by Michel Faber
‘I imagine it was from William’s house that Lady Bridgelow came.’
‘Certainly not from church,’ remarks Mrs Fox. ‘But tell me, Henry: I didn’t know your brother was apt to receive visits from the aristocracy.’
‘Well, they are neighbours, after a fashion.’ (It’s all coming back to him now; William has told him a great deal about this person, as though he ought to be fearfully interested in her.)
‘Neighbours? There must be a dozen houses in between.’
‘Yes, but…’ Henry strains to recall the last conversation he had with his brother. Suicide was part of it, was it not? ‘Oh yes: William is the only one who doesn’t hold it against her that her husband did away with himself.’
‘Did away with himself?’
‘Yes, shot himself I believe.’
‘Poor man. Couldn’t he simply have divorced her instead?’ ‘Mrs Fox!’
A small dog stationed just outside the gate to William Rackham’s property raises its mongrel head in hope, then begins to lick its genitals, unaware that this is not the way to earn respect.
‘Don’t look, Mrs Fox,’ urges Henry, as he ushers her through.
Emmeline turns, but sees only a dog appealing to her with soulful brown eyes as the gate shuts in its face. Poor thing, she thinks.
‘Could it be William’s?’ she says as they walk up the Rackham path together.
‘William has no pets I know of.’
‘He might have got one since we last visited.’
‘In which case I don’t imagine he’d settle for a mongrel.’
Henry stands at his brother’s front door (the door that could have been his own, garlanded with an ornate brass ‘R’), and pulls the bell. Even before the cord stops swinging, he is aware that much has changed in the Rackham house since he visited, sans Mrs Fox, several weeks ago. Maybe it’s the way the brass ‘R’ gleams, transmuted almost into gold by vigorous polishing. Maybe it’s the way the doorbell is answered in seconds rather than minutes, or the way Letty greets them so avidly, as though a fresh coat of obsequiousness has just been applied to her. Behind her, inside the receiving hall, everything is on show, sparkling and dust-free.
‘Come in, come in!’ exclaims William Rackham, half-way up the stairs, waving jovially. Henry scarcely recognises him: a dark curly fungus is sprouting from William’s upper lip and chin, while the hair on his head has been cut even shorter, plastered flat to his scalp. Far from wearing his Sunday best, he’s in a weekday suit minus the jacket, plus an ankle-length dressing-gown with quilted lapels. At his extremities, he brandishes a magnifying glass, a cigar, and the most peculiar two-tone shoes. Yet it’s his beaming smile that is the most conspicuous novelty.
Thus begins the great exhibition. Mind you don’t slip on the newly waxed floor!
‘Step this way, step this way.’
Guided by the master of the house, brother Henry and his companion are shown everything. The melancholy atmosphere of the Rackham home, which had become like a characteristic odour, has been banished. All the windows have been replaced; the old steps have been removed from the garden; new French windows have been screwed into the parlour door. The whole place smells of paint, wallpaper paste and fresh air. To Henry’s mortification, there are three workmen still at large in the hall, pasting up the last few strips of a new wallpaper, under the critical eye of Agnes, who has left her bed in order to supervise.
And did Henry not notice that the fence around the grounds is no longer rusty brown but fresh rose-pink? No? Ha!Ha! In a world of his own, this brother of mine, as always! And what about the grounds themselves? What a difference, eh? The gardener’s name is Shears — really! Isn’t that exquisite? Shears! Ha!Ha! A little mule of a man: just the fellow to bring the unruly wilds around the greenhouse back into Man’s dominion.
Nor are the house and its environs the only things subject to reform. William Rackham has a great many other fish to fry, or at least to be fried for him. The servants, for example.
Everything that was wrong has been set to rights. Janey has been relieved of her extra duties and is a simple scullery maid again, overjoyed no doubt to be responsible only for mops, rags and brushes. A new kitchen-maid has been hired, who’ll also assist Letty in some of her duties, so that Letty can be more prompt in her attention to the needs of visitors and the family. There’s another housemaid on the way too. William now has a pretty full complement of females; he can’t hire any more until he lives in a much grander house (the future, the future!) He could hire another male, but he’s undecided what kind. The gardener is an impressive acquisition, and moreover essential, but the idea of a manservant doesn’t particularly appeal. A coachman? Hmm … yes, but actually he’s holding off hiring one of those until he gets a coach. And who knows? He may not get a coach after all. He’s too busy nowadays to waste time riding around showing off. Though perhaps if Agnes has a need in the coming Season, he’ll buy her a coach then.
