Fall on Your Knees

  The car lunges in reverse down the driveway. Frances watches her sister’s laughing profile and reflects that Mercedes has been under a strain.

  Blue Dress

  Daddy and Lily are very happy together at home alone. It’s so peaceful. Three and a half weeks pass. Lily doesn’t realize the extent of James’s latest limitations until he starts to smell a bit rank. She helps him into the bath once a week. She lays out fresh underwear daily and bleaches the rest. Fresh and clean. She checks on him if he’s too long in the toilet. He sometimes falls asleep there. She tidies him, then wakes him up. He still spends an hour a day working in the shed but he misses Trixie’s company. They haven’t seen her since Frances left. Lily expects Trixie to show up at the foot of Frances’s bed in Mabou. Meantime, Lily has had to put mousetraps in the cellar and kitchen.

  On April 25 the telegram arrives: it’s a boy stop coming home wed stop. Lily and Daddy toast the new arrival with milk. They consider a battery of names — Isador, Ignatius, Malcolm, Rupert, Bingo, George, Sebastian, Christopher, Pius, Lief, Horace, Romulus, Patrick, Pierre, Cornelius, Michael, Alec, Eustochium, Felix, Augustus, David — and decide on all of them. Until Lily comes up with Aloysius, which seems to say it all.

  “Aloysius,” says James. “… Aloysius. Yes.”

  “Aloysius,” replies Lily.

  The first of May, month of Immaculate Mary. Lily is still in her white dress and headgear from the noon procession up Plummer Avenue to the church. It seems an appropriate outfit in which to greet her sisters and her new nephew. She has strewn the stone path to the house with Queen Anne’s lace and daisies. “Welcome Home” in Gothic script hangs from the veranda eaves. In the kitchen, bread sculptures cool on the table — Madonna and the Infant of Prague, and a pietà. She has prepared a feast: a roast cooked to the size of a wallet with raw turnip slices, cranberry sauce, baked potatoes — the two that failed to detonate in the oven — tea biscuits and molasses. Date squares, pits in. Upstairs, lily of the valley exhale on Frances’s pillow. All is in readiness. Last but not least, a big blue cake with white writing, “Happy Birthday Allowishes”.

  The morning rain has turned to evaporating diamonds in the afternoon heat. Lily has had her eyes peeled on the street for the past three hours.

  “Here they come!”

  James joins her on the veranda. As soon as the car gets within range, Lily waves and runs back into the house to get the new camera. She gets a shot of the car as it turns into the driveway. Mercedes is waving now too but in the background Frances is, of course, more concerned with the bright blue bundle at her breast. Click. The car pulls to a stop. Mercedes’ hand goes up to her window. Click. The driver’s side opens. Click. Mercedes steps out, still waving, click. She runs up the path to Lily, click, click, click. And grabs the camera, jerking Lily’s head forward at the same time because the new camera comes with a strap. She hisses at Lily, “Not a word, do you hear me? Not a word.”

  Mercedes glances up to include James in this proviso but he’s on his way down the steps with his cane, walking to meet Frances, who has stopped halfway up the flowered path. Mercedes moves to overtake him but “No Mercedes,” says Lily.

  Mercedes is surprised. But she obeys, understanding that Lily is up to something saintly.

  James reaches Frances, puts out his arm for her, and she takes it. Together they walk to the house. Frances is wearing a sky-blue dress to go with the darker blue bundle she cradles with her free arm. When they reach the foot of the veranda, Lily sees that it is not a bundle at all, but Frances’s breasts. Huge and leaking. Staining her pale dress a royal blue.

  By evening Frances is still asleep upstairs on her bed, her face crushing heavy scent from the lily of the valley. In the lower reaches, the decorations are down. They have eaten no supper. Mercedes consents to a cup of tea.

  “The birth went smoothly.” Mercedes lifts her cup but her hand shakes so badly that she sets it down again on the kitchen table. “Frances was very brave. The sisters said it was as though she felt no pain.”

  Lily and James wait for her to continue.

  “It was a boy. He was, of course, quite dark. And very healthy.”

