Maureen JENNINGS - Under the Dragon’s Tail

“I’ll go this minute.”

He put on his jacket, which he’d placed on the back of the chair, and blessed with Mrs. K.’s smile of approval he went in search of the widow Jones.

There were three rooms upstairs. He rented one as a bedroom and one as a small sitting room. It was a tight squeeze on his wages, but he liked having the extra space and it had helped out the Kitchens. Mrs. Jones and her son shared the front room next to him at the top of the stairs.

Her door was open to allow for a cross draft from the open window. The boy was in bed and she was sitting beside him singing softly in a lilting language Murdoch presumed was Welsh. She had lit a candle, and in the yellow light she looked softer and less worried than she did normally. Alwyn’s eyes were closed. Murdoch paused at the threshold but she turned at the sound of his step. She put a finger to her lips, gave the child a gentle kiss on the forehead, and blew out the candle.

“ Nois da. ”

As she came out to the hall, she realized she’d undone the top buttons of her collar and she started to fasten them quickly.

Mrs. Jones worked at home. She had a typewriting machine and spent long hours at it, mostly copying lawyer’s reports and insurance claims. When she was working, she wore round steel-rimmed glasses. They had left a red mark on the bridge of her nose, and Murdoch wanted to reach out and smooth the sore place away.

“Mrs. Kitchen has asked me to invite you down to the front porch for some cool air…it really is quite pleasant, er, have you been inside all day?”

“Mostly.”

She finished fumbling with her buttons, but she’d missed one and he could glimpse the soft, pale skin of her throat.

“You’ll join us then?”

“Thank you, but I really can’t. I have a long report to finish by the morning.”

“Half an hour won’t hurt. If I may say so, you look tired.”

She still hesitated, both of them standing awkwardly in the narrow, shadowy hall.

“No, truly. I must refuse.”

Her voice had a musical cadence to it that he found entrancing. He lingered for a moment, hoping she would change her mind but she made a movement to go back into her room.

“Goodnight then,” he said.

She gave him a shy smile. “ Nois da. Goodnight.”

Murdoch went to join the Kitchens on the front porch, taking the stairs faster than was really necessary.

Dusk was settling in rapidly and the gas streetlamps were lit, drawing dozens of moths and bugs in a dance of death around the flickering lights. Many of the street’s residents were outside on their porches or steps, enjoying the summer evening. Here and there lamps glowed in the windows. Mr. Dwyer, an elderly bachelor who lived two houses up, was playing on a blow accordion and his neighbour Oakley called to him.

“Play ‘Banks of Loch Lomond,’ will you, Tom?”

He began, slightly off-key but not so bad as to irritate any but the purists.

Next door to the Kitchens was the O’Brien family. Mr. O’Brien was a sailor and away for long periods of time, returning to spawn yet another child and off again. Mrs. O’Brien, with the eldest girl of her brood of eight, was sitting outside on her side of the common porch. Beatrice had wheeled out her husband in his wicker Bath chair, and she’d hooked up a hurricane lamp so she could see to work. She earned a bit of extra money by making things for a fancy goods store on Queen Street. Tonight she was crocheting a lace tidy.

Murdoch came out and sat down on the top step. The evening was cool, the air freshened by a breeze coming up from the lake.

“Do you mind if I have a pipe, Mrs. K.?”

She shook her head and he lit up his Powhatten and took a deep draw.

“Well then, Will, what’s the other half of mankind been up to today?” asked Arthur.

Murdoch had got into the way of sharing the daily events of police life with the Kitchens, and Arthur, who was totally housebound, looked forward to these chats. It wasn’t just for Arthur’s sake that Murdoch discussed things, however, he’d come to rely on them himself.

He took another puff, wanting to choose his words carefully out of consideration for Mrs. Kitchen. “The big happening today was the discovery of a poor dead woman.” He related briefly what had transpired at the house on River Street.

“How’d she die?” asked Beatrice.

“Fell and knocked her head most likely. It seemed as if she’d been drinking.”

“We reap what we sow,” said Mrs. Kitchen unsympathetically. She wasn’t Temperance but she disliked excess of any kind.

“We’ll know better after the post mortem examination. The inquest’s on Monday.”

“Did she have any family?” asked Arthur.

“A daughter. Grown woman but deaf and dumb. Might be simple as well. She ran off like a scared rabbit when we showed up.”

Beatrice’s fingers stopped for a moment. “I know who that is. I’ve seen her when I’ve been coming up from the market. Has to be the same one. She’s a brunette, a bit on the lanky side, middle-aged?”

“Sounds like her.”

“She’s not that simple. In her heart maybe but not in her head. Got the manners of a heathen but she’s clever enough. She’ll wrangle with the farmer’s wives good as anybody. No mistaking what she means even though she don’t speak.” She continued with her crocheting. “Poor thing. I wonder what’s to become of her.” And she made the sign of the cross over her breast out of kindness.

“There are two boys living there as well,” continued Murdoch. “Foster children as far as I could make out. I wanted them to go stay at the Humane Society but you’d think I was sending them to a training school for the fuss they made.”

“Maybe they’ve already had a taste,” said Arthur.

“Could be. They’ve grown up wild as foxes from what I can tell. Neither one can read nor write. It was the older boy who found her.”

Murdoch had questioned George about the envelope in Mrs. Shaw’s pocket, but he’d no explanation. According to him, they had a hard time making ends meet even though Lily worked like a donkey.

Arthur started to cough, helpless in its fierce bite. His wife and Murdoch waited until the fit subsided, pretending a calm neither one felt. Finally, Arthur lay back. He wiped away a spot of blood from his lips and dropped the piece of rag in the bucket filled with carbolic that was always beside him.

Mr. Dwyer had now moved into a slow, plaintive rendition of “Barbara Allen.” Murdoch drew in more tobacco smoke and leaned back.

“Haven’t heard that piece in a while. My mother used to sing it to us when I was a lad.”

Sometimes, when his father was safely out of the way at sea, the four of them, his mother, sister, brother, and he, would sit around the fire mending the fishing nets. The room smelled of brine and fish and the knots were tough in the salt-stiff twine, but in those rare moments of peace he was happy. Albert played with his own piece of netting that his mother had given him, proudly mending it like the others, and his mother would teach them songs.

“My little brother always wanted a hearty sea shanty so he could shout out, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ but me and Susanna begged for the sad ones.”

He smiled at the memory.

“Mother would sing so sweetly it made us cry but we’d ask her again and again until she cried ‘Mercy!’ ‘Barbara Allen’ was one of our favourites.”

Murdoch began to sing, quietly, so as not to intrude.

Mrs. O’Brien joined in and then Beatrice started to hum. Up and down the street the song came floating on the air. Mr. Dwyer finished the final chorus and there was a little smattering of applause from the choristers, well pleased with themselves.