The Walworth Beauty Read online

  He yawned, gazed at the thin gold line tracing the sharp angles of the doorframe. Then woke up fully: the gold line meant that Doll must have fallen asleep with her candle still burning. Very dangerous, that. Should he creep in and snuff it out? She might wake up and scream to find a dark male shape looming over her. No. Better to go back upstairs, rouse Cara, get her to come down. Unfair? Poor Cara, she needed her sleep. But she’d see to the girl all right, scold her, put some sense into her about extinguishing lights. Poor child. Pity to get her into trouble on her very first night here. Perhaps he should rattle the latch to alert her to his presence, open the door just an inch, call in to her. Then she could get up, and while she was at it could pump him some water. No. Best to let Cara deal with it.

  He hovered. A draught crept under his nightshirt and tickled his bare calves. Just as he turned to go back upstairs, a voice struck up behind the door. Hesitant, hoarse. What was Doll up to? Talking in her sleep? He hesitated. What to do?

  A second voice responded. Murmuring, low. Entertaining a follower on her first night in a new place? She’d have to be mad.

  He stooped to the keyhole underneath the latch. A golden gap; filled with candlelight from the kitchen beyond. He kneeled down and applied his eye to the golden opening.

  Moonlight, from the unshuttered window, fell across the floor; candlelight a golden bubble. Inside the feathery golden globe, two human shapes bent towards each other. Two young women, their hair in night-time plaits dangling under their night-caps’ ruffles. Doll, in her little bed, narrow as a shelf, hinged to the wall, leaned one elbow on her thin pillow, a grey woollen shawl pulled around her shoulders. Cara’s, inherited from his mother; presumably taken from the hook upstairs in the hall. Milly, in nightgown and plaid dressing-gown, perched nearby, on the edge of the kitchen table, her slippered feet resting on the seat of a chair drawn up close to it. The candle burned in a tin holder set on a stool between them, flame flickering inside a hazy halo of light, and lit their profiles. The golden light separated them, and joined them.

  They were still; rapt in listening and talking; Milly with her hands thrust into her sleeves, Doll looking back at her. A woven-straw bag sat next to the fold-down bed. Doll’s, presumably. A curled rag of handkerchief lay on the brown blanket. So she’d been crying. Milly, that light sleeper, must have heard her and trotted down. Must have wrapped her in Cara’s shawl, to comfort her.

  Their voices, pitched low, rose and fell. Snatches of their talk floated to him. Bag of apples. Across the river. Forgotten. Scared of the dark. Black beetles. Doll seemed to be explaining, and Milly interrupting her and putting more questions. That’s my Milly! Always wants to know everything!

  The words whispered themselves forth. Brothers and sisters? Five. I miss them. Where, exactly? Rotherhithe, miss.

  Should he go in, interrupt them, get his water, dispatch Milly back to bed? He straightened up slowly. Stiff back. Too cold to hang about here much longer. He wanted his warm bed, his warm, sleeping wife.

  Doll’s mournful voice piped on. Dad’s a warehouseman. In the docks. I went into service. Then Mrs Bonnet, at the boarding-house in Newington.

  Milly’s tones, a little louder than before. What? Who?

  Doll responding. So then Mrs Dulcimer.

  He jumped. Put his ear against the doorjamb. Cool wood, a bit greasy. Doll raised her reedy voice, obviously wanting Milly to understand.

  Mrs Bonnet. She helps girls in trouble. If you go to her early enough. She gets rid of it for you. Girls who need to, who need help, go there. Then I come to stay with Mrs Dulcimer, until I was better. She keeps a room spare, for girls who need it. Little Annie she’s got in there at the moment. She come in from Brixton.

  He couldn’t bear it. The high voice speaking calmly of such horrors. As though she were describing picking bedbugs out of a mattress and drowning them in a bucket of water.

  The childish voice went on. Mrs Dulcimer? She’s the lady sent me here, when Mr Benson asked her to.

  Joseph banged on the door. He clicked the latch, pushed the door open.

  Two faces swivelled, white and shocked. Doll jerked the shawl over her head, huddled inside it. Just as he’d done as a small boy: if I can’t see you then you can’t see me. Milly straightened herself, sat upright. She said: it’s all right, Dorothy, it’s only my pa.

