The Walworth Beauty Read online

  TEN

  Madeleine

  Rose rings up early one evening in mid-August, wanting pictures of what she calls the olden days. It’s for a model I’m making, of Apricot Place. People’s clothes, I need, mainly. I can get them off the internet, and down the library, but I’d like something more personal, too. You got anything I could use?

  With the back door propped open to let out the smell, Madeleine is poaching mackerel au blanc, with a bay leaf, a splash of vinegar. You serve it cold, with mayonnaise. Her mother’s recipe. Nelly, watching her daughter-in-law whisk egg yolks and oil, would joke: why did the lobster blush? Because it saw the salad dressing. Why did the lobster blush again? Because it saw Queen Mary’s bottom. The child Madeleine, not understanding these antique puns, would smile politely.

  She tucks her phone under her chin, pushes at the fish with a wooden fork: my family photographs go back to the early 1920s. Nothing earlier. Will that be OK?

  I’ve got some early stuff, Rose says: those photocopies from my nan, that she showed you before. So 1920s will do fine.

  Madeleine says: come over now, if you like. Where are you?

  Next door, with Nan, Rose says.

  Madeleine turns off the heat under the saucepan, leaves the fish to cool in its scented bath. Rose wheels in her bike: d’you mind? Don’t want it to get nicked.

  Rose is wearing a 1960s sloppy jumper over tight, tapering pedal-pushers. Hair backcombed into a beehive. Heavy black liner flicked up at the corners of her eyes. Like a character from Nell Dunn’s Up the Junction: ready to go!

  She says: I found a dead rat just now, right outside your gate. Its head was half off. A fox must’ve been at it.

  Madeleine jumps. Bloody hell.

  Rose says: it’s OK. I picked it up with a plastic bag that was lying around and chucked it in the rubbish.

  Madeleine tries to sound brisk and sensible: I suppose it’s no wonder if there’s an occasional rat. All these overflowing bins, the food and stuff spilled on the pavements.

  Rose nods. It drives Nan mad. She’s always cleaning up the mess.

  Why did it choose to die just outside Madeleine’s gate? Did Emm put it there? Don’t think of Emm. Don’t let him into my mind.

  Rose looks around the sitting-room: you’ve cleared it out a bit. Looks much better.

  She lifts the lid of the pink soup tureen, touches the edge of a blue-and-white-striped tea-towel. She opens a cookery book, glances inside, lays it down. With a fingertip she traces the edge of a mottled blue and white enamel soup ladle.

  Madeleine says: I kept the things I really liked. I gave the rest to the charity shop.

  Nelly had her prized collection of miniature souvenir jugs, but she didn’t need them in order to remember her past. She turned her memories into stories for her granddaughter, recounting her tales as they popped up, jumping freely from incident to incident. George threatened to send her back to her mother, because she cooked so badly when first married. I couldn’t work out how you got all the dishes ready at the same time. Some things boiled dry and some went cold waiting on the table and some were only half done. Perhaps Nelly’s glass-fronted cupboard full of tiny china pots represented a dream of order: rows of tidy dinners, smoking hot; rows of tidy husbands who didn’t knock fiery shreds from their pipes onto the best embroidered tablecloth and burn holes in it.

  Madeleine pulls down from the shelf the photograph album she inherited from her mother, a couple of art books. They take them out into the back garden, with the tray. Beer for Rose, wine for Madeleine, a bowl of black olives. They push aside dangling loops of nasturtiums, juicy long stems flinging themselves up the trellis, trailing along the ground. Flowers of pale yellow, apricot, salmon-pink, orange, red.

  Rose studies the two French café chairs, iron patched with rust and peeling white paint. Don’t tell me. From the junk market. You do like old things, don’t you?

  What do you like, Rose? Madeleine asks.

  She seats herself, shrugs. I like whatever takes my fancy! Street design. I like streets, I like thinking about how people use street space. That’s what my model’s about.

  She levers off the beer cap, pushes away her glass, takes a swig from the bottle. She says: I like computers. I’d like to have one of those computers that design and print in 3-D. That would help me make my model, all right. Dream on!

