NEW YORK CITY
Winter solstice, 21 December 1932
16.45
Her initial shock at the height had faded, but if Frances moved close to the edge, if she tipped her head over the waist-height balustrade, the hysterical sensation returned. A few months ago she would have been terrified. Tonight she was captivated. All around, skyscrapers seemed to grow and thrust, dwarfing the cowering tenements at their feet. Fog clung to the tips of the highest towers. Snatches of street-level noise sailed up – blasting car horns, workmen shouting on their way home, swing bands tuning up in the ritzy joints on Broadway.
She could see why people jumped. The city seduced from up here, as though instead of dying on the fresh asphalt, you might leap right into the electric heart of life itself. She bent forward, vertigo swelling. It was impossible to see them from here, but she could imagine the doomed washing lines criss-crossing her crumbling street, hundreds of feet below. Soon they’d be torn down, two weeks’ notice: she wondered where everyone would hang their clothes.
The wind tugged and pulled, threatening to push her off with icy hands. She stepped back and wrapped Stan’s overcoat around her more tightly, glad she had brought it, comforted by the sharp sensation that her own arms were his. Leaning her head to one side, touching her chin to the rough grey wool, she imagined it was his shoulder. The smell of his Luckies was burnt into the fabric. She sucked in the fading fumes, wishing with each shaking breath that she could smell the smoke fresh from her brother’s mouth again.
For the hundredth time since they’d made their promise, she wondered if she and Agnes were really going to go through with it, if she was brave and terrible enough, until a sudden gust almost stole her hat and she only just caught it, struggling with dead fingers to pull out the pins as it twisted and strained. Free at last, her hair whipped her eyes. Tears fell. She hoped she’d feel better once they’d done it, she couldn’t bear the thought of this sadness sticking to her for ever. Agnes had looked at her strangely when she’d suggested they both might feel more normal afterwards. She’d gazed at the dregs of her coffee and told Frances that wasn’t the point. Then she’d said she didn’t know how they would feel but that either way it was the right thing to do. That was all that ever mattered to Agnes. Doing the right thing.
Frances shivered, thrust the felt deep into Stan’s pocket, creases be damned, and turned, ears hollowed by the wind, breath caught, determined to take it all in. If this was the first and last time she was going to see her city from up here, if tonight was everything, then she must stain her mind with the sight of it. The dimming sky looked as though it had been stripped from the heavens and ironed flat: a thousand lit windows scattered like sequins on the dress of the night.
Agnes called to her from inside. Finally. She had said it would only take thirty minutes. Fifteen to set up, fifteen for the exposure. She’d already been up here longer and Frances was getting all balled up. He should be here soon.
‘Have you still got it?’ Agnes called again.
‘Yes,’ Frances shouted, pushing the word away before the wind could throw it back. And yet still she didn’t move. One last look.
She needed a smoke to mark the occasion. Undoing the button on Stan’s other pocket, she pushed her hand in, rooting around just in case. Her fingers trembled as they brushed against damp cotton, loose matchsticks and a few mucky dimes. Finally, she caught hold of something. It wasn’t a ciggy, it was the note. She pulled it out, fumbling in the cold. Whatever happened, she mustn’t let it go. It was only a few lines, but they’d spent so long agonising over the words. The right tone. The most convincing lie. Without it no one would believe them. As soon as that filthy hood arrived, they’d persuade him on to the balcony. Agnes would distract him so Frances could press the note into his pocket. Then they’d both shove him over the edge with all their might.
KANSAS to NEW YORK CITY
12 September 1932
18.25
The long grass whipped and tore at her ankles. Marsh flies plumed upwards in disturbed clouds. She beat them away but didn’t stop even when they stuck to her cheeks and caught in her hair. Whatever it took, however far or fast she had to go, she’d get away. The heavy bag nagged at her arm to rest. She shouldn’t have crammed it so full. Perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it at all – but her whole life was in there. Almost two decades of living folded up in a tattered case. More things than most people around here, thanks to Stan and his money. Nothing of her was back in the old house. Not her things, not her body, not even her mind – that had gone months ago, long before she’d run outside tonight. They could keep their memories of her, that was all. And her mother had the shoes and Frances’ fading picture in that often-pawned locket wrapped around her throat. But nothing else. That was enough.
