The Crimson Petal and the White

by Michel Faber

  Lively little place, this, thinks Rackham, momentarily forgetting why he’s come. A bit on the warm side, though! As the singer warbles on and the rubato hurly-burly of the piano is half-submerged in waves of laughter, William does what he can — pulling off his gloves, unbuttoning his coat, smoothing down his hair. His table is right next to a cast-iron column, and affixed to that column is a notice saying: ‘GENTLEMEN ARE PARTICULARLY REQUESTED NOT TO PLACE CIGARS ON THE TABLE, AND NOT TO TAKE LIGHTS FROM THE CHANDELIERS, BUT FROM THE GAS-LIGHTS FIXED FOR THAT PURPOSE.’ William has no desire to smoke, but vapour issues from his person nonetheless: his damp clothing is beginning to steam. His skin prickles with sweat and his ample ears are, he knows, glowing red. How grateful he is when the serving-maid hurries back to him, bearing aloft a big tumbler of beer! She can obviously tell how thirsty he must be, bless her heart!

  ‘Capital!’ he exclaims above the song, then cranes his head around, wondering why the singing is growing louder: are there more tenors up there than he thought? But no, it’s the Fireside regulars joining in.

  ‘Swearing, yelling, all the throng,’ they croon, between sips of beer.

  ‘With jest obscene and ribald song,

  They pass the weary hours long,

  Of a night in a London workhouse …’

  You who, like William, are visiting The Fireside for the first time, may wonder: how can these revellers sing of horror in such jolly voices? See them tap their feet and nod their heads to the plight of the destitute — is no other part of them moved? Why yes, of course it is! They fairly worship at the altar of pity! But what can be done? Here in The Fireside, no one is to blame (except perhaps God, in his infinite wisdom). Wrapped up in a good tune, poverty takes its place of honour amongst all the other singalong calamities: the military defeats, the shipwrecks, the broken hearts — Death itself.

  A little nervously William scans The Fireside for female clientele. There are plenty of women in the place, but all of them seem to be taken; perhaps Sugar is one of these, a worm caught by an early bird. (Or should that be the other way around?) He surveys the assortment a second time, sizing up the physiques as best he can through the haze of cigar smoke and whatever else is in the way. None of the bodies he sees fits Sugar’s description, even allowing for the fact that More Sprees may have stretched the truth.

  William prefers to believe Sugar isn’t here yet. That’s good: his ears have stopped burning now, and should fade (God willing) by the time he has to make a good impression. He sips at his glass of ale, finds it so much to his liking that he pours it down his throat and immediately orders another. The serving-maid has a pretty body; he hopes Sugar’s, when he uncovers it, is at least half as nice.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he winks, but she’s already gone, serving someone else. Cost fan tutte, eh? William leans back, listening to the words of the tenor’s next song.

  ‘One day I’ll dine on pheasants and grouse

  And cocktails in fine crystal glasses

  And roast pigs with apples stuck in their mouths

  And silver spits shoved up their arses …’

  The Fireside regulars chortle: this one’s the latest favourite from the bawdy sheet-music sellers of Seven Dials.

  ‘Me spotted dick puddin’ will be such a size

  Four footmen will carry it in!

  But for now I’ll survive on porter and pies

  For me ship ain’t quite come in.’

  ‘Oh!’ the audience joins in,

  ‘me ship ain’t quite come in,

  It’s subject to delay;

  Me ship ain’t quite come in,

  It’s expected any day.

  When me ship comes in, the grin on me chin

  Will never go away

  But me ship ain’t quite — me ship ain’t quite –

  Me ship ain’t quite come in!’

  William chuckles. Not bad, not bad! Why has he never heard of The Fireside before? Do Bodley and Ashwell know of it? And if not, how would he describe it to them?

  Well …of course it’s a few rungs below top class — a good few rungs. But it’s a damn sight better than some of the sorry establishments Bodley and Ashwell have dragged him along to. (‘This is the place, Bill, I’m almost sure of it!’ ‘Almost sure?’ ‘Well, to be wholly sure, I’d have to lie down on the floor and study the ceiling.’) The Fireside is innocent of anything too common: there’s not a pewter mug in sight, but all good glass, and the beer is light and frothy. The floors are tiled rather than wooden, and there’s no fake marble anywhere. Most tellingly of all, unlike the haunts of low men, it doesn’t stay open all hours, but closes, demurely, at midnight. Which suits Rackham: all the shorter will he have to wait for his sweet Cinderella.

