Wickett's Remedy (19 page)
Authors: Myla Goldberg
“Who’s there?” came her mother’s voice.
“It’s me, Ma.”
“There’s none of them with you?”
“All downstairs.”
Mrs. Kilkenny sighed. “Then you may as well come in.”
Alice’s corpse lay across the front room sofa. Beside the sofa knelt Alice’s mother, who was motionless save for the steady activity of her hands, which neither ceased nor slowed at Lydia’s arrival. Jennie Feeney was carefully unbraiding her daughter’s hair.
“When it’s done, she braids it up again,” Cora explained in a cautious whisper. Mrs. Feeney gave neither indication that she had heard Cora nor that she knew she was not alone. “She was wailing like a banshee before but Mr. Feeney quieted her for the sake of the girls. He’s with them now. Malachy told them that their ma’s in hospital but I don’t fancy they believe him.”
Meagan knew her ma was in Heaven because the Virgin told her so.
Cora turned toward her neighbor. “Jennie darling?” Even as Jennie turned toward the sound, her fingers continued their dogged work. “Dearie, look who’s here. Liddie’s back.” Cora gently stilled Mrs. Feeney’s hands. One half of one braid remained.
“Where’s my grandson?” Jennie Feeney asked, her eyes searching Lydia’s face.
“I left him in good hands,” Lydia answered with more assurance than she felt.
“She—oughter’ve gone too,” Mrs. Feeney whispered, her sobs interspersing themselves between her words. “I oughter’ve—made her go.” She rocked back and forth, the floor creaking as she shifted.
“Alice wanted to stay,” Cora countered, her voice tired from repeated, fruitless consolation. “You did everything you could.”
Jennie turned to her daughter’s corpse and stroked its face. “Such a lovely—girl,” she whispered.
There had been no extra sheet in which to wind the body. Alice’s right arm—the hand curled into a claw at the collar of her nightdress, the arm bent at the elbow—rested on her chest like a dislocated wing, while her left arm pressed at her side straight as a soldier’s. Alice’s mouth was frozen in a grimace, her eyebrows raised in astonishment. She looked neither asleep, nor at peace. The body, which had begun to stiffen, lay rigid on the couch, its loose, limp hair adding incongruous color to the faded, threadbare sofa. Mrs. Feeney gathered the leftmost strands of her daughter’s hair and resumed the braid.
Jennie Feeney is certain her daughter looked beautiful.
“Mrs. Feeney,” Lydia ventured softly. As girls she and Alice occasionally had played jacks, a pastime at which Alice had excelled. Jennie Feeney’s hands recalled with eerie clarity the deftness with which Alice had scooped five and six jacks at a time while Lydia languished on threesies. “Mrs. Feeney,” she repeated, turning her gaze from those hands, “is there anything I can do for you?”
Jennie shook her head, though whether in response to Lydia or to some internal query it was at first impossible
to tell. “She were a wife and a mother,” Mrs. Feeney murmured. “A wife and—a mother.” Lydia thought her question had not been heard until Jennie turned toward her and exclaimed,
“She
were a wife
and
a mother!”
Jennie Feeney remembers blessed little of that terrible day, but she never would have said something so unkind.
“I’m so sorry,” Lydia whispered. “I’ll leave you now.” She was shaking so violently that her hand could not at first turn the knob of the door.
TWO HITS FROM SONG HEADQUARTERS
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“If He Can Fight Like He Can Love, Good Night, Germany!”
A rollicking, happy Yankee melody and clever, honest-to-goodness words—no wonder it’s sweeping the land! Only a deaf man could keep his feet and lips quiet when the band plays and the singer sings this great hit.
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I don’t see how they’re gonna do it.
Leave the sick ones behind.
But that’s everybody.
Not nearly. Not if you only count the really sick ones.
Like Riley?
Like Riley. Leave Riley behind. But take Piker, for instance.
He don’t look so hot.
Sure, but he’ll have plenty of time to get better on board.
I suppose.
Or maybe you think we oughter send a telegram to France: Sorry boys. Stop. Can’t help with those Gerries. Stop. Feeling under the weather.
Course not.
Well then?
I’m just saying we’re not exactly in top form.
But Sergeant Husker’ll straighten all that out. He can tell a faker for sure. Some of those fellas ain’t nearly as sick as they let on—What? What’d I say that’s so funny?
Sergeant Husker checked into infirmary this morning.
That’s a bunch of hokey! I saw him just last night!
Well, visit him yourself if you don’t believe me. When I saw him this morning he was pale as a sheet and shaking like a shaved dog.
Of all the rotten luck. What’re we gonna do?
Sprinkle sulfur in your shoes.
Honest?
It’s kept me pretty near out of it so far.
I’ll be darned. Sulfur, huh?
It’s a natural repellent. Goes back to Indian times.
Wish you’d’ve told that to Sergeant Husker.
I did. I guess he just didn’t use enough.
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VOLUME 10, ISSUE 6 NOVEMBER 1992
QD and Me
:
A Sodaman’s Journey By Ralph Finnister
Chapter 10
Women
None of Quentin Driscoll’s marriages lasted as long as his marriage to Sara. Because I did not know him then, I shall not talk about that time or that tragedy. But I am certain that if Sara had known what was in her true love’s heart she would not have done what she did.
It would be an understatement to say that he never forgave himself. Every visitor to his office noticed and admired his desk—as I did on that first day—but only a nautical man would be able to tell it had been made from the stern of a boat. Quentin Driscoll spent every day of his working life behind that desk, his hands resting where their clothes were discovered, neatly folded, when the boat was found adrift.
He did not share matters of the heart with me as he did matters of business, but I could sense the loneliness that time and time again led him down the matrimonial aisle. A Sodaman’s life is solitary and all-consuming, and soda a harsh and demanding mistress. That Quentin Driscoll had once known happiness in the arms of Sara Lampe perhaps made that loneliness all the more difficult to bear.
I will not write the names of his ex-wives here. They do not deserve mention. All I will say is that in each case the woman to whom Quentin Driscoll pledged his troth rewarded his affection—and his faithfulness—with treachery and avarice.
At this writing, the great Sodaman is living out the end of his long and extraordinary life confident that when he leaves this world behind, he will be returned to his true love’s arms.
In This Issue
Belle Howard, QD’s Last Living Cutie, Turns 83 Page 2
How Sweet It Is: Why Sugar Trumps Corn Syrup Page 3
A Walk Down Memory Lane: Interview with Mort Kipplinger, the West End’s Last QP Sodaman … Page 4
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T
hey all awoke feeling under the weather, but none of them were sick enough to stay home. Lydia wondered if the first day of Alice’s illness had begun so modestly. She donned her shirtwaist and brushed her hair, acutely aware of the silence above her. Absent were the heavy footsteps that signaled Malachy’s departure for the dock; there were no light, staccato footfalls describing the children’s preparations for school. Brian was likely awake in his bed at Carney Hospital, the loneliness of strange surroundings deepened by the screen that shut him off from the ward, but at least he had gained an extra night in which his mother was still alive.
