Читать книгу Starved - Anne McTiernan - Страница 13

CHAPTER 3

Crumbs

Screams woke me one October evening in 1959. I lay there listening, my thoughts as thick as vanilla pudding, not knowing where the screams were coming from. If I’d still been at Rosary, my first guess would have been the seven-year-old girl whose night terrors we mostly learned to sleep through. But I had been living with my mother and aunt for the past year and a half. I realized the screams came from outside my bedroom. Looking over at the other twin bed, I saw that my mother’s form was missing. I sat up in bed and listened while I decided what to do. Suddenly my mother’s voice loudly declared that she’d go get Mr. Reilly. Her footsteps passed my door, down the hall that led to the rickety back porch and stairs to the landlord’s first-floor flat. I cracked the bedroom door open to hear better. My mother didn’t have to knock very hard or long; Mr. Reilly was a fireman and could wake easily even when medicated by a six-pack of Schlitz.

I stepped into the hall. Light streamed out of the bathroom. I crept toward the light and found Margie bent over next to the toilet, her hand pressed down on the plush toilet cover that almost matched the sky blue bathroom rug.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“There’s a rat in the toilet. I almost sat on it.”

Margie had the wide-eyed look on her face I’d only seen during thunderstorms, when she’d unplug the phone and all the electric appliances and make me sit still, away from windows and doors. I didn’t understand why she’d fear a small animal. I’d never seen a rat up close, but if it fit into our toilet, how big could it be? I bent over to peer in the crack between the lid and the toilet bowl. Was that a whisker sticking out? I moved closer, hand stretched out to open the lid.

“No!” Margie’s voice felt like a blow. “Don’t open that, Anne. It could bite you.”

Just as I started to understand the seriousness of the situation, my mother arrived with the scowling Mr. Reilly. Margie pulled the belt of her thick pink chenille bathrobe tighter. Identical pink rollers poked out all over the two women’s heads.

“I don’t see why you had to wake me up for this,” Mr. Reilly growled.

“Oh for God’s sake, John,” said my mother. “We need the rat out now, so we can use the toilet. Plus what if it got loose in the apartment and attacked Anne?”

Now I was getting scared and I shivered in the cool night air. Two people had said I was in imminent danger from this thing. In my mind’s eye the rat grew bigger by the second. I pictured him curled into a tight ball in order to fit in the bowl, ready to spring out when the lid was raised. He’d spray everyone with toilet water as he aimed his teeth at my neck.

I never did get to see that rat. My mother scooted me back to our bedroom after taking me downstairs to use the Reillys’ bathroom. My mother seemed very happy to leave the rat caretaking to the landlord and Margie.

The next morning, as I searched for words in my Alpha-Bits cereal, my mother and Margie talked about the previous night.

“I didn’t want to lift the toilet seat this morning. Are you sure Mr. Reilly really took care of the thing?” my mother asked.

I found a word short enough to fit onto my spoon—rat.

“Yes, it was horrible. And he had the nerve to complain that we couldn’t do it ourselves. He said he had to be the man for his own family and now for ours, too.”

“Jesus, we don’t ask a lot of him. We pay him good money for the rent. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask him to take care of rats and a few little repairs.”

They were silent for a minute. Then my mother said, “I wish to God I had a decent man to take care of me.”

“All men are scum,” Margie replied. “Most of them are lazy, good-for-nothing drunks.”

“Well, our father and Anne’s father were that way, so you’re right about some of them. But there are decent men out there.”

“Humph,” Margie said.

The landlord was no stranger to our flat. My mother and aunt had found doors and bureau drawers left open and said it had to be Mr. Reilly because he and his wife were the only people besides them who had a key. They knew that sweet Mrs. Reilly would never do that, and besides she was too busy with her seven kids. They didn’t know why Mr. Reilly snuck in—they never left money lying around and didn’t have liquor or valuable jewelry. Then one night after collecting me from Mrs. Reilly, my mother found our front door ajar. A week had passed since the rat visitation.

“That’s strange,” she said. “Anne, you didn’t leave it open when you went out to play today, did you?”

I shook my head seriously because I knew from the sound of my mother’s voice that this was a serious situation. My mother’s hand trembled as she pushed the door open. She told me to stay in the front hall while she walked around the apartment.

“Well, nothing seems to be missing,” she said.

When Margie arrived home thirty minutes later, my mother told her what she had found.

“Do you think it was Mr. Reilly again?” Margie asked.

“I’m going to go talk to him. He has no right to come in here.”

