The Fraud (17 page)

At first I watched them from further off; with my basket and my respectable bonnet I watched them, the street-girls: I knew girls worked in St James’s Park down behind the trees - was not that where my brother told me he had been with a street-girl, that night? - I walked there, sometimes the red jacket of a soldier flashed against the green; sometimes it was a young boy who disappeared with a soldier, and re-appeared again, clutching some pennies; it was all just like Bristol in the end, but if my brother chose that place I would keep away from St James’s Park: I started haunting the
piazza
at Covent Garden.—They worked even in early mornings, took their customers down those dark alleys off the
piazza
, down there where daylight did not come, where I had clung to my brother’s arm, where ghosts very likely walked, where the girl that was being beaten had taken me - so I began to follow them down the alleys; in dark doorways the girls lifted their skirts, the men unbuttoned.—Soldiers and sailors and crooks came, but gentlemen too, and a vicar - every sort of man, crowding into the
piazza
, looking over the goods, sometimes it was over in a few moments - the men just emptied themselves almost as if they were pissing, only with a bit more jerking and groaning. —I watched and saw that the more experienced girls asked for their money
first
: a shilling, sixpence - despairingly sometimes a few pennies; they had to be really desperate, or old, or ugly, to lift their skirts before they clutched the coin and I wondered if my brother ever came here also as well as St James’s Park? - and the young ones, the pretty ones, the ones who therefore got the most customers, insisted on the pouches of sheep’s gut with the red ribbon that the men wore; if the men refused they flounced off: they could afford to be more choosy - yes, I knew how important the red-ribboned pouches were, the men used them to keep clean and the girls used them so as not to get a child, the pouches were made of sheep-gut and the men had to draw them up upon themselves. —I had seen them, discarded, on Christmas Steps -
O God what am I thinking of?
but then I heard the assistant
Open the door
,
my Fancy
, and his foul heavy breathing and his black nails and I saw again the young boy who did not steal the paints with his small bundle, and the gesture of courage as he wiped his hand across his face and I did not want to think that that boy was braver than me and most of all
I must go on painting
.

If I earned a shilling I could buy three parcels of colour; if I worked at the
piazza
for a whole evening I could even buy my own brush perhaps; if I had a brush and three parcels of colour I could just steal charcoal, paper and perhaps one other colour, if I worked for two nights I could perhaps buy my own charcoal and some paper as well - that’s how my thoughts ran around my head - and slowly I tried to converse with some of the girls as I went about my morning shopping: they spat at me and swore at me and told me to get out of their area, I did not seem like them, this was their place.—I always had my shopping on my arm, they stole bread from me, one of them took my lady’s glove and threw it in the gutter with the shit, and then retrieved it and hid it in her clothes; I became more and more desperate:
I do not know how to proceed by myself
,
they have to let me join them
: but, day after day - as they took my shopping, and pulled at my hair - they would not, and in the evenings I could smell the assistant as he hung about the staircases: again I quite seriously considered how I might kill him.

And then one morning a voice spoke right behind me as I tried once again to get someone among the street girls to talk to me with my basket full of food and a big fish-eye staring out: ‘Why don’t yer get a rich gentleman, girl?’ said the voice, ‘’Stead of hangin’ around us?’ I turned round quickly: it was the girl I had helped when she was being beaten with the sword-sticks. ‘They told me someone was bothering them, I couldn’t think it was you, girl! We don’t want yer here, sorry, yore not one of us but if yore so desperate yer could get a rich man to set yer up, yer’ve got the look, yer’ve got the manner, leave us alone.’ Some of the other street-girls crowded around but now they did not say very much, just listened and watched.

‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘
Please
,
please help me
!’ I was desperate, I saw this one girl would be my only chance even for a proper conversation , I was so anxious that my Italian accent was completely gone: I was me, Grace Marshall. ‘What else can I do but work here? I
have
to.’

She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘I have to work, I have to get some money but I can only work in the early evenings,’
when Philip is at the clubs or the coffee houses
, and perhaps there was something in my face, or perhaps she remembered that, once, I had helped her.

‘Yer wont like it, and yer can’t play at it, it’s not a game, this.’

‘I wont play at it, I have to get some money.’

‘Are yer sure?’

‘I am sure.’

