The Walworth Beauty

by Michèle Roberts

  Anthony seemed to follow her free-associative jumps, not to mind them. He looked amused. He said: you’re a heretic. You’d have been burned at the stake.

  Toby returned with a second bottle of wine. They went on listing domestic religious practices. For example abstaining from meat on Fridays, the day of Christ’s crucifixion. Madeleine described the fish dishes her family ate instead: the cod in cream sauce with capers, the poached mackerel. Anthony countered with his family’s grilled kippers, shrimps with bread and butter. Toby said: not what I’d call abstention!

  Madeleine asked: so what are you going to cook for Hallowe’en, Toby? He said: ravioli with pumpkin stuffing, served with fried sage. Pumpkin risotto, ditto. Pumpkin soup. Pumpkin pie.

  Anthony explained: Rose and her pals scavenged some pumpkins recently from a supermarket skip. Rose carved Hallowe’en lanterns and gave us the insides. All the flesh. So we’re going to cook supper for the people in the local church refuge.

  Toby said: we’re following in the footsteps of Alexis Soyer, the Victorian chef. He set up soup kitchens that could serve thousands of destitute people at a time. Rich people donated the legs of mutton or whatever. Our twist is that Rose and her revolutionary friends steal the food for us to cook and give away.

  Anthony said: so we’re not dishing out charity. We’re recycling. Just in case you wanted to know how we see it.

  She heard them saying ‘we’. A couple. Lovely double act. Darting around their kitchen; a waltz of knives and chopping-boards. When you were single you had a tribe: friends and neighbours. Toby and Anthony formed part of that tribe. And ‘we’ could spread out to include all the people in nearby streets.

  She said: can I help you? That’s just the kind of thing I should like to be doing.

  Toby said: help us next time. We’re sorted for Hallowe’en. Too many cooks! Not that Rose will spoil our broth. She hardly knows how to cook at all.

  Anthony added: you know Rose is coming to stay with us? She may not have had time to tell you yet. We only fixed it up yesterday. We’re going to be great-uncles.

  The fence separating off the burial ground in Redcross Way purports to divide the living and the dead. Does it? Perhaps the dark air on either side teems and flickers with spirits. Strangers stand next to Madeleine. Alive, lively. Their sleeves brushing hers. All of them pressed together. Overcoats smelling of rain, woollen shoulders damp from the drizzle earlier. Young people, older people, waiting patiently in the darkness, murmuring, chatting. Marcia stands amongst them, eyes bent to her candle. Is she praying? Madeleine tries to catch her eye; fails.

  A gong resounds. Welcome! A man in a brown tweed coat steps forward from the group of women bunched near the stone Madonna. Clear-eyed; open face; his attention focussed like a beam of light on his listeners. Strong, resonant voice. Passionately he launches his words, holds the gathering’s attention. Briefly he explains the history of this bleak place, invokes the outcast women who ended up here in unmarked graves. He recites a poem in their honour, reclaiming them: rebel saints dedicated to liberation, disorderly angels shunned by bourgeois wives but showing the male disciples who could appreciate them a vision of heaven on earth, of freedom, of pure sex. A shaman with golden wings he seems, beating through smoky air, wielding the sword of dissent; slashing through hypocrisy, praising prostitutes, his beautiful, misunderstood sisters. He draws the watching mass of people into his intensity. Not one of them is lifting a mobile, taking photos. They seem as rapt as he is.

  Too romantic, grumbles someone jammed in behind Madeleine: prostitutes were poor slags who had to stand in freezing alleys dropping their knickers for threepence a time. Give us a break!

  A voice with a slight croak and crackle to it. Madeleine turns. Tall young woman in an olive-green parka, its fur-trimmed hood tossed back over her shoulders. Black crew cut; dark, lively eyes; scarlet-painted mouth. Warmth slides over Madeleine. She whispers: I know you. D’you remember? We met before, at that play at Bart’s. You’re Maria.

  Maria embraces Madeleine. It’s you! I looked for you after the play but you’d run out on me.

  Fur tickles Madeleine’s nose. Maria’s laughing, holding on to Madeleine’s sleeve. She says: I’m here for research. Another play, same subject, but taking it all a bit further, into the present day. You?

  Madeleine tries to keep her voice low, not to disturb the hushed people round about. I discovered this place by accident ages ago, but I didn’t know what went on until friends told me. So I thought I’d take a look.

