The Terrible Girls

by Rebecca Brown

  Also by Rebecca Brown

  The Children’s Crusade

  The Haunted House

  © 1990 by Rebecca Brown

  First published by City Lights Books in 1992

  Originally published 1990 by Pan Books, London

  Cover design by Rex Ray

  Book design by Amy Scholder

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brown, Rebecca, 1956-

  The terrible girls / by Rebecca Brown.

  ISBN: 0-87286-266-6 p. cm.

  L Title.

  PS3552.R69/314/ 1992 92-3391

  813.54—dc20 CIP

  City Lights Books are published at the City Lights Bookstore

  261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133

  www.citylights.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  “Isle of Skye” appeared originally in The New Statesman. “Forgiveness” and “Junk Mail” were published first in Passion Fruit (Pandora). “Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume” appeared originally in STORIA.

  The author would like to thank Hawthornden Castle International Writers’ Retreat, The Browning Institute and Casa Guidi for space in which to complete this book.

  For seeing me through this American edition, thanks to Mom, Tali, Patrick, George and Aldo.

  This is for Louise

  THE TERRIBLE GIRLS

  The Dark House

  Isle of Skye

  Junk Mail

  Forgiveness

  Lady Bountiful and the Underground Resistance

  Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume

  What I Did

  The Ruined City

  THE DARK HOUSE

  NEVER, YOU SAID, NOT me. Don’t waste your time waiting.

  But after a while you said, Well possibly.

  Then after a longer while you said, Well maybe. But that whatever you might do, if you did anything, you’d certainly make no promises and one would be wrong to assume or expect. Then you cocked your head a little and said that if anything were perhaps to happen it would take a long, long time. But if one were around anyway and felt like it, one might wait.

  This was your way of saying Someday. Of telling me to wait.

  You said you couldn’t even begin to think about it until after the conference. The conference was held every year. The job of hosting the conference rotated every year. You had been the hostess twice before. Once ages ago before me, then once when I first came to you, then now.

  Yours was a good place to have it. Yours was a big and well-kept place of honey-colored stone. Mostly it was a long wide block like a country estate with wings on either end. There was a row of big sash windows with thick heavy curtains which you liked to keep drawn completely so, you said, the furniture wouldn’t get faded. In the back was a courtyard with round, smooth white or grey stones, so perfect they seemed to have been washed in a machine, not just plucked from a river. There was a river past the courtyard, way past it, on the other side of the huge expansive yard of clipped green grass. The river, though you could hardly see it from your place, was wide and green-blue and rushing with water as thick as oil. Though whether the water felt oily you could only guess, if you cared to, having never been in the water. The river was not mentioned in your introductory tour of the grounds. All that was lush and rich and unmapped and untaxed, what you said you had no interest in, lay beyond the river.

  From whence I had come.

  Never, you said, not me.

  You said you could never leave. You said you couldn’t, you just couldn’t.

  Then wouldn’t. Because you didn’t have any interest. Because it was all right enough here and familiar. Then because we could scratch out a niche right here if we were discreet enough. Then because we ought to see how it went for a while anyway. Then because we seemed to be managing all right right here with all the nooks and crannies and hidden out-of-the-way places where we could rendezvous. (After a while one of those places was recognized as most convenient for our appointed rendezvous.) Then because of other reasons, reasons bigger than both of us. You said:

  I don’t have the papers.

  You don’t need any papers.

  I haven’t had the shots.

  You don’t need shots.

  You ignored me.

  More reasons:

  You hadn’t studied the maps (implying there were no maps.) You needed to work up until retirement, you’d invested so much.

  Then, what if you went but when you got there you didn’t like it?

  Well, just come back.

  Or what if you got sick or injured or tired out there, you continued, ignoring me.

  But what would make you sick, I knew, was sticking around here forever.

  Never, you said, don’t waste your time waiting. Then you looked at me and asked, your lower lip pouting, coy, Don’t you believe me?

  I was the only one to whom you spoke about any of this. I brought it out of you. When you said, Never, I thought, You never have, but you will with me if I wait.

  After I’d waited a long time, you sighed and said, Well, maybe. We’ll have to see. Wait.

  So I did. I was good at waiting. I could wait a long time.

  This year was your turn to be hostess of the conference. I was glad. Always before I had missed you when you had gone, and when you had come back you were always so distant I had to wait for you to be with me again.

  Every year it was the same people or at least the same kinds of people in the same positions. Though you said you didn’t like any of them particularly there was a kind of comfort in the familiarity. Every year the host or hostess had to plan, organize, arrange, order the same things. You were good at it; you liked it. Actually what you liked was how everyone praised you and congratulated you and said how marvellous you were for organizing so well and how dedicated you were. (You thought they thought, but didn’t say as it would not be polite, that your whole life was dedicated to your work, you had no personal life; you liked that appearance.) In fact though, as you told me with a dismissive sweep of your arm, you didn’t like the conference. All the petty politics and run-of-the-mill repetitions made you sick and tired. And frankly you thought most of them were pretty stupid and boring, and certainly “intellectual cowards” (your phrase). You said you didn’t participate because you liked to or got much out of it, but because you had to.

