I’m making no apologies for going native. It’s easy in this place. Lots of people passing through. No one asking questions. Still, even when I retired here I sometimes wondered whether Whitby wasn’t a bit upmarket for me. It should have been Blackpool right from the start. Noisy, jolly Blackpool, with its arcades and fish shops (I still enjoy a bit of breaded cod once in a while), and its pleasure beach cram-packed with lovely warm sweating bodies all sweltering happiness and rage and jealousy and hunger just like mine. Well, you know, it’s never been blood that really counted for me. I’ve never liked it that much, to tell the truth, and it’s a bugger trying to get any when you’re fat and balding and no virgin would look at you twice. But get me in a crowd and I’m happy. A touch here, a taste there. Nothing much. Not enough to kill. Skimming it off gently, like froth from a pint. Some girl screaming on the Big Dipper. Her boyfriend, all itchy fingers, his mind elsewhere. Two lads fighting outside a pub. It’s all of life out here, teeming life, and that’s why I’m here now on the pier, sipping my frothy lager and waiting for a nice warm family to drain of their life, their energies.
I can see one coming now, a foursome. Two kids with round, healthy faces, one eating a chip butty, the other an ice cream. The parents: her peeling and pink with sunburn across plump shoulders, him in string vest and baseball cap. They can spare a bit of that for me, I tell myself. They’ve got plenty.
It’s an old drill and I’ve got it pat. As they pass by me near enough to touch, I half-turn, overbalance and drop my can. The frothy lager splashes Mother’s shell top and Father’s trouser turn-ups.
‘Sorry, love. I’m sorry.’ I make as if to pick up the can and get in range of the two kids. I can smell them: chip-fat and chewing-gum and life.
Mother brushes herself off. ‘Yer daft bugger,’ she says.
I pretend to steady one of the kids. He’s warm and squirming. I try for a bit of the old avuncular and nudge in closer. ‘Don’t you fall over that rail, me lad. Sharks’ll have yer!’ Spot on. I should be able to feel it now, the rush of energy from the boy, the life racing into me through him. Instead, nothing. I feel strange, suddenly tired. It must be the lager. Unsteadily, I pat the lad’s head, feeling the sunny curls beneath my fingers. Concentrate. It’s life I need from him, hot life, marbles and bubblegum, conkers and cigarette cards. Secrets whispered in alleys to his best friend. His first bike. His first kiss. I brace myself for the rush.
Nowt.
Mother looks at me sideways. I try to smile but it comes out lopsided and I almost fall over. It feels like drunkenness, a drained feeling, as if the expected charge has turned against me, sucking at my bones. The boy smiles and I see him clearly for a moment, lit up by a red slice of neon from a nearby arcade, his face glowing, his eyes huge and luminous.
Mother bends over me and I can smell her scent, like roses and frying and the stuff she uses to keep her hair in place all mixed up together and hot, hotter, hottest . . . I can’t help it. I reach for her, gasping, starving, breathless and suddenly freezing cold. ‘Help me,’ I whisper.
‘Yer daft bugger,’ she says again. Her voice is light and without sympathy. Father is coming to join her, his shoes ringing slow, effortless strides across the pier. Her arms are soft and scented, tiny beads of sweat caught in the peachy hairs on her fat pink forearms. The world greys out for an instant. Her voice is thick and treacly, like a woman speaking through a mouthful of cake, and I now think I can hear amusement in her flat tones.
‘Leave him, Father,’ she says. ‘This un’s no bloody good.’
As I watch their retreating backs the cold begins to recede. The world brightens a little and I can sit up. I feel as if I’ve been punched in the mouth. But the four of them are shining, haloed by the pleasure-beach lights. A little girl holding an ice-cream cone looks at me as she skips by. I can smell the same hot reek from her skin, the same promise of life. Looking at her from the boards, I try to reach out, feeling my fingers tingling at her closeness. Heat bakes from her. Life. I’m faint with the need for her. And yet I withdraw in spite of my hunger, suddenly scared by her vitality, her innocent greed. In my weakened state I feel she could freeze me bloodless without even knowing it.
