Of Irish Blood (6 page)

“But much of the shore is swamp,” Tim says, which allows Ed to talk about landfill and reinforced concrete.

Ed’s been dreaming of creating a new lakefront for Chicago since we watched the World’s Fair buildings that made up the White City burn to the ground. Right before he left for the surveying we walked along Lake Michigan past the piles of rusting tin cans and pieces of all kinds of junk that cover the shore. Even a decaying railroad car on the rocks just east of Michigan Avenue.

“What kind of city turns its most beautiful feature into a garbage dump?” Ed said.

“A city that works hard,” I answered.

“More to Chicago than our sweat,” Ed said. “Don’t you remember Granny Honora taking us on picnics at the Lake, to that stretch of sand she found, south of Burnham Harbor, and how she made us half close our eyes and pretend the Lake was Galway Bay?”

“I do,” I said, “and not one beautiful vista left.”

And here’s Ed going on about his dream for the lakefront to Tim McShane, who keeps nodding, agreeing with him.

“A real disgrace,” Tim says. “Those of us who appreciate the finer things must band together and speak up. The grand mansions north of the city monopolize our lakefront. That’s not fair.”

“Exactly,” Ed says. “Families from Bridgeport and Brighton Park and Bronzeville want to enjoy the green spaces too. We’re the ones need to get out of the slums and into the fresh air.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Tim says. “My morning ride is the highlight of my day. To be up on a horse and see the sun climb out of the lake, hear the birds singing…” He sighs.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for an early riser,” I say to him.

“Not saying I’d been asleep, Nora,” he says.

And now John Larney stands up. “Very nice of you to stop by, Mr. McShane, but we
are
early risers around here, and it’s past ten o’clock. Come on, Nonie. I’ll see you home.”

“I’ll come along,” Ed says, “to say hello to Mike. Good night, Tim.”

“But, lads, I thought you’d want to take a better look at the Oldsmobile. Run your hands along its withers as it were,” Tim says.

“I’m sure we’d all like to pet your machine,” I say. “Right, Mame? Rose? Aunt Kate?”

So we troop down and circle the Oldsmobile, standing under the new electric streetlight. Tim climbs into the front seat then rubs his hand along the upholstery.

“Genuine leather,” Tim says. “Look at the curved dashboard. You steer with that stick.”

Ed reaches out to touch it.

“Come on. Climb up,” Tim says. “I’ll teach you to drive her right now!”

“No,” John says.

“I was asking Ed,” Tim says.

And Ed steps away. John Larney is against Tim McShane, and Ed’s ready to back John.

“Let’s go, Nonie,” John says. “Ed and I will walk you home now.”

“Walking?” Tim says. “When this fine machine can carry Miss Kelly to her door in under ten minutes?”

Ed and John say, “No,” at the same time.

Aunt Kate looks at them. “I suppose riding in such a thing could be dangerous,” she says.

“Extremely,” John says.

Rose and Mame stay silent. They step away from the automobile and say, “Good night, Nonie.”

“Come on, Ed, Nonie,” John says, very sharpish as he takes my arm.

Then Tim says to me, “I didn’t realize you took orders from the Chicago Police Department.”

I pull away from John. “I don’t,” I say. “Only John’s very protective and Ed should know better. I’d go with you but I don’t have the gear.”

“I’ve some ladies’ wear.” He gets out, opens a compartment in the back of the car, and takes out a duster, goggles, and scarf. “This is to keep your hat on, but I see you don’t wear one. Not very proper, Miss Kelly,” he says. “To be out bareheaded.”

“Nora was coming a short distance to visit family,” Rose says to him.

“Didn’t think you’d be so concerned about etiquette, Mr. McShane,” I say.

“I’m not,” he says, and starts to drape the scarf over my hair.

I grab the two ends and tie the silk square together.

“Nonie, don’t,” Rose says.

I know I shouldn’t go, but maybe because I resent the McCabes’ imagined double wedding or relish the shock on Henrietta’s face when I pull up to our house in an Oldsmobile or maybe it’s a fairy spell, but I button myself into the duster while Tim McShane climbs into the automobile. He leans over and offers me his hand and up I go.

“Is that the horn?” I ask, pointing to the rubber bulb.

“It is,” he says.

I squeeze out a loud squeaking sound and turn to wave at Aunt Kate, John and Ed, and the McCabes. Short of manhandling me out of the horseless carriage, which would have upset his mother, John can do nothing.

