The Crimson Petal and the White

by Michel Faber

  William casts a furtive glance around the pub, dreading more unwanted company, but it seems he’s experienced the gamut of the tavern’s nuisances. Only now does he notice that, apart from the barmaids and the execrable oil-painting of the shepherdess above the front door, there’s not a female face in the place. The barmaids are as ugly as sin, and the painted shepherdess has crossed eyes — not the artist’s intention, surely? — and a vulgar toothy smile. Ach, Agnes’s mouth is so small and perfect, her smile a rosebud blush on her peachy skin … although the last time he kissed her full on the mouth, five years ago or more, her lips were cold against his, like segments of chilled orange …

  He raises his glass, to order more whisky. He’s never been much of a spirits man, but the ale here is of a quality that would provoke the likes of Bodley and Ashwell to spit it out with a pshaw of contempt. Besides, if he can only calm the churning of his mind with the opiate of strong drink, he can then retire to his lodgings and, despite the early hour, fall blissfully asleep. A crashing headache in the morning would be a small price to pay for a night of dreamless unconsciousness.

  After two more whiskies, he judges that the alcohol has worked its magic on his brain, and that now’s the time to be going. The clock above the bar still stands at twelve, and his watch is too much bother to extract from his waistcoat, but he feels sure that if he laid his head on a pillow now, he wouldn’t regret it. He rises … and is suddenly convinced of the necessity of vomiting and urinating as soon as he possibly can. He lurches towards the lavatory, decides that the anonymity of an alley would be preferable, and stumbles out of The Jolly Shepherdess into the dark streets of Frome.

  Within seconds he has found a narrow alley that already smells of human waste: an ideal niche for what he needs to do. Swaying with nausea, he fumbles his penis free and pisses into the muck; regrettably, he’s not quite finished squirting and dribbling when the sickness overcomes him, and he must pitch forward and release a gush of vomit from his mouth. ‘Oh, deary, deary,’ cries a female voice.

  Still spewing, he looks up, and through the glimmering veil of his watering eyes he can see a woman walking towards him — a young woman with dark hair, no bonnet, a slate-grey dress striped with black.

  ‘You poor man,’ she says, advancing on him, her hips swaying from side to side.

  William waves dismissively at her, still retching, appalled at the rapidity with which scavengers gather round a vulnerable man.

  ‘You need a soft bed to lie down in, you poor baby,’ she coos, close enough now for him to see the mask of her face powder and the beauty spot inked on her bony cheek.

  Again he sweeps his arm, furiously, through the foul-smelling air.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he bawls, whereupon — thank goodness for small mercies — she retreats.

  But thirty seconds later, several pairs ofstrong hairy hands seize William Rackham by the shoulders and coat pockets and, when he tries to shrug them off, a savage blow to the head sends him plummeting into the abyss.

  ‘All change!’

  Shuddering to a stop, a train swings its doors open and spills its human contents into the tumult of Paddington Station. The hissing of steam funnels is overwhelmed almost at once by the greater din of voices, as those of the crowd who wish to retrieve their baggage from the top of the train struggle not to be borne away by the jostling multitude who wish only to be gone.

  The thick of the crowd is composed of all categories of human: it swirls with the bright and bulky skirts of its women, set off against the funereal shades of the men, though there are many children too, buffeted in the lurch of bags and baggage. How pretty children can be, if they’re nicely dressed and well-cared for! What a pity they make such a racket, when they’re badly behaved! Look: there’s one bawling already, ignoring the entreaties of its Mama. Child! — listen to your Mama, you little imp; she knows what’s best for you, and you must be brave, pick up your fallen basket, and walk!

  The woman who stands watching this scene, thinking these thoughts, appears to be one of London’s myriad unfortunates — poorly clad, companionless, and lame. She wears a rumpled dress of dark blue cotton with a grey apron front — a style no fashionable female has worn for ten years or more — a threadbare bonnet that looks ecru but began life as white, and a pale-blue cloak so roughened by age that it resembles the sheep’s-fleece from which it was spun. She turns her back on the commotion, and joins the queue at the ticket window.