Punters pass me by without a glance. They are wholesome, noisy, red-faced, parting around me to merge again into a hot river. In my time amongst the narrow streets and the Whitby fogs I’ve almost forgotten how healthy the living can be. And yet there’s something about them all, a kind of family resemblance. Something a little too bright, too glowing to be real. I remember the old familiar holidaymakers in Whitby, the thin young people in black, their sad, strained faces, their greyness, their dull expressions. None of these people are dull, all of them touched with a lustre I begin to recognize . . . The ruddy complexions. The sagging waistlines. The open faces. The brimming illusion of life. So this is where they go, the wrong sort; pushed here by market forces. This is where they belong, among the bright lights and the arcades, the fish shops and roller coasters. Indistinguishable from the real thing. Better, some might say. Never dying, never changing: cheery holidaymakers on a trip that never ends. Slowly I pick myself up and head back through the crowd that gluts the pier. Heads turn to follow me. Delicate fingers flutter against my skin. Dimly I wonder how many of them there are, by how many they outnumber the living. Ten to one? A hundred? A thousand? Or are they now so many that they prey on each other, bloodlessly, greedily, shoulder to shoulder in rough, grinning comradeship?
The lights of the pleasure beach are gaudy as a fisherman’s lure skipping across the dark water. Life, they promise. Heat and life. Too weak to wander far from that distant hope, I make my way wearily back towards them, trying not to meet myself along the way; just another sucker slouching back down the long dark road to Bethlehem.
Eau de Toilette
In these days of Botox, body piercing and failed cosmetic surgery, it is tempting to fantasize about other times and places, which we think of as being more romantic than our own. Dream on.
IT WASN’T UNTIL I came to court that I realized how much rich people stink. If anything, the rich more so than the poor; in the country, at least, we have less excuse for not washing. Here, to have a bath is to disrupt everything. The water must be heated, then carried up to the room with sponges, brushes, perfumes, towels and countless other impedimenta; not to mention the bath itself – cast-iron and heavy – which must be brought out of storage, cleaned of rust, then dragged by footmen up countless flights of stairs to Madame’s boudoir.
There she waits, en déshabillée. Her saque is of pink lustring, with ribbons of the delicate coral hue so popular this season, which ladies of fashion call soupir étouffé. Beneath it, her corsets are grey with sweat and ringed around the underarms, rings within rings, like the severed trunk of a very old tree.
But Madame is wealthy; her household boasts so much linen that her maids need wash it only once a year, on the flat black stones of the laveraie, by the bank of the Seine. It is September now, and the linen room is only half full; even so, the growling musk of Madame’s intimates carries up the steps, across the corridor and into the morning-room, where even four vases of cut flowers and a hanging pomander fail to mask the stench.
Nevertheless, Madame is a famous beauty. Men have written sonnets to her eyes, which are exceptional, so I am told. The same cannot be said of her rotten teeth, however; or indeed of her eyebrows, which are fashionably shaven, being replaced by mouse-skin replicas, stuck with fish-glue to the centre of her forehead. Fortunately the smell of the fish-glue is slight, compared with the rest, and does not disturb her. Why should it? Monseigneur uses the same aids to beauty, and he is one of the most highly regarded gentlemen of fashion of the Court. The King himself (no rose garden, His Majesty) says so.
While Madame awaits her bathwater, she peers at herself with some anxiety in the gilded mirror of her chamber. At twenty-two, she is no longer young, and she has noticed a diminution in the number of her admirers this last season. Monseigneur
de Rochefort, her favourite, has been most distressingly absent; worse still, there have been rumours that he has been seen twice recently in the company of La Violette, an opera-dancer from Pigalle.
In the mirror, Madame scrutinizes her fading complexion. She feels concern for her loss of bloom, and wonders what might have caused it. Too many balls, perhaps; or a disappointment in love; besides, it is well known that water is dreadfully injurious to the skin. With care, she applies a little more white lead to her dimpled cheek.
