by Alex Reeve
‘Maybe. Mr Hurst thought he was a drunkard. He had a bottle of ale in his pocket.’
‘In his pocket? So they have clothes on when you get them? I didn’t know.’
‘Only when they arrive. The mortuary assistant undresses them, or I do.’
She widened her eyes. ‘Ladies, too? You must see all their small-clothes and everything. Is that what my gift is, a dead lady’s petticoat? That’s not a good sort of gift.’
‘How many sorts are there?’
‘Ones I like, ones I don’t. Ones that are really for the gentleman who’s giving it to me. I get those a lot.’
She grinned, teasing me again, but I disliked mention of her customers, even by implication. I didn’t count myself one of them.
‘Better than that, much better. I thought we could go to the theatre together. It’s a musical production called HMS Pinafore. I have tickets.’ I got out of bed still naked in my excitement, and fetched them from my coat pocket. ‘It’s supposed to be wonderful. I’d be honoured to take you. Will you come?’
‘Oh Leo, you can’t mean it. You know how Mrs Brafton is, with her rules. She doesn’t like me as it is.’
‘Then we won’t tell her. It’s on Saturday, a matinee performance, two o’clock.’ I put one of the tickets into her hand and closed her fingers over it. ‘The theatre, nothing more.’
She examined the ticket. ‘Leo …’
‘There are songs. You love to sing. I hear you sometimes.’
‘You know why. I was born under a stage. It’s in my blood.’
‘Exactly. You sing well enough to be on the stage yourself. One day you could be.’
She laughed and pointed at her stain. ‘Silly! How can I, with this?’
‘No one would care about that. They’d hear you and… well, anyway, please say you will. We’ll wear our best clothes. We’ll be just like other people.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, Leo.’
‘Please.’
‘Very well. I’ll go with you. Thank you.’
She kissed me, and it meant more than anything else we could have done together, being the simplest of things: the kiss of a woman for her lover. She crawled into my arms again, and I was aware of nothing else until she was shaking me awake.
‘Leo! It’s almost ten! You have to go.’
I was bleary, struggling to surface from my dream; we had been together in our own home in the early morning, the light slanting against the angles of the walls, with nothing to do all day except sleep and read and make love.
She shook me again. ‘Mrs Brafton will be angry with me.’
I yawned. ‘She might not have noticed the time.’
Maria held my face in her hands. ‘She will have. I have another customer, Leo. Please don’t be cross. You know what I am.’
‘Yes, you’re the loveliest girl in the world.’ But it was a hollow compliment, and she didn’t smile.
I got out of bed and pulled on my trousers, struggling to bind my cilice and hopping around the room with my shoes. I kissed her as I left. ‘You’ll meet me there? The Opera Comique on the Strand. Saturday at two.’
‘I will.’
‘Say it. Please.’
‘Opera Comique. Saturday at two.’
‘You’re perfect. Remember I love you.’
Downstairs, Mrs Brafton was seated in an armchair reading a pamphlet, spectacles balanced on the end of her nose. The Colonel had gone and three other men were waiting. One of them, tall and well-dressed with a neatly trimmed beard, glowered at me.
Mrs Brafton pursed her lips. ‘You’re late, Mr Stanhope. It’s not good enough, of you or Miss Milanes.’
‘Please, don’t chastise her. It was my fault. I fell asleep.’
‘Asleep?’ She looked at me as if I was mad, and one of the gentlemen rolled his eyes.
‘I can compensate you.’
She waved the suggestion away. ‘It’s not a question of that.’ She softened, just a little. ‘But it mustn’t happen again. Do you understand?’
She glanced at the tall gentleman, who nodded curtly and started up the stairs.
I watched him go with a rising hatred. I heard Maria open the door to him, and the low murmur of their voices. I wanted her to spit in his face and tell him she would never, ever be with anyone but me. I wanted her to scream so I could run up and pull him away from her, and throw him down the stairs. I wanted to beat him bloody until he crept from the house and shrivelled in the gutter with the horse piss. I wanted to take her hand and run away with her to a new life in some far-off town where no one would know anything about us, and we would be together.
