It was just past dawn the next day when Una arrived at her cousin’s rowhouse near Murray Hill. It had taken her over an hour to unlock her handcuffs with Barney’s silver pin. But she’d remained in the cemetery long after, listening for the telltale clunk of coppers’ boots. Not until night had fallen and the clamor of the streets died down did she venture out. By then, she’d said the rosary five times to ward off ghosts and worked out a semblance of a plan.
Even though the coppers didn’t know where she lived, Una couldn’t go back to her tenement. It was too close to Marm Blei’s shop and she didn’t trust the woman not to snitch to the police. And it wasn’t only Marm Blei. All Una’s former acquaintances in that part of town—the grocer, the street sweepers, the matchbook peddlers, the rag pickers, the other pocket divers she shared her flat with, and Deidre most especially—could no longer be trusted. The stash of money and trinkets she’d hidden in the wall of her room were irretrievable.
That left her without a cent in her pocket or friend to call on. Never mind the discomfort in her chest—indigestion, she was sure—when she considered the loss of her mother’s cameo necklace. It wouldn’t help her now, even if she had it. But her mother had left her something else too. A cousin. And though Una had never believed any of that blood is thicker than water horseshit, that didn’t mean she was above using such sentiments to her advantage. Rule number sixteen: Don’t write anyone off until they’re dead.
Una waited in the shadows across the street until her cousin’s husband, a foreman in a wallpaper factory, left for work before approaching the house. He’d never liked her, Ralph—or was it Richard? Stealing his pen the last time she’d visited probably hadn’t helped. It was a garish pen, a fat gilded thing covered in filigree that he waved about as he spoke as if he were the damned king and not some second-rate foreman making ten times as much money as the women he bossed about. Besides, he suggested Una was
illiterate. Vulgar and witless were his precise words, if Una’s memory served. Not spoken directly to her, of course. That was the way of these lace-curtain Irish. They snickered and sniveled about you behind closed doors. The low Irish still had the courage to insult you to your face. So she’d filched the gold monstrosity from Ralph/Richard’s pocket, written Thank you kindly for the pen in large, tidy letters on a sheet of stationery embossed with his initials from the desk, and left without saying good-bye.
That had been six years ago. Time enough, she hoped, to soften the resentment. Una rapped on the polished oak door and waited. When no one answered, she knocked again. It made her edgy to stand with her back to the street. Last night, she’d found a tattered shawl hanging over the rail of a fire escape as she slunk and crept across the city. It was still wet from the day’s washing, but she slung it over her shoulders anyway. Not much of a disguise, but better than nothing. Now, in the maddeningly bright morning light, the shawl, with its fraying hem and soot-stained wool, made Una feel all the more conspicuous in this hoity-toity neighborhood. She tugged it off and knocked a third time.
At last, the pad of feet sounded from within. The door opened just wide enough to reveal a sliver of her cousin’s face. Her hair was still tied up in rags and sleep crusted at the corners of her eyes. She blinked several times, then frowned. “Una?”
“No, Claire, his holiness the pope. Of course it’s me. Let me in.” Una didn’t wait for her cousin to reply but pushed against the door until it opened enough for her to slip inside. The gathering daylight filtered in through gossamer-covered windows flanking the door, casting the foyer in a pale glow.
Claire shuffled back, her nose wrinkling and frown deepening. “Blessed Mother Mary, you look awful. Smell awful too.”
A night’s stay in jail would do that to a girl. Never mind all the running she’d done. Or her sojourn in that derelict cemetery. But she wasn’t about to say any of that to Claire. As young girls, they’d been great friends. Like sisters, it was said. Now they were all but strangers.
