Maureen JENNINGS - Under the Dragon’s Tail

Lily lifted her face towards the puff of cool, evening breeze that came through the open window. She had almost finished her ironing, and her wrist and forearm were aching. The smooth, fresh linens were piled on the chair beside her. Dolly was sitting in the reed rocker by the window. She had consumed two large jugs of hard beer by now, and she was full. She had the album in her lap, but her brief good humour of the afternoon had vanished. As she rocked herself back and forth, she was muttering under her breath. “Stupid cow, they was all the same. Listened to some glib-glab from any man who wanted to stop his beak. Then when they had a natural in the oven they wanted Dolly to help. And she did. She was the best. But she was brought down. No fault of hers.”

Lily, who was stone deaf, eyed her mother nervously, reading the signs the way a wild creature does and knows from the wind and the smell in the air that a storm is coming. The two boys were at the table. The younger boy, Freddie, had found a little lead horse in the mud of the river and he’d harnessed it to an empty matchbox. He was trotting it around the table, over the hedge of the plates, through the stream of the sticky spilled beer. George, bored and restless, was watching him. Then suddenly, he winked and reached in the basket for one of Lily’s clothes pegs. He held it upright in front of the horse and carriage and motioned Freddie to give him the toy. With one savage rush, he smashed the peg flat and made the horse trample over it.

Freddie glanced over to Dolly in alarm, afraid she would see. He knew without ever saying so that George was exacting retribution on their foster mother.

“Pray for us now and in the hour of our death, Amen.”

William Murdoch had said four Hail Marys and the Lord’s Prayer three times, once in Latin. This was not because he was especially pious – he wasn’t anymore – but because he had insomnia and repeating the familiar words sometimes lulled him to sleep. Not tonight. It was like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. The worst thing was that tomorrow he had to get up at half past five to do his training ride. However, he’d heard the church on Queen Street toll out ten o’clock, then eleven, and shortly it would be dolefully chiming out midnight. Maybe he should reset his alarm clock and get an extra hour. He flung himself onto his back. Better not. The police athletic tournament was only four weeks away and he had to train hard if he was going to outride Varley, the new crack from number-three station. And beat the shicey bastard he would, or die in the attempt.

Bong, bong, bong.

Twelve midnight. He thought the bell ringer was hurrying it, keen to get to his bed probably. Where he would no doubt immediately fall into a blameless sleep.

From the parlour below Murdoch heard Arthur Kitchen, his landlord, coughing his perpetual, spongy cough.

His own body tightened up in empathy with the sick man. In spite of Beatrice Kitchen’s best efforts the consumption was continuing its inexorable march, and Murdoch was afraid Arthur mightn’t last out the year. All of a sudden his bed felt lumpy, and he turned over again trying to find a comfortable spot. Trying to get away from his thoughts. This next Christmas would be the second one without Elizabeth. If she had lived they might have had a child by now, the start of the family he yearned for. However, typhoid was no respecter of dreams and had ignored the desperate novenas he made when she fell ill, the masses he bought. “God took her to his bosom. He needed her more than you did,” said the priest, and Murdoch, in a surge of blasphemous rage, barely held back from punching him in his prissy mouth. He, himself, was lucky to be spared, said the doctor, but he didn’t feel lucky. For many months he had wanted to be dead too.

Bong, bong…

The last toll faded. He flopped his leg to the edge of the bed. He and Liza had never had conjugal relations, of course. Once when they were alone in her sitting room, hot with desire, he had touched her breast. Because of her stiff corset, the gesture was as unsatisfying as stroking the armchair. She had laughed mischievously into his eyes. “Soon, Will, soon.” But hardly one month later the fever swept the house where she boarded, taking off all of them and several more who’d been in contact with the place.

Murdoch thrashed in earnest. He knew when his mind went in this direction sleep was out of the question. Shut it off, he said to himself, but he couldn’t. He’d never even seen her unclothed but he imagined her lying beside him, warm and soft.

When he was a young man working at the lumber camp near Huntsville, he’d got up his courage and asked one of the older men what connection with a woman was like. The logger, who spoke tenderly of his absent wife, contemplated his question for a moment, then said seriously, “It’s a bit difficult to put into words, Will. The closest I can come is this. Imagine thrusting your member into warm mash, at the same time as you jump out of a tree.”

Murdoch sighed again.

Annie Brogan pulled her garters over her silk stockings and shook out her skirt. She was wearing her stage clothes, a stiff taffeta dress of bold red stripes with an uncomfortably tight bodice cut low. She thrust her sore feet into her boots, wet the tip of her finger, and rubbed at the scuff marks on the toe. Part of her act was to dance with men from the audience, and some squab was always treading on her. She yawned and stared down at the man on the bed. He was naked, his now flaccid John Thomas draped limply on his fat leg. He snored and the thick nose-sound sickened her. In daylight with his nobby clothes on, she liked him well enough. He was generous. But always when he was like this, replete with his long-drawn-out screw, she felt such revulsion her own thoughts frightened her.

She yawned again, uncontrollably. She would have liked to sleep the night in that comfortable, clean bed but she knew Richard wouldn’t want that. He preferred her to come and go unseen. The Yeoman Club where they had their rendezvous was convenient for that reason. Situated on River Street, it was a favourite place of well-to-do men who wanted luxury and discretion rather than a fashionable address.

The wick in the oil lamp was low, but she could see the money he’d left on the bedside table. She picked up the bills and tucked them into her finger purse. He always said it was for cab fare and she maintained the pretence. To think more deeply was unbearable. As she finished dressing, the brass clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour. She almost giggled. Poor little Cinders, leaving the prince before her clothes turned to rags again.

This was a plainly furnished room, too sober for her taste, but she knew the members who used it weren’t particular about the appearance as long as it cost dear. There was a pull-down bed, comfortable brown suede chairs, a fine glass cabinet filled with books, rarely opened. But best of all, the room had access to a private laneway.

She pulled aside the green felt curtain that masked the outside door. For a moment, she hesitated. She was not looking forward to what she had to do. Truth was she would have given anything not to go there. Not to see the woman again.

The night air was sweet-smelling, cool on her face. She closed the door softly behind her and stepped into the welcoming darkness.

Murdoch anticipated the bawling of the alarm by a fraction of a second and sat up immediately to switch off the bell. He peered blearily at the clock, then dropped back to his pillow to catch one more sip of shut-eye. As he lay, he heard a faint squeak of bedsprings from the adjoining room. The walls were thin and he hoped he hadn’t disturbed Enid, his fellow lodger. He held his breath, listening, but there was no further sound. Sometimes he heard her whimpering in her sleep, making him ache to go and comfort her, but this morning both she and her boy were quiet.