Free Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea Page B

I’ve to sit down.
    After a time—no sooner do I finish one drink than another is pressured on me—the women come back from upstairs. “Finally!” says a voice, and the men approach with outstretched hands. I refuse the two who ask me up.
    â€œMaybe the next one,” I says. “I need the rest.”
    But the truer truth is, I’ve become interested in what’s happening by the second fireplace; to get up now would be to miss it. It appears the woman Dmitrieff is telling something of her life. Sat on an easy chair like it’s a throne, enough space between her legs to fit a violin-cello, she has the place rapt. Frederick, Karl, and some others have made a ring round her and are fighting with each other to laugh loudest at her utterings. I strain my ear to catch a scrap.
    â€œSo I said, I only married you to get a passport, and he said, Well, I only married you for your— ”
    She widens her eyes in mock horror and peers down at her bust, as if noticing for the first time how smooth and well-looking it is.
    Now there’s a body to contend with.
    Refusing another round of dancing, I rise and make for the empty chair beside her. But Jenny, who must have been watching too, is faster. She slips through the band of men and takes Dmitrieff’s hand.
    â€œIf none of these men are brave enough to ask you up, then you shall have to make do with me.”
    Dmitrieff laughs. “Oh, Mrs. Marx, I thought you would never ask!”
    The two skip to the floor, and the men look after them, murmuring and scratching and wondering why all women aren’t like them.
    Stranded now on a bit of empty carpet, I hasten to the nearest free seat. I watch the array over the lip of my glass: Jenny and Dmitrieff, Karl and Goegg, Frederick and Janey, Tussy and Dalby, Tomanowski and Lessner, Jaclard and Eccarius, Dr. Allen and his wife, the Lormiers, and maybe ten others, swaying and reeling. The number dawns on me: thirty or more altogether. A good way to clear off those who are due a visit, but the expense must be—well, it must be effin’ mighty.
    Of course, it’s easy to spend when you haven’t done a tap to have it. Three hundred and fifty pounds a year, in three installments, straight from Frederick’s accounts, that’s what they get. I’m sure they think it’s a secret; I’m sure they think I’m oblivious because I’m unable to make out what Frederick writes in the books. But in our house, having keen ears is just as good as having snooping eyes of your own, for half of the time he’s forgetting to speak in the German; half of the time he’s shouting through the walls instead of keeping his talk to a whisper; and the other half of the time he’s at the street door barking orders to messengers and letter carriers; it was never going to be long before I caught wind. Three hundred and fifty pounds is the digit, and that’s before the gifts and the sneaky envelopes; that’s before he sweeps in to level the bills and promises-to-pay that they leave to pile up on their desks and dressers and drawers (and not, where they ought be, on their memory and their morals).
    Careless charity is what the world would call it, if it knew. Helping those who beg and not those who really need the help. And who needs the help more—can someone please tell me?—than Nim’s son? Lord knows what condition of roof that boy is living under, and yet I don’t see a single tormented penny leaving the house in his direction. Would Frederick even know where to send it? One day justice will have to be done the poor lad; one day he’ll have to be cut his sliver.
    â€œYou know, there’s a story told about them,” I says, turning to the man sat beside me.
    â€œAbout whom, madam?” he says, his breath wafting through his moustache.
    â€œThe Marxes.”
    â€œAh, yes. Such a remarkable family. Stories are bound to be told about