The Pleasure Quartet (21 page)

I do not fear for my conscience. I have grown convinced that there is no immorality in the pleasure that I seek, no crime in the pleasure that I provide for others. I do not fear for my
livelihood – I am now over thirty and age has only heightened my talents in the dark art of sex and increased my popularity.

And yet I worry for my future. I am not so foolish to imagine that my fellow citizens forgive my sins as I forgive my own. My passions mark me. The strange shape of my desires like an ink
blot that seeps from my heart and through my clothes, damning me in the eyes of others. Even when I am bathed and clean the smell of sex lingers on my skin, in the curl of my hair, the twist of my
wrist, the sway of my hips. They know. They hate me for it.

I live on the fringes of society, always pretending that I am someone other than I am, else I may end up on the wrong end of a police constable’s truncheon or worse, folded into a trunk
and used as a piece of furniture to rest teacups on like the poor whore whose case is in the courts now, may she rest in peace. I am grateful that my body seems unwilling to carry a child, so I am
spared at least the clumsy knives of back alley abortionists.

Yet I cannot bring myself to seek solace in a life of respectability. An unsuspecting husband, a permanent home, wealth. That would be a sin against my own soul, and far greater than any
small hurt I might be responsible for in my profession.

For now, I continue to make my home in the Empire’s basement, skulking in the shadows like a rat, sating only my lust. I long for love and friendship, and a home somewhere. A place to
belong. A place where I might, if my womb allows, be able to bear and raise a child alone. I wonder if such a thing exists in another time, another city. Somewhere across the stars. Such things
seem to me a feeble dream.

February 7th, 1935

I think I must be dreaming.

Tonight I walked the streets of Piccadilly. A light rain was falling, and the pavement was slick with water. Street lights burned like torches beneath a blanket; too dim to pierce their way
through the thick smog that draped over all who hurried by as if we were wearing hats and jackets made of mist. It was the sort of weather that makes carrying an umbrella pointless, and so I had
abandoned mine, since earlier gusts of wind had snapped half the spikes and rendered it of little more use than a newspaper held over only half of my head. Moisture floated like a haze in the air
instead of falling down from above, and any attempts to block its path were therefore futile. I did not even bother to quicken my pace, since I had no engagements this evening, and was dressed in
my thick red coat with the belt pulled tight and the collar turned up.

George, my faithful pirate, cobbler and rope extraordinaire, whose belly grows larger by the visit (I don’t mind, so long as his cock doesn’t shrink), had just reshod my favourite
walking boots, and kindly padded the inside with a little sheepskin trim so my ankles were warmer than ever.

I stopped to admire the Eros statue at Piccadilly Circus, a lone crimson figure in a sea of rushing pedestrians and traffic, all hurrying towards hearth and home. Had I not been so acutely
aware of drawing attention to myself, even in that crowd of blank, uncaring faces, I would have turned my face to the sky and opened my mouth to drink the rain. Then again, since even the mist is
not immune to London’s pollution, perhaps it is for the best that I kept my lips closed.

That was when I saw her. At first, I noticed just her cigarette. A steady pinprick of light in the fog, somehow still glowing despite the damp. I recognised a fellow traveller of the night.
Something imperceptible, like a shadow, that can never be erased or even entirely hidden. I sensed instinctively that the cigarette-smoker was watching me, and yet I felt neither the hunger that
emanates from a prospective client, nor the disdain that pours in waves from the constabulary.

I stared back. Then I noticed her hair. A river of fire-red locks that flowed from her head all the way down to her feet, as if she had a silken cape attached to her scalp.

She was dressed in a full-length black coat with wide cuffs, a thick deep collar and a princess cut that nipped in at the waist and flared out at the skirt. Her boots were mannish: flat and
knee-high with half a dozen silver buckles up each side. It was the sort of outfit that might be worn by a spy, and I wondered briefly if she might be concealing a dagger within its voluminous
folds. I was not afraid. I was thrilled. She radiated something like electricity. The air around her was alive; she crackled. I wanted to be near her, in spite of (or perhaps because of) any
danger.