  She was tense and trembling. She shouldn’t have to know about such terrible things. She was still a child. So, he saw, was Doll. He said: Mrs Benson wouldn’t like you wasting good wax candles. Blow that light out now.

  Doll’s hand crept out, like a little mouse. She pulled the shawl away from her face. Red, swollen eyelids. She crouched, sniffing into her sleeve. She whispered: I didn’t mean any harm, Mr Benson, when I took your coat. Mrs Dulcimer said she’d make it all right with you.

  Milly stared at him. He ignored her, spoke to Doll. There’s no need to be frightened of the dark. No rats down here. No black beetles. The range is still alight. Open one of the oven doors, and you’ll see the glow. There’s nothing to be scared of. Now go to sleep, and you, Milly, get back to bed.

  He drove Milly up the two flights of stairs. She gathered up her nightgown, scampered ahead of him. On the landing, hand on the latch of her door, she turned. Her bright eyes scanned his face. Mrs Dulcimer. She’s that darkie who came to the house the other night, isn’t she? She must be. How d’you know her, Pa? Is she a friend of yours?

  Joseph pushed her into her bedroom. None of your business, miss. Be quiet. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

  He’d forgotten to bring up that glass of water. He crept between the sheets, stretched out under the quilt, next to Cara’s soft bulk. Grit seemed to be scraping the inside of his eyelids. They wouldn’t close. A different light began to leak between the curtains. Dawn, bluish-white, like souring milk.

  Girls killing their babies. Having them killed. Women willingly and consciously killing unborn babies. He knew it happened. He read the papers, didn’t he? He recognised, in a theoretical way, the desperation a girl might feel, getting pregnant out of wedlock. Are you listening, Mrs Dulcimer? He supposed he understood, by now, the difficulty a girl faced if her lover scarpered, refused to marry her. She’d be turned out of her place. Very likely turned away by her family, too. Yes, he realised that.

  That didn’t make it right. Murder was murder.

  Mrs Dulcimer, damn her, had got inside him, kept on talking to him. So what would you prefer? That a girl should help herself, by the only means she can, or that she casts herself into the gutter and hopes to be found by some well-meaning person like yourself before she starves, freezes to death?

  Yesterday, as she talked, her cheeks had flushed, her voice hoarsened, the words tipping out of her. Then she had pushed aside the table, the flap of tablecloth, and stood up. She had work to do. She’d wished him a good day.

  Good day. Day. Daylight filled the bedroom. He rolled over, reached out a hand for Cara’s shoulder. Nobody there. She was already up. He must have gone back to sleep after all. He’d overslept.

  He didn’t want to encounter Doll or Milly or talk to either of them. Leave it be. Let sleeping dogs lie. For today at least. Just get on. He had business to complete.

  Overnight, while he slept, something had clarified. Now he must see Mayhew, and lay these new conclusions before him.

  Mayhew worked all through the week. On a Saturday morning he’d be in his office, surely. Strike while the iron’s hot.

  Cara had left a jug half full of cold water on the washstand. Joseph splashed his face and hands, pulled on his clothes. He’d get breakfast out, on his way to the Strand. From the hall he shouted a goodbye down towards the clattering of pots in the basement, then hurried out of the house.

  Mayhew’s empty office smelled of yesterday’s coal fire, the ashes not yet raked from the grate. Papers piled haphazardly on the desk, as usual, books and pens scattered higgledy-piggledy. The clerk put his thin, long-nosed face round the door. Mr Mayhew, sir? I believe he
’s gone to the Turkish baths. Or it may be he’s gone first to the gymnasium. Some matter of a boxer he wanted to interview.

  Joseph’s stepfather had passed on to him a single skill: how to punch another man. Joseph might display a gift for boxing, earn his living that way. You don’t seem to have any other talents, my little mollycoddled nodcock! To start with, the Hoof had wanted to get Joseph trained to work with horses, become a groom like himself. As often as he was hauled there, however, the boy could not be forced to linger in a stable. Pointed towards a broom, a heap of filthy straw, he would flee as soon as he could from those lips drawn back snarling over enormous yellow teeth, those vast rumps, those stamping nailed shoes. Resignedly, the Hoof had decided to teach him to box. Joseph practised alone, outdoors, the little yard as ring, using a makeshift sandbag. He found he was light on his feet in that constricted space, could dance and feint and bob. The Hoof put up his fists: come on! Joseph landed well-aimed blows with right and left. Three sessions in, his stepfather had called time, patted his shoulder. You’ll do. Off to school with you now.