  “You saw him,” says James.

  Mercedes nods and the tears come. “He was beautiful. A beautiful baby with a lusty cry.” She smiles a little at the recollection.

  “Did you hold him?” Lily asks.

  Mercedes nods yes.

  “Did Frances?”

  “He took to the breast right away, there was no problem.”

  Mercedes catches James’s eye and he looks down, shaking his head.

  “What happened to him?” Lily is confused. She seems to be the only one who doesn’t understand. Mercedes turns to her and explains tenderly, “He just died, Lily. Sometimes it happens, a baby just dies in its sleep, they don’t know why.”

  James nods, his mouth tightening. He says in a would-be matter-of-fact voice, “Crib death. That’s what happened to the first Lily.”

  “Other Lily?”

  “That’s right,” says James, rising to leave. “Was he baptized?”

  Mercedes nods, starting to cry again. As James shuffles past he bonks each of them affectionately on the head with his bad hand and says without looking, “Night-night, girls.”

  “Good-night, Daddy.”

  He shambles from the room. They hear him clear his throat once or twice when he reaches the hall.

  Mercedes puts forth a hand and strokes Lily’s hair, “Sometimes, if a child is very special, God might choose to spare it the pain and temptations of this world, and take it straight to Him.”

  “What was wrong with him?” Lily is suspicious.

  “Why, nothing, Lily. He was perfect.”

  “You said he was ‘special’.”

  “Yes, specially beloved of God.”

  “That means there was something wrong with him, he was crippled.”

  “He wasn’t crippled.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Lily. Look at me.” Mercedes continues gently, “I have some nice news too.”

  Lily waits, not trusting. Mercedes takes Lily’s hand and leans forward. “While I was at Mabou I saw the bishop. He’d like to have a talk with you.”

  Lily looks up. “What for?”

  “He wants to hear about your visions.”

  “You mean Ambrose?”

  “Yes. And other things.”

  “What other things?”

  Lily’s hand cools and moistens in response to Mercedes’ gathering warmth.

  “Your special way with the sick and the lost.”

  “Who?”

  “The veterans, for example. And Frances. And Daddy —” Mercedes’ eyes have begun to shine, giving Lily the old creepy feeling of being a front for some figure situated immediately behind her, a figure she knows will disappear no matter how suddenly she turns — “And your special knowledge of God’s plan.”

  The soft fur at the nape of Lily’s neck stirs. She can no longer resist, she turns around in her chair but there is no one behind her — nothing to see but the oven, standing where it has always stood.

  “What are you looking at, Lily?”

  “Nothing. I thought I heard something.”

  Mercedes’ gaze follows Lily’s to the oven. And now the filaments at the back of Mercedes’ neck likewise bristle to life.

  “What does he want?” asks Lily, turning round again.

  “Who?”

  “The bishop.”

  “He wants to interview you. To find out if God has a special plan for you.”

  “How’s he going to find that out?”

  “By listening to you tell your story. And — Lily, this is the most wonderful part — you know how I’ve been saving so that we could go to Lourdes for your fourteenth birthday?”

  Lily waits.

  “Well, God has provided. There’s more than enough money for us to go together and to stay as long as it takes to petition Our Lady for a c
ure.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  Mercedes flushes slightly and her eyes return to this world.

  “Lily. Don’t you want to have two good legs?”

  “No.”

  Mercedes had not counted on this.

  “But Lily. If you are blessed with a cure, it will be proof that God really does have a special plan for you.”

  “I don’t need proof.”

  Mercedes is vexed, for Lily is, of course, right. She requires no proof because she has faith. But the bishop requires proof. Rome requires proof. And Mercedes requires that Lily’s goodness — the essential goodness of this family — be revealed for all to see.

  “Lily….” Mercedes lifts a lock of Lily’s hair and slowly starts to wind and weave, “Do you know how pretty you are?”

  Lily begins her habit of sucking in her lips one at a time, passing them back and forth over her teeth.