  Toby and Anthony have been patrolling their new neighbourhood east and west of Waterloo, Bermondsey to Vauxhall, discovering it street by street. Boulders set into stone walls as markers of ancient boundaries; traces of the Marshalsea prison; classic gay pubs; the groceries and tapas bars of Portuguese and Brazilian communities; the candlelight vigils held here at the Redcross Way burial ground. Parting from her outside the Adam and Eve, they urged Madeleine to attend tonight’s vigil. Just the thing for Hallowe’en, surely. We’re busy early evening, taking the food down to the refuge, but we’ll meet up with you afterwards, in the Boot, with Rose and Sally. They’re coming over to move Rose’s stuff in, and then staying to supper. Come as well, why don’t you?

  The dome of darkening sky shows a few faint stars. A chill wind glazes their faces. Madeleine rubs her hands together to warm them, fishes in her pocket. Her fingertips scrabble at seams. Damn: no gloves; she’s forgotten them at home. Instead of gloves she’s got a handkerchief, her phone, a penknife. She was tying up plants in the garden earlier, cutting string with her neat Laguiole knife, forgot to put it away. Oops. Shouldn’t be carrying this on the street.

  The poet-priest summons the guitar-player, who begins to sing. Maria squeezes Madeleine’s arm. So great to see you again! People packed in nearby shoot them pained glances, as though they’re gossiping in church. Maria whispers: talk later, OK? The young man next to her, holding his girlfriend’s hand, turns, frowns. Shhh! Maria looks him over, gives him a slow smile.

  Fetching, Nelly would have named that smile. But Nelly no longer speaks to Madeleine. She has gone. Nipping off, she’d call this vanishing act. Just nipping off round the corner, dear, to catch the post. A rip in the air, through which she fled. The air a screen, behind which she disappeared. Did I drive her away, getting cross with her that time? No good clutching after her. Madeleine’s got her on paper: her written record of Nelly’s sayings and jokes. Also the remembered, invented tales transcribed for Rose, pasted up on the front doors of Rose’s model. Rose smoothed out a blister of glue with her fingertip. We’re getting there. Don’t think you’re finished, though. One more story to go.

  The plaintive ballad ends. The musician in the striped woollen cap bows over his guitar, retreats. A fair-haired girl aged ten or so, muffled in a green duffel coat, begins to recite a poem in a clear, piping voice. I wander thro’ each charter’d street/ Near where the charter’d Thames does flow. Madeleine silently recites Blake’s poem along with her: one she used to read with her literature students, which some of them disliked because it disturbed them. The small girl stumbles over a word, but goes stubbornly on. The youthful harlot’s curse. Her audience strains forward, listening. Her voice like silvery water rippling up. A dark well of adults curving round her.

  An engine pumps and roars. The screech of brakes shatters the group reverie. A minibus bangs to a halt, parks just beyond the pub, half on the pavement, half off. The metal door rattles back, disgorging a dozen or so passengers, who spill out onto the road, advance, a press of dark bodies, a wave of exclamations. Two of these newcomers are costumed as skeletons, others as witches and wizards in black cloaks with orange frills. A couple of women sport fake-fur coats open over glittery purple mini-dresses with plunging necklines, balance on lofty platform heels. All of them push and shove towards the front of the crowd, the decorated fence. Francine’s voice raises itself: gently does it, Sex Walkers, gently!

  Madeleine’s hand flies to her mouth. Fuc
k. I should have expected this. She gives Maria a quick, whispered explanation. So what? shrugs Maria: I guess we’re all Sex Walkers too, aren’t we? I’m not a participant, that’s for sure.

  Madeleine hesitates. I’m intrigued. I’m an onlooker, certainly. I don’t know what else I am. Half inside and half outside. In between.

  Maria asks: you some kind of academic?

  The poet-shaman lifts his hands. Welcome, friends, welcome. Plenty of room for us all on this pavement, if we just move along a little. He pats the shoulder of the small green-coated girl, urges her to start the poem again. She lifts her candle in one hand. Her fluting vowels rise up. The throng of people attends to her, becomes once more a single mass. Just for a moment, before tiny illuminated screens start bobbing about in the darkness.

