‘All wrong, I’m sure.’ Uncle lifted his palm towards his face. His long fingers were stick insects prancing. He smelled his fingers and said, ‘How on earth did so much dirt get under these things?’ He took out his handkerchief and began twisting the cotton underneath his nails, cleaning away the dirt. I smelled it, smelled the earth.
We were quiet. I caught sight of blood by the radiator on the other side of the room, blood flies, blood soars, and it made my stomach drop. ‘Are you sure you want to stay in this room?’
‘Of course, my dear one. It doesn’t bother me. There’s only a little bit of blood.’ He smiled bright, like Mother had, and it made me feel better again, feel warm inside, like she was in the room with us. My uncle, the gift.
He patted the bed next to him and I sat. There were flecks of blood at the end of the bed. I covered them with my hand. ‘How long will you stay with us?’
‘As long as I can, Lizzie.’ He smiled, showed teeth. Uncle always knew what to say to make everything better. Then he said, ‘Did you notice anyone in the house today?
‘I’ve already told the police . . .’
‘Don’t worry about what you told police. I’m simply curious. Did you notice anyone in the house? A man, for instance?’
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. ‘No.’
He looked at my hands then he looked me up and down. ‘Are you still upset about last night’s conversation with Andrew?’
I began to boil. ‘I hadn’t given it a second thought.’
Uncle eyed me. What was he thinking? I could hear an early-evening wind knock against the side of the house, wolfish. Something creeping towards me.
Uncle glanced over his shoulder at the place where Mrs Borden’s body had been. ‘I wonder if she saw it coming?’ he whispered.
My forehead ached. I rubbed. ‘Maybe. You would think yes . . .’
‘I suppose so.’ He studied me some more, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand like wheat in the sun. Then he said, ‘Did you go into the barn today?’
I nodded.
‘I see.’
‘I went in a few times today. Why?’
A slow smile broke across his face. It made me feel uneasy. ‘Lizzie, would you like to talk?’
I heard Emma bang her way through the house. How she made my head hurt. I’d talk about anything to make the pain stop. ‘Okay.’
Uncle stood from the bed, closed the guestroom door and turned to me.
I unfastened my braids, shook my hair loose. I turned to look at the dressing table and saw Mrs Borden’s blood licking the bottoms of the table legs. There were a few strands of her grey hair stuck to the dresser handles and I wondered how long they would be there before someone had to clean the room and make the mess go away. There were bloodied boot prints surrounding the bed, a map of distress and disbelief. Mrs Borden had been taken all over the room, from the window to the radiator to the doorway, where the boot prints hesitated before running down the stairs, screaming that she was dead. Now she was placed face up on the dining table.
The strangest of days. ‘Uncle, I’m not quite sure what is real.’
He rubbed my shoulders, like he always did. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll tell you what’s real if need be.’
‘What are Emma and I going to do now?’ I asked.
‘My advice is to stay together.’
I looked at Uncle and he brushed the hair off my shoulders. Then he smiled and said, ‘Have I ever told you how much you remind me of your mother?’
FOURTEEN
BRIDGET
4 August 1892
THE LAST TIME I tried to leave the house, Mrs Borden raised me to four dollars a week and took me to Boston. ‘You know my back isn’t what it used to be. I need her to escort me around,’ she told Mr Borden when he questioned the expense of a second train ticket.
‘Fine.’
We would be taking a day trip to visit her aunt who kept forgetting things, forgetting people. Mrs Borden wanted to make a good impression. The night before we left I washed Mrs Borden’s hair in Castile soap and rosemary, scraped my nails over her scalp, got her under my fingernails. ‘You won’t regret it, Bridget.’ I didn’t stop to ask what she meant.
And so we were packed onto the train, Mrs Borden in her beige travel coat, me in black, me carrying her red and purple floral carpetbag full of her needs, and she let me sit by the window while she sat right close to my side, and the whistle blew as the train moved forwards, Fall River miled behind us. We got the giddy rush of being away.
‘Won’t it be nice, just the two of us?’ she said.
The way she thought of us. That couldn’t be right. We weren’t family. But she was easy in the face, had a smile, and she took me by the hand, so cold and fleshy, stroked and patted me like Mammy would, and I told her, ‘It’s good ta be outta the house.’
Boston. I helped her out of the train, took her weight as she stepped the wide gap onto the platform, and we weaved through the thicket of people, weaved through women in white-and-navy-striped cotton and silk dresses, and we came out of the station, walked along the stone-tar sidewalk and waited at the edge for a streetcar.
‘I always forget how much bigger it is here,’ Mrs Borden said.
It was bigger alright, got me thinking that working a house in Boston would get me home quicker.
We boarded a streetcar, rested against the smooth wooden railings and I asked Mrs Borden, ‘Where we meetin’ yer aunt?’
She licked her lips, said, ‘We aren’t. We’re having a day of it.’
Another thing I’d have to keep quiet.
The streetcar dinged, took corners and downed street after street and I got hit with city air, that mix of chimney wood and mud and coal, perfume and leather soles, of body smells that came when people walked close together, of that big-time excitement, made me giddy, and we downed street after street and then we were out the front of Filene’s department store. Mrs Borden big-bosomed her chest, made herself seem grander. ‘I bet you’ve never come here before.’
‘No, marm.’
She took my arm, pushed me through the wide doors, took me to the dresses, the kind Emma and Lizzie wore to church. She made me change. Dress after dress. Silk and damask cotton too much for my skin. ‘That is wonderful,’ she said, again and again. While she made me her living doll, I spied a little parasol, purple lacing, silver embossed handle, and I fancied myself owning it, fancied myself making Mary say, ‘La-di-da,’ when I showed it to her. But we bought nothing. When Mrs Borden was bored, we left the store, and continued the day outside.
We linked arms, and Mrs Borden daughtered me along Park Street, past Brewer Fountain, water whaling above us, cool splash on our faces, past the church and its too-white steeple, past the red, white and blue draped flags of the Union Club, rosettes curving into the brick fa?ade. On we went and on we went towards Boston Common. We walked through those spiked cast-iron gates, spikes like in the tales Daddy told me, spikes to stick heads on, warn off your enemies. Mrs Borden took a moment, let me go, stood on her own. She turned to me then, said, ‘Isn’t it beautiful!’
‘Yes, marm.’