The Crimson Petal and the White (9 page)

‘Good God!’ exclaims Ashwell, having chanced to look in the direction of Bodley’s pointing stick. ‘God almighty! Who would you say
that
is?’ He shades his eyes with one hand and peers intently at the far end of St James’s Park. Bodley falls into position at his side, peering likewise.

‘It’s Henry,’ he proclaims delightedly.

‘Yes, yes it is – and Mrs Fox!’

‘Of course.’

The two men turn to face William once more and bow gravely.

‘You must excuse us, Bill.’

‘Yes, we wish to go and torment Henry.’

‘You have my blessing,’ says William, with a smirk.

‘He avoids us, you know – avoids us like the plague, ever since … uh … how shall we put it …?’

‘Ever since his own personal angel alighted at the end of his bed.’

‘Quite. Anyway, we must do our very best to catch him before he makes a run for it.’

‘Oh, he couldn’t, not with Mrs Fox in tow: she’d drop dead! They haven’t a chance, I tell you.’

‘Cheers, Willy.’

And with that they are off, pursuing their victims at high speed. Indeed, they run at such a furious pace, despite their formal dress, that they must pump their arms for balance, quite unconcerned about the impression they must be making on anyone watching – in fact, they exaggerate their ridiculous chuff-chuffing gait for their own amusement. Behind them they leave two long, wet, dark-green trails in the grass, and a rather dazed William Rackham.

It’s always been very much Bodley and Ashwell’s style to swoop in and out of conversations, and if one wishes to feel comfortable in their company, one must swoop alongside them. As William watches them dashing across the park, the burden of despondency descends on his shoulders once more. He has lost, through lack of use, his own nerve and agility for this sort of banter, this brand of exhibitionism. Could he even run as fast as his friends are running? It’s as if he’s watching his own body fleeing across the park, a younger self, speeding away.

Could he perhaps leap up and follow? No, it’s too late. There’s no catching up now. They are dark, fleet figures on a bright horizon. William slumps back on the bench, and his thoughts, briefly stirred up by Bodley and Ashwell, settle into their former stagnancy.

What grieves him most is how
unnecessary
his suffering is, given the value of the family assets. If his father would only sell the company …

But you have heard all this before. Your best course is to leave William to himself for ten minutes or so. In that time, while his brain forms a crust of reflective algae, the rest of him will feel the influence of all he’s been plied with this morning: the alley whore’s proposition, the sight of the French girls in Trafalgar Square, Bodley and Ashwell’s talk of brothels, their own teasing courtship of him followed by their desertion, and (just in the last hour or so) the arrival in St James’s Park of a number of beautiful young ladies.

A potent brew, all that. Once sufficiently intoxicated, William will rise from his seat and follow his desires, follow them along the path that leads, ultimately, to Sugar.

FOUR

W
aiting for William to stir, there’s no need for you to gaze unblinking into his lap until he does. Instead, why not look at some of the objects of his desire? They’ve come to St James’s Park to be looked at, after all.

If you’ve any love for fashion, this year is not a bad one for you to be here. History indulges strange whims in the way it dresses its women: sometimes it uses the swan as its model, sometimes, perversely, the turkey. This year, the uncommonly elegant styles of women’s clothing and coiffure which had their inception in the early Seventies have become ubiquitous – at least among those who can afford them. They will endure until William Rackham is an old, old man, by which time he’ll be too tired of beauty to care much about seeing it fade.

The ladies swanning through St James’s Park this sunny November midday will not be required to change much between now and the end of their century. They are suitable for immediate use in the paintings of Tissot, the sensation of the Seventies, but they could still pass muster for Munch twenty years later (though he might wish to make a few adjustments). Only a world war will finally destroy them.

It’s not just the clothes and the hairstyle that define this look. It’s an air, a bearing, an expression of secretive intelligence, of foreign
hauteur
and enigmatic melancholy. Even in these bright early days of the style, there is something a little eerie about the women gliding dryad-like across these dewy lawns in their autumnal dresses, as if they’re invoking the
fin de siècle
to come prematurely. The image of the lovely demon, the demi-ghost from beyond the grave, is already being cultivated here – despite the fact that most of these women are daft social butterflies with not one demonic thought in their heads. The haunted aura they radiate is merely the effect of tight corsets. Too constrained to inhale enough oxygen, they’re ethereal only in the sense that they might as well be gasping the ether of Everest.

To be frank, some of these women were more at home in crinolines. Marooned in the centre of those wire cages, their need to be treated as pampered infants was at least clear, whereas their current affectation of
la
ligne
and the Continental confidence that goes with it hints at a sensuality they do not possess.

Morally it’s an odd period, both for the observed and the observer: fashion has engineered the reappearance of the body, while morality still insists upon perfect ignorance of it. The cuirass bodice hugs tight to the bosom and the belly, the front of the skirt clings to the pelvis and hangs straight down, so that a strong gust of wind is enough to reveal the presence of legs, and the bustle at the back amplifies the hidden rump. Yet no righteous man must dare to think of the flesh, and no righteous woman must be aware of having it. If an exuberant barbarian from a savage fringe of the Empire were to stray into St James’s Park now and compliment one of these ladies on the delicious-looking contours of her flesh, her response would most likely be neither delight nor disdain, but instant loss of consciousness.

