Sleep, Pale Sister (8 page)
‘Mother!’ He swears again and slaps me hard across the face. I scream again and he grabs me by the neck. He’s cursing all the time, saying ‘Bitch bitch shut up bitch shut up
shut up
…’ but my face is against the pillow and I can’t breathe. My head is so tight, like a balloon. It feels as if it’s going to burst and I can’t scream, I can’t breathe, I can hardly move with him on top of me and I can’t
breathe
, I can’t
breathe
. He seems to be moving away, so far away into the distance, and I can hardly feel the pillow over my mouth, hardly taste the starch and the lavender scent in the thick linen. In the background I can hear Mother’s voice calling me:
‘Marta?’
Then nothing.
I was beginning to
become impatient; she had been in there for long enough to have her fortune read a dozen times, and I was the one who was going to have to pay the gypsy bitch when she finally did come out. I was getting cold, sitting there with nothing to do, so I got up and walked into the tent.
For a moment I was disorientated; the tent seemed cavernous, filled with the reflections of torches like some dead Pharaoh’s pyramid. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was after all just a small tent, strewn with the usual trappings of the fairground charlatan, the sunlight streaming in through the tent-flap on to the array of gilt and paint and glass, showing it to be just that. Effie did not flinch as I threw back the tent-flap, but remained sitting with her back to me, her head hanging loosely to one side. Of ‘Scheherazade’ there was no sign.
The suspicion of foul play crossed my mind at once, as I leaped to Effie’s side in one step. I shouted her name, shook her by the shoulders, but she was limp as rags, her eyes open but blank. I cursed and lifted her from her chair, carrying her outside into the sunlight, where the noise I had made had already attracted a small knot of curious onlookers. Ignoring their bleating I laid Effie on the grass and, after having checked that she had no visible injury, I tipped out the contents of her purse to look for the smelling-salts. Some woman screamed in the background—I suppose the bitch thought I was robbing the unconscious lady—and I snapped a vulgar rejoinder which made another woman gasp faintly and reach for her own smelling-bottle. An officious type with a military moustache demanded explanations while a vapid youth suggested brandy, but failed to produce any, and a female with dyed hair attempted to compete for attention by having an unconvincing fainting spell of her own. Oh, the scene was high vaudeville, all right; someone had already summoned the constable and I was beginning to wonder whether it wasn’t time for Mose to take a bow and leave when Effie’s eyes suddenly focused sharply on mine with an expression of horror, and she screamed, a high, demented wail of unreasoning terror.
At that moment the constable arrived.
A babel of voices greeted him: a woman had been robbed; the man here had been attacking the poor lady in broad daylight; she had had a fit; one of the animals in the wild beast show had escaped, frightening the ladies—it shouldn’t be allowed…I saw the constable’s eyes light up as he reached in his pocket for his notebook.
Effie managed to sit up with my help and was rubbing her eyes confusedly.
‘It’s all right,’ I shouted above the din. ‘I’m the lady’s…husband. She fainted because of the heat.’ But I could tell that the tide of popular opinion was against me and, foreseeing the necessity of lengthy and unpleasant explanations at the police station, wondered again whether I should not simply disappear now while there was still time and confusion enough to do so. As for Effie, she’d be all right; after all, she was in some way responsible for the situation; if she hadn’t screamed in that idiotic way I should have been able to carry it off well enough. As it was she made me look like a rapist. Besides, there was Henry to think about. I had almost made up my mind when I became aware of a female figure at my side, and a crisp, familiar voice rang out over the hubbub:
‘Marta, dear, are you all right? I told you not to exert yourself so much! Here!’ I caught a glimpse of a pair of narrow, bright eyes levelled at mine and heard her whisper fiercely, ‘Be
quiet
, you idiot! Haven’t you done enough?’ I moved aside dazedly, and she took my place beside Effie, holding a smelling-bottle and uttering coaxing words.
‘Fanny!’ I said blankly.
Again the hiss. ‘Shut
up
!’
‘Now, Marta my love, can you stand? Let me help you. Hold on to Mother, now. That’s right. That’s my lovely darling.’ Still holding the bemused Effie by the waist Fanny turned on the constable, who was by now looking decidedly confused.
