by Michel Faber
For an instant Sugar considers taking him up on his offer. A ride in the carriage would be easier than walking, and now that Cheesman has accosted her anyway, she may as well make use of him. He could deliver them to the nearest park, and they could proceed from there … Yes, for an instant Sugar reconsiders, but when she looks again at the man himself, she sees the dark grime under the fingernails of the hand he extends towards her, and remembers how he dug those fingers into her waist and bustle not so long ago.
‘I shan’t be needing you, Cheesman,’ she says firmly, gathering Sophie against her hip. ‘We’re not going far.’
Cheesman retracts his arm and, positioning his palm on the back of his hairy neck in a caricature of bemusement, he appraises Sugar from head to foot.
‘Big ‘eavy bags yer got there, Miss,’ he remarks, squinting at her misshapen Gladstone, ‘if I may say so. ‘Eaps offings in there, for a short walk.’
‘I’ve told you, Cheesman,’ insists Sugar, a quaver of anxiousness skewing the flint-edge of her voice. ‘We’ve just decided to stretch our legs a little.’
Cheesman lowers his eyes to the level of Sugar’s skirts and leers. ‘I don’t see as your legs need any stretchin’, Miss Sugar.’
Anger lends Sugar courage. ‘You’re impertinent, Cheesman,’ she snaps. ‘I shall speak to Mr Rackham about you immediately on my return.’
But, much as she hoped he’d be cowed by this threat, Cheesman is unmoved, except for his eyebrows.
‘Speak to Mr Rackham, you say? On yer return? And when might that be, exackly, Miss Sugar?’
Cheesman steps forward, so close that she can smell the spirits on his breath, and blocks the gate through which she longs to pass.
‘Seems to me, Miss Sugar,’ he muses, folding his arms across his chest and peering up into the dismal heavens, ‘meanin’ no disrespect … but it’s sure to rain, any minute now I reckon. Them clouds …’ He shakes his head mistrustfully. ‘Foul, wouldn’t yer agree?’
‘What are you about, Cheesman?’ demands Sugar, removing her hand from Sophie’s shoulder lest, in her terror, she should squeeze it too hard. ‘Step out of the way!’
‘Now, now, Miss,’ cautions the coachman, in a reasonable tone. ‘What would Mr Rackham say if Miss Rackham ‘ere’ — he indicates Sophie with an amiable nod – ‘was to come ‘ome wiv a chill? Or ain’t that likely, in your opinion?’
‘For the last time, Cheesman: stand aside,’ commands Sugar, knowing that if he doesn’t yield now, she won’t have the strength to muster this imperious tone again. ‘Sophie’s welfare is my domain.’
But Cheesman is sucking his teeth reflectively, looking back towards the carriage.
‘Well now, Miss Sugar,’ he says. ‘I fink the uvver governess, what was ‘ere this mornin’, might not see eye to eye wiv you there.’
Barely pausing to savour the effect of this statement, he raises his palms skywards and enquires dramatically, ‘Now was that a drop a’ rain?’ He examines each palm with a frown. ‘I truly ask meself, would Mr Rackham want ‘is daughter to be took out in the rain? And why’s a governess that’s ‘avin’ to be replaced for reasons of bad ‘ealth so keen to do it?’
Seeing him posed there, his palms open to whatever might fall into them, Sugar thinks she sees what he’s angling for.
‘Let’s discuss this in private,’ she says, trying to keep the defeat out of her voice. Maybe if Sophie doesn’t actually witness money changing hands she’ll be none the wiser. ‘I’m sure we can come to an understanding that will benefit us both.’
‘I never doubted it, Miss,’ agrees the coachman cheerfully, bouncing away from the gate. ‘Is be’ind the coach private enough for yer?’
‘Stay here a moment, Sophie,’ says Sugar, setting her bags down but avoiding the child’s gaze.
Once hidden from Sophie behind the carriage, Sugar hastily delves into the pocket of her overcoat and fetches out a crumpled bank-note.
‘Seems we’re beginnin’ to unnerstand one anuvver now, Miss Sugar,’ murmurs Cheesman in bright-eyed approval.
‘Here, Cheesman,’ says Sugar, pressing the money into his outstretched hand. ‘Ten pounds. A small fortune, for you.’
Cheesman crushes the note in his fist and stuffs it into his trousers.
