A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Her happiness is. It’s my business, anyway.’

  ‘There’s always something going on with you three, isn’t there?’ Adam said, but he sounded compassionate rather than grumpy. ‘First it was Harrie, and now it’s Friday. You could just about write a book.’

  Sarah couldn’t meet his gaze. And he didn’t even know the whole story. ‘I don’t know who’d want to read it.’

  He leant over and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s all right. I know how much they mean to you.’

  Chapter Two

  Friday slouched into the brothel’s salon, carrying her hated satin slippers, and flopped onto the sofa.

  ‘God, you look rough,’ Hazel said.

  Friday didn’t respond, stifling an acidic burp as she bent over to jam her feet into the slippers. Blood rushed into her head, intensifying the throbbing there for several painful seconds. She sat up, feeling dizzy and ill.

  ‘Been on the jar again?’ Loulou asked matter-of-factly, filing her nails.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Lou stopped filing. ‘I’m only asking.’

  ‘You know I have.’

  ‘Well, Hazel’s right, you look like shit.’

  Friday was more than aware she did. She’d rolled out of bed just minutes earlier, knocked back a glass of gin to stave off the worst of the horrors followed by a cup of tea, thrown some work clothes into her basket and staggered across to the brothel.

  Esmerelda and Rose arrived. Esmerelda exclaimed, ‘Christ, Friday, you look like death!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Friday snapped. ‘Someone lend me a bit of rouge then.’ She cupped a hand and breathed into it. ‘Anyone got any pastilles?’

  ‘In my reticule, in the dressing room,’ Rose offered.

  Lou said, ‘My face kit’s in there, too. Help yourself.’

  Friday nodded her thanks. The tension between herself and Lou had eased, though they still bickered, partly because they were both arrogant and tended to clash, and partly for the entertainment value of it.

  ‘No offence, love, but a bit of scent wouldn’t go amiss, either,’ Hazel said.

  Lou said, ‘There’s my tuberose.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Friday despised tuberose. The cloyingly sweet smell would forever remind her of malicious, two-faced Rowie Harris.

  She hauled herself off the sofa and left the salon, her slippers slapping.

  As soon as she was out of earshot, Esmerelda said, ‘You know, I reckon she’s going to lose her job soon. I can’t see Mrs H putting up with her coming to work in that state much longer. She’s swattled half the time, too.’

  Lou said, ‘Don’t bet on it. She’s Mrs H’s favourite.’

  ‘I know, but still. Someone’s bound to complain. If I turned up stinking of gin and looking like a dog’s breakfast, I’d have been out on my ear ages ago.’

  ‘A bit jealous, are we?’ Hazel asked.

  ‘No, I’m not, Hazel Wicks. I’ve nothing to be jealous of. I don’t want to come to work stewed as a monkey.’

  ‘I bet you do,’ Rose said. ‘I’d love to.’

  Hazel said, ‘You are so jealous, Es. You’re jealous ’cos the cullies love her and she makes so much chink, swattled or not. And that’s why Mrs H won’t give her the boot.’

  Elizabeth swept into the salon. ‘Give who the boot?’

  No one dared answer her.

  ‘Where’s Friday?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me she’s late again.’

  ‘She’s in the dressing room,’ Hazel said. ‘She won’t be long.’

  ‘Well, could you tell her I want to see her, please? In my office.’

  When she’d gone, Esmerelda said, ‘Ooh, maybe this time she really is in the shit.’

  Lou’s beautifully defined upper lip curled. ‘You’re such a bitch sometimes.’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

  On the sofa, Hazel shifted to ease the pressure caused by her tight corset. ‘You know, you’re not being very nice, Es. I thought you liked Friday?’

  ‘I do. Course I do. It’s just that, well . . .’

  ‘Come on, spit it out,’ Lou said.

  ‘It’s just that she’s letting us down, isn’t she? All of us. Here we are, demi-mondaines in the classiest —’

  Hazel burst into giggles. ‘Demi-mondaines!’

  ‘Why don’t you just call us what we are?’ Rose asked. ‘We’re whores, plain and simple.’

  ‘No, there’s a difference between whoring and what we do,’ Esmerelda insisted.

  Hazel laughed even harder.