‘Officer,’ she said sharply, ‘perhaps we might ask you to do your duty and disperse this…this
herd
before they alarm my daughter any further?’
The constable hesitated; I could see him wrestling with his dwindling self-assurance, still suspicious, but intimidated by the stronger personality.
‘Well?’ Fanny demanded impatiently. ‘Must we be importuned by these vulgar onlookers? Is my daughter an exhibit to be stared at?’ With a superb and righteous fury she turned on the crowd.
‘Go away!’ she commanded. ‘Go on, move! I said
move
!’ A number of people at the edge of the scene began to shift uneasily and drift away; only the military gentleman held his ground.
‘I demand to know…’ he began.
Fanny set her hands on her hips and took a step forwards.
‘Now look here…’
Fanny took another step. Their faces were nearly touching. She whispered something, very quietly.
The military gentleman jumped as if he had been stung and moved away hurriedly, pausing only to look back over his shoulder at Fanny with an expression of almost superstitious alarm. Then she joined us again, a smile of sublime unconcern on her face.
‘That, officer,’ she said, ‘is how it is done.’ Then, as the constable seemed dissastisfied, she continued: ‘My daughter has a delicate constitution, officer, and is upset by the slightest thing. I warned my son-in-law not to take her to the fair, but he would go against my advice. And because he is most ill equipped to deal with a young lady in her condition…’
‘Ah?’ said the constable.
‘Yes. My daughter is expecting a child,’ said Fanny sweetly.
The constable blushed and scribbled something meaningless in his notebook. Struggling to maintain his dignity, he turned to Effie.
‘I’m very sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Just doin’ my duty. You
are
this lady’s daughter?’
Effie nodded.
‘And this gentleman’s wife?’
‘Of course.’
‘Would you mind giving me your name, please, ma’am?’ Effie flinched almost imperceptibly. I noticed, but did not think the constable did, so quick was her recovery.
‘Marta,’ she said, continuing in a stronger voice, ‘Marta.’ And, turning towards Fanny with a smile, Effie put her arm around the older woman’s waist and began suddenly, inexplicably, to laugh.
Fanny Miller had been a part of my life for years, and I respected her as I have done no other woman. She was ten years older than I, good-looking in a heavy kind of style, with a razor-sharp intelligence and a masculine, devouring ambition. Like myself, she was a Jack-of-all-trades; her mother was a country girl turned Haymarket slut and had given Fanny to that oldest of professions by the time she was thirteen. Four years later the mother was dead and Fanny was on her own, all teeth and claws against the world into which she had been thrown. She was avid to get on and, in the years which followed, she learned how to read, to write, to pick pockets and locks, to fight with a razor or with her fists, to make medicines and poisons, to talk like a lady—though she never quite lost her mother’s West Country burr—and drink like a man. Above all she learned to despise men, to ferret out their weaknesses and use them, and soon enough she was able to graduate from selling herself to selling others.
Fanny had earned her money in a dozen ways, both honest and dishonest: by singing in the vaudeville, by telling fortunes in a travelling fair, by selling fake rheumatism cures, by blackmail, by theft, by fraud. When I met her she was already in charge of her own establishment, with maybe a dozen girls in her stable. Pretty, all of them; but none of them could have competed with Fanny. She was tall, almost as tall as I am, with strong, rounded arms, broad shoulders and rolling curves all free from corsets and stays. She had bright amber eyes, like a cat’s, and a profusion of brassy hair which she wore in a complicated knot at the back of her head. But Fanny wasn’t for sale, not at any price. Foolishly, I insisted—there’s a price and a line for every woman, or so I thought—and she struck at me just like a cat, the arc of her ivory straight-razor leaping towards me with a fluid grace, deliberately missing me by half an inch. She was quick—I never even saw her pull the razor from her pocket—and I still remember the way she looked at me, snapping the wicked blade shut again and returning it to her skirts, saying, ‘I like you, Mose. I really do. But forget yourself again, and I’ll take your face off. Understand?’ And all that without a tremor in her voice or a quickening of the heart.