Now for the pounce-box; shaking out powder onto a goosedown houppe, she dusts her face and cleavage. A little rouge, perhaps – a very little, for she does not want to be accused of trying too hard – and a patch or two. La Galante, and – yes, why not? – La Romance, applied with a fingertip and glued with the same fish-glue that secures her mouse-skin eyebrows.
It will do. It is perhaps not perfect; Madame is too distressingly aware of the fine lines between her eyes, and of that area of scaly, reddened skin against her powdered breast. Thank the Lord, she thinks, for His gift of cosmetics – and of course, the collar of rubies she plans to wear for tonight’s ball should hide that patch of ringworm nicely.
‘Jeannette!’ Madame is getting impatient. ‘Where is the hot water?’
Jeannette explains that Marie is heating it in the kitchen, and promises to have it soon. She has brought Madame’s little pug, Saphir, with her in the hope that in the meantime he may amuse Madame, but Madame is petulant. Where is her dress? she asks. Has it been brushed and pressed? Is it ready for tonight’s event?
Jeannette assures her that it is.
‘Then bring it, bring it, you silly girl,’ snaps Madame, and five minutes later the creation is brought in. Two maids are needed to manoeuvre it through the door, for it is heavy even without the wicker panniers over which Madame will wear it. The skirt is made of crimson brocade, embroidered all over with gold thread, and Madame will wear it over a great hoop and an underskirt of dark gold. Thanks to the panniers swinging at her hips, she will dance with the undulating grace of an Eastern courtesan, and all her admirers – especially Monseigneur de Rochefort – will gasp and stare in desire and admiration.
But the confection is heavy, weighed down as it is with fully four livres of gold thread, and Madame’s shoes are chopines in the Venetian mode, designed more for effect than for practicality, with platforms that raise her modest height to an altitude verging on the queenly. Her skirt has been made extra-long with this problem in mind; and the ingenious stool-like device concealed inside the left pannier allows her to sit down discreetly, on occasion, if the platform shoes become too uncomfortable.
I know, too (for nothing is secret to one in my humble position) that the stool device plays a double role; suspended on a hinge mechanism that allows it to be pushed into the pannier or pulled out as and when required, it also harbours a chamber pot, so that Madame need not squat ungraciously in the bushes (or worse, piss into her rolled stockings), and may dance the night away with one of her several lovers without anxiety.
‘Jeannette, the bath!’
Poor Jeannette is working hard; the bath will take fifty or more of the cans of water, and Madame likes it quite full. But the other maids are working too; one to bring out Madame’s collection of fans for approval; the other three on tonight’s coiffure.
In the style of all truly elegant ladies, Madame’s head has been shorn bald. She will wear a wig of regal proportions and truly original design. No dowdy Chien Couché or out-moded Vénus shall adorn her head; this headpiece, bedecked with plumes and stuffed with horsehair, is fully three feet high. Grey powder will give it a final touch of elegance; but although it is strongly scented with musk and attar, beneath the perfumes it still smells noticeably of mice. I doubt whether Madame will notice this, however. The combined stench of stale underthings, old sweat, fish-glue, and the contents of the pisspot concealed inside the panniers of her gown should already make for a pungent mixture.
Still, angered now at Jeannette’s lateness, she awaits the bath. Saphir, too, is growing impatient, and yaps and growls at the maids as they set about their business aiding Madame in her selection of fans. She has a large collection, of ivory, of plumes, or of cunningly painted chicken skin. These smell particularly vile – the armoire in which Madame keeps them stinks like a hen house. Madame seems not to notice; on my advice, she selects a fan of crimson and gold to match her gown, and dreams pleasantly of the billets-doux she will receive at the ball. Perhaps young Monseigneur de Rochefort will deliver one, in a nosegay or a napkin; he has been so wilful of late, transferring his attention from one lady to another, but tonight, Madame feels sure that she will conquer.
‘Jeannette, the hot water!’
Such a bore; but it must be done. Once every six months is not such a terrible burden, and besides, in a few hours the young men will begin to call, and Madame must be ready to receive them. She considers her legs. The blisters have almost vanished from her last attempt at singeing, and the hairs, though dark, are few. Madame uses a pair of tweezers to remove them; it may well be that she will accept to stroll in the garden with Monseigneur de Rochefort, and everyone knows that a lady should never contemplate a gallantry with hairy legs.
