I did as instructed, and as the door slammed into the jamb, something slammed into the door. The wood splintered with a wrenching crack as a sharp metal point poked through. The weapon that had just avoided my head looked like a grappling instrument of the kind issued to mountain climbers, only larger. “A gold miner’s pick,” Beckett said, as though reading my mind.
A stream of blue curses flooded the hallway, and the swearing woman on the other side of the door clasped the handle and tugged mightily to free the pick and wield it again. Two clomps preceded a renewed effort, and the old man suggested with a hand signal that I should open the door to see what was on the other side. Fastened like a pit bull, a rather short but wiry young woman tugged at the pick, her bare feet propped against the door so that when it swung into the bathroom, she swung with it. Her blue crinoline rode up along her thighs, and her face flushed red beneath her dark brown hair each time she re-exerted herself. Like Merlin’s sword in the stone, the point of the axe lodged firmly in the wood, and try as she might, she could not budge the lethal tool. The more she struggled, the worse her temper grew, till she was little more than clenched teeth and unspent fury, a torrent of obscenities gushing from her delicate mouth in a most shocking display.
“Young lady,” Beckett entreated, “you will never succeed by ignoring elementary physics.”
She bundled her muscles and hunched her shoulders and strained again, to no avail. At the moment of surrender, her whole body slackened. One cold hard look at the old man gave way to resignation and abject hopelessness. For a brief second, I felt sorry for her and wished she had reached her goal, despite its dire consequences for me. In a final gesture of defeat, she let go the handle and dropped to the floor on her bum. Bending gently to her, the old man helped her to stand and held her by the elbow as she fussed with the waist of her dress and brushed the lint and wrinkles. A gentleman always, he escorted her farther into the room to a place among the other females, and with a slight bow, let go of her with a signal of one finger that she was to behave. And then, stepping up to the pickaxe, he pushed the handle, rather than pulling as she had, and once the point was thus free, he eased it from the wood as deftly as lifting a splinter from a little boy’s palm. He hid the pick behind his back, and the girl in blue crossed her arms and pouted.
“Now that’s no way to begin a story,” Beckett said. “First, engage your audience, and besides, a scowl does not become you. Give us a smile and a tall tale, and we will give you our ears and our hearts.”
The number of people in the small bathroom made me feel a bit claustrophobic, and we squeezed in even tighter to allow the newest woman a stage. She drew the shower curtain behind her like a scrim and stood on the narrow proscenium of the bathtub edge. The old man sat on the toilet and bounced the baby on his knee. Flush with anticipation, Dolly fanned herself next to the open window. With a hop, Marie settled on the countertop surrounding the sink, and the rest of us took positions as groundlings, forced to stand for the performance.
“Will someone outen the lights?” our newest guest asked, and Alice complied. In the dark, I stretched to get my bearings, which did not please my neighbors when my foot or fist struck another body. I made my excuses and tried to becalm my restlessness until the spotlight silenced everything, originating from some point above the old man’s head and haloing the woman who had tried to plant her pick in my cranium.
“A man is to blame,” she said, “but ain’t that always the case. He wasn’t a bad man, not at all, especially in the beginning. But as soon as he got what he wanted, then that was it.”
The women murmured their amens.
“After, he was no use to nobody, man, woman, nor child. Like a mule in the middle of an ocean or an axe in a sandstorm, just no use at all. But no sooner than I get started, but I am already ahead of myself.”
I tapped Beckett on the shoulder, and he quieted the child, steadying the boy with a brace of one hand against the small back. “She’s the piano player,” I whispered. “A dead ringer for the woman at the recital.”
“Dead ringer?” the old man asked, and then turned his attention to the spotlight and the tiny woman, carefully assaying her from head to toe. “Are you sure about that, Sonny? She looks a bit wild and unkempt for that sort of thing.”
Her cornflower dress rustled when she flinched, but she betrayed no further emotion other than silent umbrage.
“I am quite sure she is the singer’s accompanist.”
“Miss,” he addressed her. “What is it we are to call you?”
“My name is Florence. But call me that, and you’ll get no further response from me. Flo, if you please, short for Florence, for only my mam ever referred to me thus.”
“Since you are short, a short name it shall be. Flo, my friend here says that you are a piano player of some renown.”