The Crimson Petal and the White

by Michel Faber

  Heavily, he sits once more in his armchair, cold in his hands and feet, feverish in his head, itchy in his groin; indeed, his whole body is a cumbersome mismatch of flesh, enclosing, in an unwelcome embrace, a soul that’s clammy with pollution. To crown his shame, Puss pads into the room and heads straight for the soiled handkerchief, sniffing at it curiously.

  ‘Whoosht,’ he scolds, waving one woollen-socked foot at her. ‘That’s dirty.’

  He retrieves the handkerchief from under her nose, and crushes it anew in his fist. The challenge of washing it is too daunting; he’s willing to make the eflort when it’s his night-shirt that’s soiled (one of the reasons why he won’t employ a washerwoman), but this cheap square of fabric seems hardly worth the humiliation it would cost him to fill his metal tub and stand there scraping at gobs of his tenacious seed with soapy fingernails. What do other self-abusers do? Simply hand their slimy things into the care of female servants, who must surely despise their masters ever after? Or is incontinence a rare event in the lives of stronger-willed men? Miserably ashamed of wasting good cotton when there are so many poor folk shivering for lack of patches on their clothes (in London, never mind the Isle of Skye!), Henry tosses the handkerchief into the fireplace. Landing squarely in the centre of the glowing coals, it sizzles and blackens, then unfurls into bright flames.

  Mrs Fox is dying, and he cannot help her. This thought returns to plague him constantly, in his hours of gloomiest despair, in his moments of unthinking light-heartedness, in his sleep and in his waking. Mrs Fox is dying, and he cannot cure her, cannot amuse her, cannot relieve her. All day long she lies on a chaise in her father’s garden, or, when the weather is too wild, on the same chaise just inside the windows of the dismal drawing-room, staring out at the barely perceptible impression she’s left on the lawn. She’s in no pain to speak of, only bored senseless, she assures Henry, in between excruciating bouts of coughing. Does she want any beef tea, he enquires? No, she does not want any beef tea; nor would he, if he tasted the stuff. What she longs for is to go walking, walking in the sun; but the sun is fugitive, and even when it breaks through the clouds and shines gloriously for a spell, Mrs Fox begs him to be patient while she gathers her breath, and the opportunity passes. In truth, she cannot walk any longer, and he cannot carry her. Once — once only — he shyly suggested a wheelchair, and she refused, with a sharper tongue than she ever revealed to him before. If he weren’t so loath to offend her, he could accuse her of the sin of pride.

  And yet she looks at him so imploringly, her eyes grown large in her bone-white face, her mouth dry and swollen. Sometimes she falls silent in the middle of a sentence, and gazes at him for a full minute at a stretch, only breathing, a pulse beating in her neck and the bluish veins of her temples. The power to defeat Death is in your hands, she seems to be saying, so why are you letting Him take me?

  ‘A-are you all right, Mrs Fox?’ he then asks, or some such doltish question.

  ‘No, of course I’m not all right, Henry,’ she sighs, releasing him from her awful, trusting stare with a blink of her paper-thin eyelids.

  On the rare days when she’s stronger, she uses that strength to drive him from her side. Yesterday was such a day, with Mrs Fox flushed and restless, her eyes bloodshot, her mood erratic. For an hour she seemed to have fallen asleep, her lips forming words soundlessly, her breast barely moving. Then she came to the surface with a start, raised herself up on her elbows and challenged him:

  ‘Oh Henry, you dear man, haven’t you left yet? What is the good of it, you sitting here all afternoon … staring at the palings of my father’s back fence … You’ve counted them often enough, surely.’ Her tone was an odd and perturbing thing, difficult to read, poised on a knife-edge between companionable teasing and stark anguish.

  ‘I … I can stay a little longer,’ he replied, staring straight ahead.

  ‘You must keep busy with your own life, Henry,’ she urged him, ‘and not fritter it away at the side of a dozing woman. I haven’t forgotten how much you dread idleness! And I’ll be well again one day — but not tomorrow or next week. But I shall get better — you believe me, don’t you, Henry?’

  ‘God willing…’ he mumbled.

  ‘But tell me, Henry,’ she continued fervidly. ‘Your calling … What have you done about your calling?’

  It was then that he wished he had left, before this moment.

