The Crimson Petal and the White (13 page)

‘
Bags of hay laid on the floor,

For fretful wretches on to snore;

For one, but holding three or four

All night in a London workhouse
.’

The muted crash of glass on the floor provokes laughter and the excited woof of a dog. A uniformed barmaid, shaking her head in exasperation, hurries out from behind the bar.

It’s a cheerful sight, The Fireside’s bar: bosomy women busy at the bottles and beer pumps, their frilly finery reflected in the huge mirrors lining the wall behind them. Over their heads, a hundred handbills, prints and placards hang jumbled almost to the ceiling, advertising all sorts of ales and stouts and porters.

William doesn’t have to search for a table; a smiling serving-maid motions him to follow her, and she installs him at a table which has room for at least two others – evidently no one drinks alone here. Smiling, William puts his order in, and she flits off to do his bidding.

Lively little place, this, thinks Rackham, momentarily forgetting why he’s come. A bit on the warm side, though! As the singer warbles on and the rubato hurly-burly of the piano is half-submerged in waves of laughter, William does what he can – pulling off his gloves, unbuttoning his coat, smoothing down his hair. His table is right next to a cast-iron column, and affixed to that column is a notice saying: ‘GENTLEMEN ARE PARTICULARLY REQUESTED NOT TO PLACE CIGARS ON THE TABLE, AND NOT TO TAKE LIGHTS FROM THE CHANDELIERS, BUT FROM THE GAS-LIGHTS FIXED FOR THAT PURPOSE.’ William has no desire to smoke, but vapour issues from his person nonetheless: his damp clothing is beginning to steam. His skin prickles with sweat and his ample ears are, he knows, glowing red. How grateful he is when the serving-maid hurries back to him, bearing aloft a big tumbler of beer! She can obviously tell how thirsty he must be, bless her heart!

‘Capital!’ he exclaims above the song, then cranes his head around, wondering why the singing is growing louder: are there more tenors up there than he thought? But no, it’s the Fireside regulars joining in.

‘
Swearing, yelling, all the throng,
’ they croon, between sips of beer.

‘
With jest obscene and ribald song,

They pass the weary hours long,

Of a night in a London workhouse …
’

You who, like William, are visiting The Fireside for the first time, may wonder: how can these revellers sing of horror in such jolly voices? See them tap their feet and nod their heads to the plight of the destitute – is no other part of them moved? Why yes, of course it is! They fairly worship at the altar of pity! But what can be done? Here in The Fireside, no one is to blame (except perhaps God, in his infinite wisdom). Wrapped up in a good tune, poverty takes its place of honour amongst all the other sing-along calamities: the military defeats, the shipwrecks, the broken hearts – Death itself.

A little nervously William scans The Fireside for female clientele. There are plenty of women in the place, but all of them seem to be taken; perhaps Sugar is one of these, a worm caught by an early bird. (Or should that be the other way around?) He surveys the assortment a second time, sizing up the physiques as best he can through the haze of cigar smoke and whatever else is in the way. None of the bodies he sees fits Sugar’s description, even allowing for the fact that
More Sprees
may have stretched the truth.

William prefers to believe Sugar isn’t here yet. That’s good: his ears have stopped burning now, and should fade (God willing) by the time he has to make a good impression. He sips at his glass of ale, finds it so much to his liking that he pours it down his throat and immediately orders another. The serving-maid has a pretty body; he hopes Sugar’s, when he uncovers it, is at least half as nice.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ he winks, but she’s already gone, serving someone else.
Così fan tutte
, eh? William leans back, listening to the words of the tenor’s next song.

‘
One day I’ll dine on pheasants and grouse

And cocktails in fine crystal glasses

And roast pigs with apples stuck in their mouths

And silver spits shoved up their arses …
’

The Fireside regulars chortle: this one’s the latest favourite from the bawdy sheet-music sellers of Seven Dials.

‘
Me spotted dick puddin’ will be such a size

Four footmen will carry it in!

But for now I’ll survive on porter and pies

For me ship ain’t quite come in.’

‘Oh!
’ the audience joins in,
‘me ship ain’t quite come in,

It’s subject to delay;

Me ship ain’t quite come in,

It’s expected any day.

