The Crimson Petal and the White

  ‘Without you looking at me.’ Sugar is blushing again, ashamed this time of feeling ashamed. In their early years together, she and Caroline were like beasts in a degenerate Eden; if ever the need had arisen, they could have lain shoulder to shoulder, naked, and spread their legs for the likes of Bodley and Ashwell. Now, her body is no one’s business but her own — and William’s.

  Caroline gives her an odd look, but lets it pass. Briskly, she shifts from bed to chair, and continues buttoning up her boots while Sugar squats out of sight.

  Silence falls, at least in Caroline’s room: outside in Church Lane, life creaks and hoots and jabbers on; two men begin to quarrel, shouting in what sounds like a foreign language, and a harsh-voiced woman laughs. Sugar strains and strains to let go, knees and fists trembling, but nothing will come.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she pleads.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Anything.’

  Caroline ponders for a second, while outside, someone yells ‘Whore!’ and the laughter disappears into an unseen stairwell.

  ‘The Colonel wants more than whisky this time,’ she says. ‘’E wants snuff.’

  Sugar laughs, and under her yellow canopy of skirt, thank God, a muffled trickle begins. ‘I’ll get him snuff.’

  ‘It ‘as to be Indian snuff, ‘e says. Dark, sticky stuff just like ‘e ‘ad in Delhi, durin’ the mutiny.’

  ‘If money can buy it, I can get it.’ Sugar stands up, tears of relief on her face and, having concealed the evidence, steals around to the other side of the bed.

  ‘You know,’ Caroline prattles on, ‘I’d like to be in a book. Long as it was written by a friend, o’course.’ ‘Why, Caddie?’

  ‘Well, stands to reason, dunnit: an enemy would make you out to be a right cow–’

  ‘No, I meant why would you like to be in a book?’

  ‘Well …’ Caroline’s eyes glaze over. ‘You know I always fancied ‘avin’ me portrait painted. If I can’t ‘ave that…’ She shrugs, suddenly coy. ‘It’s a crack at immortality, innit?’ At the sight of Sugar’s face, she emits a raucous hack of laughter. ‘Ha! Didn’t fink I’d know a word like that, did yer?’ She laughs again, then it fades to a sad, sad smile, as the last traces of Henry Rackham’s spirit spiral up the chimney. ‘Learnt it off a friend o’ mine.’

  To break the melancholy mood, she winks at Sugar and says, ‘Well, I must start work, dear, or the men of this parish’ll ‘ave nobody to fuck but their wives.’

  And with that, the two of them kiss goodbye, and Sugar descends the dismal stairs alone, leaving Caroline to select the finishing touches of her evening attire.

  ‘Watch yer step!’ the older woman calls. ‘Some of them stairs are rotten!’

  ‘I know!’ Sugar calls back, and indeed, she used to know exactly which ones could be trusted and which had had too many heavy men tread on them. Now, she clings to the banister and walks at the edge, tensed to catch herself if the wood gives way.

  ‘The gathering storm,’ wheezes Colonel Leek, wheeling out of the shadows below, ‘of disaster!’

  Safely on firm ground, or what passes for such in the Leeks’ mouldering house, Sugar has no inclination to stand listening to the old man’s ravings, or to be reacquainted with his unmistakable smell any sooner than she has to be.

  ‘Honestly, Colonel, if this is how you mean to behave on your next visit to the farm …’ she warns him as she squeezes by, gathering her skirts clear of his oily wheelchair. Far from being chastened, however, he takes umbrage and, with a groan of exertion, begins to follow her across the room. She quickens her retreat, hoping to leave him stranded, but he pursues her all the way down the passage, his elbows scuffing against the narrow walls, his chair’s cast-iron framework rattling and squeaking as he wheels himself laboriously along.

  ‘Autumn!’ he barks at her heels. ‘Autumn brings with it a rash of new calamities! Miss Delvinia Clough, stabbed in the heart by an unapprehended assailant, at Penzance railway station! Three persons in Derry crushed by a collapsing new building! Henry Rackham, brother of the perfumer, burnt to death in his own house! Do you expect to escape what’s drawing nigh?’

  ‘Yes, you old wretch,’ hisses Sugar, annoyed at him for having exposed, unintentionally or not, her mysterious George Hunt as a fiction. ‘Yes, I expect to escape this minute!’ Whereupon she wrenches open the door and runs out of the house without looking back.

