by Michel Faber
She nods, inscrutable.
‘I’ll attend to her, Mr Rackham,’ she assures him, and with that, it appears he’s dismissed.
Numb with wretchedness, William shambles back to his study. There’s no one to receive him there, Sugar having evidently returned to the schoolroom when she could wait for him no longer. Well, so be it. He sniffs the air. Cigar smoke. Burning coal from the hearth. Sugar’s sex.
He stands in front of the flickering hearth, leans his forehead against the wall, opens his trousers, and abuses himself, moaning in distress. Within a few seconds, his seed is spurting out, falling directly onto the sizzling coals.
His belly is fat; the hairs on it are prematurely grey; what a ridiculous creature he is; no wonder he is despised. Orgasm over, his penis shrivels to a slimy scrag, and he stows it away.
Shoulders slumped, he turns and, at the sight of his paper-strewn desk, his heart sinks further. So much to do, and his life is falling apart at the seams! He sits heavily in his chair, and covers his face in his hands.
Steady, steady. Nothing will be gained if he loses his grip now.
Hardly conscious of what he is doing, he slides open the capacious bottom drawer of his bureau, where he keeps the correspondence that’s been answered but which he feels unable to discard. In amongst it is other flotsam – More Sprees in London, for example, and … this. He pulls it out, with trembling fingers.
It’s a much-thumbed photograph of Agnes — Agnes Unwin, as she was then — taken by him at a summer picnic on the banks of the Thames. A fine photograph, and quite well printed too, given his inexperience in the darkroom at the time. What he particularly likes is the way Agnes (on his instruction) kept absolutely still, thus ensuring that her serenely lovely face was captured in sharp detail, while her companions — sons of the aristocracy, idiots all — fiddled with their trouser-cuffs and gossiped amongst themselves, thus condemning their faces to a blur of anonymity. This fellow here, with the carnation in his buttonhole, is possibly that jackass Elton Fitzherbert, but the others are grey, murky phantoms, serving only to highlight William Rackham’s radiant beloved. Countless times he’s stared at this photograph, reminding himself that it captures an incontestable truth, a history that cannot be rewritten.
Unaware that he’s weeping, he continues to scrabble through the papers in his bottom drawer. Somewhere here, unless he’s very much mistaken, he still has a perfumed letter Agnes wrote to him, mere days before their marriage. In it, she tells him how she adores him, how each day that she must wait before she’s his wife is an agony of delicious anticipation — or words to that effect. He rummages and rummages, through handbills of forgotten theatre performances, invitations to art galleries, unread letters from his brother quoting Scripture, threats from creditors long repaid. But the scented proof of Agnes’s passion for him … this eludes him. Is it really possible that all trace of her devotion has vanished? He bends his face down and sniffs. Old paper; the soil on his shoes; Sugar’s sex.
Losing heart, he pulls a crumpled sheet of paper from the very bottom of the drawer, just in case it’s the one. Instead, he finds it to be written in his own hand, an abandoned draft of a letter from a few years ago, to Henry Rackham Senior:
Dear Father,
In the fluster occasioned by the birth of my daughter and the emergency medical attentions required by my wife subsequently, I have naturally had little time to devote to the Responsibilities which await me. Of course I intend to embrace these with my customary enthusiasm as soon as the first opportunity arises; in the meantime, however, I am the unhappy recipient ofa letter from our Solicitors …
With a grunt of pain, William crushes the page in his fist, and casts it to one side. Christ, he’s twice the man he was then! How can Fate be so cruel as to rob him of Agnes’s admiration, when he was once a weak-chinned groveller, and is now the master of a great concern? Is there no justice?
Stung to action, he hunches over his desk, lays a fresh sheet before him, and dips pen in ink. William Rackham, head of Rackham Perfumeries, doesn’t wallow in self-pity: he gets on with his work. Yes: his work! What was he attending to, before …? Ah yes: the Woolworth question …
To Henry Rackham, Snr., he writes, knuckling his brow to summon forth the details that were so clear to him twelve hours ago, when the nightmare had yet to begin.
