The Crimson Petal and the White Page 3

  The first thing Caroline sees when she emerges into the light of the entrance hall is Colonel Leek seated in his wheelchair. Though he is berthed very near the foot of the stairs, he faces the front door, his back to Caroline, and she hopes that this morning he might, for once, be asleep.

  ‘Think I’m asleep, don’t you girlie?’ he promptly sneers.

  ‘No, never,’ she laughs, though it’s far too early in the day for her to be a convincing liar. She squeezes past the Colonel and lets him examine her for a moment, so as not to be rude, for he never forgets an insult.

  Colonel Leek is the landlady’s uncle, a pot-bellied stove of a man, keeping the warmth in with overcoats, scarves and blankets, stoking up on gossip, and puffing out smoke through a stunted pipe. Concealed under all the layers, Colonel Leek still wears his military uniform complete with medals, though these have a handkerchief sewn over them to prevent them catching. In the last war he went to, the Colonel accepted a bullet in the spine in exchange for a chance to take pot-shots at mutineering Indians, and his niece has cared for him ever since, installing him as her ‘toll-collector’ when she opened the empty rooms of her house to prostitutes.

  Colonel Leek performs his job with grim efficiency, but his true passion remains war and other outbursts of violence and disaster. When he reads his daily newspaper, happy events and proud achievements fail to capture his interest, but as soon as he comes across a calamity he cannot contain himself. It often happens that Caroline, hard at work in her room, must suddenly croon more loudly in a customer’s ear to cover the noise of a hoarsely shouted recitation from downstairs, such as:

  ‘Six thousand Tartars have invaded the Amoor Province, wrested fifteen years ago from China!’

  Now the Colonel fixes his bloodshot eyes on Caroline, and whispers meaningfully: ‘Some of us don’t sleep through disaster. Some of us knows what goes on.’

  ‘You mean that cab this mornin’?’ guesses Caroline, well accustomed to his turn of mind.

  ‘I saw, the Colonel leers, trying to raise himself up off his perennially festering rear. ‘Death and damage.’ He falls back on the cushions. ‘But that was only the beginning. A small part of what’s afoot. The local manifestation. But everywhere! everywhere! Disaster!’

  ‘Do let us go, Colonel. I’ll drop if I don’t ‘ave a bite to eat.’

  The old man looks down at his blanketed lap as if it were a newspaper and, raising his forefinger periscopically, recites:

  ‘Disastrous overturn of train at Bishop’s Itchington. Gunpowder explosion on the Regent’s Canal. Steamer gone down off the Bay of Biscay. Destruction by fire of the Cospatrick, half-way to New Zealand, four hundred and sixty lost, mere days ago. Think of it! These are signs. The whirlpool of disaster. And at the centre of it — what there, eh? What there?’

  Caroline gives it a couple of seconds’ thought, but she has no idea what there. Alone of the three women who use Mrs Leek’s house as their lay and lodgings, she’s oddly fond of the old man, but not enough to prefer his demented prophesies to a hearty breakfast.

  ‘Goodbye, Colonel,’ she calls as she swings open the door and sweeps out into the street, closing him in behind her.

  Now prepare yourself. You have not much longer with Caroline before she introduces you to a person with slightly better prospects. Watch her bodice swell as she inhales deeply the air of a new day. Wait for her to plot her safe passage through Church Lane, as she notes where the dung is most densely congregated. Then watch your step as you follow her towards Arthur Street, walking briskly along the line of litter left in the wake of the cab: first the blood, then a trail of seat-stuffing and wood-splinters. Perhaps they’ll lead all the way to The Mother’s Finest tavern, where hot pies are served from dawn and no one is going to ask you if you knew the woman who died.

  TWO

  All along the burnished footpaths of Greek Street, the shop-keepers are out already, the second wave of early risers. Of course they regard themselves as the first wave. The grim procession of slop-workers and factory drudges Caroline looked down on from her window, though it happened only a few hundred yards from here less than an hour ago, might as well have happened in another country in another age. Civilisation begins at Greek Street. Welcome to the real world.

