Under the Poppy (18 page)

When did the sorrow start? When they left the road for the rooms? the cold for counterfeit warmth, flung coins for little folded bills, screeching brats and slippery urchins for smooth and smiling women and men in wool waistcoats who wanted nothing better than to buy the showmen with the show, who saw the show itself as mere prelude to private performance in tandem, dark unsmiling Castor and radiant Pollux, the twins so twain that nothing could part them but themselves?—but why worry that corpse, chew the skeleton bones now that all is over, now that he stands in slush to the ankles with his aching forehead pressed against the bricks of a building he cannot enter, to see a stage where Hanzel-Marcel-Dusan stands unreachable, why even try—

—to find the way that in the end is very easy, just the door past a door that no one thought to lock, a freightway hall that leads to stairs climbing to a kind of catwalk from which vantage he can see, like a blow to the heart, not the handsome placard-picture, not Hanzel-Marcel-Dusan, but Istvan, his Istvan, hair pulled back, a little thin in the face, wearing a faintly brittle air that he has never had before: he looks tired. But the stage setting suits him, its formality, its boundaries, he is clearly in command as, accompanied by a rotund little pianist in the pit, he sings while manipulating, yes, a new, larger, fiercer-looking puppet, half the size of a small man, to match with the new voice: so it is out with the past, then. Out with all the past—

—as Istvan brings the song, some farrago about a shared mistress, to an end, and then, incredibly, in the gust of applause, raises his fist to his lips, the precious private gesture, meant now for whom? Everyone? Anyone? No one? or some special patron unseen by the crowd? Watching, Rupert grips the rusting catwalk rail, feels the blood surge like iron to his head, a sickening sensation: how many times can a broken heart break? How foolish is a fool?

Before first light, he is gone from the boardinghouse, pack in hand, bottle in pack, its dregs drunk standing on the back of a coach bound eastward, into the sun coming up like a picture-postcard, pink mist and mystic evergreens, some bird’s insistent cry like a flute, three notes, sharp and true. He feels every jounce of the coach’s wheels, every stone in the road; he feels nothing, cares for nothing, has nowhere in the world to go.

It is by the slightest glance of chance that he finds himself again in Archenberg, breaking his fast in a fourth-rate hotel, listening to some would-be bravo harass a timid drummer, whose meager kit-wagon he saves from harm, using the battering of the bravo to bring a moment’s physical enjoyment, as other men exercise horses, or take the air. The drummer is so grateful he stutters, he buys Rupert’s breakfast, would pay for his room but
I don’t stay here,
Rupert tells him.
But thank you kindly.

Where do you stay, sir?

Nowhere. I travel.

Like a drummer,
says the drummer, with enormous sympathy.
Yes, I see. Well, then, young sir, I’ll tell you this—you are a young man, sir, with no doubt a young man’s taste for, for fun. Take this,
passing him a coin, no, a token, shiny false gold stamped with a star,
to the Gaiety Theatre, the next town over. They have some young ladies there, sir, that will knock your eye out. And they put on quite a fancy-dress stage show, too.

He is about to demur—another theatre, Jesu—but the name, the Gaiety, reminds him, displays in his mind’s eye the street it occupies, the street that street crosses, the Rose and Poppy where, if she is not run off or dead, Decca will be. He fingers the star-stamped coin; he thanks the drummer; he drinks the rest of his tea.

And still, yes, the building stands, the Rose and Poppy in a cooling twilight, but the lamp is dark above the sign, blown leaves litter the threshold. The door is locked; he knocks, to silence, he knocks again. Perhaps she is dead, after all, or moved on with Mattison somewhere else in the wide world; absence can no longer surprise him, and perhaps it is better so.

Turning to leave, he is ten paces gone when
Rupert?
the voice behind him, Decca’s voice flat as a ghost’s; she looks a ghost, dressed in black in the doorway, or a strangely cloistered nun, as if she is no longer part of the daily world.
Rupert.

Decca. Hello.

Come in.

The
place is empty, that much is clear, or would be but for her, who seems so empty herself that he is reminded, again, of a spirit. She looks less like Istvan now, now that the life has dwindled from her face, or disappeared into hiding. Leading the way through dust and rat-scatter and sheet-draped furnishings, she clears a space for him at the little table she occupies in the fitful tallow light, account book, tarnished teapot, plate with one spoon, asks with a mute’s nod if he would take tea, pours, serves until
Stop,
he says, to rouse her,
stop that.
Where is Mattison?
And the whores? What happened here?

Staring at him, this apparition, here, alive, as handsome as ever, though something has gone wrong in his eyes; back without Istvan, how is that possible? Did their paths then never cross? He cannot hear how her heart pounds, as if lurching back into painful life.
Mattison is dead. He died in my arms. The girls left straightaway, the trade closed down.

I see that.
He looks around again.
You—how do you live, then?

It’s yours, now. The deed is in your name, it is yours.

He stares at her as if she is mad. Perhaps in a way she is.
What did you say?

It’s yours. He made out the deed to you, Mattison, before he died.

Why the devil would he do that?

Because she had begged him to, there beside the sweat-wet bed, because it was the only way she could keep what was hers, who could own no property of her own; even were she his widow, a woman known to be alone, they would come and take it from her. How else? So she had begged, and he had acquiesced: swearing that they would make the place prosper, she and her “brother,” as she guided the scrawling pen. That paper kept her in the building when the solicitor came, and the constable, that paper kept, still, in her chemise, against her heart like a holy talisman, against the endless spooling evils of the world.

Because,
she says now,
he wanted you to have it.
Her voice has grown a little louder, a little more firm.
Because he always said you were a good fellow, and would do well by the place.