Even without recourse to feral colonials, a dead faint is not very difficult to provoke in a modern female: pitilessly tapering bodices, on any woman not naturally thin, present challenges above and beyond the call of beauty. And it must be said that a good few of the wraith-like ladies gliding across St James’s Park got out of bed this morning as plump as the belles of the previous generation, but then exchanged their roomy nightgowns for a gruelling session with the lady’s-maid. Even if (as is now becoming more common) there are no actual laces to be pulled, there are bound to be leather panels to strap and metal hooks to clasp, choking their wearer’s breath, irreparably deforming her rib-cage, and giving her a red nose which must be frequently powdered. Even walking requires more skill than before, on the higher heels of the calf-length boots now fashionable.

Yet they
are
beautiful, these tubby English girls made willowy and slim, and why shouldn’t they be? It’s only fair they should take other people’s breath away, suffering such constriction of their own.

And William – what is he up to? All these attractively clothed women circling his park bench (albeit at a distance) – have they made him ripe and ready for a naked one? Nearly.

He’s been mulling over his financial humiliation so long now that he’s been inspired to compose a metaphor for it: he imagines himself as a restless beast, pacing the confines of a cage wrought in silvery ‘
£
’ symbols, all intertwining like so:
££££££££££££££££££££££
. Ah, if only he could spring out!

Another young lady glides past from behind him, very close to his bench this time. Her shoulder-blades protrude from her satin thorax, her hourglass waist sways almost imperceptibly, her horse-hair bustle shakes gently to the rhythm of her walk. William’s financial impotence shifts its focus, ceasing to be a challenge to his wits and becoming instead a challenge to his sex. Before the young lady in satin has trod twenty more paces, William is already convinced that something important – something
essential
– would be proved about Life if he could only have his way with a woman.

And so the passing strollers in St James’s Park are transformed unwittingly into sirens, and each glowing body becomes suggestive of its social shadow, the prostitute. And to a blind little penis, swaddled in trousers, there is no difference between a whore and a lady, except that the whore is available, with no angry champions to duel with, no law on her side, no witnesses, no complaints. Therefore, when William Rackham finds himself possessed of an erection, his immediate impulse is to take it directly to the nearest whore.

Perversely, though, he’s too proud of his newly conceived metaphor of financial entrapment – the cage of wrought-iron sterling symbols – to let it go so easily. There’s something grand, ennobling even, about the hopelessness of his plight, the tragic unfairness of it. Bound and frustrated, he can be King Lear; granted a climax, he may find himself the Fool. And so William’s mind conjures up ever more fearsome pictures of his cage, l
£
rg
£
r and l
£
rg
£
r and l
£
rg
£
r. And, in response, his lust suggests ever more vivid fantasies of sexual conquest and revenge. By turns, he rapes the world into submission, and cowers under its boot in piteous despair – each time more ferocious, each time more fawning.

At last he springs up from his seat, completely sure that to quell his turmoil nothing less will do –
nothing
less, do you hear? – than the utter subjugation of two very young whores simultaneously. What’s more, he has a damn good idea of where he might find two girls ideally suited to the purpose. He’ll go there at once, and the devil take the hindmost! (Only a manner of speaking, you understand.)

Inconveniently, the strategic redistribution of blood among William’s bodily organs has no effect whatsoever on the rotation of the Earth, and he finds, when he returns to the centre of town, that it’s lunch-time in London, and the clerks are out in force. William and his manhood are rudely jostled by a hungry crowd, a dark sea of functionaries, scribes and other nobodies, threatening to carry him along if he tries to swim against them. So he stands close to a wall and watches, hoping the sea will part for him soon.

Au contraire
. The building against which he presses, distinguished only by the brass letters COMPTON, HESPERUS & DILL, suddenly throws open its doors and yet another efflux of clerks pushes him aside.

This is the last straw: dismissing his last pang of conscience, William raises his hand above the crowd and hails a cab. What does it matter now that he denied himself cab travel earlier this morning? He’ll be a rich man soon enough, and all this fretting over petty expenses will be nothing more than a sordid memory.

‘Drury Lane,’ he commands, as he mounts the step of a swaying hansom. He slams the cabin door shut behind him, bumping his new hat on the low ceiling, and the abrupt jog of the horse throws him back in his seat.

No matter. He’s on his way to Drury Lane, where (Bodley and Ashwell never cease reminding him) good cheap brothels abound. Well, cheap ones at least. Bodley and Ashwell enjoy ‘slumming’, not because they’re short of money, but because it amuses them to pass from the cheapest to the most expensive whores in quick succession.

‘Vintage wine and alehouse beer’ is how Bodley likes to put it. ‘In the pursuit of pleasure, both have their place.’