‘Oh yes,’ he affirms. ‘This will buy a beer or two. Or three …’
‘Good,’ sighs Sugar, turning to leave. ‘Much joy may you–’
‘… but really, Miss Sugar,’ he goes on, laying a detaining finger on her shoulder, ‘money ain’t much use to me. I mean, Mr Rackham knows the wage ‘e pays me, and ‘e knows what it buys and what it don’t buy. I can’t very well turn up wearin’ a fancy suit o’ clothes, can I, or a gold chain on me watch? So, to me, ten pounds is … well … it’s really only a powerful lot o’ beer, don’t yer see?’
Sugar stares at him, weak with loathing. If there is one man she would wish to see shackled to the murderous bed of her novel’s heroine, pleading for his life while she slices him open like a fish, it’s him.
‘You won’t let us go, then?’ she croaks.
Grinning widely, Cheesman waggles his forefinger like a kindly demagogue chiding a thoughtless pupil. ‘I didn’t say that, now did I?’
Ignoring how she bridles with fright as he seizes hold of her arms, he pulls her close, so that her cheek collides with the meaty shovel of his jaw.
‘All I want,’ he says, speaking softly and with exaggeratedly clear diction, ‘is a little somefink more than money. Somefink to remember you by.’
Sugar’s stomach shrinks as if doused with ice-water; her mouth goes dry as ash. What do you take me for? she wants to rebuke him. I’m a lady: a lady! But the first utterance that emerges from her tight throat is, ‘There isn’t time.’
Cheesman laughs and, guiding her against the wheel of his coach, gathers up her skirts in his hands.
Once the Rackham gate is shut behind them, Sugar and Sophie walk out of the house’s sight unhindered and unobserved.
‘Where are we going, Miss?’ says Sophie as they hurry along the narrow passageway that connects the mews with the main road.
‘Somewhere nice,’ says Sugar, panting as she hobbles, her Gladstone bag and satchel lolling to and fro, her walking-stick hitting the cobbles with such force that the end is beginning to fray.
‘Shall I carry one of the bags, Miss?’
‘They’re too heavy for you.’
Sophie frowns, looks worried, looks back towards the house, but it’s already lost to view. The skies have darkened considerably, and big raindrops are falling from the clouds, hitting the ground — and Sophie’s bonnet — like small pebbles. Sophie examines the universe for further clues as to the wisdom or foolishness of this little outing. Although she hasn’t the words to express it, she feels she has an instinct for cosmological messages that others fail to divine.
In a neighbour’s back garden (can one refer to neighbours if one hasn’t ever met them?) a man is digging a hole; he stops for a moment and waves to Sophie, his face lit up by a smile. A little farther along, the mongrel dog who has, on other occasions, barked at them, regards their approach with serene composure. These are good omens. One more such omen, and who knows?: the skies may clear.
An omnibus is rolling into view, advancing along Kensington Park Road towards the city.
‘Walk faster, Sophie,’ says Miss Sugar breathlessly. ‘Let’s … let’s take a ride in the omnibus.’
Sophie obediently quickens her pace, though it’s doubtful Miss Sugar is capable of moving any faster herself. The misshapen bags on her shoulders are jogging and slewing most inelegantly as Miss Sugar stumps forward, fist trembling on the handle of her stick.
‘Run ahead, Sophie, so the conductor sees we want to get on!’
Sophie scoots ahead and, an instant later, Sugar stumbles on a loose cobble and almost sprawls head over heels. The Gladstone bag falls to the ground, disgorging its contents all over the footpath: Agnes’s diaries, tumbling in m
ore directions than seems scientifically possible, opening their pages like the froth of milk boiling over, a spillage of wind-blown paper releasing a confetti of dried flower petals and faded prayer cards. And Sugar’s novel, spewed out of its cardboard jacket all along the street for three body-lengths or more, its densely-inked pages whipped up into the breeze in unbelievably rapid succession.
For one second, Sugar jerks her hands towards the fluttering mess, then she reels round and lollops in pursuit of Sophie.
