The Crimson Petal and the White (33 page)

She peeps from behind the plinth, her cheek brushing against the names of young men who are no longer alive, subtle absences in the smoothness of the marble. A woman is coming down Pembridge Crescent, a small blonde woman with a perfect figure and a chocolate-and-cream-coloured dress. She walks briskly, bobbing slightly as she advances. Her eyes are so big and blue that their beauty can be appreciated at twenty yards’ distance.

This, Sugar is certain, is the wife of William Rackham.

He’s alluded to her once or twice, by way of comparison, but stopped short of naming her, so Sugar has no name to put to this pretty young woman drawing near. ‘Always-Sick’, perhaps. Apart from her bosom, which is full, Mrs Rackham inhabits a body of remarkably infantile scale. Nor is her body the only childish thing about her: is she aware, Sugar wonders, that she’s biting her lower lip as she walks?

Just as Mrs Rackham reaches the monument, a peculiar thing happens: the whole of North Kensington undergoes a remarkable meteorological phenomenon – the sun is covered over by sheets of dark-grey cloud, but continues to shine with such brilliance that the clouds themselves assume an intense luminosity. Down below, the crescent and everything in it is coated with a spectral light that lends an unnatural definition to each and every cobble, leaf and lamp-post. Everything stands out sharply and nothing recedes, at once revealed and obscured in a glow as treacherous as polar twilight.

Mrs Rackham stops dead. She looks up into the heavens in naked terror. From her hiding-place behind the column, Sugar can see the convulsive swallow in her white throat, the sheen of dread in her eyes, the angry red pimple on her forehead.

‘Saints and angels preserve me!’ she cries, then spins on her axis and flees. Her tiny feet all-but-invisible beneath her frothing hems, she glides back down the road like a bead sliding along a string, her progress unnaturally straight, unnaturally rapid. Then the pretty chocolate-coloured bead that is Mrs Rackham veers, and disappears, as if following a twist in its string, through the Rackham gates.

Moments later, the sun is unveiled again, and the world loses its eerie clarity. Everything is back to normal; the Gods are appeased.

Sugar gets to her feet, pats the dust off her skirts with her palms. She moves sluggishly, as though roused from a deep sleep. All she can think is:
Why has William never told me his wife has such a beautiful voice
? To Sugar’s ear, Mrs Rackham, even in the grip of terror, sounds like a bird – a rare bird pursued for its song. What man, if he could hear that voice whenever he pleased, wouldn’t listen to it as often as possible? What ear could tire of it? It’s the voice she wishes she’d been born with: not hoarse and low like her own croak, but pure and high and musical.

Go home, you fool
, she cautions herself, as the first few raindrops spatter against the plinth.
All this clean air is going to your head
.

A few days later still, Henry Rackham, desperate to confide, yet having not a single confidante in the world except Mrs Fox, to whom he can’t possibly confess this particular secret, calls upon his brother William.

Intimacy hasn’t always flowed smoothly, it must be said, between the Rackham brothers. Despite their blood ties, and despite Henry giving William the benefit of the doubt in many things, Henry can’t help noticing their differences. Devoutness, for example, has never been William’s strong point, although they do share – judging from past conversations – a passionate desire to improve the world, and reform English society.

From William’s point of view, his older brother is dismal company indeed. As he put it once to Bodley and Ashwell: Henry has that werewolf look of someone who ought to be ravaging virgins, then scourging his flesh in remorse while the townspeople surround the castle with flaming torches, baying for his blood – but alas, no such racy scenario ever accompanies his fraternal visits. Instead, Henry always bemoans, in vague, irritatingly opaque terms, his unworthiness for anything he aspires to. What a pitiful head of Rackham Perfumeries he would have made! Surrendering his claim to William may well have been the only clever thing the poor dullard ever did!

Still, William has lately resolved to be generous and hospitable to his brother, and forgive him his shortcomings. It’s all part and parcel of being the chief Rackham now: this receiving of visits from troubled family members, this imparting of advice.