She pounded down the stairs. After five minutes we heard her raised voice, then Mr. Reilly’s voice, but we couldn’t make out the words. My mother soon stomped back upstairs.

“You won’t believe what he told me,” my mother said. “He said he let himself in to make sure we weren’t having any men in.”

“What?”

“That’s right. He said that no woman would be able to live without a man, so we must be trying to sneak men in. He said he didn’t want his kids to see any sinful goings-on up here.” My mother’s voice broke as she continued. “He said Anne was a bastard, and he didn’t want his pure little girls associating with her.”

My head spun at this. I couldn’t imagine not being able to play with the Reilly girls.

“What’s a bastard?” I asked. They ignored me. Or maybe they didn’t hear my small voice.

“Jesus,” Margie said. “That’s crazy. Was he drunk?”

“I think so. I could smell booze on his breath.”

Suddenly they noticed me listening. My mother began making dinner. Margie set the table and put in a load of laundry. I hung around the kitchen, waiting to hear what else they would say about the Reillys, but I was to be disappointed with their silence.

At 7:30 P.M., my mother sent me to bed with the usual stern instructions to go to sleep. As soon as I closed the bedroom door, I pressed my ear to the cool wood. I heard things like “sneaking up here,” “maybe he was looking for food,” and “filthy.” I couldn’t tell if they were talking about the rat or about Mr. Reilly.

The following Saturday afternoon the mail slot in the front door clanged. Margie went downstairs to collect the mail. She returned, leafed through several items, and handed most of them to my mother.

“Bills,” she said.

“What’s this one?” my mother asked.

They peered at the front of the envelope. Frowning, my mother sat down on the living room couch and ripped open the envelope. She read the letter inside and, to my great shock, started to cry. She handed the letter to Margie, who read it and also began to weep.

I sat on the couch close beside my mother.

“What’s wrong?” I could feel my lips quiver. I’d never seen either of them cry.

“The landlord is kicking us out,” my mother said. “We have to be out in two weeks. Jesus, how in hell will we find a new place right before Thanksgiving?”

“But where will we go?” I felt panicked that I’d have to leave home. I’d finally been allowed to live with my mother and Margie. At the same time it surprised me to see my mother and aunt so distraught. If being evicted upset them so much, I wondered why they’d sent me away so often.

“Don’t worry, Anne,” Margie said. “We’ll find a place to live.”

I hoped there would be room for me.

Our new apartment was the bottom flat of a converted farmhouse. The landlords, an elderly couple, lived upstairs with one of their adult sons. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson weren’t as fun as the Reilly girls, but they were kind. I would later adopt them as my pretend grandparents, although I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, including them.

On our first day in the new flat, my mother told me to stay outside, out of the movers’ way, but remain close so I could help her unpack when the burly men were done carting our furniture. First, I stood by the side of the steep driveway and watched the movers’ progress with carrying our things from the truck in through the back door. After I made sure that the television and my favorite chair, the black one with the large pink flowers, were safely off the truck and on their way to the new flat, I walked around to the front of the house where I surveyed the neighboring houses. I saw no children out. This was unusual in Brighton, where virtually all houses had two or three flats, each of which housed an Irish-American family with at least five children. But maybe it was too chilly for them to be out this morning. I pulled my navy blue car coat tighter.

Suddenly, a shadow covered me. I looked up and saw a girl with a big grin on her face. She had short, thick, blond hair.

“Hi,” said the girl. “My name is Debbie. I live on Upcrest Road.” She pointed past a neighboring house to a street parallel to my new long driveway.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Anne.” I hoped I sounded okay. At age six, I didn’t have the social graces for making new friends.

“Do you go to St. Columbkille?”

“Yeah.”

“What grade are you in?”

“Second.”

“I’m in fourth grade. Who’s your teacher?”

“Sister Sophia.”

“Oh, yeah, I had her in second grade. She’s sooo nice!”

“Yeah,” I said, hoping this girl wouldn’t think I was a baby with all these one-word answers. But even finding single words was a stretch for me.

“Do you want to play with me some time?” she asked.

“Sure!”

“Okay, I’ll ask my mom if you can come over this afternoon. And you should ask your mom, too.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing the answer would be “no.” My mother had already told me she needed my help unpacking. But I didn’t want this girl to know that my mother didn’t let me do things with friends. She’d find out soon enough.

“Okay, see you later!” Debbie called as she scampered off. She ran between two houses instead of going down our driveway. I watched as she went into a dark brown house.