On this excursion to Drury Lane, William is only interested in the ‘alehouse beer’ class of girl – which is just as well, as that’s all he can afford. The two particular girls he has in mind… well, to be honest he’s never actually met them, but he remembers reading about them in
More
Sprees in London – Hints for Men About Town, with advice for greenhorns
. It seems an awfully long time since he consulted this handbook regularly (is he even sure of its current whereabouts? the bottom drawer of his study desk?) but he does have a distinct recollection of two very ‘new’ girls, included in the guide by virtue of their tender age.

‘You know, it boggles the mind,’ Ashwell has mused more than once. ‘All those thousands of bodies on offer, and still it’s a hellish job to find a truly succulent young one.’

‘All the
really
young ones are dirt poor, that’s the problem.’ (Bodley’s response.) ‘By the time they come to bud, they’ve already had scabies, their front teeth are missing, their hair’s got crusts in it … But if you want a little alabaster Aphrodite, you have to wait for her to become a fallen woman first.’

‘It’s a damn shame. Still, hope springs eternal. I’ve just read, in the latest
More Sprees
, about two girls in Drury Lane …’

William strains to recall the girls’ names or that of their madam – tries to picture the page of text in the handbook – but finds nothing. Only the number of the house – engraved on his brain by the simple mnemonic of it comprising the day and month of his birth.

The brothel opens to William Rackham virtually as soon as he pulls the cord. Its receiving room is dim, and the madam old. She sits dwarf-like on a sofa, all in purple, her baroquely wrinkled hands clasped in her lap. William has not the faintest recollection of what she or any of her stable might be called, so he mentions
More Sprees in London
and asks for ‘the two girls – the pair’.

The old woman’s red eyes, which seem to swim in a honeyish liquid too thick for tears, fix William in a stare of sympathetic befuddlement. She smiles, exposing string-of-pearl teeth, but her powdered brow is frowning. She forms her hands into a steeple, lightly tapping her nose with it. A fat grey cat ventures out from behind the sofa, sees William, retreats.

Then suddenly the old woman unclasps her hands and holds her palms aloft excitedly, as if an answer is dropping, out of the heavens or at least through the ceiling, into each.

‘Ah! The two girls!’ she cries. ‘The
twins!
’

William nods. He can’t recall them being twins at the time of their inclusion in
More Sprees in London
; no doubt the first bloom of their youth has passed and further enticement has become necessary. The madam shuts her eyes in satisfaction, and her raw bacon eyelids glisten as she smiles.

‘Claire and Alice, sir. I should have known – a man such as you, sir – you would want my best girls – my most very special.’ Her accent and phrasing are a bit on the foreign side, making it difficult to guess how well or ill bred she might be. ‘I will see that they are prepared to receive you.’

She rises, hardly any taller for it, many yards of dark silk tumbling off the sofa with her, and makes as if to escort him directly to the stairs. She pauses theatrically, however, and casts her gaze at the floor, as if embarrassed to speak the words: ‘Perhaps, sir, to save troubling you afterwards …?” And she looks up at him once more, her eyes heavy with translucent fluid.

‘Of course,’ says William, and stares into her hideous smile for a full five seconds before prompting her. ‘And… what
is
the price, madam?’

‘Ah, yes, forgive me. Ten shillings, if you please.’

She bows as William hands her the coins, then tugs at one of three slender ropes which dangle beside the banister.

‘A few moments, sir, is all they will need. Do make yourself easy in one of the chaises
-
longues – and be free to smoke.’

So it’s
that
kind of brothel, thinks William Rackham, but it’s too late now to withdraw, and in any case he wants satisfaction.

For no other reason than to rest his gaze on a cigar rather than on the madam’s ugly face, William sits on a
chaise
and smokes while he waits for his predecessor to finish. No doubt there’s another staircase at the back of the house, through which this fellow will leave, and then the dirty sheets will be changed, and then … William sucks sourly on his cigar, as if he has just bought a ticket for an inferior conjuring performance at which the magician’s sleeves sag with devices and there’s a stench of rabbits under the floorboards.

But while William broods, let me tell you about Claire and Alice. They are brothel girls in the truest and lowest sense: that is, they arrived in London as innocents and were lured into their fallen state by a madam who, resorting to the old stratagem, met them at the railway station and offered them a night’s lodgings in the fearsome new metropolis, then robbed them of their money and clothing. Ruined and helpless, they were then installed in the house, along with several other girls similarly duped or else bought from parents or guardians. In return for snug new clothes and two meals a day, they’ve worked here ever since, guarded at the back-stair by a spoony-man and at the front by the madam, unable even to guess how much or little they are hired for.

Finally the time arrives for William Rackham to be shown upstairs. Claire and Alice’s room, when he enters it, is small and square, draped all around with long red curtains puddling down onto dingy skirting boards. The lone window is shrouded by one of these drapes, so that the claustral little chamber is lit less by the sun than by candles, and is jaundice-tinged and overwarm. Flattened velvet cushions are strewn on the threadbare Persian carpet, and above the large rococo bed is displayed, in an ornate frame, a photograph of a naked woman dancing around an indoor maypole. Claire and Alice, dressed in plain white chemises, are sitting together on the bed, pretty little hands folded in their laps.