Angel of Brooklyn (37 page)

‘True,’ Nancy yawned. ‘I’ve never sold so many postcards in my life.’

‘And that’s why,’ said Cooper suddenly, ‘I’m giving you all a raise.’ He hadn’t planned to, but the words had tumbled out.

‘You mean all of us?’ said Celina.

‘Why not?’ said Cooper. ‘The money is pouring in like sunshine.’

‘But isn’t it all for Beatrice?’

‘Beatrice might be on the pictures, she might be standing in her wings, but it’s a team effort,’ he told them, patting his top pocket, looking for a cigar. ‘Someone has to distribute advertising material, and that entails a lot of walking and some persuading, someone else has to take bookings, let the gentlemen inside, as well as selling the everyday items – I see the little girl with the sand pail is selling awfully well at the moment. Billy has to keep extra guard. And then there’s the pouring of the wine, and the entertaining that needs to be done whilst the angel signs her pictures. Yes,’ he said. ‘You all deserve a raise, and I want to say thank you for everything you’ve done.’

‘Can we go now?’ said Celina. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting a girlfriend.’

‘Of course you can go,’ said Cooper, trying his best not to look too shocked. Celina with a pretty girlfriend would take some getting used to. ‘But if you’d like to stay, then supper is on me.’

‘It is?’ said Celina. ‘Well … I might as well eat first, the girl can wait, she’s let me down a couple of times and I really fancy a ribeye.’

‘You don’t have to keep buying us food,’ said Nancy.

‘I know, but I don’t like eating alone.’

‘We can pay for our own,’ she told him.

‘I could run to a small hamburger,’ said Celina. ‘All right, all right, I can pay for a steak.’

‘Next time,’ said Cooper. ‘Next time.’

So now Beatrice worked most evenings, and the other girls were eventually phased out, though they didn’t seem to mind, they were being paid much the same, and in between fluffing feathers, making appointments and emptying out ashtrays, they could sneak off for ten minutes here and there, they could make their own appointments, eat a bowl of chow mein, put their heads around a dancing show, or say a quick hello to Franny who’d be waiting later on with a tray of chinking
glasses
and stories about men who after one beer too many were convinced those wings were real.

Of course, not all of her visitors were gentlemen. Surely that went without saying? She’d had men rubbing at their crotches, she’d had them whispering, ‘open your legs for me’, ‘bend over’, ‘kiss me’. She’d had men crying into their handkerchiefs, or their outspread hands, blubbing at their guilt, because it was the first time they’d seen a woman naked, because even their wives of twenty years kept some part of themselves covered, and the lamps would be extinguished, or because she looked so good and wholesome and clean, not like the woman he’d had standing up for half a dollar, swaying and tasting of gin underneath the boardwalk that time when he was desperate. Oh, she’d had a lot of men crying over her.

‘You’ve taken to this, like a duck takes to water,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again, when it comes to the mystery of allure, you’re a natural.’

And so it seemed. When the last man of the night had vanished, slotting his precious cards into his wallet, she would lift off her wings, sign more pictures, then, feeling light-headed, she’d walk over to Franny’s. And with her hair pinned up, her dress down to her ankles, she would look like anyone else, though she’d seen men blush and turn their heads away, or nudge the other fellow at their side, or stand open-mouthed, or start smiling like a loon, but none of them had bothered her, they’d merely let her pass.

She liked to go dancing. At the side of the hall, she would sip her glass of wine, letting the music flood through her. The dancers on the floor had a kind of giddiness that was infectious, and she would be grabbed up by the hands, or by a stuttering young man, or a friend, and she’d either shake her head or be swept along with them. She never looked at the time. She slept for most of the day.

‘You must come and listen to this,’ said Nancy one night through the music. ‘Come outside, come quickly, come on, all of you.’

And so they were led away from the dance hall to the other side of the boardwalk where an accordionist stood on his silver-painted box, his boy selling sheet music, collecting up the change.

‘What are we here for?’

‘Just listen,’ said Nancy. ‘Just listen.’

The man pushing and pulling his accordion was looking at the rooftops, tapping his left foot, singing.

‘
There was an angel down Brooklyn way
,

She ruffled her feathers and bade you to stay
,

But when you looked up she had floated away
,

And all that was left was her halo …
.’

