“Kindly refrain from baths after eleven o’clock. Ethel G. McGillicuddy.”
“Consider the other tenants and please do not use the toilet for serious purposes after twelve o’clock as the noise is disturbing. By order. Ethel G. McGillicuddy.”
You hardly ever saw her. She did all her communicating by signs and small notes left pinned to the pillows. “Mr. Jordan. What do you want done with the pile of socks in the closet? And oblige. Ethel G. McGillicuddy.”
Stevie always saved the notes and read them to his friends for a laugh. Once he had borrowed the “for serious purposes” sign and taken it to the club because no one would believe it. He forgot to take it back, but that night there was a second sign in the same place with the same wording.
She had always called Geraldine “Mrs. Jordan,” though she knew different. Her only way of putting Geraldine in her place was to ignore her, that is, write all the notes to Stevie. Like, “Please ask Mrs. Jordan to refrain from washing her hair under the showers. And oblige. E.G.M. It clogs the drains.”
Stevie didn’t go to Geraldine’s funeral, but Mrs. McGillicuddy did. She carried a bouquet of chrysanthemums and she was heavily draped in black. When she came back her eyes were red with weeping. She flung herself into her work and new signs sprang up all over the house, dealing with the morals of her tenants.
Steve parked in front of Mamie’s house. Mamie’s shade was down but a light shone through the cracks.
“Come on out!” Stevie shouted. “Oh, MAmie! MamEE!”
A window was flung up on the second floor.
“Go drown yourself,” a man’s voice yelled.
“MamEE!”
“I’ll call the police on you!”
Stevie waved up at him. “Sure, and is it a crime to be seekin’ me own sister Mamie Rosen?”
The window closed with a bang. A couple of minutes later Mamie’s window opened and Mamie stuck her head out.
“Oh, for Gawd’s sake, Stevie,” she said. “You again.”
“ ’Tis your own brother Stevie come home, Mamie. Tell me mither and me—”
“Oh, shut up. What do you want?”
“A drink.”
“I haven’t got a thing.”
“One drink and I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What about?”
“Hush.” He came closer to the window, brushing aside a lice-eaten rosebush, and whispered, “Tony.”
“What about him?” Her voice was excited. “You saw him? Where is he?”
“I have a theory,” Stevie said. “If you’ll hand me your key I shall step insider a moment...”
“You didn’t see him,” she said dully, but she left the window and a minute later the front door opened. Stevie went through the gloomy hall into Mamie’s room. She hadn’t been to bed. She still wore her stage makeup and the red velvet evening dress, and there was a glass and a half-empty bottle of rye on the table.
Stevie sat down on the edge of the bed and poured some rye into the glass.
“To Tony,” he said. “May his dismembered torso find its way into a trunk.”
She watched him while he drained the glass. “All right. You’ve had your drink. Now beat it.”
“I thought I’d stay and see the sun rise over Charles Street,” Stevie said. “Be kind of a gruesome sight.”
“Go on, beat it. I’m going to bed.”
“I could sleep on the couch.”
“Why?”
He poured out the rest of the bottle. “Well, I just had a bad shock. When I got home there was Mrs. McGillicuddy on the front steps with an axe. So I thought I’d come and stay with you.”
“Well, you can’t.” She reached for the glass. “That’s my last bottle. Give it here.”
She sat down beside him and they shared the rye.
“Cut the gags,” she said. “Why’d you come back?”
“Oh, I don’t, know. Maybe I’m going for you.”
“The hell.” She stared at him.
“All right, the hell.” He swished the rye around the glass. “What ever happened to Margy?”
“Margy?”
“Geraldine’s cousin.”
“Oh, her. She got married. Married an electrician. She’s even got a kid.”
“Yeah?”
“I saw her in Eaton’s last week and she had the kid with her.”
“Be kind of funny to have a kid,” Stevie said.
“For Christ’s sake what’s the matter with you tonight? First Geraldine and now kids. Next you’ll be getting the D.T.’s.” She got up and yawned. “I’m going to bed. I can’t kick you out so I guess you can sleep on the couch.”
“Thanks.”
He sounded so grateful that she turned to look at him, suspicious. But she couldn’t tell anything from his face, and his eyes were closed.
With her eyes still tightly closed Ida reached over and turned off her alarm, switched on the light and fumbled with her bare feet for her slippers.
The sounds of morning began to seep through the house, the plop-plop-plop of Ida’s slippers along the hall, the swish of a tap, and the gurgling of drains, the faint tinkle of another alarm, the thud of a dropped shoe.
Descending the back stairs Ida began to hum loudly to herself. She didn’t feel like humming this morning — the toothache had gone, giving place to a headache — but she hummed in the hope that Maurice and Letty would hear her and know she was up and doing her duty.
She paused on the second-floor landing and ran her eye along the hall. Kelsey’s light still shone underneath the door. Ida stopped humming and walked on tiptoe down the hall. In spite of her size she was as stealthy as a cat when she was stalking a closed door.
Was it possible that Kelsey and Mr. James...?
She crept to the door and listened but heard no sound. Then she rapped softly, blinking her eyes in concentration. Suppose she walked in and found Mr. James there in his pyjamas — or not in his pyjamas.
She shivered with dread and delight and began to turn the knob slowly, giving herself time to think of something to say, just in case...
But there was no need to say anything.
She stepped back into the hall. She tucked in a stray piece of hair and smoothed her apron carefully. Then she opened her mouth and screamed.
“Stop that screaming!” Mamie hissed. “Stevie! Wake up!”
Stevie rolled over on his back and groaned, “What? What?”
“You were yelling in your sleep. How do you expect me to get...”
“Yeah?” He was awake now. “What was I talking about?”
“Her again,” Mamie said, “and that Heath guy. I thought it was just crazy people who talked in their sleep.”
“Maybe it is.” He yawned. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. I just been lying here.”
“Want to turn the light on?”
There was a creak of bedsprings as Mamie rolled off the bed and lurched over to the switch. She blinked her eyes and said, “Gawd!” when the glare struck her.
“Quarter to seven,” Stevie said. “Maybe we can catch that sunrise after all.”
“Oh, dry up about the sunrise. Charles Street is just as good as a lot of other streets. I’m out of cigarettes. You got any?”
Stevie reached into his pocket and brought out a package. He had been lying on it and the cigarettes were flat but they weren’t broken.
“Tony and I often did this,” Mamie said.
“Did what?”
“When we couldn’t sleep we’d get up and turn on the light and smoke.”
“I think that’s real touching,” Stevie said. “Though I may say that Tony’s special brand of cigarettes stinks up the room.”
“He’s off reefers,” Mamie said. “And if you don’t like the stink why don’t you go home? Why’d you come for in the first place?”