  Rose snorted. ‘Oh, there is not.’

  Scowling now, Esmerelda said, ‘Anyway, we’re working in the nicest whorehouse’ — this directed at Rose — ‘in Sydney Town, probably in the whole colony, and Friday’s giving us a bad name. I work hard to look good and please my cullies. I don’t want to be tarred with the same brush as her.’

  ‘How do you know she’s giving us a bad name?’ Lou asked.

  Esmerelda looked at her. ‘Well, she must be.’

  ‘Don’t see why,’ Hazel said. ‘What’s it got to do with us? She’s only giving herself a bad name. If she is.’

  ‘I still wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs H gives her the boot,’ Esmerelda said.

  ‘Well, I would be.’ Lou put away her nail file. ‘She is Mrs H’s favourite, but not because she brings in so much money. I think she’s really fond of her. I think she’d bend over backwards not to let her go.’

  A knock came at the back door. None of the girls moved — Mrs Hislop always answered the door. They heard her rather heavy tread receding down the hall.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Esmerelda said. ‘Friday’s always so loud and rude. And her language!’

  ‘Yes, it’s fucking awful, isn’t it?’ Hazel said.

  They all burst into laughter.

  Elizabeth appeared in the doorway. Behind her a gentleman hovered, hat in hand.

  ‘Loulou, dear, your visitor has arrived.’

  Lou’s customarily surly expression instantly disappeared, replaced by a sultry and inviting smile. She uncurled herself lithely from her armchair and wafted silently across the salon, the sleeves of her silk gauze robe and her unbound hair fluttering.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said in a breathy voice. Taking hold of the gentleman’s arm, she added, ‘Would you like to come with me upstairs?’ and led him away.

  ‘Bloody Lou and her sylph act,’ Rose grumbled.

  ‘That’s enough from you,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Is Friday still in the other room?’

  Hazel shrugged. ‘Must be.’

  Elizabeth stomped down the hall and opened the dressing-room door. Friday was sitting before the looking glass, attempting to tug a comb through her rat’s-nest hair. But at least her face was done. The previous week, Elizabeth recalled, she’d come over from the Siren’s Arms without even bothering to put on any rouge or lip stain.

  ‘You’re supposed to arrive at work actually ready to work, you know.’

  ‘I know. But I lost my good comb.’

  ‘Here, give me that.’ Elizabeth took the comb off Friday and went to work on her hair, a mass of copper curls and waves that fell to her waist, concentrating on the knots at the nape of her neck. There was a strong whiff of mint surrounding her, but not quite strong enough to disguise the smell of alcohol.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Good God, when did you last get a brush under here?’

  ‘Don’t use a brush. They give you split ends.’

  ‘Rubbish. You’ve got them anyway. You need a good trim. I’ll do it for you on your next day off. Is this a twig? God almighty, Friday, how long’s that been there?’

  Friday shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t you take better care of yourself?’

  Another shrug. Elizabeth combed in silence, separating the hair lock by lock to get at the worst of the knots, and laying each freshly combed section over Friday’s shoulders. As she worked, Friday’s head sank lower and lower, until Elizabeth
finally realised she’d fallen asleep. She rapped her smartly across the head.

  ‘Wake up!’

  Starting, Friday let out a little bleat.

  ‘What time did you get in last night?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  Another knock came at the back door. Elizabeth dropped the comb in Friday’s lap. ‘Finish your hair then come and see me in my office. I want to talk to you.’

  Friday sighed. When Elizabeth had gone she dug around in her reticule for her gin and took a few sips. Then she inspected her face in the glass; a bit bleary and baggy-eyed, but she looked all right. Better than she had before, anyway. She wished her headache would go away.

  Before she sat down in the office, Mrs H told her to close the door.

  ‘I’ve had a complaint about you,’ she said bluntly. A letter lay open on the desk. ‘From a Mr Hibbert.’

  Friday crossed her arms. Mr Puppy Pizzle. What a whining old bastard he was. Tell someone who gives a shit.

  ‘According to Mr Hibbert, the last time he was here you vomited on him.’

  ‘Oh, I did not.’

  ‘He says you did.’