She slowed down for a second to switch arms, giving the right one a rest until it stopped screaming. It felt strange to be running at her favourite time of day. Usually she’d have finished with her chores and pulled a chair on to the porch. She’d have taken out her sewing or her cross-stitch, or something that needed mending. She’d gotten up to ‘L’ in her child’s alphabet. It was her favourite letter to sew. Straight down and across, a tiny curl at the top and bottom like a baby’s tongue. Nothing fancy, but she’d saved her best dark red thread for it. She would have been sitting there, toes keeping the chair rocking, listening to the birds gathering, to the hooting, whistling calls of ‘come home’ and ‘I’m here’ and ‘danger’, looking up every now and then to brush away a fat moth, or to see if the fireflies were dancing over the scorched grass.
Never again. Now her breath caught jagged in her throat and her thin cotton dress stuck to her back. The cracked leather handle of her bag felt strangely slick in her sweating hand, so heavy there might have been a body inside, not just her clothes. Blood rushed in her ears until a shot rang out, splitting the air.
The bullet hit the old oak on the corner of the field, the one she and Stan had scratched their names into all that time ago. Rotting bark splintered. It was a warning. Father wasn’t trying to hit her; he was upset, she knew that, and he was a crack shot – if he’d meant it she’d be dead by now. But it stunned her all the same. It stunned her so much she stumbled as she began to run again and fresh tears fell on to her sore cheeks, flowing down the itchy trails of all the ones that had fallen there before.
She was too far away to hear exactly what Father was shouting but she had an idea. He was probably saying she was rotten. That she was a good-for-nuthin’ liar. That she could clear out. All the things he’d shouted at her a thousand times before. She knew Mother was inside trying to clean the grease off something, pretending she couldn’t hear. Or perhaps she’d run out on to the porch again by now and she was clutching that dirty apron she’d worn every day of her married life and silently begging Frances to come back. Whatever, it didn’t matter now. She was out and away, chasing after the sun, cresting the curve of the hill, heading down into the dust-filled ditch on the far side of the field, almost at the dirt track. Even if he was aiming, now he’d never hit her.
Her toes were dirty – not the kind of dirt that you could lick your finger and rub away, the kind that would take hours of scrubbing to shift. Blood was caked in some of the creases. Mud had wormed its way up under her nails. Worse than that, when Frances had stumbled, the strap on her left sandal had busted open and she’d had to stop outside the station and tie the two pieces of worn leather together. Heaven knows what Stan would think when he saw her. But it was no use. These were her only pair. She’d left the good church shoes for Mother. They were the same size, and Mother had let Frances wear them every Sunday for the last few years so it only seemed right to leave them behind. A final peace offering. At any rate, they were heavy. On her feet, or in her bag, they’d only have slowed her down.
The women were gossiping further down the boards. She’d seen them on the platform looking when she’d queued for her ticket. She’d even heard one whisper, ‘Well, would you look at that.’ Frances had turned away, but not before she’d seen the woman’s friend roll her sly eyes heavenward. No doubt she seemed strange to them – checking and re-checking her money as she waited, covered in dust and blood and dead grass, dirty hair, mucky face. People like her didn’t go on trains. Or count money. Only a handful of folks around here had enough money to travel at all. They probably thought she was some kind of thief.
They kept looking over. No doubt they’d never been gripped by the terror of losing the only money they ever had. For them there would always be more. Stuck-up Mrs Grundys with their lightweight travelling jackets and shiny courts, yapping at each other like small, desperate dogs. The squinty one was shading her mouth with her newspaper, as though the print might soak up her spite.
