The Ripper's Wife (18 page)

The whore whimpered and I slapped her.

“Please, guv’nor, don’t spend ’pon me clothes!” she cried, hoity-toity as a duchess in velvet instead of a cockney slut in wretched rags. But it was enough. The illusion was shattered. I wanted to cut her head off! If only I had a knife! I put my hands on either side of it and twisted, wishing I could
tear
it off with my bare hands; I wanted to hear her flesh rip and see her hot red blood fall down to mingle with the cold rain. I rammed even harder; I wanted to make her bleed, the way my wife-whore had made my heart bleed. I imagined her in bed with Alfred Brierley, him on top of her on that dirty doss-house mattress,
thrusting
into her, the two of them coupling like a pair of naked savages in the worst slum in London. For a moment, all I could see was red.
BLOOD! RAGE! RED!
All I could feel was lust, excitement, fury, love, and hate all tangled up together in an impossible knot. I imagined myself standing there, at the foot of the bed, watching them, my prick fast in my fist. I’d never been so excited—or so angry—in my life!

“Particular, aren’t you?” I sneered as I pulled out and slapped her dirty skirt down and spurted all over it. It gave me far greater pleasure than spewing into her filthy hole ever could!

Her lips trembled and tears rolled down her bland, boring, round as the moon face. Her eyes, I saw now, weren’t blue at all but dung brown. She was a barley blonde barely sixteen by the look of her, probably fresh up from the country; she still had too much flesh on her to have been in Whitechapel for long. I pinched the big pink udders spilling from her bodice just for spite. She was
nothing
like my wife, God damn her! I threw her to the ground and pissed all over her and then I kicked her and left her whimpering on the wet cobbles.

I couldn’t kill my wife-whore, but the world is
full
of whores, worthless little whores I could kill and make suffer. All the little whores of London no one gives a damn about will pay for the sins of the Great Whore!

Tomorrow I will go shopping . . . for a sharp and shiny knife.

I
returned to Liverpool under a heavy veil, the train jolting my bruised and battered body for four brutal hours. I had to fight every moment to hold back the tears and bite my already burst and bloodied lips to keep from crying out. I had never been more surprised than when I awakened that morning, crumpled and bloody in the corner of our hotel room, to find myself still alive; I had thought surely Jim had killed me. I had never seen him in such a savage rage, the eyes of a madman staring out of his head, just like a real-life Jekyll and Hyde.

Jim sat beside me, absorbed in a medicine company’s catalog, using a pencil to circle the items he wanted to order. Through the whole miserable four hours he never said one word to me. He hardly even looked at me. That was fine with me. As the wheels of the train kept turning, so was my mind, making plans, important plans to change my life. I’d stood as much as I could, more than a body should have to; I just couldn’t go on like this. I’d found a new love, and now I wanted a new life.

I would go to Alfred Brierley and take off my veil and disrobe and show him what Jim had done to me. Alfred would kiss every bruise and curse Jim for the brute he was. I would tell Alfred
everything,
sparing him not one single detail of the violent ravishment I had suffered at my husband’s hands.

As soon as I could safely manage it, I would see a solicitor. My mind was made up. I would take my children and leave Jim, divorce him, and never set eyes on him again. I would best all the Currant Jelly belles and marry Alfred Brierley myself. We could live in Paris, where people were much more open-minded about divorce.
Hang the Currant Jelly Set! We don’t need them!
We could have a perfectly
wonderful
life without them!

I
can hardly write, my hands are shaking so, just like this infernal train! I watch them move, I stretch and curl my fingers—hands of ice, heart of ice!—and grip the pen, but I hardly
feel
them; it’s like they belong to a stranger! Sometimes I feel the stab of pins and needles and think the feeling is about to come back, but it never quite does. If only they weren’t so very cold! I have to wear gloves, and that makes it harder to write. My stomach aches as though it were being gnawed from within by rats. I can hardly bear the pain or stand upright. The agony! I’ve had to take more of my medicine than ever.

I was in Manchester on business. But after the business of the day was done, I could not rest. I kept thinking about my wife-whore alone back in Liverpool. I kept seeing her lying naked on
my
bed, opening her legs wide to Alfred Brierley, crooking her finger and saying sultry soft in her syrupy Southern drawl,
Come here,
and pointing down to her golden thatch, inviting him to play with that pink pearl of flesh.
Oh, Bunny, I wish I didn’t love you so!
It’s torture—but what
exquisite
torture!—both loving
and
hating you!

I sat alone in my hotel room, drinking red wine mixed with my medicine, sitting there entranced, watching the white powder swirl in the heart of its ruby depths. I couldn’t stand it—the lust and the rage, the longing, the loathing, they were all tied up in a
tight
,
Tight
,
TIGHT
knot! I took a strychnine tablet and then another, washed down with bloodred wine. I couldn’t get the pictures out of my mind. I kept hearing their lust grunts, seeing their bare limbs entwined and her golden hair spread out across the pillows as she thrashed in the throes of passion. The knot kept getting tighter and tighter. I
longed
for release. But more,
much more,
than my hand on my prick could give me. I
had
to do
something!
Destroy or be destroyed! So I went out, looking for a whore, one hopeless, God–damned and forsaken slut to stand proxy for my wife-whore.