Jesu.
Rupert looks around once more, the cobwebs and draped disorder, the musty whiff in the air.
Did they loot it, too, before they left?
But he is not truly speaking to her and she knows it, knows to sit silent, watching him, her hands gripped together beneath the tablecloth: it is like a dream, to see him there, a dream she never had in all of her midnight imaginings. The two of
them
, together in the great world, yes, always together; but never this, never once had she pictured Rupert come back here alone.

Finally, guardedly, when the silence grows uneasy:
Will you stay the night, then?

It’s cold as tombs in here.

I’ll make it warm.

He drinks his tea like a man in a dream. She watches, and pours his cup full.

It is not until later, weeks later, when it is clear that he will stay, at least for now, at least until the building is cleaned and repaired, until he has some other idea what to do with the rest of his life, that she speaks, at last, with infinite caution, of Istvan:
What news of my brother?
careful not to look directly at him, staring at the mending in her lap, a shirt of his with badly-fraying cuffs.
Did you—

No news,
Rupert says.
Lines spring up between his eyes, all at once he looks much older, more weary and more dire.
I know where he is, or was; and will be. We need not speak of him again.

Pearl

We was crying, all of us, crying ’most all the night. Every time I think of her there, folded up in that box, not even flowers to put in her poor hands, I cry all afresh. She was just my age, Jennie, and now she’s buried and gone.

All morning there was arguing, sharp-like arguing—you could hear from the hallway, Miss Decca and Mr. Istvan, Mr. Rupert was there, too:
Dead is dead,
Miss Decca says,
a mark is a mark. Needle or pin, stick pin, what difference?

She didn’t take her needles in the face.

She was killing herself at any rate, we do know that.

You have a chilly heart these days, don’t you, Ag. You never used to.

And her voice so low and dreadful, she is bloodcurdling, Miss Decca, sometimes.
Chilly? Am I not what life made me? What you made me, both of you
—

And you yourself had no hand in the making?
but
Stop,
said Mr. Rupert, and they did. What it all must mean I don’t know, but it’s true that Jennie was killing herself with the needle, we all knew that, that nice Doctor Adderley come to tell us to be on the watch: keep an eye on her, he said, don’t let her spend too much time alone. But we got to be up on the stage or out on the floor, or up receiving in the rooms, so how can we watch? Lucy was a brick, of us all she did her best to keep poor Jennie upright, but in the end—

And that she died with that awful old masher, the one that comes for Laddie; it gives me the shivers. It was Omar found her, all curled on the bed, he said she was dosed, awful dosed. So whatever come she didn’t feel it anyway…. She was plenty dosed at the show, eyes rolling back when Laddie hopped atop her, I don’t know if she knew it was him or one of them puppets or a trick or what. I didn’t see her, after, I was with Mr. Mayor…. Vera always says
He’s sweet on you, Pearl, anyone can see that. He asks for you first before all of us, he buys you shandies
—

We got no shandies, now.

I know that, I mean when there’s drinks to buy.

And Velma says,
Take what you can get, girl, don’t be stupid. Get yourself into his house if you can.
But he’s so old, Mr. Mayor, and bald, he smells like tinned herring, and his fingers are so fat…. Jonathan’s hands are soft, but strong, too, from playing the piano, he can hold three apples in each hand, stretching his fingers like it’s nothing. And he’s sweet, Jonathan, I don’t give a care if he can’t talk, he always makes you know what he’s meaning anyway. And anyway his music talks for him. Even the angels in Heaven, I bet you, even they never heard what he can play. On anything! Even that old pennywhistle I had since I was a tyke, even that, he played “Lo! the Winter Rosebuds” till we was all a-sighing and crying, it was that beautiful.

He saw me crying, down in the kitchen, because Puggy said
No more “Spinning Jennie,
” but her name wasn’t Spinning Jennie, spinning was just what she did in that circus show, and her true name wasn’t Jennie either, it was Gail, Abigail, she told me that once. And she was more than just the needle and the fucking—she liked that black-flower tea, when we could get it, and she had a brother named Peter, she said he was a steeplejack, or steeplechaser, something like that.… I said we ought to write a letter to him, and tell him she was passed on, but then Vera got all nasty and said
Oh, can you write? Why don’t you write a love note to the mayor?
And that started me back crying all afresh.

And then Jonathan come up to me and hugged me, just ’round the shoulders; there’s never no funny business with Jonathan. He is a gentleman, and he treats us like ladies, all of us. Well, except Laddie, you know. And he wrote something down for me but I don’t have my letters, so I couldn’t read it, and that made me cry, too.

So he—what’s it called?—he made a little play of it, made his fingers walk away, waved goodbye, did it again so I understood and
You’re leaving?
I said to him, and cried even harder. But then he took my hand, my fingers, made ’em walk as well, wave as well “Goodbye” and
Oh,
I said,
I see,
because I did see, I knew what he was meaning, then. That he and I will go, together. Together we will go! I threw my arms around his neck, I squeezed him double-hard.
When,
I said. He made another motion, up and down with the shoulders, who can say? because now is a bad time, the worst time, with all them soldiers everywhere, even here, at the Poppy! They sleep all over the lobby, you can’t turn round without one of them a-staring at your tits.

Mr. Rupert don’t much like it, you can tell, even though he never speaks out his thoughts, not to us girls anyway. May be he tells Miss Decca some things, since she is his sib, or half-sib, howsoever. Lucy says he tells Mr. Istvan everything, Lucy says—well, you can’t say truth of everything that Lucy says. Mr. Rupert is a fine clean gentleman, I do know that.