Polly claps her hands, screeches with laughter. We’re all Magdalenes in here! You’ve come to the right place, darling. Welcome to the Home for Sinners. Welcome to the Refuge for Magdalenes. At first I thought you was one of the ladies on the committee but now I see you’re one of us. One of the ladies of the night! We’re all night-flyers in here!
Madeleine begins to understand. She and the other women in the audience are visitors from another time; from the future; summoned by Polly and her companions. Polly’s not a ghost. She’s living in the here and now. Madeleine and all the others are ghosts, avatars, from the twenty-first century. They have somehow materialised inside this locked-up penitentiary, whose inmates have met them, befriended them. The women in grey study their strange guests, look into their faces, question them, listen to their replies. The rules of hospitality in this bleak salon mean that the guests must join in.
Hard going. The group of audience women huddle in the centre of the shining floor, heads down, mouths clamped. They twiddle their hair, fidget with their bracelets and rings. Yet under the yellow lights Madeleine relaxes. Odd situation, but she feels easy. Like being back out on the street. Those casual encounters with passers-by that she so relishes. Drawn in. People wanting to make contact; reaching out to her. How can she not respond?
A bell rings. The matron declares: our Home is a benevolent place. We treat our penitents as human beings. And so now it’s time for recreation.
The women in grey start dancing, chanting rude verses, singing out nonsense rhymes. Madeleine joins in. Word-wings flare out behind her. Transported, into another world. Land of imagination: utterly real. She’s not herself: she’s larger, different, she’s someone else. Possessed by angels and demons both. Flying and floating in a golden bubble outside time. Running and sweating and laughing she’s the red bead in the grey necklace she’s in their gang.
Crack! Halt! The matron re-emerges. Dark hour-glass. Dark sand runs out. She claps her hands. Time’s up! Enough of this carnival!
The audience women hover. The women in grey, chattering, shoving, fall in around the matron. They form a line, Polly at its end, near Madeleine.
Polly steps away from her sister inmates to face Madeleine. We shall have to go soon. You will have to go soon.
She leans forward. Madeleine, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. It’s a secret. Don’t let anybody hear.
The matron clasps her hands in front of her corset-breastplate. The deep frills of her cap shadow her face. Her head swivels back and forth. She’s keeping them under surveillance; up to the very end. The young women in grey stay in their line but lean against each other, floppy, as though they’re very tired. The audience women stay huddled together, their arms folded.
Madeleine and Polly remain together in the centre of the floor. The whole hall seems to settle; the breath of the invisible watching men to be expelled in a collective sigh. Here comes the leave-taking, and then we’re done.
Polly puts out a hand. Nice little girl, taught by the ladies’ committee how to say a proper goodbye. Madeleine’s mother schooled her child in French manners. Madeleine had to kiss everyone hello and goodbye, willy-nilly. Allow herself to be kissed by whichever uncle wanted to plant wet-lipped smackers. Once she left home she spent years rebelling. Invisible cords bound her, had to be broken. She roamed the streets, talked to strangers. Outside her parents’ house it seemed easier to discard the rules, approach people gently, speak freely.
Polly says: I wish I could go with you. You’ve cheered me up. I hate it in here. I can’t tell you how much I hate it. And it’s going to get worse.
Sheen of water over her cheeks. Her mouth trembles. Her voice too. She drops her crackly voice to a whisper. Something bad’s going to happen. I don’t know what to do.
The matron bends forward, listening. Like the priest in the confessional, all those years ago. Get it over with. Endure it; like the uncles’ kisses. Ritual of humiliation repeated every Saturday night.
Polly says: the gentlemen who fund this place, they get rid of us, regular. It’s called giving us a fresh start. So they’ve decided they’re going to send me to New South Wales, like they did with the others last year. They’re going to put me on the boat next week. That’s it. I’ll be done for. I’ll never see my little nipper again.
She presses their joined hands. She looks suddenly charged up; electric. She says: Madeleine, I need to escape. Take me with you. Don’t leave me here.
Madeleine goes on trying to wrench her hand away. The lights brighten. The end of the play? Silence. The other audience women retreat, scurry to their places on the benches. The women in grey hover, alert.
Madeleine waits a moment. Polly’s eyes plead. Madeleine says: yes. All right. But we must leave right away. I’m going now. I can’t bear this. I can’t stay here a moment longer.
