Pinkerton's Sister (25 page)

(“
Moonshine!
”

(That’s what he was thinking.

(“
Moonshine!
”

(The cold white light would creep across the floor and dim the warmth of the lamp. Miss Ericsson would hide her eyes with Happy Families and not see the truth of what was in front of her.)

Alice was Miss P-P-Pinkerton, the Shipping Merchant’s Daughter, snapped down upon her back on the table. Mr. P-P-Pinkerton, Mrs. P-P-Pinkerton, Miss P-P-Pinkerton (and Miss P-P-Pinkerton and Miss P-P-Pinkerton: three stuttering misses all in a row), and Master P-P-Pinkerton.
Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap!
as the Shipping Merchant’s family were arced out for inspection like a partially opened fan, obscuring each other, masking the faces and parts of the body, two Daughters too many in the crammed-in hand.

Alice was Miss Bun, the Baker’s Daughter.

She was Miss Tape, the Tailor’s Daughter.

She was Miss Spade, the Gardener’s Daughter.

She was …

She was …

Miss Chip. Miss Dip. Miss Soot.

Six
Happy Families.

She needed to remember the names of seven more families.

Whoever she was, she always looked the same. The clothes changed, but it was the same face on each card, and the face beamed happily. The cards were slapped down triumphantly onto the table as a Family was gathered together, the Mr., the Mrs., the Miss, and the Master.

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

He must have known.

He must have known what had really happened to Annie when he had told them to check the cutlery and search in the dressing-table drawers, acting the part of an outraged householder (the term used of the eminently respectable in all accounts of crime). This is what she began to believe, what she wanted to believe. Annie could never have afforded to go to Madame Roskosch. Frightened, she must have gone to tell Papa what had happened to her, what he had done to her, and he must have given her the money to go. She must have told him the name and the address, all the details that Alice had given her. This is what she thought.

Sometimes …

Sometimes she thought that he had made arrangements with Madame Roskosch to ensure that Annie did not return. The more she thought it, the more it became real.

From behind the blind, lifted up slightly at one corner, Madame Roskosch gazed down from her ELEGANT ROOMS at the hesitating girl on her front steps, the girl in her best dress with the bare trees behind her.

She was the woman who promised THE DESIRED EFFECT.

With her heavy-lidded eyes, and her large-brimmed hat, she was the figure of
Le Bateleur
, The Magician, from Mrs. Alexander Diddecott’s tarot cards, magically transformed into a woman, and – like The Magician – she stood behind the table upon which her instruments were ranged, and in her left hand she held something long, and thin, and golden. With what lay on the table before her, and with what she held in her left hand, she would produce THE DESIRED EFFECT, she would offer THE SURE CURE.

Alice had thought that she had lied.

She had been wrong.

Papa was the man who had given Madame Roskosch the money.

Madame Roskosch had produced THE DESIRED EFFECT.

Madame Roskosch had offered THE SURE CURE.

Madame Roskosch had been as good as her word.

Annie’s death was desired.

Annie’s death was the cure.

The dollars were counted out on the surface of a polished table, like cards before a fortunetelling.

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

Snap!

The reflection of each dollar rose up to meet the descending dollar snapping down upon it.

“‘Curse him! Curse him! Curse him!’” she whispered again, like a prayer at bedtime (“C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him!”) …
and his brain seemed on fire, his temples throbbed: he vowed to God to be revenged on his father
…

Sometimes Madame Roskosch had the face of Dr. Twemlow.

Dr. Twemlow was always in need of money. It was rumored that his fearsome mother took all his money from him, allowing him – with an air of reckless generosity – a little pocket money, handed out each evening as if he were a casual laborer at the end of his day’s work. He had to say, “Thank you, Mama,” when she gave it to him in coins of small value.

There was a hiss of gas in the room, a bud-like flame, as if something was about to be cooked slowly over a low flame, and the air was as shadowy as a winter evening. Dr. Twemlow moved closer.