  ‘I–I’m having doubts,’ he said, superstitiously afraid that she could hear, as clearly as he, the echo of the words God damn God! bellowing inside his skull. ‘I don’t think I’m suited to be a clergyman, after all.’

  ‘Nonsense, Henry,’ she cried, seizing hold of his arm to make him look at her face. ‘You would make the best … the kindest, sincerest, truthfulest, h-handsomest… She giggled sheepishly, expelling a bright tendril of bloody mucus from her nose.

  Shocked by the indecorous discharge, he fixed his eyes upon the fence once more, and struggled to make his confession. ‘I–I’ve been …My faith has been … ‘

  ‘No, Henry,’ she wept, her breath whistling in distress. ‘Don’t! I don’t want to hear it! God is bigger … than one small woman’s illness. Promise me, Henry … promise me … promise me you won’t give up … your mission.’

  To which, coward that he was, spineless scoundrel that he was, Godforsaken Godforsaker that he was, he gave the only answer he could give: the answer she wanted to hear.

  ‘Ah, my sweet one … I wish we lived together in the same house.’

  Sugar’s heart leaps as the words vibrate through her breastbone and William nuzzles his whiskery cheek against her bosom. She hadn’t thought such a sentiment from a man could ever make her giddy with joy, especially coming from a portly fellow with irksomely ticklish whiskers, but her heart pounds embarrassingly hard, directly against his ear.

  ‘These rooms of mine are very smart and comfortable,’ she says, dying for him to contradict her. ‘And private.’

  He sighs, tracing his forefinger along the tiger-striped patterns of dry skin on her thigh. ‘I know, I know …’ Tenderly, his hand comes to rest in the lush delta between her legs. (He does this sort of thing a lot lately: stroking and petting her flesh even when his own appetite is sated. One day soon, if she can work up the courage, she’ll take his hand and instruct him further.) ‘And yet,’ he laments, ‘so often I have matters I dearly wish to discuss with you and, try as I might to clear a path through my responsibilities, I can’t get away from the house.’

  She fondles his hair, massaging the Macassar oil into the cracked skin of her palm. ‘We’ve discussed everything now, though, haven’t we?’ she says. ‘The shape of the “R” on the new soaps; the bonfire of the fifth-year plants — I’ll arrange to bring the Colonel again; what to do about Lemercier’s lilac orchards; winkling your father’s senile old cronies out of the London office All the while, she’s thinking, Tell me how much you love me, tell me.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he says, ‘but there’s more that keeps me from your side.’ With an irritable groan he removes his head from her bosom, and rubs his face with his hands. ‘Ach, it’s a curious thing, but I find that managing a business empire, for all its intrigues, is a damn sight less complicated than managing a family.’

  Sugar pulls the sheets up to her navel.

  ‘Agnes is bad, then?’

  ‘I wasn’t even thinking of Agnes,’ he murmurs wearily, as though his family is an impossible multitude, each requiring constant unwavering attention.

  ‘The … child?’ Come on, give it to me, she thinks. Speak the name of your own daughter, why can’t you?

  ‘Yes, there is a problem with the child,’ William declares. ‘A damned inconvenient problem. Beatrice, her nurse, has let it be known that my daughter has, in her humble opinion, reached the age where a nursemaid is no longer enough.’ He contorts his face into a burlesque of female sycophancy, and whines in imitation of the nurse, ‘ “I haven’t the knowledge, Mr Rackham. Miss Sophie needs a governess, Mr R
ackham.” Of course, the fact that Mrs Barrett has just had a baby, and wants a nursemaid for it, and is blabbering to everyone that money’s no object, can have nothing to do with Beatrice twitching for my blessing to leave, can it?’

  ‘So … How old is Sophie?’ asks Sugar, stretching her arms and pushing out her chest, to take his mind off her prying tongue.

  ‘Ach, she’s only five!’ scoffs William. ‘No, let me think: six. Yes, six; she had her sixth birthday while Agnes was away at the seaside. Now, Sugar, I ask you: do you think an infant of six needs a professional teacher?’

  Sugar’s mind conjures up a memory of herself at six, sitting next to her mother’s skirts on a stool, her left foot bandaged after a rat bite, studying a ragged copy of a viciously gruesome Gothic novel called The Monk, understanding scarcely anything.

  ‘I can’t say, William. I received rigorous instruction when I’d barely left my cradle, but I had …’ (she winces at the memory of reading aloud to Mrs Castaway and being mocked for mispronouncing words she was too young for) ‘an exceptional childhood.’