It has come to my attention that, in 1842, Rackham Perfumeries leased to a certain Thomas Woolworth a large tract of arable land in Patcham, Sussex, the concern having been judged (by yourself, I presume) too bothersome to cultivate. I have found but slender documentation of this transaction, and trust that more exists. I therefore request that you convey to me whatever papers may relate to this matter or any other Rackham matter, for that matter, which you may hitherto have withheld …
William frowns at the unfortunate cluster of matters in this last sentence. It’s the sort of thing Sugar could help him with, if she were here; but she, too, has slipped from his grasp.
TWENTY-SIX
‘Christmas,’ declares Sugar, and pauses.
Sophie hunches over her copy-book, in the grey light of early morning, and inscribes the exotic word at the top of a fresh page. Even upside-down, and from the corner of her eye, Sugar can see that the ‘t’ is missing. ‘
Holly.’
More scratching of Sophie’s pen. Correct this time.
‘Tinsel.’
Sophie looks to the glittering silver and red barbs on the mantel for inspiration, then dips her pen in the inkwell and commits her guess to paper: ‘tintsel’. Sugar resolves to make light of this error, combining humour with an educative purpose: The poor little’t’from your Christmas has gone wandering, Sophie, and blundered into the tinsel …
‘Mistletoe.’ She regrets this one as soon as it’s off her tongue: poor Sophie’s frown deepens as she must relinquish her last hope of a perfect score. Also, the word unexpectedly brings to Sugar’s mind a vision of Agnes’s accident: once again, the spade slices through the white flesh, and blood spurts.
‘Misseltow,’ writes Sophie.
‘Snow,’ says Sugar, to give her an easy one. Sophie looks up at the window and, yes, it’s true. Her governess must have eyes in the back of her head.
Sugar smiles, content. This Christmas that she’s soon to spend with the Rackhams is, in a sense, her first, for Mrs Castaway’s was never the most festive of places. The notion that there will soon be a day that’s guaranteed to be special regardless of what Fate brings is a novelty, and the more she tries to caution herself that December 25th will be a day like any other, the more expectant she grows.
There’s something different about the Rackham house lately, something more than can be explained by its garnish of holly, tinsel and ornamental bells. The fact that William still loves her is a tremendous comfort, and the thought that they will face the future together, collaborators and confidantes, helps her resist the poisonous murmur of foreboding. But it’s not even William’s love that fuels her hopes; she detects a change in spirit, all through the household. Everyone is friendlier and more familiar. Sugar no longer feels as if she’s haunting two rooms of a large and mysterious house, hurrying past closed doors for fear of provoking the evil spirits inside. Now, with Christmas coming, she goes everywhere with Sophie in hand, and is welcomed as part of the proceedings. Servants smile, William nods in passing, and no one need mention what’s understood: that Mrs Rackham is safe upstairs, snoozing the days away in a chloral stupor.
‘Hello, little Sophie!’ says Rose, as the child proudly produces yet another basket of freshly-made paper streamers. ‘Aren’t you a clever girl?’
Sophie beams. She’d never expected so much admiration in her life, and all for cutting strips of coloured paper and gluing them together in chains, exactly as her governess has instructed her! Perhaps the business of making one’s way in the world is not as arduous and thankless as Nurse led her to believe …
‘Where shall we hang these, Letty?’ calls Rose to her
upstairs counterpart, and the servants do their best to pretend there’s still an urgent need for more streamers, despite the fact that they’re hung everywhere, including the banisters, the smoking-room (pray God those men are careful with their cigars!), the scullery (they’re limp with moisture already, but Janey was awfully pleased a thought was spared for her), the piano, and that odd little room which used to smell faintly of linen and evaporated urine, but is now empty. Only a matter of time, then, before the stables and Shears’s glasshouses are approached.
The holly man visited yesterday, and was relieved of three large bundles, two more than the Rackham house took from him last year. (‘Rich pickin’s ‘ere, ducks,’ he winked at a young mistletoe seller he met in the carriageway on his way out.) And indeed, the Rackham house is sparing no expense to expunge the memory of Christmas 1874, which was ‘celebrated’ — if that word will stoop to being so misused — under a cloud. This year, let everyone be assured — from lords and ladies to the lowliest scullery maid — that William Rackham’s festive provisions are the equal of any man’s! So: Holly? Three bags full! Comestibles? The kitchen groans with them! Streamers? Let the child make all she wants!