He bent forward, his face masked like that of a robber, sharp instruments in his hands, as if he were about to remove teeth, gouging them out bloodily, knives glinting. There was the headachy smell of gas, a wet rubber smell, disinfectant that smelled like the viscous liquid that Annie poured down the kitchen sink …

“Desired effect,” he announced, explaining what he was about to do. The mask muffled his voice, rendered him faceless. “Sure cure. Injurious instruments.” He placed the injurious instruments on the table, spaced out around the unconscious girl laid out in front of him. A pillow hid her face. He held them out one at a time between his thumb and middle finger – suspended just above the surface – and snapped them down with his forefinger.

Spoon.

Snap!

Fork.

Snap!

Knife.

Snap!

He positioned the cutlery neatly and precisely all around Annie, the meal on which he was about to assuage his hunger.

Spoon.

Snap!

Fork.

Snap!

Knife.

Snap!

He seemed especially keen on the knives. There was an especially loud
Snap!
as the knives descended.

“Check the cutlery!”

Papa had given his order more than once. He clearly visualized Annie walking away from them, bowed over, chinking slightly, her pockets bulky with furtively purloined knives, forks, and spoons, filched from denuded drawers, as if she were traveling to a place where she would feast perpetually.

It was the knives Alice wanted most, the knives she would most – and most enthusiastically – have used.

“C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him!”

She said it aloud because it had to be spoken to take effect; unspoken desires were as futile as unthought wishes, even if she did stutter when she said it.

(Those last two lines – from Robert Browning – had often gone through her mind. They had the power of an incantation, a double-double-toil-and-trouble spell cast by a solitary Weird Sister in the flickering light of a fire.)

“C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him! C-C-Curse him!”

The more she said it, the more likely it was to come true.

Almost without realizing she was doing it – as if unwrapping a candy – she had removed the rustling paper from around the package she was holding, and held the ring in the palm of her hand. She had recognized it immediately, and had almost hurried straight downstairs to show Mama. It had been too big to fit on any of Annie’s fingers, and she had worn it threaded onto the necklace.

Alice had been wrong in imagining Annie approaching Madame Roskosch wearing all her “jules”: the ring had been left behind for her to find. Annie had placed it in
Hard Cash
on top of Alice’s bookmark (a reproduction of a Mrs. Alexander Diddecott painting), thinking that she would find it that same day, when she continued with her rereading.

The necklace, the earrings, and the ring all had the same matching pattern: ovals of mirror glass set into gold-colored metal. Annie had put them on to show Alice when she had first received them. The miniature looking-glasses caught the light, dazzling in bright sun, and sent underwater rainbow patterns along the walls and ceiling, spinning elongated circles of brightness. Sometimes, during long mornings or afternoons in school, Alice had produced a lesser version of the same effect with the glass of her pocket-watch, or the lenses of her spectacles, watching the rippling radiance around the classroom.

If she focused the beams correctly, she might be able to ignite Miss Swanstrom like a condemned witch, and put an end to the hours of agony with a brief but intense blaze, the kind that had consumed Krook in
Bleak House
, though – admittedly – not quite so spontaneous a combustion. This was another passage she found herself rereading, in the way that others returned – for a quietly enjoyable weep, handkerchiefs at the ready, just like Mama – to favorite death scenes in sentimental novels.

The cinder of a small, charred log of wood sprinkled with white ashes
: that was the (not at all sentimental) description of what was left of Krook after the flames had finished with him. It beat the death of Little Nell any time. If she couldn’t dispose of Miss Swanstrom as spectacularly as St. Cassian of Imola’s pupils had disposed of him in Elphinstone Dalhousie Barton’s depiction of his death (though she lived in hope), this would have to do for the time being. The whole class could sing celebratory songs around the bonfire as Millie – this was Miss Swanstrom’s Christian name – went up in flames, a ginger-headed Joan of Arc. (It was not advisable to make any reference to the color of her hair. Like the size of Mabel Peartree’s nose, certain things were safest not remarked upon. The slightest hint of a stunned involuntary “Crikey!” at the sight of Mabel Peartree would have her rolling up her sleeves and looking murderous.) Euterpe Dibbo was the one who had triumphantly discovered that Miss Swanstrom was in possession of a first name, and some of the more impressionable girls had become quite excited.

