came over a wooden bridge, passing a broad orchard. “What’s grown here?”
“Pip fruit, mainly,” said Mim, “Apples and grapes. And tedium.”
THEY ARRIVED in late afternoon, tying up the horse in front of a dull brown building with small windows. A cheese shop and a sneak-thief bookbinder occupied the ground floor. “His paste doesn’t last a week,” said Mim. The flats were located above the shops, eight homes in all. Mim offered a hand with the children and satchels, bustling about, not waiting for an answer. Margaret started up the building’s stone steps behind John, thinking mainly about relieving herself.
Theirs was number four, two steep stories up. John opened the front door. “It reeks,” he said, looking around.
He was right. The air was stale and musty. A chamber pot sat in full view, in it a desiccated mess. Margaret scraped the pot along the gritty floor with her foot, moving it behind the coarse curtain separating the sleeping alcove. She summoned the children, saying don’t look, feeling their foreheads for fever as they squatted, opening her reticule then, dealing out a toilet square each. An aunt had presented her with a generous supply before sailing, saying you never know what you’ll find. Margaret took a square for herself and loosened her drawers, hovering over the putrid pot. Henry the camel feigned no urgent need, shy of Mim Bell, no doubt.
Henry led the tour. The main room contained a green divan, an empty curio cabinet, and three straight-back chairs, one with elegant tapered legs. There were no books, no paintings, no vases for flowers. The stove was greasy, the tub beside it filthy with private hairs and insect husks. There was no oil for the lamps. The kitchen curtains were dreadful, dirty and tattered, and they were one bed short. Margaret hung her head after a brief inspection, defeated. Henry came to her, springy, as if with a second wind. It was how they were, how they’d always been. When one tottered, the other rallied.
“We’ll hire a girl,” he said. “There’s no need to lift a finger.”
His beard was crusted with salt; his fetid breath turned her stomach and weakened her knees. “I’m a bit dizzy,” she said.
Mim produced a hankie and began flogging the worn divan. “Sit now, why don’t you?”
“Just for a moment perhaps,” said Margaret, grateful. “I seem made of rubber.”
“Mr. Bell and I arrived five years ago Saturday,” said Mim. “I remember the wretched day all too well. It’s the queerest feeling being on land again, the bobbing and weaving, the addled thinking. It’ll be with you awhile, I’m afraid. You’ll go to take the bread from the oven and find the raw loaf still sitting in the bowl.”
“Five years,” said Margaret. “I cannot begin to imagine.”
Henry dipped behind the curtain and picked up the chipped chamber pot. “Come along,” he said to the children. “We’ll let Mum have a rest.” The three traipsed out. Mim followed on their heels. “I’m just round the corner,” she said before leaving.
Margaret closed her eyes, stupid with exhaustion. Moments later, on the other side of the wall, there came a clatter of pans, an angry man bellowing, “Get to it!”
A woman screeched, “Not on your bloody say-so.” He was a toad, an idler, a no-good. Her mother was right about him. She was a cow, a common draggletail. His brother was right about her. Margaret removed the pretty slipper meant to impress the governor and threw it against the wall. The man sneezed a blustery sneeze. Then all went silent. She retrieved the shoe and closed her eyes again.
She had wondered about the neighbors, never having lived where people were above, below, all around. She’d looked forward to it actually, had imagined a warren of like-minded women her own age, all helping one another, exchanging recipes and such. She nodded off, her head heavy as a melon. The next thing she knew a woman was letting herself in, butting the door open with a broad hip, a bulging sack in one arm, a limp tick folded over the other. Margaret came to disoriented, assuming herself at sea. “Hello.”
The woman grinned. “Your boy happened upon a little playmate.”
“He’s a friendly one,” murmured Margaret. She recognized the moldy place now, the stout woman with the overbite. “Where are they, Mim?”
“In the yard. No need to worry. Your mister’s minding them just fine. Lucky you, landing such a prize. Otherwise you’d string him up here and now, wouldn’t you?” Mim proffered the sack. “Give us a hand, will you?”
They laid out the supplies on the kitchen table, their backs to the one dirty window. Mim had brought back a sleeping pallet, lamp oil, tea and supper things. There were cheeses, sausages, toffees for the children, and a bottle of red wine.
“You shouldn’t have,” said Margaret, overwhelmed. “You’re much too generous.” The cracked linoleum rolled beneath her feet. The cupboards shifted with every turn of her head. “You’ll stay for supper, won’t you?” It shamed her to offer hospitality from such a cesspit. “If you can bear it, that is.”
“Don’t be discouraged,” said Mim, slicing the sausage, laying it out on the clean plate she’d thought to bring. “Elbow grease is all. A good scrubbing, a new curtain or two.”
“I suppose,” said Margaret, looking about. There was nothing to see out the filmy panes but brick. “There’s a horrid smell.”
“Like mutton left cold and forgotten,” said Mim.
“More on the order of entrails,” said Margaret. “An old goat’s viscera.”
“Or an old man’s work drawers,” said Mim.
Margaret laughed. “After a bout with the trots.”
Mim pulled a corkscrew from her pocket. “A wee drop to sweeten the stench?”
“No, thank…yes, thank you. Thank you very much indeed. It couldn’t hurt.”
Mim took a throttlehold on the bottle. “You’re dying to wring his dear neck, aren’t you?”
The children were coming up the stairs, chattering in healthy voices. Margaret thought yellow curtains might be nice, a cheery color to stand in for the light.
Mim wrestled with the corkscrew, perspiration collecting above her lip. “You’d like nothing better than to put a pillow to his darling face and murder him in his sleep for carting you and the little ones halfway round the world.”
Henry came in. Mim’s scorched cheeks blazed brighter with embarrassment. “A figure of speech, Mr. Oades.”
“She’s offered to wring my neck for less,” he said, folding an arm about Margaret, kissing her temple. “Haven’t you?”
“I don’t recall it,” Margaret said, swaying against his side. If only the dingy room would still itself. He spoke close to her ear.
“Imagine us crabbed old sots before the fire, telling our spoiled grandchildren about the days spent here.” He bent over in parody, an ancient on a walking stick. He felt and looked feverish, in need of a bath and sleep. He took a bit of cut sausage and put it to her lips. “Have a taste, Granny. Or haven’t you any teeth to enjoy it?”
She ate the sausage to please him, to allow him to quit the nonsense.
“It’s quite delicious, Grandpapa.”
He kissed her again. “It’s not forever.”
Mim said, “I didn’t speak to my husband for the longest time after we came.”
Margaret looked at Henry. “Do you promise?”
Dearest Parents,