The Crimson Petal and the White

by Michel Faber

  ‘Better than that tiresome Doctor Crane,’ Agnes adds. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why I bother nowadays. He’s always warning me against things I haven’t the least notion of doing …’

  And so the evening goes on, forkful by forkful, with Agnes shouldering the greatest burden of conversation (fortified by frequent sips of red wine), while William gazes in growing dismay at the pathetic figure his brother has become.

  Over and over, Henry alludes — when he can bestir himself to speak at all — to the gross futility of all endeavour, at least where his own worthless person is concerned. His voice is erratic, dropping to a mumble at times, then swelling with bitter vehemence, or even sarcasm — shockingly unlike him. All the while, his big hands are busy cutting the grouse into smaller and smaller pieces which, to William’s annoyance, he then mashes into the vegetables and leaves uneaten.

  ‘You are kinder than I deserve,’ he sighs, in response to yet more warm encouragement from his hostess. ‘You and … and Mrs Fox see me in a very different light from what I know to be true …’

  Agnes shoots a glance at William, her bright eyes pleading permission to mention the forbidden woman. He writes restraint over and over on his wrinkled brow, but she’s unable to read the lines, and immediately exclaims: ‘Mrs Fox is quite right, Henry: quite right! You’re a man of rare sincerity, in matters of faith: I know it! I’ve a special intuition about these things; I can see an aura around people’s heads — no, don’t frown at me, William. It’s true! Faith shines out of people like … like the haze around a gas-lamp. No, William, it’s true.’ She leans across the table towards Henry, her bosom almost touching her uneaten food, her face disconcertingly close to a flaming candelabrum, and engages him mock-conspiratorially. ‘Look at your brother over there, shushing me furiously. He hasn’t a God-fearing bone in his–’ She stops short, and smiles demurely. ‘But honestly, Henry, you mustn’t think so ill of yourself. You’re more devout than anybody I know.’

  Henry squirms in embarrassment. ‘Please,’ he says, ‘I’m sure your food is getting cold.’

  Agnes ignores this; she’s in her own home and can eat as little as she pleases — which is very little indeed. ‘Once upon a time,’ she pursues, ‘William told me a story. He said that when you were a boy, you heard a sermon which insisted that nowadays, in modern times, God speaks only through the Scriptures, not directly into our ears. William said you were so angry about this sermon that you starved yourself, and denied yourself sleep, just like the prophets of old, only to hear God speak!’ She clasps her tiny hands, and smiles, and nods, thus wordlessly letting him know that she has done the same, and felt, as reward, the breath of the divine whisper on the back of her neck.

  Henry fixes his brother with a glare of anguish.

  ‘We are all of us foolish when we’re young,’ offers William, perspiring freely, and wishing something or someone would breeze into the room and cause half of these damn candles to expire at once. ‘I myself recall saying, when I was a lad, that only men without an ounce of imagination or feeling could possibly become businessmen … ‘

  This manful confession fails to impress Agnes, who has pushed her plates out of her way, and now leans on the tablecloth, the better to continue her heart-to-heart with Henry.

  ‘I like you, Henry,’ she says, slurring the words ever-so-slightly. ‘I’ve always liked you. You should have been a Catholic. Have you ever considered becoming a Catholic, Henry?’

  Mortified, Henry can do nothing but churn his fruit mousse into a browny-yellow porridge with his spoon.

  ‘A change is as good as a holiday,’ Agnes assures him, taking another sip of wine. ‘Or even better. I had a holiday not long ago, and I wasn’t happy at all … ‘

  At this, William grunts in disapproval and, deciding that intervention can be postponed no longer, reaches across the table to shift aside the candelabrum that separates him from his wife.

  ‘Perhaps you’ve had enough wine, dear?’ he suggests, in a firm voice.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Agnes, half-fractious, half-winsome. ‘That salty grouse has made me thirsty.’ And she pecks another sip from the edge of her glass, kissing the red liquid with her rosebud lips.

  ‘We have water on the table, dear, in that decanter,’ William reminds her.

  ‘Thank you dear …’ she says, but she never wavers from staring at Henry, smiling and nodding as if to say, Yes, yes, it’s all right, I understand everything, you needn’t hold back with me.