‘Madame? The bath?’ Poor Jeannette is sweating. It has taken her more than forty minutes to drag the cans of water upstairs. The bath is still warm, though by now not hot, and I have already scented the water with stephanotis and chypre. It takes both of us some time to immobilize Saphir, who barks and struggles and tries to bite; but before long he is immersed in the lukewarm water and Jeannette can begin with the brush.
Meanwhile, Madame makes the finishing touches to her toilette, and sits rapt before her reflection in the mirror. Surely this time Monseigneur de Rochefort will be enamoured. Behind her, Jeannette and I struggle to envelop Saphir in a towel. A touch of violet essence seems to enhance, rather than mask, the reek of wet pug.
All the same, I think as I dust myself down, I must consider myself privileged to serve such a beautiful and fashionable lady. I am more than aware that my own sensibilities are somewhat bizarre; my sensitivity to smell verges on the monstrous, and that combined with my country upbringing means that I cannot – however much I may wish it – find the ladies (or gentlemen) of the Court to my taste. One day, God willing, I may find them so. For the moment, however, I have my duties to perform. I am Madame’s parfumier: Monseigneur de Chanel, at your service.
Acknowledgements
Once more, as always, many thanks to the unsung heroes who have helped to bring these stories into print: to my agent Serafina Clarke, my foreign agent Jennifer Luithlen, my editor Francesca Liversidge and all my other friends at Transworld; to Brie Burkeman, my film agent, to Louise Page, and to Anne Reeve, for keeping me in line, to Stuart Haygarth for his jacket designs, and to Kevin, Anouchka, Christopher and all those other people who have inspired me and kept me writing, even when sometimes I didn’t want to. Lastly, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who works to keep these books on the shelves – booksellers, sales representatives, distributors – and you, the readers, who have followed me this far.
About the Author
Joanne Harris is the author of Chocolat (made into an Oscar-nominated film in 2000, with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp), and ten more bestselling novels. Her work is published in over fifty countries and has sold an estimated 30 million copies worldwide. Born in Barnsley, of an English father and a French mother, she studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge and spent fifteen years as a teacher before (somewhat reluctantly) becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Yorkshire with her family, plays bass in a band first formed when she was sixteen, works in a shed in her garden, likes musical theatre and old sci-fi, drinks rather too much caffeine, spends far too much time online and occasionally dreams of faking her own death and going to live in Hawaii.
Meet up with her at www.joanne-harris.co.uk
Also by Joanne Harris
The Evil Seed
/>
Sleep, Pale Sister
Chocolat
Blackberry Wine
Five Quarters Of The Orange
Coastliners
Holy Fools
Jigs & Reels
Gentlemen & Players
The Lollipop Shoes
Blueeyedboy
Peaches For Monsieur Le Curé
Runemarks
Runelight
With Fran Warde
The French Kitchen: A Cookbook
The French Market: More Recipes From a French Kitchen
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
JIGS & REELS
A BLACK SWAN BOOK: 9780552771795
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781407056562
First published in Great Britain
in 2004 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Black Swan edition published 2005
This collection copyright © Frogspawn Ltd 2004
‘Faith and Hope Go Shopping’ first appeared in Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special in April/May 2000; ‘Gastronomicon’ in Woman and Home in April 2001; ’Breakfast at Tesco’s’ in Good Housekeeping in July 2002; ‘Tea with the Birds’ in Sainsbury’s Magazine in April 2001; ‘The Ugly Sister’ in the Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine in December 2000; ‘Class of ’81’ in Magic, a collection of short stories by various authors, in June 2002; ‘Free Spirit’ in A Day in the Life, an anthology for Breast Cancer Awareness published by Black Swan in September 2003; ‘The Spectator’ in The Big Issue in December 2002; and ‘Fule’s Gold’ was read at the Hay on Wye festival for Radio 4 in May 2002.
Jigs & Reels: Stories Page 21