The others were laughing, and clapping, and although Beatrice stood listening with a small frozen smile on her face, she was white-faced and shivering, like the sea behind him, the birds following the fishing boats, the faint hollow moans of the dance hall they’d just left.

‘You’re more than famous,’ said Nancy, putting an arm around her.

‘Is it any wonder?’ said Celina with a sigh.

‘I wish they were singing about me,’ said Marnie. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be in a song.’

When Nancy had walked her home later that night, Beatrice watched her shadow turn around the corner and then she grabbed her coat and walked towards the ocean. It was almost morning and the world felt at peace. The dairyman, still smelling of the fields, rolled his sloshing churns across the grey cobbled yard of the coffee house. A boy wiping sleep from his eyes had a sack full of newspapers, and he walked bent like an old man, straightening as his load lightened, reading new headlines in between deliveries.
WOMAN DROWNS AT GREAT NECK. BOOKSTORE BURNS. LITTLE BOO WINS TALENT SHOW
. A dog trotted towards the railings, pushing its face between the bars, staring at the water breaking gently over the stones.

Sitting on the steps leading down to the beach she put her chin in her hands and wondered what she was doing with her life, and what it all meant anyway. If she was a bad person now, why did she feel so good about herself, and did that make her into something even worse? She sighed. Even worse than what? She was still a virgin. She hadn’t accepted the few furtive offers that had been thrown at her across the curtained room. She’d kissed a couple of boys in the corner of the dance hall, she’d held their hands and wondered if these gestures might lead into romances, but these boys were usually visitors heading home the next day, and it had been their transient state that had given them their boldness in the first place. A boy called Trey had nervously touched her breast, but she was sure that one or two fumbles with a
trembling
clammy hand wouldn’t lead her into damnation, though the wings might do it.

‘You’re out early,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Or have you not been home?’

She turned. It was a man she’d seen at the dance hall. He’d been sitting in the corner with his sweetheart on his knee. She’d noticed him because of his laugh and the way that his girlfriend had let down her hair shaking her head like it was full of something rattling.

‘I went home for two minutes but I didn’t like it,’ she told him. ‘I came straight out again.’

‘May I?’ Nodding, she moved to give him space, rubbing her eyes and looking at the thin line of froth on the tide.

‘It’s hypnotic,’ she said.

‘My father has a yacht. Every July through August he thinks that he’s Columbus.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m not much of a sailor,’ he said.

Beatrice pressed her hand against the weather-beaten step; she could see the neck of a bottle pushing its way through the sand, a candy wrapper, a broken shell that looked like a miniature trumpet.

‘So what are you doing out at this hour?’ she said. ‘Don’t you feel like sleeping it off?’

‘Sleeping it off? Did I look drunk to you in there? That’s terrible.’

‘You saw me?’

‘Of course I saw you,’ he said. ‘And I would have been sober if it wasn’t for the vast quantities of mediocre champagne that I’d consumed.’

She smiled. ‘You left your girlfriend sleeping?’

‘Oh, it’s all very proper. My girlfriend is sleeping at her parents’ summer house. She has to be in bed before midnight or she’ll turn into a pumpkin.’

‘That was the carriage,’ said Beatrice. ‘The girl changes back into poor Cinderella.’

‘And there’s me thinking that she was about to become a vegetable. Would you like to take a walk?’

‘Would your girlfriend mind?’

‘Probably, but like I said, she’s sleeping.’

The sky was washed orange, the sea molten, the sun quivering at the edges as if it was still making up its mind whether or not to appear.
Their
boots made a soft crunching sound. Beatrice stopped to pick up a seashell.

‘I collect them,’ she shrugged.

‘When I was a boy I wanted to be a collector, though I’d no idea what it was that I wanted to collect. A cousin of mine was very fond of bottle tops. And I was quite keen on stamps until I asked my father about them.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He told me that the only thing really worth collecting was money.’

Beatrice looked at her seashell. It was white with green edges. ‘In some far-flung place this seashell would be currency,’ she told him. ‘I could use this fragile, beautiful thing to buy me a ticket for the opera.’

‘Do you like the opera?’

‘Not really.’

‘Me neither.’

