Letters From an Unknown Woman (40 page)

There were no books at all in the flat, not even small green ones without a title on the cover. Mr Wilde liked to drink in a gin palace on the Tottenham Court Road, and would, if he was able, carry Donald up the steps from the basement so that he could accompany him, now and then.

Tory did her best to avoid becoming resentful of Branson’s kinship with Donald – she had to credit her husband with being welcoming of the young man. She just hoped he wouldn’t get caught up in Donald’s seedy little machinations and adventures.

*

She busied herself, partly by way of distraction, with matters of the house. Mrs Head had had enough of an estate to make Tory modestly rich for a few months. With the aid of this money and with help from the council, she was able, at last, to install an indoor lavatory and bathroom.

Floors were lifted, holes were drilled in walls, new walls were erected, and for what seemed months the house was the trampled domain of plumbers and builders. Then, suddenly, they left, and there was a new room in the house, a room newer than all the others, which was like stepping into a new dimension. It terrified Tory at first. Walking along the landing with its Edwardian shadows, its china plant pots standing on thin-legged tables, the Turkish carpet, the shadowy alcoves with their fading, roseate wallpaper, she would open a door and suddenly be in the brightly lit space of the twentieth century, where everything was white and clean, so white and matching that it was hard, in a way, to distinguish individual objects. Slowly, out of the dazzle, a bath would emerge with silver taps, then a washbasin and a lavatory with a low flush. Above the sink was a mirror that was also a cupboard. A magnificent deception. She opened it, watching her face lurch suddenly sideways.

The wiring was done. More floorboards lifted, more walls drilled open, then an instantly summoned brightness. Every room now had its own light switch, a dark brown apple with the stalk facing out. You pulled the stalk, which gave a thick, reluctant click, and suddenly clear white light was pouring into every corner, filling the room right up to its brim. The fuse box, over the dining-room door, was like a sort of cuckoo clock without a face, behind whose door sat rows of Bakelite pins. What was she supposed to do with these? She was assured they were not her concern. The family could not only bathe in running water, but they could do so under intense illumination. This had an unfortunate effect on Tory, however: she saw, for the first time in her life, her naked body in the glare of electricity. Had she lived alone, this experience would have been enough to make her regress to gas lighting. She would happily have done without the glare of a sixty-watt bulb for the rest of her life, if it meant she could gaze once again upon the textures of her own skin softened by coal gas. In gas light she was bronze, copper, brass. In electric light she was cheap aluminium, dirty tin.

*

Branson emerged from the changing rooms at the far end of the gym, looking rather ungainly in his vest and trunks, both of which seemed ill-fitting, the shorts coming down below the knees. She watched as her boy was fitted with gloves by his father, holding each one out in turn, wrist up, like a sort of vase, into which Branson dipped a cautious fist, as though into a lucky dip, then seeming surprised that he couldn’t remove his hand, finding that it was fastened in by laces and straps, the securing of which seemed a vigorous process that shook his whole body. When the strapping in was complete, he seemed to just stand there, motionless, as if unable to understand his new body, figuring it out, testing the gloved hands against each other, knocking them together like enormous conkers, or like a butterfly that has just emerged from its cocoon and is amazed to find that it has wings.

He doesn’t fight in that first session. He is shown what George calls ‘ring craft’, which meant, as far as she could tell, getting used to the space of the ring, running from one end to the other, feeling the elasticity of the ropes, running sideways along all four sides, sitting in the corner, as though between rounds, bending and stretching at the ropes, running on the spot and jumping up and down to get used to the feel of the ring’s strange floor. This seemed to go on for a long time, with George giving him long instructional talks between. Then it was back onto the floor and over to a speed bag, one of those body-sized bags that hangs from the ceiling, but it was a long time before Branson took a swing at it. Tory could see George instructing him on the right way to hold his body. He seemed to start from the feet up, giving long sessions on where to place his feet. Good job, thought Tory. Perhaps now he’ll stop falling over. He tried many different stances — right foot forward, left foot forward, right foot forward and to the side, and so on. Each time he placed his feet in a certain way George would take him by the shoulders and gently rock him, as if allowing him to feel his own centre of gravity, to learn where his ‘fall point’ was. This is going to be better for Branson than I ever imagined possible, Tory thought.