  A fat pigeon bounces through the boughs of the ash tree next door. The leaves have begun to look dry, grey-green, ready to fall. Next year, tiny ash saplings will appear all over the garden and have to be rooted up. One of the guerrilla gardeners down the street collects them. He sneaks them into derelict brown-field sites, hoping for ash groves.

  Rose describes working with the sheets of cardboard, cast-off packaging, that she finds thrown down in the street. Cardboard’s better than the wood she tried using before. Less durable. Like the prefabs they used to have down the street, see, it won’t last. She cuts it, fits shapes together in different ways. Constructing the cul-de-sac’s house façades demands constant experiment. She fiddles, destroys what she’s made, begins again. Should the passers-by be made of the same material as the road surfaces? Should they flap up from pavements, fold up from area steps? Do they have to coexist in layers: layers and layers of all the people who might have walked in Apricot Place?

  So what’s behind the house façades? Madeleine asks.

  I don’t know, Rose says: nothing. I’m not interested in the interiors. This piece is about the street.

  She turns the album’s thick pages, gently lifting, with a fingertip, the tissue-paper sheets that separate them. Tiny triangles of dark, thin card hold each black-and-white deckle-edged photograph at the corners.

  She says: hideous clothes, the women had. They must’ve bound their tits to flatten them.

  Madeleine points. There. That’s Nelly. My grandmother. The one who grew up along the Old Kent Road.

  Nelly poses, in her pale frock, bang in the middle of the group of sisters. Ivy, Mabel, Lily, Frieda, Maud. Heavy-fringed, dark-browed, squinting at the sun, they sit up straight for the camera, feet in strapped and buttoned shoes pointed to one side, hands clasped in laps. Black-and-white photograph, and yet Nelly’s powerful presence demands that Madeleine tint her in: brown hair bobbed and waved, pink cheeks, yellow beads round her neck. Behind, hands on their girlfriends’ shoulders, stand the men, grinning or frowning, hatless, their ties cast off. Nelly winks at Madeleine. I was wondering when you’d turn up. Well, come on then, girl. You’re just in time for tea.

  Madeleine leans back in her chair under the exuberant flower stems. She develops the photograph, impromptu, into a story she tells Rose. The landlady of their Herne Bay boarding house has lent Nelly and her pals two baskets for their picnic. Bottles of beer, sardine sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, watercress, jam tarts, a fruit cake. George sets to, lighting the spirit lamp, boiling the kettle. Myrtle unpacks teacups, a bag of sugar lumps, a few sticks of celery kept fresh in damp newspaper. The sisters spread a rug on the ground, put the food in the centre, sprawl round the edges. They take off their shoes and massage their toes, moan about their corns, accept cigarettes from the young men. George sings to Nelly silently you’re the one you’re the only one. She lounges, sorting the shells in her lap. Stockings rolled up and stuffed in her pocket. While the others paddle, she and George saunter into the sand dunes. Later she will find sand in her hair and inside her drawers but she won’t care. Next day George will buy her a miniature jug: A Souvenir from Herne Bay.

  Rose sips beer, frowns at the bowl of olives, pushes it away. She says: I could use your story. You write it out, then I’ll paste it up onto the front door of one of the houses in my model. Girls don’t always want to come back home, do they? Sometimes they want to stay out for good.

  She pauses. A different story for every front door? Would you do that?

  Madeleine says: OK. I’ll have a go.

  Start with a story about someone arriving. A worried mother searching for
her lost daughter? No, a man. Link it to what she’s already written about someone approaching along the street.

  She shivers. Nelly whispers: someone stepped on your grave.

  Rose glances behind her at the house. You’ve left the back door open. Shouldn’t do that. It’s how rats get in.

  Madeleine opens one of the art books, a catalogue of a Royal Academy show. Degas’s ballerinas, his paintings juxtaposed with late-nineteenth-century film stills and photographs: can-can dancers, acrobats, gymnasts. She says: more costumes for you to look at.

  They flick over the pages. One particular picture halts them: an image of a theatre’s proscenium arch, enclosing the dancers on stage. Tiny, far-off figures in frilled white muslin skirts, delicate and gauzy. Neon-bright streaks of lurid green, turquoise, rimmed by black. Black profiles; black silhouettes of men in top hats, fur collars; gloved hands holding cigars. They gaze down at the butterfly-dancers. Who’s capturing whom?