  ‘I should like to go to Lostwithiel,’ she tells the man at the counter when it’s her turn to speak. The man at the counter looks her up and down.

  ‘No third class compartments on the Penzance line,’ he cautions her.

  She produces a crisp new bank-note from a slit in her shabby dress. ‘I shall be travelling second class.’ And she smiles shyly, really quite excited by the adventure of such a novelty.

  For a moment, the man at the window hesitates, wondering if he should call the police, to investigate how a woman in such embarrassed apparel came by a bank-note. But there are other folk in the queue, and there is something winsome about this poor starveling’s face, as if, given an easier life, she might have blossomed into the sweetest little wife a man ever had, instead of being obliged to live by her wits. And anyway, who’s to judge that a woman in a shabby dress cannot be the legitimate owner of a banknote? It takes all sorts, after all, to make the world. Only last week, he served a woman in a frock-coat and trousers.

  ‘Return?’ he enquires.

  The woman hesitates, then smiles again. ‘Yes, why not? One never knows … ‘

  The man chews his top lip as he prepares the ticket with his fountain pen.

  ‘Seventeen past seven, platform seven,’ he says. ‘Change at Bodmin.’ The shabby woman takes the slip of paper in her tiny hands and limps away. She looks around, half-forgetting that she’s alone, half-expecting her lady’s-maid to be coming up behind her, trundling a suitcase of clothes. Then she remembers she’ll never need a maid again; these poor rags she wears are her last vestments in this life, and serve no purpose but to cover her nakedness while she conveys her old body to its final destination.

  One deep breath to summon courage, and she begins to weave through the crowd, moving carefully in case someone steps on her feet. She hasn’t got very far before her progress is blocked by a matronly woman. They do a little pas de deux, the way two ladies meeting in a narrow doorway might, and then both come to a halt. The older woman’s face oozes compassion.

  ‘Can I help you, dear?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Agnes. She has been specifically instructed to ignore entreaties from strangers. ‘New to London?’

  Agnes doesn’t reply. Her recollection of her send-off this morning may be a little vague, given how dark and early was the hour when her Holy Sister’s whisper roused her from her sleep, but if there’s one thing she recalls with complete clarity, it’s her Holy Sister’s command that Agnes must reveal nothing to any person on her journey, however kindly that person may appear.

  ‘I have a Christian lodging-house for ladies who are new to London,’ continues the matronly stranger. ‘Forgive me if I presume, but might you have been recently widowed …?’

  Again Agnes does not reply.

  ‘Abandoned …?’

  Agnes shakes her head. A shake of the head is permissible, or so she hopes. Having obeyed her Holy Sister in every detail through all the trials of her escape — the shocking news of her impending betrayal; the donning of her disguise; the insertion of her sore feet into shoes; the stealthy progress downstairs, like a common thief in her own house; the dignified, wordless parting at the front door, nothing more than a single wave of her hand as she limped into the snowy gloom — yes, all these things she has faced every bit as bravely as her Holy Sister exhorted her to; it would be a tragedy if she weakened and sinned against Her now.

  ‘You look half-starved, dear,’ remarks the stubborn Samaritan. ‘Our house has food aplenty, three meals a day, and a ro
aring fire. And you don’t need money; you can earn your keep with needlework or whatever you’re good at.’

  Agnes, very much affronted by this suggestion that her physical form would be improved by the gluttony that has bloated the bulbous creature who accosts her, raises herselfto her full height. With withering politeness, she says, ‘You are very kind, madam, but mistaken. I desire nothing from you, except that you step aside. I have a train to catch.’ The woman’s face drops, its look of compassion vanishing into ugly creases, but she steps aside, and Agnes hurries on, steeling herself to walk as gracefully as if she were crossing a ballroom. The pain is dreadful, but she has her pride.

  On platform seven, the station-master is ushering passengers into the Penzance train, gripping the clapper of his bell and pointing with the handle. ‘All aboard!’ he cries, and yawns.