She could not take her eyes off the spectacle, though remained at her distant vantage-point for the whole session. The care George was taking with the boy was so unexpected. This was not just a response to her request for gentle handling. Boxing, it seemed, was a sport founded on nurturing and caring, of understanding and protecting the body, of rooting it firmly in the ground and giving it a poised and balanced structure. Tory had imagined they would just start belting each other.

‘I’m glad you didn’t bash him about too much,’ she said, and laughed, when Branson was returned to her at the end of his hour.

‘No, bashing starts later. The first weeks we teach them how to stand up and how to walk all over again.’

Well, that must be quite nice for you, Tory thought, because you missed out on it the first time.

*

Tory still wondered what to do with Charlotte Maugham. She had finished her novel but had been unable to find a publisher. She tried three, two of them rejected her without explanation, the third said that they enjoyed her ‘bold’ writing style, but the story wasn’t strong enough.

As for her other literary venture, she had given up pretty quickly on the idea of seizing and destroying every copy that had been printed. For a time she and Grace had flirted with the idea of travelling to Paris to harangue the publisher and, using whatever means they could, either to destroy his stock or to find out where he had sent it. Perhaps they could save the money, she thought, to buy up the whole print run. Grace was keen on the idea. She said she could speak good French, and gave Tory a demonstration, though to Tory it just sounded like gobbledegook. In the end their ambition frittered out. Going abroad seemed like too big an adventure for Tory, let alone confronting a French publisher. In they end they decided to write.

*

There was a letter that Tory Pace had, for the last five years, always carried around with her. It was from the French publisher of her letters, in reply to a letter she had carefully written (translated into French for her by Grace). He replied in English. She liked to take it out of her bag now and then, whenever she had doubts about the future and what it might hold. She read it now as she waited for Branson to finish changing.

My dear, dear Victoria Pace,

First of all, let me say how honoured and thrilled I am that the author of
Letters To Her Husband By a Naughty Housewife has made themselves known to me. I should not be surprised that you write French as beautifully as you write your English. I regard your work as one of the most supreme examples of erotic art to have ever been written. It is a great surprise to me to find that they were published without your permission or knowledge, though this is a matter for you to pursue with Mr Harry Wilde, the agent representing an anonymous (to us) author, rather than with us. I am sure you can follow what I am saying. Your sense of hurt and anger comes through very strongly in your letter, but there is little point in making threats, and indeed, when one does so in ink on paper, one risks fouling the law. I am afraid that the letter you wrote us is libellous, blackmailing and threatening. I have not yet passed it on to the police, but if you write another letter in a similar genre, I will be forced to do so.

    A much more beautiful outcome for us both, I think you will agree, is that we find some sort of working relationship together, which will be mutually marvellous. You are clearly a woman of extraordinary talents and extraordinary passions, and I am a man who is always interested in people of talent and passion. I am quite serious when I say that I would like to commission a new novel from you, perhaps in a similar genre to the one you have already written, or you might want to adopt a more conventional narrative form (not letters); it is up to you. There are countless scenarios – the convent, the girls’ school. For a long time I have been wanting someone to write about the women’s armed forces from an erotic perspective. Such a novel would, I would hope, spit in the eye of what you English call the fuddy-duddy society. My father was an Englishman, I would like to add. You would not need to expose yourself – you can publish under a pseudonym, if you so wish, or no name at all. I would like to point out that the Olympia Press has published some of the most distinguished authors of the twentieth century, and that my father, who started the press, published a section of work by James Joyce – I am reminded of certain aspects of A Work in Progress in your own writing, my dear Victoria Pace. There, I’ve paid you the highest compliment a man can possibly make to a writer, comparing her, literally, to God. Should you be inclined to put feathers to paper again, please contact me at the above address. The world should not have to be deprived of the erotic power of your work.

