Nina In Utopia

by Miranda Miller

  A case of the pot calling the kettle black, for girls and boys alike wear tight bloomers and a kind of ragged bandage, but I am silent for there are seven of them. I suppose they are about eighteen, and one of them - a girl, I think - presses a painted face near to mine. Curious metal rings and studs inserted in her nostrils and lips remind me of a prize pig.

  ‘Wicked veil.’

  ‘You a Muslim or what, mate?’

  Hands pull my weepers from my head. They laugh and shriek as they pull my hair most painfully, and I have no choice but to loosen my hairpins and let them run off with my veil. Now that my head is bare my hair falls around me, and I feel more exposed than ever.

  There is a gap in the thunderous traffic. I pick up my skirts and try to run across the road, which is very clean although there is no crossing sweeper. But my torn slippers impede me, and one of them falls off in the middle of the road as a monstrous vehicle bears down upon me. There is a terrible bellowing in my ears, and I am unable to move. I sink to my knees in the middle of the road and hear a screeching sound. I see an enraged red face looming over me - a gentleman - although his language is most intemperate.

  I limp to the other side of the road. It is so uncomfortable to walk with only one slipper that I jettison it and continue with just a few shreds of silk stocking between myself and the coarse ground. Close up the houses are substantial. I select the grandest and walk up to the front door. I know I must look a sight, for I am barefoot and my hair is in maenad-like tangles. I feel I am indeed a beggar at the gate and hope the servant who opens the door is amiable and will at least offer me a glass of water and a piece of bread. I long to wash my face and hands and comb my hair. Confusion and thirst and exhaustion have conspired to become a wretched headache as I search for a knocker or bell to pull. There is a row of little buttons to the right of the front door and beside each a box and a name. Mahfouz - Cohen - Gentilleschi - Barnes. I choose Barnes as being the least outlandish and press the button next to it. A female voice squawks out of the wall.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Please excuse me, madam. I have lost my way and feel unwell. My name is Mrs Nina Sanderson, and my husband is a most respectable -’

  ‘If you’re selling something I’m not interested.’

  ‘Please could you help me?’

  ‘Phukoph.’

  The wall is silent. I look around for the owner of the voice, but there is nobody to be seen.

  Outside the unwelcoming house I turn left and hobble past brilliantly lit houses, shops and taverns. Everywhere I see people who are half-undressed and jolly and even intoxicated. They all stare at me but do not speak, and I am afraid to approach anybody else. My bleeding feet and throbbing head pull me forward, but I know not where or why. There is another road with gaudy red and yellow and green lights twinkling above it. This time I dare not cross it alone and wait until a gentleman approaches.

  ‘Got any change?’

  I seem to have experienced nothing but change all day, but I don’t understand what he means.

  ‘For the night shelter. Can you spare fifty pee?’

  I think after all he is not a gentleman. As I follow him across the road I observe his pockmarked skin and unkempt appearance.

  ‘Never mind, love. You look worse than me. You sleeping rough,

  too?’

  I pass on through festive streets where men and women sit at chairs and tables on the pavement. They are eating and drinking, and I think they must be celebrating some great victory. Ladies - or at least scantily dressed females - walk alone in the night. I recall your stories of the poor creatures in the Haymarket, but these women are not desperate or unhappy. Their faces are bold and almost masculine in their brazen gaze. Many of them hold little boxes to their ear and chatter to imaginary friends. They stare at me, and I stare back. I feel alone and dowdy, for my dress is like a black curtain in the midst of their bright garments. A second curtain hangs inside my head - a fog of misery and muddle.

  With every step I feel smaller and more like the black beetle Tommy compared me with. I come to palatial buildings with dazzling windows full of gaudily dressed waxworks and curious furnishings and treasure troves of jewellery. Vast red houses on wheels rush past with faces staring out at me from brilliantly lit windows, and black patent vehicles and wheeled centaurs swoop after them. I stand in front of an Ali Baba’s cave blazing with brilliant white coffins and shiver to find that death has pursued me. Words leap out at me from the feverish blur of impressions. Zanussi - Indesit - John Lewis - Oxford Street.

