children… but he wants a willing and available concubine, too. If you are not she,
he will find one elsewhere.
Another commandment: promises must be kept – especially ones made to children. So
think three times before making one. In case of tiniest doubt, don’t promise.
Above all, don’t save up punishments `until your father comes home’.
Many of these rules did not yet apply when I had only one baby and that one still in
nappies. But I did think out most of my roles ahead of time and then wrote them down
in my private journal. Father had warned me that I had no moral sense; therefore it
would be necessary to anticipate decisions I would have to make. I could not depend
on that little voice of conscience to guide me on an ad hoc basis; I did not have
that little voice. Therefore I would have to reason things out instead, ahead of
time, forming rules of conduct somewhat like the Ten Commandments, only more so, and
without the glaring defects of an ancient tribal code intended only for barbaric
herdsmen.
But none of my roles were really difficult and I had a wonderfully good time!
I never tried to find out how much Briney was paid whenever I had a baby; I did not
want to know. It was more fun to believe that it was a million dollars each time,
paid in red gold ingots the colour of my hair, each golden ingot too heavy for one
man to lift. A king’s favourite, lavished with jewels, is proud of her ‘fallen’
state; it is the poor drab on the street, renting her body for pennies, who is
ashamed of her trade. She is a failure and she knows it. In my daydream I was a
king’s mistress, not a sad-faced mattress-back.
But the Foundation must have paid fairly well. Attend me – Our first house in Kansas
City was close to minimum for respectable middle class. It was near the coloured
district; in 1899 this made it a cheap neighbourhood even though it was segregated
for whites. Besides it was on an east-west street and faced north, two more points
against it. It was on a high terrace with a long flight of steps to climb. It was a
one-storey frame house, built in 1880 with its plumbing added as an afterthought –
the bath opened directly off the kitchen. It had no dining-room, no hallway, just
one bedroom. It had no proper basement, just a dirty-floor cellar for the furnace
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and coal bin. It had no attic, just a low, unfinished space.
But houses for rent that we could afford were scarce; Briney had been lucky to find
it. I had thought for a while that I was going to have my first baby in a
boarding-house.
Briney took me to see it before he closed the deal, a courtesy I appreciated as
married women could not sign contracts in those days; he did not have to consult me.
`Think you could live here?’
Could I! Running water, a flush toilet, a bathtub, a gas range, gas lamp fixtures, a
furnace -‘Briney, it’s lovely! But can we afford it?’
`That’s my problem, Mrs S., not yours. The rent will be paid. In fact you will pay
it for me, as my agent, the first of every month. Our landlord, a gentleman named
Ebeneezer Scrooge – ‘
“Ebeneezer Scrooge” indeed!’
‘I think that was the name. But there was a streetcar going by; I may have
misunderstood. Mr Scrooge will collect in person, the first of every month, except
Sundays, in which case he will collect on the Saturday preceding, not the Monday
following; he was firm about that. And he wants cash; no cheques. He was firm about
that, too. Real cash, silver cartwheels, not banknotes.’
Despite the house’s many shortcomings its rent was high. I gasped when Briney told
me: twelve dollars a month. ‘Oh, Briney!’
‘Get your feathers down, freckled one. We’re going to be in it just one year. If you
think you can stand it that long, you won’t have to deal with dear Mr Scrooge – his