Mrs. Engels (31 page)

October

XXXI. Love Pursues Profit

I come home old and extinguished. My belongings still in the cases, I lie on the bed and wonder whether I'll ever get up again.

Frederick knocks. “May I?”

I let him take off his boots and lie on the bed beside me, because I know it's a gesture he's making.

“How was the conference?” I says.

“Interesting,” he says, and is afraid to say more.

By touching his cheek, I give him license. “Go on. Tell me.”

He props himself up on his elbow. Speaks with energy and emphasis. A group of Frenchmen, he says, led by the man Bakunin, have raised a commotion about a resolution that was passed calling for the creation of proletarian parties in each country. They are against parties. They are against rules. They believe in anarchy, total human freedom. The International, they say, is becoming authoritarian.

“What they can't seem to understand is that revolution is the most authoritarian thing there is. It was the lack of centralization and authority that cost the life of the Paris Commune. ”

“So what is going to happen?”

“The most difficult thing will be to get the different sides together and ensure that the differences of opinion do not disturb the solidity and stability of the Association. I fear there will be a split.”

“Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

He hears the weakness in my voice and offers a sympathetic smile. “But that is not important now, Lizzie. How was your holiday? Did you manage to enjoy it at all?”

I turn my head on the pillow to look at him, the curves of his youth still visible beneath his clothes, and I'm reminded of what Mary said to me soon before she died.

“Don't go with him, Lizzie,” she said. “If something ever happens to me, and you're left with him, let him off to other fields. Don't try to take what I had for yourself. I could manage it, but it'd kill you. Moss is more your kind. I was hard on the man, I know, but I see now he would've suited you well. I don't think that door is full closed. If you gave him another chance, I think it'd work out for you both.”

There was truth in this, as much truth as can be held by late-night phrases, but it's also true that her words came from a resenting place, for she knew that, since her illnesses and perhaps even before, Frederick had turned his eyes in my direction; she knew she'd already lost him—her life—to me.

I brush back a fallen bit of Frederick's hair. “I'm tired to death, Frederick, and not at all well.”

“I thought it would have done you some good.”

“And maybe it did. I just need to rest now.”

He carries his shoes to the door. “I'll have something sent up.”

I lie here, looking up at the plaster patterns on the ceiling, till I don't even know I'm on my feet again.

Away from him, raging lusts devoured me, but now that I see him in the flesh, I'm slow to feel anything. It's cold to be near him, he's so stiff and so white. Is there anything in his looks or his behavior that merits the dreams and fancies I had in his name? I can't see it; I can't see anything that lights a flame in me; he's not at all as I remembered him: not as handsome, not as eager, not as free with the poems and the flattering remarks. In truth, there's not a thing about him—not a single thing!—that would keep me from criticizing him in my mind, and calling him rotten names, and hardening my heart to him, and shutting a corridor of a hundred doors against him. And I wonder now, have I acted too fast—have I made myself ridiculous?—by paying for this room in this slum of an inn.

“Where have you been?” he says.

He doesn't hold out a hand, nor say an affectionate word; he has no indulgence for me, no fondness. Instead, he closes the door and uses the key to lock it, and checks under the bed, and opens the wardrobe to see if the previous guests have left anything behind. It must be that he doesn't see anything attractive in me; it must be that I look worse now than before the seaside, and I find myself wishing for a philter that would make me young again and fetching: a smooth mouth and a firm bust are what's needed to bring his furies up.

“I've been out of London, Moss. I had to go away.”

“Well for some.”

“Is it?”

“Where were you?”

“What does it matter where I was?”

“Answer me.”

“In Ramsgate.”

“Ramsgate? Fucking
Ramsgate.
”

“My sentiments precise.”

He goes to the window and looks out. Draws the curtain on what he sees.

“Is this to be my welcome back, Moss? A foul mood? A drubbing?”

He turns to me. “Forgive me. It's just I don't know what to think. You make a promise to me and then you disappear.”

“I'm here, can't you see? Better now than never. And my promise is still good. I've never gone back on a promise, and I'm not about to start.”

I take off my bonnet and gloves. Put them on the table by the bed.

“Well, Moss O'Malley? Will you be hanging round long enough to take off your jacket?”