Sure enough, my mother didn’t let me out to play that day with Debbie, nor the next. There was too much work to do with unpacking and settling in. But Debbie was not deterred, and she and I played together most days after school. On nice days, we’d walk the neighborhood or sit on my lawn. If Mr. Johnson was outside, the two of us would hang around him, hoping for stories of his early life in the Midwest. On cold or stormy days, we’d play at either of our houses with our Barbie dolls.

“Where are all the oranges I bought?” my mother asked one Saturday.

“I ate some,” I said.

“There were three there Thursday night. Did you eat three oranges yesterday?”

“I gave some to Debbie.”

“Jesus H. Christ, I don’t have enough money to feed the neighbor kids. Why did you give her food?”

“We were playing here. She said she was hungry.”

“If you’re going to have her over here, don’t give her any more food. I can’t afford it.”

I didn’t know how I’d tell Debbie that she couldn’t eat at my house. Instead, I learned how to choose foods that my mother would not likely notice were missing. Like saltine crackers with peanut butter or cereal with milk. Anything that she’d be less likely to count. So I could still be a little hostess with my friend but avoid my mother’s ire. Debbie did think it a little odd when I said we couldn’t have any fruit because it was all for my mother. She said her mother was always trying to get her and her brother to eat more fruit.

In late December, we stood at the kitchen table, admiring the Christmas cupcakes that Margie and I had just sprinkled with red and green sugar crystals. The kitchen was warm from the oven, which was emitting delightful smells of Toll House cookies. We were making enough Christmas goodies to feed a dozen people, but only the three of us would eat them.

Through the door I could see our tree in the living room, blinking lights sparkling off the tinsel, faded antique glass ornaments mixed with newer ones from the five-and-dime store. Some wrapped presents lay underneath, but the ones for me were still hidden away because I couldn’t resist stealthily opening them before the big day.

“Santa’s not real,” I announced.

The two women’s head swiveled sharply to look at me. My mother had a broad grin on her face. Margie’s face was drained of color, and her hand shook as she lifted her cigarette to her lips.

“Where did you hear that?” my mother asked.

“Debbie told me.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I know he’s make-believe.”

“That’s ridiculous. Of course there’s a Santa,” Margie reassured me.

“All the kids say he’s not real.”

“How can you do this to me?” Margie asked. There were tears in her eyes.

“Do what to you?”

“How can you take Christmas away from me?”

“Christ, Margie, no one is taking Christmas away from you,” my mother replied.

“But she’s taking all the fun out of it now.”

“It will still be fun, Margie,” I said. I wanted to touch her arm, to let her know everything would be okay.

“I might as well return all the presents I bought for her,” Margie said to my mother.

“No, don’t do that!” I sobbed.

Margie grabbed her mug of black coffee and ashtray, cigarette dangling from her lips, and walked off to her room behind the kitchen. We could hear her crying through the walls.

My mother sighed. She looked at me.

“Jesus, she’s like a little kid sometimes.”

“Will she really take back all my presents?”

“I don’t know. I hope she doesn’t take mine back.”

I wanted to erase everything I’d said. I couldn’t understand why Margie was so upset, but clearly it was because I said Santa wasn’t real. I didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to make her cry. And I certainly didn’t want her to take back all my presents. I knew from sneaking into her closet that she bought the presents that were labelled from Santa. If she returned all my presents, I’d have only the one present from my mother. That was how it always was. My mother’s gift to me was usually something like a bathrobe or sweater. It would be wrapped in Christmas paper with a tag that read, “To Anne. Love, Mom.” After ripping off the paper, I’d see the Filene’s or Jordan Marsh box logo and I’d know it would not be a toy or doll.

From the perspective of years, I now know that Margie needed the magic of Christmas. In many ways, she remained the twelve-year-old girl who lost her mother to an untimely death from stomach cancer. Margie then lived alone with her belligerent, alcoholic father for six years until she could escape. She wanted a Santa, a loving father figure who never yelled, never belittled, never threatened. And she wanted me to remain a little girl so that I could keep the childlike spirit of Christmas alive in our home.

My mother, on the other hand, was in a hurry for me to grow up. The older I became, the less work and responsibility she would have until finally I’d be of an age when I could take care of her. Plus there would be less immediate work: no filling stockings with Santa presents, no setting out cookies and milk, and no toys to lay under the tree. Although Margie did most of these duties, my mother didn’t particularly like the special attention I received as recipient of Santa-largesse. She preferred to have the most and best gifts under the Christmas tree.