Polly shouts: come on! The young women in grey run up, join on, hands linked, a long, wavering line, they scamper in great loops up and down the hall, a grey and white rope untying and re-tying itself, and the matron chases them, she joins on the end, pulling them one way, they tug her another, they dance out of one of the floor-length windows, suddenly open, its blind flapped back, onto the wide balcony outside. As though they’ve fled into the night sky. They pause here, catching their breath, flexing their feet, shaking the energy back into their arms and legs.
Polly puts up a hand and pulls at her plaits. A wig, which she plucks off. It tumbles to the ground, revealing her dark crewcut. She scratches her scalp, shakes her head, dashes the tears from her cheeks.
Polly embraces Madeleine. Laughing. Thank you! She’s out of breath, hot, smelling of sweat, makeup. Madeleine blinks, wipes her eyes on the back of her hand. Polly says: my name’s Maria. Please stay behind afterwards, I’d love to talk to you, I want to tell you about how we made the play, all the research we did, it’s been an amazing time.
She kisses Madeleine again, then back in they all run, hands linked, to the applause, and they take a bow and don’t let go of Madeleine and she has to take a bow too. Then she breaks away and darts back to her place in the audience, sinks down, so that she can become one of the watchers once more, so that she can applaud the actors, their young male director. The young man in black who brought them into this place: there he is smiling and bowing. She leans her head forward over her knees, gulps air, hauls it in. Corkscrewing down through dark clouds, from some other world, falling back into this one, the ground jarring her feet. She picks up her bag from underneath the bench, finds her handkerchief, blows her nose.
Scarper. Don’t wait for Polly-Maria. She joins the flow of people tipping out down the curve of the stairs, men and women mixed together again. She presses out of the great door under the portico.
Toby’s waiting outside the main gate. He hugs her. Bravo. Well done. You did really well.
He links her arm into his, draws her out into the piazza. The meat market looms opposite, a dark hangar beyond the traffic lights. White gleam of a few parked butcher’s vans. People dissipate along the street. Toby says: shall we go for a drink? There’s a pub just round the corner. She shakes her head. No. Sorry. I need to keep moving for a bit. I need to walk.
Toby embraces her again. Warmth, and the beat of his heart. They stand there together. Dear Toby. Go home and ring Anthony. She kisses his cheek, turns away. He shouts after her: you’ve torn your dress at the back with all that cavorting. She shouts back: goodnight.
Blessed darkness cool on her hot skin. The ripped slit of her dress makes walking even easier than earlier in the evening. She heads away from Bart’s, north through the shut-up market, its puddled concrete floor smelling of cleaning fluid, up St John Street, along Clerkenwell Road, back up Lamb’s Conduit Street, round the edge of Brunswick Square, to the Foundling Museum. She stands in front of the shallow flight of steps mounting to its locked doors.
Would a young woman like Polly-Maria have handed her baby in here? Or somewhere more discreet, round the back? Were the babies wrapped in bl
ankets? In shawls? In pieces of sheet? Did they howl as they were taken from their mothers’ arms? Did the mothers cry too or did they hurry away and do their crying somewhere else? Or were they coldly dry-eyed with relief? A suffering woman can hide heartbreak behind a hard-faced mask. Then people call her a little unfeeling slut, shake their heads. We wash our hands of you, Miss Slut.
Madeleine starts the long trek home. After half a mile she changes her mind, makes for the bus-stop at the bottom of Southampton Row.
The chilly night bus, half-empty, sweeps her across the river. High tide, the water slapping up, tipped with wavering zigzags of light. The bus hurtles them from stop to stop, racing to beat the lights, swerving and tilting around corners. A woman sprawling at the very back recounts a story-lament: her release from prison, her drinking problem, how she’s lost her way has no money what bus is this what time is it? The other passengers ignore her, stare at their laps.
She gets off when Madeleine does, a couple of stops past the Elephant. Curly brown hair, bruised red face. She stands at the bus-stop, swaying. Madeleine says: d’you need a hand? You OK? The woman says: hey, petal, which way’s the church? St Mary Something. I’m looking for the refuge. The vicar there, he told me I’m always welcome. He’s a lovely man. So kind. They’ve beds, and breakfast in the mornings. Dinner too, on a weekend night. I’m not too late for a bed. I could do with my bed right now.
