The Walworth Beauty

by Michèle Roberts

  Darkness. One golden eye blazing. Mrs Bonnet stood behind Mrs Dulcimer, hands busy in her friend’s hair. She drew out long pins, cast them down. The candle, placed on the wash-stand, shed its light on Mrs Dulcimer’s black curls springing free from their tight plaits as Mrs Bonnet undid them one by one, loosened them with her fingers. She took up a square comb by its long handle, plunged its widely separated teeth into the dark mass, gently lifted it, teased it.

  Both women wore dressing-gowns. Curving shapes. Mrs Dulcimer bent her head over the heap of paper in her lap. Her lips moved. She was reading aloud to her friend. Shadows surrounded them, framed them: a miniature portrait in an ebony locket.

  The baby’s cry throbbed from the floor above. Joseph jumped. The two women in his gold vision glanced up, looked round. Mrs Dulcimer put down her sheaf of manuscript, half rose from her chair. Joseph fled from the sitting-room, forgetting his coat in his hurry not to be seen. He stumbled down the two flights of stairs, banging from step to step, lurched into his cubbyhole and shut his door.

  He pulled back the grey blanket, plumped the pillow. Less a bed than a bunk. A shelf. Just long enough. He propped himself on one elbow, tried to read. Panelled hidey-hole. A book let you escape. A ship’s cabin. Run away to sea, abandon everyone and everything. Voyage through dreams this night, tempest-tossed, beach somewhere safe in the morning. Can’t ask for any more than that.

  The bed rocked up and down, over the steep waves. I must be pissed. Ship’s cook, very well, tossing pancakes and omelettes in a tiny galley look sharp sailors arms crossed feet skipping up dancing a hornpipe singing a sea-shanty yo ho ho and a bottle of rum toss the feller overboard let the sharks have him mince him with their teeth. The mermaid clutched him with her cold arms.

  Much later the green waves calmed, surely it was in the same dream that the darkness changed, a flicker of candlelight showed in the blackness, through the keyhole was it, footsteps passed by slowly and softly just outside, fingers felt along the panelling, the kitchen door opened and shut. Creak of the bolt on the garden door. Someone going outside into the dark garden, to use the privy. What’s wrong with using a chamber pot? Don’t wake me up. He drifted. Quite soon afterwards, it seemed, the bolt creaked again. The kitchen door opened and closed. Someone glided by, hush-hush of felt slippers towards the stairs, the treads creaked above his head as she went up, Joseph slept.

  FOURTEEN

  Madeleine

  Madeleine walks out of Apricot Place, carrying the pear cake in a wide, shallow cardboard box she has tied with a red ribbon. Her finger and thumb twitch, wrapped in Elastoplast.

  The Monsieur in Paris brought home the eclairs and babas for Sunday lunch in a similar flat box. His mouth pursed up like a cat’s arse. She dodged him and his lips met her cheek.

  Every morning Madame delivered hard strokes of the brush to Madeleine’s hair. A jeune fille should always be bien coiffée. What would the elegantly coiffed, hairbrush-wielding Madame have made of these hairdressers’ windows here on the Walworth Road? Her mantra: restraint in all things. The local hair salons, however, go in for gorgeous displays of wigs and bric-a-brac. Madeleine pauses in front of her favourite composition: white gladioli in pink-gleaming copper pots, magenta dahlias in purple pots, and above them an electronic sign featuring a green bracelet around an orange hand, tipped with scarlet fingernails, holding a single red rose, all encircled in blue.

  Many of the local shops have begun to display these signs. Tiny bulbs in brilliant colours flashing on and off, making the pattern around the edge appear to move. Necklaces of tiny stars that chase each other. When night falls the signs twinkle even more brightly. Like glow-worms.

  In Italian, Madeleine learned on her travels as a student, one slang word for prostitutes was glow-worms. Here in London they don’t twinkle on dark streets but work inside flats. When she first arrived in Walworth she would study newsagents’ windows with fascination. Any piece of language in the public domain drew her, particularly the obviously home-made notices. Lost cat. Poetry group. Jesus Says Come. Tabletop sale. Virgin Brazilian Hair. One glass frontage featured ruled filing cards handwritten in uncertain blue biro capitals, amateur ads offering young women: stunning dusky voluptuous busty newcomer fresh. Overnight, it seemed, the filing cards disappeared, to be replaced by electronic noticeboards streaming photographs of local rooms to let. The ads for sexual services vanished. Away with the whores: onto the internet with them.