‘Well.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Yore pretty I spose.’ Still she looked at me quite coldly, as if I was a horse perhaps, tweaked at my petticoats to see I had two legs and two feet. ‘Well then,’ she said slowly at last, shrugging, ‘well, at least I know you can run fast!’ Still she looked me over. ‘I tell you what, I’ll show yer and see if yore any good.’ She shrugged again. ‘You can try with me, I’ll see, yer look as if yore a bit of a lady, and fine, they’ll like that, we might get a better class of gentleman, but if yer try any tricks I’ll ruin yore face and that’s a promise. All right, get off,’ she said to the other girls and some of them murmured and one of them laughed and then they began to disperse. ‘I use a flower name,’ she said to me, ‘since we’re round the Garden, everyone who works with me has to be a flower. I’m Poppy.’

Quick as a flash I answered her, ‘I’m Daisy,’ and she laughed, genuine laughter, ‘You sound like yer been before!’ but I shook my head.

‘I gotta good place,’ she told me. ‘I’ll show yer now, only hurry up, I gotta get back to work, I’m needing extra customers today.’ She took me eastwards through even darker alleys, expertly pushing me out of the way of a chamberpot being emptied above us, past open sewers and stinking gutters - suddenly we came upon a dark, disused churchyard; it took us only a few moments but here a fog or a mist seemed to lay like a garment. ‘Not used now,’ she said with satisfaction, ‘not for prayers anyrate, but where they buried the bodies is an arch, and a walkway, look, here.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Are you scared?’ she said, seeing my face, mocking me. ‘Course there’s ghosts - but they ain’t got money,’ and she laughed and I managed a smile. ‘Here, look here, see this wall, you can sit on it to lift your skirt and it’s easier, and I know little hidden paths - there, see, and there - where you can run if there’s trouble, they won’t know the paths, and the fog keeps us safe and sometimes yer can feel in their clothes at the back while they’re at it and if you ain’t greedy you can take a bit more and they’ll never be aware.’ And she showed me the winding way back towards the
piazza.
‘But yer can hardly bring your basket, or your bonnet! Yer’ll have to let down your hair.’

‘Very well,’ I said, as if I did not care.

‘
Very well
,’ said Poppy, imitating me but she was smiling. ‘Just at eventide is the best of all,’ she said, ‘before they go for their sociality and spend all their gold,’ and I thought
yes
,
that time
,
just at eventide
and I clutched my loaves and my onions and my milk and the heavy, cold fish.

So that I would not have time to fear I said to Poppy, ‘Will you meet me this evening?’ She laughed again and nodded - somehow I liked her laugh, I would have liked to paint her laugh, it was too hard for a young girl, but it was real.

That afternoon I could hardly listen to Mr Hartley Pond as he looked down his nose and pronounced his pronouncements about the Sublime Male Body.—As the day drew down I shivered as I lit the candles and then I quite simply left the room and did not return: everybody was talking, everybody was inebriated and loud and speaking of Art.—I told Euphemia to make sure everybody’s glass was filled and to clear afterwards: they would hardly notice it was not me, I took my cloak but not my bonnet and slipped out into St Martin’s Lane and the high sweet voice of the madwoman echoed into the evening,
If all the world was paper and all the seas were ink
. . .

‘I was just going to start without yer,’ said Poppy into the dusk. ‘Undo yer hair.’

My dark hair fell over my shoulders, and my heart beat so loud I thought it to be heard all over the
piazza.
She looked at me as if she did hear it. ‘Ain’t yer ever done it before?’ I shook my head and I saw her regarding me in the half-dark.

‘I know everything,’ I said. Still she stared at me. ‘I have to have the money,’ I said quite desperately: she could not leave me now.

‘Then you shall have it, Daisy!’ she said, and she offered me a bottle. ‘Here. Gin helps it to pass better,’ and we both took large gulps and it burned my throat, so fast did I gulp it. ‘But just for trust - what’s yer real name?’

I answered her straight off and I think she saw I was telling her the truth. ‘My real name is Grace,’ I said to her and she did a strange thing: leaned over and briefly kissed my cheek as if we’d made some kind of bargain.