  ‘Millie, me wife, will be chuffed with ‘er life

  She’ll change ‘er name to Octavia

  There won’t be no strife, no need for me knife

  In our smart new abode in Belgravia.

  We’ll ‘ave fat tums, we’ll bring all our chums,

  I can’t ‘ardly wait to begin

  But I’m twiddlin’ me thumbs in these ‘ere slums

  For me ship ain’t quite come in.’

  It’s time for the chorus, and the regulars sing it with gusto. William merely hums, not wishing to attract attention. (Ah, but didn’t he once sing bawdy songs, in a louder and fruitier baritone than … Oh, sorry, you’ve heard that already …)

  When the song is over, William joins in the applause. There’s a reshuffling of patrons as people stand to leave and others venture in the door. Leaning over his beer-glass, Rackham tries to keep track of anything in skirts, hoping to catch his first glimpse of the girl with the ‘hazel eyes of rare penetration’. However, his own gaze must be more penetrating than he imagines, for when his eyes alight briefly on a trio of unattached young women, they rear up, all three, from their seats.

  He tries to look away, but it’s too late: they’re moving directly towards him, a phalanx of taffeta and lace. They’re smiling — showing too many teeth. In fact, they have too much of everything: too much hair spilling out from under their too-elaborate bonnets, too much powder on their cheeks, too many bows on their dresses, and overly flaccid Columbine cuffs swirling around their clutching pink hands.

  ‘Good evenin’, sir, may we sit down?’

  William cannot refuse them as he refused the sheet-music seller: the laws of etiquette — or the laws of anatomy — won’t allow it. He smiles and nods his head, shifting his new hat onto his lap for fear it might get sat on. One of the whores swings into the space thus vacated, and her two companions jostle for the remainder.

  ‘A honour, sir.’

  They’re pretty enough, though William would like them better if they didn’t appear to be dressed for a box at the opera, and if their combined scent weren’t quite so pungent. Pressed close together like this, they smell like a barrowful of cut flowers on a humid day; William wonders if it’s a Rackham perfume that’s responsible. Ifso, his father has more to answer for than parsimony.

  Still, he reminds himself, these girls are better-looking than most, peach-firm and unblemished — more expensive, possibly, than Sugar. There’s just … rather a surfeit of them, that’s all, crammed into such a small space.

  ‘You’re too ‘andsome to sit alone, sir.’

  ‘You’re the kind of man as should ‘ave a pretty woman on ‘is arm — or three.’

  The third girl only snorts, outdone by her comrades’ wit.

  William avoids meeting their stares openly, fearing to find in those bright eyes the presumption, the insolence, of inferiors seeking to wrest control from their master. Sugar won’t behave this way, will she? She’d better not.

  ‘You flatter me, ladies,’ says William. He looks away, wishing for rescue. The closest whore leans closer still, her lips pouting open not far from his, and whispers loudly,

  ‘You’re not waiting for a man friend, are you?’

  ‘No,’ says William, smooth
ing the back of his hair nervously. Does his tufty mop make him look like a sodomite? Should he have kept it long? Or should he get it cut shorter still? God, will he have to shave his head bald before his indignity is subdued? ‘I’m waiting for a girl called Sugar.’

  All three whores erupt in a pantomime of offence and disappointment.

  ‘Won’t I do, ducks?’ ‘You’ve broke my ‘eart, sir!’ and so forth.

  Rackham doesn’t respond, but continues to gaze at the door, hoping to make clear to The Fireside’s other customers that these women have no connection with him. The more he leans away, however, the more they push to be near him.

  ‘Sugar, eh?’

  ‘A true connoisseur, you are.’

  Crude laughter erupts from a nearby table, making William wince. The tenor is having a rest from singing; is the humiliation of the hapless Rackham now to be The Fireside’s entertainment? William casts his eye over the throng of patrons, and locates the folk who are laughing — but they have their backs to him. The joke is on someone else.

  ‘What do you like, then?’ one of the whores asks, brightly, as though enquiring how he takes his tea. ‘Come on, sir, you can tell me. Speak in riddles, I’ll understand.’

