As usual, Broadway resembled nothing so much as a kicked-over anthill. The sidewalks were thronged with a never-ending river of people, the avenue itself crammed with omnibuses, drays, hansoms and carriages. Crossing from the ‘shilling’ side to the ‘dollar’ side – east to west – could sometimes take as long as half an hour and was perilous at any time of day or night. Twenty years ago, Abby thought, there were only private houses north of City Hall. Look at it now!
The huge, white marble St Nicholas Hotel stood on Broadway at Broome Street. Its lobbies and parlors were as crowded, if not busier, than the sidewalks had been. Abby pushed through the crowds to the reception desk, on the fourth floor. Abby’s resolution wavered. Was this the right thing to do?
Louise’s note had been short and dramatic. I must see you immediately. It is a matter of life and death. I am staying at this hotel. Come at once. The note was on the hotel’s stationery. What does she want? Abby wondered. I haven’t heard from them for more than six months.
As if she had been waiting behind it for Abby’s knock, Louise swung open the door.
‘You’ve come, then,’ she said.
‘I very nearly didn’t.’
‘You’d better come in.’ Louise was dressed in a loose-fitting smock with a foulard pattern. Her hair was tied loosely behind her head with a red ribbon. She wore no make-up and it made her look younger and strangely defenseless. She was clearly pregnant. Five months gone, Abby thought, maybe six.
‘May I sit down?’ she said.
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Where is Travis?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.’
‘But you must have some idea—’
‘It don’t matter all that much, anyway,’ Louise said in the same offhand way.
‘You don’t care what happens to him?’
‘I never said that.’ Louise showed animation for the first time. ‘What I said was, it don’t matter. You don’t ask Travis for reasons. Fire burns because it’s fire. That answer your question, lady?’
‘Listen, Louise,’ Abby said firmly. ‘You and I had better get something straight right now. I won’t take being slanged, not by you, not by anybody. Either we call a truce or we fight to the death. I want you to know something, Louise: I’ve been kicked about by life every bit as much as you have, perhaps more. I’m just as tough as you are, maybe tougher. If you want to find out just how tough, let’s get started right now. Otherwise quit acting like a street fighter and tell me why you asked me to come here!’
Louise opened a box and took out a cigarette. She lit it and blew smoke through her nostrils, eyeing Abby warily. Then she nodded, as if she had made a decision.
‘I figured you were the one with balls in your family,’ she said. ‘And I was right. Let’s talk.’
‘First,’ Abby said, ‘give me one of those cigarettes.’
‘You smoke?’
‘I haven’t smoked a cigarette since I was sixteen, but I suddenly feel the need of one.’
Louise handed her the cigarette box, and lit the cigarette for her. Abby coughed some over the first lungful, but although it tasted vile, it was a lot easier than she had expected. The things your body can do, she thought. The taste of the tobacco brought the memory of Sean Flynn’s lips upon her own vividly to her mind. How could it be a quarter of a century ago, yet seem like the day before yesterday? She realized that Louise was still watching her, waiting.
‘Tell me about the baby,’ Abby said. ‘When is it due?’
‘September.’
‘Is that what you wanted to see me for?’
‘Partly.’
‘There’s something else?’ Abby queried. ‘You said it was a matter of life and death.’
‘It’s all of that,’ Louise said. ‘What does the name Bellamy mean to you?’
Jesus! Abby thought, sweet Jesus Christ almighty! ‘Bellamy?’ she said weakly. ‘I … don’t think ... I know … the name.’
‘You’re lying,’ Louise said.
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Louise said inexorably. ‘Don’t lie to me, Abby. I know. Travis took the papers out of that box of yours. He found a letter written by a man named Bellamy and he figured out that the baby mentioned in it was you.’
‘Oh God,’ Abby whispered.
‘You want a drink?’ Louise asked. Abby nodded. Louise went across to the wardrobe, opened it and brought out a bottle. ‘I’ve only got whiskey.’
‘Whiskey is fine.’