When me ship comes in, the grin on me chin

Will never go away

But me ship ain’t quite – me ship ain’t quite –

Me ship ain’t quite come in!
’

William chuckles. Not bad, not bad! Why has he never heard of The Fireside before? Do Bodley and Ashwell know of it? And if not, how would he describe it to them?

Well … of course it’s a few rungs below top class – a good few rungs. But it’s a damn sight better than some of the sorry establishments Bodley and Ashwell have dragged him along to. (‘This is the place, Bill, I’m almost sure of it!’ ‘
Almost
sure?’ ‘Well, to be wholly sure, I’d have to lie down on the floor and study the ceiling.’) The Fireside is innocent of anything
too
common: there’s not a pewter mug in sight, but all good glass, and the beer is light and frothy. The floors are tiled rather than wooden, and there’s no fake marble anywhere. Most tellingly of all, unlike the haunts of low men, it doesn’t stay open all hours, but closes, demurely, at midnight. Which suits Rackham: all the shorter will he have to wait for his sweet Cinderella.

‘
Millie, me wife, will be chuffed with ’er life

She’ll change ’er name to Octavia

There won’t be no strife, no need for me knife

In our smart new abode in Belgravia.

We’ll ’ave fat tums, we’ll bring all our chums,

I can’t ’ardly wait to begin

But I’m twiddlin’ me thumbs in these ’ere slums

For me ship ain’t quite come in
.’

It’s time for the chorus, and the regulars sing it with gusto. William merely hums, not wishing to attract attention. (Ah, but didn’t he once sing bawdy songs, in a louder and fruitier baritone than … Oh, sorry, you’ve heard that already …)

When the song is over, William joins in the applause. There’s a reshuffling of patrons as people stand to leave and others venture in the door. Leaning over his beer-glass, Rackham tries to keep track of anything in skirts, hoping to catch his first glimpse of the girl with the ‘hazel eyes of rare penetration’. However, his own gaze must be more penetrating than he imagines, for when his eyes alight briefly on a trio of unattached young women, they rear up, all three, from their seats.

He tries to look away, but it’s too late: they’re moving directly towards him, a phalanx of taffeta and lace. They’re smiling – showing too many teeth. In fact, they have too much of everything: too much hair spilling out from under their too-elaborate bonnets, too much powder on their cheeks, too many bows on their dresses, and overly flaccid Columbine cuffs swirling around their clutching pink hands.

‘Good evenin’, sir, may we sit down?’

William cannot refuse them as he refused the sheet-music seller: the laws of etiquette – or the laws of anatomy – won’t allow it. He smiles and nods his head, shifting his new hat onto his lap for fear it might get sat on. One of the whores swings into the space thus vacated, and her two companions jostle for the remainder.

‘A honour, sir.’

They’re pretty enough, though William would like them better if they didn’t appear to be dressed for a box at the opera, and if their combined scent weren’t quite so pungent. Pressed close together like this, they smell like a barrowful of cut flowers on a humid day; William wonders if it’s a Rackham perfume that’s responsible. If so, his father has more to answer for than parsimony.

Still, he reminds himself, these girls are better-looking than most, peach-firm and unblemished – more expensive, possibly, than Sugar. There’s just … rather a surfeit of them, that’s all, crammed into such a small space.

‘You’re too ’andsome to sit alone, sir.’

‘You’re the kind of man as should ’ave a pretty woman on ’is arm – or three.’

The third girl only snorts, outdone by her comrades’ wit.

William avoids meeting their stares openly, fearing to find in those bright eyes the presumption, the insolence, of inferiors seeking to wrest control from their master. Sugar won’t behave this way, will she? She’d better not.

‘You flatter me, ladies,’ says William. He looks away, wishing for rescue.

The closest whore leans closer still, her lips pouting open not far from his, and whispers loudly,

‘You’re not waiting for a
man
friend, are you?’

‘No,’ says William, smoothing the back of his hair nervously. Does his tufty mop make him look like a sodomite? Should he have kept it long? Or should he get it cut shorter still? God, will he have to shave his head bald before his indignity is subdued? ‘I’m waiting for a girl called Sugar.’

All three whores erupt in a pantomime of offence and disappointment.

‘Won’t I do, ducks?’ ‘You’ve broke my ’eart, sir!’ and so forth.