  ‘And this time, you needn’t bother to bring that … that old man,’ says William, when next they meet.

  ‘Oh, but it’s no bother,’ says Sugar. ‘It’s all arranged. He’ll be a lamb, you can rest assured.’

  They are sitting together on the ottoman in the front room in Priory Close, fully clothed, as decorous as you please. William has no time for fornication just now; on the carpet at his feet lie two small, crinkled sheets of wrapping-paper and half a dozen intricately purfled paper borders, and his final decision must be made in time for the next post. Sugar has advised him that the gold-and-olive trimming looks the best, and he’s inclined to agree with her, though the blue-and-emerald has a fresh, clean appearance, and would be a damn sight cheaper per thousand wrappers. As for the paper itself, they’re agreed that the thinner one hugs the shape of the soap very nicely, and they’ve experimented with handling it roughly, and found that it only tears under conditions to which no reasonable shop-keeper would subject it. That’s that decided, then; he need only choose the pattern of the trimming, and to this end he’s looking away from the options for a minute, and trusting that his instincts will guide him when he looks again.

  ‘No,’ he insists, ‘the old man can stay home.’

  Sugar sees the glint of steel in his eyes and, for an instant, fears what that glint might mean for her. Is this the beginning of a chill between them? Surely not — only a minute ago he was telling her, with a crooked smile, that she’s become his ‘right-hand man’. So: if it’s merely the Colonel that’s in disgrace, what other men does she know who’d come to Mitcham with her, to lend her a whiff of respectability in the eyes of the workers?

  In a flash, she reviews all the males she’s known in her life: a dark void where her father ought to be; a couple of giant, angry-faced landlords who made her mother cry (in the very early days before her mother expunged tears from her repertoire); the ‘kind gentleman’ who came to keep her warm on the night of her deflowering; and all the men since, an indistinct procession of half-naked flesh, like a carnival freak composed not of two conjoined bodies, but hundreds. She recalls a one-legged customer, for the way his stump banged against her knee; she recalls the thin lips of a man who almost strangled her, before Amy came to the rescue; she recalls a slope-headed idiot with breasts bigger than hers; she recalls shoulders thick with hair and eyes opaque with cataracts; she recalls pricks the size of beans and pricks the size of cucumbers, pricks with purple heads, pricks bent in the middle, pricks distinguished by birthmarks and welts and tattoos and the scars of attempted self-castration. In The Fall and Rise of Sugar, there are pieces of many men she’s known, all butchered with the knife of revenge. Dear Heaven, hasn’t she known any male she doesn’t loathe?

  ‘I–I must admit,’ she says, as she dismisses a fantasy of herself arm-inarm with little Christopher, ‘I’m having trouble thinking of a suitable companion.’

  ‘Don’t bother to bring any, my dear,’ Rackham mutters, returning his attention to the paper trimmings at his feet.

  ‘Oh but William,’ she protests, scarcely able to believe her ears. ‘Mightn’t that cause a scandal?’

  He grunts irritably, his mind once more preoccupied with gold-and-olive versus blue-and-emerald.

  ‘I won’t be held to ransom by petty minds, damn it. Let a few farmhands whisper, if they want to! They’ll be out on their ear if they dare do more than whisper … God almighty, I’m the head of a great concern and I’ve just buried my brother: I’ve more serious matters to lose sleep over than the gossip of inferiors.’ And, with a decisive forward lur
ch, he snatches up the olive-and-gold. ‘Hang the expense,’ he declares. ‘I like it, and what I like my customers will like too.’

  Dizzy-headed with delight, Sugar embraces him, and he kisses her brow indulgently.

  ‘The letter, we must write the letter,’ he reminds her, before she gets too frolicsome.

  She fetches paper and pen for him, and he dashes off the letter to the printer. Then, with ten minutes to spare before the last post, he stands in the vestibule and allows her to help him into his coat.

  ‘You’re a treasure,’ he says, the words clear despite the envelope clenched between his teeth. ‘Indispensable, that’s the only word for you.’

  And, hastily buttoned up and dusted down, he’s gone.

  Scarcely has the door shut behind him than Sugar springs into motion, released from her shackles of demure behaviour. Squealing in triumph, she dances from room to room, pirouetting till her skirts twirl and her hair lifts from her shoulders. Yes! At last: she can walk at his side, and damn what the world thinks! That’s what he said, isn’t it? Their liaison can’t be held to ransom by petty minds — he won’t stand for it! Joyous, joyous day!

