What
kind of lodger was wanted though? Miss Frill hadn't decided that. She
wouldn't, she thought, be very particular, as long as they were neat
and quiet, and didn't want too much 'doing' for them. And if it
worked out she might try it for real: invite a stranger to live with
her. But would it be respectable?
Would
it, Jo, would it? She muttered, directing her gaze to the ceiling,
where her dead sister she assumed, watched and listened, for this
section of the ceiling was once her sister's bedroom floor, and so
since her death she had communed with it. When Jo was sick, like
their dear papa before, she used to thump on it with a stick she kept
expressly for that purpose by the side of the bed, one for yes, two
for no, three for tea, and continuously if Violet was making too much
noise downstairs.
Now
however only silence reigned. No answer came.
There
was no Violet and Josephine; Jo and Vi. The Misses Frill. Even Cook
had gone, and had taken her niece, the maid, with her. Economies! Jo
had cried when they left after Papa died, We must make economies. Jo
had cut the household budget and Cook hadn't been happy. They'd
argued over the butter, over the marmalade and occasionally even over
the breakfast table where these items were laid out. It was awful;
Violet still shuddered at the remembrance.
Jo
wasn't an easy person to live with (or live without), but she was
Violet's only sister, the younger too, yet headstrong and confident
from an early age. When she was little, she had these incredible
tantrums: her face went quite red, her tiny foot stamped and the
curls on her head bounced with the motion. Yes, Jo knew what she
wanted and she always went out to get it; Vi sat in, stood in, walked
in her shadow. Jo could make all the decisions. Jo would know what to
do. And Papa would approve. Jo would run the household.
And
that's how it was, for a long time. Then Papa grew old and died, then
Cook left, then Jo took to her bed and gave her commands from there.
The butter must be kept on a dish in the icebox, her special health
bread on its own shelf - the bread and the shelf reserved for her
only, the tea must be served on a certain tray and milk must be
poured in the cup first, and the knives, forks, spoons, bowls and
plates she liked to use must be kept separate, and Vi must not sit in
any of her chairs or on her side of the couch.
Sometimes
in the afternoons, Jo would make Vi bring their old doll house to her
bedroom so Vi could practise what was now expected of her. They even
practised going to the stores, which is where Violet saw for perhaps
the first time vacancy signs: Rooms To Let; Waitress Wanted, Apply
Within etc., because like a child instructed not to dawdle, to go
there and come straight back, she of course did the opposite. There
were fearful rows when she took too long though. And an item from the
doll house would be confiscated, for weeks or months, which she'd
secretly substitute with those she'd make from cigarette boxes. Their
papa had smoked.
Violet
wasn't a child though, or child-like, at least not in appearance and
only a little in manner; the child was just easier to play. Decisions
were made and life happened. On its own. Without her input. And
everybody stayed happy, except when she did something she shouldn't.
But
now she was alone. The doll house her only companion and teacher. She
was free to make as much noise as she wanted and she couldn't. She
hadn't the heart to. Did she know how to? That was the question she
repeatedly asked herself, and of Jo, too. She still went to bed at
8.30pm, she still kept to her side of the pantry. She was too old to
start living, real
living, wasn't she?
A
lodger...could she? Why not advertise for a woman? Violet crossed
through: Please apply within and replaced it with: Women Only Need
Apply. There, she said to Jo in the ceiling, I've found the
solution.
With unintentional echoes of Katherine Mansfield and Christopher Isherwood's Down There on a Visit.
Picture credit: Two Sisters on a Couch, 1869, Berthe Morisot.
