Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

Louise Brooks has usurped Lillian Gish in Frances’s heart and on her wall. Lillian survives now only in an honorary capacity, alone on her virginal ice-floe. Louise smoulders from beneath a black widow’s veil, smirks in a tuxedo, flirts over the rim of a champagne glass, simpers on Jack the Ripper’s knee, and sprawls in a wicked heap, naked but for a handful of feathers. She is the best and the worst girl in the world. She is also the most modern. Frances longs to be sold into a “life of sin,” forced onto the stage and into “houses of ill fame” where life is tragic but so much fun.

In the meantime, she plays hookey down by the shore or at the picture-house. Lately she has taken to walking and trotting the Shore Road all nine miles into Sydney, where she heads for the docks of the Esplanade and hangs around the ships. She’s thinking about stowing away. She chats with merchant sailors from all over the world and entertains them with her own skinnamalink stepdance-Charleston for pennies. Lets the odd nasty one touch her chest for a quarter before taking to her heels.

The only thing that keeps Frances from running away is Lily. She has to make sure that Lily is okay before she can let her life begin. What “okay” means is not clear. Frances will know it when she sees it. For now, she contents herself with a fresh diversion: on November 12, she follows James to his secret place in the woods:

It was difficult because she didn’t have a car to follow him in and, besides, he would notice that. So she went on the floor of the back seat of his Hupmobile, under a blanket.

When the car stops, she hears him get out. Then she hears another automobile drive up. Sounds like a truck. She hears James’s voice and another man’s, soft and deep. She waits until their footsteps scuff away, then she carefully rises and peeps out the window. There’s a shack with smoke coming out the top of a tin chimney — I was right!

Her elation is such that she reflexively ducks back down, as though she had made a noise. She peeps out again in time to see James come out of the shack and stand with his back to her. Nearby is a truck, its trailer covered with a tarpaulin stretched up and over a frame of wooden ribs like a covered wagon. The other man comes out of the shack carrying a big barrel on his shoulder.

He is familiar to Frances but she cannot place him. He is a substantial man, though not unusually tall, with wide shoulders and chest; obviously strong, but there are no sharp edges to him. His body is a pile of cushions, his face is an open invitation to come in and relax. Honest round forehead, large eyes — there is an overall quality that Frances racks her brains to identify. Then it comes to her. He looks kind. Something about him reminds Frances of Lily. Maybe that’s why he seems familiar. The man rolls the barrel off his shoulder and into the back of his truck, where Frances sees a name stencilled, “Leo Taylor Transport”. This too is familiar, but just out of reach.

Frances watches as the man carries barrel after barrel and case after clinking case while James waits. When the man has finished, he ties the canvas flaps of the tarp together. James takes a roll of bills out of his pocket and peels off a few. The man says, “Thanks, Mr Piper.”

And James says, “All right, Leo. Drive safe.”

“You know why you have a boot-leg, Lily?”

“’Cause I got infantile paralysis when I was a wee tiny baby but God wanted me to live.”

It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon. Frances and Lily have been playing Covered Wagon on Mercedes’ bed. Mercedes is off volunteering at the hospital and Daddy is out Frances-knows-where. The chenille spread is the wagon cover and behind them are their children: Diphtheria Rose, Raggedy-Lily-of-the-Valley, Spanish Influenza, Maurice and the rest. They are a pioneer family bound for the frontier, shortly to be scalped. Lily has finally got the reins.

“You caught it in the creek.”

The horses stop. Lily waits.

“You caught it in the creek because Mumma tried to drown you as soon as you were born.”

“Frances” — quivering lip, this is the worst thing Frances has ever said — “Mumma loved me, she wouldn’t hurt me.”

“You were a dark baby. You and Ambrose.”

“Frances, Daddy says —”

“He’s not your daddy.”

“He is so!”

“Shutup, Lily, or I won’t tell you anything.”

Whispering, “He is so!”

Frances gets up and heads for the door. “Never mind, Lily, ’cause obviously you don’t even want to know who your real father is.”

“Yes I do.”

Frances takes a long look at Lily, as though assessing her ability to withstand the truth. Then: “Your father is a black man from The Coke Ovens in Whitney Pier.”

Lily takes it in.

“Mumma tried to drown you ’cause you were dark.” Every time Frances tells the true story, the story gets a little truer.

“I saved you, Lily.”

Lily bites her lip. Frances’s lips have gone white-hard. Her throat is a white rope.

“From drownding?”

“Drowning, not drownding, stupid.”

Frances tosses the dolls onto the floor and begins to make the bed. Lily’s silky black eyebrows tremble. “Mumma killed Ambrose?”

“That’s right.” Suddenly offhand, an efficient plump of the pillow.

Lily starts to cry.

Frances points out reasonably, “She was afraid Daddy would kill her.”

“But he wouldn’t!” Lily sobs.

Frances watches for a moment. She always feels immensely relieved when Lily starts to cry. She sits beside Lily, puts an arm around her and strokes her sweet head. Dear Lily.

“It’s okay, Lily…. Daddy couldn’t ever hurt anyone.”

“Ever.”

“I won’t tell you any more, you’re too little.”

“I am not!” Lily pulls away, swatting the tears off her cheeks.

“Yes you are, Lily. You’re a sweet little girl.”

“Tell me, Frances! I’m big.”

“Little.”

“Big!”

“Tiny.”

“NO!”

“Oui.”

“TELL ME!” Lily bright red, fists pounding the bed.

Frances flops back on the pillow, hands folded behind her head, and casually sings, one foot resting on the other knee and bobbing time, “Mademoiselle from Armentières, pa-a-arlez-vous?” Lily starts tearing apart the freshly made bed. “Mademoiselle from Armentières, pa-a-arlez-vous?” — bedspread yanked out from under Frances — “Mademoiselle from Armentières” — strewn sheets, rosary attached with a safety-pin — “hasn’t been kissed in forty years” — Lily could pass out with rage — “inky-dinky parlez-vo-o-ous” — she whirls around the room, grabs a big book and tears off the spine. She rips up hunks of pages and throws them out the window. She whips the gutted binding down after them like a blown-off shingle, spins back on her sturdy leg, her steel brace propelling out to the side, and spots The Old-Fashioned Girl that plays “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”. It holds a yellow parasol. It lives on Mercedes’ dresser on a doily all its own. Lily grabs it.

“Tell me, Frances, or I’ll smash it.”

“I’m not telling you anything, you’re a maniac.”

Lily’s arm swings up, “Tell me.”

“No.”

Lily pauses — the enormity of the idea of throwing The Old-Fashioned Girl to the floor threatens to sink in so she simply lets the figurine drop. It hits the floor. The parasol and the head. Clink. Roll, roll, ruddle-ruddle. Lily looks in shock at what she’s done. Frances delivers the punchline.

“If you were doing all this to get back at me, you didn’t, all you did was wreck Mercedes’ precious things.”