  ‘No need,’ pronounces the closest one. ‘I can see in his eyes what ‘e wants.’ Her companions turn to look at her, intrigued. She pauses with a music hall comic’s sense oftiming, then boasts simply: ‘It’s …a gift I ‘ave. A secret gift.’

  All three begin to laugh then, open-mouthed, indecent, and within moments their hilarity has escalated to the brink of hysteria.

  ‘Well, what does ‘e want then?’ one of them manages to demand, but the soothsayer, convulsed in giggles, has trouble replying.

  ‘Hurm … Huhurm …Hum …’ — wiping her eyes – ‘Oh-ho! You naughty, naughty girl – ‘Ow could you even ask? A secret’s a secret, innit, sir?’

  William squirms, his ears once again flaming.

  ‘Really now,’ he mutters. ‘I don’t see that this is called for.’

  ‘Quite right, quite right, sir,’ she says and, to the delight of her companions, she mimes a furtive peek into William’s hidden heart, then recoils in burlesque shock at what she spies there. ‘Oh no, sir,’ she gasps, covering her open mouth with slack fingers. ‘P’raps you’d better wait for Sugar after all.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of her, sir,’ says one of the others. ‘She talks tripe all day long. Now come on ducks, why not give me a try?’ She strokes her throat with her fingertips. ‘You wouldn’t be getting second best, you know. I’m just as good as any of the Castaway girls.’

  William again casts a longing glance towards the door. If he leaps up and storms out of The Fireside now, will every man, woman and beast in the place hoot with glee?

  ‘’Ere,’ says one of the girls, folding her arms on the table, framing (as best she can with her fashionably tight bodice) her bosom in her forearms. “Ere, tell us about yerself, sir.’ The prankishness has abruptly vanished from her face; she’s almost deferential.

  ‘Let me guess,’ says the one who had seemed shy. ‘Writer.’

  The casually aimed epithet lands on William’s face like a blow, or a caress. What can he do but turn to face the girl, and, impressed, say ‘Yes’?

  ‘An extrawdry life, I’m sure,’ opines the soothsayer.

  All three whores are serious now, keen to make amends for ruffling his dignity.

  ‘I write,’ elaborates William, ‘for the better monthly reviews. I’m a critic — and a novelist.’

  ‘Cor. Wha’s’name o’ one o’ yer books?’

  William chooses from among the many he means, one day, to produce. ‘Mammon O’erthrown,’ he says.

  Two of the girls just grin, but the shy one mummels her lips like a fish, silently testing whether she could possibly repeat such an exotic title. None of the whores is about to mention that The Fireside is infested with critics and would-be novelists.

  ‘Hunt’s the name,’ improvises William. ‘George W. Hunt.’ Inwardly, he cringes in shame, a four-legged creature in the shadow of his father’s derision, a sham. Go home and read about the cost of manure! is the nagging command, but William quells it with a gulp of ale.

  The most forward of the whores narrows her eyes pensively, as if bothered by a conundrum.

  ‘And Mr ‘Unt wants Sugar,’ she says. ‘And Sugar only. Now what, oh what, might Mr ‘Unt … want? Hmmmm?’

  Her nearest crony answers, quick as a flash.

  ‘’E might want to discuss books wiv ‘er.’

  ‘Cor.’

  ‘Georgie got no critic friends, then?’ ‘Sad life.’

  The beleaguered Rackham smiles stoically. No one new has entered The Fireside for what seems like a long time.

  ‘Nice weather we’re ‘avin’,’ remarks the least forward of the whores, out of the blue. ‘Not at all bad for November.’

  ‘If yer like snow and rain,’ mutters one of the others, idly picking up folds of her dress and making them stand up in little mountain peaks of serge.

  ‘Special tastes, our Mr ‘Unt’s got, remember.’

  ‘All set for Christmas, are yer, sir?’

  ‘Fancy unwrappin’ a present early?’ Pink fingers pluck suggestively at a shawl, and William glances once again at the door.

  ‘Maybe she won’t come,’ suggests the boldest whore. ‘Sugar, I mean.’ ‘Sshhh, don’t tease him.’

  ‘You’d be better off with me, ducks. I know a thing or two about lidderature. I’ve ‘ad all the great names. I’ve ‘ad Charles Dickens.’ ‘Ain’t ‘e dead?’

