‘I can’t do it all on my own,’ Mrs Borden told him. ‘My back isn’t what it used to be. She can do the heavy tasks.’
Then he set tests. Mr Borden had me lift wooden boxes above my head, had me pull objects like an Irish bullock. He didn’t care that I could keep to myself or that I could cook a meal. He wanted a backbone for his wife. She wanted someone to give an order to, someone to keep her company. After he’d made me dig holes in the backyard, blister my hands so he could plant an extra pear tree along the fence, Mr Borden looked me over, squinted those grey-blue eyes into sockets and said, ‘Fine. We’ll keep you on. Just stick to what you’re told.’
I’d’ve jumped and clicked my heels if I wasn’t that rundown. When Mrs Borden found out she said, ‘I believe you’re the girl we’ve been looking for. Our last one, Maggie, didn’t seem to fit in.’
‘I can fit in.’
‘Wonderful. It’s important I have someone here I can trust with everything.’
‘Yes, marm.’
It was a few months later that she made me start running messages to her adult children.
‘Bridget, tell them their father and I are going to Swansea.’
‘Bridget, can you ask them not to leave their teacups laying around.’
‘Bridget, tell me if they mention me in any way.’
And I’d go to them, knock on their doors like I was banging a drum in a field.
‘Yer mother says . . .’
‘Yer mother is . . .’
And Lizzie would get all in a flap and say, ‘Tell Mrs Borden that we’ll come down when we’re ready.’
It had been funny at first, this fairytale way of speaking about each other. But when I saw Emma in the sitting room turning Mrs Borden’s photos face down on the mantelpiece, I wondered what exactly did fitting in mean?
I unrolled the rug, tried to throw it up high over the clothesline. The rug landed hard on the ground. I didn’t have it in me. I went to the weather-stained pine fence we shared with Dr Kelly, climbed onto a wooden crate, upped my head over the fence.
‘Ya there, Mary?’ I called out. I waited a moment, tried not to look at the Kellys’ basement—the place, Lizzie had told me, where the bad thing happened.
‘Father’s sister used to live in that house. She did it when no one was looking,’ Lizzie had said.
‘Did what?’ I had been with the Bordens six months at the time, had complained to Lizzie that it was much too tiring to be walking water up and down the basement stairs.
‘You want to know what tiring is? Picking up a kicking child.’ The story came out of her like she’d been wanting to tell me since we met.
She spoke fast. ‘She drowned her children, Holder and Eliza, in the cistern in their basement.’
‘Holy Father.’
‘Guess what she did next?’ Lizzie pushed her dried lips together.
I didn’t care to know.
‘She went inside the house and slit her throat.’ Lizzie said it plain face, like it was nothing, like it was a daily occurrence.
‘What came over yer aunt?’
‘No one knows. Father says that she was always melancholy and then she was out of her head one day.’
The first of many secrets I learned. For a while, the only thing I could think about was the cistern. What sound was made when the children’s heads went under water, whether their mother struggled to keep their kicking legs from hitting her in the face, whether she said anything to them.
It was Emma who noticed me staring at the steps to the basement a few weeks later.
‘Who told you?’ she asked.
‘Miss Lizzie.’
Emma rubbed her hands over her face, muffled a breath. ‘She shouldn’t have.’
‘Did she really throw ’em in?’
She was pale in the cheeks, shallow in the eyes. ‘Yes. The only child she didn’t drown was Maria.’
I couldn’t stop myself. ‘And she hurt herself?’
‘She did.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Before I was born. We don’t think about it much anymore. There’s no use.’
‘Oh.’
We both looked at the basement steps and then Emma closed her eyes, mumbled to herself and walked back to the house.
I’d heard other domestics say it was the maid who found the mother after bringing in a pail of water from the well, found her with her eyes and mouth wide open, razor in hand like she couldn’t let go. It’s always us who do the finding. The bad days at work.
I called loud for Mary again and she came, a sore waddle through the yard. ‘What’s wrong with ya?’ I asked.
‘Dropped the iron on me foot.’ She pointed down her lank leg, down at a bandage, a little stain of blood.
‘How many times do I have to tell ya, ya can’t iron out cracked heels?’
‘One more time, maybe, Bridget.’ She smiled wide, grimaced when she felt pain.
I mimicked a queen, plummed my voice. ‘You Irish may not be bright but you do bleed well.’
She two-finger saluted me and we laughed. Mary limped over to the fence, lifted herself onto a stoop and our eyes met. She had those deep brown eyes, like my sister did, bright, still enjoying the idea of making a living away from her mammy and daddy. A few months ago, Mrs Kelly brought Mary over to introduce herself to me. ‘The Bordens seem happy with you. Teach our girl how to keep house properly.’ Mary didn’t need any help. All she had to do was keep quiet, get on by.
‘Why’d ya call me anyway?’ Mary asked.
‘Can ya help me swing the rug up?’
‘Why she havin’ you do that?’
‘Surprise of the year, Mary! We’re havin’ guests Saturday.’
Mary mocked a shock. ‘Someone’s willin’ to visit the house long enough? Alright, hold on.’ Mary disappeared, walked along the fence line then joined me in the Bordens’ backyard. We each took an end and swung the rug, had to swing it again when we missed the line. Crumbs of dirt, of food, rained on our foreheads and eyes.
‘Enjoy beatin’ this one.’ Mary handed me the wicker slapper and I took a swing, the thud of wicker like beating an old cow. My mouth filled with dust, all that Borden living. I spat it out.
‘Well that’s not very ladylike.’ Mary waggled a finger.
‘Good. I’ve been practisin’.’ I hit the rug. There was sun on my back, on my neck. I hit the rug. Then, all serious, Mary said, ‘Bridget, I’ve been seein’ Mrs Borden in the backyard.’
I stopped hitting, spat it out. ‘What’d ya say?’
‘She’s been comin’ out in the mornin’s, sometimes at dusk.’
‘What she do? She see ya?’
‘I’m not thinkin’ so. I saw her this mornin’ too. She punches herself in the stomach,’ Mary said, quiet. Somewhere in the distance I heard a door open then close.