  ‘I hear, on the grapevine,’ remarks William rather desperately, ‘that Doctor Crane is considering buying the house that was formerly lived in by …ah … what was their name?’

  Agnes chimes in, not with the missing name, but with another defamation of the minister.

  ‘I do hate to go to church and be scolded, don’t you?’ she asks Henry, pouting. ‘What is one a grown-up for, with all its nasty disenchantments, if not to make up one’s own mind?’

  And so it goes on, for another five or ten long, long minutes, while mute servants clear away the dishes, leaving only the wine and the three ill-matched Rackhams. Finally Agnes flags, her head slumping down towards the crook of her elbow, her cheek almost brushing the fabric of her sleeve. The progress of her brow towards her forearm is slow but sure.

  ‘Are you falling asleep, my dear?’ says William.

  ‘Resting my eyes,’ she murmurs.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to rest them on a pillow?’

  He makes the suggestion with not much hope that the words will reach her; or, if they do, he’s half-expecting a peevish rebuff. Instead, she slowly turns her face up to him, her china-blue eyes fluttering closed, and says, ‘Ye-e-es … I’d like that …’

  Nonplussed, William pushes his chair back from the table and folds his napkin in his lap.

  ‘Shall I … shall I ring for Clara to accompany you?’

  Agnes abruptly shores herself up in her seat, blinks once or twice, and bestows upon William a smile of perfect condescension.

  ‘I don’t need Clara to put me to bed, silly,’ she ribs him, rising unsteadily to her feet. ‘What’s she to do, carry me up the stairs?’ Whereupon, pausing only to say goodnight to her guest, Mrs Rackham steps gracefully back from the table, turns on her heel and, with scarcely a sway, pads out of the room.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned …’ mutters William, too flabbergasted to bite his tongue on the blasphemy. In the event, his pious brother seems not to have noticed.

  ‘She is dying, Bill,’ Henry says, staring hard into space.

  ‘What?’ says William, rather taken aback by this suggestion. ‘She’s a touch the worse for drink, that’s all …’

  ‘Mrs Fox,’ says Henry, summoning up, from the depths of his torment, a voice such as might be expected from him in a public debate. ‘She’s dying. Dying. The life is bleeding out of her, each day, before my very eyes … And soon — next week, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, for we cannot know the day or hour, can we? — I shall knock at her father’s door, and a servant will tell me she’s dead.’ Each word is spoken with sour clarity, each word is like a pinch of the fingers extinguishing a feeble flame of hope.

  ‘Steady on, steady on,’ sighs William, feeling suddenly exhausted now that Agnes has removed herself from the fray.

  ‘Yes, death will come like a thief in the night, won’t he?’ Henry sneers, continuing his debate with an invisible apologist. ‘That’s how Scripture tells us Christ will come, isn’t it?’ He seizes his wine-glass and downs the contents at a gulp, grimacing scornfully. ‘Tales to excite little boys and girls. Trinkets and lolly-water …’

  William strives, with all his fast-dwindling forbearance, to keep an outburst of exasperation in check.

  ‘You speak as if the poor woman’s in the grave already: she’s not dead yet!’ he says. ‘And while she lives, she’s a human being, with needs and wishes that may yet be fulfilled.’

  ‘There’s nothing–’

  ‘For pity’s sake, Henry! Sto
p reciting this same verse over and over! We are talking of a woman who’s … preparing to say farewell to this earthly life, and you have been her dearest friend. Are you telling me there’s nothing you could do that would make the slightest difference to her feelings?’

  This, at last, seems to penetrate Henry’s black shell of grief.

  ‘She … she stares into my soul, Bill,’ he whispers, haunted by the memory. ‘Her eyes … Her imploring eyes … What does she want from me? What does she want?’

  ‘God almighty!’ explodes William, able to endure it no longer. ‘How can you be so stupid? She wants a fucking!’ He rears up from his chair and shoves his face close to Henry’s. ‘Take her to bed, you fool: she’s waiting for you! Marry her tomorrow! Marry her tonight, if you can wake a clergyman!’ With every second, his excitement increases, inflamed by his brother’s look of righteous outrage. ‘You miserable prig! Don’t you know that fucking is a pleasure, and women feel it too? Your Mrs Fox can’t fail to have noticed that in her labours for the Rescue Society. Why not let her feel that pleasure just once herself, before she dies!’

