Pinkerton's Sister

by Peter Rushforth

  She knew he could not hear her, but she still called his name.

  “P-P-Papa,” she said. “P-P-Papa.”

  (Alice leaned toward the black kitten, as she wound the knitting-wool into a ball, like an Ariadne drawing her way close toward the monster at the heart of the labyrinth.

  (“I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire – and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, we’ll go and see the bonfire tomorrow …”

  (The ball of wool grew larger, as she drew in the thread and wound it round and round.

  (“You know I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday week – Suppose they had saved up all my punishments? What would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came.”

  (She drew in the thread, drew in the thread, tugging as she pulled.

  (“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if someone was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”

  (If the kitten was not a good kitten, she would put it through the looking-glass into the Looking-glass House.)

  She was Miss P-P-Pinkerton, the Shipping Merchant’s Daughter. That thought came to her again, as it had that morning.

  As you gathered the members of your Happy Family you had to say “please,” you had to say “thank you.” If you forgot, you were not given the card, and you lost your turn. This thought kept going through her head. You had to be polite. Whatever happened, however much Allegra cheated, you had to be polite. Miss Ericsson had been very firm about this, a doomed attempt to instill civilized behavior into Allegra and Edith.

  “What is the magic word?” Miss Ericsson would ask.

  The answer was not “Abracadabra!” or “Open, Sesame!”

  “What is the magic word?”

  Please.

  That was one of the magic words.

  Thank you.

  Those were the other magic words.

  Please.

  Thank you.

  You spoke those words, and the spell-bound door was opened, revealing all the treasures hidden within.

  With the help of Charlotte that morning, she had been able to recollect twelve of the Happy Families, the happy families that all resembled one another. Who were the members of the thirteenth and final family, the Mr., the Mrs., the Master, and the Miss? She had known eight before Charlotte had called, and – between them – they’d managed to recollect two more before they’d gone to All Saints’, and two more in the church (such was their concentration on the spiritual guidance offered by Dr. Vaniah Odom and the Reverend Goodchild).

  There was Mr. Bun, the Baker’s family. Everyone could remember the Bun family.

  “Could I have Miss B-B-Bun, the B-B-Baker’s D-D-Daughter, please?”

  The magic word.

  (She sometimes stuttered more with nouns. It was as if she could feel their solid shape in her mouth, blocking the movement of her tongue, an impediment to fluency. Perhaps her stuttering was caused by the perpetual coldness, her shivering slurring the words she tried to speak.)

  “Miss Bun is at home.”

  “Thank you.”

  The other magic words.

  There was Mr. Mug, the Milkman’s family.

  “Could I have Miss M-M-Mug, the M-M-Milkman’s D-D-Daughter, please?”

  The magic word.

  “Miss Mug is at home.”

  “Thank you.”

  The other magic words.

  There was Mr. Chip, the Carpenter’s family, Mr. Soot, the Sweep’s family, Mr. Grits, the Grocer’s family, Mr. Bung, the Brewer’s family, Mr. Block, the Barber’s family …

  There was …

  There was …

  There was Mr. Spade, the Gardener’s family, Mr. Tape, the Tailor’s family, Mr. Pots, the Painter’s family, and Mr. Dip, the Dyer’s family. They were a little apart from the other families, the darkest grouping. They were four-fifths of the innermost circle, and it was in a circle that they were gathered, their backs turned to observers, either to shield from sight what it was they were watching, or because they could not bear to tear their eyes away from whatever it was that drew them there. There was a sense that it was something they should not be watching – a bare-knuckle fight, a cockfight, a summoning of the dead or of demons – or something more exciting, more secret and shameful than these were. The Masters and the Misses had pushed their way through to the front to ensure themselves a good view, and were almost hidden from sight by the backs of the Misters and the Mistresses. (“Mistresses” added to the sense of the forbidden.)

  They had gathered around the fifth family of the inner five. They were watching Mr. Bones, the Butcher’s family, as they prepared to play music and sing.

  Most of the Bones family was left-handed.