She was selling violets,
supposedly,
though what fool buys wilted flowers fit only for the rubbish heap at three o’clock in the morning God only knows. A gaunt, glaze-eyed skeleton with a hacking cough and long lank hanks of stringy black hair. She said her name was Camille, like the brown-edged withering white flower she wore on the lapel of her tattered black coat. I almost laughed in her face. The only thing this blighted blossom had in common with La Dame aux Camélias was the lung rot that was
slowly
killing her. She was smiling at me, showing me the black empty spaces where her teeth used to be. Perhaps she thought I had come to save her, to liberate her with my love?
Ha ha!
I smiled and told her my name was Armand Duval. My little literary joke flew right over her head. As I bowed over her hand I reached for my knife.

That was the moment it
all
went wrong. Like that hot and eager apprentice boy I used to be who spent in his trousers at the mere sight of Sarah, I was too excited for my own good. I lunged. She screamed. I dropped my knife and grabbed her throat. I squeezed and pressed until she lost consciousness. I left her lying there, dead for all I know, amidst her fallen flowers, as I fled into the night, castigating myself as a careless bungler.

My heart was racing. I imagined it leaping like a crimson frog from my burning throat and leaving the empty husk of my body to fall down dead in the street as it bounded along without me. Then they would find this diary and know what I had done or
tried
to do. They would shake their heads and say,
Poor fellow, he
must
have been mad!
I think that’s why I keep this chronicle, so if that ever happens they will know why.
Poor fellow!
they will say, and point the finger of blame squarely at Love.
You,
they will accuse, you
did this;
you
made him mad!

My fist curled tight around the hilt; I could not let go of my knife. My poor, poor children! How would they ever bear the disgrace? I kept imagining I heard the heavy boots of policemen pounding after me, the shrill wail of their whistles, and saw lights, like the bouncing orbs of their bull’s-eye lanterns glowing in the distance behind me, coming closer every time I dared to look back.

I
had
to take my medicine! It was the
only
thing that could save me! I felt weak; it would make me strong! I was shaking too badly to attempt my arsenic; I knew my fumbling fingers would drop the precious box and spill it, and having to crouch down and lick it up from the filthy cobblestones was too nauseating a thought. I felt in my pockets and found two strychnine tablets and swallowed them quickly.

Safely back in my hotel room, I groped desperately for my silver box and sprinkled the precious white powder onto my trembling palm, lamenting each little grain that fell onto the carpet. I sat on the bed and, with shaking, icy hands, drank straight from my bottle of Fowler’s Solution. The gaslights shone so beautifully through the lavender-arsenic tincture as I raised it to my lips. What a lovely color and flavor it has! I began to feel better and took another strychnine tablet for good measure. But I was overzealous. I took too much. I had to resort to bone black, and that brought it all back up. I wasted my precious store and had to take more.

Next
time I will not let eagerness get the better of me. I will wait, and plan, and strike
only
when the time is right.
There will be no more mistakes!
The whores will pay,
NOT
me! I will show them all how clever I can be! When they hear of the whores ripped up like pigs in the market, gutted like fish . . . I can see them now: Michael sits at his breakfast table and frowns at the headlines over the gilt rim of his teacup. Edwin devours each deliciously dreadful word in the latest edition of the
Illustrated Police News
while his fingers distractedly shred the red carnation in his lapel. Bunny shudders, causing the frills on her breakfast cap to quiver like her quim in ecstasy and laments that such evil exists in the world as she lays aside the
Liverpool Daily Post,
all her pleasure in her morning perusal of the paper gone.

None of them will
ever
suspect that a man as gentle as their Jim could ever do such a thing. They will all be wondering what manner of fiend is stalking London and picturing some murderous, uncouth brute with wild, staring eyes and hands as big as hams. All of them will agree that no Englishman—and certainly no gentleman—could
ever
do such a thing. Inside I will be laughing all the time. The joke’s on them!
Now
who’s the clever one, Michael?

I
can see myself now, sitting on my bedroom floor, hugging my knees, sobs shaking my blue velvet shoulders, tears dripping down onto my blue and cream tartan skirt, surrounded by boxes, tissue paper, and ribbons amidst the candy box clutter of my latest visit to Woollright’s.

None of them meant a thing to me, but I couldn’t stop myself from buying them. It was like a compulsion. But whenever I tried to persuade myself to take it all back, suddenly the most trivial trifle felt as necessary as air to me, as though the world would fall to pieces if I relinquished that lovely jade-green velvet jacket or deprived Bobo of the toy frog I had bought him. And the beautiful wax doll imported from Paris with real golden curls and blue glass eyes that opened and closed was the
perfect
gift for Gladys; one of those sweet salesgirls had even found a pretty rose-colored frock with a blue sash for Gladys to match the one the doll was wearing. What a pretty photograph that would make!