  The first time you said this to me, ages ago, I said, Why do you have to, you don’t have to. You looked at me like I’d just said, Where? when the tour guide was pointing to the Nile. Oops, I thought, but didn’t say. I tried very hard to understand, to sympathize with you.

  I also thought to myself that if you were going to get sick and tired, truly sick and tired, of what you said you didn’t like, that I would stay and wait for that. Then I’d carry you away.

  The same people, or people just like them only with different names, came every year. Whoever’s turn it was to be host or hostess had a big job. I didn’t deny that. I agreed it was important and time-consuming and took concentration. I never disparaged or belittled what you did. On the contrary, I offered to help. I’d do anything, I said. Could I help with the mailings or flyers? Accommodations? Leisure time activities? Meet anyone at the train station? Arrange things with the caterer? Sit at the welcome booth and say Welcome? Or at the information booth and say Two doors down on your right? Or meet you at night for our traditional appointed rendezvous and do what you asked?

  But, you said, with your coy smile that was usually reserved for our traditional appointed rendezvous, and always reserved for me, my presence would distract you.

  I said OK.

  You lifted your chin slightly, trying to look noble and sad, and said that you had never had anyone before to do those things, you
were used to doing them alone. Also you found it more efficient.

  I said OK.

  You said, Wait, when it’s over everything will be different.

  I said OK. I looked at you.

  In a couple of seconds, you said, very sweetly, I’ll be different.

  I hoped so. I’d waited for it.

  Then you cocked your head and said, Well, maybe I’ll find something for you to do.

  I didn’t say, because I didn’t need to, because you knew, that I’d do anything.

  You knew that, though I didn’t want to, I would have pretended for them, for you, that I was just another helpful civic-minded volunteer and not your one and only.

  The conference went on a long time. Lectures, papers, seminars, discussion groups, morning coffees, evening sightseeing tours (optional), and lots of cocktail parties.

  Given your organizational role, you weren’t expected to come up with anything original, the way you would have if you were just a participant. You didn’t have to be alone to think. Nor did you have to work so hard preplanning. There were committees and volunteers and interns. You could have delegated, but you didn’t. Some of the junk you did was busywork. You wanted everyone to say, My, she certainly works hard, doesn’t she. Or, Look how much beyond the call, how marvellous she is.

  I also think you wanted to overwork, to tire yourself.

  When you and I met secretly, for our special rendezvous, you said to me, brushing your hand across your brow, your voice a shadow of its former self, that you were getting tired.

  You don’t have to do so much, I said.

  You ignored me.

  Are you not going to be well enough when it’s time to go? I said.

  Can’t you see how tired I am, you pouted.

  I saw you were tired of the stupid work. Everyone saw. But I’d given up trying to tell you to do less. I also saw you were sick, and more tired still, of pretending. Not only that you liked what you did, which you told me you didn’t, but also about you and me.

  I said, Look, if you think you’re going to fall, at least let me be near enough to catch you and hold you up.

  You didn’t want anyone to see you, especially to see the way you were with me.

  I should have said, Stop lying.

  You found something for me to do at the conference. You made me the coffee-cart girl. My job was to deliver the coffee, tea, doughnuts and cakes. When there was no immediate coffee or tea need, I was clean-up girl. With these jobs I could always manage to be in the vicinity of you so I could know if you needed me, but far enough away so, as you insisted, no one would suspect. I also emptied trash cans, ashtrays, grease pots in the kitchen, glasses with residue of red or white or mineral water. I washed floors and did windows.

  When you passed me in the hall where I was scrubbing on my hands and knees, making your floor the cleanest anyone had ever seen it, though you didn’t appear to notice, I bowed my head and muttered, Ma’am. You muttered nothing to me.

  I did all this because I understood, not only your “predicament” (your word) but also things about you no one else did, even you. When you said, Wait, you’ve got to understand, I said OK. I stuck by what I said.

  You said that to me quietly so no one else could hear. Though no one else had ever been near when you spoke to me. You spoke to me when we were private and secret on our rendezvous, with hands and tongue and teeth and with – when it was open it was very dark – your mouth.

  Yes, I said breathlessly, I could hardly say no when you had me like that, I’ll wait.

  I willed myself to wait. You were the one who didn’t.

  The convention had been going on for days. You had been so busy and had done so much work that you and I had not had time for our traditional appointed rendezvous activity. Though we had met. But when we’d met, we’d worked on organizing. Together we solved the little problems that arose each day about the conference. After a while, when the organizational kinks had been worked out so we could have started our traditional appointed rendezvous activity again, you said to table our meetings for a while because you were tired and needed some time alone. You didn’t want to get too tired you said. I said, OK, I’d wait.

