The Crimson Petal and the White (108 page)

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Authors: Michel Faber

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BOOK: The Crimson Petal and the White

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‘You really are m-m-most kind,’ he tells her, longing to be lying down in a cosy bed. ‘I don’t know how to—’

‘Here’s yer cab, sir!’ Caroline says cheerfully, patting his arse as rescue comes trundling into view at last. And before he has a chance to make her life too complicated, she nimbly slips from his embrace and hurries back towards Church Lane, out of his reach, out of yours.

‘Goodbye!’ sings her voice, for her body is already gone, blotted into the unreadable darkness.

A
nd to you also: goodbye.

An abrupt parting, I know, but that’s the way it always is, isn’t it? You imagine you can make it last for ever, then suddenly it’s over. I’m glad you chose me, even so; I hope I satisfied all your desires, or at least showed you a good time. How very long we’ve been together, and how very much we’ve lived through, and still I don’t even know your name!

But now it’s time to let me go.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I was far too young in the 1870s to pay proper attention to everything I should, so this account is no doubt riddled with inaccuracies. In fact,
The
Crimson Petal
would have been complete and utter fiction had I not been aided in my researches by a great many people. I thank them for sharing their memories with me, and accept responsibility for any falsehoods that remain. Some of these, like the re-scheduling of the Abbots Ripton rail disaster and the shameless embezzlement of what properly belongs to Le Petomane, are deliberate; others are mere ignorance, from which the following erudite folk were powerless to save me:

Chris Baggs, Clare Bainbridge, Paul Barlow, Francis Barnard, Lucinda Becker, Cynthia Behrman, Gemma Bentley, Alex Bernson, Marjorie Bloy, Nancy Booth, Nicola Bown, Trev Broughton, Arthur Burns, Jamie Byng, Rosemary Campbell, Roger Cline, Ken Collins, Betty Cortus, Eileen M. Curran, Frederick Denny, Patrizia di Bello, Jonathan Dore, Gail Edwards, K Eldron, Marguerite Finnigan, Holly Forsythe, Judy Geater, Grayson Gerrard, Sheldon Goldfarb, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Valerie Gorman, Jill Grey, Lesley Hall, Beth Harris, Kay Heath, Sarah J. Heidt, Toni Johnson-Woods, Ellen Jordan, Iveta Jusova, Katie Karrick, Gillian Kemp, Andrew King, Ivo Klaver, Patrick Leary, Paul Lewis, Janet Loengard, Margot Louis, Michael Martin, Chris Ann Matteo, Liz McCausland, Hugh MacDougall, Kirsten MacLeod, Deborah McMillion, Terry L. Meyers, Sally Mitchell, Ellen Moody, Barbara Mortimer, Jess Nevins, Rosemary Oakeshott, Judy Oberhausen, Jeanne Peterson, Siân Preece, Angela Richardson, Cynthia Rogerson, Mario Rups, Herb Schlossberg, Barbara Schulz, Malcolm Shifrin, Helen Simpson, Carolyn Smith, Rebecca Steinitz, Matthew Sweet, Ruth Symes, Carol L. Thomas, George H. Thomson, Maria Torres, Audrey Verdin, Trina Wallace, Robert Ward, Stephen Wildman, Peter Wilkins, Perry Willett, Chris Willis, Michael Wolff and Karen Wolven.

I’m indebted to Patrick Leary for setting up the excellent VICTORIA internet discussion group, and to Cathy Edgar for directing me to it.

Mindful of the necessity to keep this book nice and slim, I can’t list all the publications I’ve consulted, though special mention must be made of Jennifer Davies’
The Victorian Kitchen
. Thanks to all the folk who’ve written about the era, and especially to those who photographed and painted it.

Several brave souls volunteered to read the manuscript. Kenneth Fielden’s sound advice at an early stage steered me away from blind alleys and pitfalls, and gave me a push in the right direction. Mary Ellen Kappler read the text in weekly instalments sent through the ether, and worked more closely on it than I had any right to expect. Her rare combination of scholarship and insight was not merely useful but inspirational.

Thanks also to my editor Judy Moir, who combed through the manuscript with the same care, dedication and good humour that she has shown in editing my previous books.

Most of all I’d like to thank my wife Eva for her incisive criticisms of
The
Crimson Petal
in its radically different drafts over the years. Her high expectations and her ability to communicate her vision of the book’s potential have enriched it no end.

Michel Faber

April, 2002

“
There have been many great novels set in Victorian times, among them A.S. Byatt’s
Possession
and John Fowles’s
The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
No disrespect
intended, but none of them compares with Faber’s morality tale. It really is that
special
.” Alan Taylor,
Sunday Herald

“
This novel is impressive for its unflagging energy … With his enormous cast of
characters and a plot constantly simmering with violence, sex, coincidences and melodramatic
surprises, he also shows himself to be a master storyteller
.” Francis King,
Literary Review

“
From the opening pages it is clear that Faber writes some of the most ravishingly
beautiful prose of any young writer
.” S.B. Kelly,
Scotland on Sunday

“
It is hardly too long at all, and thus good value at 0.02147p a page … You are
unlikely to regret a single hour/day/month spent in Faber’s diverting, exuberant and
intelligent company
.” Michael Thompson-Noel
, Financial Times