  The little electronic signs, bright as gems, spring out, winking, in most of the shop windows Madeleine passes. The sapphire and amber sign outside Rose’s office, flashing on and off, simply says Minicabs.

  Today they need twinkling, brilliant signs saying Toby Loves Anthony – True. Like the heart-shaped designs lovers used to carve on tree trunks in parks. They need those badges mocking the Coca-Cola slogan: Gay Love – It’s the Real Thing.

  Rose has kitted herself out in a dark-blue peaked cap, a dark-blue double-breasted jacket, matching trousers. She stretches out her arms, spins round on her toes: I thought I should do the job properly.

  Madeleine says: so where’s the car?

  Limo, please! Rose says. She lifts a thumb: it’s round the back.

  The metal doors to the garage courtyard stand open. Inside, a blue Mercedes has been adorned with long yellow ribbons tied to the wing mirrors, the ribbons’ ends brought forward to meet at the front of the bonnet, secured here, finished with a flouncy bow. Rose says: Jerry borrowed it for me from a friend of his uncle’s. He wants to stay friends – Jerry, I mean. I said OK to the car, anyway.

  Madeleine says: you’ve split up? I’m sorry.

  Conventional, inadequate words. Rose assumes her poker face, squares her shoulders. A soldier on parade. She shoots out bullet words. All for the best, according to my nan. I’ll tell you about it another time.

  She doffs her cap, bows. The point is, what we’ve got here is a cool car. What’s Mercedes mean? You were a teacher. You’re supposed to know things like that.

  Madeleine says: it means mercy. Merciful. It’s one of the attributes of the Virgin Mary. A Spanish girl at my convent school was called that. Her sister was called Dolores. Sorrow. Our Lady had seven sorrows. You see statues of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in churches all over Spain, with seven swords stuck through her heart. Sorrows to do with her son dying. Jesus, I mean.

  Jesus was another name for Emmanuel. Emm had sorrows, didn’t he? Splitting up with his wife. A sword stuck through his heart. He must have felt Madeleine stabbed him too, rejecting him. Hence his horrible, hostile gifts.

  Rose cries: enough!

  Just like Toby, teasing Madeleine for knowing the answer. Time she began learning new things. How to exorcise ghosts. How to complete a story. Time she completed the stories for Rose rather than writing tales for herself. She began a new one last night, basing it in the connecting spaces of a Victorian house: corridor, staircase, back entry. Trying to creep up on those poltergeist noises in her flat, decode them, turn them into a narrative.

  Rose says: so you wouldn’t call a car Dolores, anyway.

  Madeleine says: today the car should be named Joy! Or End-of-Sorrow. End of Dolorous Dolores.

  Rose opens the passenger door: hop in. Hey! What have you done to your hand?

  Madeleine looks down at her plaster-wrapped thumb and forefinger. I cut myself. It looks worse than it is.

  Earlier this morning, deadheading her geraniums out front, pressing back down their rumpled-up earth, she discovered the shards of glass buried upright in the big pot only when they slashed her. Blood coursed across her palm. She cried out, fled back inside, held her hand under the cold tap. Redness flowed thinly, washing out into streams of water. Emm? What could she prove? Nothing.

  Flat, circular arrangements of flowers fill the back seat of the Mercedes. Glossy grey-green leaves, spikes of white gladioli, purple asters, pink lilies. The table decorations for the party in the pub. Salvaged from a drinks do Toby was working at two days
ago. At the end of the night the management prepared to throw all the flowers away. Toby rang Madeleine: Anthony’s out, could you give me a hand? She went over, they hailed a taxi, took the bouquets back to the Waterloo flat.

  Rose says: I picked the flowers up earlier so we can take them over to the pub now. They’re mad, those two. They were still in their dressing-gowns, drinking champagne. I told them to get a move on and we’d be back in half an hour’s time.

  Later, Madeleine remembers the day as a series of photographs. A group of Anthony’s godchildren, sitting on the tombs in the grassy churchyard, weaving white daisies and mauve freesias into garlands. Toby, crowned with red and blue and purple anemones, waltzing with Anthony, crowned with marigolds. Toby and Anthony emerging from church under evergreen arches held up by the members of Anthony’s drama group standing in formation on either side of the path. Francine in five-inch heels exiting a taxi, wearing a tight, narrow-skirted 1950s black satin suit, the jacket with a low neck and flaring peplum. Francine’s sharp black bob, Louise Brooks-style, her scarlet mouth glossing the air. Toby and Anthony cutting the cake. Their matching red bow ties. Rose propped against her limo, peaked blue cap under one arm, tearing open a sandwich. Rose and Francine sitting together, two small figures under a big mirror in the dimly lit pub, talking. The display of white, pink and purple flowers on the mahogany tabletop.

