Froelich's Ladder (11 page)

As they’d grown to womanhood, their exploits had become more mature. The Saint Andrew’s dance, for instance—hadn’t that been their finest hour? Disinclined to bring a date, but determined to kiss the saltire at midnight, they’d each decided to escort the other. But how would that work, they’d wondered? One could imagine the looks on the Sisters’ faces. The solution, Josie and Mae had decided, was Danny Foye: a single date for them to share, and not even a proper date at that.

“Say, Danny,” Josie had said, sidling up next to him while he loafed home from school. “Why don’tcha ask me to the Saint Andrew’s dance? I’ve already got my dress picked out. It’s kelly green, with a modern bustle. Have you got a hat, Danny, or can you borrow one from your da?”

“No, Danny!” Mae had stomped her foot, materializing on the other side of him and passing her arm through his. “You told me we’d go! I’ve got my dress picked out, too—off the shoulder, to go with my gloves. Oh, but do ask your da for his ascot to wear.”

“Oh, yes, do!” Josie had assented, barely keeping herself from laughing. “And a stickpin to match.”

Poor Danny Foye, with his weak chin and his sweaty palms. Content to do as he was told (his eyes as wide as saucers), he’d played the part and worn his father’s ill-fitting suit. Together, all three had entered the parish house—everyone’s eyes trained on this scandalous trio, no less so with Mae’s shoulders exposed. When she’d handed Danny her stole, the other partygoers had gasped at the sight of her collarbone. Or perhaps it had been Josie’s shortness of breath, and nobody else’s.

The night had been mad, and would get madder still. Saint Andrew’s cross had been fixed to the mantel, to prevent any witches from comin
g down the chimney. The Sisters in their habits stayed up well past their bedtimes, stifling yawns so wide they could’ve swallowed a dove. And whenever Mae danced close, she buried her hands in Josie’s bustle, goosing and poking her until they were both cackling like jackdaws.

There’d been something else, too—a challenge issued under the laughter. Here, among these dancing, sweating, swarming bodies, and under the Sisters’ drowsy gaze, who’d dare to risk the greater infraction? Whose lips might accidentally gra
ze a cheek or an earlobe? Whose arms, raised in mirth, would come to rest around another one’s neck? Had an
yone acknowledged what transpired between them? Or had Josie herself imagined it? The smell of incense, and the sweat drying on her scalp, made it all seem like a dream.

Finally, when the clock struck midnight, but before they’d all braved the November cold, Josie had to rest her feet. Danny found her sitting in the nave, and
offered her a drink of water. She hadn’t seen him since they’d first arrived, or hadn’t noticed him. He’d been disinclined to dance; rather, Danny had stood against the wall and tapped his toes. Maybe it passed for a good time. Or maybe not, and he tapped his toes nonetheless.

“Enjoying yourself?” he said, like he could read her mind.

“Indeed,” Josie answered, still a bit winded. And then, because she would’ve willed it so, “And yourself?”

“Oh, aye. Me and the lads found a bag of marbles. I won a cat’s eye at ringer.”

“Sounds like a grand ol’ time. Shame I didn’t bring me jacks.”

Instantly, his countenance turned stormy. “You think I’m daft,” he said, “but I’m not.”

“Oh, no—”

“It’s all right—I don’t care what you think. But tell me something else, since you’re the one to ask? When’s Mae’s birthday?”

“Sorry, Danny, but it’s come and gone. If you’re looking to win her a steely, you’ll just have to wait.”

Again, he narrowed his eyes. Addressing Josie precisely, as if he were speaking to a halfwit, he said, “Her gloves are new—I doubt she’s worn them before. She says they’re a gift, so either her birthday’s just passed or else she’s been saving them. I’d like to know her kind, our Mae—does she virtue patience, or can’t she wait? If you tell me her birthday, I’ll sort it out for myself.”

“February the fourteenth,” Josie mumbled, feeling appropriately stricken. “Saint Valentine’s Day.”

Danny nodded, and began to walk away; but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, deny himself the opportunity to say, “D’you know wh
at your kind is? The kind with a smart word—always something clever to say. Except, there’s never a straight answer with you, is there, Josie? How is it you’re so clever, when a person knows less for having talked to you? No, don’t answer—I might swallow a marble on accident.”