Tim moves the stick and the motor rumbles. “See, no crank needed,” he says to Ed, who is leaning close to watch. “Put her in gear and off we go,” Tim says. “Sound the horn again, Nora.”

I do. The automobile lurches forward. I look back to see a dark cloud coming from the machine. A bad smell, no question, trailing behind us as we turn onto Archer Avenue, stirring up the dust. Cattle herded along here. I’m glad for the goggles.

“Move closer to me,” Tim shouts to me over the hiccoughing engine. “Center of gravity,” he says, and points to a space nearer him. “Better to ride flank-to-flank. Don’t want to tip over.”

I slide next to him but don’t let my leg touch his.

“Afraid?” he says.

“Not at all. We are not exactly speeding,” I say.

“We’re moving at twelve miles an hour,” he says. “I can go faster.”

“Bouncy,” I say to him as we hit a deep rut in the road.

“I like the vibration,” he says. “Lively.”

Just room enough on the bridge over the canal for the automobile. We turn and drive along Bubbly Creek.

“Lucky there’s no traffic,” I shout.

“Yes. All these bridges will have to be rebuilt. Makes a man want to go into the construction business. Exciting times,” he says, and pats my knee. And leaves his hand there. “I’ll teach you to drive,” he says.

I push his hand away. “Concentrate on
your
driving,” I say.

“I’m a man able to do a number of things at the same time,” he says, but doesn’t touch me again.

He knows my address without asking, steers the automobile to the curb in front of 2703, and stops under the gas lamp. No electricity on Hillock yet.

“One of the old houses, I see,” he says, pointing at our front door below street level.

“Lifted the road for the sewers,” I say. “Years ago.”

“Shouldn’t be talking plumbing on such a night,” he says. “Nice moon.” Quick, get out, I tell myself. Don’t talk about the moon or the stars. Don’t let him walk you to the door. Don’t stand with him in the cramped hidden space under the street. I start to unfasten the buttons of the duster.

“Let me help,” he says, leaning over to me and running his fingers over the top button.

“Stop,” I say, slapping his hand away. “You might not be used to respectable women, but we don’t let strange men…”

Tim takes me by the shoulders, pulls me to him, and kisses me right on the lips.

“There,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do that since I pulled you onto the tram.”

“How dare you,” I say, and stand up. “My brothers are right upstairs and I will—”

“Sit down, Nora. You’re not a young girl. You’re not a girl at all, but a twenty-five-year-old woman.”

“Twenty-four,” I say.

“A woman nonetheless, in spite of the fact that I’d wager you’ve never been with a man. Oh, I’m not saying you haven’t given a fellow or two a wee court, but you have no idea—”

“I’m getting out of here,” I say, and swing my legs over the side of the automobile. Very high up it is.

“You’ll break your ankle,” he says.

I wrap the duster around my legs and start to ease myself down from the high seat.

He grabs my arm. “For God’s sake. I thought we wouldn’t have to pretend. I thought I’d finally met a woman who could be honest about how she felt. Who’d be brave enough to take her pleasure like a man does.”

“Let me go or I’ll shout for my brothers,” I say.

“No, you won’t,” he says. “You’re not married and I’d say you could be, so what’s stopping you? An instinct? Not willing to waste yourself on some clumsy fellow who’ll come home from a night’s drinking to roll over on you and…”

“Shut up!” I say.

“Ah, Nora, be sensible. The attraction between us is the most natural thing in the world and…”

“Are you proposing to me?” I ask.

“Yes, I am.”

“You want to marry me?”

He laughs. “Come now, Nora Kelly, catch yourself on. Why would the likes of us want to be married? Aren’t you launched on a great career, and don’t I have certain obligations?”

“Dolly McKee,” I say.

“Yes, Dolly and I are business associates.”

“And lovers.”

“Not sure if I’d say that but yes, there are physical duties.”

I laugh. “You have some nerve, Tim McShane,” I say.

He laughs too. “We’d have a bit of fun. What’s the harm? And I know about protection so no worries about getting you in the family way. I’d just like to see you let out a bit of the spirit you’re holding down. No one the wiser. And if the time comes when you feel you need a bunch of kids, and want to find some nice fellow, well, I’d not stand in your way. Friends at the end and no hard feelings. Nora, darling.” He traces the shape of my lips with his fingers. “Be brave.”