  ‘What a liar. I did spew in the middle of things, but it all went in the po. It didn’t go anywhere near him.’

  ‘Well, according to him, he was — ’ Elizabeth picked up the letter and quoted: ‘splashed with the foul-smelling and viscous contents of the aforementioned prostitute’s stomach, and offended mightily.’

  ‘He bloody well was not splashed. And he wasn’t offended enough to get up and leave. He had the rest of his hour. And I gave him a pound discount.’

  ‘Why were you sick?’

  ‘Those rotten teeth of his. I was feeling under the weather and his disgusting breath was the last straw.’

  ‘You mean you had the horrors.’

  Friday rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I had the horrors. But, Jesus, Mrs H, have you smelt his breath? It’s like he eats shit for breakfast.’

  ‘Yes, I know he stinks, but you get paid damn good money to put up with foul breath.’ The letter went away in a drawer. ‘Well, I think we can assume Mr Hibbert won’t be back, thanks to that little performance.’

  ‘Good,’ Friday muttered.

  Elizabeth sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. ‘Friday, I’m taking you off the roster here. Your heart obviously isn’t in your work any more.’

  That finally penetrated the hangover-induced fog befuddling Friday’s mind. Her heart gave a great thud of alarm. ‘You’re sending me back to the Factory?’

  ‘No, though I should. Most other mistresses would.’

  Friday slumped with relief, then suddenly thought, oh, no, not the bloody laundry or the kitchen. ‘What, then?’

  ‘I’m opening a flogging room, just on a fairly small scale for now. And I want you to be the dominatrix.’

  Leaping to her feet to hug Elizabeth, Friday was shocked to find herself confronting a raised hand.

  ‘Hold your horses. You’ll be on a trial, to start with. I need to be able to trust you, so from now on there’ll be no turning up late for work, or drunk, or looking like a dog’s breakfast, and certainly no spewing on the customers, do you hear me?’

  Friday nodded furiously, making her brains rattle painfully. How indescribably fabulous. No more sex with disgusting pigs. Unless . . .

  ‘It’s a fantastic offer, Mrs H. Thanks so much for picking me for the job. But what if I get cullies who need a girl to finish? Don’t think I’m not grateful, I am. But, well, it’d just be such a relief if I didn’t have to do any of that any more.’

  Mrs H knew about her sexual preferences now. The subject had come up a few months earlier when she’d come to work swattled and Mrs H had lost her temper, torn a strip off her and demanded to know why she was deliberately drinking herself into an early grave, which really she wasn’t. She was only drinking herself numb. There was a difference. To her shame she’d burst into noisy and ugly tears, and she hardly ever did that. Mrs H had herded her into the office and everything about Aria had come out, including her — their — intimate secret.

  What she hadn’t told Mrs H was how she read Aria’s one and only letter — the note that had accompanied the Christmas present of the comb and the huia feathers — almost every night, to the point that the ink had smeared and the creases where the paper was folded had worn through. And when it finally had ripped, right across the middle, she’d bawled for hours because it had seemed like the letter was a symbol of her and Aria — torn forever into two separate halves.

  Mrs H had been very sympathetic, which had been an enormous relief as Friday had been terrified she’d disapprove mightily of her tribadism. But all she’d done had been to waft a dismissive hand and say, ‘Really? Fancy that. Well, don’t worry about it, dear. There are stranger folk than you in this world, and I think I’ve met at least half of them.’ But she’d still told her she had to control her drinking, which had only proved to Friday that she didn’t truly understand how bad things were for her. No one did.

  So far she hadn’t managed to control her drinking, but mostly because she’d not even tried. She didn’t want to. The prospect of a life without gin was unthinkable. Even the thought of a day completely sober was horrible. She drank whether she was sad, happy, angry, bored, excited, jubilant, tired, at a loose end, or already drunk. She had to. Gin was like blood, air and mother’s milk to her. How on earth could she function without it?

  ‘I’ll get one of the other girls to work with you if need be,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But I meant what I said. You’re on trial. Please don’t let me down.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise.’ Friday had a thought. ‘What’s Mrs Thompson going to say? I thought she only agreed to let Mistress Ruby show me the ropes because I’d just got the one customer?’