  On his first day, when a boy walked up to him and hit him in the face with no warning, Joseph punched him straight back. Both of them poured blood. The master asked: who started it? Joseph stayed silent. Both boys were punished: three cuts to each palm. Both blinked back tears. The other boy looked out for him after that. It wasn’t enough to guard against a whole gang of louts deciding to wash off your mummy-smell in the horse trough, but it helped.

  He ran his employer to ground in the Turkish baths in Ironmonger Row. Mayhew had obviously just come out of the cold plunge pool. He was sitting in the anteroom on a bench, a towel wrapped around his loins, while the assistant rubbed him down. Too early yet, apparently, for other clients to have wandered in: the pillared alcoves all round were empty, curtains pulled back to reveal leather-padded couches, bolsters with embroidered linen covers. Tall brass pots of green ferns stood about. A mosaic of blue and turquoise tiles, waist high, encircling the room, gave the effect of an underwater cave. Mayhew bent his dripping head and grunted, while the man massaged his big white shoulders, mopped them. Folds of white belly. Dark curls on his chest.

  Mayhew took the cloth and began to dry his thick black hair. That’ll do. You can leave us now. We’ll have to talk later. Benson, do stop hovering. Sit down, man. I confess I wasn’t expecting you. Explain yourself, if you please.

  Joseph hitched up his trousers and seated himself on the mahogany bench opposite, trying to place his feet out of the way of the pools of water puddling and shining on the blue-tiled floor.

  Mayhew, pale as a codfish, was wiping the water streaming down the sides of his face, his neck. He spoke through muffling folds of towel. Since you have interrupted me just as I was about to begin an interview, I assume you have something important to say to me.

  Cut the crap, Mayhew. Pomposity doesn’t work when you’ve got no clothes on. You’re threadbare, man, you’re threadbare. Joseph spread his hands, palms up. Loaded with invisible documents, notes, reports. He said: I believe I have.

  Collect your thoughts. Put them into the right order. Come on, you can do this. One fact after another, arranged in logical sequence. Difficult, as always. Almost impossible when you had hardly slept and had a head lined with lead, a stomach that kept convulsing.

  He saw himself like a caricature, hands waving then squeezed together, cheeks flushed, mouth opening and shutting. Just begin. He said: I received your letter yesterday morning, and read it with great care. I respect your criticisms of my approach. In obedience to your instructions I shall continue trying to find out more about the living conditions of prostitute women. But before I continue with any more of that research I must lay before you what seems to me a fundamental error in our way of thinking.

  Mayhew raised his eyebrows, gave a soundless whistle. He cast aside the wet cloth, got up. He plucked at the towel fastened around his hips, unloosened it, dropped it on the wet floor. He stood and yawned, stretched. Tall, firm-fleshed man. Fat but solid. His white belly curved over his penis. White mushroom dangling inside a curling nest of hair. Somewhere under his plumpness hid muscles, strength. Joseph’s stepfather had been similarly tall and well-built. How agile was Mayhew? Challenged to a fight, would he lumber around or balance eagerly on his toes? Floor him with your argument, Joseph. Concentrate.

  Mayhew stroked his chin with a large white hand. My good fellow, your disclosures must wait a few minutes. First, let me get dressed. Then let’s go next door to the barber’s. I could do with a haircut and a shave. You certainly could, too.

  He vanished through an archway, left Joseph kicking his heels. All right! Round one to Mayhew. Get your breath back. Flex your muscles. Begin again. Perhaps I know a dodge or two you don’t, old man.

  Re-emerging, Mayhew swept Joseph before him, out into the street, down an alley. Two dark openings, side by side, one with a dangling sign marking it an hotel. A red-and-white pole hung out above the other, fastened to the wall by gilded wire. The open hotel door revealed stairs ahead, curving upwards out of sight. Mayhew swerved aside, entered the second doorway. Joseph followed, into an emerald-tiled cave smelling of almond hair oil.