  There is no scrap of my Oxford Street to be seen. No Marshall & Snelgrove or Pantheon or Queen’s Bazaar or Oxford Market. Even slums and rookeries would be a comfort just now. I turn down a side-street to rest my eyes and walk past more of these transparent rooms. They are too rich and dazzling and too crowded with more waxwork figures that stare at me and smile cruelly in shameless semi-nudity.

  I walk like an automaton and feel afraid to trust the familiar names that are attached to strange walls. Holles Street and Cavendish Square are like old friends who have disguised themselves for a masked ball. The dear mouth of Harley Street smiles at me, but the gate and the nightwatchman are not there. With my last strength I run towards our house.

  I hear your manly voice directing our move from Finsbury after Tommy was born. ‘We’ll take the lease on the houses nearest to Cavendish Square. It’s dearer, but I’m more likely to catch fashionable patients there. If Sir Percy can get hold of the duchess and get himself knighted there’s no reason why I can’t ensnare a consumptive peeress or two. We’ll have to engage a better cook, and I shall entrust you with ordering more stylish dinners to help me on my way.’

  I am reminded that Mrs Sturges seemed rather to despise the menu I ordered for our twelve guests next Thursday. These hum-drummeries are half a comfort and half a terror as I approach our door. Tommy will be in bed, and perhaps you will be sitting up in your study counting the guineas that will come in at the end of the year. I long to bury my face on your broad shoulder and weep as you explain that I suffered from concussion after I fell beneath the hansom cab and must rest. ‘Your hot little head is full of fancies,’ I hear you say as your deep chuckle reverberates in my ear. Now that I am so near you I seem to feel your strength through the walls. On our doorstep I reach out to pull the bell and do not care if I wake the household with its clamour.

  But there is no bell. Our door is green instead of black, and where your plate should be there is a box set in the wall with a list of strange names - Botox Boutique - Beauty Unlimited - Dr Rudi Fleischer. There is a knocker, but it is not our old iron ring that we always meant to replace but never quite had the money to do so. It is a brassy yellow dolphin, and I reflect I would never have chosen it as I fling myself on it and hammer at the door. Silence. I stand back from the door and force myself to look at the house. The fanlight and the blocked windows and the doorstep are all the same, but the railings are quite different. They are black instead of green, and through them I see a strange bare room. It is not your waiting-room, although the Adam fireplace squints at me like a spiteful child in a game of hide-and-seek.

  I fall down on the steps. I want only to return to our life. Even to the worst moments we have known - yes, even to Bella’s scarlatina, if it is not blasphemy to say so.

  ‘Are you ill?’

  I am staring at the face of a young gentleman who bends over me with a puzzled air. His voice is kind and he is well looking, but I find I cannot speak.

  ‘There won’t be anybody here until the morning. Do you want a lift to A & E?’

  Of course, in normal circumstances I would not accompany an unknown young bachelor to his chambers. But, my dearest Charles, I am sure you will understand that normality had fled and I was quite alone. I’m sure you will agree that I could not spend the night upon a doorstep, and I know you often say that relations between men and women should be more frank and open.

  When I understand that he means to
take me to St Mary’s Hospital I cry out in terror. I remember your stories of insanitary and drunken nurses and of beds infested with lice and bedbugs. How you said you would rather nurse Bella day and night than entrust her to the brutalities of St Mary’s.

  ‘Look, you’ve obviously been through some kind of trauma. I can’t just leave you here. When did you last eat?’

  My stomach rumbles are so deafening that I fear he can hear. I explain that I have no money to pay for refreshment.

  ‘No problem. Come and keep me company. Are you an actress? Should I have heard of you?’

  ‘I am not at all notorious, I am glad to say. My name is Mrs Nina Sanderson, and I am the wife of Dr Charles Sanderson -’

  ‘Have you had a row?’

  ‘My husband and I live very quietly and harmoniously -’

  ‘Look, love, you don’t have to pretend with me. I know what marriage is like. I’m divorced.’