Mind you, there’s nothing like the prestige that comes with male servants. Female servants aren’t the same: any shop-keeper or pennywise matron can afford one or two. Still, the gardener’s a grand beginning, isn’t he? The lawns will be rescued from anarchy yet!
Yes, William Rackham is a changed man: that’s plain. He has now the air of a man for whom there’s never enough time in the day: a twenty-four hour man. It’s an Augean labour, this perfume business, but someone’s got to do it, now that the old man is on the way out. (What? No, Father’s quite well, it was just a figure of speech.) But it’s a big job, that’s the point, a seven-day-a-week job. (Don’t scowl, dear brother: again, just a manner of speaking. How was church? Would’ve loved to attend, but had these workmen to supervise. What? The Sabbath? Oh, quite, quite. But the job was only a few sheets short of being finished, and these fellows begged to come today and be done with it. Jews, I shouldn’t wonder.)
To discourage his brother from censure, William launches into a panegyric on perfume: the miracle of its mysterious mechanisms. Scents, like sounds (he explains) stroke our olfactory nerve in exquisite and exact degrees. There’s an octave of odours like an octave in music. The top note is what we notice when the headiest element dies off the handkerchief; the middle note, or modifier, provides full, solid character to the fragrance; then, once the more volatile substances have flown, the base, or end, note is left resonating: and what is that end note, brother? Lavender, if you please!
Expansively, William plays the host to Henry and Mrs Fox. Tea and cake are served, perfectly on time, perfectly presented. And, while his guests make appreciative noises, he sizes them up in comparison to himself.
Of Mrs Fox he thinks: Ashwell’s right — her face is just like a greyhound’s. I wonder if she’s as ill as she looks.
And of his brother Henry: How ill-at-ease he appears, as if he has boils on his bum. Strange that it’s come to this, when, of the two of us, it was always Henry who cut the better figure … yet here we are on this sunny Sunday afternoon, and lo and behold: it’s left to me to demonstrate how a man may subjugate Life and make it do his bidding.
‘Thank you both for paying this visit,’ he says to them, when it’s time they were going.
Mrs Fox, thoughtlessly usurping Henry’s right to speak first, replies, ‘Not at all, Mr Rackham. The energy with which you’ve pursued the improvements to your house, why, it’s … startling. The world sorely needs such energy — especially in other arenas.’
‘You are too kind,’ says William.
‘Yes, too kind,’ echoes Agnes, adding these three words to the approximately twenty she’s contributed to the conversation. Beautifully turned out though she is, in powder blue and black, she hasn’t yet regained the knack of conversing with the world.
‘I hope,’ says William as he passes his guests into Letty’s care, ‘that you find enjoyable diversions for the rest of the day.’
Henry, bristling at this suggestion that he and Mrs Fox might seek to use God’s day for selfish entertainment, repl
ies, ‘I’m sure Mrs Fox and I will spend it as … fittingly as we can.’
And on this note, Henry and Mrs Fox are shown out.
Quiet descends on the Rackham house — or at least, such quiet as can prevail with the paperers packing up their tools in the hall. William, a little hoarse from his performance, lights a cigarette. Agnes sits nearby, staring with unfocused eyes at a biscuit she will not eat. The oxalate of cerium pill she swallowed with her tea is already disagreeing with her.
After a good five minutes, she says: ‘It’s Sunday, then?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘I thought it was Saturday.’ ‘Sunday, dear.’
Another long pause follows. Surreptitiously, Agnes scratches at her wrists, which have grown unaccustomed to the tight sleeves of daywear and the texture of anything but cotton. She clasps her hands together, to stop herself scratching any more. Then:
‘Are they really Jews?’
‘Who, dear?’
‘The workmen here today.’
‘With what I’m paying them extra,’ snorts William, ‘they might as well be. But you know it pains me to keep my precious little wife waiting for anything she deserves.’