‘We’ll be Partners then,’ she said and then she lowered her voice, ‘we each charge two shillins a go, because we’re classy, and you pay me sixpence of that every time, all right?’ I must have looked dumbfounded ,
nearly two pods of paint I had to pay her every time I had a customer?
‘Yer can’t think I wouldn’t charge yer! This is a business , same as any other and I’m teachin’ yer,’ and I nodded, of course she was right. ‘But if yer steal, yer can keep that, but you take the risk, right?’ and I nodded again. ‘Well you’ve got a bonny face, only cheer up for God’s sake! and follow me,’ and I heard her laughter echoing across the
piazza
as we walked away from most of the other girls, towards one end where there was half-light from nearby windows, we were shadowy but clear.

‘We’re pretty, we can still afford to be seen in the light!’ she said and her experienced little face looked about. ‘They often come in twos,’ she said, ‘to protect theirselves! And that’ll suit us too!’

And soon, sure enough, two gentlemen sauntered - their clothes were fine enough and their voices were fine enough, they spoke together in the dusk and laughed; they rejected several advances, obviously looking over the goods.

‘Hello my dears,’ said Poppy, stepping forward and pulling me with her. They stopped.

‘Well, well,’ said one, ‘well God bless us, here’s a pretty thing or two.’

‘And we stay pretty,’ said Poppy cheekily, ‘by making sure you cover your weapon, me and Daisy here, so don’t come near us else.’

‘O come, come, not so much fun,’ he said it like an old refrain but Poppy was having none of it.

‘Then walk on gentlemen,’ she said, and she turned away and me with her, even as my heart sank. ‘We’re not going with anyone who doesn’t cover their poxy piece, that’s for sure,’ she whispered. ‘But they’ll be returning or I ain’t a judge!’ And sure enough they stopped and turned, and from their pockets showed us the red ribbons dangling.

‘Two shillings each,’ said Poppy and this time they were affronted.

‘Two shillings
and
a cover? By Jingo, you should be in Mayfair child, not Covent Garden.’

It was then that Poppy pushed me forward.

And I stood in front of the gentlemen and I thought of the two shillings minus sixpence and what I could buy and I smiled and something made me say, as cheeky as Grace Marshall used to be, ‘I’m Daisy, you’ll be lucky with me gentlemen, don’t you see it?’ and I saw them smile at my brazenry in the half-night and take in my face and my long dark hair and had I not been told often enough of my dark beauty now that I had grown?

One of them pushed forward. ‘This is mine,’ he said and the other gentleman took Poppy’s arm, but she brushed him free.

‘We know a fine, private place,’ she said, ‘you must follow us,’ and I saw them exchange a glance as if to say
Will this be safe?
but we were so young, and so pretty, they could manage us and more besides, but one of them had his hand on his sword-stick as he walked. ‘You ain’t scared of us now?’ said Poppy and they laughed, for her confidence had a kind of charm and she was young and she was pretty and they were lustful and we all walked back through the alleys she had shown me in the morning, Poppy was sure-footed and fearless and the clock struck six and I thought of the safety of the dining-room in Pall Mall and it got darker and colder and we were soon by the deserted church and the arches and the swirling mist that seemed to live there and I was never so frightened in my life.

‘Now come by here,’ said Poppy, ‘for two shillings you are safer than anywhere, no-one to disturb our little delights, so give us the money and put on your armour.’ And with some little grumbling the money was given over but they kept their hands upon us quite roughly so that we could not run away and I saw they looked about them, in case we had accomplices, then Poppy jumped upon the wall and pulled her gentleman, who was already unbuttoning, towards her.

The other man could now hardly see me, nor I him, there was not even half-light like back there, at the
piazza.
‘Now what can you offer me that is worth two shillings, little Daisy?’ he said to me as he, too, urgently unbuttoned and put the sheep-gut upon himself, muttering, and then pressed himself against me.

‘This is her first time,’ called Poppy from her place further along the wall as her gentleman thrust at her. ‘You are a lucky fellow.’

‘I do not expect that that is the truth!’ he said as he fumbled at my skirt and my petticoats, pushing them upwards, I could feel the cold air on my skin and his sweating body with its extrusion as he felt me
paints
I said to myself wildly,
paints
as he pushed to enter and I half-sat half-lay on the low wall
four parcels of paints
.