Sometimes I think that if Fanny Miller ever had a heart she must have left it along the way with all the rest of the useless flotsam of her life; certainly, by the time we met, she was steel through and through. I never saw her falter. Never. And now she had returned, my personal daemon, unchanged but for a streak of grey in her luxuriant hair, to take in hand my little crisis.
I was not altogether pleased, although Fanny had undoubtedly saved me from some unpleasantness; I suppose I simply don’t like being indebted to a woman. Besides, I was already running my own masquerade with Effie, and it disturbed me that Fanny knew it; she was the type to turn every situation to her own advantage, and I did not like the almost instinctive way in which Effie had clung to her, almost as if she were indeed Fanny’s daughter. However, I said nothing until we had left the green and were back on the Islington Road where I could hail a fly and be off before I had to give any tedious explanations. I glanced at Fanny, still arm-in-arm with Effie, and cautiously began to search for my role.
‘A long time since we last met, Fanny,’ I said idly. ‘How are you faring nowadays?’
‘Come-day, go-day,’ she replied, with a smile.
‘Business?’
‘I’d say business were fine.’ Still the smile, mocking, as if she knew she was hiding something from me. Turning to Effie, she levelled the smile at her, their faces intimately close. ‘You’ll excuse me, miss, if I alarmed you back there,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but I could see you didn’t want the commotion, and I guess you might not want anyone to recognize you.’ A knowing, sidewards glance at me. I shifted uneasily before it. What did she know? What game was she playing?
‘Our guardian angel,’ I commented, trying to keep the sourness out of my voice. ‘Effie, this is Epiphany Miller. Fanny, this is Effie Chester.’
‘I know. I know your husband well,’ said Fanny. That made me start, but Effie did not react.
‘Oh, modelling,’ she said. She was still staring at Fanny with a kind of stupid intensity and, for the first time, I found myself out of all patience with her. I was about to make a sharp comment when she roused herself abruptly.
‘Why did you call me that?’ she asked.
‘Call you what, my dear?’ said Fanny comfortably.
‘Marta.’
‘Oh, that? It was just the first name which came into my head.’
I’m damned if I knew what her game was. I could see no reason why she should want to befriend Effie, who was as unlike her as a woman can be, nor why she should invite us to her house; but she did and, despite the black looks I levelled at her, Effie agreed. I was beside myself; I knew where Fanny lived; she had a house in Maida Vale, near the canal, consisting of her own rooms and the lodgings of the dozen or so girls who lived under her protection—not the kind of place I wanted to be recognized in with Effie, unless I wanted all my careful liaising with Henry to be wasted.
‘Really, Effie, I think we should be getting you home, don’t you think?’ I said pointedly.
‘Rubbish!’ answered Fanny. ‘It’s only three o’clock. There’s plenty of time for a cup of tea and a bite to eat.’
‘I really don’t think—’
‘I’d like to come,’ interrupted Effie with a defiant look in her eye. ‘If Mose wants to leave now, let him. I’ll come home presently.’
Damn her impudence!
‘I can’t let you jaunt about London on your own!’
‘I won’t be on my own. I’ll be with Miss Miller.’
Miss Miller be damned! I could see Fanny was enjoying the whole scene vastly, and so I was forced to hold my tongue and accompany them both. Dealing with Effie could wait. I’d make her pay later.
I could tell that
Mose was annoyed that we had encountered Fanny; he dragged his feet, scowled, made impatient gestures and made it clear that he wanted us both to be gone as soon as possible. I could understand why: despite her spirited performance at the fair, Fanny had soon abandoned her high tone and, although her clothes were of excellent quality, there was in the richness of the mulberry velvet dress, the matching plumed hat and the rope of baroque pearls around her long neck, more than a suspicion of the adventuress. I knew what Henry thought of women who dressed, walked and talked as she did; but, if anything, that only added to her attraction.
For there
was
an attraction; I’d felt immediately drawn to Fanny. As soon as I set eyes on her I felt that there was some secret in Fanny, some bold message writ in her flesh for me to read, and, as I walked beside her, I was sure that she had recognized something inside me as I had in her.
