The Walworth Beauty Page 4

  In the glass-sided bar, slung above the platforms, they sit on a chocolate-brown leather sofa. A waiter with flopping blond hair, eyes like flakes of turquoise, brings them a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket clinking with ice. He pours streams of foam into flutes, clicks his heels and departs.

  The clammy leather seat sticks to Madeleine’s thighs. It smells of industrial cleaning agent. Chemical lemon. She says: I wish I could come with you. I wish I could run away. I wish I still had a job.

  Toby says: I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but things are very bad at the paper. This Paris piece looks like being my swansong. So I thought we should celebrate! Another wake!

  Madeleine gapes at him. You as well? Oh, I’m so sorry.

  He says: I suppose if I’m going to chuck myself under a train, I’ve come to the right place to do it.

  Madeleine cries: Toby, don’t.

  He throws an arm round her shoulders, hugs her. I must be off. Stay here and finish the champagne. I’ll ring you on Sunday night when I get back and we’ll make a date.

  Next morning, Saturday, she goes out for a walk. She strolls south over Southwark Bridge. White clouds scud across blue sky. The river shines and ripples like bales of tossed-out silk ribboning blue, indigo, olive green. The wooden window-boxes slung outside the pub on the quay under the bridge brim with pink hyacinths glittering with raindrops. The cobbles glisten, and the tarmac, and the edges of the metal chairs outside the cafés.

  Mayhew, or one of his researchers, came this way once, surely. Pursued vagrants and ne’er-do-wells into their dens, tried to interview them. Excuse me, madam, are you a thief? A prostitute? Both?

  She strides along the edge of Borough Market. Green-painted iron struts rise above French delis on one side, newly restored pubs on the other. Gap of grey-blue sky roofs the cobbled street. The railway soars and clatters overhead. Groups of tourists photograph heaps of wild mushrooms. She turns along Borough High Street, wanders in and out of its side alleys: Mermaid Court, Kentish Buildings, Queen’s Head Yard. She zigzags towards Newington, through squares and streets named after Dickens and his characters. The vast Elephant and Castle roundabout stumps her: a shiny metal fortress circled by hurtling traffic.

  She swerves away, taps down a side street, back towards Borough. Neo-Venetian industrial façades beckon. She plunges into Marshalsea Road reaches waterloo.

  A black arch of the railway bridge frames the entrance to Redcross Way. She halts, studying the artwork of huge coloured dots hung to one side of it, then enters the narrow street. A pub to one side, the Boot and Flogger, overlooks a wire fence opposite, a tall screen smothered in dead flowers, lengths of faded ribbon, as though the wind has collected all the local rubbish and hurled it against the metal mesh.

  Seen closer up, the barrier reveals itself as a weave of beads, necklaces, dried bouquets, medallions, bows of gauze. A tapestry-collage displaying corn dollies, tiny toy dogs, handwritten cards and labels, strings of buttons and sequins. The soft fence rustles in the breeze.

  A notice covered in protective plastic names the sealed-off wilderness as a former burial ground for prostitutes and vagrants. Nameless women in nameless tombs covered by rose bay willow herb and ragwort. A battered stone statue of the Madonna stands on a stone plinth wound about with ivy. Her hands stretch out towards her daughters’ graves.

  So this place is a shrine. Madeleine fingers a green silk belt, a strip of lace: part of a veil protecting the hidden bones beyond. The decorated fence invites you to get involved with the messages and poems and stories hung on it. At the same time it tells you to keep a distance. Grasp this padlocked gate and shake it all you want: you won’t get in to the graveyard. The shut gate sends you away again, towards the main road, the hurtle of traffic, the cries and roars of the living.

  Three days later Toby rings her. You want to hear my news?

  As he expected, he’s been made redundant, along with ten other journalists on the arts pages. The union has secured them decent severance packages but that’s it.

  He adds: I shan’t see you for a bit. I’m off back to Paris, to spend some of my redundancy pay. I’m going to comfort my soul with a Cordon Bleu course. And as soon as I’m back I’ll cook for you.

  Early May gives Madeleine the fidgets. She paces to and fro in her studio, banging into the chair, the desk. Rain-drenched white petals stick to the window. The flat burgeons with plants. Green leaves veil the light. Pots of frothing green stand three deep next to the door. Green writing spells out: give us a home! Or we’ll crowd you out.

  Why not experiment, change her life? Why not move to a flat with a garden? Find somewhere to live that’s a proper neighbourhood. The City isn’t that and can’t be. It is ancient and eccentric and thrives on mystifying traditions and spectacles. The police wear special helmets. The Mayor, clad in fur and velvet draped with gold chains, rolls past in a horse-drawn gilded coach. The Christ’s Hospital scholars, dressed in black doublets and hose, process by, banging drums. The master-boatman families of the river row annual regattas and keep their ancient fame enshrined in Watermen’s Hall with its insignia of crossed oars over the entrance.