And to think, he’d called her clever. It was fair to say she’d misjudged him—Danny’s wherewithal and the depth of his feelings. Josie would do well to take a lesson, and to find herself a feckless suitor at the Logging Camp. Ra
ther that it was Danny walking down this beach, she mused—a penitent amid the looming sea stacks. In her head, he’d be forever confined to that stuffy nave. But he could have Mae pregnant by now, renting a flat over Charlotte Square, neither of them giving her a second thought.

Her tiff with Mae had occurred shortly after the dance. Prior to that, they’d been seeing less and less of each other, like she (Josie) had been contagious with something. Tiff was the word her da had used, and why not? Nothing in her own vocabulary had corresponded. Their row had been too significant for a misunderstanding, and too hurtful for a lark.

They’d been the last two at Jenner’s Department Store one evening—dismantling the Nativity display, as chance would have it. “I’ve not seen you much,” Josie said in an offhand manner, while ridding the manger of its motley tenants. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, grand,” Mae replied.

“Me, too—grand. So … you’ve been around?”

Shrugging, she gathered drifts of cotton snow, to be used again for the Easter display. “Here and there. With people.”

“What people?”

“You know something?” Mae said, squinting at Josie. “It would be all right to find your own friends—other friends, besides myself. It would be healthy.”

“Oh, I’ve got gobs of friends,” Josie fibbed. In fact, they’d used to mock the girls who’d tallied acquaintances like charms on a bracelet; Josie had been proud to enumerate only one. Now, sorting the Magi, she tugged so hard on Balthazar tha
t he sacrificed a limb.

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“If you’ve got so many, maybe I can borrow one. Who’ve you been seeing, then?”

Mae cleared her throat. “Danny?”

“Foye? What’cha been doing with him?”

“I like Danny Foye! Anyway, he’s nice to me.”

“Of course he is—he thinks you’re easy!”

Mae hefted a plaster cherub and hurled it in her direction, to be followed by one humpbacked camel a
nd then another. For her part, even as she was avoiding projectiles, Josie immediately regretted the inference. Not so much an inference, even, as slander. If Danny enjoyed Mae’s company, if he thought that she was pretty or kind, who better to empathize than Josie? But once a thing had been said, it couldn’t be unsaid.

“So what if he does?” Mae shouted, after exhausting her arsenal. “At least it’s not unnatural!”

“Yeah? What’s so natural about being groped?”

“You know what I mean,” she hissed. “At least it’s not a sin.”

“Oh, so you’re a nun now? Tell me, Mother Superior—when do you plan on being wed? Because if it’s sin you’re after—”

“What if we did? Huh? What if we did wed? Then I’d be Mrs. Danny Foye—and you’d still be an abomination!”

More words had been spoken after that, more accusations levied, but Josie couldn’t recall the details. After being labeled a miscreant, she’d found herself trapped in the moment. Since then, she’d replayed their altercation many times, and it never improved, nor had they been able to remedy their friendship. Perhaps, had they remained on speaking terms, she might’ve reconsidered her decision that morning on the quay. Perhaps the lure of America wouldn’t have seemed so great—the eccentric uncle and the chance to reinvent herself. Or perhaps not; it was unfair to speculate and impossible to know.

Either way, Josie hadn’t been welcome at home anymore. If her row with Mae had been traumatizing, there weren’t words for the schism between her and her mum. For some reason, Josie had never worried about her parents finding out. Maybe she’d been too heartsick to care, or else she’d been in denial. It had been a Tuesday afternoon; she could remember because she’d just got back from the chemist, renewing her da’s prescription. When she’d walked though the door, angling for a hot cup of tea, she’d seen her mum standing inside the living room, her hands knotted tight. How long had she been there, staring at the door? Josie’s first thought had been mistaken—that she’d been expecting her da, who must’ve done something wrong. But when her mum had barreled straight toward her, swinging her fists like mallets, her intent had been clear.

“Harlot!” she keened. “Strumpet!”

“Ow, Mum, you’re hurting!” Josie shouted back, trying to protect her head. The coat and scarf she’d yet to remove provided some c
ushioning. “What’re you on about? What’s all this?”

“I just hosted Father Quinn, who got an earful from Moira Canby. I’m sure I’m the last to hear, save for your poor father—he’s still down the pub. Would that h
e’d stay all night, and spare himself the trip back.”

“What, Mum?”

By this time, Josie had escaped the narrow confines of the parlor and had placed the dining room table between them. Both women had been red-faced and breathless, standing before their respective table settings.