Honora Bridget Kelly, St. Xavier’s graduate, Montgomery Ward designer, descendant of the Kelly kings of Ireland, slides out of that machine, climbs up the steps, and never sees Tim McShane again. Ah, but the fairy woman who’s taken me over lifts her face up and kisses Tim McShane.

After that first long kiss, I do put my hand on his chest, push away, get out of the automobile, run up the three flights of stairs, and go through our front door and down the long hall into our kitchen.

Safe.

Except …

“Mam.” She stands at the stove waiting for the kettle to boil. “You’re up late. Making me a nice cup of tea?” I ask, and kiss her on the cheek. Get out of my mind, Tim McShane. Now.

Not often I’m alone with Mam, and the kitchen so quiet and cozy.

“A cup of tea, is it? I should box your ears. Fighting with Henrietta and then out until all hours.”

“Now, Mam. You’ve never struck any one of us. Why start now?”

She laughs. “How are the McCabes and Kate?”

“Fine. Rose and John Larney are definitely courting. Ed Kelly was there. Home from the wilds. I think he has a notion of Mame McCabe.”

Mam nods. “She’d be doing well with him working for the city and opening that wake house with What’s-his-name Doran.”

“It’s called a funeral parlor, Mam. The coming thing. Better than having the corpse in the house. Creepy, that.”

“Not when it’s the body of someone you love, Nonie. I would never have let your father rest in some strange place! What would he think of me? We gave him a grand funeral, didn’t we?”

“Grand, Mam.”

“You were probably too young to remember, only five years old.”

“I remember, Mam.”

“Such a comfort for your granny Honora to know that when her time came she had a neat grave next to him in Calvary under that big tree.”

I get two mugs for the tea down from the cabinet.

But Mam says, “I’m boiling water for Jim. He started coughing after dinner. All stuffed up. This steam should help.”

“Thirty years old and still being looked after by his mother. And you wonder why none of us leave home?” I say.

“Oh, you’ll be going, Nonie. You’re not meant to be a home bird. You’ll meet the right fellow one day. No rush.”

And I almost tell her. Say, “Mam, something’s taken me by the throat, and I don’t know what to do.” But instead I find a big kitchen towel, lift the kettle, and follow Mam, who carries a bowl into the parlor, where Jim lies half-asleep on the horsehair sofa.

I help sit him up and drape the towel over his head while Mam pours the boiling water into the white bowl and holds it under his chin.

“Breathe in the steam,” Mam says to him.

Jim tries, but hard as he sniffs he can’t pull the steam into his blocked nose.

“Try through your mouth,” I say.

He gulps but then starts coughing, a deep rasping sound. I can smell the mentholated grease Mam has rubbed into his chest.

“I only wish we had Uncle Patrick’s salve,” she says. Some Indian concoction from my great-uncle Patrick’s Ojibwa pals, the remedy of my growing up, gone since Uncle Patrick died ten years ago, with Great-Aunt Máire and Granny Honora following close behind him. Not one of them making it into the twentieth century.

“I’m burning up, Mam,” Jim says.

“Dear God, Mam,” I say. “Should I go for the doctor?”

“Dr. Haley was here earlier. ‘A bad cold,’ he says, but this weather. I’m afraid it could turn into pneumonia.”

Some lore brought over from Ireland that the start of summer holds special dangers. Warm days turning into cold nights, confusing the body, leaving it open to invasion.

We sit with Jim until he finally falls asleep.

“He’ll be grand in the morning, Mam,” I say.

Mike and Mart and Henrietta’s boys are snoring away in their room, and Henrietta and Agnella asleep, too, in theirs.

Mam follows me into our room. Annie wakes up.

“How is he?” she asks.

“Sleeping,” I say, and settle myself next to Mam on the bed we share.

A quiet sleeper is Mam and never moves much, but all the same I’m ashamed at how my mind goes back into the Oldsmobile with Tim McShane while my mother breathes so close to me. “Take your pleasure like a man does,” he’d said, but here I am sleeping with my mother and my sister in the next bed. Not a place to think about taking pleasure like a man. I could never … Could I?

The next morning Jim isn’t better. Coughing and spitting out wads of green and yellow phlegm, and Mam is worried.

“I’ll stay home, Mam,” I tell her. Though I’ll hate to miss the first day of my new job.

“Go, Nonie. Henrietta’s here.”

“I am, Mam,” Henrietta says—too loud, I think. “I’m here.”

Mr. Bartlett is as good as his word. He’s set up Rose and me in a “studio”—yes, he uses that word—with a long countertop, a wooden table, and four chairs.