I wanted to please both of them, always thinking that if I was a good girl they wouldn’t send me away again. My dilemma was in choosing whether to grow up quickly, as my mother wanted, or stay childlike for my aunt. I chose the former. My mother had greater power over me and could decide on a whim to have me committed to an institution. I would become an adult in a little girl’s body.

I discovered the piano that winter. I stayed late after school one day to help my teacher clean blackboards, aiming for teacher’s pet status. The sound of music drifted from the end of a darkened hallway. I tiptoed over the black and white tiled floor until I was a few feet from the source. A girl, another second grader, was playing an immense upright piano. This girl was very popular—all the girls wanted to hold her hand as we stood in one of the many lines going into and out of our classes. Maybe the kids would all love me too, I thought, if I could play piano. The girl’s brown penny loafers swung in the air beneath her, her green gabardine uniform shiny from many years of hand-me-down wear. She stopped playing and quickly looked around. Maybe I had made a noise of appreciation.

“What are you doing?” She frowned.

“Just listening,” I said. “It sounded nice.”

She smiled quickly at this. “I take lessons every week with Sister Frances. She lets me use this piano. I have to practice every day.”

It sounded wonderful to me. I wanted to be able to play piano, to make lovely sounds like this.

“How much are the lessons?” Even at seven years of age, I knew that cost could be a major barrier.

“A dollar a lesson.”

I thought through the math. My mother gave me five cents a day for milk at recess. Another dollar a week would be a lot of money to ask for.

That night, after my mother paid the teenage girl who babysat me after school, I broached the topic.

“Ma, can I take piano lessons?”

“Where did this come from?” she asked. “We don’t even have a piano.”

“Please, Ma,” I said. “Sister Frances lets the kids practice on one at school.”

“Well, I can’t afford it.”

“It’s only a dollar a lesson,” I told her.

“The answer is no.”

When Margie arrived home, I heard her ask my mother why I was crying.

“She wants to take piano lessons. I can’t even afford my half of the food we put on the table. How can I pay for the lessons?”

“How much are they?” Margie asked.

“A dollar each.”

“Wouldn’t she need a piano to practice on?”

“Anne said that she can use one at school.”

“Well, maybe I can help with the cost,” Margie said. “I always wished I could play piano, but it’s too late for me.”

At supper that night, my mother surprised me with the news that I could indeed take lessons. I ran over to her and gave her a hug.

“Thanks, Ma. I promise I’ll practice really hard.”

Soon after this, I overheard my mother talking with Margie about hiring a new babysitter. The current one had quit suddenly, and my mother didn’t know who else to ask. She sounded desperate. I walked over to the kitchen table. Cigarette smoke and coffee steam mingled a foot above its surface.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I announced.

“Yes you do,” said my mother. “You’re only seven years old.”

“But Babs never did anything,” I said. “She just sat on the couch and did her homework. I did all the chores, I made my own snacks, and I did my homework by myself. She never even talked to me.” Unfortunately this was all true.

“I’ll think about it.”

The next day my mother said I could stay by myself after school. I’d have to call her every afternoon when I got home. The landlady, Mrs. Johnson, would usually be upstairs if I needed anything. I’d have to keep my key with me at all times and couldn’t lose it.

“Don’t worry, Ma,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

I even believed this myself.

And that’s how I solved the problem of money for the piano lessons. The babysitter had cost my mother ten dollars a week, so with my initiative my mother was coming out significantly ahead. At age seven, I became a latchkey kid, long before I even knew the term or what it meant.

To say I adored the lessons, the tedium of scales, the details of reading music, would be an understatement. Who knew a wooden box with strings and hammers could give a seven-year-old girl such pleasure, boost her self-confidence if only a smidgeon, and provide a means of connecting with a good teacher? Sister Frances told me I played my pieces beautifully. Each week she placed gold stars on my music book pages. I could have kissed the hem of Sister Frances’s habit for each of those little stars.

My passion would eventually drive me to provoke my mother’s anger by lobbying for my own piano. We bought a huge, used upright for thirty-five dollars from an old lady whose arthritic fingers could no longer play. Perhaps she hated the daily reminder of what she could no longer do, so she let it go for a song.

Music became my refuge. I’d play when I’d had a frustrating day at school. Maybe a girl snubbed me, or a boy called me fatso. Maybe I felt lonely walking home alone. But when I sat at the piano, I was the queen. When my mother wasn’t home I could bang on the instrument as loud as I wanted. Take that, Kathy Murphy! Take that, Tommy McDonald!