“Mae confided. She was scared to bits, Moira said—scared that Danny wouldn’t have her. Can you imagine that? A little s—t like Danny Foye, saying no to someone? Moira would’ve said as much, I’m sure. But she’s got blinders when it comes to our Mae.” Impersonating Mrs. Canby’s nasal inflection, Josie’s mum whined, “Won’t have you? Why not? What makes him so high and mighty, that you’re not good enough?”

In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious. But Josie seized on previous misdemeanors, instead—novelties that she and Mae had stolen, and petty lies they’d told. The painful reality of their falling out was like an abscess on her memory.

They’d been stationary for long enough that her mum got a second wind. Slowly, like a jungle cat, she began to circle the table, and Josie matched her step for step, always keeping its full diameter between them. With each slow revolution, they passed the assigned seatbacks for their Sunday dinner: Mum, Da, Josie, Father Quinn; Mum, Da, Josie, Father Quinn.

“Corrupted,” her mum sneered. “Interfered with. Can you imagine those words in the mouth of a priest? Moira told Father Quinn, and he told me. You preyed on Mae—not once, but habitually. He said the Devil makes you do it. He’s seen it before—when he was assigned to the Carlisle parish, and Dumfries. Young girls who’d fall sway, and spread their defilement one at a time.”

Her fury had reached its pinnacle, white blotches appearing on her otherwise tomato face. Meanwhile, her eyes were as black as coal. Without question, she would’ve caused Josie lasting harm, had she drifted within reach.

Lucky, then, that Josie continued to move, even while a general numbness pervaded her body. For Mae to have said those things to Mrs. Canby she must’ve been protecting her interests. She would’ve received the same tongue-lashing, if not the lick of the belt—and who could have guessed what Father Quinn would require, by way of penance? All this for Danny Foye. What a sad, strange consolation he made.

“A man of the cloth!” Josie’s mum thundered. “Sitting in
my
house, at
my
table—saying these things about
my
daughter! I wish I’d died, Jo—that Jesus could’ve delivered me then. But no, I won’t be spared so easily.”

“Mum—” she said, but that was all.

“Go—get out. I don’t care where, but I won’t have you here. I’m liable to commit an even greater sin.”

Finally she stopped moving. Staring down at the cherrywood table, the candles all herded together in its center, her mum made an effort to collect the stray wisps of her hair—her complexion slowly returning to normal, with the exception of her lips, still puckered and white as a polar bear’s arse. At that image, Josie snickered. Sweet, blessed Mae. Even now, her voice in Josie’s ear.

“Get out! Out!”

And so she’d gone from that place. Josie had already grown accustomed to wandering the streets of Edinburgh, though the circus procession still remained in her future. Now, when it occurred to her that she couldn’t go home, she’d quashed the thought down—walking, always walking, with her hands buried deep in her pockets.

It had been past suppertime when she’d found herself at The Hog in the Pound. Just as her mum predicted, her da had still been there, though he’d been oblivious to any turmoil at home. Nor had any of the regulars been wise to her plight. Making way, they brought Josie a glass of bitters when she slumped at his table. Who could’ve guessed what would become of her, had she not lied? A convent, perhaps, or a one-way ticket to London. Rather, she inveighed herself on her da’s sympathy—his poor, stricken daughter, betrayed by her best and only friend in the world, all for the love of a boy. She’d even invoked Danny’s name without vomiting.

On the beach, Josie pressed the heel of her palm against her eye. Her da, of course, was still in Edinburgh. So was her mum, and Mae—even Danny Foye, she presumed, would be living the life that he’d previously known. Everyone of consequence had stayed behind, while she, Josie, had been exiled. But whose fault was that? She hadn’t been banished, so much as she’d fled. Looking back on her decision, she experienced a frustration so great that it bordered on mania.

Like a rambunctious pet, the Pacific wind pawed at her, and whipped the sea foam into a froth. Holding her stockings away from her body, Josie watched as they wriggled. It made her think of her once-capricious spirit—like the night of the Saint Andrew’s dance, the last time she’d felt happy. Somehow, that memory remained pristine, unsullied by all else to follow. When released from her grip, her stockings made a quick escape, frolicking down the beach more carefree than Josie had ever been.
C’mon, Jo!
they seemed to say.
Come and be merry!
Skipping and traipsing, only grazing the sand, they hastened away. Hastened toward the Logging Camp.