On the rainy afternoon that Henry does finally cough up a secret, it’s cold enough indoors for both men to regret that Spring has already been put into effect in the Rackham house. Granted, the banishing of Winter furnishings is a social obligation that must be obeyed, but Agnes has obeyed it rather earlier than necessary, and now, on her instruction, the fireplace in the parlour has been rendered wholly useless. Force of habit makes the men sit near it still, even though it’s empty and brushed out, sporting a small philodendron where the flames ought to be, and lace curtains embroidered with crocuses, robins and other vernal symbols. Henry leans forwards, closer to his brother and the hearth, trying to warm himself on what’s not there.

‘William,’ he is saying, the furrow in his brow identical to the one he already had as a boy of seven, ‘Do you think it’s wise for you to have so much to do with Bodley and Ashwell? They’ve published that book you know –
The Efficacy of Prayer
– Have you seen it?’

‘They’ve given me a copy,’ admits William. ‘Boys will be boys, yes?’

‘Boys, yes …’ sighs Henry, ‘but with the capacity of men to do harm.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says William, folding his arms against the chill and glancing at the clock. ‘They’re surely preaching to the … ah …
converted
is the wrong word here, isn’t it? … to the
deconverted
, shall we say. How many people d’you
really
think are going to regard prayer any differently as a result of this book?’

‘Every soul is precious,’ fumes Henry.

‘Ach, it’ll all blow over,’ counsels the younger brother. ‘Ashwell’s last book,
The Modern Dunciad
, was a scandal for two months, and then … ?’ William flings a handful of fingers wide, to mime a puff of smoke.

‘Yes, but they’re taking
this
book all around England on a sort of … grand tour, showing it off at working men’s clubs and so on, as if it were a two-headed giraffe. They read it aloud, taking parts, mimicking the voices of feeble old clerics and angry widows, and then they solicit questions from the audience …’

‘How do you know all this?’ asks William, for it’s news to him.

‘I’m forever running into them!’ cries Henry, as though lamenting his own clumsiness. ‘I’m convinced they follow me – it can’t be mere chance. But
you
, William, you must be careful – no, don’t smile – William, they’re becoming notorious, and if you’re seen to be thick with them,
you
may become notorious as well.’

William shrugs, unconcerned. He’s too wealthy now to fear the gossip of the righteous, and in any case, he’s noticed a tendency lately amongst the Best People to seek out the notorious, to add a bit of spice to parties.

‘They are my
friends
, Henry,’ he chides gently, ‘from so long ago … the best part of twenty years.’

‘Yes, yes, they were once my friends too,’ groans the older Rackham. ‘But I can’t be loyal to them as you are, I can’t! They cause me nothing but embarrassment.’ Henry’s large hands, one on each of his knees, are white-knuckled. ‘There are times – I hardly dare confess it – there are times when I wish I could simply be rid of them and all their memories of the man I used to be; when I wish I could wake one day to a world of perfect strangers who knew me only as … as …’

‘A man of the cloth?’ prompts William, staring in pity at those hands of Henry’s, clutching at his ungainly knees as if at the rim of a pulpit.

‘Yes,’ confesses Henry, and (
oh, for Heaven’s sake!
) hangs his head.

‘You haven’t … taken Orders, have you?’ enquires William, wondering if this is the oh-so-coy secret Henry has been struggling to divulge.

‘No, no.’ Henry fidgets irritably. ‘I know I’m not ready for
that
yet. My soul is far from … ah …
any
sort of purity.’

‘But isn’t the idea of it – forgive me if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here – Isn’t the idea of it that you … ah …
become
pure
while
you’re taking the Orders? I mean, that the process itself effects a sort of transformation?’

‘That isn’t the idea at all!’ protests Henry.

But, inwardly, he fears that it is. The real truth of his reluctance to take the first steps towards becoming a clergyman, at least since he’s known Mrs Fox, is that he’s terrified his examiners will peer into his soul and tell him he is unfit not only for the collar and the pulpit, but for any sort of Christian life.

As a layman, he’s spared that awful judgement, for although he’s his own harshest critic, there’s one respect in which he’s lenient on himself: he doesn’t believe his sins disqualify him from striving to be a decent person. As long as he remains a layman, he can be impure in thought and word, or even in deed, and afterwards he can repent and resolve to do better in future, disappointing no one but himself and God. No one else is dragged down by his sins; he is the captain of his soul, and if he steers it into dark waters, no innocent person risks shipwreck along with him. But if he aspires to leadership of others, he cannot afford to be such a poor captain; he’ll have to be a stronger and better man than he is now. Sterner judges even than himself will have the right – nay, the obligation – to condemn him. And surely his depravity is written all over his face? Surely anyone can guess that his soul is rotten with carnal desires?