Agnes lowers her face and plays with her tiny fingers, confused. Her renovated husband is going to take getting used to. And, if she’s going to take part in the Season this year, she’ll have to get a firmer grip on what day it is.
Having said goodbye to Mrs Fox and watched her walk away, Henry returns to his own modest home in Gorham Place, on the very brink of Pottery-and-Piggery-land. The meeting with William has left him flustered, despite Mrs Fox’s sensible parting advice not to judge his brother too harshly for his vulgar and impious behaviour. ‘He’s just a boy with a new toy,’ she counselled him, and no doubt she’s right, but still … what an embarrassment. And what a reliefto go back to his own house, his own small retreat, where nothing ever changes, and everything is plain and functional, and there isn’t a servant to be seen (except himself, servant to the Lord).
In truth, Henry’s house is a little shabbier than modest. It’s among the smallest in the district, with no grounds except a minuscule back garden, and a bedroom whose opposite walls can be touched by the fingertips of a man extending his arms Christ-wise. It’s also poorly sealed and draughty, and at nights the smell of boiling pig fat is wont to come in through the windows, but this has never troubled Henry. The great mass of mankind must make do with much worse.
In any case, he’s suspicious of too much comfort — it breeds thoughtlessness. Kneeling at his hearth, he prepares a nest of kindling, lights it, ladles lumps of coal into it one by one. Thus is he reminded of what he’s taking from God’s earth, and of how each twig and coal-lump is a privilege — an advantage he has over the unfortunates who shiver their lives away in perpetual subterranean damp. To help the reluctant flame rise, he adds a few pages from old copies of the Illustrated London News, screwing up engravings of rail disasters, fashionable ice-skaters and visiting Negro potentates. An article extolling the miracle of electricity crumples in his fist; he has read it and was not impressed. ‘Professor Gallup astounded the audience with tales of a future in which we shall scarcely be able to distinguish day from night, and there will be nothing we do that is not dependent on electric machinery.’ A vision of Hell.
As soon as the fire grows warm, Henry’s cat saunters into the room from parts unknown. Her name is simply Puss, scrupulously to avoid treating her too much like a human being, or perhaps to soften the blow of her inevitable loss. She lies down on the ember-blackened rug, and allows her master to stroke her furry flank.
Soon, Henry has settled into a typical Sunday afternoon. While Puss sleeps in the sitting-room, he sits in the adjacent study, reading the Bible. Regrettably, the walls that divide his sanctum sanctorum from the outside world are thin, and true silence is difficult to come by. Life goes on, and isn’t shy to let him know it.
At every sound that betrays someone nearby spending the Sabbath in ways other than those approved by God, Henry frowns in disappointment. He does nothing on the Lord’s day but attend church twice, visit his brother, converse with Mrs Fox (if the opportunity arises), and read pious literature. But listen there, through the window! Isn’t that the sound of a large object being loaded onto a cart, with shouted instructions? And isn’t that the excited barking of a dog, encouraged by the whistle of its owner? And listen there! Wasn’t that a child yelping ‘Hoop-la’? Has the whole world become a mob of Sunday workers and merry-makers, dancing behind his brother William into a fog of self-gratification?
For Henry, the Sabbath is something far more profound than a test of obedience. Like so many of God’s laws, it appears stern and arbitrary when really it’s as kind and wise as a mother’s nurture. (Not that Henry has very clear memories of maternal love, his own mother having vanished from his childhood like a snowman on a rainy night, but he’s read testimonials.) The frantic pace of modern life permits us not a moment’s peace; only by obeying the fourth Commandment are we enfolded in the blessed embrace of stillness. And let it not be said that Henry is too much the scholar to appreciate the urge to run with a dog or kick a ball; he is a man who once swam across the Cam fully-clothed in December on a dare, who rowed like a demon, fenced like a fiend, and ran cross-country as though powered by steam. But what did such exertions win him? His name inscribed on silver-plated trophies; the ruin of many shoes; the admiration of cronies he’d rather forget. The firm handshake of Bodley, congratulating him on a fine afternoon’s cricket. (‘Top-notch sportsman, that Rackham! Frightful bore when he gasses about the ills of the world, but get him off that subject and he’s as decent a chap as ever lived!’) Henry hopes God will forgive him for playing foolish games while England burned, and for accepting the friendship of blasphemers. Now he reads the Bible, murmuring the words to himself until the combined strength of his voice and the Lord’s drowns out the noise of Sabbath-breakers.
