by Fiona Kidman
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Nothing. It’s just that he’s, well, he’s Chinese.’
‘Is it Harry?’
‘Yes,’ Hester said, appearing taken aback that Jessie already knew this. Hadn’t Owen told her about their first encounter on Lou’s boat? And why would he have held back on that?
Hester explained that although Harry was an older man, he and Owen had become friends. When Owen was just out of school he’d worked in the market garden.
‘Well, do you mind about him being best man?’
‘Of course not,’ Hester said, her eyes pained. ‘It’s just that my mother’s my mother, you know what I mean?’
Sooner or later, summer turns and then it’s over. Something was bound to happen with all this stuff floating just under the surface. The restaurant was full the night the police came. Jessie looked up from a pork grill and saw two policemen standing framed in the entrance to the Violet Café.
‘This is a raid,’ said the taller of the two, a beanpole of a fellow with red hair showing beneath his helmet. ‘Everyone out.’
‘You can’t do this to me,’ said Violet.
‘Yes, we can.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘On suggestion that liquor is sold illegally at this establishment.’
‘Well, you go right ahead,’ said Violet, tilting her chin in the air. ‘You search the premises.’
‘I can vouch for the place,’ said Lou. ‘Nobody’s been drinking in here tonight. Ask the chap who just went out — he’s got the pricker because there wasn’t any booze here.’
‘Thanks, Mr Messenger. If you wouldn’t mind just removing yourself from the premises, we’ll check this out for ourselves.’
‘Go on then, everyone,’ Violet said, ‘you go outside. I’m staying here — you’ll have to arrest me if you want me out. But I’m telling you, if you find everything in order and my girls have been humiliated in this way, I’ll sue the lot of you.’
‘Well.’ The redhead scratched his head. ‘Perhaps you could all just stand here at the front of the shop. Tell your kitchen staff to come out too. It’s just a recce really.’
‘Oh, not a real raid. I see. Well, come on then, you lot. Hester and Belle, get yourselves out here,’ Violet said, standing at the kitchen door. The two women emerged, Hester wiping her face with the back of her hand, looking as if she was about to cry.
‘What will Owen say, if he hears about this?’
‘Oh stop it, Hester,’ said Violet. ‘This is a farce if ever I saw one.’ The police were going around the tables inspecting glasses and cups and sniffing them.
Belle didn’t look concerned at all. Her big blue eyes were dancing, as she pulled her pony-tail a shade higher, making herself look pert and pretty. Lou Messenger turned and looked at her as she came out of the kitchen, his eyes lighting up as if he had just seen an apparition or a blessed happening.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
‘I’m the dish-washer,’ said Belle. ‘Taken,’ she said, slipping her engagement ring out of her pocket, where she kept it while she was working, and slipping it on her finger.
‘That’s my father you’re talking to, Belle,’ Evelyn said, in a dangerous mean voice.
‘Well, I know that,’ Belle said.
‘We only let her out for special events like police raids,’ said Marianne, seeming to take Evelyn’s part. Evelyn shot her a grateful look.
The policemen had gone into the kitchen, followed by Violet. ‘Crime down in the town, is it?’ she said. ‘Nothing much to do?’
‘Just stay where you are, ma’am.’
‘And nobody will get hurt, you mean,’ Violet said, parodying their tone of voice. David raised his hands above the piano’s keyboard.
‘I said, don’t move,’ said the red-haired policeman.
‘I’m just the piano player,’ David said.
He played ‘Little Brown Jug’, a fixed glee in his smile, as if outwitting the police was the most entertaining thing he’d ever done. Ha ha ha, you and me, little brown jug, how I love thee.
The door behind them opened very softly while the two policemen were rifling through the kitchen, and John appeared soundlessly behind them. Only Jessie saw him come in. He winked at her. She thought then he’d left by the back door and come back, just like the movies, and she wanted to laugh. John put his fingers up to his lips.