Louise handed her the glass and sipped from her own, watching Abby over the rim of the glass.
‘Your son,’ she went on, ‘is a mean sonofabitch. You know that?’
Abby nodded. Bad blood, she thought. Travis was Sean Flynn’s son. The same wicked blue eyes, the same rogue’s smile, the same devil in his soul. ‘Bad blood,’ she said softly.
‘Bad blood my ass!’ Louise said. She was talking as much to herself as to Abby. ‘He enjoys being mean. He was mean when I met him and he’s gotten meaner every day since. He’s got a crazy streak. It’s gotten worse ever since they whipped him. In the army. You know about that?’
‘Yes,’ Abby said, remembering how she had wept when Sam told her about it. ‘I didn’t know when you … when we—’
‘It don’t matter none,’ Louise said. ‘The whipping wasn’t what made him ornery. Something deeper inside him done that.’ She went over to the table and poured herself another man-sized drink. Then she raised her eyebrows and held up the bottle.
‘Why not?’ Abby said. The first drink was glowing redly in her brain. She had stopped thinking.
‘Let me tell you about your son,’ Louise said. ‘You know what the last thing he said to me was? He came in through that door, with that crazy light in his eye. Threw three hundred dollars on the table. I don’t know where he got it. Stole it, probably, or bilked some poor pilgrim. It don’t matter none. He just throwed it on that table there an’ told me he was leavin’. “Oh, yeah,” says I. “An’ where might you be goin’ to?” , “None o’ your goddamned business!” says he. “Well, so it is, too!” says I. “Me being pregnant, thanks to you!”, “Hell,” he says. “You’ll be taken care of.” . , “Well, no damned three hundred dollars is going to do it,” says I, thinking he means, well, you know what. He looks at me and that light in his eye gets stronger and madder and I swear to God it like to scared the shit out of me. “You even think a thing like that, and I’ll kill you, you bitch!” he says. “I’ll cut you up so bad they won’t even be able to sell you for dog meat!”. Well, I seen him in a knife fight once. Some feller crossed him at the gamblin’ tables down there in Dallas, started to pull a gun on him. Travis gutted him afore he even got it out o’ the holster. I like to passed out, there was so much blood. An’ that feller kickin’ on the floor, groanin’, an’ Travis standin’ there with the knife drippin’ blood an’ that hellion’s smile on his face. Then this feller tries to get to his feet an’ —’
‘Don’t tell me!’ Abby said.
‘Can’t take it, huh?’ Louise sneered. ‘I figgered you for tougher than that.’
‘Not that,’ Abby said. ‘I had a man once … died the same way. They brought him home to me in a blanket. His hands … his body, everything was cut. It was … awful.’
Louise looked at her with a new respect. ‘You been around, lady, ain’t you?’
‘Some,’ Abby said.
‘This feller of yours,’ Louise said. ‘What was his name?’
‘Sean Flynn.’
‘Was you in love with him?’
‘Utterly,’ Abby said, remembering Sean’s hands, heat, surrender. ‘But he had that mean streak, too.’
‘How old was you?’
‘I wasn’t yet eighteen when they brought him home to me, dead.’
‘Then – you married Sam Strong carryin’ Travis?’
Abby nodded. ‘He doesn’t know. Neither of them know. ‘
‘That’s what you think,’ Louise said. ‘We was talking about that Bellamy feller.’
‘Yes.’ Abby felt the fear seeping back into her brain. ‘I got a letter from Travis.’
‘I thought you said—’
‘It don’t say where he’s at. It was posted in Boston.’ Louise got up, went across to the bedside table and came back carrying an envelope. ‘I’ll read you what it says,’ she went on, opening it out. ‘It says: “I expect you are getting short of money now. I told you you’d be taken care of. Get in touch with my mother. Not my father. Tell her this. Tell her I have the letter written by her father. Tell her I said she can no longer use pride as a weapon, propriety as a shield. Tell her I said she is to give you a home and to care for you and the baby. And tell her that if she does not, I will come back and tell Sam everything!”.’