  With a crash of wine-glasses and a quiver of candle-flames Henry jumps to his feet, his face white with fury, his huge fists clenched.

  ‘You will permit me to leave,’ he whispers fiercely.

  ‘Yes, leave!’ yells William, with an exaggerated gesture towards the door. ‘Go back to your shabby little house and dream that the world is nobler and purer than it really is. But Henry, you’re an ass and a hypocrite.’ (The words are gushing out of him now, released from years of self-restraint.) ‘The man hasn’t been born,’ he rails, ‘who isn’t wild to know what’s between a woman’s legs. All the Patriarchs and Ecclesiastics who sing the praises of chastity and abstinence: chasing cunt, the lot of ‘em! And why not? Why indulge in self-abuse when there are women in the world to save us from it? I’ve had dozens, hundreds of whores; if I’ve a cockstand, I need only snap my fingers, and within the hour I’m satisfied. And as for you, brother, looking as if you couldn’t tell a prostitute from a prayer-cushion: don’t think I don’t know what you get up to. Oh yes, your … your escapades, your so-called “conversations”, are the talk of whores all over London!’

  With a guttural cry, Henry rushes from the room, flinging the door so wide that it rebounds juddering from the wall. William stumbles out in weary pursuit and, seeing that his brother is already half-way across the tiled floor of the receiving hall, calls after him:

  ‘Forget about being a saint, Henry! Show her you’re a man!’

  Whereupon, feeling he’s said enough, he steps back into the dining-room, and leans his back against the nearest wall, breathing hard. Faintly he can hear an altercation at the front door: Letty pleading with Mr Rackham to let her help him with his coat, and Henry carrying on like a baited bear: then the whole house seems to shake with the impact of the door slamming shut.

  ‘Ah, well,’ croaks William (for he has yelled himself hoarse), ‘it’s all said now. We shall see what we shall see.’

  His heart is beating hard — provoked, no doubt, by the sight of his brother’s clenched fists and look of fury, a fearsome combination William hasn’t had to face since his brother was a child. He shambles to the dining-room table, fetches up a glass and fills it from the almost empty wine bottle. Then, having drunk the restorative potion to the dregs, he makes his way upstairs, mounting the steps with an increasingly resolute tread, heading not for his own bedroom but Agnes’s.

  By God, he’s had enough of other people’s prudish quirks and sickly evasions. It’s high time, he’s decided, to father a son.

  In the small hours of the morning, Henry sits in front of his fireplace, feeding into the flames everything he has written for the past ten years or more: all the thoughts and opinions he’d hoped one day to broadcast from the pulpit of his own church.

  What a preposterous glut of paper and ink he has amassed, loose leaves and envelopes and journals with spines and notebooks sewn with string, all neatly filled with his blockish, inelegant handwriting, all annotated with symbols in his own private code, signifying such things as further study needed or but is this really true? or expand. The saddest hieroglyph of all, found in the margins of almost every scrap of manuscript from the last three years, is an inverted triangle, suggestive of a fox’s head, meaning: Ask opinion of Mrs Fox. Page after page, Henry burns the evidence of his vanity.

  Puss purrs at his feet, wholly approving of this game, which is making her fur so warm that it almost glows. Coal is pleasant enough, and slow to be consumed, but paper is incomparably better, if a man can only be encouraged to keep it coming.

  Henry is busy now with a fat ledger, a cast-off (along with a dozen more such) from his father, during a ‘spring cleaning’ of the Rackham offices in 1869. ‘It pains me to see good paper destroyed,’ he remembers telling the old man. ‘I can put these to another use.’ Vanity! And what’s this? Rejoice, and be Exceeding Glad, says the inscription on the cover: one of the many titles he daydreamed for his first published collection of sermons. Again, vanity! With a scowl of anguish, he rips the cardboard from the spine, and throws it into the flames.

  The heat flares fierce, and he leans back in his chair, closing his eyes until it abates. He is weary, terribly weary, and tempted to sleep. Sleep would come so easefully to him, if only he kept his eyes closed for another few moments. But no, he’ll not sleep. Everything must be destroyed.