Claire’s mother had never approved of her sister’s choice in husband, a culchie fresh off the boat with few prospects. After the war, with all his loafing and drinking, she approved of Una’s father even less. The families had already grown apart, both in richness and affection, by the time Una’s mother died. Her aunt had offered to take Una in, to care for her and
continue her education, but Una’s father refused. They’d walked away, Claire’s family, noses upturned and heads wagging, and Una hadn’t seen any of them until she’d looked Claire up six years ago and come around, not with the intent to steal anything, but simply to size up her cousin and former friend.
Claire’s cool reception hadn’t surprised Una. Nor had her husband’s haughtiness. But her thinly veiled pity had raised Una’s dander. Now that pity was the only currency Una had. She smoothed her dirty and wrinkled skirt, then met Claire’s wary gaze.
“I got in a bit of a scrape and need a place to stay.” “Stay? How long?”
Una shrugged. She hadn’t thought beyond getting here. “A week. Maybe two. A month at the most.”
“Are you mad? If Randolph knew I’d let you in for any longer than a second, he’d throw a conniption. That was his favorite pen, you know.”
“You didn’t let me in, cousin. I had to barge in. Not very familial of you.” “I thought a tramp was banging on my door so scarcely did I recognize
you.”
Una smiled around clenched teeth. A tramp indeed! She glanced in the mirror that hung over a marble-topped table against the far wall. Her hair stuck out like a feather duster around her lopsided hat. A splattering of mud dotted her collar. Her lips were chapped and nose red from the cold. “Well, now that you see I’m not a tramp, merely your long-lost cousin fallen on hard times, can I stay?”
Claire crossed her arms over her housecoat. It was a deep burgundy velvet with fur trim. Rabbit, no doubt. Randolph couldn’t afford ermine or mink on a foreman’s salary. Still, it looked softer than anything Una had ever worn.
“What happened?” Claire asked. “Your husband kick you out?” “I’m not married.”
“Running from a jealous lover, then?”
A sigh slipped out before Una could help it. What kind of rubbish was Claire reading? She sat down on a lacquered bench along the wall and began unlacing her boots. Her blistered feet ached like the dickens. “No.”
“I didn’t say you could stay,” Claire said in a squeaky voice, her arms still locked in front of her. “You in trouble with the law?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, you will be if Randolph finds you here.” She dropped her arms and began to pace the small foyer. “Is it money you need? Is that it? I knew something like this would happen someday. Ma always said you were from bad stock.”
“We’re from the same stock,” Una said, pulling off one boot and then the other, and dropping them loudly onto the floor.
“On your paternal side, I mean. Speaking of your father, why can’t you go running to him for help?”
“He’s dead,” Una lied. Half lied, really. She hadn’t seen him in almost as many years as Claire. He’d graduated from the bottle to the pipe and may well be dead. Una certainly couldn’t go wandering about Chinatown, peeking her nose into every opium joint along Mott Street to find out. Not now that she was a wanted woman.
Claire managed a fleeting look of sympathy but kept pacing. “Well, you can’t stay here. Randolph is up for a promotion at the factory, and he can’t afford any disruptions right now. And what would the neighbors think if they saw you? They didn’t see you, did they?” She glanced nervously out through the sheer curtains, as if to make sure. “He’s running for assistant alderman, and—”
“No one saw me, I swear. And they won’t. I plan to keep a low profile.” Una’s stockings were damp and sticky from blisters that had bled through. Her mouth was parched, and her stomach growled painfully—it probably had eaten itself by now. She stood up and grabbed Claire’s hands, forcing her to stop. “Please, for old times’ sake. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
When Claire didn’t respond, Una blinked several times quickly, as if trying to hold back tears, and continued in a thin, wavering voice. “I’ve always envied you, you know. Your beautiful hair. Your big house. A mother who cared for you. Ever since the fire, I . . .” Una sniffled, turning her head away, silently praying Claire would take the bait.
“Oh, fine,” Claire relented at last, pulling her hands away and letting out an exaggerated sigh. “You can stay for a few days. That’s it. But you’ll have to sleep in the cellar. Randolph mustn’t know you’re here.”