  “I know you’re afraid, Lily.” Lily’s hair is so smooth, her honey cheeks tinted rose, her lips flushed and full. “Change is frightening even when it’s for the good. But Lily, I also know that you love your family and that, in the end, you’ll do what’s best for everyone.” Mercedes strokes the long gleaming braid and lets it fall.

  Lily remains still as Mercedes rises and takes her tea from the room. After a moment, Lily hears the piano and Mercedes’ slender voice floating above it, “‘A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-ve Mari-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ia…. ’”

  Like “Londonderry Air” — or, as Frances always called it, “London Derrière” — many people find it impossible to hear this hymn and not swell with sweet guilt at how they ought to have been nicer to their parents while they still had the chance. But for some reason it only makes Lily angry. Perhaps because she has always been so nice.

  Lily rises and leaves the kitchen, past the front room — “‘gra-a-a-a-a-a-zi-ia-a ple-ena-a-a-a-a-a’” — where she can just see the top of Daddy’s dry flaxen head above his parapet of books. She proceeds up the stairs, past the room where Frances has not stirred among moist sheets and up to the attic to do the one thing she can for Frances.

  Lily is set to break the lock on the hope chest with her bare hands — she intends to remove the baptismal gown and dispose of it for good so that Frances need never come across it. But the hope chest isn’t locked. The lid is down but not quite flush to the frame of the box itself. Lily lifts the lid. The cedar smell wafts up cloaking a second smell — in all likelihood another mouse entombed and decomposing. What light there is reflects feebly from the yellowed satin of the old baptismal gown. Lily remembers the garment spread lightly over Frances’s beloved dolls, not wrapped about them, but she must be mistaken because, when she slips her hands beneath and lifts, the gown feels full and heavy. Too heavy for dolls. Cool fur. Trixie. Swaddled and entwined.

  “Trixie.” She must have leapt in for a nap and the lid shut. Oh Trixie. Oh no. She must have panicked and tangled herself up, winding and twisting until she finally came to rest. “Poor Trixie.” Lily strokes the yellow eyes shut, but there is nothing to be done about the gaping jaw.

  A truly terrible smell now, the body having been disturbed. Lily takes the shallowest of breaths to avoid her gag reflex as she carries Trixie down the attic steps. On her way past Frances’s room, she sees Mercedes by the dancing light of a candle, seated on the edge of Frances’s bed with an empty tray in her lap. Lily continues down the front hall stairs.

  In Frances’s room, Mercedes hears the kitchen door slam. She makes a move towards the window but stops when she sees Frances coming awake at the sound. “Frances?”

  Frances looks up at Mercedes.

  “Frances, it’s time to make you fresh and dry, dear.”

  Frances blinks. Mercedes smiles.

  “I’ve brought you your favourite dishes. Look.”

  Frances looks at the tray while Mercedes identifies its contents, “Blancmange, treacle, mead and mutton —”

  “It’s empty.”

  “Frances —” Mercedes’ head starts to shake.

  “Mercedes, what’s wrong?”

  Mercedes’ fingers begin a blind search of her own face, probing her eye sockets — Frances reaches up and gently lowers her hands. Mercedes takes a breath and pulls herself taut. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want him to —” but trembles and cracks all over like spring breakup — “die! — I —” Frances reaches up and draws Mercedes down into an embrace, soaking them both. Mercedes smells the new milk. “I’m sorry, Frances.”

  “He died. It’s not your fault.”

  Mercedes grieves into Frances’s neck. “Maybe if we had stayed here and let Mrs Luvovitz —”

  “Hush,” patting her back. “Hush now, it’s all right.”

  Mercedes mangles many words against Frances’s neck, unintelligible to her sister but for “I love you Frances.”

  “Shsh.”

  “Can I sleep here tonight?”

  But Frances is looking past Mercedes’ shoulder out the window. “What’s Lily doing?”

  Mercedes looks up.

  They can see Lily on her hands and knees in the garden. Somehow she has rolled the big rock aside on her own. There is an object lying nearby — a brighter patch against the ground. Lily is scooping debris from a freshly excavated hole.

  “She’s digging,” says Mercedes.

  They watch Lily pause and rest for a moment against the garden stone.

  “She’s praying,” says Frances.