He undoes his buttons slow, which gives me the chance to forgive him—to forgive his unshaven face and his patched-up clothes for not belonging to the man they once did—and I'm sudden conscious of the beauty of the patriotic life he leads, the baldness and the simplicity of it, a single goal that turns the vain concerns of the average man into meaningless trifles, and my feelings for him reignite: a blaze of love.

“Come here,” I says.

“Where?” he says.

“
Here,
” I says, gesturing to the bit of floor in front of me.

He comes and gives me a kiss not meant to go beyond itself.

“What is it, Moss? Don't you want it? Don't you think of me in that way anymore?”
Poor as you are, and as desperate for my money, are you still too proud to lap up another man's leavings?

“Nay, Lizzie. It's not that. It's just, I wouldn't know what to
call
it.”

“Call what?”

“This. What we're doing.”

“Misery,” I want to say. “Call it misery, which is what loving is for all women.” But I don't say any such thing. Instead, I wet my mouth and offer it to him, for when something is there for the grasping, you either choose it or you don't, and you can't blame anyone else if you go away with naught.

I take his hand, put it inside my skirts, and let it be there a moment.

“Nay,” he says, but what I hear him say is “Aye,” and his eyes repeat it, and the four walls echo it.

I give him the love that comes from a need, a sore distress; he gives me the love that comes with a reason, a motive, which can only be a diluted kind of passion: thin milk with no real nourishment. I read the signs of his ardor and am certain they mean I'm of little account with him, except as a purse to root in. There's no use blinking the matter: to collar my mint is what he wants, and he's waited so long for it now, his thirst has become entitlement. The world has treated Lizzie Burns well, and he's come to believe that he—the man who once set her free so she could live the better life—is deserving of the same. It's a state of affairs I'm not happy with; it's a situation I mustn't allow. I'll give him money, as much as he wants, but there must be feelings, also, in the bargain.

“Remember,” he says when he's done and is panting on the bed beside me, “remember your promise.”

I use his shirt to wipe the sop that he insisted on spilling outside of me. “Have you ever known me to break a promise? Haven't I always kept my word to you, even when it brought danger to my door?”

The eighteenth arrives, the day the rebels Kelly and Deasy are to be liberated. I keep the doors of the Salford house open for Moss, as promised. Then I go out for the day. I walk to Market Street and look at the shops. I go along the Medlock, running purple with an evil-smelling dye. I tend Mary's grave; take away the weeds and put a new plant down; say a few prayers. I eat a baked potato from a stand. And, when the time comes, I bide for Frederick at the mill gates and walk him back to his private lodgings.

He no longer minds to be seen with me outside. In his heart, he has given up on the mill and, as a consequence, has lost interest in knowing what behavior a man in his position ought be showing. He doesn't hear the voices that speak of him, nor does he feel their eyes, for, in spirit, he isn't here anymore but in London with the man Marx, working to make the world right.

At his lodgings, I make him something to eat from what's there, and then we have a drink and play a game of cards. When I rise to leave, he rises too, he wants to walk me back, but I tell him to stay where he is. I'm tired and all I want to do is sleep. And, being a gentleman, he doesn't require further reasons than this.

It's dark when I get back at the house. When I light a lamp, I see there are six of them: Moss and five unknown to me.

“That's too many,” I says. I point to Moss and two others. “You, you, and you can stay. The rest, you'll all of you have to find somewhere else.”

The men I choose to send out don't object. They tip their caps and disappear, one by one, a minute between them. I put the remaining men down on a rug by the back door. “If the peelers come in the night, you're to run. And if they catch you, you're to say you broke in and hid yourselves while the people slept. Is that clear to you?”

I put myself straight to bed. Sleep refuses me, however. I can feel the men through the wall—the threat of them—and it keeps me from giving way.

Sometime in the early hours, Moss comes, as I knew he would. I pretend to be gone, but I'm not fooling him. He sits on the bed where my legs have made a crook. Puts his hand on my thigh.

“Did you manage it?” I says.

“Aye,” he says. “Kelly and Deasy are both free men. We can be proud of that, at least.”

I sit up in the bed. His figure is a mass of black in the blue. “What happened?”

“You don't want to know.”

“You came in here to tell me, didn't you? So get it out, and let's be done with it.”

“A man got shot. An Englishman. A peeler.”

“A peeler? Christ. How?”

“I'm not sure. There was so much commotion. Shots were fired. You couldn't tell from where. The man who shot him probably didn't even know.”