  Rose closes the Degas catalogue. So where’s the Royal Academy? Somewhere near the Haymarket, is it? You ever been in the Life Rooms there? Jerry says they’re full of casts and statues from two hundred years ago. Don’t suppose they’d let me in to have a look, would they?

  Madeleine says: I think you’d have to get permission.

  Rose says: one day I’ll get in there. If I get into art school.

  Toby and Anthony gave Madeleine the Degas ticket: we’re not coming. We’ve seen it three times already. Anyway, we’re busy cooking. Francine’s coming to supper. Sole Véronique. Cream, white wine and grapes. Nothing but the best for our Francine.

  Madeleine gaped, gripped her phone. No! After what she did? Toby sounded amused: we’ve forgiven her. She loves Anthony, which shows her good taste. She may or may not ever love me. Anyway, she’s got a new job, she’s coming over to tell us all about it.

  Madeleine says to Rose: one thing that particularly struck me in the Degas exhibition was the tiny, brief films they were showing alongside the paintings. Dancers, acrobats. It suddenly seemed odd, seeing dead people alive and moving on screen. With photos it’s odd too. Everyone’s stilled in photos. The living and the dead look just the same. Death gets cancelled out.

  Rose says: women often died young in the olden days, didn’t they? Too many kids. You’ll have to write me a story about that.

  Madeleine says: and so many children died young, too. Perhaps you should include a hearse in your model. It must have been a common sight on these streets.

  Her eyes feel wet. What is it? She sits up straight, blows her nose.

  Rose balances her phone on her palm, flips it open. You want to see the passers-by I’ve done so far? She strokes her thumb across the dark surface, tilts it so that Madeleine can see the flow of pictures. Cutouts. Silhouettes in white against black. A woman in a wide skirt. A man in top hat and frock coat. A child in a frilled dress and pantalettes. Rose sighs. They’re no good. They look like that card game Nan had. Happy Families.

  She closes her phone. Madeleine plays Tinker Tailor with the olive stones. Tinker Tailor Netsurfer Emailer. Rose blurts: d’you think people in those days fell in love like people now say they do? Lot of rubbish, I sometimes think.

  True love, true love. On the phone Toby said: Anthony and I are so lucky, we’ve found each other. Francine’s got no one. If she wants to make it up with us it’s no skin off my nose!

  White petals from the nearby rosebush topple, drift to the ground. One lands on the tabletop. Curve of white: a tulle sylphide skirt. Those hardworking ballerinas in Degas’s pictures. Under soft gestures and graceful poses they hide their strength: the ruthless determination to become artists.

  Madeleine looks at Rose’s still face. She knows her well enough by now to recognise some difficult feeling struggling behind the blank façade. Something else she wants to say, but needs prompting on.

  When d’you take your A Levels? Next summer, is it? How’s it all going?

  Rose stares at her lap. I’m thinking about dropping out. Dunno whether it’s worth even thinking about art school. The money’s going to be a problem.

  Madeleine says: well—

  Rose interrupts. I know, I know, in your day there were grants, further education was a right. Don’t say it! Times have fucking changed!

  Madeleine says: you’d be eligible for a bursary. They do exist.

  Rose shrugs. If I get in. If I do go. I don’t know. I know you have to be organised. If you really want to do it. Jerry’s lot are, for sure.

  In her squat up at the Elephant, behind the artists’ studio complex, the household, men and women alike, takes turns: shifts in childcare, shifts in working. Madeleine visited those converted nineteenth-century workshops on one of their open days. Through a wide doorway, into a cobbled yard. Old terracotta pots planted with olive trees; piles of stones; crates. Garlands of bright green ivy looped along the brick walls between the workshop thresholds, trailed above the low lintels. Children ran and played and yelled. Rose showed Madeleine the studios, approached up narrow rickety stairs with dipping treads. Wood-burning stoves; shelves full of bric-a-brac; walls covered in paintings, drawings, embroideries. The squat was tucked away behind; a former warehouse turned into a ramshackle home.

  In the pub afterwards Rose said: it won’t last long. They’re going to change the law on squatting pretty soon, make it more difficult. We could get thrown out any day.

  Rose’s feet in their Doc Martens tap against the table strut. Madeleine, I must go. Got to get to work.