  Getting up as early as the shop-keepers do is, in their view, stoic heroism beyond the understanding of lazier mortals. Any creature scurrying about earlier than themselves must be a rodent or an insect which traps and poisons have regrettably failed to kill.

  Not that they are cruel, these industrious men. Many of them are kinder souls than the people you came here to meet, those exalted leading players you’re so impatient to be introduced to. It’s just that the shop-keepers of Greek Street care nothing about the shadowy creatures who actually manufacture the goods they sell. The world has outgrown its quaint rural intimacies, and now it’s the modern age: an order is put in for fifty cakes of Coal Tar Soap, and a few days later, a cart arrives and the order is delivered. How that soap came to exist is no question for a modern man. Everything in this world issues fully formed from the loins of a benign monster called manufacture; a never-ending stream of objects — of graded quality, of perfect uniformity — from an orifice hidden behind veils of smoke.

  You may point out that the clouds of smut from the factory chimneys of Hammersmith and Lambeth blacken all the city alike, a humbling reminder of where the cornucopia really comes from. But humility is not a trait for the modern man, and filthy air is quite good enough for breathing; its only disadvantage is the film of muck that accumulates on shop windows.

  But what use is there, the shop-keepers sigh, in nostalgia for past times? The machine age has come, the world will never be clean again, but oh: what compensation!

  Already they’re working up a sweat, their only sweat for the day, as they labour to open their shops. They ease the tainted frost from the windows with sponges of lukewarm water and sweep the slush into the gutter with stiff brooms. Standing on their toes, stretching their arms, they strip off the shutters, panels, iron bars and stanchions that have kept their goods safe another night. All along the street, keys rattle in key-holes as each shop’s ornate metal clothing is stripped away.

  The men are in a hurry now, in case someone with money should come along and choose a wide-open shop over a half-open one. Passers-by are few and often queer at this hour of the morning, but all types may stray into Greek Street and there’s no telling who’ll spend.

  An embarrassment of produce becomes available to Caroline as she walks towards The Mother’s Finest; it’s offered up to her in an indecent manner by the shop-keepers who, having thrown open their strongholds, now busy themselves selecting the most tempting wares to display on the footpaths outside. It’s as if, having unlocked the chastity of shutters and doors, they can’t see the point in maintaining any shred of modesty. Trays of books are shoved into Caroline’s path, some of the volumes laid salaciously open to show off their colour plates. Stuffed manikins hold out their stitched hands, imploring Caroline to buy the clothes off their backs. Heavily curtained windows disrobe without warning.

  ‘Morning, madam!’ yelps more than one of the men as Caroline hurries by. They all know she’s no lady — the mere fact that she’s up at this hour makes that clear — but then they aren’t exactly gentlemen of business either, and can’t afford to scorn custom. Acutely aware how many rungs lower they are than the grand proprietors – never shop-keepers — of Regent Street, they’ll as gladly sell their buns, boots, books or bonnets to a whore as to anyone else.

  Indeed, there is an essential similarity between Caroline and the shopkeepers of Greek Street who woo her: much of what they hope to sell is far from virgin. Here you may find books with pages made ragged by a previous owner’s paper-knife; there stands furniture discarded as outmoded, still bold as brass, still serviceable, and cheap — daring anyone fallen on hard times to fall just a little farther. A nice soft landing, ladies and gents! Here are beds already sl
ept in — by the cleanest persons on earth, sir, the very cleanest. (Or perhaps by a diseased wretch, whose corruption might yet be lurking inside the mattress. Such are the morbid fantasies of those whom bankruptcy, swindles or dissolution have brought so low that furnishing their lodgings fresh from Regent Street is no longer possible.)

  In much more dubious taste still are the clothes. Not only are they all reach-me-downs (that is, made for nobody in particular) but some of them have already been worn — and not just once, either. The shop-keepers will, of course, deny this; they like to fancy that Petticoat Lane and the rag-and-bone shop are as far beneath them on the ladder as Regent Street is above.