  Two barbers, in red waistcoats and white aprons, received them. In a moment, they were seated side by side, white cloths tied over their chests and round their collars, and were tipped back, scalps covered with froths of soap. Mayhew and he had become twins. Mayhew’s crown of white suds must mirror his own. Very well: while they remained equal, while brisk fingertips lathered them both at the same tempo, Joseph insisted on speaking. He had tried to prepare his speech. Awkward. Stuttering. But he must deliver the rest of it before he forgot it altogether.

  He said: I have come to the conclusion that prostitutes are not simply lazy, work-shy, immoral exploiters of gullible drunken men. Indeed, I no longer consider that they should be classified as criminals at all. To see them as straightforwardly and coldly committed to a life of vice is to misunderstand the nature of what they are about.

  He turned his head surreptitiously, watched Mayhew sigh, shut his eyes, purse his lips. He hissed at the ceiling. And what is that?

  Hard fingers rummaged behind and inside Joseph’s ears, across his forehead. He blinked, as soap stung him. He said: they offer for sale something that men wish to buy. In that sense, they are like costermongers selling fruit, pastry-merchants selling biscuits. They are actually in full employment.

  Their barbers worked in tandem. Tipping warm water over their heads, ruffling their hair as they rinsed it, then towelling them half dry. All right, gents! Sit up just a little, if you please. Hands got busy with comb and scissors. Flick of cool hard tortoiseshell, stroke of cold steel blades.

  Joseph said: in addition, these women work for their livings in a way that benefits mankind. They perform a useful service. Doctors have long recognised that consorting with prostitutes saves young unmarried men from having to resort to self-abuse. However, prostitutes also benefit married men. They allow a married man to discharge his superfluous animal energy in a way that protects his wife from what might otherwise be considered his excessive demands.

  Mayhew’s booted feet began to tap on the footrest of his chair. Joseph hesitated. Tilting his chin, he glanced up at the ceiling’s cracked carapace, its pattern of brown stains spread like flower petals. Water overflowing from a hotel room above, presumably. Some careless chambermaid knocking over a bath, causing a minor flood. Places such as this ought to have proper systems of plumbing, pipes fitted to swirl away the overflows. Scandalous that they didn’t, in this day and age.

  He said: doctors would call it a question of hygiene. Moral hygiene. Just as modern experts in engineering propose a complete overhaul of our city’s sewage system, so I propose a complete overhaul of the way that we think about prostitutes and label them. The so-called vicious practice of prostitution actually supports the sacred institution of marriage. Most men would admit that, if they were honest.

  Mayhe
w stuck out a hand from underneath his bib-like covering and thumped the leather-covered arm of his chair. This is completely absurd. You cannot expect me to take you seriously.

  Joseph said: please try to understand what I am saying, Mr Mayhew. My discovery turns our classification system topsy-turvy. If prostitutes are no longer to be placed in the category of those who refuse to work, this alters our ideas of what labour entails. We shall have to re-think some of our research.

  Mayhew began spluttering, as though he’d swallowed soap. Our research! Our research! You mean my research, Benson. I will not have you interfering with my methods of conducting it, and certainly not with my system of classification.

  The barber leaned in close, to clip his sideburns. Mayhew could not move, as the shining steel blades danced so near his skin, but his eyes glittered under his tufted black brows. Joseph caught his furious glance in the mirror and hastily looked away. Mayhew’s voice was cold as the water trickling down Joseph’s neck. I have run out of patience with you, Benson. I have explained to you time after time how I wish you to proceed. I have given you chance after chance to learn how to write a proper report. I have reached the conclusion that you are not so much unfortunately stupid as wilfully stubborn and obstinate. Your probationary period is hereby terminated. I’ve no more use for you.

  The barber brought up his hand, flourishing a foaming brush. He worked soap, in quick circular motions, over Joseph’s cheeks and neck. Then picked up his ivory-handled razor and began delicately stroking under his chin. Long deft sweeps. Rasping and scraping. Joseph clenched his teeth, and froze. Just endure it. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. The dentist was as nothing compared to this. The dentist hurt you as he ground and scraped, but the pain eventually stopped. The barber could slit your throat in a flash. Don’t get into a strop, Benson. Ha.