  Madeleine says: Rose, what is it? Something else is bothering you but I don’t know what.

  Rose gets up. I think I’m pregnant. I don’t know what to do.

  She addresses the ground. Jerry doesn’t want a baby. Says he’s too young to be a father. He wants to have some more fun first. So if I keep the baby we’ll probably split up.

  She scoops up the Degas catalogue, the albums. Can I borrow these for a day or two?

  She marches down the garden steps, through the propped-open back door, goes ahead of Madeleine into the hall. The front door, opening, lets in a draught of cool air that blows through the flat. Rose drags her bike out, up the front area steps. She pedals away, vanishes.

  Madeleine wraps her arms around herself. How could I have been so completely crass, so insensitive, talking about death, mentioning dead children? But I didn’t know. Why did I do that? Oh, Rose, I’m sorry.

  She returns to her galley kitchen, takes up a slotted spoon, lifts the dripping mackerel out of the pan. Four gleaming fish in a row. She’s cooked too much food again. Hard to cook just for herself. One of life’s pleasures: making food to offer to others. She’ll invite Sally to supper. Does Sally know Rose is pregnant? She must do.

  She lays the mackerel on a board, slits them open, teases out the spines. For over a hundred and fifty years other cooks have stood here before her, perhaps filleting fish just as she’s doing, scraping off blue-black skin. Where did they store food? A built-in larder? Where did they throw waste? How often did the dustmen come round?

  She carries the mackerel on their plate towards the fridge in its alcove, draws back the lace curtain. Shimmer of blue china on the shelf above: Nelly’s turquoise pot that she shoved there months ago. She should sort out the contents, decide whether or not to get rid of them. She strokes the curve of the lid. Coated in dust. More neglected cleaning. Some other time. She pushes the plate of fish into the fridge, claps the door shut.

  Now she’ll read. Back to Mayhew, back to that volume of local history, to find more inspiration for stories for Rose. What will Rose do about her pregnancy? Don’t interfere. She’ll find her way.

  Loud footsteps erupt in the silence. The tenant next door thumping downstairs to his basement flat adjoining hers? Must be. Crashing down over the bare treads. He’s got an inside staircase, she remembers, down from the communal hallway. Sounds carry, even through these sturdy walls and ceilings. That baby upstairs, wailing morning and night. The mother tramping to and fro, trying
to quieten it, sometimes wailing herself. Oh you little bugger will you shut up. So many people crammed in here. All of us intimate witnesses to each other’s lives whether we like it or not.

  So many of us. Layers and layers of people who lived here before. Who walked along this street.

  Somehow she’s drifting. What time is it? Her shoulder-blades tense, the skin there tightening, tautening. The air quivers, tingles. The back of her neck twitches, as though moist fingers are touching it. Someone breathes heavily, just behind her. Sweet smell of perfumed oil.

  Somebody in the flat. Not a bad dream this time. She’s awake. Someone got in through the open back door while she was saying goodbye to Rose at the front?

  She wheels round. No one.

  She checks her bedroom, the bathroom, the sitting-room. Each time she moves, steps forward or back, she senses a corresponding movement behind her. A shadow attached to her that she can’t see. When she turns her head something jerks behind her.

  The hallway darkens. Cloud blotting out the sun. Clammy atmosphere; like blundering into a vast cobweb. A skin fastening onto her, sticking to her, that she can’t shake off. It wraps itself over her mouth and nose. Tightens. Binds her. She twists, wrenches herself to and fro, flails her elbows. Get out. I must get out. She’s choking. Dying. Keep moving keep moving.

  Something splits, tears. The passageway convulses, squeezes her. Pushes her. She thrusts herself towards the back door, falls outside, onto the garden steps. Hauls herself up them, into the daylight. Fresh air slaps her. She gasps, breathes.

  ELEVEN

  Joseph

  Joseph woke into darkness. A quilt floated around him, wrapped him lightly. Cool air stroked his face, the back of his neck. He pulled the quilt even closer, lay lapped in this warm nest of down. The half-open door let in golden light from the room beyond, the whispering and crackling of a fire. Burning wood smelled apple-sweet. Out there a chair creaked, papers rustled. He ought to get up. Too drowsy. Stay safe. Stay hidden. No one knew where he was. No one could find him.