  Her exhilaration is marred only by the thought that she must pay another visit to Church Lane, to inform the Leeks of the change of plan. Or must she? Inspired, she fetches a fresh sheet of writing-paper, sits at the escritoire and, trembling with nerves, dips her pen in the inkwell.

  Dear Mrs Leek

  My outing this Friday has been cancelled, so I shan’t be coming for the Colonel.

  (That’s all she can think of for a long while. Then:)

  There is no need to return the Money I gave you.

  Yours faithfully,

  Sugar.

  For a further ten or fifteen minutes, well beyond the deadline for the next post, Sugar deliberates about a P.S., along the lines of Give Caroline my love, but not quite so effusive. There are, in English, only so many alternatives to ‘love’. Sugar considers them all, but in the end, the chances of Mrs Leek being willing to convey an affectionate emotion to anyone, let alone one of her lodgers, seem remote. So, as the sun sets, and squally weather besieges Priory Close, Sugar resolves to save her love until she next sees Caroline in person, and seals the letter in its envelope, to be posted when the skies have cleared.

  ‘At the ready!’ shouts William Rackham to the fidgeting torch-bearers. ‘Very well: start the bonfire!’

  All around the towering pyre, batons tipped with flaming tallow are lowered onto the gnarled branches and grey leaves, and within half a minute the smell of lavender is mingling with that of burning wood. The men are all smiles, waving smoke away from their eyes: the privilege of wielding the power to start this destruction flatters their meagre pride and, just for the afternoon, lends a shine to their miserable existence working in these fields for ninepence a day plus free lemonade.

  ‘This lot’ll need a damn sight more torchin’, I reckon,’ says one, wielding his flaming baton like a sword, and indeed the fire shows signs that, unassisted, it might die out rather than engulf the mountain of uprooted plants. A haze of smoke begins to rise into the heavens, adding obscurity to the lowering clouds.

  ‘A hallmark of Rackham’s high standards,’ announces William to Sugar. ‘The bushes are slow to catch fire because they’re not quite exhausted: they’ve life in them yet. But Rackham’s doesn’t try to wrangle a sixth harvest out of plants that aren’t robust any longer.’

  Sugar looks at him, unsure how to respond. He’s addressing her as if she might yet be the daughter or granddaughter of an elderly investor, wheeling an invisible Colonel Leek around the fields. There’s a distance between them, not the arm-in-arm intimacy she’d imagined.

  ‘I once witnessed,’ declares William loudly, over the babble of voices and crackle of burning wood, ‘a bonfire of plants which had been allowed to stand six seasons: it went up, whoosh!, like a pile of dry bracken. The oil distilled from that last harvest would have been third-class, I assure you.’

  Sugar nods, keeps silent, stares at the growing flames. Shivering from the cold wind that blows on her back, and wincing at the heat thrown into her face, she wonders if she’s as well-suited to country life as she once fancied she might be. All around the perimeter of the fire, men are reapplying their torches, discussing the progress of the flames. Their accents are opaque to her; she wonders if she’s grown too refined lately to understand them, or if they really are as thick as all that.

  They are aliens to her, these workers; dressed in their uniform of rudely-cobbled shoes, rough brown trousers and collarless cotton shirts, they are like a common breed of creature, a hardy herd of bipeds troubled neither by the chill wind nor the hot flames.

  Sugar is grateful they’re so engrossed in their bonfire, as it means they’re taking less notice of her, and she yearns to be excused scrutiny today. Her own choice of clothes is dark and sober, unlike the lavender plumage that drew all eyes to her on her first visit here. If she can’t be hanging on William’s arm, then anonymity is what she craves.

  Waves of smoke, teeming with the livid tadpoles of sparks and cinders, are billowing up into the darkening sky; the men are cheering and laughing at the incandescent fruit of their labours. But, as the fumes of lavender grow more powerful, there grows in Sugar a fear that she might be overcome — a very reasonable fear, given her physical state, which is under-slept, underfed, and in the grip of a chill she blames on the visit to Caroline’s unheated bedroom. Is it better to breathe deeply, getting as much fresh air as possible along with the fumes, or is it better to hold one’s breath? She tries both, and decides to breathe as normally as she can manage. If only she’d eaten something before coming here! But she was too giddy, even then, with anticipation.