  ‘Hmm.’ This answer is not the one William was after, and he changes the subject. ‘My brother Henry, too,’ he sighs heavily, ‘is a constant source of worry to me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s taking the decline of a friend very hard.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘A very …’ (he searches for an adjective which, in deference to Mrs Fox’s condition, is not too unflattering) ‘worthy woman called Emmeline Fox. She was a leading light in the Rescue Society, before she got consumption.’

  Sugar wonders if she should feign ignorance of the Rescue Society, whose representatives visited Silver Street from time to time, and were always made welcome by Mrs Castaway, and even treated to a ‘cello performance by Katy Lester — before being subjected to sarcasm and ridicule, and sent away in tears.

  ‘The Rescue Society?’ she echoes.

  ‘A body of do-gooders. They reform prostitutes.’

  ‘Really?’ Unobtrusively, she retrieves her shift from the floor, and begins to dress. ‘With what success?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ shrugs William. ‘They teach street girls to be …I don’t know … seamstresses and so forth. Lady Bridgelow got her cook’s helper through the Society, I believe. The girl’s terribly grateful and eager to please, and Lady Bridgelow says you’d never suspect, to look at her.’ (Sugar can’t dress further, as William is sitting on her pantalettes.) ‘I did consider,’ he muses, ‘when I was looking for a new parlour-maid, getting one through the Rescue Society, but I’m glad I didn’t now. Rose is a worth her weight in gold.’

  Tentatively, Sugar pushes William, to shift him off her pantalettes, which he does without demur. Emboldened, she decides to take a much bigger risk.

  ‘And your brother,’ she enquires, ‘is he in this Rescue Society too?’ ‘No, no,’ says William. ‘It’s for women only.’ ‘Some similar society, perhaps?’ ‘No … Why do you ask?’

  Sugar takes a deep breath, apprehensive not about betraying Caroline’s confidence but about falling foul of William’s prejudices.

  ‘I have an acquaintance,’ she begins carefully, ‘who I see from time to time, when I’m … buying fruit. She’s a prostitute …’ (Is that a frown on William’s face? Has she misjudged his trust in her? Nothing for it now but to push on.) ‘The last time we met, she told me a strange and singular story … ‘

  And so, Sugar relates Caroline’s tale of the pious would-be reformer who pays two shillings for conversation. William listens patiently, until she comes to the part where the fellow offers the prostitute honest employment in the Rackham factories, which provokes a gasp of recognition from him. When she’s finished, he shakes his head in amazement.

  ‘Lord God almighty …!’ he mutters. ‘Could it be? Could it be Henry? I suppose it can’t be anyone else …I distinctly remember him asking if I’d be averse to employing a poor woman without a letter of recommendation … Lord almighty …’ And suddenly he laughs. ‘The saucy devil! So he is a man after all!’

  Sugar is pricked by remorse, though she’s unsure whom — Henry or Caroline — she has betrayed. ‘Oh, but he doesn’t lay a hand on her,’ she hastens to declare.

  William snorts, his head tilted in pity at the credulity of women. ‘Maybe not on that one, you goose,’ he says, ‘on that occasion. But who can say how many other whores he visits?’

  Sugar is silent. In the midst of her shame she feels a thrill of pleasure, at hearing him call her ‘goose’ in such an affectionate, fatherly way.

  ‘Who would have thought it!’ William is still muttering and chuckling. ‘My pious brother Henry! My holier-than-thou brother Henry! Ha ha! You know, I must admit, I’ve never liked him so much as at this moment. God bless him!’ And he reaches out for Sugar and kisses her gratefully on the cheek — for what, she can’t decide.

  ‘You won’t … mock him, will you?’ she entreats, stroking his shoulders uneasily.

  ‘My own brother?’ he chides her, with a cryptic smile. ‘When he’s in the state he is now? Heaven forbid. I’ll be the soul of discretion.’

  ‘When are you likely to see him next?’ she says, in the hope that the passing of weeks or months may erode the details of her disclosure from his mind.

  ‘Tonight,’ says William. ‘At dinner.’

