A Woman's Pains Are Never Done

Sept 1838: 16 Marchmont Road

"And right through here are the sleeping quarters Mr and Mrs McIntyre. You'll find it's quite spacious, and there's plenty storage for clothes and other bits and bobs," said the scruffy landlord before tagging on over-enthusiastically, "my favourite part has to be the view. Do take a gander it's just spectacular! Not many flats are blessed with such a view of this wonderful locale of ours, and at this price!"

"Oh, it is lovely isn't it John?" Eilidh gestured vaguely at the landscape of undulous dark greens, blue sky softened with feathery whisps of cloud, and that most magnificent Edinburgh castle poised regally atop castle rock - all framed by that wood-panelled, sash-and-case bedroom window. John, who's unamused and sullen response to said view was suggestive of someone who's appreciation for the wonderful was long since dead, merely grunted "aye" But "aye" was all it took. The papers were signed that evening over flickering candlelight and cups of breakfast tea that did little to disturb the cold, and by the morrow all of the McIntyre’s belongings had made their way up the stairwell, into the flat, and been unpacked to their proper places - courtesy of the tireless Mrs McIntyre.

"Pardon me, pardon me, Aunty! Must have lost my wits for a moment!" Stephen had made a nasty habit of unceremoniously opening the doors to Mr and Mrs McIntyre's private quarters, a habit that seemed to rear its head exclusively when John was toiling at the forge. Eilidh wasn't stupid, she knew what the shameless little lech was doing - his timing was always at a most uncomfortable moment for her, often as she was manoeuvring into her stay (John liked it when she wore her stay), and his leer was always decidedly pointed, like a starved dog suddenly catching sight of a forgotten piece of meat. But to tell John about it, how could she? What would she even say? Every scenario she elaborated in mind concluded with her husband accusing her of harbouring a vixens agenda against his brother. He never believes anything she says, so why even bother? So, "GET ON, GET ON AND OUT STEPHEN!" had become her automated response. And each time he would oblige, but always with a faint and unsettling whisper of wanting.

"Roast tatoes, neeps, and a cut of lambs shoulder are the evenings fair gentlemen, dig in"

"Oh! it looks delicious Aunty" muttered Stephen. The warm glow of the fireplace conspired with the stubborn darkness to emphasise his crooked and misshapen nose.

John, his blackened sausage-like fingers belittling a quaish, had already begun on the whiskey, as usual, and Stephen soon joined him in that great effort. Little John sat quietly in the corner of the table, famished as the little lad usually was. He was all but asleep by the time he had cleared his plate, but he soon came to with a start when a prodigious "bang!" quaked through the table simultaneously with the unmistakable sound of his father's coarse, vexed voice. Little John started crying as his father dispensed of all his untraceable frustrations to the most reliable place he knew where - his wife Eilidh.

"I don't know what I've done to deserve a wife like you. Why can't you be like other women, God-fearing women, good women!"

The crying grows louder.

"What have I done now, John, I haven"t done any..." "That's right you haven't done anything. You don't do anything for this family, you're just the laziest woman I've ever met. And now I hear that you've been showing yourself to my brother?"

The crying becomes louder and shriller still.

 "Why I ought to..."

"I never did that! I never did that he's lying John!" stutters Eilidh with both arms held up above her face, her own cries now mixed in with Little John's.

"You dare to call me a liar you ungodly woman?" pitches in Stephen, ordinarily both a liar and a lech, but in that moment also an odorous drunk.

The crying reaches fever pitch.

The following evening, she looked out of that picturesque bedroom window. The stars were all out above the city, a rare sight, the moon magically bright. Her body, soon, is dangling outside that window, glowing lifelessly in the glory of that lunar light.

June 2002: 16 Marchmont Road

"Hey"

"Hey you!"

"Hey if you don’t stop staring out that window I'll put you out on the streets. Would you like that? Now listen to me!"

"S-sorry, yes, I listen you" was Maria's hurried response. Her mind had not been in that room. She had, by some undetectable magic, been spirited away into the world that was framed by the sash-and-case window with the white-painted timber panel and its four quadrats. In the top left she had seen a kestrel hovering, almost motionless, before planing down as though to duck beneath the seething storm cloud presently advancing into the top right panel. But to her this motion seemed to set the bird on a crash course with the austere castle occupying the bottom right division. There was no crash. The bird simply disappeared from view, and it was only then that she returned from that two-dimensional world of the windowpane and into this squalid box world that would be her new home.

Alongside her where five other girls, none of whom spoke very good English, some of whom she had been with her on that perilous, perilous journey, and all of whom fancied their present circumstance as just an undesirable but unavoidable stepping-stone.

"This is the room where you will sleep, there are only four bunks so two of you will have to sleep on the floor," he continues, "but you aren’t here to sleep are ya? You are here to make money, so am I"

The girls listened on, all the while subconsciously contemplating the oddness of the creature before them. His build was slight and lanky, his jaw unusually sharp, and his eyes rather large for his face. His voice undulated as he spoke, and he slurred his words so much as to render whatever English the girls knew to be of no use. Above all he was very rigid, frighteningly so. Every girl knew instantly to be afraid of him, save for Maria, for whom fear had never quite come easily.

"I want at least two girls up at any one time, and you'll have to figure out shifts for the night, alright? Someone must always be available to take a customer. ALWAYS. If there's any trouble come get me or Sandy at number 2 on the first floor. But don’t any of you cause any trouble and lose me any money”.

“Can we go outside this place?”

“NO. No. Never leave this building unless I tell you to. I don’t want any of you running into the police or running away, alright. For your own safety just stay here”.

After that skeletal initiation the skinny man tossed his half-smoked cigarette out the widow before leaving the room and then the flat without uttering another word.

The relentless insect-like buzz of fluorescent light bulbs in the night would grow to haunt Maria. It would also come to haunt Dasha, and Daria, and Svetlana, and Cristina, but not Misha, who detested darkness and slept better in the light. Common to all the girls, however, was a disdain of those creaky old floors which sung them from sleep whenever one or two or three of them had to greet customers in the night.

The fireplace, having long since been boarded up, now served singularly as a place for the girls to ash their cigarettes (they smoked so many cigarettes, it calmed their nerves like nothing else). There or the window in the bedroom, which mostly Maria would use. Living day in and day out in that decrepit old flat, they came to care for each other as sisters, sharing laughs and pains as easily as they did clothes and cigarettes. This bond made it all the more intolerable when Dasha came running into the bedroom one night in a uniquely terrible state of tears and shivers, a red - now going on purple bruise establishing itself like a little map of some wayward across her chin and neck. Failing to speak she at last managed to labour a chain of stutters with her head still vying for the comfort of Maria’s shoulder.

Maria would lose her temper on this particular night, kicking open the door to the service bedroom; attacking, clawing the customer that had seen it fit to handle Dasha with such enormous disdain for the minor offence of refusing to kiss him on the lips. She could not fathom, why, when they were already giving so much of themselves, he had felt it just to demand more. And in such a way!

“You’re done! You are done do you hear me?” that emaciated, vacuous creature of a man would kick her out that very night. Maria would never return to that place again. Walking down the streets she made out the figures of the girls all stood at that window she herself had stared out of on so many mornings, nights, and afternoons. That was the last time she saw them, and the last time they would see her. Now, she had switched worlds - out of the box and into the window pane.