“
Extremely sophisticated.” Daily Telegraph

“
Faber is the master of the spine-tingling page-turner, while creating a wholly believable
universe.” Dazed and Confused

“
And for readers finally tiring of the forced, fleeting, insubstantial and unrewarding efforts of all those lad-lit, baby-lit, metro-lit, dot-com, tex-lit, day-glo genres
endlessly three-for-twoing on the bookshop tables, I would recommend
Crimson Petal
as a restorative and solid antidote
.” Robert Edric,
Spectator

“
In everything that he has written so far, Michel Faber has shown that he can write
in a breathtakingly wide range of styles, from satire to lyricism. Here, he puts it all
together. All the narrative tricksiness that allows him to lay convincingly false trails.
All the historical accuracy that makes him a trustworthy guide. All the skills of
characterisation that leave you wanting yet another 860 pages by the time you reach
the novel’s end.
” David Robinson,
Scotsman

“
More cautionary tale than morality play
, The Crimson Petal and the White
is sustained by comic genius, clever detail, inspired characterisation and a fluid, stylish
feel for language
.” Eileen Battersby,
Irish Times

“
There has been no account like this: an intimate, unflinching, raw anatomy of a
woman who makes her living from sex, yet has more intelligence and wit than all her
clients rolled together … Its style, too, is exceptional – lucid, compelling, and
intimate
.” Rosemary Goring,
Herald

“
A masterpiece
.” Alex Clark,
Red Magazine

“
An epic in the style of Dickens or Hardy, yet more enlightening of its time because
it brings current sensibilities to its subject matter
.” Lorna Russell,
Big Issue

“
It’s not easy to get a handle on Michel Faber. The only obvious quality his books
have in common is that they are all alluringly readable … This book takes as long
to read as three or four slighter novels. But it redeems the time
.” David Sexton,
Evening Standard

“
A confident, self-conscious, resolutely modern novel. It’s a good read, and makes
explicit all those things about which real Victorian novelists were so frustratingly
coy
.” Rebecca Abrams,
New Statesman

“
A confection of melodrama, gothic horror, satire and sentimentalism. To say that
it is a novel all about the Victorian novel would be to make it sound very dull indeed,
but it is, in the wittiest, most irreverent way possible, teeming with the ghosts of
literature past
.” Hephzibah Anderson,
The Observer

“
This year’s most entertaining novel.” The Boston Globe

“
Faber has crafted a rich work, taking on a Victorian form, style and setting, and
put it to work exploring themes that exercise us today, managing all the while to
spin sugary prose which, at times, takes your breath away. It’s a trite phrase to end
on, but if you read one novel this year, make it this one
.” Jack Mottram,
Big
Issue in Scotland

“The Crimson Petal
is not a book which could have been written by an author
whose over-riding characteristic is indifference or remoteness. It is too compassionate
and empathetic a novel. Faber’s problem, it seems to me, is not his sense of alienation
but his surfeit of humanity
.” Gillian Bowditch,
The Sunday Times

“
By the end, you’re so thoroughly immersed in the language and concerns of the
19th century that waking up to the 21st is a slightly unpleasant shock
.” Danny Peak,
Big Issue in the North

“
Faber’s best novel yet teems with surface detail – the sweat, noise, filth and colour
of the streets and the drawing room. But its playful narrative isn’t afraid to grapple with the big questions. Ultimately, it is most striking for its exploration of female
sexual psychology, but perhaps its greatest achievement is that – despite its size –
it’s almost impossible to put down
.” Claire Allfree,
Metro

“
This gorgeously written book delivers a rush of blood to the head more satisfying
than (almost) any other pleasure. Read it or regret it.” Sleazenation

“
This is a novel to immerse yourself in and to savour
.” Simon Humphreys,
Mail
on Sunday

“
A lasting love affair; the intimate relationship one develops with the characters after
reading for 834 pages is much more satisfying than the mere one-night-stand promised by other novels.” People Magazine

“
Faber is a writer of many moods and, whether shedding hilarious light on protocol in 19th-century brothels or unravelling the mixed motives of do-gooders trying
to rescue fallen women, never fails to tell his story with wit, intelligence and charm
.” David Robson,
Sunday Telegraph

“
A hugely original take on the historical novel
.” Maggie Pringle,
Sunday Express

“
Utterly absorbing
.” Cathy Kelly,
Irish Independent

“
Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, the author is rightfully earning comparisons
to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens … It’s hopeless to resist.”
Entertainment Weekly

“
Faber has the Victorian virtue of telling a good story grippingly and colourfully
. The Crimson Petal and the White
is an old-fashioned page-turner with pleasingly newfangled twists.” Washington Post Book World

“
Here’s a 19th-century novel that could have been written by a 21st-century Hollywood
scriptwriter … Sugar is Amber St. Claire, Becky Sharp and Scarlett O’Hara rolled
into one, but frontal too, like Sex in the City’s Samantha Jones … this is a
masterpiece. Don’t wait for the film.” The Canada Post

“
It’s a compelling and fast-paced story; enabling many delicious hours of reading
… like Dickens with an added dollop of very un-Victorian sex.” New Zealand
Herald

“
It will keep you spellbound for a long time.” The Press (New Zealand)