Sugar and Sophie sit inside the crowded omnibus, not speaking, only breathing. It’s as much as Sugar can manage not to gasp and wheeze. She dabs surreptitiously at her crimson, sweaty face with a silk white handkerchief. The other passengers — the usual miscellany of frumpy old women, benign schoolmastery-looking men in top hats, fashionable young ladies with pedigree lap-dogs, furry-bearded artisans, snoozy matrons half-buried under straw baskets, umbrellas, elaborate hats, bouquets, sleeping infants — behave as if Sugar and Sophie don’t exist, as if no one exists, as if the omnibus is an empty conveyance rattling towards London for its own amusement. They keep their eyes on the newspaper, or their own gloved hands folded in their laps or, when all else fails, the advertisements posted above the heads of the passengers opposite.
Sugar raises her chin, fearing to look at Sophie. Above the feathery summit of a dowager’s hat, printed in two colours on a pasted handbill, hovers William Rackham’s face, framed between other bills advertising tea and cough lozenges.
Rain begins to pelt against the windows, turning the sky grey as twilight. Sugar seeks out a vacant interval between two heads, and peers through the rain-spattered glass. Out on the street, would-be passengers are hurrying through the silvery gloom.
‘High Street Corr-nerrr!’ yells the conductor, but no one disembarks. ‘Room for one more!’ And he helps a half-drenched pilgrim aboard.
All the way along the Bayswater Road, Sugar keeps her eye on any pedestrians who look as if they may be approaching the omnibus. No policemen, thank God. Strange, though, how she’s convinced — just for a second — that she recognises almost every upturned face she glimpses! Isn’t that Emmeline Fox, trotting along under a parapluie? No, of course it isn’t … But look there: surely that’s Doctor Curlew? Again, no. And those two swells, punching each other roguishly on the shoulder — could they be Ashley and Bodwell — or whatever their names were? No, these are younger men, barely out of school. But there! Sugar’s fists clench in fear as she spies an angry-looking man running towards her through the rain, his wayward, fleecy hair bobbing absurdly on his hatless head. But no: William’s hair was shorn almost to the scalp long ago, and this man dashes across the street to the other side.
Farther along, between Hyde Park’s riding promenades and St George’s burial ground, a woman hurries to catch the omnibus, gliding along the footpath as if likewise mounted on wheels. Her head is obscured beneath her umbrella, but despite this, she impresses Sugar as the very embodiment of Agnes. Her dress is pink — perhaps that’s the reason — pink as Rackham’s Carnation Cream Soap — although the driving rain has discoloured the skirts with darker rivulets, giving them the appearance ofstriped confectionery.
‘Are you with us, ma’am?’ yells the conductor, but this appeal to the lady to join the common throng seems to offend her delicate sensibilities, and she slows her pace, stops, and pirouettes in the opposite direction.
‘Where are we going to have our lesson, Miss?’ enquires Sophie softly.
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ says Sugar. She continues to stare out the window, avoiding Sophie’s face as anxiously as she would avoid the edge of a precipice.
At Marble Arch, a man boards the omnibus, drenched to the skin. He takes his seat between two ladies, mortified to impose his sodden form upon their dry persons, hunching up in a futile effort to contract his tall, wide-shouldered body into a smaller physical space.
‘Forgive me,’ he mumbles, his handsome face blushing bright as a lamp.
It’s Henry Rackham, thinks Sugar.
All the way in to the centre of the city, the drenched man stares stonily ahead of him, his blush scarcely fading, his hands awkwardly patting his knees. By the time the omnibus reaches Oxford Circus, he can stand it no longer: his shoulders have begun to exude a subtle halo of steam, and he knows it. With another muttered apology, he lurches out of his seat and flees back into the rain. Sugar watches him disappear into the deluge and, despite her own state of anxiety, finds it in her heart to wish him a speedy arrival at his destination, wherever that may be.
‘We must get out here, Sophie,’ she says a minute later, and rises to her feet. The child does likewise, grasping a fold of adult skirt as Sugar limps out of the omnibus into a swirling great cloud of rain.
Is this a park they see before them? No, it isn’t a park. Almost as soon as their feet have settled on solid ground, Miss Sugar has hailed a cab, called some instructions up to the driver, and hurriedly ushered Sophie into the cigar-smoky cabin. The cabman, though drenched to the skin, is a jovial soul, and he flicks the streaming rump of his reluctant horse with a whip.
‘Make yer choice, you old nag,’ he jokes. ‘The knacker’s yard, or King’s Cross Station!’
‘Will we be home for supper, Miss?’ asks Sophie, as the carriage jolts into motion.
‘Are you hungry, dear?’ Sugar replies.
‘No, Miss.’