  That evening, in order to dispel the gloom that Henry customarily brings into the house, William has arranged for the dining-table to be lit with twice the usual number of candles, and festooned with gay flowers. Seen from just outside the door, the effect is (if he does say so himself) invincibly cheery. And, although the dungeon-like segregation of the kitchen is designed not to permit any smells of cooking to escape, William’s nose — grown so sensitive over the past few months that he can distinguish between Lavandula delphinensis and Lavandula latifolia — detects a superlative meal in the making. He’ll do his damnedest to banish misery, by God.

  Contrary to her custom, Agnes has announced she’ll join the brothers for dinner. A disquieting prospect? Not at all, William tells himself: Agnes has always had a soft spot for Henry, and she’s in a delightful mood this evening, giggling and singing as she supervises the hanging of the winter curtains.

  ‘I know it’s a tall order in the circumstances, but let’s not mention Mrs Fox, shall we?’ he suggests, as the minutes tick towards Henry’s expected arrival.

  ‘I’ll pretend the Season’s still in full swing, dear,’ Agnes winks at him, almost coquettishly, ‘and say absolutely nothing about anything?

  Only a little late, Henry makes his flustered appearance, and has no sooner been divested of his rain-spattered hat and coat than William claps a fraternal arm around his shoulders and leads him straight to the dining-room. There, Henry is confronted with a vision of ElySiân abundance: warmth, illumination, roses everywhere, napkins splayed like peacocks’ tails, and a pretty new maid lowering a tureen of golden soup onto the table. Already seated, smiling up at him through a gaudy halo of flowers and silver cutlery, is Mrs Rackham, dressed in colours of peach and cream.

  ‘My apologies,’ says Henry. ‘I was …ah … ‘

  ‘Sit down, Henry, sit down? William gestures magnanimously. ‘We’re not clock-watchers here.’

  ‘I almost didn’t come,’ says Henry, blinking in the effulgence.

  ‘Then we’re all the gladder that you did,’ beams Agnes.

  It’s not until Henry has been seated in front of the filled wine-glass, gleaming plates, snow-white serviettes, and candelabrum, all of which combine to cast a bright light on his face, that William realises how shabby his brother looks. Henry’s hair, urgently in need of barbering, is tucked behind his ears, except for one lock that swings to and fro across his sweaty brow. Neither soap nor oil seem to have been applied for some time. William next takes stock of Henry’s clothes, which have a rumpled, baggy look about them, as though he’s been crawling around like Nebuchadnezzar, or become a great deal thinner, or both. One of
the pins on his shirt-collar, made visible by a skew-whiff cravat, glints irritatingly in the candle-light, making William want to reach over and adjust it. Instead, the dinner begins.

  Henry spoons the duckling consomme into his mouth without so much as looking at it, preferring to stare, with bloodshot eyes, into an invisible mirror of torment hanging somewhere to the left of William’s shoulder.

  ‘I shouldn’t be eating, gorging myself like this,’ he remarks, to no one in particular, as he spoons on like an automaton. ‘There are folk in Scotland subsisting on seaweed.’

  ‘Oh, but there’s really no fat in this soup at all,’ Agnes assures him. ‘It’s ever so well strained.’ An awkward silence threatens to ensue, punctured only by the sound of Henry slurping. Is this, thinks Agnes, the real reason why he wasn’t invited anywhere during the Season? ‘As for seaweed,’ she continues, struck by inspiration, ‘we were served some, weren’t we William, at Mrs Alderton’s, in a sauce? With scallops and swordfish. Most peculiar taste, the nibble I had. I was so glad it was served à la Russe, or I’d’ve had to slip a plateful of it under the table.’

  William frowns, suddenly recalling his embarrassment at Mrs Cuthbert’s dinner party two years ago, when that lady’s dog threw itself under the white damask tablecloth, very near Agnes’s place, and began golloping loudly.

  ‘Society is closed to me,’ Henry declares lugubriously, as his soup bowl is spirited away by a servant. ‘I don’t mean balls and dinner parties, I mean Society — our society – the community of souls we’re all supposed to be a part of. There is nothing I can do for anyone, no part for me to play.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Agnes, regarding her brother-in-law with wide sympathetic eyes as the main course is carried into the room. ‘But weren’t you hoping to become a clergyman?’

  ‘Hoping!’ cries Henry, in a scathing tone devoid of hope.

  ‘You’d be awfully good at it, I’m sure,’ Agnes persists.

  Henry’s jaw sets rigid, just in time for a sizzling thigh of braised grouse to be forked onto his plate.