  Francine wears a tightly belted black leather coat, a rakishly tilted black fascinator, black stilettos. Black fishnet stockings. Keep the fishnet flag flying! The black sky wraps them round. Candlelight gilds the edges of the artefacts tied to the fence. The poet calls: would anyone else like to speak? To sing? No?

  Face glowing, he opens his arms in farewell, in blessing. Maria mutters: surely it’s all a performance. He can’t really be sincere. Where’s the irony?

  The poet-priest drops his arms, turns back into an ordinary man, merry and sexy, full of jokes and cheek. His group of women disciples bustles up, closes around him.

  Maria lights a cigarette, takes a few drags: all priests are secretly power-mad, aren’t they? What makes this man any different? He’s a kind of priest, isn’t he?

  Madeleine says: perhaps he’d call himself the master of ceremonies? He’s a poet, at any rate.

  She puts on her self-mocking Mrs Teacher voice: a poet in the Shelleyan tradition. You know. ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind.’ That sort of thing.

  So what about womankind? continues Maria: where were the prostitutes? Why didn’t we hear from any of them? I wanted to meet some of them, talk to them.

  Oh, Maria, for heaven’s sake. Madeleine pulls up the collar of her jacket, stamps her feet to warm them. She says: perhaps they were here, lots of them, how can we know? They’re just women. Men as well, I suppose. They don’t go about wearing badges!

  Maria blows out smoke. OK. I guess so. I’ll have to find another way of getting in touch.

  Madeleine shoves her cold hands into her pockets: perhaps they’re in the pub, putting their feet up. Shall we go and join them, get a drink?

  There must be online support groups, Maria muses: I just haven’t looked for them yet. Did I tell you that for my new play I’m doing research into online porn, online sex? Fascinating.

  The gong sounds again. People blow out their candles, press forwards to tie new offerings to the fence: bows of scarlet ribbon, lengths of beads, fresh flowers. Madeleine moves off the kerb and out of their way, stands in the street, in front of the pub entrance. Light glistens on black tarmac, wet after the rain earlier. Maria drifts across to a group of Sex Walkers, starts talking to them.

  Francine waits to one side. Half in shadow. Light from the nearby street lamp polishes her black leather coat, her pale, powdered face. She’s posing; a parody from film noir; almost a caricature. She knows it, tilting her chin, sending cool looks flashing right and left. When Madeleine waves hello, Francine breaks her pose, darts towards her. She holds Madeleine close, kisses her on both cheeks: darling! Fabulous to see you. Another press of the soft mouth. Can we give you a lift? Is Rose here? Where is she?

  Madeleine says: she’s coming with Toby and Anthony. They should be along any minute.

  Just as long as they don’t love her more than me, Francine says: that’s all!

  Wind sweeps the branches of the trees on the far side of the burial ground. Silvery light behind the twisting mass of leaves: the moon beginning to rise. The crowd frays and thins, some people still hovering in groups, others dispersing along the pavement, crossing the road towards where Madeleine and Francine stand in front of the pub’s lit doorway. Further along, the minibus blocks the pavement. Maria returns to Madeleine’s side, eyes Francine, nods hello. The poet-shaman and his companions remain near the fence, facing the burial ground, heads bent. They lift their hands, seeming to caress the cold air. They murmur, as though they are saying goodnight to the dead women. Maria follows Madeleine’s gaze: I get it. They really love them.

  A movement in the darkness further along the street. The solid shadows shift, break up. Small block of figures advancing from the black railway arch: four people, laden with bags. Their height, their gait, reveal them as Toby and Anthony, Rose and Sally. Madeleine waves and they halt, put down their bags, wave back. Francine, arms out, hurries towards them, stiff-legged in her high heels.

  Madeleine says to Maria: over there, look, those are my friends I’m meeting for a drink. Come with us. Let’s all have a drink together.

  Maria settles her fur-edged hood around her face. Fox-lady; framed in fur. Fresh skin and sparkling eyes. Young women often don’t know how beautiful they are. Madeleine didn’t. No notion of it. Does Maria know? She works as an actor, has to scrutinise her face in the mirror each night as she puts on stage makeup. That doesn’t mean she knows she’s beautiful. Maria parts her red lips, slips Madeleine a smile: this is turning into a party. Who’s the black-leather queen? Will she come too?

