The Carpetbaggers

4

"Are ye goin' to be sittin' there all day reading the newspapers, studyin' what kind of a job would suit your highness best?" Ellen Denton asked caustically.

Her face was grim as she wrapped Jennie's lunch in a piece of wax paper. Tom didn't speak, looking down at the paper again as Jennie came into the room. "Good morning, Mom," she said brightly. "Morning, Daddy."

"Good morning, Jennie Bear," he said, smiling at her. "How's my Winnie Winkle this morning?"

"Just fine, Daddy." It was a private joke between them. He'd called her that when she got a job as a typist in the insurance company last month. It had been just five weeks after he'd lost his job on the cable cars and two weeks after she graduated from Mercy High School.

"You're the Winnie Winkle," he'd said. "But I’ll get something in a few weeks. Then you'll be able to go to St. Mary's, like you planned."

"Ye have too much lipstick on, Jennie," her mother said. "Best take some of it off."

Tom looked at his daughter. She didn't have that much lipstick on. It was much less than most of the girls wore whom he used to see every morning on the cable car.

"Oh, Mother." Jennie protested. "I’m working in an office now, not going to school. I have to look decent."

"Decent ye should look, not painted."

"Aw, Ellen, leave the girl alone," Tom said slowly.

Ellen glared angrily at him. "When you're bringin' home some of the money to feed your family, then ye can talk."

Tom stared at her, his face setting grimly. He could feel the color draining from it. Jennie smiled sympathetically at him and that made it even worse. He never expected Jennie to be pitying him. He tightened his lips against a flood of angry words.

"Golly, I'm going to be late," Jennie said, jumping to her feet. She snatched at the paper bag on the table and started for the door. " 'By, Mom," she said over her shoulder. " 'By, Daddy. Good luck today."

Tom could hear her footsteps running down the stairs. He looked down at the paper again. "Could I have another cup of coffee?"

"No, one cup is all ye get. How much coffee d'ye think we can afford on the child's eleven dollars a week?"

"But you have the coffee right there. It's already made."

"It's for warming again tomorrow mornin'," she said.

He folded the paper carefully, got up and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the tap and let the water run as he took down his shaving brush and razor. He held his hand under the tap. The water was still cold. "Ellen, there's no hot water for my shave."

"Use the cold, then," she called. "Unless ye have a quarter for the gas meter. I'm savin' the gas we have left for the child's bath."

He looked at himself in the mirror. His face had healed from the beating, but his nose was a little crooked now and there were broken edges on his two front teeth. He put down the brush and walked into the kitchen.

Ellen's back was still toward him. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. "Ellen, Ellen," he said gently. "What's happened to us?"

She stared up into his face for a moment, then reached up and pushed his hands from her shoulders. "Don't touch me, Thomas Denton. Don't touch me."

His voice was resigned. "Why, Ellen, why? It's not my fault what happened. It was God's will."

"God's will?" She laughed shrilly. "You're the one to be talkin' of God's will. Him that hasn't been in the church for more years than I can remember. If ye thought more of your Saviour than you did of your Saturday-night beer. He'd have shown ye some of His mercy."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he turned, went back into the bathroom and began to shave with the cold water. She hadn't always been like this – sharp-tongued and acid-touched. And fanatical about the church and the priests. Once, she'd been Ellen Fitzgerald, with laughing eyes and dancing feet, and he remembered her at the Irish Ballroom on Day Street the time he first met her.

She was the prettiest girl on the floor that night, with her dark-brown hair and blue eyes and tiny feet. That was in 1912 and they were married the next year. A year after that, Jennie had been born.

He was a motorman with the car line even then, and when he came back from the war, they moved into this apartment. A year later, a son was born.

Poor tiny little Tommy. The world was not long for him and when he was two years old, they laid him to rest in Calvary Cemetery. Jennie was eight then and barely understood what had happened to her brother, but Ellen found her solace in the quiet of the church, and every day she took her daughter there with her. At first, he didn't pay much attention. Ellen's overattachment to her church was only natural; it would wear off soon enough.

But it didn't. He found that out one night, when he reached for her in the bed and found her cold and unresponsive. He felt for her breast inside the heavy cotton nightgown but she turned her back to him. "You've not made your confession in months. I’ll not have ye planting another child in me."

He tried to make a joke of it. "Who wants to make a baby? All I want is a bit of lovin'."

"That's even worse, then," she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. "It's sinful and I'll share no part of that sin."

"Is that what the priests have been dunning into your ears? To deny your husband?"

She didn't answer. He gripped her shoulder and forced her to turn toward him. "Is that it?" he asked fiercely.

"The priests have told me nothing. What I do is of me own doing. I know the Book enough to know right from wrong. And stop your shouting. You'll be waking Jennie in the next room."

"I’ll stop shouting," he said angrily, as the heat of her shoulder came warm into his hands and the fever rose up in him and he took her by force. The spasm shook him and he subsided into a heavy-breathing quiet atop her, his eyes staring into hers.

She looked up at him quietly, not moving, passive as she had been all through his assault upon her. A last shiver drained his vitals. Then she spoke. Her voice was calm and distant and detached, as if he weren't there at all. "Are ye all through spending your filth in me?"

He felt a cold sickness rising in his stomach. He stared at her for a moment more, then rolled off her onto his side of the bed. "I'm all through," he said tonelessly.

She got out of the bed and knelt beside the tiny creche she had placed beneath the crucifix. He could sense her face turning toward him in the darkness. "I shall pray to the Virgin Mother that your seed has found no home in me," she whispered harshly.

He closed his eyes and turned his back. This was what they'd done to her, spoiled everything between them. A bitterness began to gall him.

He never set foot in a church again.