  Mr. Bones, the Butcher, his face averted, his eyes closed (more, you felt, to luxuriate in the sensation of slicing than to express revulsion), was carving through a great red cut of raw meat with a huge broad-bladed knife held in his left hand. The mightily bosomed Mrs. Bones, the Butcher’s Wife, the very spit of Mrs. Albert Comstock – Spit! Spit! Spit! – towered like the Alice in Wonderland Duchess turned homicidal. She’d spoken roughly to her little boy, she’d beaten him when he sneezed, and now she was all agog for slaughter, her appetite roused for stronger meat. She held aloft a great joint of blood-flecked flesh, and in her left hand grasped a cleaver with an air of enthusiasm. That large apron straining across the lower part of her body would not retain its pristine whiteness for very much longer. Master Bones, the Butcher’s Son, the only dextral member of this sinister family, whistled insouciantly as he walked along with a gigantic squelchy joint – it contained more meat than the whole of his body, and oozed blood – resting over his right shoulder. He looked like a murderer – happy and fulfilled in his work – ambling along to dispose of a body, a Burke or a Hare on his way to pay a call upon Robert Knox and claim his seven pounds, ten shillings. He had the same hairstyle as his father: a dark upturned flick of hair on either side of his face, like horns. Miss Bones, the Butcher’s Daughter, was feasting upon a bone the size of a baby. She clutched it in both hands (it was hers, hers, hers) – a distinct possibility of ambidextrousness (was there such a word?) here – and was applying the end of it to her mouth. She was like someone about to play one of the larger brass instruments – a euphonium or a serpent – though you felt that what was going on here was sucking rather than blowing, a determined attempt to extract the marrow from the bone that was bigger than her two legs combined. The meat had been nibbled entirely away from the surface of the bone, and now it was time to slurp out the jellied tissue inside it. She sucked and sucked and sucked the more … Her eyes were almost crossed with concentration. You could imagine her tongue rooting ruthlessly about in its quest for fresh sustenance, seeking that elusive raspberry seed in the hollow tooth at the back of the mouth. She was a figure from one of the darker Central European fairy stories. She was an infant Samson, musing a while in pensive thought, resting from her slaughterous labors with the well-wielded jawbone of an ass. With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, With the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. She smote them hip and thigh – she especially enjoyed smiting them on the thigh, the satisfyingly fleshy thwack! – with a great slaughter. Heaps upon heaps! A thousand men! The bone was the exact shape of one of the bones on a pirate’s skull-and-crossbones flag, as white, as bare, as symmetrical. She’d have them walking the plank, as she chewed all the while. She’d have them skewered on cutlasses, ready for a barbecue, dribbling in toothsome anticipation, cannibalistically keen. She’d have them hauled off and keelhauled. She sucked until her lips were sore … Her dress was dyed a deep uniform red, the blood seeped out o
f the chewed-off meat and into her clothing. She should have been sitting in a spreading pool of blood, dabbling her fingers, holding up her bloodstained palms for inspection. They were a Happy Family. Everyone could remember the Bun family, but – once she’d called them to mind – it was the Bones family she remembered in most detail, Brudder Bones and his brooding brood playing dementedly in their blood-soaked minstrel show.

  The hand of the LORD was upon her, and carried her out in the spirit of the LORD, and set her down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused her to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto her, Daughter of man, can these bones live?… Then he said unto her, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, daughter of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So she prophesied as he commanded her, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army, and each of them had the face of Papa.

  All the Daughters in the Happy Families pack had her face, a fearsome pack of thirteen plain-faced Daughters, more than enough of them to vanquish the complete set of Dibbo Daughters, and each of them fully armed with the symbol of her father’s trade, but they were heavily outnumbered by the exceeding great army.

  Can these bones live? Oh, yes. They could live all right. They could move, they could dance, and they could spin and turn and rattle up and down in an urgently insistent xylophonic rhythm. The music began quietly, almost inaudibly, designed merely as the background noise to the more important business of talking, the Mrs. Albert Comstock attitude to music in all its forms.

  “Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

  Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

  Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

  I hear the word of the Lord …”

  It was the Bones family who were playing, the Happy Families playing card players. They were a chamber quartet, a refreshing infusion of highbrow culture into the generally unashamedly populist approach of the majority of minstrel show performers. Mr. Bones, the Butcher, sliced his knife through the raw meat like a left-handed cellist possessed by the music as he sawed away with his bow. Mrs. Bones, the Butcher’s Wife, wielded her cleaver vigorously against the joint, playing one of the more obscure instruments of the percussion section. Master and Miss Bones, the Butcher’s Son and Daughter, added their own multi-textured layers to the rich tapestry of sound produced by their parents: he percussive in his instrument of choice, she opting for wind.

  All around them, the other Happy Families swayed in unison to the rhythm, and joined in the singing.

  “… Your toe bone connected to your foot bone,

  Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone,

  Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone,

  Your leg bone connected to your knee bone …”

  Dem bones may have been dry, but the instruments they played were soaked, and a fine red mist of blood drizzled down upon their audience. The Masters and Misses in the front row held up their faces in eyes-closed bliss, drinking in the gentle rain from heaven after a long drought, something for which they had been dreaming and praying for a long, long time. Blood stained their clothes, ran down their faces in rivulets, trickling down from where it gathered above their eyebrows and in their hair, and pooled in the palms of their loosely curled upturned hands. Miss Pots – the looking-glass-changed Alice – found a bloody redness to coat not just her face but the whole of her, seeping in deep, and Master Pots proudly displayed his reddened tongue: he’d been licking the blood from the butcher’s implements. Miss Dip held her stained left hand away from her, in Lady Macbeth revulsion, but Master Dip – huge-headed and smiling broadly – held his dripping hands away from his sides, in proud display of a blooding, a symbol of manhood achieved. It was blackness, not redness, that dripped down, as if he’d zestfully slaughtered the Soot family, or massacred a minstrel-show challenge to the musical supremacy of the Bones.

  They heard the word of the Lord.

  “Could I have Miss D-D-Dip, the D-D-Dyer’s D-D-Daughter, please?”