My mother’s patience for my musical education was short-lived, and she soon found other things for me to do when I sat down to practice. It came to a head one evening when she came home from work with a scowl on her face.

I had just climbed onto the wide, dark mahogany bench. Maybe she won’t notice that I’m not in the kitchen, I thought. Maybe she’ll be thinking so hard about peeling the potatoes and she’ll forget about me. I craned my head to look at the brand new music book, Grade 2 Exercises, I’d bought from Sister Frances. Slowly, I opened to the piece Sister Frances had assigned me that week. I pressed the book open with the flat of my right hand. I hovered my hands palm down over the piano keys. Sister Frances told me to always start in this position. I concentrated on the music in front of me, and I began to play. I’m not sure why I was so careful not to make noise with the page turning, given that I was about to play this monster upright that echoed through our apartment. Maybe I thought my mother wouldn’t stop me after I’d started playing. She’d enjoy hearing the music so much that it would calm and soothe her, and she wouldn’t want to interfere with the beautiful flow of notes.

“Anne,” I heard her call. My heart sank.

“What?” I asked.

“Come out here. I need you to help me.”

“But I’m playing piano,” I said. “Sister said I have to practice every day.”

“Come out here now.”

With cheeks burning, I slid off the bench and walked out through the dining room and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

“Wipe that sullen look off your face,” my mother demanded.

There was nothing I could do to stop the anger flashing out of my eyes. Before I knew it my mother crossed the kitchen to where I stood. The sting jolted me as the palm of her hand hit my left cheek. Slimy potato water dripped down my face. The back of her hand connected with the right side of my head as her arm swung back. I felt a scratch from her diamond cocktail ring, the one she’d had made from her engagement ring and that of her mother-in-law. I held my breath. I knew if I stood very still and didn’t look at her, she might only hit my face a couple of times. Stepping back would anger her more. Then the hitting would get harder and faster, and she’d start screaming. I think I hated the screaming almost as much as the hitting. Then, she did something worse.

“I wish I’d put you up for adoption when I had the chance,” she blurted.

Oh, I really wish she had, I thought. She must have read my mind, or maybe she wanted me to say that I was happy she kept me. But she seemed to get angrier at my lack of reaction.

“Well, maybe I should just send you away right now. I’m sick of the sight of you.”

This had her desired effect and made me cry. My greatest fear continued to be my mother sending me away again.

It was almost six o’clock, and Margie would be home from work soon. She’d step off her bus at the end of Brooks Street at 5:51 P.M. and slowly walk home, feet sore from being squeezed into black high-heeled pumps all day. At 5:59 P.M., her keys would jingle in the back door lock; I’d be safe if I could just hold out for a few more minutes. When my mother hit me while Margie was at home, she rarely gave me more than one quick slap to the cheek. Maybe Margie could talk my mother out of sending me away. After all, I’d been allowed to live with them for the past two years, so Margie must have been having some influence on my mother.

When Margie was away, my face became a target, my cheeks like dual bull’s-eyes as my mother’s hand aimed and struck. Injuries to the middle of my face were collateral damage as my mother slapped my face from side to side—palm to one cheek, back of hand to the other. The physical injuries—cuts and scratches and small bruises—came from her nails or her jewelry. The logic skills I used to solve tricky math word problems at school failed me with my mother. I usually couldn’t figure out what I’d done to precipitate a beating. So I sought refuge. Margie was my best shelter; she shielded me from my mother like a seawall protecting against storm damage. She couldn’t hold back the worst tempest, but she could lessen the impact. Maybe the weight of single motherhood felt a little lighter to my mother with her sister to share the load. Or maybe my mother was ashamed of her actions.

Perhaps by hitting me, my mother purged some deep anger that simmered all day like an active volcano, the heat getting more unbearable as her day went along, until she erupted at home more from the pressure building within than from any external forces, such as her child. She might have interrupted my piano play so that she could have some help in the tedious supper preparations. Maybe she was lonely and wanted some company or needed to feel that her child loved her.

While in medical school, I learned about a pediatric disease called slapped cheek syndrome, so-called because a hallmark sign is a bright red rash on the cheeks that looks as if the child had just been slapped. I learned that it is usually a benign, self-limited illness, caused by a virus. In contrast, my mother’s slaps felt malignant, and their effects were lasting. Hitting a child is like a virus that spreads insidiously. Parents strike children, who smack their children, and the behavior passes down through the generations. My grandmother hit my mother, and my mother hit me. I made it stop there. My husband and I never struck our children, and we hope that our legacy of peaceful, loving childrearing will endure.