“Were you seen fleeing?”

“There were people looking on, aye.”

I draw away from him. Bring my legs up so I can lean on my knees. “The law won't stand for a peeler shot, Moss. They'll hunt you all out. All the Irish in Manchester will be rounded up. Anyone even suspected of being on the Hyde Road today will be put hanging.”

“They've already caught a number of us. We were lucky to get away.”

“Go back to Ireland, Moss. Go back to where you never ought've left.”

“Nay, I can't. I've burnt my bridges there.”

“What'll you do, then? You can't stay in Manchester. You must get out.”

“I'll go to the capital. I'll go to London.”

“Do you know anyone?”

“We're strong up there.”

From beneath my night rail, I take out the pouch I keep tied around my neck. I find his hand in the dark and push a couple of coins into it. “Here, have this. You'll need it to get you through the first couple of days.”

He thanks me, and when I settle back into the bed, he lies with me.

When first light comes, he gets up and washes himself at my basin. The scars on his back make fearsome arrangements in the gloom. When I see him about to turn back to me, I close my eyes. When I open them again, he's gone.

XXXII. Its Soul Comes Forward

“
Mohme
tells us you had a wonderful time.”

They sent a note asking to see me. It's been so long, there's so much for us to catch up on, I hoped to be received alone. And I believed my hopes realized when Janey told me at the door that Jenny and Karl were from home. But then, coming into the parlor, I was given a lesson in the futility of wishing for anything: Longuet tossing about the place like the bad weather, heaving and sighing and bored with everything; Lissagaray too light on his toes to be trusted, though it's clear Tussy has taken to adoring him, so coming-on is she in her manner towards him.

“But
Mohme
also said you didn't get into the water. Isn't that what she said, Mr. Lissagaray?”

“Indeed, that is what she said.”

“I'm surprised at you, Aunt Lizzie. We'd have thought you made of hardier stuff.”

Nim lays out some cold mutton and some pickled salmon. She looks pale and withered, she appears to have shrunk several inches closer to the floor, and there's a shiver in her hand as she prepares the plates. Now, when she gives the food round, she sends imploring eyes over at me. “There is trouble,” they say. “There is trouble and you must help me fix it.”

I drink my tea and pick at some meat, and when I feel I've put in good time, I rise and announce that I need some fresh air.

“A good idea,” says Tussy. “I'll go with you.” She takes my arm and leads me out, but not before giving Lissagaray a starry look and telling him to sit there, she'll be back, right back.

She brings me through the kitchen—Nim puts on not to notice us—and into the garden.

“You look happy,” I says when we are outside.

“Do I? For once, therefore, the exterior aspect is matching the interior feeling!”

“You mother spoke to me about this man.”

“Of course she did. She's
obsessed
.
”

“She's concerned.”

“She has formed a bad opinion of him out of nothing. She has no grounds to take against him.”

“There's his age, Tussy. He's no chicken. Some would say he's gone past his time.”

“Ah! These bourgeois anxieties about propriety and time. Do you really go in for them, Aunt Lizzie? I believed you to be someone with a more independent attitude.”

I shake my head. At her age, I too thought it'd be a great glory to have thoughts opposed to all people, to dispute against the whole world. She's no worse than I was.

“I'm not speaking for myself, Tussy. I'm telling you only what your mother said to me in Ramsgate. It's painful to her to see you with this man. She's suffering for it. She doesn't want to see your youth wasted. Heaven forbid you wake up alone in five years' time, too late for you to find a proper mate.”

“Good God, the woman is such a terrible bore. And she has turned you into the same. Let us talk of other things.”

Before an atmosphere is let form between us, I brighten my tone and ask her about the conference: who was there, what was said, where it will all lead. Her answers—as high as they are careful—get us the whole way round the garden.

“Well, Tussy, you certain explain it better than
they
do.”

Back in the kitchen, I pretend to be alarmed by the amount of work our day has created for the maid.

“Go on up, child. I'll help Nim with these few things and I'll be right there.”

Shrugging and sighing, she obeys.

Once we are alone, Nim doesn't delay in coming at me.

“Calm down, Nim, and tell me what's the matter?”

With a stricken look, she takes a letter from her pinny and gives it to me. “It's from Freddy,” she says. “It arrived while you and Mrs. Marx were away.”