Madeleine points. I think the church is over there, towards Kennington Way. I think I know the one you mean.
The woman’s face sharpens. She eyes Madeleine. No, I’ve changed my mind. It’s the pub I need first. Spare us some cash, love. Go on, be nice.
Madeleine hesitates. She opens her bag, digs into her purse, gives the woman some change. She says: I’m not sure the pubs are still open. Will you be all right?
The woman says: why not come with me, then? Buy me a pint of lager? Coward, aren’t you? She laughs and scowls at Madeleine’s shake of the head. She blows her a kiss. Bless you, darling! I love you, so I do! She turns back, sways into an alley, disappears.
A cat yowls at the far end of Apricot Place. The street lamps glimmer on pale bits of paper blowing along the kerb. A white window-blind. A white collar. A dog collar. Emm? Madeleine whirls round. Nobody there.
She searches the fridge for food. An open jar of anchovies. A bowl of leftover green beans. A slosh of olive oil, a slice of bread. A glass of wine. She needs a drink just as much as that woman did.
Plate on her lap, she sits on her back step, feet planted in the area, under the canopy of the dark sky. Rock music plays two gardens along. A plane growls high overhead, a police helicopter buzzes to and fro. Sirens wail. She spears slivers of salty fish.
What did the people who lived here before her eat for supper? Soup? Stew? What did the servants eat? Grace Poole in Jane Eyre opted for toasted cheese, a roast onion, a pint of porter. The characters Mayhew described, out on the street working, bought takeaways: fried fish, ham rolls, buns. The young women selling sex were generous with their money. Mayhew’s researcher reported them treating their fellow night-workers to drinks, to a share of their sandwiches.
Madeleine puts her empty plate aside. She goes up the area steps into the garden, to the flowerbed at the end, leans over to draw in the scent of the stocks. Straightening up, she looks back towards the house. Dark windows, except for one on the top floor, where light glows. A pale, girlish face. Hands splayed flat against the glass. Chin tilts up. Mouth opens wide; a silent cry.
The fall of a curtain or a blind. The window goes black.
Madeleine falls rapidly asleep. She dreams of being buckled into a grey sacking dress stiff as a straitjacket. A pair of shears comes at her, Emm’s hands grip her shoulders, the matron cuts off all her hair. She hands Madeleine a sack. Here’s your babies. Take them away and bury them.
NINE
Joseph
Polly the black-haired girl, naked, pink as a boiled shrimp. Salt smell of sea-juice. Blue-green coverlet of the bed rumpled like waves. Joseph leaned forward, put his hands on her knees, pressed her thighs apart, bent his head. Hold still. She squawked. A floorboard squeaked. He woke up, rubbed his face. Brilliant light cut in through the gap between the curtains.
Full moon, which saw him home earlier last night, full of beer. Slices of currant pudding to soak it up. Slabs of cold butter on top of the hot suet sponge; no wonder he dreamed. Though at the time delicious: crunch of gritty sugar, fragrant grease flowing smoothly across his tongue. Plump fruity mouthfuls. Moonlight like melting butter.
Next to him, Cara slept, pale brown lashes two lines of stub. She gave out whuffling breaths. His head lolled, enormous. Iron tent pegs pinned his splayed limbs to the mattress. Throat scraped with dryness. Parched. Empty water glass. Damn. He’d have to go downstairs.
He concentrated, sat up. Heaved one leg over the side of the bed, then the other. No need to light a candle. He pulled on dressing-gown and slippers, opened the bedroom door, trod gently across the landing. Milly was a light sleeper. Don’t wake her. Moonlight emptied itself onto him from the small window, streamed down the stairs ahead. Scoured and rinsed his brain. Now he had a headache, too.
Concentrate. Don’t rouse the household. He swivelled through the shadowy hall. In the dark basement he felt his way jumpily, gloomily. Why had he drunk so much? Never again. His skull tingled, as though it were shrinking. Doorknobs roamed past his fingers. Chair legs knocked his shins. Empty carafe on the dining-room sideboard yawned. Go and pump up some water.
Pale gold light underlined the kitchen door. As at Mrs Dulcimer’s, on that first visit, when he approached her sitting-room. Going in, he’d stumbled, almost fallen. Flat on the floor at her feet.