Frances smoothed the side of her skirt until she felt the comforting crunch of the money beneath. The few dollars she hadn’t spent felt electric in there, as though they were quivering like filaments, lighting up her ticket in the dark folds of her dress. She was too afraid to keep them in her purse in case she put it down somewhere and forgot to pick it up in a rush. Stan had sent her some extra so she could buy something to eat on the way. She wasn’t sure how much shoes cost in New York City but she hoped that if she didn’t eat much on the journey, she might have enough left over to buy some. He’d not asked any questions when he sent it. He didn’t have to. She’d sent the telegram, and he’d sent one straight back with a one-word reply: ‘Yes.’ The only surprise to him was that she’d waited this long to leave.
When the package had arrived she’d snatched it out of Mother’s hand and raced up the stairs to her bedroom and pushed her cane chair up against the door. Mother had hammered on it. None of them had heard from Stan for months and they were all desperate for news, or rather, for another one of his little packages to come along and save them. As far as she knew they’d never had a parcel from anyone else, so there was no hiding who it was from. She’d not seen so many dollars since that day there’d been a run on the bank. Father had yelled at Mother that they were all finished – the town, the state, the whole God-damned country. His world had fallen apart and all of theirs with it. Years ago now, and yet, like all terrible days, it seemed like yesterday.
She scuffed the earth with her toe, picked off some seeds that were stuck to the hem of her dress and checked the station clock again. About a minute since the last time she looked up. Apart from the women there weren’t many waiting to travel. It was so quiet, if she stood still she could hear the crickets in the long grass out back. Had Father realised where she was? Had he guessed what she was about to do? She checked the entrance again, flicking at a torn nail, trying to imagine what she’d do if he stepped through it with his gun cocked. Perhaps Mother had calmed him down by now. Perhaps he’d spent all his anger on her again instead. The guilt stabbed at Frances but she pushed it aside. Had Mother helped her that time Father cornered her in the barn? The old woman had seen, she was sure of it. Her shadow had paused by the window, the moonlight making a halo of her wiry hair. She’d stopped and she’d seen and she’d kept quiet. Well, now it was Frances’ turn to look the other way.
She wondered what she’d have to do when the train arrived. Would there be steps up? Would someone help her on? How would she know what carriage to go in? The furthest she’d ever been until now was the Elsner farm on the back of their truck, and she’d been distracted for most of that ride by Harry’s hand on her knee and his breath in her ear.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember exactly how it had felt. In a roundabout way it was Harry’s fault she was here. Those first dark fumblings. The scratchy wool blanket over her lap. The hot shock of his fingers pressed on that sweet spot between her legs. She remembered saying yes and then no, and then yes again. She’d felt sick and heady, riding high on the pleasure and the wrongness of it all, bounced around by the bumps in the road, afraid they’d be caught but not wanting him to stop, not ever wanting him to stop. His hands, so rough from all the work, pressing down, his fingers pushing into her, a sharp sting and a mounting warmth, an overwhelming tide of pleasure and forgetting. Afterwards he’d casually wiped his hand on the blanket and kissed her hot cheek. He’d called her a doll, like all the men in the matinees, and promised to see her again. She remembered lying back and looking up at the gathering clouds, not caring about anything he said. It wasn’t him she liked, it was what he’d done to her. She had known, even then, that she wanted to feel this every day, over and over. Yes. It was all Harry’s fault.
A breeze flicked her skirt and she held off an urge to check her pocket again. Behind them the station-master had sent his boy out early to turn on the lamps. She supposed he had to do it now, in the last of the sunlight, so he could go back and set up his shoe-shine before the train came in. He dragged his ladder along, making thin tracks in the dirt, stopping beneath each globe, climbing up and flipping the metal switch, smiling each time and tapping the side of the lamp when the glow stayed put. Frances watched him until they were all lit as the minutes counted down, transfixed by the newness of that strange fizzing gleam.