  Snatches of conversation and speeches, scraps of songs and jokes, arrange themselves like a compilation. Anthony and Toby sharing a microphone, crooning their way through The Cole Porter Songbook. Anthony’s stepmother making a tipsy speech. A Yorkshire terrier yaps and its gold-turbaned owner picks it up, tucks it under her pink ruched-velvet arm, patting its nose: hush, sweetie, hush.

  Come and sit with us! Flashing-eyed Francine pulls out a chair. This is Rose. Oh, you know each other? Francine compliments them on their outfits. They compliment her in return. She tugs at her jacket. It’s the corset that does it. She wriggles her shoulders. Her décolletage sparkles, dusted with shimmery powder.

  A black-clad waitress arrives, carrying a tray of lit tea-lights, slides one onto their table, shimmies away to the neighbouring seated circle of guests. Low yellow flame flutters inside a green Moroccan glass decorated with gilt arabesques. One by one the flickering tea-lights skid down into place, the gloomy pub room transformed to an underwater cave hung with emerald necklaces. Francine shakes her diamante earrings that glitter like drops of seawater. She smoothes the lapel of her satin jacket. She smiles so buoyantly, flares and shines with such delighted satisfaction, that Madeleine has to smile back at her. So tell me about your new job.

  Francine says: it’s at a pop-up burlesque club in Hoxton. I’m Mistress Kitty, the welcomer. I take the money, I help with the bar, I make sure everything runs smoothly.

  She fingers a crease in her satin bodice. I usually wear this outfit, but I’d rather have a Victorian one. That would be more fun. More in tune with the performers. The problem’s the cost. We’re on a very tight budget.

  Rose folds her arms, considers. I could make you a costume, if you like. I know about the old types of clothes. I could get the material down the market, run it up on my nan’s sewing-machine.

  Francine leans forward, kisses Rose’s cheek. You’re a star.

  The pub lights dim further. A golden glow pools over table edges, the wooden floor. Music swells out, people start dancing.

  Madeleine tries a couple of Toby’s canapés. Home-made game pâté, topped with gherkin slices, on medallions of toasted sourdough. She sips her wine, catches Rose’s eye, smiles. Rose lifts her glass, nods back. Francine’s on a roll, explaining the second side of her job. I’m a tour guide as well. I take people on Sex Walks. We do old Soho, Madame Jo-Jo’s, the Windmill Theatre, the Naughty Nineties, we do the Bermondsey drag shows, we do Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel, the lot. Then we go back to Hoxton for the show.

  The Monsieur in Paris took Madeleine for a walk down the Rue St Denis to peer at the spectacle of the tarts posing, sultry and pouting, in doorways. She dragged along at his side, ashamed, wanting to apologise to the young women for how he leered, pointed. An educational stroll, to warn her what happened to girls who went off the rails. Francine says: don’t frown at me like that, Madeleine darling. It’s just a job!

  Madeleine slaps down her glass. Wine splashes onto varnished wood. She tries to keep her voice light. People walk all those distances? How do they manage?

  In between venues we use a minibus, Francine says: fitted up with black seats and black curtains, the punters love it.

  Black curtains. Like a hearse. Like the motorised confessional called a taxi. Back in the palmy days when she earned a salary, Madeleine could afford occasional taxis, would listen to the drivers’ life stories, tales, running commentaries. Look at that black woman there in a fur coat! Doesn’t she know it’s summer? Look at that shopfront there, that was the one got burned out in the riots. Local people built it all back up. Some of these youngsters don’t know they’re born.

  Francine jiggles in her chair, taps her foot. Dance dance dance! I need to dance! Rose, come and dance?

  Rose flicks her a smile. In a minute. I’m not in the mood yet. Francine strokes her black satin tubes of gloves, throws down her cockleshell-shaped black satin clutch bag. She rises, one hand on Rose’s shoulder, rights herself on her high heels, moves onto the dance floor. People hustle up, a dark mass swerving about under a sole spotlight. Anthony and Toby, flower-wreaths askew, glide around in a quick-stepping embrace. Anthony’s nieces gambol on the fringes. Older people seize their hands, pull them further in.