During the week, Henry is still a restless man. He chops firewood into smaller pieces than he needs; he walks to Mrs Fox’s street in Bayswater in case she should emerge from her house at the precise moment that he strolls past, then carries on to Hyde Park and beyond; it’s nothing for him to walk all the way to Kensal Green Cemetery on no particular errand. But on Sunday, he rests, and he reads the Bible, and he wishes all men and women would do the same.
Let us leave Henry to his Book of Nehemiah now, and rejoin William Rackham in his hive of industry. He is wandering around his severely pruned grounds, smoking a pipe — oh no, that’s not William, is it? It’s another short-haired man of middling stature: Shears, the gardener. Where’s William, then? The workmen have departed, and Mrs Rackham has retired upstairs. Where is the man of the house? Gone to town, if you ask Letty.
Sundays in the heart of London can be quite entertaining — more lively, anyway, than in Notting Hill. We find William walking in the Embankment Gardens, watching a variety of impious souls at play. In defiance of the by-laws, there are people boating on the Thames, fishing, playing football, flying pigeons. He’s not implicated in their activities, as he merely walks a straight path through them, but they do amuse him in passing. No one could possibly mistake him for one of these poor toilers filling their one free day with strenuous pleasure; he’s set apart by his superior attire and his purposeful stride.
What an agreeable circus the world is!he thinks, watching here the antics of the pigeon-fanciers, and there the struggles of weekend swells to launch their giggling lady-loves upon the Thames’s dark waters. He has, after so long, rediscovered the simple pleasure of being a spectator rather than (what to call it?) a …an introspectator (jolly good, yes, he must use that somewhere).
No more brooding! Instead, look outward! Excellent mottos for any man, especially one whose bank has suddenly changed its tune from reproach to rapprochement. The experience of seeing his debts vaporise and his assets multiply, nought by nought and acre by acre, has taken William’s mind off himself. Or, more precise
ly, he no longer seeks himself within himself; instead, he watches William Rackham, head of Rackham Perfumeries, doing this and doing that, causing effects, achieving results.
On another path from William’s rides a man on a velocipede, the perspiration on his forehead brilliant in the sunlight, his eyes bulging with concentration on the path before him. His cap is jammed tight onto his head to discourage it blowing off, and under its brim there flaps a clownish fuzz of wind-mussed hair. Poor deluded fellow! He’d be better off getting it cut short, as the head of Rackham Perfumeries has done. Long hair is an affectation from a bygone age: this is the look oftomorrow.
As he walks, William touches his sideboards; they’re joining up nicely with his newly-grown moustache and beard which, unlike the hair on his scalp, are not blond, but a rich dark brown. It isn’t vanity that makes him look forward to seeing himself in a mirror: it’s the lushness of the brown he likes, in a more abstract aesthetic sense; it needn’t even be hair, it could be tobacco, tree-bark, a fresh coat of paint.
A football rolls onto the path before him, and without a second thought he shoots it back to the players with a swift kick: shoe-shines, after all, he can now afford by the thousand.
He’s pleased, too, that the police have been bribed, with shillings and free beer, to allow a few ale-houses to break the Sabbath, for he finds he’s getting thirsty walking. Perhaps he should have got a cab all the way to the bottling factory, rather than taking this detour through the park, but the weather was so superb, it seemed a shame to waste it. Then there’s the matter of his digestion: he ate rather too much at lunch, and this constitutional will hasten an evacuation.
If there’s one thing he doesn’t want this afternoon, it’s to be lying in Sugar’s arms with a chamber pot full of his own faeces stinking under the bed. (Could he arrange to have a water closet installed in her room? Ah: the future, the future.)
The last half-mile to the bottling factory is a half-mile too far: he commandeers a cab. No sense tiring himself out and, besides, the factory is in unappealing surroundings. On either side of it, grimy rented lock-ups for costermongers’ barrows and, all along the street, slimy remains of fruit and vegetables too far gone for scavenging.