Fanny’s house was on Crook Street, quite near the canal, at the intersection of four alleys which led out from the house like the points of a star. In that part of town there were a number of old Georgian houses, once very fine and fashionable, now receding into shabby-gentility, some derelict, with the rags of ancient curtains hanging at the toothy mouths of their broken windows, others fresh painted and spotless as the false fronts of a theatre backdrop.
Fanny’s house was larger than the rest, built of the same soot-grimed London stone, but respectably clean, with bright, heavy curtains at the windows and pots of geraniums on all the sills. In that neighbourhood the house stood out with a kind of countrified incongruity. The door was painted green, with a bright brass knocker and, at the doorstep, sat an enormous striped ginger cat, which mewed when we approached.
‘Come in, Alecto,’ said Fanny to the cat, opening the door, and the big tabby rolled her boneless weight silently into the hall. ‘Please…’ Fanny gestured for me to follow, and the three of us—Fanny, Mose and I—entered the house. I was struck immediately by the scent; something like sandalwood and cinnamon and wood-smoke, a scent which seemed to come from the furniture and the walls all around us. Then there were the flowers, great vases of them, crimson, purple and gold, on stands in every corner. Tapestries in jewel colours hung on the walls and rich rugs covered the parquet floors.
It seemed to me that I had been magically transported to some Aladdin’s cave; in this setting Fanny, as she unpinned her hat, took off her gloves and loosened her hair, was a beauty of awesome, mythical proportions, a giant Scheherazade with no hint of the Haymarket now in her appearance or her bearing, a creature entirely at ease. She guided us through a passageway and past a great sweeping staircase into a cosy drawing-room where a fire had already been lit. Two more cats rested, Sphinx-like, before it.
As I slid into one of the huge, overstuffed armchairs I slipped momentarily out of my body and saw myself, alien in this warm and sensual setting, as pallid as a creature from beneath a stone, and I almost screamed. As the world focused again I saw Mose’s face looming towards me like something seen in a fishbowl and I drew away in a kind of inexplicable loathing, with the room spinning about me like a crystal ball and his eyes locked mercilessly into mine.
‘Dear girl, you look ill. Drink this.’ I clung to Fanny in desperate gratitude as she handed me a drink in a brass goblet; it was warm and sweet, like wine punch, with a distinct aroma of vanilla and allspice.
I tried to smile. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I…’
Mose’s voice, sharp with suspicion: ‘What’s that?’
‘One of my own recipes,’ answered Fanny lazily. ‘A restorative, that’s all. Don’t you trust me?’
‘I…feel much better,’ I said, realizing with some surprise that it was true. ‘I…I’m sorry I…’
‘Nonsense!’ Fanny’s tone was crisp. ‘No apologies in this house. Henry may like that kind of foolish submissiveness, but I can’t conceive of anything more tiresome.’
‘Oh!’ I was for a moment unsure whether I should laugh or take offence at Fanny’s bluntness; and she had called my husband by his Christian name. And yet, there was a certain rightness in the way she responded to me, a warmth in her familiarity which, in spite of myself, I welcomed. I laughed uneasily and drank the rest of the restorative in one draught. The cats, a white one and a thin brown tabby, left their places at the hearth and came to sniff the hem of my skirts, and I reached out cautiously to stroke them.
‘Megaera and Tisiphone,’ said Fanny, indicating the cats. ‘They seem to like you. You’re honoured—they don’t usually get on very well with strangers.’
I repeated the names, ‘Megaera, Tisiphone and Alecto. What strange names. Do they mean anything?’
‘Oh, I have a liking for ancient mythology,’ said Fanny carelessly.
‘May…may I call you Fanny?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘Please do. Don’t stand on ceremony with me,’ she advised. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, though not as respectable, no doubt. Have another drink.’ And she refilled the goblet and handed it to me. ‘What about you?’ She turned to Mose, who had been sitting in the only straight-backed chair in the room, looking like a thwarted child. ‘You look as if you could do with a drink.’
‘No.’