  They see Lily rise from her knees and pick up the dimly glittering bundle. She cradles it for a moment in her arms before lowering it into the hole. Mercedes rises and straightens her shoulders.

  “I’m worried about Lily, Frances.”

  “Leave her be.”

  “You know, Frances, one thing looks very much like another.”

  “Mercedes —”

  “What kind of a creature prefers to be crippled, Frances? Answer me that.” Mercedes has entered a mad classroom, i before e except after c, the time has come, the Walrus said, to give you forty whacks instead.

  “Mercedes, come back.”

  But Mercedes has left the room and now she is almost fainting at the evil smell enshrouding the hall. She follows the putrid cloud downstairs and into the darkened kitchen before Lily is halfway across the yard on her way back to the house. Mercedes waits with her hand on the electric light switch, trying not to breathe. One thing looks like another, but nose knows. There is the odour of sanctity. And there is the stench of hell.

  The kitchen door opens and Lily steps into the sudden light.

  “What have you done?” demands Mercedes.

  Lily’s hands are cupped together around a secret. She looks like a child with a robin’s egg, it fell out of the nest, I rescued it, really ’n’ truly.

  “I’ve buried Trixie,” Lily says.

  Mercedes waits. Gives her one last chance. Lily walks to the kitchen table and deposits her treasure. Blackened with coal, nestled in a remnant of stained linen, a tiny human skull, fragile as a shell, with sutures still agape. Along with a few slender twig and pebble bones, the stuff of birds’ nests.

  “And I’ve found my brother.”

  She watches as Mercedes gets down on her knees, squeezes shut her eyes and, in a stage whisper, implores God to cast the Devil from Lily — “‘exorcizo te, immunde spiritus, maledicte diabole’” — repeating the words until they are no longer words but sounds. She makes the sign of the cross over, and over, and over — Later she will contact the bishop so that Lily may be taken away to a place where a special priest will drive the unclean spirit from her by force of prayer and perhaps other means, cruel to the body but so kind to the soul. Later Mercedes will beg God’s forgiveness for having flattered herself that she was the sister of a saint.

  Lily walks past Mercedes, whose mouth is twitching and hissing like a puncture, and into the front room. She is ready to ask James a question. She has already forgiven him for what she does not yet know. The reading lamp is on. She steps t
hrough a breach in his wall of books to find him slumped as usual in the wingback chair with his mouth half open. Dante’s Paradiso has fallen from his hands. Lily picks it up and places it carefully in his lap. She bends and kisses his forehead, but she doesn’t ask him the question, because he is dead.

  She returns to the hall, where Mercedes’ whispers have risen to a buzz and whirr. Lily mounts the stairs and walks into Frances’s bedroom, full of the scent, the innocent passion of wildflowers.

  “Frances, I’ve buried Trixie and said a prayer for her. I’ve found Ambrose.”

  Frances says, “Lily, reach up and hand me Wuthering Heights.”

  Lily hands Frances the book.

  “Remember when we buried the family tree?” asks Frances with a small grin.

  “It decayed,” answers Lily. “It was only made of paper.”

  “Did you find my nightgown?”

  “A little piece of it.”

  Frances opens Wuthering Heights. The pages have been excavated in the centre and replaced with a wad of cash. Frances hands Lily the money.

  “Is this the Lourdes money?”

  “No. I earned it honestly.”

  “Daddy is dead.”

  “I have a present for you, Lily. I was going to wait for your birthday but I want you to have it tonight.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s in the hope chest.”

  “Frances —”

  “What’s that sound?” Frances tilts her head to listen. “Do you hear that? It sounds like a swarm of —”

  “It’s Mercedes. I’m afraid of her.”

  “She thinks you’re a saint.”

  “Not any more.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t believe in the Devil, Frances.”

  “Mercedes does.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t look after you anymore.”

  “It’s okay, Frances, I can look after myself, I’m not scared of Mercedes.”

  “It’s not just Mercedes. You have to go, Lily. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you where.”

  “No.”

  Frances cups Lily’s face in her hands and looks her in the eyes. “Oh yes.”