Not thinking, I bring the paper to my nose to smell it. “Is he all right? Do you want me to take him something?”

“No. A gift would not be well received.”

“Well, what is it, then? What does he want?”

“He is not clear. The note was obviously written in excitement and anger. There are unkind words said against all of us. He speaks of wanting to be left in peace. I fear he, too, is living the consequences of Dr. Marx's speech on France. It is possible he is being harassed. By the newsmen. Or someone from the government.”

“I'll go to him,” I says. “I'll find out.”

“Would you? You would do that?”

“Tell me where he lives.”

“I hate to put you out.”

“Give me the direction, Helen, and I'll go.”

“It's way over. In Hackney. Two buses.”

“I'm not afraid of a bit of travel. Tell me out, where is he to be found?”

“I have it written somewhere.”

“Nay, Helen. My memory is in my ears. It's what I hear that sticks. Say it twice, and I'll have it then.”

The cab stops opposite a covered market.

“Ain't going no farther than this, ma'am. From this end of town myself, I am. Ain't got nothing against it. But I've fares to get, don't I?”

“You're not cheap either,” I says when I pay him off.

“Worth it, ain't it, ma'am, on a day like this?”

I ask a stander-by for directions. She sends me a long stretch past building sites and across fields. A man now explains the route through the terraces. By the time I get to the place, I'm wet through, even with the brolly. I'm tempted to save myself a final soaking by going straight to the front door, but there's no point coming all this way to cause upset, so I go round the lane and up the backs like Nim explained.

He answers the door himself. Built broader than his father. Rougher cut.

“Who are
you
?”

“Freddy? My name is Lizzie Burns. I'm a friend of your father's.”

He doesn't appear surprised. He's a man that's finished being surprised by the world. “I'm having my tea.”

“You told us you've been having trouble, and we want to get to the bottom of it. We want to help.”

He gives the end of the door a light kick. “All right. We can talk here.”

I lower the brolly and glance out to the weather. “I'll not be a tick. In and out before you see me.”

He pushes his hands deep into his pockets and sighs. Nods me inside.

A woman, not near his match in looks, is at the table. On her lap a babby, bare dressed.

“What a love of a child,” I says. “What's he called?”

“Who in blazes are you?”

On the table, two places set. Bacon and potatoes. A smell of turnips too, though I can't see them put out.

“Freddy? Who in God's name is this?”

“Lizzie Burns. That
friend
of my father.”

“The famous Mrs. Burns, is it? That's all we need now.”

“I'll not stay a minute. Go ahead and finish your tea.”

Freddy sits and chins to the empty chair. The woman rocks the babby and fumes over at Freddy. The babby grabs at her breast and pushes his face against it. She takes it under the arms and sits it down hard.

“Will you have something?” Freddy says.

“I'll not, thanks. I'm on my way to my own. Go on now, don't let me get in your way.”

He gets back to his food. Big healthy gulps.

“Where have you come from?”

“Primrose Hill.”

“Where on earth?” says the woman.

Freddy uses his thumb to point to her. “This is my wife, Sarah. And that's my son, Harry.”

“Nice knowing you. He's a dote.”

“Shame on you coming here.”

“Sarah, I'll deal with this.”

One, two, three, four tubs put out to catch the droppings from the ceiling cracks. They beat out a time uneven enough to set you wailing. Freddy finishes and brings the teapot over. Puts a mug in front of me.

“Drink that,” he says. Hands like plates. Nails eaten away.

“You're very good.”

Harry starts to cry.

“Must give him his feed,” Sarah says, and brings the child away, draws the curtain across. Gone, she's a bigger presence than when she was here; a shadow on the wall.

“Were you at work today, Freddy?”

“I was.”

“And is it going well for you?”

“Well enough. It keeps us going. In charge of my own lathe now. The prospects are good for moving up.”

“Good for you.”

He offers to roll me a fag.

“Thanks, dear, but my lung wouldn't take it.”

He lights up and moves his chair to the stove so he can flick his ash into the fire.

“So, Mrs. Burns, I take it my mother showed you my letter.”

“Tell me, Freddy, what's the matter?”

“The matter?” shouts Sarah through the curtain. “You know what's the matter, Mrs. Burns!”

“Leave this to me,” Freddy shouts back.

“Did something happen? What has you so upset?”