  ‘Not the bit I sucked on, dear.’

  ‘Dead five years or more. Hignorant, you are.’

  ‘It was ‘im, I tell yer. I didn’t say it was last week, did I?’ She sniffs pathetically. ‘I was no more than a babe.’

  The others snicker. Then, as if by a mutually understood signal, they all three turn serious, and lean their faces towards him, fetchingly tilted. They look just like yesterday’s counterfeit ‘twins’, with an extra sibling added, an inedible third scoop of gateau.

  ‘All three of us together, for the one price,’ says the soothsayer, licking her lips. ‘How about it?’

  ‘Awf–’ stammers Rackham, ‘awfully tempting, I’m sure. But you see.

  At that moment The Fireside’s door swings open and in walks a solitary woman. A whiff of fresh air comes in with her, as well as the sound of wild weather outside, cut off in mid-howl by the sealing of the door, like a cry stifled under a hand. The pall of cigar smoke parts momentarily, then mingles with the smell of rain.

  The woman is all in black — no, dark green. Green darkened by the downpour. Her shoulders are drenched, the fabric of her bodice clinging tight to her prominent collar-bones, and her thin arms are sheathed in dappled chlorella. A sprinkling of unabsorbed water still glistens on her simple bonnet and on the filmy grey veil that hangs from it. Her abundant hair, not flame-red just now but black and orange like neglected coal embers, is all disordered, and loose curls of it are dripping.

  For an instant she quivers, irritably, like a dog, then regains her composure. Turning to the bar, she greets the publican, unheard over the clamour of conversation, and raises her arms to lift her veil. Sharp shoulder-blades writhe inside wet fabric as she bares her face, unseen as yet by Rackham. There is a long stain of wetness all down her back, shaped like a tongue or an arrowhead, pointing down towards her skirts.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asks William.

  The three whores sigh almost in unison.

  ‘That’s her, ducks.’

  ‘Go to it, Mr ‘Unt. ‘Appy criticism’.’

  Sugar has turned, and is scanning The Fireside for a place to sit. The boldest whore, the soothsayer, stands up and waves, motioning her over to William’s table.

  ‘Sugar dear! Over here! Meet …Mr ‘Unt.’

  Sugar walks directly to William’s table, as if it was her destination from the first. Although she must be responding to
the whore’s hello, she doesn’t acknowledge her, and sets her sights on Rackham alone. Almost within arm’s reach, she calmly regards William with those hazel eyes which, as promised in More Sprees in London, do indeed appear golden — at least in the lights of The Fireside.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Hunt.’ Her voice is not overly feminine, rather hoarse even, but wholly free of class coarseness. ‘I don’t wish to interrupt you and your friends.’

  ‘We was just leavin’,’ says the soothsayer, rising and, as if on strings, pulling up her companions with her. ‘It’s you ‘e’s after.’ And with that, gathering their surplus of taffeta together, they retreat.

  Don’t bother even to glance after them; they are persons of no consequence (is there no end to them?), and they have outlived their use. William stares at the woman he has come for, unable to decide whether her face is annoyingly imperfect (mouth too wide, eyes too far apart, dry skin, freckles) or the most beautiful he has ever seen. With every passing second, he is closer to making up his mind.

  At his request, Sugar sits down at his side, her wet skirts rustling and squeaking, her upper body smelling of fresh rain and fresh sweat. She has been running, it seems — something that no reputable woman would ever, ever do. But the flush it has brought to her cheeks is damned attractive, and she smells divine. Several locks of hair have come loose from her elaborately styled fringe, and these sway in front of her eyes. With a languid motion of one gloved hand, she gently pushes them aside, to the furry edges of her eyebrows. She smiles, sharing with William the rueful understanding that there is a limit to what one may hope for once one’s plans have gone awry.

  The state she’s in is certainly unladylike, but in all other respects she radiates surprisingly good breeding. And yet …a breed of what? She could be the daughter of foreign royalty, deposed in an unexpected revolt, driven through midnight forests in the pelting rain, head high, regal even while hair swirls round her face, shoulders erect while a wounded servant fusses to cover them with his fur-lined coat … (Do bear with William, if you can stand it, while he indulges himself a little here. He read a lot of racy French novels in the early Sixties when he was supposed to be studying the defeats of the Hittites.)