Deja Who (Insighter #1)(8)

“Alice, you nasty fucking bitch!”

“Mmm. Listen, while you’re slogging through the justice system, you should return for a follow-up.”

“Follow-up!” Chart #6116 yowled all the way out of the office and down the hall, promising grisly death, arson, murdered family pets, and, worst of all, a lawsuit.

“See?” the receptionist said. Patients being led away, raving and occasionally handcuffed, was nothing new. “You’re the worst. Toldja.”

“Not now, Deb. Listen, your court-appointed therapist will give you another referral for follow-up—”

“You can follow up with my ass!”

Leah trailed after the cops as they dragged her snarling client to the hoosegow, step one of what would hopefully be a decades-long legal process. “Don’t worry about a thing. It’ll all be covered by your insurance. Less your co-pay, of course.”


Patient advised to return within sixty days for routine follow-up. Thank you for the opportunity to treat Ms. Delano. Ms. Dellen.

Oh, hell, what was her name again? Delaney.

Report filed CC. INS ID# 29682.





THREE


My name is Mary Jane Kelly.

Mary Jane misses Limerick, Ireland, and yes, that is where she was born and she’s aware it’s much like a bad joke. There was a young lassie from . . . from . . .

But she misses it. Still a wee one when the family moved to the city, her biggest problem back then was trying not to wet her clouts. She doesn’t have the accent, not like her da’, but the name alone

(my name is Mary Jane Kelly)

gives her away, tells the world she’s a mick

(my name is Mary Jane Kelly)

an Irish mick, a bog trotter, a coal cracker, a fire bush fumblin’ Dublin paddy narrow back potlicker wic sid, seven brothers and one sister because them Irish fuck like minks and none o’ them are virgins.

She learned most of those hateful names from her mother, who decided Mary Jane Kelly should be earning on her back. Growing girls ate too much and didn’t work as hard as the boys. And there were too many girls in the family as it was. Got to make it up to the family some other way, and Mary Jane Kelly never got the knack of sewing, or cooking, or minding the wee ones. So . . .

So here she was, and it was a bad time to be on the streets, a bad time to be in London’s East End, but here she was, and some of her customers called her Fair Emma and none of them would tell her why.

Sometimes they called her Dark Mary and that one she did understand: Mary Jane Kelly was a mean drunk. She said terrible things when she was lit; she hit customers, she broke windows, she hurt, she’d been hurt, she yelled at her mother, dead now for two years. So, yes. A mean drunk.

(She hadn’t gone to the funeral. Couldn’t. The letter from her oldest brother came too late. She didn’t care. And she was arrested twice that day.)

She had plenty to be mean about. The fucking East End and the fucking weather and the fucking johns and fucking live-ins who didn’t want her but just the money she earned on her back and fucking Barnett, who smelled like fish no matter how much he washed and sometimes she was sure his fish smell was in her and she would never never never be clean.

And the fucking Ripper man, whose sole focus was working girls like herself, soiled doves ladies of the evening sluts whores whores whores. Like she had aspired to this. Like she and other little girls and boys the world over told their mamas, oh yes, when I get big I want to be a whore whore whore. Like her mother looked at her when she was just born and thought, I’ll make her turn pross when she’s a teenager. For the family.

She was six weeks behind on the rent; she owed twenty-nine shillings and it might as well have been twenty-nine thousand.

A problem.

It was November and fucking cold. Another problem. She’d spent her last pence on beer; it was the only thing keeping her warm. Made her want a piss, but . . . warm. Sometimes she thought she could be happy if she could just be reliably, dependably warm, all the time.

The only men she met wanted to borrow money. Still another problem, and by far the most annoying and darkly hilarious. D’you think I’d be slinging my tits out here if I could loan you sixpence, daft man? Fuck.

And then: a miracle. He’s there and he’s neat and clean and when she bitches about losing her handkerchief he gives

(gives! not lends!)

her his. He has a kind smile. He asks if she’s terribly cold. He has a nice voice, low and kind and a little stuttery with nervousness. He buys her another beer. He asks if she has somewhere warm they can go. He says he likes her eyes, her pretty

(bog trotter coal cracker fire bush paddy potlicker)

Irish eyes. He says he knows just by looking at her that her mother was pretty, too.

(He’s right.)

Amazed at her good fortune, she leads him to her nasty filthy room, which, at least, offers privacy, and she sings “a violet I plucked from Mother’s grave when a boy” for his delighted approval. He doesn’t care about the noise. In this part of town, at this time of night, no one cares.

She unbolts the door by putting her hand through the window she broke when she was Dark Mary; everyone knows she does this. In truth the room isn’t much warmer with unbroken windows, in truth it’s dreadful, but there’s a bed and blankets and privacy and she can be warm, for a little while she can be warm with a nice gentleman, a good man who gave her a handkerchief and gave her beer and will give her money. He might not hit. Even if he does, the marks from his hands will keep her warm. For a while.