  I rise to my feet and stare at him, for I have never seen a divorced person before. But my new friend is not in any way alarming. He has brown wavy hair and staunch blue eyes, and his skin is as soft and pink as a girl’s. From the beginning I talk to Jonathan as freely as if he were my brother.

  I know my handsome rugged old bear could not suspect his little Nina puss of anything underhand. And that is why I am writing this to you, my darling Charles. When I first opened my eyes last Monday and saw you all gathered around me as if at my deathbed, I confess that just for a moment I regretted the freedom I had known. You caught that thought, and I saw the pain in your eyes. I have had a strange experience, and I defy your Science to explain what happened to me. Dearest, I have tried to tell you about it, but somehow we are not able to speak as frankly now as - before. I know you always said there should be perfect trust between husband and wife, and so I am scribbling these pages. When I finish I shall creep downstairs and push them under the door of your study. Then I shall lie awake and wait for you to come and Say Goodnight. For we are together again now in our own dear house, and all that is in the past - or in the future - you must admit it is confusing.

  Jonathan wants to dine in a restaurant, but I am ashamed of the bird’s nest on my head and the beggarly feet poking out of my shabby bombazine.

  ‘You look fabulous. Sort of Tess meets Psycho. Where did you get that amazing dress?’

  ‘At Jay’s. It is not far from here if you should ever require any mourning.’

  Then I remember that I do not know where Jay’s is any more and brush a tear away.

  ‘Oh G—d, please don’t start crying again!’

  Jonathan persuades me to let him escort me back to his chambers where he says he will warm up a chicken ticker. It does not sound appetizing, but I am too hungry and tired to care, and so I take his arm. Imagine my surprise when we come to the very mews from where we hire our carriages. But there is no sign of any horses or carriages as Jonathan opens a door and we ascend to a garret.

  I am astonished by his poverty. A large room with bare floorboards contains only a green sofa, shelves of books, a table and chairs and a few boxes. It is very clean but pitifully comfortless. There is no fireplace and not a scrap of wallpaper on the stark white walls, nor any curtains to soften the large dark window. I collapse on to the sofa to rest my poor feet and wish I could loosen my stays and take some smelling salts. I feel so weak that I think my poorly time must have arrived and worry how I shall manage in a strange place.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Thank you. I do not think I was ever more thirsty in my life.’ He opens a spigot and hands me a glass of water, which I look at nervously.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I wonder - are you not afraid? My husband says that he who drinks a tumbler of London water has in his stomach more animated beings than there are men women and children on the face of the Globe.’

  ‘I think you’ll survive. Trust me.’

  I sip the water and - oh, Charles - it is the cleanest, sweetest water you can imagine. I feel better at once. Jonathan bustles about. He is a veritable kitchenmaid as he opens drawers and cupboards and bangs plates. I feel I ought to help with these preparations, but I have no idea what to do, and besides I am exhausted. It is very pleasant to lie back and watch him.

  ‘Is it the housekeeper’s day off?’

  He laughs. ‘And the butler’s off, too. Tikka masala or vindaloo? I like it hot.’

  Conversing with him is like walking in a forest. There are glades of understanding succeeded by thickets of bewilderment, but I do not want to appear stupid, so I smile my way through the darkest undergrowth.

  We picnic on the sofa in a very jolly way, and whatever it is that we eat for our impromptu supper is delicious. I think I was never so hungry in my life. We drink a little wine and a great deal of water, for the food is spicy.

  Dear Charles, I think I must have fallen asleep for that is all I remember.

  I awake in broad daylight to find Jonathan preparing a frugal breakfast, and there is a mouthwatering smell of coffee. I watch him through my eyelashes for a few minutes and feel a strange wave of happiness.

  On reading this I am afraid you will think me callous. Of course, I constantly longed to see you and Tommy and to return to my domestic duties. But where were they?

  I am touched by the way Jonathan shares his meagre breakfast with me.

  ‘You’ve been very good to me. I hope you find employment soon.’

  ‘I’m snowed under with work. But it’s Saturday, thank G—d. Don’t you think you’d better give your husband a ring?’