  Rose plays with her cast-off peaked cap, stroking it, spinning it on one finger poked inside its brim, throwing it in the air then catching it.

  She places the cap flat on the table, folds her hands on top of it. I wanted to tell you. I’ve decided to keep the baby. I’ve told Mum and Nan. I’m going to finish my A Levels, and I’m going to apply to art school. I may have to move back in with my nan for a bit. We’ll see.

  Madeleine gazes at Rose’s fierce young face. She opens her mouth to speak. Rose lifts her hands, palms up. Gesture meaning: don’t say anything. Don’t.

  The music tugs Madeleine up out of her chair. Let’s have that dance.

  Later, Rose drives Toby, Anthony and Madeleine home. Cap tilted to one side, cheek smudged red from Francine’s lipsticked goodnight kiss. The two men sit in the back of the car, upright and serious, their arms full of flowers. Rose, don’t forget to come and see us very soon. Ring us up and make a date.

  The car glides on from Waterloo to Apricot Place. A hasty kiss, the car door slammed, and Rose executes a neat three-point turn, accelerates away into the darkness.

  Madeleine halts, hand on her gate. Disarray under the glowing street lamps. The overflowing wheelie bins have been pushed to one side, clearing pavement space. A removals van has parked at the kerb. Its open back disgorges packing-cases, boxes, what looks like a dismantled bed, pictures veiled in bubble-wrap. Three men form a human chain, passing these up the steps to the open front door of the flat above Madeleine’s. Goodnight, the men call to her: goodnight.

  She unlocks her front door, stands still on the mat. Perhaps, if she creeps through the hallway, she won’t wake whatever, whoever, it is. Hold your breath. Tiptoe. But she shouldn’t have to be doing this. This is her own flat. Is it? It was once. Not any more. Something else has taken up residence. Part of her wants to push it out. Part of her wants to run away. No. She’s tipsy. She just wants to go to bed.

  A cry. Someone laughing. An unaccompanied voice twists up. A golden corkscrew undoing the air, letting out liquid gold. Someone singing a ballad. A girl’s voice. Plaintive, unearthly. Like those Hebridean voices on Radio 3. Have the removals men upstairs turned on a radio? A TV? Their feet pace to and fro above her head.

  She stretches out her hand to the light switch. Nothing. The hallway bulb must have blown. She fumbles her way forward through the darkness into further, suffocati
ng blackness. She swears. Where did she leave the spare bulbs, bought weeks back? Where does she keep her torch? Yes, of course, on the shelf above the fridge.

  She sweeps aside the lace curtain covering the alcove. Her rummaging fingers contact something cool, curved. China. She pushes it aside. Too abruptly. It slips away, crashes onto the floor.

  Her fingers close over the rubber surface of the torch. Its beam shows her smashed pieces of turquoise pot, a spilled litter of broken buttons, strips of leather, tiny shards of bone. Curses, curses.

  She finds a new lightbulb, fits it. She fetches a dustpan and brush from the kitchen, sweeps up the chinking, rustling mess. The bins outside the front gate are full. Very well. She carries the dustpan outside into the back garden, empties it into the nearest flowerbed.

  FIFTEEN

  Joseph

  The lit candles on the mantelpiece scooped hollows of light from the gloom of early morning. More candles burned on the side table. The sitting-room held chilliness, the smell of coal dust. Mrs Dulcimer kneeled on the hearthrug, in front of one of the armchairs. She said: but you must tell me. Don’t be afraid.

  Betsy, dressed in a white nightgown, white nightcap tied under her chin, curled inside the armchair. Face turned into the gold satin cushion, arms crossed. Feet, in grubby slippers, tucked to one side. Her thin shoulders were set hard. She shook her head.

  Mrs Dulcimer sank back on her haunches in a billow of blue wool, clasped her hands in her lap, and waited. Her hair, twisted into its two night-time plaits, fell onto her shoulders. One of her fur mules had come off, lay on the hearthrug. Her bare foot arched itself. Dark at the instep; like a grey breath. Mrs Bonnet sat in the other armchair, gripping its arms. Legs spread. Burly as a prizefighter. Skirts plumped out, cap pinned on, creased blue gauze sleeves. She gazed at Betsy: dearie, you don’t understand. You really could be in for it now.