A single horn blast shot a handful of collared doves skyward. Her train thundered around a bend in the track. The sight of it shocked her. She’d seen trains before, of course, whistling as they flew by out past the Pattersons’ place, but never this close. It screamed as it rushed in front of her and stopped, blowing her skirt in the air, so that she had to push it down with one hand, while clutching at the money in her pocket with the other. Two guards jumped out of the doors. They wore stiff black hats like policemen, their boots shining in the mellow light. The nearest one looked her up and down, frowned slightly and beckoned her over, all the time keeping one eye on the clock.
‘Where to, Miss? Got your ticket there, have you?’ He looked dubious.
His face was pock-marked by some long-cured vicious disease, yet he was still handsome enough. Not much older than her. She batted steam away from her face, distracted for a second by a lewd fantasy of his tongue in her mouth, and smiled. Even though the train had stopped it was still shuddering and sighing, making her nervous, trembling on its great wheels as though it was trying to catch its breath.
‘Yes. Here it is.’ Her voice didn’t sound right. It was quieter, softer than in her head.
She fumbled in her pockets, fretful that all would be lost at the last minute. But there it was. Thin and soft, freshly printed. The guard took it from her. She only had to worry for a second because he nodded quickly, took hold of her case and stepped back to give her enough room to climb up. He jumped on behind, pulled the door closed with a bang and waved a flag at the driver. Almost instantly, with a great creaking groan, the train began to move again, pistons shunting, steam chuffing. Frances clutched her throat. She hadn’t had a second to think about what she was doing, let alone change her mind. She almost fell as the train gathered speed. The guard caught her elbow and smiled.
‘You’ll be all right, Miss. Three days is plenty of time to get the hang of it before we get to New York.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, righting herself, smoothing her skirt.
The guard nodded, then leant into the hall, pointing towards the back of the train. ‘Third class is that way. Keep walking till you get to the dining car and then keep going a bit more, right on past it. There’s no reservations in third, so you can sit anywhere there’s a space.’
‘Thank you,’ she said again.
He tipped his hat and walked off. No doubt he’d worked out she was some dumb Dora who’d never travelled anywhere before.
The train rocked alarmingly. Frances grabbed on to a shiny rail by the door. For all its brass fittings, the wooden interior was rough, with gaps in the planks and a worn carpet. The guard had left the window open to ease the heat and she was overcome with a desperate desire to stick her head out. She’d seen some boys doing that once, when a train rushed past in the distance from the back of the Pattersons’ dried-up wheat field. The engine had whistled and she’d stopped kissing and seen the boys leaning out, waving their caps and laughing at each other. It had looked like fun.
She rested her palms on the wooden frame, feeling the glass vibrate, its edge worn smooth from all those other hands. Outside, the only land she’d ever known was rushing away. Tentatively she leant forward. At first the rushing gusts pushed her back, but then she felt the train slow, its strident thrusts easing into a steadier, rhythmic beat. She took a deep breath, so the smoke wouldn’t choke her, and forced her head outside.
She was flying! The wind wrapped around her head, unpinned hair streaming backwards like a golden flag. She opened her eyes, squinting to ward off the sting. The sun was still there, hanging a few feet from the ground, looking like it might fall away at any minute. It coated the bare fields and shrunken corn with a deceptive sheen of hope. Liar! Frances thought. Hope had shrivelled on the vines, it had turned to dust like the soil, it had vanished from the plates on the tables and the insides of once-full pockets. It had disappeared from reflections and hand-shakes and smiles, until finally it had left her too, on that day when she’d cradled the baby – perfect, albeit for his silent heart – on the floor of the barn, and Father had found her and pulled him from her and buried him. Hope had run away from this place, like her, but now she could feel it growing. It had seeded inside and might just bloom out there along the tracks.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