  I glance down at my wedding ring and the mourning ring we had made of our darling’s hair.

  Jonathan sighs. ‘Bathroom’s free if you want to freshen up before you go.’

  ‘Where am I going?’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s up to you?’

  Seeing that I have angered him I flee into the bathroom, which is a tiny white-and-silver cubicle about the size of our linen cupboard. There are objects resembling a bath and a basin, but the commode is fiendishly complicated, and I cannot make any sense at all of a strange box like an upright coffin full of gleaming metal instruments like the ones in your surgery.

  I have never undressed without a maid before. It is dreadfully hard, and I think my arms will come out of their sockets as I strain and wriggle to undo all the tiny buttons at the back of my bombazine. But I can hardly ask Jonathan to help me. The bathroom is so small and my dress is so big that it fills all the available space when at last I climb out of it. It swells like a great black balloon and floats between me and the door while the petticoats I shed flutter like frothy white clouds.

  At last I stand in my corset and sit down on the commode. I know you always say I should be more frank about my bodily functions and that ‘Nature driven out through the door comes back through the window’. I establish that my poorly time is not, in fact, upon me. Then I take off my tattered stockings and struggle to unlace my stays. My corset stands alone like a gate I have just walked through, and I am quite naked. Something shimmers behind me, and I whirl around to find a looking-glass Nina. I have never seen myself unclothed before. So very white with red marks where my corset has bitten into me and my hair like a crazy jungle with dark frightened eyes peering out. I stare for a long time.

  ‘Are you all right in there?’

  ‘Yes!’ I cry and make haste to perform my ablutions. But I have no idea how the spigots work and soon become extremely wet without becoming any cleaner. Water floods the floor and laps at the black-and-white cliffs of my discarded clothes.

  ‘What the phuk -’

  Jonathan bangs on the door, and I hear him shout above the veritable Niagara I have caused. I wrap myself in a threadbare dressing-gown that hangs beside the coffin and allow him to enter. He squeezes past my mountainous debris, then slips on the wet floor and bangs his head on the side of the basin. For a moment I think I have killed him and grow quite hysterical as I imagine that I shall be executed and
never return to my proper self.

  Then Jonathan springs up and turns off the spigots. He turns to me, and his cross, red face looms over me. I fear that he is going to shout at me or even hit me - you know how I detest scenes. But suddenly he laughs.

  ‘You’re hopeless! Anyone would think you’d never seen a bathroom before. Just go into my bedroom and get dressed there. Think you can manage that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I cannot dress myself.’

  ‘So you’re going home in my bathrobe?’

  I draw it more tightly around me and feel it is the last thin wall between us. The room is so very small and his breath is hot on my cheek.

  Dearest Charles, how you would have laughed to see how we resolved this crisis. Your foolish little wife became a disciple of Bloomerism. There was nothing for it but to wear the trowsers - Jonathan’s - and a tea shirt. This is a tiny short-sleeved garment that had no buttons to befuddle my fingers. It feels very strange to be inside those clothes. As if I am a little girl again running around in my shift. As if I am quite young and carefree and not a faded matron of twenty-eight with an establishment and a son and a dear dead daughter. On my feet I wear cumbersome great shoes more like boats than boots which are exceedingly ugly but very comfortable. My hair is a mass of tangles, and Jonathan’s comb breaks as I try to pull it through. I long for Lucy to come and brush it for me - and then to disappear again before she could be pert about my strange new clothes. Jonathan possesses neither a hairbrush nor a hat, so I bundle my hair up and twist it into my back-comb where it sits on top of my head like an angry porcupine.

  Jonathan and I laugh as we mop the bathroom floor. The water has seeped out under the door and made puddles all over the bare floorboards of his little garret.

  ‘What are we going to do with this?’

  He holds up my black bombazine, which seems to have grown again so that it swings from the ceiling like a great dark bell. Suddenly it looks quite ridiculous, and I can hardly believe I have lived inside it for so long. I laugh as I pick up one of my petticoats and fling it at him. My undergarments fly around the room like doves.