I liked the way the salespeople smiled at me, the way they picked out things that might please me, even going so far as to secrete certain items behind the counter to await my next visit, things I bought even if I didn’t like them because I just couldn’t
bear
to disappoint such kind, thoughtful people. They liked me; they
really
liked me! At that time in my life, when I felt so alone and friendless, that really meant something, and I clung to it
desperately
. A part of me seemed to feed like a vampire upon their kindness and I couldn’t live without it. I didn’t want coldness to replace the kindness. And they would be
so
disappointed if I started bringing things back.

Nothing
had gone as I had expected since that stony, silent train ride back from London with Jekyll and Hyde sitting beside me.

I’d stripped myself naked for Alfred. My bruise-mottled body had thrilled to each one of his carefully tendered kisses and caresses. But, as he nuzzled my breasts, his silken voice asked a question I’d
never
expected: “But, my darling, doesn’t this”—his fingers delved down between my thighs, like a virtuoso harpist knowing
exactly
which string to pluck, making me shudder and gasp as pleasure reverberated all through me—“these pleasures we share, make this cross so much easier to bear?”

Where was the indignant lover leaping up, ready to grab his pistol or horsewhip and rush out to avenge me, the one I’d pictured having to plead with and restrain from rushing right out and giving Jim a heaping dishful of what he’d served me? Nowhere in sight! My
gallant lover
was lying lazily atop me, my bosom his soft, cushy pillow, languorously stroking me with his fingers, yawning, as though it were all a colossal bore. We might as well have been talking about the weather!

“Don’t rock the boat, Florie,” he said. “You have a good life with Jim,
everything
a woman could wish for, even if you must endure an occasional beating from time to time. It’s not so bad as all that. Just come to me, Florie, and I’ll kiss all the hurts better.” To prove it, he pressed a row of slow kisses onto my thigh where a long red scratch like a haphazardly embroidered seam was healing against an ugly, mottled yellow-brown bruise.

I think that was the first time I really noticed the crystal coldness of his blue eyes. The first time I truly felt their chill as something more than invigorating and refreshing, welcoming as a swimming hole on a hot summer’s day. For the first time, in Alfred’s arms, I felt cold and comfortless. Lord, how it frightened me! I couldn’t face it then. Instead I shoved the ugly truth away as hard as I could, but I knew then that I had made yet
another
mistake.

I’d trusted Love to save me, but Love wasn’t
really
Love, just another mask donned in the Masquerade of Life. It’s one of the harshest and hardest lessons a woman has to learn: Men are not kind unless it suits them. The peacock only shakes and shows his pretty feathers to coax the peahen into coupling with him; human males use kind words and sympathy, kisses, caresses, compliments, and gifts the same way. It’s all a cold, cruel sham, a masquerade that goes on as long as life endures.

Indignant, I leapt up, ignoring Alfred’s urgings that I stay awhile. But I couldn’t do that—every time I looked at the bed I saw a snake lying amidst the rumpled sheets instead of the handsome copper-haired Apollo who had gulled and charmed me. I threw on my clothes and rushed out, yanking my veil down to hide my tears and bruises, swearing to myself that I would never go back again as I leapt into a cab and rashly rushed to the nearest law office.

I brashly brushed past the clerk and into Mr. Yardley’s inner sanctum. I couldn’t have cared less about a little thing like the fact that I had no appointment. But that stern old graybeard was not the
least
bit impressed when I stopped before his desk, bosom heaving, and dramatically flung back my veil, baring my face to his cool legal scrutiny, and breathlessly blurted out my story. He barely looked up from the papers he was perusing and said he dealt mostly with maritime insurance cases.

When I asked if he would be so kind as to recommend another lawyer, one better suited to my needs, he said he would not and the only advice he had to give me was to “go home to your husband, young woman, and stop making mischief!” He was an old-fashioned man, he said, who believed a husband had the right to chastise his wife. Mr. Yardley fixed me with a shrewd monocled eye and said I was clearly a conniving little minx and my husband had only been acting for my own good and if I were
his
wife he’d take a broomstick to me for the way I was behaving right now, rushing into law offices unannounced like an actress onto the stage in some silly melodrama; he had half a mind to write to my husband and tell him all about my unbecoming and unladylike behavior and encourage him to get the broomstick ready to give me a walloping I would
really
profit from.

I stamped my foot and called him “a mean and hateful old billy goat!” I could barely restrain myself from reaching right across that desk and giving his long gray beard a good hard yank before I fled his office in tears just as I had come.

I didn’t know what else to do. There was nowhere else I could go except home—though it felt like a sacrilege to call it so. Battlecrease House, its occupants and frequent guests, had made a mockery of all my dreams of love and domestic bliss. So I told the driver to take me to Woollright’s Department Store.

I told the smiling, solicitous salespeople that I had been in a carriage accident in London, and they were very kind and gentle with me, bringing me a cup of chocolate, a chair, and a cushion for my back, escorting me gently from department to department, and parading their goods before me so I had only to point and say, “I’ll take that, and that, and that. . . .” I was so
grateful
I bought more than I should, but it was not enough, and it could never be enough, to ease the pain.