  On a morning of glancing light and brisk winds, pollen blowing in gusts, she turns out of Queen’s Wharf and walks down Stew Lane, leans on the parapet at its far end. Sour river smell. The grey water bobs with driftwood, empty plastic bottles. Pale yellow sky and sharp breeze and the incoming tide slapping up onto mud and black stones. A foreign country, over there, which she hardly knows.

  Southwark. It beckons her. Come back, come and explore again.

  No chilliness on the nape of her neck this time. Just this kindly voice. A character out of Mayhew, perhaps. Brisk tones. Giving her instructions. Tie on your bonnet. Pull on your cloak. Hoist your skirts over your arm to keep them from trailing in the mud. Descend the slimy green steps, hail a boat, ask the boatman to row you across the choppy grey waves, land you bang opposite, on Southwark’s shore. Start searching from there.

  Marcia, the young Italian estate agent, confirms the sense of this. South of the river can be cheaper, still quite rough in places, you see, those are the areas to look at. Madeleine says: I’m quite rough in places too, south of the river will suit me fine.

  Selling one flat and buying another mainly involves chivvying solicitors and filling in complicated forms. Patience, she tells herself at every fresh setback: patience. Marcia offers counsel: but at least, selling a studio flat in the City, you’re making a profit, you’ve paid off your mortgage, you can pay for the new flat outright, can’t you? Madeleine blinks: I know, I’m very fortunate. Marcia says: sorry, I probably should not have said that, I’m always in trouble with my boss for the way I talk to clients. Madeleine says: no, it’s OK, I like it. It’s the truth, anyway.

  Eventually the deal is done, a date in late July named for completion. On moving day the three removals men labour for two hours, carrying out her futon mattress, chairs, desk, boxes of kitchen stuff, boxes of books, trays of plants. The driver claps shut the back of the van. We’re not insured to cover you as a passenger. Best come under your own steam. We’ll see you at the other end, after we’ve had our break.

  Laden with bags, she decides against the bus. So blow some money.

  Sturdy black cab, shining like a beetle. She collapses onto the seat, bags spilling on the floor. The taxi slithers through streets gleaming with wet. Goodbye Cheapside goodbye Queen Victoria Street goodbye Upper Thames Street goodbye Stew Lane.

  Over Blackfriars Bridge they trundle. Past the Borough. She finds herself humming. I know where I’m going,/ and I know who’s going with me./ I know who I love,/ but the Lord knows who I’ll marry. Picked up from a favourite Kathleen Ferrier CD. Not really apt. No one travels with her except for the taxi-driver. He does, however, certainly know his way through these south London streets.

  Stop at the estate agency, to collect the new keys from Marcia. On through Newington to the Elephant, swerve into the hurly-burly of Walwor
th Road. The railway bridge runs along overhead. Turn right into Orchard Street. Then under an arch, into Apricot Place.

  Traffic noise dropped away. Short cul-de-sac of shabby, flat-fronted terraced houses, shaded by massive, speckled-trunk plane trees flourishing fans of green leaves. At the far end a warehouse, and behind that the tower blocks of a high-rise council estate.

  Her flat’s a semi-basement, down in the area. She opens the finial-topped gate set into the black iron railings, picks up her haul of bags, descends steps braced on one side by a wall of yellow-grey brick and on the other by more railings. A neat little boot-scraper, set low down, separates two of the iron struts. Tradesmen coming to the kitchen door of the house would have been able to knock the mud off their soles. What cooks, what kitchen maids, worked down here? Mind my clean floor, mister!

  She stands under the porch formed by the steps overhead. She unlocks the front door. She steps across the threshold into the narrow hall, silted with dust and bits of fallen plaster, walls stuck with dead insects. On first viewing the flat, she winced at its grubbiness, then shrugged: I’m not brilliant at housework myself, am I? Marcia gave her a coaxing red-lipstick smile: sure, the whole place needs re-decorating, doing up, but that’s why it’s cheap. I know it will be the right flat for you because it’s so old. Full of history! You’re the kind of person who likes that, I am sure.

  Marks on the hallway’s paint, faint diagonal lines, show where an inside staircase would once have led up to the ground floor. What must have formerly been a cubbyhole under those stairs remains, now a plasterboard casing holding the fridge and hot-water tank. Beyond it, alongside the small bedroom and bathroom, a galley kitchen has been squeezed in, no more than a passage leading to the back garden.

