Mrs. Burrmann tried to appear kind to Bernice on this occasion, hiding any animosity she might have felt. And she even invited Bernice into her sitting room for a drink. And Bernice accepted it too. Bernice saw many things in the sitting room as if for the first time. She was no longer a servant. She was now a guest. She even folded her legs as she chatted.
“I am sorry, Bernice,” Mrs. Burrmann said. “I am truly sorry that it didn’t work out as we had hoped. But then again, that is life, isn’t it?”
“True! I don’t mind, though,” Bernice said, sipping the whiskey-and-soda as if she was born sipping it. “All I want from you now is what I have a right to. What I am entitled to. And that is a piece o’ paper saying that I carried out my duties during my stay in your household to the best of my ability and to the best of your satisfaction.”
“Of course, Leach … Bernice, I mean! I am so much in the habit of calling you Leach. But you aren’t Leach to me any longer. Of course, Bernice. Where do you want it sent?”
Bernice didn’t expect that it would have to be sent anywhere; she wanted to have it in her hand to present to her next employer. But seeing Mrs. Burrmann in such congenial helpful spirits, she didn’t worry to insist on taking the reference with her. “Well, I have a’ appointment with a Mistress Wolfe in the Bridal Path, tomorrow afternoon …” Bernice began. And she searched in her handbag for the address, and gave it to Mrs. Burrmann, who wrote it down and returned the paper to Bernice. “I already talked to her on the ’phone, and she seems interested. But she want to see a reference first before I can start the work next week.”
It was a long time, a space of more than a week, before Bernice would remember this conversation. She had seen three other women, all in Rosedale, and had told them they could get her references from Mrs. Burrmann of Forest Hill. They never called her back. But she was happy. At last she had learned the truth about Mrs. Burrmann. In future she would give references that were from Barbados, and she would say she was in the country only a few months, or one year; and if she suspected reservations on their parts, she would show them her passport which had stamped on it (not Domestic) Immigrant “Landed” Immigrant “Recu,” and beneath these two lines, in a stamped box, an imperial crown of Great Britain, Canada Immigration, Toronto, in block letters and the date AUG 12 1960; and beside this, the scratches signifying that a human hand had witnessed it. “Live and learn, child!” Bernice said to herself, when she hit upon this plan. “Live and learn.”
The very next day, she presented herself back in Rosedale, of all places, as Miss Bernice Leach. “Yes, ma’am, I am from Barbados originally, but I am living her now, let me see, ahh-mmm, one year clear running into a year and a half. I have experience in this job stretching to many years in Barbados, having worked at Government House in Barbados, whiching as you know, mistress, is the same position as being chief cook and bottle-washer heh-heh-heh! for your governor-general of this province o’ Ontario. Now, mistress, you would agree that it isn’t everybody in Rosedale who have a maid with credentials to match mine …”
Bernice didn’t have to say more. Mrs. Asquith Marlborough Breighington-Kelly was a young enough woman to appreciate the importance of the snob value of having black hands in her kitchen that had worked for royalty, even if only in the West Indies; having a “coloured maid, darling, who has worked for royalty and excellency in the islands, in Jamaica, darling, would you believe it?” She was wealthy as she was young as she was beautiful. And she was very beautiful. And she gave Bernice three hundred and seventy-five dollars a month; permission to sleep “wherever the hell you want to sleep, darling, and with whom, too! hah-hah!” and a large apartment in the basement, to rest during the toils of the day.
“And Jesus Christ, look I already went to the expense of renting an apartment!” Bernice regretted. “If only Estelle wasn’t here to weigh me down!” Mrs. A.M. Breighington-Kelly even hinted that Bernice would be going with them each year to the Bahamas. Mr. Asquith Marlborough Breighington-Kelly was under forty, and was a millionaire already.
Bernice went home to Dots, rejoicing. She was shaking with nervousness to tell Dots and Boysie and Estelle the good news. “Christ, if I could only get rid of Estelle, I could save money like water! But after all, Estelle is …”
Mrs. Breighington-Kelly too waited excitedly to tell her husband, with a martini in her hand and a martini in his hand; and laughing, and “… what made me engage her, darling, was that she’s the most marvellous liar in the world! She had just showed me her passport which said she entered Canada in 1960, and she still insisted she has been here only one and a half years! She’s beautiful, she’s marvellous! I took her because I knew you would have done the same thing, had you interviewed her … and darling, darling? She’s not young, hah-hah! … but all the time I was thinking of that Jewish woman, Mrs. Burrmann, and the things she said … imagine calling me to tell me that … and I hired Bernice simply because of the things that bitch told me on the telephone. Oh, Bernice is marvellous! You must meet Bernice! … hah-hah-hah!”
What was it? What was it? Boysie kept looking round the room. He looked as carefully as he could, when Henry wasn’t watching. And still he couldn’t find the answer. What was it? What was it? he wondered, about this room that made it look so strange from