Your faithful servant,

Maurice Girodias

Poor Grace; it seemed she had been right after all. Their friendship didn’t survive in the surface world. She had helped Tory through the crisis of her mother’s death, and the task of removing Donald from her life (it had been her suggestion that she simply refuse him food), and she had helped her in dealing with Mr Girodias – she had even gone as far as suggesting some hotels they could stay at in Paris. ‘Would you like me to book a room for us both, Tory? We could make a holiday of it.’

Perhaps it was the assumption that they would share a room that put Tory off. Oh, she knew what Grace was like, and she had known for some time – the poor thing was in love with her. But Tory was afraid, and had been ever since a peculiar moment a while after Mrs Head’s funeral when Grace had invited her for tea at her house in Dulwich. Tory had strong misgivings about accepting the invitation, feeling all the while that she was going to be compromised in the most uncomfortable way. She had been right: the house was empty and Grace had tried to force herself upon her, plunging at Tory’s face with her lips heavily painted and pouting. The softness was gone: Tory could feel all the bones in Grace’s face pressing against her own, two skulls clashing, and she ran from the house, smeared with lipstick, Grace weeping apologies as she tried to hold her back, so desperately that Tory had had to slip out of her jacket to escape, leaving the woman sobbing into the empty sleeves.

It hadn’t been the end of their friendship, not quite. Grace had written long letters of apology and they had agreed to meet at the Tea Rooms (Tory had resigned from the lavatories the day her mother died). She seemed quite recovered, was sparky and bright, her old self, and perhaps the friendship could have resumed, but when Grace suggested the trip to Paris and the shared bed in Montmartre, Tory decided enough was enough. The last she had heard, Grace was divorced and back in Melbourne.

*

Nothing, Tory supposed, is quite as worrying as having a son who wants to be a boxer.

In the weeks that followed, Branson was still insistent that she accompany him, and Tory had grown quite fond of the brash new gym, where she still maintained her distance, sitting on the same sweaty bench as before, watching the progress of Branson from afar. There was a heart-stopping moment when he took his first hit, after George had carefully set up his guard so that he was crouched behind his two bulbous fists. George gave a little prodding tap at the closed doors, then a little harder, and a little harder. By now Branson was also wearing the amateur’s padded head guard, which gave him an even more curious shape, like a heavy-bodied beetle, with his big clumsy fists and his swollen head. She watched as George jabbed a little harder. Branson’s body shook and he took a step backwards. He was told to lean forward more. He then took a heavier punch and hardly moved at all.

Then George turned the tables, putting up his own guard, asking Branson to come forward and throw some punches at his raised gloves. Tory felt like applauding from across the other end of the gym when she saw Branson’s arm outstretched, his glove connecting with his father’s, then another, little dabs, like a playful cat might give a lame bird, one after another. Then the reply: George took advantage of Branson’s lowered guard and landed him a punch full in the face. The boy staggered back, looked dazed. Tory was still at the other end of the gym, but stood up and felt like shouting at George, telling him off for being a bully. She saw George pat Branson on the back, dab his cheeks consolingly. She could imagine what he was saying, that he had to learn to take it, to know what it feels like to be hit, right from the beginning. And what a useful lesson, Tory thought, sitting down again, to know what it feels like to be hit full in the face. No one had ever done it to her.

By the fourth week Branson was throwing combination punches at a training dummy held aloft by his father. He was told constantly to pay attention to his feet. He gave a one-two, then a little shuffle, a little bounce, then another one-two, then a one-two-three. By week five he was bouncing solidly, landing combination strings of five or six punches in quick succession. He was beginning to look frightening. If those punches were to hit the target of an opponent’s head, instead of the training dummy, they would surely knock him out. Then he was back at the speed bag, attacking it ferociously, punching at below shoulder level now, agonizing combinations left and right around the kidney area, piston-like thumping, then onto the standing punchbag, which gave him the chance to practise some uppercuts. A flowing rhythm began to develop in his fighting; he began to combine long strings of different punches, while always moving on his feet. By his sixth week he was in the ring with a sparring partner, a beginner like himself. They were of equal size, but on his first short bout Branson had the upper hand, dominating his opponent, who stepped backwards onto the ropes.