  Agnes enters her appointed carriage, wholly unassisted, and finds a place to sit. The seats are wooden, just like in church, without the sumptuously padded upholstery she’s accustomed to, but everything’s quite clean and not at all the stable-on-wheels she always imagined a second class carriage would be. Her fellow passengers are an old man with a beard, a young mother with a babe-in-arms (sleeping, fortunately!) and a sulky-looking boy with a bruised cheek and a satchel. Agnes, mindful of her Holy Sister’s instruction, settles in her own spot by the window and closes her eyes at once, to discourage anyone making conversation with her.

  In truth, she’s suddenly so fatigued she doubts if she could summon the strength to speak; her feet throb from their punishment — the long walk through Notting Hill before she was rescued, at dawn, by a cab; the long wait for Paddington Station to open for business; the humiliation of being told to move along by a policeman; and being propositioned by a man delirious with drink. All these ordeals she has withstood, and now she’s paying the price. Her head aches terribly, in the usual spot behind her left eye. Thank God this is the last day she will ever have to suffer it.

  ‘Any person not intending to travel on the train, please disembark now!’

  The station-master’s voice barely penetrates the beating of blood in her head; but she doesn’t need to hear him, having heard him so many times in her dreams. Instead, it’s her Holy Sister’s voice that echoes in her feverish skull, whispering, ‘Remember, when you arrive at your destination and leave the train, speak to no one. Walk until you are deep in the countryside. Knock at a farmhouse or a church, and say you are looking for the convent. Don’t call it the Convent of Health, for it will not be known by that name. Simply insist that you be shown to the convent. Accept nothing less, tell no one who you are, and don’t take “no” for an answer. Promise me, Agnes, promise me.’

  The train hisses and shudders, and rolls into motion. Agnes opens one eye — the one that doesn’t feel as if it’s about to burst — and peeks through the window, hoping against hope that her guardian angel may be there on the platform, to acknowledge, with a solemn nod, what a brave girl Agnes has been. But no, she’s busy elsewhere, saving souls and tending bodies. Agnes will see her soon enough, at the end of the line.

  PART 5

  The World at Large

  TWENTY-NINE

  Basking in the warmth of Heaven, she floats weightless and naked, far far above the factory chimneys and church spires of the world, in the upper reaches of a sultry sky. It’s an intoxicatingly fragrant atmosphere, surging and eddying with huge, gentle waves of wind and pillowy clouds — nothing like the motionless, transparent oblivion she’d always imagined Paradise would be. It’s more like a breathable ocean, and she treads the heavy air, narrowing the distance between her body and that of her man who’s flying beside her. When she’s close enough, she spreads her thighs, wraps her arms and legs around him, and opens her lips to receive the incarnation of his love.

  ‘Yes, oh yes,’ she whispers, and embraces the small of his back to take more of him inside; she kisses him tenderly; their sexes are cleaved together; they are one flesh. A swirl of cloud folds around their conjoined bodies like a blanket as they drift through the balmy waves of eternity, borne along, like swimmers, by rhythmic currents and their own urgent thrusts.

  ‘Who would ever have thought it could be like this?’ she says.

  ‘Don’t talk now,’ he sighs, as he shifts his hands down from her shoulder-blades to the cheeks of her behind. ‘You’re always talking.’

  She laughs, knowing it’s true. The pressure of his chest against her bosom is at once comforting and arousing; her nipples are swollen, her birth passage sucks and swallows in its hunger for his seed. On a great flank of cloud they roll and wreathe, until her passion rushes through her body like a fire and she thrashes her head from side to side, gasping with joy …

  ‘Emmeline!’

  Despite her convulsions of ecstasy, she still has the presence of mind to recognise that the voice comes not from Henry, whose inarticulate breath heaves hot in her hair, but from another, unseen source.

  ‘Emmeline, are you there!’

  How peculiar, she thinks, as the clouds unfurl and she pitches backwards through the sky, plummeting towards earth. If it’s God calling, surely He knows perfectly well I’m here?

  ‘Emmeline, can you hear me!’

  She lands in her bed — a remarkably soft landing, given the dizzying speed of her descent — and sits up, panting, while the racket at her front door continues.

  ‘Emmeline!’

