabbage. ‘There’s nothing better looking than an American.’
It was quiet in her room. She could hear nothing behind the walls, or above her, not a footstep, a cough, or a rattling. What did the others do after supper? Did they stay in their rooms? Sit chatting in the parlour? Did some of them have jobs? And what on earth did they all do for money?
Beatrice sat on her bed. The pillow was hard. Property of the Galilee Hotel was stitched into the corner. In her case there was a notebook full of plans, but they didn’t seem to belong to the New York she’d just landed in. The plans in her notebook involved Tiffany & Co., where she would work selling diamonds. She’d studied Elijah’s book of rocks and minerals. For the past three years she’d stared hard into the window of the jewellers in Normal, where Mr Boris Kosch displayed his rings on velvet cushions, gold chains hanging from little metal trees, and his wife would serve tea (Russian-style) if you were making a purchase and taking your time about it. ‘It’s all part of the service,’ she’d smile, as girls stood hunched over cases, blushing and biting their nails, their fresh-faced boys behind them worrying about the cost, because was a ring really needed after all?
But Tiffany & Co., advertised in her magazines, was the most spectacular store. They sold jewels to rich New Yorkers. Maharajas. The British aristocracy. Pencil-line drawings showed women with furs around their necks, pouting their heart-shaped lips, their hands full of bracelets, ‘Oh, I’ll take the lot!’ she says, one foot on the running board of her automobile. ‘It’s hard to choose at Tiffany’s!’
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