  But enough of these men. You’re in danger of losing sight of Caroline as she walks faster, spurred on by hunger. Already you hesitate, seeing two women ahead of you, both shapely, both with black bodices, both with voluminous bows bobbing on their rumps as they trot along. What colour was Caroline’s skirt? Blue and grey stripes. Catch her up. The other whore, whoever she is, won’t introduce you to anyone worth knowing.

  Caroline has almost reached her goal; she’s fixed her eyes on the dangling wooden sign of The Mother’s Finest, a blistered painting of a busty girl and her hideous mam. One last obstacle — a stack of newspapers skidding onto the footpath right in front of her — and she’s picking up the irresistible smell of hot pies and fresh-poured beer, and pushing open the old blue door with its framed motto, PLEASE DON’T BANG DOOR, DRUNKARDS SLEEPING. (The publican likes a laugh, and he likes others to laugh with him. When he first put up that sign, he recited it to Caroline so often she was almost convinced he’d taught her to read. But soon enough she was confusing the please with the don’t, and the drunkards with the sleeping.)

  Follow Caroline inside, and you’ll notice there are no sleeping drunkards here after all. The Mother’s Finest is a couple of rungs above the lowest drinking-houses and, despite its waggish motto, has a policy of ejecting sots as soon as they threaten to brawl or vomit. It’s a solid, scrubbed sort of pub, all brass and poorly stained wood, with a variety of ornamental beer kegs suspended from the ceiling (despite not serving more than the one kind of beer), and a collection of coasters and bottle-tops on the wall behind the bar.

  Of the forty-nine eyes in the room, only eight or ten turn to observe Caroline’s entrance, for serious drinking and grumbling are the order of the day here. Those who do look at her, look just long enough to figure out who or at least what she is, then return to staring down into the gold froth on their bitter brown ale. By late tonight they may lust after her, but at this head-sore hour of morning the idea of paying for physical exertion lacks appeal.

  It’s a shabby crowd of men resting their elbows on The Mother’s Finest’s tables at this time of day; none of them exactly good-for-nothings, but certainly not good for much. Their coats and shirts have most of the buttons sewn on securely; the knitted scarves around their necks show signs of recent washing; and the boots on their feet are sturdy and, if not exactly shiny, no worse than dull. The majority of these men are not long out of work, and most of them are married to women who’ve not yet despaired of them. Caroline’s presence here by no means offends or surprises them; you have a very long way to go before you set foot in the kind of establishment where only men are admitted.

  ‘’Ello, Caddie,’ says the publican, raising a hairy hand glistening with beer. ‘Cock wake you?’

  ‘Never, Eppie,’ says Caroline. ‘The smell of your pies and ale.’

  The exchange is a formality, as he’s already filling a mug for her, and motioning to his wife for the pie. Of all the customers, Caroline can eat and drink on credit, because she’s the only one he can trust to pay him later. What man, whose presence in a public house at this time of day trumpets his unemployed state, can claim that though he’s penniless now, he’ll have money tonight? Caroline, since losing her virtue, has gained respect where she needs it most.

  That’s not to say she’s wise with money. Like most prostitutes, she spends her pay as soon as she’s left alone with it. Apart from meals and rent, she buys fancy cakes, drinks, chocolates, clothes sometimes, hokey-pokey in the summer, visits to warm places in the winter — taverns, music halls, freak shows, pantomimes — anything to get her out of the cold, really. Oh yes, and she buys the ingredients for her douche, and firewood and candles, and every Sunday a penny sparkler, a firework she has loved since she was a child, and which she lights in her room late at night like a Papist lighting a votive candle. None of these vices costs very much — not compared with a man’s gambling or medicines for a child — yet Caroline never saves a shilling. A reach-me-down dress, a penny sparkler, a fancy cake, a sixpenny entertainment … how can such things use up so much money? There must be other expenses, but she’s damned if she can remember what they are. Never mind: her income is liquid, so she’s never hard up for long.

  Caroline devours her pie with an unselfconscious zest she would have found difficult to tolerate in others when she was a respectable Yorkshire wife. Fork and knife are not needed for the quivering assemblage of flour, sheep ankle, ox-tail and hot gravy she cups in her palm. She chews open-mouthed, to let the cooling air in. Within minutes she’s licking her own hand.