When she’s not making streamers, little Sophie loves to make Christmas cards. Sugar bought her some expensive ones from a hawker whom William permitted, after some hesitation, to cross the Rackham threshold and lay out his wares in the parlour for the servants to peruse. Apart from the usual depictions of firelit domestic bliss and charity to the ragged poor, there were comical scenes of frogs dancing with cockroaches, and pompous squires being bitten on the arse by reindeer — a great favourite with the kitchenmaids, who expressed regret at not being able to afford them. Sugar bought the dearest cards on show: the ones with moveable parts and trick panels, in the hope of inspiring Sophie to similar inventions.
And so it has come to pass. Sophie, to judge by her delight, has never possessed a toy more luxurious and fascinating than the Christmas card in the shape of an austere-looking Georgian house which, when the paper tab is pulled, parts its curtains to reveal a colourful family enjoying a banquet. Lacking the word ‘genius’, she describes as ‘master-clever’ the person who conceived this extraordinary thing, and she frequently consults the card and pulls its tab, to be reminded how sublimely it works. Her own efforts to draw, paint and assemble Christmas cards are crude, but she perseveres, and makes a succession of cardboard houses with tiny celebrating families hidden inside them. Each one is better than the last, and she gives them away to whoever will accept them.
‘Why, thank you, Sophie,’ says the Cook. ‘I shall send this to my sister in Croydon.’
Or, ‘Thank you, Sophie,’ says Rose, ‘This is sure to bring a smile to my mother’s lips.’
Even William is glad to receive them, for, despite his unusual dearth of relations, he has no shortage of business associates and employees who’ll be charmed by such a gesture, especially if it appears unique.
‘Another one!’ he says in mock astonishment when Sugar escorts Sophie up to his study to deliver the latest card. ‘You’re turning into an industry all by yourself, aren’t you?’ And he winks at Sugar, though quite what this wink is supposed to mean she can’t guess.
After these brief encounters with her father, which are always terminated by William’s inability to think of a second sentence, Sophie is liable to be fragile-tempered, passing from excited babble to fractious whimpers in a trice; but, overall, Sugar has decided it’s good for Sophie to be noticed by the man who made her.
‘My father is rich, Miss,’ the child announces one afternoon, just before making a start on the history, so far, of Australia. ‘His money is kept in the bank, and it’s growing bigger every day.’
More regurgitated wisdom from Beatrice Cleave, no doubt.
‘There are a great many men richer than your father, dear,’ Sugar gently suggests.
‘He’ll beat them all, Miss.’
Sugar sighs, imagining herself and William sitting under a giant parasol on the summit of Whetstone Hill, sipping lemonade, gazing drowsily down on the fields of ripe lavender. ‘If he’s wise,’ she says, ‘he’ll be satisfied with what he has, and enjoy his life without having to work so hard.’
Sophie swallows this gobbet of moralism, but is clearly not going to be able to digest it. She’s already concluded that the reason why her own father is so very unlike the doting Papas in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales is that he is under strict orders from the Almighty to conquer the world.
‘Where’syour Papa, Miss?’ she enquires.
In Hell, my poppet. Mrs Castaway’s reply, once upon a time.
‘I don’t know, Sophie.’ Sugar strains to recall anything more about her father than her mother’s hatred of him. But in the story as Mrs Castaway told it, the man who, with a single jerk of his pelvis, transformed her from a respectable woman into a pariah, didn’t wait to find out what happened next. ‘I think he’s dead.’
‘Did he have an accident, Miss, or go to a war?’ Males tend to get shot, or burn down in their houses: Sophie appreciates that.
‘I don’t know, Sophie. I never met him.’
Sophie cocks her head sympathetically. Such a thing could easily happen, if a father were sufficiently busy. ‘And where’s your Mama, Miss?’