Rackham doesn’t respond, but continues to gaze at the door, hoping to make clear to The Fireside’s other customers that these women have no connection with him. The more he leans away, however, the more they push to be near him.

‘Sugar, eh?’

‘A true connoisseur, you are.’

Crude laughter erupts from a nearby table, making William wince. The tenor is having a rest from singing; is the humiliation of the hapless Rackham now to be The Fireside’s entertainment? William casts his eye over the throng of patrons, and locates the folk who are laughing – but they have their backs to him. The joke is on someone else.

‘What do you like, then?’ one of the whores asks, brightly, as though enquiring how he takes his tea. ‘Come on, sir, you can tell me. Speak in riddles, I’ll understand.’

‘No need,’ pronounces the closest one. ‘I can see in his eyes what ’e wants.’ Her companions turn to look at her, intrigued. She pauses with a music hall comic’s sense of timing, then boasts simply: ‘It’s … a gift I ’ave. A
secret
gift.’

All three begin to laugh then, open-mouthed, indecent, and within moments their hilarity has escalated to the brink of hysteria.

‘Well, what
does
’e want then?’ one of them manages to demand, but the soothsayer, convulsed in giggles, has trouble replying.

‘Hurm … Huhurm … Hum …’ – wiping her eyes – ‘Oh-ho! You naughty,
naughty
girl –’ Ow could you even ask? A secret’s a secret, innit, sir?’

William squirms, his ears once again flaming.

‘Really now,’ he mutters. ‘I don’t see that this is called for.’

‘Quite right, quite right, sir,’ she says and, to the delight of her companions, she mimes a furtive peek into William’s hidden heart, then recoils in burlesque shock at what she spies there. ‘Oh
no
, sir,’ she gasps, covering her open mouth with slack fingers. ‘P’raps you’d better wait for Sugar after all.’

‘Don’t take any notice of her, sir,’ says one of the others. ‘She talks tripe all day long. Now come on ducks, why not give
me
a try?’ She strokes her throat with her fingertips. ‘You wouldn’t be getting second best, you know. I’m just as good as any of the Castaway girls.’

William again casts a longing glance towards the door. If he leaps up and storms out of The Fireside now, will every man, woman and beast in the place hoot with glee?

‘ ’Ere,’ says one of the girls, folding her arms on the table, framing (as best she can with her fashionably tight bodice) her bosom in her forearms. ‘’Ere, tell us about yerself, sir.’ The prankishness has abruptly vanished from her face; she’s almost deferential.

‘Let me guess,’ says the one who had seemed shy. ‘Writer.’

The casually aimed epithet lands on William’s face like a blow, or a caress. What can he do but turn to face the girl, and, impressed, say ‘Yes’?

‘An extrawdry life, I’m sure,’ opines the soothsayer.

All three whores are serious now, keen to make amends for ruffling his dignity.

‘I write,’ elaborates William, ‘for the better monthly reviews. I’m a critic – and a novelist.’

‘Cor. Wha’s’name o’ one o’ yer books?’

William chooses from among the many he means, one day, to produce.

‘
Mammon
O’erthrown,’ he says.

Two of the girls just grin, but the shy one mummels her lips like a fish, silently testing whether she could possibly repeat such an exotic title. None of the whores is about to mention that The Fireside is infested with critics and would-be novelists.

‘Hunt’s the name,’ improvises William. ‘George W. Hunt.’ Inwardly, he cringes in shame, a four-legged creature in the shadow of his father’s derision, a sham.
Go home and read about the cost of manure!
is the nagging command, but William quells it with a gulp of ale.

The most forward of the whores narrows her eyes pensively, as if bothered by a conundrum.

‘And Mr ’Unt wants Sugar,’ she says. ‘And Sugar only. Now what, oh what, might Mr ’Unt … want? Hmmmm?’

Her nearest crony answers, quick as a flash.

‘ ’E might want to discuss books wiv ’er.’

‘Cor.’

‘Georgie got no critic friends, then?’

‘Sad life.’

The beleaguered Rackham smiles stoically. No one new has entered The Fireside for what seems like a long time.

‘Nice weather we’re ’avin’,’ remarks the least forward of the whores, out of the blue. ‘Not at all bad for November.’