The police came out, the redhead in charge of the operation, looking flustered.
‘Everything seems to be in order here. Your diners can resume their seats if they wish.’
‘Oh, thank you very much. And just whose idea was it to come down here and have some fun at my expense tonight?’
‘Just routine, Mrs Trench.’
‘I might just come down to the station in the morning and see the sergeant.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, ma’am. We’re going to recommend that no further inspections of these premises are required.’
The remnants of the restaurant’s guests were collecting up their belongings and queuing up to pay at the desk, wanting to get out of the place as fast as possible, except Lou who kept staring at the place where Belle had stood. She had flitted back into the kitchen, without a backward glance.
Belle had a dream. In her dream Jesus had spoken to her, and told her that her life was about to change. She saw His face quite clearly, close to hers. He was not gentle and bearded, the way Wallace described Him. He was swarthy and stocky with muscular arms and a deep chest. Mary Magdalene was in the dream too. When He talked to Mary Magdalene, He was a bit cocky, a bit sure of Himself, as if He knew He could sweep her off her feet if He wanted to. When He spoke to Belle, He said, ‘You’re going to come along with me. Never mind the hangers-on and the holy rollers who wouldn’t know a good time if they saw one.’
In her dream, she said, ‘Whither thou goest, I will go,’ like Ruth in the Bible, and she could never get it through her head that this was a woman talking to her mother-in-law about following her family, because it’s what she felt love might be about, and she had never experienced this feeling: that out there, there was someone who she would follow to the ends of the earth if she could. Up until now, she had done what she must. Jesus didn’t seem impressed with her response, so she said, ‘Let the good times roll,’ hoping to perk things up a bit. She saw how pleased He looked about this. When she woke up, she had the salt taste of tears round her mouth, as if she has been crying in her sleep. Wallace was very still beside her, his mouth slightly open, snoring in small grunts every now and then.
Belle sat up in bed, winding her hair round her fingers. It was nearly morning and pale threads of light were edging their way around the bedroom. She thought of waking Wallace because already this seemed like a bad dream, not a good one, and perhaps if they got together for half an hour she would forget it. Besides, she liked the habit of sex, but looking at him lying there beside him with his mouth like a fly trap, she thought that it was the act she wanted, not the man himself, not the stale routine of what happened in this room. She had had better sex, but she’d tried to close her mind off to that part of her life, the breaking in that prepared her for him, the handing over of her body like a parcel, and the torment of good behaviour until Wallace was allowed to have his way with her. Sex, Belle thought was what she did well, her private talent. It might surprise some of those girls at the café, how much she knew about such a lot of things.
Perhaps she should just wake Wallace to tell him that her life was going to change. Like the signs of the zodiac which she sneakily read in the newspaper. He wouldn’t like it though; he had almost won the battle to stop her going to work at the Violet Café. Soon he would win by the sheer force of marriage. She thought of Hester, who was anticipating her wedding with such certainty, and wished she could be the same. If she were to tell Wallace about her dream, he might see it as an even more urgent incentive for her to leave work. Very quietly, so as not to disturb her sleeping fiancé, Belle slipped out
of bed, opened the bedroom door and then, when nothing moved behind her, went to the front door of the house, making sure the snib on the lock was up so she could get back in. Outside, a heavy dew lay on the snapdragons and geums that filled the front garden. The dawn promised a clear bright day to follow. Later the smell of the hydrogen sulphide that curled up from the ground would rise with the heat, but right then, she could smell the fresh astringent scent of the gardens all along the street. It was irresistible, the path that lay ahead of her, the silence broken only by waking birds. Belle walked barefoot in her white nightdress, gathered with blue ribbon at the throat, her hair floating over her shoulders.