‘I think you should,’ insisted Fanny lightly, ‘if only to mend your temper.’
Mose forced himself to grin sourly and accepted the proffered glass. ‘Thanks.’
‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ said Fanny. ‘Doubtless you now have a reputation to uphold. And yet I would never have thought that Henry Chester was your tipple, Mose dear. You must be getting respectable in your declining years!’ Mose shifted uneasily and Fanny winked at me and smiled.
‘I am, of course, forgetting your new position as Mr Chester’s sponsor,’ she added. ‘Fancy you and Henry becoming friends. I vow you’ll be quite sober before the year’s out.’
Abruptly she turned to me. ‘You’re so pretty, my dear,’ she said. ‘What a tangle you have yourself in, with Henry Chester on the one side and Mose on the other. Scylla and Charybdis. Be careful: Mose is a villain through and through, and Henry…well, we both know Henry, I hope. You can be my friend. It would infuriate them both, of course—men have such odd notions of propriety! Imagine Henry’s astonishment if he knew! But Henry sees no further than his own canvasses. Even in those eyes of yours, so deep and clear, he sees nothing.’
Her tone was light, her words a shoal of bright fish spelling meaningless patterns around me. The tabby jumped on my lap, and I was happy at the distraction it offered, allowing my hands to move idly in the cat’s fur. I tried to concentrate on what Fanny was saying, but my head was spinning. I took another drink to clear my head and, through the veil of unreality through which I perceived the world, I was aware of Mose watching me with an ugly look on his face. I struggled to say something, but my grasp upon drawing-room manners was weak, and instead of the polite comment I had intended I said the first thing which came into my head.
‘Is this a bawdy-house?’ For a second I froze, appalled at what I had said, then I felt a hot blush sweep me from head to toe. I began to stammer, spilling my drink across my skirts, almost in tears. ‘I…I…I…’
But Fanny was laughing, a rich, deep laugh of the kind you might expect from a genie in a bottle. For a moment I was aware of her looming over me and I lost all grasp of scale; she was a giantess, terrifying, awesome in her rich velvet robes, the scent of musk and spices from her generous flesh overwhelming me as she took me in her arms. I could still hear her laughter as the world stabilized around me and my hysteria receded.
‘You’re quite right, my dear,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘How refreshing you are! “Is this a bawdy-house?” Mose, the child’s a treasure.’ I shifted, my face against her shoulder, protesting.
‘You’ve given her too much punch. She’s not used to it.’ Mose was still disapproving, but I could see that he was smiling in spite of himself. Nervously, through half-shed tears, I too began to laugh.
Suddenly, a thought struck me and, made reckless by the alcohol in the punch and the hilarity of my unshakeable hostess, I voiced it: ‘But…you said you knew my husband,’ I said. ‘I…
Was
it modelling?’
Fanny shrugged. ‘I’m not his style, my love. But from time to time I can find him someone who is. Not always for modelling, either.’
‘Oh…’ It took some time for the implications of what she had told me to settle into my mind. Henry was unfaithful to me? After all his posturing and preaching, Henry had visited Fanny’s house in secret? I was not certain whether to laugh or scream at the bitter farce; I imagine I laughed. To think that during all those years when he was my hero, my Lancelot, he was creeping to her house in Crook Street like a thief in the night! I laughed, but there was a bitterness in my laughter.
Mose, too, had been taken by surprise. ‘Henry came here?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Often. He still does. Every Thursday, just like clockwork.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned! I’d never have thought that the old hypocrite had it in him. And he goes to church every Sunday, the devil, and proses and preaches as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth! What’s his taste, Fanny?’
Fanny smiled scornfully, but I cut off what she was about to say. Suddenly I knew the answer already.
‘Children,’ I said in a colourless voice. ‘He likes children. He sits me on his knee and makes me call him Mr Chester. He—’ I stopped, feeling sick, and broke into an ecstasy of sobs. For the first time I had voiced some of my hatred, my shame and disgust and, as I clung to Fanny Miller, drenching her mulberry velvet with my tears, I felt an inexplicable sense of release.