  Lord save her, it’s her father. She leaps out of bed, sending Puss tumbling onto his back, all four paws flailing. She looks around the bedroom for something to cover her nakedness, but all she can find is Henry’s coat and shirt, which — along with several other items of Henry’s clothing from the Tuttle & Son sack — she’s been taking into bed with her lately, for consolation. She throws the warm, rumpled coat over her shoulders like a cape, ties the arms of the shirt around her midriff for an apron, and runs downstairs.

  ‘Yes, I’m here, Father,’ she calls through the oblong barrier of wood and frosted glass. ‘I — I’m sorry I didn’t hear, I was … working.’ The sunlight is quite strong; she guesses it must be eleven o’clock at least — far too late to admit to having been asleep.

  ‘Emmeline, forgive me for disturbing you,’ her father says, ‘but it’s an urgent matter.’

  ‘I … I’m sorry, Father, but I can’t let you in.’ What’s wrong with the man! She doesn’t receive visitors anymore — surely that’s understood between them! ‘Couldn’t I come and see you a little later this morning? Or afternoon?’

  The distorted shape of his head, crowned with the dark top hat, looms closer to the glass. ‘Emmeline …!’ His tone suggests he’s not at all pleased to be a public spectacle, hammering at his daughter’s door in plain view of passers-by. ‘A woman’s life may depend on it.’

  Emmeline considers this for a moment. Melodrama, she knows, is not in her father’s nature, so a woman’s life probably is at risk.

  ‘Uh … please, if you could wait a few minutes, I … I’ll come out …’

  She rushes back upstairs and dresses faster than she ever has before –donning pantalettes, camisole, dress, coatee, stockings, garters, shoes, gloves and bonnet in much the same time that Lady Bridgelow might deliberate over the placement of a single hairpin.

  ‘I’m ready, Father,’ she pants at the front door, ‘to walk with you.’ His silhouette steps back, and she slips out of her house, locking its dusty chaos securely behind her, taking a deep breath of the fresh, cold air. She feels her father’s eyes upon her as she turns the key, but he refrains from comment.

  ‘There!’ she says brightly. ‘We’re on our way.’

  She turns to face him; he’s immaculate, as always, but his frown tells her that she, regrettably, is not. He’s a handsome and dignified old fellow, yes he is, although his face is lined with care. So much illness in the world, and only an old man with a satchel to combat it …If there was one thing in that pitiful letter from Mrs Rackham that convinced Emmeline the poor woman’s
mind had snapped like a collarbone, it was the reference to Doctor Curlew’s evil nature; in Emmeline’s eyes, her father is the archetype of benevolence, a mender of bones and a dresser of wounds, whereas the best she can do, in emulation of his philanthropic example, is write letters to politicians and argue with prostitutes.

  All this she thinks in an instant, as he towers over her on the footpath outside her house; then she sees the twitch of impatience in his bearing, and the nervous way he looks up and down the street, and she appreciates that something is very badly amiss.

  ‘What is it, Father? What’s wrong?’

  He motions for them to start walking along the footpath, away from an apparition a few doors down — a nosy old gossip garnished with stuffed blue tits and fox-fur.

  ‘Emmeline,’ he declares, as they proceed apace, leaving their pursuer straggling behind, ‘what I’m telling you is a secret, but it can’t remain a secret much longer: Mrs Rackham is missing. She was to’ve been taken to a sanatorium yesterday morning. I arrived at her house to escort her — and she was gone. Vanished.’

  Emmeline, although listening attentively, is also looking for clues in the sky and in the behaviour of other pedestrians as to what time of day it might be. ‘Visiting a friend, perhaps?’ she suggests.

  ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘Why? Hasn’t she any friends?’ The sky is darkening: it can’t be twilight yet, surely? No: those are rainclouds up there, gathering to discharge their burden.

  ‘I think you fail to grasp the situation. She fled her house in the middle of the night, in a state of utter derangement. All her clothing — every dress, jacket, coat and blouse — is accounted for, except one pair of shoes and some articles of underwear; in other words, she took to the streets near-naked. Quite possibly she has frozen to death.’

  Emmeline knows she ought to be dumbstruck with sympathy, but her instinct for argument gets the better of her. ‘Taking to the streets near-naked in winter,’ she remarks, ‘is something many women do without dying of it, Father.’