She called me by my name.

‘Joan.’

I walked towards her as though pulled by invisible strings.

She did not move to greet me. Just continued leaning against the lamp post, smoking her cigarette.

‘Your work has come to our attention,’ she said.

Her words reached me as a curious form of flattery and I responded like a puppy given a pat on the head.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. We have had many reports of the ghost of the Princess Empire, the phantom whore of the theatre. All of them favourable. You have many admirers.’

Her kind words were like a warm balm and I shifted closer to her.

‘I . . . thank you,’ I stuttered.

‘Such work cannot always be comfortable.’

‘It is not comfort that I seek.’

My words seemed to finalise some lingering question in her mind.

‘I come to you with an offer of employment,’ she said.

‘I am already employed.’ (A little flattery had already made me arrogant!)

She dropped her cigarette to the pavement and ground out the ember with the flat of her boot. Then she looked me straight in the eyes. Hers were a strange shade of greenish gold, the colour
of a deep stream in sunlight.

‘You will prefer this work,’ she said, ‘and be handsomely rewarded for it.’

‘Doing what? And where?’

‘I work for an organisation that runs events. Exclusive events. Parties, if you will, though they are far more than that. We will pay you to perform. To fuck men and women. To dance.
All over the world.’

She moved her hands as she spoke as though she were knitting a pattern with the rain.

‘I will be a whore, then.’

‘Yes. A very good, and a very well paid, whore. A pleasure bringer and seeker, rewarded accordingly.’

I accepted.

And expected her to vanish into the mist like a wraith, but instead she agreed with me a date to complete the necessary paperwork and begin my training, and then stepped onto the number 14
bus to Streatham.

Autumn soon merged into winter. The days grew shorter, and skies were overtaken by greyness.

The run of the Victorian slasher play at the Princess Empire finally came to an end and, a week later, a boisterous all-female version of a Shakespeare comedy was launched. It barely lasted a
couple of weeks following a spate of unanimously bad reviews right after opening night and the theatre had to stay empty for over a fortnight. I was on half wages as a result, until a revival of a
Gilbert and Sullivan operetta currently touring the provinces could move down to London and the theatre would become busy again.

Clarissa had been engaged on a freelance basis to assist with the costumes for the notorious Peter Brook
Marat/Sade
play soon opening at the Aldwych and became mostly unavailable, working
all hours of the day in a studio in Stratford-upon-Avon with the rest of the director’s team and never picking up the phone, while Gwillam was in the last throes of revisions for his law
exams and not inclined to spend time gossiping with me.

Neither Iris nor Thomas had been in touch with me and I felt awkward contacting them. Maybe I was secretly hoping that their relationship would run its natural course and she would, of her own
accord, return to me, having miraculously come to her senses. It was like a minuscule seed that I harboured inside my heart and protected quietly, in the hope that it would inevitably flower and
grow beyond the daydream into full-blown reality.

London was effervescent with excitement. I wandered Soho’s music clubs and the Covent Garden venues, which seemed to sprout overnight and then disappear as quickly as they had arrived,
overcome by the talent of folk singers, bands and musicians, mostly my age but already wrapped in an aura of myth that I knew deep inside my heart I would never attain. I was not creative, merely a
follower, a fan among many, and the suns of others burned bright and made me feel inferior, even worthless.

I had been rationing the pages of Joan’s diaries, reading just a few entries at a time, as if to make the story last forever. It entranced me, made me want to be a fly on the wall of this
fascinating, now lost world she had moved through. It also touched me deeply, making me think much too much, setting off triggers in my mind that I didn’t always know had been there.

The experience with Edward had shocked me. Not so much the fact that he was a man and had expertly known where to touch me and originated a chain reaction down in the core of my body and, to my
utter surprise, managed to elicit pleasure in ways I had not known possible. But with Clarissa absent, I had no way to reach Edward again; I knew he was part of a couple, and that one would not
move without the other’s accord.