They could see Ivan opening up his coffee house, lumbering over the sand with the board, the smell of coffee winding like a thin brown toffee-coloured line through the breeze, his white apron flapping.

‘Are you the angel?’ the man asked, holding out a chair while Ivan stood wiping his hands behind the steamy counter.

‘I’m Beatrice Lyle,’ she said. ‘And you are?’

‘Conrad Hatcher the Third.’

‘How very grand.’

‘Not really. It’s a new family thing. The other two Conrads are still living. Of course, there’s my father with the yacht, and then my grandfather with his telescope.’

‘So you all share a love of the ocean?’

‘My grandfather uses his telescope to spy on all his neighbours, my father uses his yacht to show off to his, and I just like the look of it.’

‘Are you on vacation?’

‘I’m here for the summer. So, are you?’

‘Here for the summer?’

‘The angel?’

‘Yes.’

‘They said that you were.’

‘They were right.’

Ivan appeared with the coffee. ‘Early birds,’ he smiled. ‘Have it on the house.’

She put her hands around the cup letting the heat sink into her
bones
. A man passed with his dog. He was looking over his shoulder.

‘I didn’t think it would turn out like this,’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘I didn’t think it would get in the way of my life.’

‘And how does it do that?’

‘Even if people don’t know who I am, then I think that they do.’

‘Like that man with the dog?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll bet he knew,’ he said.

Beatrice sighed. ‘So, what do people think of me?’

‘That you’re the most beautiful girl in Brooklyn.’

‘No, really.’

‘That you’re the most beautiful girl in Brooklyn.’

She could feel her mouth twitching. She took a sip of coffee.

‘They have the wrong impression,’ she told him. ‘They must do.’

‘They have eyes.’

‘Yes, but what do they see?’

He closed his own eyes and smiled at her. He took a lump of sugar from the small glass bowl. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you want me to tell you that they all think you’re a whore, that they think you’re a wanton type of girl to do such an immodest vulgar thing as to take off all your clothes and wear a pair of wings, and then,’ he said, ‘then you can tell me that I’m wrong.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I won’t.’

‘Why? Because it’s true or because you don’t want to hear of my objections?’

‘Because I don’t really care,’ he said. ‘You are what you are, that’s all.’ He yawned. ‘Would you like a pastry? I would love something oozing with vanilla. Or chocolate. It’s the champagne. Once the headache goes, then the hunger sets in.’

‘What were you celebrating?’

‘Nothing. I’m from Cos Cob, Connecticut. In Cos Cob, everyone drinks too much champagne. There’s a store that’s open all through the night just to sell its bottles of seltzer. It’s a sickening, decadent place.’

‘I’m from Normal, Illinois. No liquor allowed.’

‘So you’re all clear-headed and wise?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Perhaps I should move there?’

‘Oh, I think that you should,’ she said.

They ordered a pastry, chocolate for him, and almond for her, and they ate self-consciously, pulling the flakes of yellow pastry from their lips, the sky brightening above their heads into a washed-out shade of blue.

‘Would you call this breakfast, or supper?’ he asked.

‘Breakfast,’ she said. ‘I had my supper hours ago.’

‘Are you going to sleep today?’

‘Probably.’

‘Me too. Though it’s hard to sleep in the daylight.’

A trickle of early-morning walkers had appeared, looking for newspapers, flasks of orange juice and breakfast. A red-sailed boat was bobbing on the ocean, a man was raking the sand.

‘I really ought to be going,’ said Conrad. ‘I’m glad I got to meet you, and you’re nothing like I thought you’d be.’

‘You thought I’d be what? Let me think now … Vulgar? Uncouth?’

‘Cold as ice,’ he smiled. ‘Aloof.’

‘Oh, I’ve tried aloof and it’s boring.’

‘Might I walk you back?’

‘Back where?’

‘To wherever it is that you’re going.’

‘I’m going home.’

‘So, might I?’

‘If you like,’ she said.

He took her arm over the sand. They passed a barefoot man in a dinner suit. A girl in a cheap-looking dress was chewing gum, an empty bottle of vermouth at her side.

‘I’ve been an insomniac all summer,’ said Conrad. ‘I have a million and one things on my mind. I don’t want to go back to Harvard, though I know that I’ll have to in the fall. It’s a requisite.’