  Before he can resume his task, however, he’s jolted almost out of his skin by a knock at the front door. Who the devil …? He glances at the clock on the mantelpiece: it’s exactly midnight; time for all good folk to be in bed, even zealous lassies galvanised by the plight of the islanders of Skye. Yet the knocking goes on, soft but insistent, luring him out into the unlit hallway. Could this caller be some vile cut-throat, come to kill him and pillage his house for the few antiquated valuables that are in it? Well, come on, then.

  Standing at the door in his socks, Henry opens it a crack, and peers out into the dark. There on the footpath near his doorstep, cloaked from head to toe in a voluminous cape and hood, stands Mrs Fox.

  ‘Do let me in, Henry,’ she says affably, as if there’s nothing odd about the situation, other than that he is being ungentlemanly enough to keep a lady waiting in the cold.

  Dumbfounded, he steps backwards, and she slips into the vestibule, pulling the hood off her head. Her hair thus revealed is loose, free of combs and pins, and more abundant than he’d ever thought it was.

  ‘Go back into the warm room, you silly man,’ she scolds him gently, walking straight there without waiting on formalities. ‘It’s raw weather, and you’re not dressed.’

  Indeed, when he looks down at himself, he can’t deny he’s in his nightshirt.

  ‘What … what brings you here?’ he stammers, following her into the light. ‘I … I can hardly believe … I thought … ‘

  She stands behind his vacant armchair, her hands laid on the antimacassar. Her face has lost its ghastly pallor, her cheeks are no longer sunken, her lips are moist and roseate.

  ‘They’re all wrong, Henry,’ she says, her voice warm and full, wholly cured of its consumptive wheeze. ‘All tragically mistaken.’

  He stands gaping, his arms hanging paralysed at his sides, the hairs on the nape of his neck all a’prickle. Puss, still curled up by the hearth, looks up at him in languid disdain, as if to say, Don’t put on so!

  ‘Heaven isn’t a vacuum, or a great fog of ether, with ghostly spirits floating all about,’ Mrs Fox continues, lifting her hands from his chair to mime, with an impish wiggle of her fingers, the effete flutter of wings. ‘It’s as real and tangible as the streets of London, full of vigorous endeavour and the spark of life. I can’t wait for you to see it — it will open your eyes, Henry, open your eyes.’

  He blinks, his breath taken by the reality and tangibility of her, the sharply familiar shape of her face and the look on it: that disarming stare, half-innocent, half-argumentative,
which has always accompanied her most heretical statements. How often has she made him feel like this: shocked at how blithely she flirts with blasphemy; worried that her views will attract the wrath of the powers that be; but enchanted by the glimpse she shows him of what, all of a sudden, is revealed as the most elementary truth. He moves towards her, as he has moved towards her so many times before — to caution her, restrain her with the frown of his orthodoxy, while at the same time exhilarated by the desire to see things exactly as she does.

  ‘And I was right, Henry,’ she goes on, nodding as he approaches. ‘The people in Heaven feel nothing except love. The most wonderful … endless … perfect … Love.’

  He sits — falls, almost — into his chair, looking up at her face in awe and puzzlement. She unclasps the cloak at her neck, and lets it fall to the floor. Her naked shoulders shine like marble; the undersides of her exquisite breasts brush against the top of his chair as she bends down to kiss him. Her face has never looked like this in his dreams: every eyebrow-hair sharp, the pores on the sides of her nose large as life, the whites of her eyes slightly bloodshot, as if she has been weeping but feels better now. Tenderly she lays her hand on his cheek; purposefully she hooks her fingers under his jaw and guides him towards her lips.

  ‘Mrs Fox … for all the world, I wouldn’t…’ he tries to protest, but she can read his mind.

  ‘There’s no marriage in Heaven, Henry,’ she whispers down to him, leaning further and further over his chair, so that her hair falls onto his chest, and her breath is warm against his brow. ‘Mark, chapter twelve, verse twenty-five.’

  She’s tugging the night-shirt up from his knees, but he grasps her gently by the wrists, to keep her from uncovering his nakedness. Her wrists are strong, with a pulse in them, a heartbeat of blood against his palms.

  ‘Oh Henry,’ she sighs, twisting her body around to one side of his chair, resting her buttocks on the arm of it. ‘Stop pussyfooting; there’s no stopping what has been begun, can’t you see that?’