He pulls on his fag. Breathes out a heavy cloud. “Don't mind my upset, Mrs. Burns, and tell me what you want. What is it you's after from us.”

“I'm after naught, Freddy. Naught at all. I've come to help.”

“Drop the bull. You has us caught up in something. Something we don't want to be caught up in.”

“For the life of me, I don't know what you're speaking to.”

“I'm a union man, Mrs. Burns. I do my bit. But I know what Marx and your man Engels do, I know what they want for the world, and I ain't saying I don't have no regards for it. I do. It's just I've a family, and I don't want no strife for them.”

“Believe me, Freddy, your father doesn't want any strife for you either. Why don't you tell me what happened.”

“Don't let her off easy,” says Sarah.

“I told
you
to shut up,” he says.

Now, slow and fierce, he uncurls a finger, turns it towards the floor. Through his vest I can see his tissues taut. “There were a man here. There were a man here, asking questions.”

“When?”

“A couple of weeks back.”

“What kind of man?”

“A man who said he knew you. Your lot.”

“Did you let him in?”

A clattering from behind the curtain and Sarah comes haring through it. Comes to stand by Freddy. From over in his cot, Harry bawls. “Napoleon were how he called himself,” she says. “Louis Napoleon. Mean anything to you, Mrs. Burns?”

I think on the name a minute.
Napoleon? Louis Napoleon?
I look out the window, as if a memory of the man might be found there. A cat sits on the back wall. A wind blows through the ivy and the weeds. It has stopped raining, but it looks about to start again. “I don't know a Louis Napoleon,” I says. “Did you tell him who you are, Freddy? Did you tell him where you come from?”

“We didn't tell him anything. Despite what you might think of us, Mrs. Burns, we ain't thick.”

Relieved, I shift forward on the chair and reach out to put a reassuring hand on Freddy's knee, but he draws back from me. “It was probable only a newsman, Freddy, sniffing about for a story. Don't worry yourselves about him. He was a chancer is all he was. You don't have to worry, your family isn't in danger. In future, just be careful about who you let in.”

“We don't know nothing about this Communism business, and we don't want to know. We're just trying to get by.”

“In that, we're all on the same keel, Freddy. Doing our best.”

Wrapping my shawl around, I make to leave.

“What I'll do is, I'll come back in a couple of weeks' time and check up on you, just to be sure.”

“We don't want you back here,” says Sarah.

“I'll come back just to be certain things are settled.”

“Don't, Mrs. Burns,” says Freddy. “Keep your distance from us.”

I nod as if assenting to their wishes, though I've no intention of honoring them.

They follow me to the door. I swing it open myself and step out.

“I'm sorry we've brought this worry on you,” I says.

I rummage about myself for the bits of coin I have hidden about me, and, slow, no flash moves of the hand, I drop them into the pocket of his jacket.

“Your father asked me to give you this.”

He looks at his pocket, as if revolted. “He don't need to do this.”

“He wants to help.”

“He must be doing well for himself if he can spare so much.”

“Don't worry for him, Freddy.”

“We have enough, Mrs. Burns. We don't need it.”

“It's a fool won't take money that's offered him.”

He shakes his head. Takes the money out and holds it up in his open palm—four shiny coins lying flat on his scored and blackened skin—for me to reclaim.

“If you won't use it, Freddy, then give it away. Or put it into the union. It's yours and that's the end of it.”

He flinches when I touch his arm.

“You know where to find us if you need something,” I says.

“We've never asked for anything.”

“I know, Freddy. But you can now, if you need it.”

He doesn't say anything. Looks at the ground.

“I'll be back,” I says. “When I can, I'll be back.”

I go down the path and pull open the back gate. The coins fall on the stone behind me, the chimes of a beggar's tantrum: flung away now but sure to be rooted after when the times come hard to require them.

It occurs to me on the journey home, and as the days and weeks pass, it lives within me as a new certainty: it's a thing to be changed and put right. The boy isn't in the gutter yet, I've seen bodies in brutaler situations than his, but he
is
unsteady. For the son of a wealthy man, he's too much taken up with the effort of surviving. If word was to get out, Frederick would be judged a shoddy father, and it's a name that can't but paint me as well. And God's truth, I can't shoulder another load of shame in this life. To have this knowledge, and to fail to do something handsome to correct it, would be to take the good out of having anything at all.