They could roast potatoes in the glowing remains, and have a feast. There would be recitations and songs, an atmosphere of celebratory jollity.

“‘Tender-Heartedness’ by Harry Graham,” Alice would announce as the title of her chosen poem, alerting the class – by a subtle shift in her tone of voice – that pocket-handkerchiefs might very well be required by all listeners.

Third position.

Simper.

This was going to be sad, really sad. The last few lumps of roast potato were discreetly swallowed. The more enthusiastic amongst her audience began sniffing prematurely, affected by the atmosphere, dabbing genteelly at their eyes. The pocket-handkerchiefs were big and white, and ironed into neat straight-edged quarters.

She wished that Harry Graham really had published his poetry when she had been a girl. Heartless Homes cried out for Ruthless Rhymes.

Annie had beamed proudly as she displayed her jewelry, and moved the top half of her body from side to side, so that she sparkled with spectrums, the lower part of her face dancing with spangles of light, Ophelia or the Lady of Shalott floating down a sun-speckled stream, and Alice could see little bits of herself reflected in the tiny mirrors.

There was her smiling mouth, one of her upraised hands, her hair …

Parts of her were everywhere, but she was nowhere complete.

She put the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand – the wedding finger – and extended her hand out in front of her, as if to check her fingernails. She had to fold her thumb across the inside of her palm to hold the ring securely in place. There was a certain sensation of naughtiness in wearing a ring on this finger, a feeling that it wasn’t really allowed until she was older. Her own face gazed back at her in miniature, like a portrait in a locket painted small, or a head cut out from a larger photograph to fit.

It ought to have been like Aladdin’s ring, a ring to produce the slave of the ring when it was polished, an enormous jinnee that would say to her, “I am yours to command, mistress! Whatever you ask me for, I shall bring to you.” She wouldn’t ask it to carry her out of the darkness of the cave, and up to the surface of the earth. She wouldn’t ask it to carry her to the part of Africa where the magic pavilion had been transported. She would ask for Annie. She rubbed the ring, as if accidentally, not really aware of what it was she was doing.

It hadn’t worked.

Of course it hadn’t worked.

She’d known it wouldn’t work, and yet she’d tried it.

She lay on her side and lifted up the pillow, looking at her reflection in the mirror of the ring that she’d positioned to face her.

She looked at herself, made small in the distance, reflected in the little oval mirror, a mirror for the tiniest of mermaids.

Not her, that was for sure.

The ring – too big for Annie’s fingers – was also too big for any of her fingers, and – like Annie – she had worn it around her neck, threaded onto a small gold chain. The chain – given to her by Grandmama – had once held a small cross, and she had held her breath for a while when she had first replaced it with the ring. Nothing had happened, and she had let her breath out in a great gasp, and then held it again in case she had been premature.

It was Charlotte who had pointed out the lettering engraved round the inside surface, too tiny for Alice to have noticed it.

I Belong To Annie
.

Charlotte had read it out loud to her, seemingly without any effort – she hadn’t even screwed up her eyes – and Alice still could not read it, even when she knew what it said. She had taken Papa’s magnifying glass and read the lettering for herself. She knew that Charlotte would have read it out properly, but she had to see it written down, not just read out to her by another person, the way she had read things out to Annie. She tried to believe that she was looking after it for Annie, keeping it safe until she returned, as she would.

After a while, the ring would fit onto her little finger, and she stopped wearing it on a chain around her neck, but Annie did not return. She’d lost the little cross, and was unable to replace it on the chain, even though she’d looked everywhere for it. She was a total failure as a Pinkerton, an unworthy bearer of a proud name.