Joan’s writings evoked similar feelings, proving there was nothing unique about me, let alone my reactions and enjoyment of sex, or my occasional feelings of confusion and shame of my own
desire.

I lay in my bed at night assaulted by cravings, some of which even surprised and shocked me, had me yearn for even more extreme situations into which I could plunge head first.

The romance of the whip.

The yearning for defilement.

The often disgusting pleasures of men.

The masks. The games. The exhilaration of dark rooms and unknown beds.

The pleasure. The pleasure.

I was confused. Yearning. Scared by what I was finding out about myself.

I needed someone to talk to. And didn’t believe Gwillam was that person right now.

Maybe Iris. But then how could I broach these matters with her after the way we had become estranged? Would she become irredeemably angry at me for unveiling the secret of her origins?

There was a cellar bar on Dean Street which I had been given to understand catered to women only. By the time I arrived, it was crowded. Dimly lit and low-ceilinged, a suspended haze of
cigarette smoke floated across the bar counter. I ordered myself a shandy. Looked around. Even though it was apparent that the majority of women present indulged in the same sexual preference as I
mostly did, by their looks or the way they dressed – although many appeared quite girlish and, should I say, so normal – I felt invisible.

Ordinary.

And too timid to engage in conversation with total strangers. Most appeared to be part of existing groups anyway. I was somehow hoping someone would approach me first. But none did.

Even the two barmaids remained distant and sullen, busy dispensing beverages, their gazes never alighting more than a second on any given customer, a perfect portrait of indifference.

My drink tasted watered down and I left. Walked down Shaftesbury Avenue towards Piccadilly Circus. The theatres were disgorging crowds onto the pavements, all apparently so much busier than the
momentarily shuttered Princess Empire. I zigzagged my way through them.

Remembered one of the adventures Joan had written about. One that had profoundly shocked me. An early occasion when she had been penniless and unable to meet her rent, let alone purchase food. I
recalled the tale and the name of the hotel. The Regent Palace.

The lobby was a mass of humanity. Tourists, provincials, a characteristic blend of old and young. I headed for the bar. The lights were set low and the room was warm. Unlike at the Dean Street
club where I had felt invisible, I felt normal here. Here, I belonged in a paradoxical way.

I was unsure what to order as a young grey regulation waistcoat-wearing barman with long, lank hair and a CND badge pinned above his heart asked for my order. In the background, Mantovani and
his Strings could be heard playing the theme from
Exodus
. I could recognise the tune with one ear closed, as it had been a favourite album of Iris’s father – or at any rate, her
adopted one as I now knew – who would invariably play it repeatedly on Sunday afternoons while smoking his pipe, the acme of his leisure time.

I settled for an apple juice.

Retreated into daydreams, barely noticing the ebb and flow of the customers entering and departing the bar, the couples cuddling in the alcoves, the singletons checking out the competition and
the business men in tweed suits, white shirts and ties, the crowds milling in the lobby beyond the bar’s swing doors.

I was awoken from my reverie by a desultory rap by the barman on the counter in front of me.

‘Uh?’

‘Someone wants to buy you a drink. Another apple juice, or maybe something stronger?’ he asked me. For a moment, I even thought he was winking at me.

‘Who?’ I looked around. No one stood out.

‘The gentleman at the far end.’ He nodded in the man’s direction.

I peered at the stranger. He was caught between two opposing sources of light as the bulbs illuminating the bar area cancelled each other out and I had difficulty clearly making out his
features. All I saw at first was a quiet wave of the hand as he identified himself. I had to squint. Hoping as I did that the man would not think I was actually smiling at him.

He was of indeterminate middle age. Wore a dark suit with stripes, either black or navy blue, with a regimental tie of some sort. He was neither ugly nor attractive, just average in looks. A
slightly hooked nose, full mouth, tanned complexion, as though he had just returned from holiday and his hair was combed back.