  Francine starts collecting her Sex Walkers. She swerves about nimbly as a collie herding sheep, determined no strays shall escape. She darts to and fro, easing the group towards the minibus. Chatting, discussing, still aiming their phones and cameras, they clamber on board. Francine blows air kisses towards Madeleine. The bus door pulls shut. The engine revs.

  The full moon emerges above the treetops, shines mistily in the dark-lavender sky. Moonlight silvers the metal top of the decorated fence, where stragglers are still pinning messages and offerings to the mesh, pushing loops of ribbon into wire-framed gaps. Moonlight whitens the pavement, the snuffed stubs of candle abandoned on the Madonna’s plinth. Her bare, chipped toes.

  Someone turns round in the shadows beyond the Madonna, at the very end of the fence, where it abuts a hoarding. He stares in Madeleine’s direction. Sturdily shaped man in a black overcoat, black scarf. A white dog collar shows at his throat, in between the folds of black wool.

  Emm. Madeleine’s hands in her pockets touch her knife, curl to fists. He mirrors her, thrusts his hands into his own pockets, stands stiff and still. Has he recognised her? Surely she’s just a black silhouette against the lit pub doorway? A black-paper cut-out folding back into shadowy night.

  The small girl who recited Blake’s poem stands near the statue of the Madonna, refastening a toggle of her green duffel coat, watched by a fair-haired woman she closely resembles. The musician closes his guitar-case, hoists it by its strap over his shoulder. He puts an arm round the child, addresses the woman. Let’s be away.

  The poet-shaman and his band of women end their meditation, turn round. A kind of collective sigh. Marcia makes part of their company, a short, slender figure amongst their taller ones. People pick up the gong, the box that held the candles. They move off in a loose group, together with the musician and his companions. Their outlines merge, become anonymous. A dark mass wandering towards the railway arch, its shadowy black vault.

  The moonlit pavement in front of the decorated fence is empty. Nobody there.

  Rose and Sally, bulky in fleeces, come closer, followed by Toby and Anthony. Toby wears a red scarf tucked into his overcoat, Anthony a pink one. They surround Madeleine like a friendly guard. Anthony touches her shoulder: you all right? She says: not sure. I feel very cold.

  NINETEEN

  Joseph

  As he trod down the house steps into the street, thick fog met him, closed round him. Pea-souper: yellowish grittiness forcing itself against his nostrils, his mouth. Sour coal taste on his lips. He raised his scarf, wrapped it around the lower part of his face.

  He felt his way along Apricot Place rathe
r than walked. Blundered under the archway into Orchard Street, veered towards where he thought the main road must lie. He could see just a couple of inches from his nose. No sound other than his breathing. No other footfall, no dogs barking, no carriages jolting past. The fog muffled everything. No landmarks visible. No signposts.

  He seemed to be the only person left in the world. In this yellow-grey dreaminess. So Mrs Dulcimer? Where was she? A bad night for a woman to be out alone. He must find her, accompany her home. He tried to quicken his step. He floundered through the billows of fog.

  TWENTY

  Madeleine

  The pub offers shelter. Heat and yellow light and soft grey shadows. Friendly tussle, buying each other drinks, pushing up around the table to make room, exclaiming, discussing. They heap the bags of Rose’s belongings in a corner. Sally surveys the oak panelling, the framed engravings, the wooden tables and chairs: not bad, I suppose, as pubs go.

  Rose pulls back the hood of her fleece, unzips her jacket, unwinds her long scarf. Something to tell you, Madeleine, when we’ve got a minute.

  Maria starts questioning Toby and Anthony. Did you go cottaging when you were young? You use porn? Ever bought sex? You read Armistead Maupin? Ever been to a jerk-off party? She pulls out her iPad, looks up, waits. Toby puts on a solemn voice. We’ve no time for all that right now. Terrible shame. We’re much too busy decorating the spare room, choosing a cot, hanging up mobiles.

  Maria pouts. Rose chips in to Madeleine: Toby and Anthony are going to put me up for a while. Madeleine smiles at her. Yes, I know.

  Sally says: I’ve met our new neighbour, Madeleine. The one moved into the flat above yours. This afternoon I was coming back with my shopping and he was sweeping up the leaves outside. We got chatting, he helped me carry all my shopping in. Seemed a nice fellow. Lovely dark-blue eyes.