She was so lost in this moment of total freedom that she didn’t hear a car coming behind her. It was a red and white Chrysler Valiant, cruising down the street at low speed, its motor so soft she might be forgiven for not noticing it until it was almost upon her, as she crossed the road, intent on a neighbour’s roses, their heads floating above a wall. The car screeched to a halt, and for a moment there was nowhere to run. She looked up, saw a face she recognised and was frozen to the spot, her cold white milkmaid feet unable to take a step backwards or forwards. She knew the man driving the car, and he looked just about as stunned as she was.
Belle stepped back onto the kerb, wondering if the driver would unroll the window and speak to her, but he gave her a small wave, as if insisting that everything was normal, and the car slid off into the gathering sunlight.
‘Jesus is sweet,’ Belle murmured to herself, as she turned and ran down the street, down the path of her father’s house, slipped through the door and along the passage to the bathroom. She heard, as she passed the chiming clock on the wall, that it was seven o’clock already. When she found she was bleeding, that was the best thing that could start her day, because she’d been a week overdue, and her whole life had felt as if it was closing in.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Lou Messenger said, too, under his breath, as he drove on through the town towards the shop. Only a few days ago, Violet Trench had cornered him when he was paying his bill. Leave my girls alone, she had told him. As if he didn’t know plenty about her and more.
‘Sweet Jesus, that was close.’ He had enough trouble on his hands. He flicked on his car radio.
Out there in the world, late in November of 1963, something had happened, and one by one they were waking up to news of the stupendous event, and, for all the rest of their lives, they would ask each other what they were doing when they heard. They would remember the feeling, that nothing they knew would ever be the same.
It was eight o’clock the same morning. Jessie, cleaning the room, came across a yellow packet of photographs. She’d asked Marianne about the pictures that she was modelling for, but Marianne was vague about them. Soon she would get a whole pile of them when the man had had time, but right now he was busy on other work. That’s what she said, but lately Jessie had been wondering if there were any photos at all. She had begun to think that Marianne really did go to a cleaning job. Jessie couldn’t stop herself from opening the packet. She lifted the black and white prints gingerly. Marianne was revealed in various stages of undress amid a setting of fern fronds. The earth and mossy surfaces looked like Marianne’s pubic hair, a silky blackened pelt. Like a small animal waiting to pounce from between the pale columns of her spread legs. A bar of sunlight fell across her face so that it was not immediately discernible as Marianne’s.
‘Interesting, are they?’ Marianne said, from the doorway.
‘Marianne, I thought you wouldn’t be back for a long time.’
‘Well, there you are, life’s full of little surprises.’
‘Marianne, the man who takes these photographs …’
‘Yes,’ Marianne said, immediately on her guard.
‘Is he the man? The married man you see?’
For a moment, Marianne looked afraid. ‘Of course not. Whatever made you think that, stupid?’ She snatched the photographs out of Jessie’s hands, and pushed them back in the envelope. ‘These are just snapshots, a bit of a joke.’ Soon afterwards, she went out again, taking the envelope with her. David Finke came down the hall, looking as white and transparent as ice cubes. ‘Have you heard the news?’ he said.
Belle was overcome with uncontrollable shivering when she returned to the bedroom. Wallace was awake, and she saw how she’d startled him.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s just the usual.’
But her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, and her whole body was locked in a spasm that went on and on, so that she appeared to Wallace to be curving and arcing before she fell across the bed. ‘My little love,’ he said. ‘Darling Belle, darling, I’ll get your mum. She’ll know what to do.’
Lorraine came at his call, taking in the scene, running her hands over Belle’s rigid body, stopping for a moment with a puzzled expression as she touched the wet ends of the night dress. Belle’s lips were drawn back over her bared teeth. Her feet were freezing.
‘Get a basin of hot water,’ Lorraine told Wallace.
While he was out of the room, Lorraine propped Belle on the chair beside the bed, and covered her decently.
As he’d been instructed, Wallace brought back a wide white enamel basin with a thin blue rim, filled with steaming water. Lorraine placed it in front of Belle and guided her feet into it.
‘I’ve seen,’ Belle began, then stopped.