  ‘I’m not likely,’ says William to her suddenly, very near to her flushed face, ‘to call on you for some time.’ His voice is no longer that of the master of ceremonies, but of the man who lies against her naked body in the afterglow of love-making.

  Sugar’s beclouded mind strains to interpret his words. ‘I suppose,’ she says, ‘it’s a busy time of year.’

  William waves at the men to step back from the bonfire, as it has no further need for their encouragement. The fumes evidently aren’t having anything like the effect on him that they’re having on her.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not that,’ he says, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, as he surveys the men’s retreat. ‘There are affairs at home … Nothing is ever resolved satisfactorily … It’s a hornets’ nest, I tell you … God, what a household …!’

  Sugar concentrates with effort, thick-headed with perfume.

  ‘Sophie’s nurse?’ she guesses, aiming for a sympathetic tone, but sounding (she feels) merely bilious.

  ‘You deduce rightly — as always,’ he says, daring to stand closer to her now. ‘Yes, Beatrice Cleave has handed in her notice, bless her fat heart. She’s still convinced Sophie needs a governess, she’s champing at the bit to move to Mrs Barrett’s, and I’m sure she’s not at all pleased to be in a house that’s in mourning, either.’

  ‘And is a governess so very difficult to find?’ says Sugar, her heart beginning to beat heavily.

  ‘Well-nigh impossible,’ he scowls. ‘I have my work cut out for me, you can be sure, for the foreseeable future. Bad governesses are legion, and there’s no way of weeding them out. Offer a pitiful wage, and only the most wretched specimens apply; offer a handsome reward, and every member of the female sex is galvanised by greed. Tuesday evening my advertisement was in The Times, and I’ve had forty letters already.’

  ‘But can’t Agnes be the one who chooses a governess?’ ventures Sugar.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  Sugar sways dizzily on her feet, her heart pounding so much that she feels her rib-cage shudder, and hears herself say in a weak voice:

  ‘William?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you truly regret we can’t live togethe
r?’

  ‘With all my heart,’ he replies at once, in a tone not so much sentimental as wearily annoyed, as though the impediments to their perfect union were irksome trade restrictions or senseless laws. ‘If I could wave a magic wand …!’

  ‘William?’ Her breath wheezes, her tongue feels swollen with lavender, the earth on which she stands is slowly beginning to revolve, like a giant piece of flotsam on an ocean too vast and dark to see. ‘I–I believe I have your solution, and …and our solution. Let me be your daughter’s governess. I’ve all the necessary skills, I think, except music, wh-which I could learn from books, I’m sure. Sophie could do worse, couldn’t she, than learning reading, writing, arithmetic a-and manners from me?’

  William’s face is distorted in the firelight, his eyes reddened by the conflagration; his flame-yellow teeth are bared, in amazement — or outrage. Desperately, Sugar pleads on:

  ‘I–I could live in whatever quarters Sophie’s nurse has now …No matter if they’re plain; I should be happy, m-merely to be near to you … ‘

  Her voice gives out on the final word, a feeble bleat, and she stands swaying, gasping in expectancy. Slowly, oh how slowly! he turns to answer her. Dear Heaven, his lips are curled in disgust …!

  ‘You cannot possibly be–’ he begins to say, only to be interrupted by a gruff rustic voice:

  ‘Mr Rarck’m, sir! May Oi speak wi’ye?’

  William turns to deal with the intrusion, and Sugar can stand no longer. A sickly hot flush shoots up through her whole body and, as the inside of her skull is flooded in darkness, she faints to the ground. She doesn’t even feel the blow of impact; only — strangely enough — the cool blades of grass pricking the flesh of her face.

  Then, after a measureless lapse, she has the distant sensation of being lifted up and carried, but to where, or by whom, she cannot tell.

  PART 4

  The Bosom of the Family

  TWENTY-TWO

  All through the long night, a thousand gallons of rain distilled indiscriminately from the effluvia of London’s streets and the sweet exhalations of faraway lakes are tossed down upon the house in Chepstow Villas. One bedroom window glimmers in the darkness like a ship’s beacon, and whenever the torrent intensifies, this lonely light wavers, as though the house is floating off its foundations. At dawn, however, the Rackham residence is unmoved, the dark clouds are exhausted, and a pale new sky is allowed to venture through. The storm, for now, is over.