She looked up from the letter. Abby sat stunned, staring at her. She could not believe it was possible and yet somehow she knew that it was true. Who could have believed that losing her virginity to a sweet-talking Irishman on a hot summer’s day all those years ago was the first step on the road which led to this?
‘How … Sam?’ she said.
‘You’ll take me in, then?’ Louise said. There was a strange wistfulness in her eyes. Was she acting? Abby wondered. Could anyone act that well?
‘Do I have a choice?’ she said coldly.
‘Listen, Abby,’ Louise said. ‘You probably won’t believe this, but I like you. You’ve had hard times, same as me. You’ve kept your chin up, no matter what. So have I, Abby. Sure, I was a whore. I didn’t have no choice. I run away from home when I was fourteen, because if I hadn’t of, then my old man was gonna come into my room one night drunk and do it, an’ if he’d of done that I’d of killed him and then killed myself. So I run. I got to San Antone and got me a job in a cathouse. It was terrible at first. But I got used to it. I was real pretty. You’d be surprised how many old men want a pretty little girl. They used to give me extra money, an’ I saved it. An’ then I moved south, to Dallas, an’ bought me a concession. That was the one thing I’d learned. Bein’ a madam, you could choose who your customers were. Then Travis came along. He was crazy. He never said he loved me, or anything. He just said it kind of tickled his fancy to have a madam for a wife. Put him apart from all the other men. So we got ourselves married and come East. It was dumb of me, I suppose, but I had this idea that maybe … maybe I could get away with it. Be respectable, live in a nice house. I never had a real home. But I couldn’t. When I seen the way you and Sam were together, I realized how it was between me an’ Travis. A joke marriage, not a real one like yours. So when he lied to you about me, I – couldn’t let it ride. I had to end it, even if it meant gettin’ kicked out. I suppose what I really hoped was that you’d say it didn’t make no difference. I suppose that’s what I was prayin’ would happen. How stupid can you get, huh?’
She got up and went across to the table for another drink. She swayed a little as she walked. She poured the last of the whiskey into the glass and drank it in one gulp.
‘Stupid,’ she said flatly. ‘Travis was right. All my brains in my ass, he used to say.’
‘Louise,’ Abby said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t want pity, lady!’ Louise said sharply. ‘Don’t you be sorry for me. I mighta been a whore, but I was good at it!’
‘I meant that I was sorry for the things that were said. I’m sorry for not trying harder.’
‘Wanna tell you something,’ Louise said, sitting down in the chair opposite her. ‘Want you to understand. I wouldn’t have told Sam. Won’t tell him. Hell, I can go back to work. Get myself fixed up.’
‘No,’ Abby said. ‘You mustn’t do that. You will have the baby in safety and comfort. I want you to come home with me. The way Travis wanted it.’
‘You mean it?’ Louise said. ‘Oh, shit, I’m crying!’
‘Cry all you want.’
‘What about Sam?’ Louise sniffed. ‘What will you tell him?’
‘You leave Sam to me,’ Abby said. ‘I can handle Sam.’
‘We’ll have a lot of secrets, you and I, Abby,’ Louise said. ‘A lot of secrets.’
‘Yes,’ Abby said. ‘We will.’ My God, she thought, what a pair we’ll be, our lives cemented together by this litany of lies!
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. They said God didn’t put more weight on anybody’s shoulders than they could bear. What was to be would be.
‘How long will it take you to pack?’ she asked Louise.
‘About ten minutes!’ Louise said, getting up.
‘One thing,’ Abby said. Louise’s eyes narrowed warily.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ll not have a slattern’s tongue used under my roof,’ Abby said. ‘You’ll bridle yours.’
Louise tensed for a moment as if she was going to fight. Then she grinned. ‘All right, lady,’ she said. ‘Anything you say. ‘
‘And don’t call me “lady”,’ Abby said. ‘You know my name.’
‘Abby,’ Louise said. ‘I think you and me are goin’ to get along just fine.’
‘You may be right at that,’ Abby replied.