Hand on latch, he stopped. Curses. He’d forgotten. The new maid slept there now, in the wicker bed that folded down from the side wall. Doll of the grey gravel eyes. She’d been due to arrive yesterday evening and presumably had done so, after he’d gone out. He’d not caught a glimpse of Doll: he’d come back late, letting himself in with elaborate quiet, locking up then easing the bolt across, weaving upstairs, edging into bed beside the sleeping Cara. How had he reached home? Safely, at any rate.
He shouldn’t have drunk so much. He shouldn’t have gone out in the first place, but he’d been desperate. Putting Holborn behind him, he’d charged south towards Charing Cross, fetched up in a pub in Villiers Street. A shadowy vault packed with people smoking, shouting, laying bets. After a couple of beers, he felt restless again, shouldered his way out, set forth once more. He turned towards Piccadilly.
Gas lamps fixed to the fronts of buildings sent up tall flares, glittered on the brass ornaments of horses’ harnesses, the buckles finishing the leather straps of carriage doors. Drivers flicked their whips and bellowed at the stuck traffic, cabs and omnibuses halted athwart each other. Children darted between the wheels to beg, skipping barefoot over fresh dung, their cupped hands reaching up for coins. People leaned down and yelled at them to get off and Joseph wanted to yell too. You should be in bed!
He turned down towards the Haymarket. Mayhew had mentioned one of the dolly-houses there, hadn’t he, a while back? Joseph had never witnessed the Haymarket spectacle. Now, tonight, suddenly he was in the mood to do so. Facts, Benson, facts!
The wide street was jam-packed, throngs of men swaying and shoving up and down the pavement. Joseph held back, found himself studying these watchers: dark shapes in frock coats and tall hats. Some of them were obviously youngsters up from the suburbs for a spot of fun, others clearly habitués of the track, eyeing the talent with a world-weary air, taking their time choosing which fillies to summon, which bar to patronise. Nonchalant; hats tipped back; hands in pockets. A casual demeanour that masked excitement, surely. Some openly avid: necks craning forwards, mouths half-open. Shouldering their way to the front to get a better view.
The gorgeously dressed tarts strutted back and forth, curvetting and prancing like circus ponies, hands on hips, best foot forwards.
Parade of shining satin-wrapped merchandise. The purchasers prowled up and down and surveyed them. Good tits. Too fat for me. Nice haunches on that one. Nice plump calves.
Two young mashers near him were eyeing each other, bristling and tentative, as though ready to toss a coin, hazard a throw. Yes. Here. They vanished into a brightly lit saloon, a haze of cigar smoke wreathing through the haloes of gas.
Joseph loitered in the crisp cold; part of the anonymous crowd. Scents of fog, horse manure, other men’s breath; the soft blackness of woollen frock coats and silk-covered hats; the mud beneath their feet. Just dissolve. Forget himself. Impossible: the mob of men had its teeth in him, shook him to and fro in its jaws, wouldn’t let him go.
Some of the parading girls wore boots with stacked soles, to raise them above the pavement filth. They tilted up their crinolines, showing off their brightly stockinged legs. Crinolines like pleated curtains, raised by a string. Frilled frames for cunts.
People pushed him this way and that, trod on his boots, poked him in the back. Other men’s faces loomed up, white Japanese lanterns swinging close to his own then vanishing back into the crowd. Voices blared and hollered. Music wailed from an invisible organ, out of tune, and a woman’s voice quavered along, trying to catch up with the beat and failing. How long would the performance keep going? All night, presumably. Until the revellers fell over in the gutter and the police turned up to clear them away.
He turned eastward, towards St-Martin-in-the-Fields. Suddenly hungry, needing to eat. A chophouse, luridly lit, packed with people taking supper after the theatre. Cut-glass mirrors, reflecting back and forth, on the green walls. Red-painted benches, squares of red leather serving as tablecloths. Re-heated meat pies, fried slices of pudding, glasses of beer.
The suet lodged heavily inside him. The basement closed round him. Clammy and dank, it still reeked of yesterday’s kippers. Joseph shivered, wrapping his dressing-gown more firmly round him, retying the cord. The tiny hallway at the bottom of the stairs held cold as a well holds water. Should he just go back to bed? Pull the clothes over his head. Sleep as soundly as presumably the new maid was doing on the other side of the kitchen door.
The Walworth Beauty Page 20