Mrs Brafton cleared her throat. ‘The same time next week, Mr Stanhope?’ She had her black leather appointment book open.
‘That gentleman –’
‘Is her next customer, Mr Stanhope.’
If I didn’t leave she would call Hugo, the doorman and general custodian, who was three decades older than me but still as strong and fierce as a rhino. He loved to stand among his hives in the garden wearing a vest, rain or shine, and lift dumb-bells, one in each hand, while bees crawled across his formidable forearms.
‘Yes, of course. Same time next week.’
Out on the pavement, I kept my face down. Sometimes Maria would tap on the window and blow kisses to me as I walked away, but not today. I couldn’t bear to look back and see some dreadful silhouette. I pulled my coat tight and strode into the darkness.
When I got home, I realised I didn’t have my keys. In my rush to get dressed they must have dropped out of my pocket in Maria’s room. But I couldn’t go back for them. I couldn’t face Mrs Brafton again.
I threw pebbles up at Alfie’s window and begged him to come downstairs and let me in, which he did, eventually, muttering about drunk lodgers who didn’t give a damn about other people’s sleep. But he didn’t really mean it, and patted me on the shoulder and wished me goodnight before he crept back up the stairs.
I sat at the table in the back room surrounded by the usual boxes of pharmacy stock, and rested my head on my arms. I hated what she did for a living, but without it I would never have met her. I told myself it was just her body I had to share, just her body, nothing more. It was me she was meeting at the Opera Comique on Saturday at two o’clock. It was me she would be eating toffees with in the stalls. And afterwards, it would be me who took her home and talked to her of this and that, perhaps brushing fingers as we walked.
It was me she loved.
3
On Thursday evening I went to my chess club. This was my manly life: I had squeezed out of the acute-angled range of a girl’s existence for the embracing obtuseness of masculinity, only to find much of it still out of bounds. I would have loved to try kicking a ball to a team-mate or wrestling an opponent to the ground, but I could not. I would be exposed instantly. But I could play chess.
The club was above the Blue Posts on Cork Street, popular with rag-trade men and printers who spilled out on to the pavement with hands cupped around their pipes and tankards lined up along the windowsill. I arrived at the same time as another member whose name I didn’t know, and he pushed through the crowd ahead of me.
Upstairs, the smoke stung my eyes and caught in my throat, a miasma hanging over the players as they hunched by their boards, plotting. Jacob was already engrossed in a game with Berman, a student with slick hair and an annoying habit of moving a piece and holding on to it, examining the board from every angle before letting go. Jacob yawned and flicked his cigar, scattering ash on to the jacket he wore every day without fail, regardless of rain or sunshine, until it was indistinguishable from him, stinking of smoke, beer, whisky and the metallic tang of his jewellery shop.
Berman was an average player at best and got flustered with me standing there, quickly throwing away his knight on an ill-advised quest to capture Jacob’s rook. What game he had deserted him after that, and Jacob took his other knight and a bishop in quick succession, poring over the board like a pampered old bulldog with a juicy bone
. Within ten minutes Berman had retired sulkily to the bar.
Jacob ordered two pints from the lad whose job it was to run up and down the stairs, laid out the board and made a fuss relighting his cigar and noisily sucking on it. He loved to keep me waiting, but I wasn’t concerned. All this was a prologue to his favourite game, which wasn’t chess, although we often played that at the same time.
It was my turn to be white. I moved my pawn to king four, and Jacob made a hissing sound between his teeth. ‘Always so conventional, Leo.’
I waved a hand at his side of the board. ‘You can move out your knight first if you want. Go ahead, challenge my convention.’
He mumbled something and then moved out his pawn in a Sicilian defence. When I rolled my eyes he shrugged: ‘You’re white. I had to follow your lead.’
I moved my queen’s knight and he moved another pawn and sat back in his chair. ‘So?’ he said. ‘What’s the news?’
‘It was wonderful. Maria said yes.’ I couldn’t help but smirk at him.