  The magic word.

  “Miss Dip is at home.”

  “Thank you.”

  The magic word.

  “Could I have Miss B-B-Bones, the B-B-Butcher’s D-D-Daughter, please?”

  The magic word.

  Slam!

  (The door reverberated, its knocker activated into an almost out-of-hearing resonance, the windows rattled.)

  “Miss Bones is not at home.”

  Slam! Slam!

  (Bolts were shot firmly home. The key turned in the lock.)

  The magic word had not worked.

  No “Abracadabra!” No “Open, Sesame!”

  The door remained closed against her. It was not Opened Unto her.

  It was a looking-glass door, and as it closed against her she saw why Miss Bones was not at home, why the Miss was missing. She saw the reflection moving toward her.

  She was Miss Bones, knocking on the door and asking for herself.

  She was Miss …

  She …

  It was only then that she realized that she was shivering, in great uncontrolled waves like spasms. It was like that time when she was trembling with fever once, the time when Mama had been bathing her face with cool water. Then she had been too hot; now she was too cold. There would be no soothing trickling sounds, no washing away of the pain. Water would be frozen in the bowl, a miniature part of that landscape of ice. An ice place. The spasms were like cramps in bed at night, that same sensation of coldness, an inward-pulling tightness in the veins, her body completely out of her control, her knee bone connected to her thigh bone, her thigh bone connected to her hip bone, her hip bone connected to her back bone, her back bone connected to her shoulder bone …

  She heard the word of the Lord.

  She would press the thumb and first finger of her right hand tightly together (about to kiss their tips, and hold them cupped upwards, a connoisseur’s gesture of approval after a tasting), and grip the end of the cotton fibers protruding from Papa’s ear with her fingernails. But she couldn’t. Her hands were shaking too much. She’d be unable to make them do what she wanted them to do. She would tug at the cotton, as slowly and carefully as if she were drawing a splinter of wood out of her other hand. But she couldn’t. Caroline Renwick had called such splinters “spells,” a term her Yorkshire grandmother had used. She was drawing out a spell.

  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

  It was the spell that was pricking her thumb, the spell that twitched as it sensed the nearness of wickedness, the wood swelling in the steady drip-drip of falling tears, just before they froze into ice. She could do it, if she could keep her fingers still, without having to touch the cold flesh, pulling it out in the way she had done to – most satisfyingly – disembowel her smug-faced doll, Lumpety.

  Yard after yard of stuffing had emerged in a continuous chain from the small rent in the stitching near where the bellybutton would be. (“Bellybutton” was a slightly daring choice of word.) It was as if – the image had come into her mind yesterday – Roland Birtle really had – in the interests of being interesting – drawn out his not-so-small intestine, to the wonder of Miss Wouldhave, to demonstrate its length, to prove the veracity of the Fascinating Fact with which he had regaled her.

  “Twenty-three feet!” he exclaimed, his voice rising, a performer drawing toward the climax of his act.

  “Gracious!”

  “Twenty-four feet!”

  “Gracious!”

  “Twenty-five feet!” This was his moment of triumph, as he pulled out the last few inches with a squelchy plop, and collapsed in upon his hollow self. (And that was the small intestine!) He had died being interesting. It was what he would have wanted. (I told you it was twenty-five feet long!)

  “Gracious!” Miss Wouldhave exclaimed yet again
, keeling over dramatically, stealing the limelight from Myrtle. Myrtle, knee-deep in small intestine, looked furious.

  After the mhwah! kiss of the fingertips (This is absolutely delicious!), the initial cautious tug with the fingernails, the slight resistance, she would haul out the contents of the cotton-filled head hand over hand, like a winner in a tug-of-war contest. She’d yank away – right hand, left hand – yo-ho-heave-hoing in her deepest voice with the Volga Boatmen (matted beards, depressed expressions, bent forward at angles of forty-five degrees as they pulled ropes as thick as suspension bridge cables straining over their shoulders). She’d demonstrate a vivacious sense of fun as she yo-ho-heave-hoed away. It would warm her up nicely, bring the sensation back into her frozen and shaking hands, drawing the sunshine toward her, the Alabama warmth, the Georgia warmth of Dixie, of Macy.

  “… Oh, Lawdy, pick a bale of cotton …”

  she’d trill, heaving fit to bust, picking, picking, picking at the cotton, like a tarry-fingered oakum-picking prisoner settling into the rhythm of a life sentence, and the Volga Boatmen, seizing upon a less dirge-like incantation than the usual repetitious yo-ho-heave-ho (this tended to pall after a decade or so), joined in with a thrillingly incandescent intensity, approaching some thurible-swinging, climactic Hallelujah moment in a Russian Orthodox service (if they went in for Hallelujahs), the interior of the cathedral as impenetrably cloudy with incense as the opening of Bleak House was with fog. Their sonorous voices thundered above a timorous Tum, tum, tum, tum, ti-tu or Tum-ti, tum-ti, tum-ti, tum into a deeper, darker world elsewhere, where tum s, ti-tu s and tum-ti s faltered into shamed silence.