  ‘Oh well.’ Elizabeth shrugged. ‘All’s fair in love and war. And business.’

  ‘And what about Mr Meriwether? Will he have to come here now? He won’t like that.’

  Friday had become fond of Lucian Meriwether, whom she saw weekly for a session with the whips, followed by afternoon tea and a chat.

  ‘You can still see him at home. That won’t matter.’

  Friday had another thought, quite an important one. At the moment there was plenty of money in the bank account Matthew Cutler operated on behalf of her, Sarah and Harrie, but after Bella’s next demand, which was sure to come, the cupboard would be almost bare. ‘Will my pay go down? I mean, you know how much I earn now.’

  ‘Perhaps a little to start with, but I shouldn’t think so after a month or so. I’m expecting plenty of business once word gets out, and I’ll be charging between six and seven pounds per full session as it’s a highly specialised service. The split will be the same. Forty per cent to me and sixty to you.’

  ‘And when do you think we’ll open?’

  ‘A fortnight, perhaps? I’m going to knock down the wall between that room upstairs we don’t use much — you know, the one that smells musty? — and the smaller one next door. That should give you plenty of space to work in. I’ll put up some new drapes and get Jack to do a bit of redecorating. What’s Mrs Thompson’s flogging room like? I’ve never seen it. I saw lots in London of course but, well, Sydney isn’t London, is it?’

  ‘It’s a bit dark and dingy. She’s got this black and red wallpaper, and heavy black curtains, velvet, I think, and no carpets, just shellacked floorboards. And a bed with oilcloth on it, and this stool thing that poor Violet hung over while I whacked her. And Mistress Ruby has all her tools, her whips and birches and stuff, in a glass-fronted cabinet where the cullies can see them. Oh, and there’s a set of wrist irons attached to the wall.’

  ‘How very gothic,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We might do something a little more tasteful. I’ll need to have another whip or two made and a few other bits and pieces.’ She pursed her lips, thinking. ‘I wonder if I can prevail upon the Principal Gaoler to sell me a few pairs of light irons. Otherwise I’ll have to get a blacksmith t
o make those as well.’

  ‘Isn’t the cove at the gaol the last person you should ask?’ Mrs H was running an illegal business, after all.

  ‘No, actually. He’s Vivien’s best customer.’

  ‘Oh.’ In an effort to ease her sore head Friday tilted it to the left then the right, eliciting a loud crack from her neck. Mrs H winced. ‘Do I have to keep working till the flogging room’s ready?’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘Don’t whine. You’ll need to tell your regulars why you can’t see them any more, unless they choose to avail themselves of the new service, of course. And your trial starts now, Friday, not when the flogging room opens. Do you understand?’

  Reluctantly, Friday nodded, not meeting Elizabeth’s gaze.

  ‘Good. Now off you go.’

  Heaving out a sigh so massive that her cheeks inflated to the size of small peaches, Friday hauled herself off her chair and plodded out of the office.

  Elizabeth wrestled the urge to go after her and slap her across the head. She could be infuriatingly childish, for someone who was supposed to be nearly twenty-two years old. And the more she drank, the more immaturely she behaved.

  She’d known for some time that Friday was unhappy in her work. But that was to be expected — in all her own years as a prostitute and then as a madam, she’d met few women who genuinely enjoyed the physical act of connection with their customers. In truth they were just vessels to be filled, then discarded. Few women could turn such a brutal reality into anything approaching a romantic or even erotic experience, and certainly not up to ten times a day, seven days a week. If a woman worked in the right brothel, however, the money could be very good, and she paid her girls well. This, she knew, was what kept Friday going, because she needed money. A lot of it.

  Regardless of the fact that her popularity contributed so much to the brothel’s coffers, if Elizabeth had a say in the matter she would retire Friday altogether and simply give her what she needed to live and to pay Bella Shand’s blackmail demands. It’s what she should have done with her own daughter, Amy — kept her out of harm’s way and plied her with money. But Amy would only have spent it all on gin and drunk herself into the grave, much like Friday was doing now. Friday wouldn’t take her money, though. She’d offered, several times, but Friday had too much pride. Well, she used to, but that, it seemed, was steadily being eroded by the alcohol, and by her grief for this girl, Aria.