‘And you’ll take her to see the Gilbert and Sullivan, will you? All that singing and prancing. My Lilya loves it, for some reason.’
I moved my other knight and we played in silence for a while, exchanging swift, familiar moves. The game was still finely poised when the boy arrived with our drinks on a tray. Before I’d even taken a sip, Jacob ordered two whiskies and another ale for himself.
He sat forward and spoke in what he thought was a whisper. ‘And she understands? About you?’ Aside from Maria, Mrs Brafton and her girls, there was only him – and one other – who knew I wasn’t born a man.
‘Of course. How could she not?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you do with her, how it works, what goes where. I’ve been married twenty years. More. How much novelty do you suppose there still is? It’s like putting on old socks.’
‘Lilya’s a fine woman.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, a fine woman, a fine wife. She suffers me, for the most part.’
‘She’s a saint.’
‘Ha! You see? The child of a minister and still you know nothing. We don’t have saints.’ He drained his tankard and picked up mine. This would be his fourth at least. ‘But if we did,’ he continued, ‘then you’re right, she would be one. Lilya, patron saint of tolerance.’
‘Check,’ I said. This was often the way. While sober he was methodical and cautious, but later in the evening he would become reckless, rampaging forward and allowing me to pick off his pieces.
He blocked with a pawn, protected by his queen, and I moved up my knight. He castled his king but I had expected that and put him in check again with my bishop. He stared sourly at the board. ‘You’re a better player these days. I used to be able to win sometimes, but not now. How long has it been? A month at least.’
‘Last time you were sober.’
‘It’s no fun playing sober. Anyway, this girl, this … Maria.’ He licked his lips. ‘You think she cares about you?’
‘Is it so unbelievable?’
‘Ha! Well, there’s a question.’ He was starting to slur his words. ‘You’re not what girls dream of, my friend. Not even a whore. I’m sorry, but there it is. And there’s no need to look like that, you know it’s true.’
I set out the board again in silence. I would be black this time. He moved his king’s rook pawn and I responded with my queen’s pawn, sipping my whisky. If he wanted to make such silly moves, this would be over all the more quickly.
He ordered two more whiskies and a bowl of nuts.
‘She does care about me,’ I said.
He grimaced. ‘Maybe. Who knows what goes on in a woman’s mind?’
He started to laugh, guffawing harder and harder until he was beating the arm of his chair with his palm. He glanced at me and laughed harder still, almost silently, going red, until finally drawing in a huge gasp.
‘Who knows what goes on in a woman’s mind?’ he repeated. ‘Not you, strangely enough.’ He started chuckling again, re-amused by his own joke.
‘Very funny.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. ‘I’m an old man and you are a young romantic, in love with a girl. What could be more natural or more foolhardy?’
‘We love each other.’
‘And you want to rescue her, yes? Take her away from that wicked life.’
He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it. ‘We’re only going to the theatre.’
‘Yes, a matinee. Bah! It’ll be full of children.’ He waved a hand. ‘No chance of a hand on her knee at a matinee. How much are the tickets?’
‘What does that matter?’
‘Ten shillings each, yes? You’re overpaying. For a quarter of that you can love her whenever you want and never have to buy her dinner, or marry her, or sit through Gilbert and bloody Sullivan.’ He laughed again.
I was close to just getting up and leaving, or tipping over the board. If he’d been younger I might even have hit him, which I’d never done to anyone. ‘You’re obnoxious when you’re drunk.’
‘I will save you the trouble,’ he declared, ignoring me. ‘I will buy the tickets from you and take the sainted Lilya. Lucky for you I’m not strict about the Shabbat. I will suffer the awful Pinafore for your sake.’
‘Just play, will you?’
I won that game too, with a kind of cold anger, tearing through his pawns and trapping his queen, taking two of his bishops as she struggled, and ending it with two long thrusts of my rooks.
He stood up, unsteadily. ‘Piss,’ he said, and stumbled towards the door.