We talked for some time, Fanny and I, and I learned more of the story she had begun to unfold. She had met Henry—or Mr Lewis, as he called himself to the other visitors—many years ago, and since then he had been coming regularly to her house. Sometimes he would sit in her parlour and drink punch with the other guests, but more often he avoided the rest of her ‘company’ and went off with one of the girls—always the youngest and least experienced. He usually came on a Thursday, the day he supposedly went to his club.
I listened to this account of Henry’s betrayal with an almost indifferent calm. I felt as though all the world had collapsed around me, but instinctively I hid it, holding out my goblet recklessly to be refilled.
‘Don’t drink any more of that,’ said Mose irritably. ‘It’s getting late. Let’s get you back home.’
I shook my head.
‘I’d like to stay here for a moment longer,’ I said with assumed calm. ‘It will be
hours
before Henry gets back from his studio—and even if I am late, he’d never guess where I had been.’ I laughed then, with a bitter recklessness. ‘Maybe I should tell him!’
‘I hope that was an attempt at humour,’ said Mose, with a dangerous calm.
‘I’m sure you do.’ I heard the brittle note in my voice and tried to adopt Fanny’s light, confident tone. ‘But then, you do have an interest in Henry’s continued goodwill. After all, you’re seducing his wife, aren’t you?’
I saw contempt and anger in his face, but was unable to stop. ‘You have an odd notion of propriety,’ I added. ‘I dare say you think a man can get away with any crime, any betrayal, as long as appearances are safeguarded. I don’t suppose it matters at all to you whether I suffer or not.’
‘You’re overwrought,’ he snapped coldly.
‘Not at all!’ My laugh was shrill. ‘I expect you to know all about pretence—after all, you’re an expert.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Suddenly I was no longer sure. For a moment I had felt such overwhelming rage that I had allowed it to overflow…but at this moment the rancour seemed not to be my own but someone else’s—someone much braver and stronger than myself…some stranger.
What
had
I wanted? It seemed nebulous now, like the vestige of some dream, dissolving into nothing as I awoke.
‘I…I’m sorry, Mose: I didn’t mean it. Please, let’s not go so soon.’ My voice was pleading, but he was not moved. I saw his blue eyes narrowed into slits like razors and he turned away rather abruptly, his voice icy.
‘You knew I didn’t want to come here,’ he said. ‘I came for
your
sake. Now, leave for mine or, by God, I’ll leave without you.’
‘Mose…’
‘Try to have a little understanding, Mose my dear,’ said Fanny in her mocking tone. ‘Effie has had rather a rude awakening, wouldn’t you say? Or would you rather have had her kept in blissful ignorance?’
Mose turned to both of us with an ugly expression. ‘I won’t let two whores give me orders!’ he spat. ‘Effie, I bear with your tears and tantrums. I was the one who almost got arrested today because of your hysterics. I love you as much as I have ever loved any woman, but this is the outside of enough. I won’t be defied, especially not under this roof. Now, will you come home?’
Two whores.
The words sank like stones, silently into the darkness of my thought. Two whores…He reached for my arm to steady it and I knocked his hand aside. The cat hissed wildly at him and sprang out of the chair to hide under the dresser.
‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Effie—’
‘Get out!’
‘Just listen to me a moment…’
I turned to him and looked at him flatly. For the first time I saw the lines of tension around his mouth, the cold blankness at the back of his eyes.
‘Get out,’ I said. ‘You disgust me. I’ll get home on my own. I never want to see you again.’
For a moment his face was slack, then his mouth twisted.
‘Why you impudent little—’
‘Get out, I said!’
‘There’ll be a reckoning for this,’ he said in a soft and ugly tone.
‘Get
out
!’
For an uneasy time he was frozen, his arms folded defensively, and in some way I sensed that he was afraid, as if some lap-dog had suddenly learned to bite, and the knowledge of his fear was rapturous in me, so that the sickness receded, elation flooded my body and some savage voice in me sang
bite, bite, bite, bite, bite
…Then he turned with a shrug and left the room, slamming the door behind him. I collapsed, all my triumph dissolving into wretched tears.