Feeling she can put it off no longer, Sugar permits herself to look at Sophie’s face for just a moment. The child is wide-eyed, slightly bewildered, unmistakably worried — but not, as far as Sugar can tell, tensed for flight.
‘Here, I’ll give you your spyglass,’ says Sugar, and hoists the satchel up against her bosom, keeping it out of range of the child’s vision. She hunches forward to make extra-sure Sophie won’t be able to see the satchel’s contents — a history book, an atlas, clean underwear, the framed photograph of Miss Sophie Rackham signed Tovey & Scholefield, a higgledy-piggledy assortment of combs and hair-brushes, pencils and crayons, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the poems of Mr Lear, a crumpled shawl, a jar of talcum powder, a Manila envelope stuffed full of Sophie’s own home-made Christmas cards, the book of fairytales donated with fond wishes by a ‘tiresome’ uncle and, nestled in the very bottom, the spyglass.
‘Here,’ she says, handing the metal cylinder down to Sophie, who accepts the object unhesitatingly, but lays it in her lap without looking at it.
‘Where are we going, Miss?’
‘Somewhere very interesting, I promise,’ says Sugar. ‘Will I be home in time for bed?’
Sugar wraps one arm around Sophie’s small body, her hand cupping the swell of the child’s hip.
‘We have a very, very long journey ahead of us, Sophie,’ she responds, dizzy with relief when Sophie relaxes, wriggles closer, and lays her own hand on Sugar’s belly. ‘But when it’s over, I’ll make sure you have a bed. The warmest, cleanest, softest, driest, nicest bed in the whole world.’
THIRTY-FIVE
William Rackham, head of Rackham Perfumeries, slightly the worse for the several stiff brandies he drank after the departure of the police, stands in his parlour staring out at the rain, wondering how many bits of paper are still unaccounted for: how many are still fluttering through the evening air, or plastered to the windows of his Notting Hill neighbours, or being read by astounded pedestrians when they pluck them off hedges and fence-railings.
‘This is all we could find, sir,’ says Letty, raising her voice to compete with the howl of the wind and the susurrating din of the downpour. She adds a handful of muddy pages to the sodden heap in the middle of the parlour carpet, then straightens up, wondering if her master really means to dry out all these wet sheets of paper and read them, or whether he’s merely concerned to keep the streets of his neighbourhood clean.
William waves her away, a gesture of grudging thanks and dismissal all in one. These last few salvages from the writings Sugar strewed so spitefully to the wind can’t ad
d anything to what he’s read already.
Outside the parlour door, a musical murmur of feminine apology suggests that the departing Letty has collided, or almost collided, with Rose. What a household! A full complement of women scurrying upstairs and downstairs, and no one left for them to serve but William Rackham, a man disconsolately circling a mound of muddy paper. A man who, in the space of a year, has gained an abundance of onerous responsibilities, but lost his wife, his brother, his mistress and now — God grant that it not be true! — his only-begotten daughter. Is there nothing more effectual he can do in the circumstances, than scour the streets for lost pages of a tale in which men are tortured to death?
Maybe he was remiss not to have shown Sugar’s scribblings to the police, but it seemed a waste of time, in such an urgent case, to delay the search by even a minute. The absurdity of the thought: to keep barely literate policemen sitting in his parlour, frowning in earnest concentration over the feverish fictions of a madwoman, when they could be out there, in the streets of London, hunting for her in the flesh!
William falls into an armchair, and the whuff of air sends one of Agnes’s intricately embroidered squares of fabric flying off the armrest. He retrieves it from the floor and replaces it on the chair, useless though it is. Then he fetches up a page of Sugar’s writings, the page he read first of all, when the first armful of this bizarre debris was delivered to the house. It was flaccid and fragile then, dripping with water, and liable to tear in his hands, but the warmth of the parlour has since dried it, so that it crackles between his fingers like an autumn leaf.
All men are the same, declares the thin, evil-looking scrawl. If there is one thing I have learned in my time on this Earth, it is this. All men are the same.
How can I assert this with such conviction? Surely I have not known all the men there are to know? On the contrary, dear reader, perhaps I have!
Again William purses his lips in distaste at this admission of Sugar’s promiscuity. Again he frowns at the accusation that follows, where he is denounced as Vile man, eternal Adam. Yet, fascinated by the sleazy charisma of slander, he reads on.