I laid out the board again and waited. Portas-Meyer, a better player than me, invited me for a game, but I declined, expecting Jacob to come back at any minute. I wanted to beat him again. When he didn’t reappear I reluctantly went down to the privy to find him, just to check he was still breathing. I wasn’t certain which outcome I would prefer.
I found him in a cubicle with his trousers around his ankles and his chin on his chest, snoring gently. I slapped his face, harder than was strictly necessary, and he opened his eyes.
‘You should go home,’ I said.
He stood up, swaying, and I thought he might vomit on me, but he swallowed hard and seemed to get his stomach under control.
‘You’re right,’ he mumbled, and tried to walk, but his trousers were still down and he fell against the wall, banging his forehead on the corner. He touched the graze with his fingers, staring at the smear of blood as if it belonged to someone else.
Outside, the bitter cold made me light-headed. I’d drunk more than I’d intended and eaten almost nothing. Jacob’s house on Shoe Lane was well over a mile away.
He was attempting, unsuccessfully, to pick up his hat from the pavement.
‘You mustn’t be offended,’ he said with deliberation. ‘I can be inconsiderate sometimes. I want what’s best for you, you know.’
‘I know.’
He waggled his finger at me. ‘Don’t lie to me. You’re upset.’
Upset; such a feminine word. I wasn’t upset, I was angry.
‘I’ll walk home with you.’
He shook his head. ‘Not necessary. I’m quite capable.’
‘You’re old and drunk.’
‘Well, I can’t stop you, can I? And I do have responsibilities. Seven children.’
‘Four of them have already left home.’
And so we walked through the pools of lamplight, me with my hat pulled low, hands deep in my pockets, and Jacob veering from side to side with his shirt untucked, one brace lolling around his knees.
‘I’ve nothing against whores,’ he said after a while.
‘Obviously.’ It was Jacob who’d recommended me to Mrs Brafton.
He jabbed a finger at me. ‘Now who’s judging who?’
‘Not at all. Keep walking.’ I could feel the flicking of rain on my face and, more urgently, was starting to need the privy myself. I should’ve gone back at the club, but had been preoccupied a
nd, unlike Jacob, I couldn’t just stop and piss up against a wall.
‘What else could I do? Seven children already and Lilya as she is. It was all for her sake. Anyway, it’s in the past. She’s too old now, so we can rut like foxes and never get an eighth.’
I walked a little faster, forcing him to scamper.
We were passing the flower market, all closed up, but it smelled heady even in winter. Some boys were playing a game between the columns, skittering stones across the paving. They paused and watched us, almost invisible against the grey.
‘It’s just that you can’t trust a whore. I’m not condemning them, it’s what they do. They deceive for a living. They whore with their mouths as well, you know.’ He stopped and chuckled, leering at me, his beard glistening in the rain. ‘You know what I mean. They tell you what you want to hear.’
‘You don’t understand how it is with us.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ He took my hand in his. He was slurring and bilious but, even so, it was a strangely sweet gesture. ‘You’ve given your heart to this girl, Leo, but she may not be what you think. And you don’t take it well, my friend. Old men are always trying to charm ladies and they treat us with contempt. We come to expect it. We’re grateful if the truth was told. But you’re not made that way.’
I let go of his hand, a little sharply. ‘How am I made?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t mean that. Not physically. You’ve done it before, that’s all I’m saying. You have a history of stupidity.’ I walked on and he hurried to catch up. It was properly pouring now, and umbrellas were sprouting in people’s hands. I was getting soaked, and my need for the privy was increasingly pressing. ‘I hope it’s different this time. I pray.’ He opened his arms and shouted up into the rain. ‘Let it be different for Leo this time! He deserves to be happy!’
‘Be quiet, Jacob.’
‘Well, why not? It’s possible. Whores can’t be whores for ever, can they? What do they do afterwards, eh? They settle down with some idiot like you, and no one’s any the wiser. Half the women in London were probably whores at one time.’ A gentleman passing by with his wife stared at Jacob, but he was oblivious. ‘Only, hold something back, will you, Leo my friend? Just in case there isn’t a wedding and a bower of roses.’