‘Yes?’ Wallace encouraged her.
She shook her head, mute.
‘A vision? Did you see God? A miracle?’
Belle was still and unmoving.
‘I think we should pray,’ said Wallace. While he was out of the room he had summoned Hal, who now joined them.
‘We should get the doctor, more like it,’ Lorraine said. This was not exactly what she believed, because she suspected that whatever had provoked Belle’s fit might not be medical. She didn’t know exactly why.
Nobody was listening to her anyway, which was hardly new. Hal called on the Lord to hear their prayers, and so they did, calling on Him to save Belle, Lorraine all the while splashing the water over her daughter’s feet and ankles, while Wallace clutched the hand of his pale white maid, imploring her to recover. After a while, Belle yawned and sighed. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’m fine now.’ Her toes were pink and shiny.
The crisis over, they left her to sleep. Wallace went out to collect the morning paper and found, to his puzzlement, that it was not there, but lying inside the front door, as if it had been dropped there by someone. But he had more stupendous news, just told him by one of the neighbours. ‘President Kennedy’s been shot,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ Hal said. ‘You could see the whites of that man’s eyes all the way round.’
SEASONAL RITES
Dear Jessie,
I’m glad you’re having such a great time, but I hope you’ll think about starting for home before long. I have to have some tests at the doctor’s next week, and I need someone to keep an eye on the children. I can always ask Jock’s sister, I suppose, but it would be good if you could be here.
Mum
Jessie was totally distracted when this letter arrived, later the same day. Kennedy had been shot; she worked in the Violet Café; she had briefly been held in the embrace of a young man she thought about nearly all the time, every day.
Later, before they left for work, she and Marianne watched the news on Kevin’s television, which he’d had installed in the sitting room. For once, they were allowed through the door. The pictures of the blood preoccupied them all.
Hester held a length of polished cotton in front of Jessie’s waist and let it drop so that she could see the fall of the skirt. Jessie could smell her apple skin and breath. ‘Hmmm,’ Hester said, and walked away considering. ‘That’s about right. So what are you going to do about Christmas then?’
‘I’d better go home and see my mother.’
‘Have you talked about that to Mrs Trench?’
/> ‘Do you think she’d mind?’
‘You’d have to ask her,’ Hester said. ‘She’s not keen on time off, you know.’
‘My mother’s not very well. Well, that’s what she says.’
‘You can try asking,’ Hester said, but she looked doubtful.
Jessie kept putting off asking. Christmas drew nearer, and Violet said that they were heading for the busiest time of the year. There was the annual carnival at the waterfront — not that she encouraged people like that in the café but still it did bring in the patrons — and then there was the New Year parade, and the whole town would be packed with visitors. Finally, when Jessie did ask, Violet turned on her, furious.
‘Didn’t you know when you took on this job that it was full-time? What’s the matter with you? I treat you well enough, don’t I?’
Jessie had to agree that she did.
‘Look Jessie,’ Hester said, the next time she went around to her house, ‘Violet’s the boss. Perhaps you should just go.’
‘You mean the only way I can go home for Christmas is to leave?’
‘I shouldn’t be saying this,’ Hester said unhappily, her loyalties torn, ‘but you don’t want to upset your family.’
‘You don’t know my family.’
‘Do you need to be one of Violet’s girls? You don’t seem the type.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Jessie said slowly.
‘Well, you know, they’ve all got problems,’ Hester said, almost absent-mindedly, biting off a thread, because Jessie was using the scissors to cut out a bodice. ‘You’re special, you tried to save Hugo. She was bound to be kind. But in the end, everyone has to toe the line.’
‘So what are your problems?’ Jessie asked.
Hester’s throat flooded with colour, the way it always did when she was agitated. ‘I don’t have any. Well, not now’ She gestured helplessly around the room. ‘I found it hard to get away from my mother. She thought I should stay home and look after her. But then I met Violet and all that changed.’