  After the conference had gone on quite some time, you started getting bored. We hadn’t met in a while, at least, not close-up. Though I had seen you every day, sailing from room to room, nodding your approval, clapping politely at others’ findings or engaging in stimulating conversation, and generally holding forth until something even more important and/or interesting called you away. You always slipped away graciously. You didn’t act tired at all.

  I was with my coffee cart. My cart had two large pots – one with brewed coffee and one with hot water for those who prefer tea (we offered a selection of black and herbal varieties) or decaf. The cart had four boxes of one dozen mixed doughnuts each (glazed, twists, chocolate-covered, plain cake, cream-and jam- (blueberry, cherry, lemon) filled, and maple bars.) I was wearing my white apron over my black dress, dark tights, sensible shoes, and a small white cap, which actually looked more like a doily. I was pushing my cart down the empty hall to Seminar Room West 1B. I was passing the elevator.

  I didn’t hear someone sneak up behind me, but I felt someone slap their hands over my mouth so I couldn’t scream, and push me and my cart into the empty elevator. When the elevator door closed behind us the hands came off my mouth and turned me around so I could see who had abducted me: you. It had been so long since we had met for our rendezvous that I didn’t recognize your hands. It was awful to have forgotten the touch of your hands.

  We were in the elevator on the first floor, where my coffee was headed. You pushed the button to the fourth floor. The elevator door had a small window in it which people could see out of or into when the elevator was passing by a floor. But between each floor there was a space of about six feet where no one could see out or in. As the elevator went between the first and second floors, you yanked me towards you and kissed me on the mouth. Between the second and third floors you stuck your tongue down my throat and squeezed me hard through my uniform. I tried to touch you, but the window of the elevator was starting to show above the third floor.

  Wait, you said.

  You took a step away from me and dropped your hands to your sides. I looked at them. You looked at the buttons that lit up the floors the way strangers do on elevators.

  When the door opened on the third floor, you stepped out without a glance at me. I looked at your retreating back while I tried to catch my breath and straighten the rumples you’d made in my uniform. As the doors closed in front of me, I saw, through the increasingly small slit between the panels of the door, and then through the window, you shake hands firmly with a couple of your colleagues. I waved to you but the elevator was going up so I didn’t see if you waved to me.

  But I told myself that you had waved, and that it was a secret sign for me: A little longer only. Wait.

  It was so lovely what I saw, and so much what I wanted, that I closed my eyes between the floors and saw the sight of your hand waving in to me.

  You were very concerned about doing things right.

  But it was right, I said, what I wanted us to do. It was not new or wild or unique. On the contrary, it was common. We were going to be part of a fine and lovely and long and true tradition.

  Not the greatest, granted, nor the best endowed, but a noble one in its own way nonetheless. Perhaps more accurately a heritage.

  I knew this. But for you, in my time off, the time that any other time I would have met you for our rendezvous, I researched the history to show you that what I wanted us to do was right. Granted, the old pre-war encyclopedias didn’t give much space to what I was looking for, and what they did say was inaccurate, but all modern scholarship supported it. Even the new edition of The Children’s Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia had an article. There was a precedent.

  I’m not like that, you said.

  Yes you are, I said. I showed you an article.


  I’m not like that, you repeated.

  How ’bout this, I said, pointing at a picture. Right here —

  I am not like that, you interrupted. How do you know that’s not a lie?

  I didn’t say anything. I had photographs and documentary footage and tapes and records and videos and maps and I had come from there.

  Besides, you said, even if you’re not lying, that’s not like me. I’m not like that. I’ll never be like that. I’ll never be like – you looked away from me, snapped your chin up and said with disdain – any of you coffee-cart girls.

  I should have slapped you. I should have done you with a power drill, but I just sat there.

  You had made me the coffee-cart girl.

  Why did I keep waiting? Why did I keep believing that someday you would come around and stop lying? Was it only because I had waited so long already?

  Partly. But also because I believed what you said. But maybe because I’d gotten so used to hearing what you said the way I wanted to that I couldn’t tell what you really said. I wanted, when you had said to me, I’m not, I’ll never, for you to have been lying. I wanted someday for you to stop lying and be with me.

  One afternoon I was pushing my tea and coffee and cakes cart (cakes rather than doughnuts as it was afternoon) through the hall and I heard your voice coming from inside one of the rooms. I stopped the cart outside the room to listen. You were delivering a paper, nothing new or original, simply a recitation of some old stuff, the kind of thing any child or lazy undergrad could have copped from an encyclopedia. It wasn’t your language. As I listened, I recognized phrases from The Children’s Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, the outdated version you’d grown up with. I could almost see, as you read out words that weren’t your own, those old retouched black-and-white photo “reconstructions,” edges blurred, of low-life hoodlums in rough, dirty clothes lurking around in creepy looking places. I think you really didn’t realize that what you were reading from was not only obsolete and ridiculous, but wrong. I was embarrassed for you.