  ‘Thanks, Eppie, that was just what I needed.’ She finishes her beer, stands up and shakes pastry crumbs off her skirts. The publican’s wife will sweep up after her, sour-faced. Caroline mimes a goodbye kiss and leaves.

  Outside, the civilised world hasn’t quite woken up yet. The shop-keepers are still laying out their wares, while thieves, bill-stickers, beggars and delivery boys look on. There are no women about except two black-shrouded flower-sellers arguing quietly over territory. The loser trundles her barrow nearer to where the dray-horses stand, her swarthy back bent almost double over her stock of dubious posies.

  Caroline isn’t used to being on the streets so early, and feels almost intimidated by the sheer quantity of day left to be lived through. She wonders if she should offer her body to someone, to pass the time, but she knows she probably won’t bother unless the opportunity leaps into her lap. The need isn’t urgent yet. She can buy candles at her leisure. Why worry about being penniless when she can earn more in twenty minutes than she used to earn in a day?

  She knows it’s pig-laziness and moral weakness that prevent her from saving money as she ought to. The earnings of her trade could, if she’d been frugal over the years, have filled her old bonnet to bursting with banknotes, but she’s lost the knack of frugality. With no child or immortal soul left to save, the hoarding of coins in the hope of one day exchanging them for coloured paper seems pointless. All sense of purpose, of responsibility, indeed of any imaginable future, were removed from her by the deaths of her husband and child. It was they who used to make her life a story; they who seemed to be giving it a beginning, a middle and an end. Nowadays, her life is more like a newspaper: aimless, up-to-date, full of meaningless events for Colonel Leek to recite when no one’s paying attention. For all the use she is to Society, beyond intercepting the odd squirt of sperm that would otherwise have troubled a respectable wife, she might as well be dead. Yet she exists, and, against the odds, she is happy. In this, she has a clear advantage over the young woman you are about to meet.

  ‘Shush?’

  Caroline has paused in front of a poky, gloomy stationer’s on her way back down Greek Street, because inside the shop she’s caught sight of–is it really? — yes, it’s Shush, or Sugar as she’s known to the world at large. Even in the gloom – especially in the gloom — that long body is unmistakable: stick-thin, flat-chested and bony like a consumptive young man, with hands almost too big for women’s gloves. Always this same first impression of Sugar: the queasy surprise of seeing what appears to be a tall, gaunt boy wreathed from neck to ankle in women’s clothes; then, with the first glimpse of this odd creature’s face, the realisation that this boy is female.

  At the sound of her nickname, the woman turns, clutching to her dark green bodice a rea
m of white writing paper. There’s a bosom in that bodice after all. Not enough to nourish a child perhaps, but enough to please a certain kind of man. And no one has hair quite as golden-orange as Sugar’s, or skin quite as luminously pale. Her eyes alone, even if she were wrapped up like an Arabian odalisque with nothing else showing, would be enough to declare her sex. They are naked eyes, fringed with soft hair, glistening like peeled fruits. They are eyes that promise everything.

  ‘Caddie?’

  The shadowy woman raises a green glove to her brow and squints at the sunlight beaming in from the street; Caroline waves, slow to realise that her friend is blinded. Her waving arm causes shafts of light to sweep back and forth over the cluttered rows of shelving, and Sugar squints all the more. Her head sways from side to side on its long neck, straining to find who has called out to her through the thorny confusion of quills, pencils and fountain pens. Shyly — for she has no business here — Caroline steps into the shop.

  ‘Caddie!’

  The younger woman’s expression, in recognising her old friend, glows with what so many men have found irresistible: an apparent ecstasy of gratitude to have lived to experience such an encounter. She rushes up to Caroline, embraces and kisses her, while behind the counter the stationer grimaces. He’s embarrassed not so much by the display of affection but by the blow to his pride: serving Sugar, he had taken her for a lady and been rather obsequious to her, and now it appears, from the commonness of her companion, that he was wrong.

  ‘Will that be all, madam?’ he harrumphs, affectedly sweeping a small feather duster over a rack of ink bottles.