A chill goes down Sugar’s spine. ‘She’s …at home. In her house.’
‘All alone?’ Sophie, coached in these matters by her sentimental storybooks, sounds at once concerned and hopeful.
‘No,’ says Sugar, wishing the child would drop this thread. ‘She has … visitors.’
Sophie casts a resolute glance at the scissors, paste and art materials that have been laid aside until Australia is dealt with.
‘The next card I make will be for her, Miss,’ she promises.
Sugar smiles as best she can, and turns away before Sophie sees the angry tears glimmering in her eyes. She leafs through the history book, backwards and forwards through its pages, passing Australia several times.
While she stalls, she wonders if she should tell Sophie the truth. Not about her mother’s house of whoredom, of course, but about Christmas. About how the festival was never celebrated in the Castaway confines; how Sugar was seven before she understood that there was a communal occasion that made street musicians play particular tunes near the end of what she didn’t know was called December. Yes, seven years old she was, when she finally plucked up the courage to ask her mother what Christmas was all about, and Mrs Castaway replied (once only, after which the subject was forever forbidden): ‘It’s the day Jesus Christ died for our sins. Evidently unsuccessfully, since we’re still paying for them.’
‘Miss?’
Sugar is roused from a dream; she has the history book gripped tight in her hands, and the topmost pages have begun to tear under the pressure of her nails.
‘I’m sorry, Sophie,’ she says, hastily letting go. ‘I think I’ve eaten something that’s disagreed with me. Or perhaps …’ (she observes the child’s perturbed expression, and is ashamed to have caused it) ‘Perhaps I’m simply too excited by the coming of Christmas. Because, you know,’ (she draws a deep breath, and brightens her tone as much as she can without squeaking) ‘Christmas is the happiest time of the year!’
‘My dear Lady Bridgelow,’ blurts Bodley, ‘although we all know that in a few days from now, a huge fuss will be made over the spurious birthday of a Jewish peasant, this wonderful party of yours is the true high point of the December calendar.’
He turns to the other guests, and they reward him with a few nervous titters. So amusing, that Philip Bodley, but he does say some outrageous things! And without his more sober associate, Edward Ashwell, to restrain him, he’s an even looser cannon! But it’s all right: Lady Bridgelow has steered him towards Fergus Mcleod, who’s more than a match for him –how effortlessly she keeps her soirees on the rails!
William stands well back from Bodley, wondering how the fellow can have the bad manners to arrive
at a dinner party already drunk. Constance is handling the situation with effortless good grace, but even so … William turns on his heel, and notes that a servant is busy dampening the fire, to compensate for the fact that the number of bodies in the room is raising the temperature. How extraordinary that the girl should know to do this, without needing to be told! It’s the little things about Constance that are the most impressive — the way her household hums like a well-oiled machine. God, she could teach his own servants a thing or two … They’re well-meaning, most of them, but they lack a firm mistress …
This party of Lady Bridgelow’s is a small affair of twelve persons only, most of whom William met for the first time in the Season just past, or never before. As usual, though, Constance has assembled an interesting mixture. She specialises in people who are slightly divorced from the staid old world but not quite beyond the pale: ‘the occupants of the Age-To-Come’, as she likes to call them.
There’s Jessie Sharpleton, fresh from Zanzibar, skin the colour of cinnamon and brain full of lurid tales of heathen barbarity. Also in attendance are Edwin and Rachel Mumford, the dog-breeders; Clarence Ferry, the author of Her Regrettable Lapse, a two-act play currently doing well; and Alice and Victoria Barbauld, two sisters who come in very useful at dinner parties for their decorative faces and their skill at playing short, tuneful airs on the violin and oboe. (As Lady Bridgelow often says, it’s so difficult to find ‘musical’ people who aren’t a bore: the tuneful kind tend not to know when to stop, and the stopping kind tend not to be terribly tuneful.) The presence of Philip Bodley might have been awkward for William, given the rift that Agnes has caused between them but, thank God, Bodley is deep in conversation with Fergus Macleod, a High Court judge well known for his expertise in sedition, libel and treason, and is pumping him for all he’s worth.