Perhaps it’s this belief that his secret must already be suspected by everyone except Mrs Fox, and all the more so by his brother, a man of the world, that finally makes it possible for Henry to confess, on this rainy afternoon in front of the frilly hearth.

‘William, I … I spoke to a prostitute last week,’ he says.

‘Really?’ says William, roused from near-somnolence by this promising titbit. ‘Did Mrs Fox bring her along to a meeting?’

‘No, no,’ grimaces Henry. ‘I spoke to her in the street. In fact, I … I have been speaking to prostitutes in the street for some time now.’

There is a pause while the brothers gaze first at each other, then at their shoes.

‘Speaking only?’

‘Of course, speaking only.’ If Henry notices his brother’s shoulders slump slightly in disappointment, he’s not put off by it. ‘I’ve fallen into the habit of walking in a wretched part of London – High Street – no, not the High Street
here
, the one in St Giles – and conversing with whoever addresses me.’

‘Which, I take it, is mainly prostitutes.’

‘Yes.’

William scratches the back of his head in bemusement. He wishes there were a fire he could stir with the poker, rather than this ridiculous philodendron.

‘This is … a rehearsal, perhaps, for your future career? You have your eye on St Giles as your parish?’

Henry laughs mirthlessly. ‘I am a mad fool, playing with fire,’ he says, enunciating the words with bitter emphasis, ‘and if I don’t come to my senses, I’ll be consumed.’ His fists are clenched, and his eyes shine angrily – almost as if it’s William, not his own desires, threatening his safety. ‘Well … urm …’ frowns William, crossing and uncrossing his legs. ‘I’ve always known you to be a sensible chap. I’m sure you don’t lack … resolve. And anyway, you’ll find that infatuations tend to run their course. What enthrals us today may have no hold on us tomorrow. Urm … These prostitutes, now. What are they to you?’

But Henry is staring sightlessly ahead of him, haunted.

‘They’re only children, some of them: children!’

‘Well, yes … It’s a disgrace, as I’ve often said …’

‘And they stare at me as if I were to blame for their misery.’

‘Well, yes, they’re very good at that …’

‘I try to convince myself that it’s pity that moves me, that I wish only to help them, as Mrs … as others help them. That I wish only to let them know I don’t despise them, that I believe they are God’s creatures just as I am. But, when I return home, and I lie in my bed, ready for sleep, it’s not any vision of aiding these wretched women that fills my mind. It’s a vision of an embrace.’

‘An embrace?’ Lord, here it is at last: the meat of the matter!

‘I see myself embracing them …
all
of them at once; they are all embodied in one faceless woman. I shouldn’t call her faceless, for she has a face, but it’s … many women’s faces at once. Can you understand that? She is their …’ (a comparison with the Trinity occurs to him, but he bites his tongue on the brink of blasphemy) ‘… their common body.’

William rubs his eyes irritably. He’s tired; he slept badly in the guest house in Dundee, and slept badly on the train, and he’s been working late hours since his return.

‘So …’ he rejoins, determined now, if it kills him, to get his brother to the point. ‘What
exactly
do you picture yourself doing to this … common body?’

Henry raises his face, suffused with an alarming glow of inspiration (or is it merely the sun beaming through the window at last?).

‘The embrace is all!’ he declares. ‘I feel I could hold this woman for a lifetime – pressed close to me – quite still, and doing nothing else but holding, and reassuring her that everything will be all right from now on. I swear it’s not Lust!’ He laughs incredulously. ‘I know what Lust feels like, and this is different …’ He looks across at William, loses courage as a result. ‘Or perhaps that’s what I delude myself to believe.’

William offers a smile which he hopes may pass for sympathy. This must be what it’s like, he thinks, for Catholic priests when they have to endure the confessions of the very young. Reams of lurid wrapping-paper to be removed from a giant parcel of guilt, only to reveal a tiny trifle inside.

‘So …’ he sighs. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, brother?’