  Two whole rooms to herself; not just one. Riches. Madeleine edges through a doorless opening, into the sitting-room. Bare boards. Alcoves opposite the doorway suggest the existence of a chimneybreast and fireplace, now covered over by white plasterboard. Light floods in from the big, almost floor-length window, pearled glass at the bottom and plain at the top, facing the street. So quiet after the din of the City. Just the buzzing of an invisible fly.

  Entering, she feels she has disturbed the air. Like parting a curtain, its folds slipping over her hands. That odd sense of something brushing the back of her neck that she felt before in Stew Lane. Skin tingling, she stands in the middle of an empty space which yet feels full, currents of pulsing, unseen life, echoes of phrases she can’t catch tickling her ears, pushing her back.

  Marcia confided, on that first viewing, that she had New Age beliefs. Each time she took a client to check out a place she would utter a prayer to the resident spirits: may we come in? Have we your permission? She did this in silence, she explained, lest the clients decided she was crazy and the sale fell through.

  So how would Marcia acknowledge the force of this atmosphere? Say something? Should Madeleine clap her hands and call out hello?

  Superstition. Placating the gods of the hearth. Ridiculous. Nonetheless, just thinking of Marcia’s silent invocation works. The air subsides and settles. The calmed room simply waits. What to do next? That’s up to you, missis. Words from some long-forgotten historical novel, or perhaps from Mayhew, suddenly rising up to push her into action.

  She goes out, leans on her gate, watches for the removals men. A compacted-rubble surface does duty as pavement. Heaped, broken sausages of dog shit foul the kerb. Bulky green and blue wheelie bins. Discarded cardboard packaging piled alongside. Bright yellow For Sale signs, To Let signs, in flimsy plywood, stick up at intervals.

  A door clicks. Madeleine looks round. A woman emerges from the raised ground-floor entrance of the house next door. Small black eyes set in nests of wrinkles; grey-black hair cut in a bob. Her hairstyle and her lively face, her floaty black clothes, make her seem ageless.

  She introduces herself: I’m Sally, ground floor, we’re mostly council flats here. You’re not council, are you? I hope you enjoy your little flat.

  Thank you, Madeleine says: I’m sure I shall. Once the removals men turn up.

  Sally says: come in for a cup of tea while you wait, why don’t you? Meet my granddaughter Rose.

  Rose is a thin, shining young woman of about twenty, quivering as though electricity jumps through her. Sharp, eager face. Pronounced cheekbones, short hair in a dark quiff, full, pouting lips. Tea, Nan? I’ll get it.

  Sally ushers Madeleine into the sitting-room. Glossy pale-green damask wallpaper patterned with silvery flowers. Matching curtains. A sky-blue carpet. Flatscreen TV. Madeleine sits down where she’s told, in a plump armchair covered in grey velvet. Sally seats herself on the matching sofa, taps a cushion. This is where Rose sleeps. It’s a sofa-bed, see, it pulls out. She’s fallen out with her mum, that’s my daughter, she’s living with me while she sorts herself out. Wish I had a spare room, but there you go. Bless her, she doesn’t complain.

  Rose brings in a tray set with blue floral mugs, a plate of custard creams. Sally pours information at Madeleine: the whereabouts of the supermarket and post office, the times of rubbish collections. These were all private houses once, then the landlord sold them to the Council, they divided them into flats. Odd the way they did the basements. The tenant underneath me has to go down to his flat from the communal hallway here, but you next door, you’ve got your own entrance.

  She pauses to sip tea. The street hasn’t changed much on the outside, apart from the bomb damage down the end. Rose, where are those pictures?

  Rose picks up some photocopies from a side table. Nan got these down the library.

  Black-and-white photographs of women in little tip-tilted hats, narrow black frocks with bustles, walking in this very cul-de-sac. Sally shudders. I hate them, they make me remember I’ll die, be like them one day, yet I can’t get rid of them.

  Rose tells Madeleine about wanting to become an artist. She left school at seventeen, works part-time in a local minicab office, draws and paints on Sally’s kitchen table. Quite a few artists round here. I know some of them, up at the Elephant, the studios there.

  An engine roars outside. Sally cocks an ear. There’s your van arriving. Come and see us again soon.

  August passes, smelling of turps and paint. Madeleine explores the neighbourhood’s parks, markets. One of the pleasures of living in south London is jumping on buses and traversing the river in order to visit friends in the north; catching the bus back again late at night, sailing across Waterloo Bridge, or Blackfriars Bridge, or London Bridge. She feared she’d lost the river, moving here, but she hasn’t, she relates to it more actively than before, not just walking along admiring it but leaping to and fro across it. One evening in early September, from Tate Modern’s sixth-floor bar, celebrating a friend’s birthday, she surveys Queen’s Wharf opposite, on the far side of the lively water, a stub of red brick above the indented dock, and marvels that she ever lived there.

  She walks home, threading a path through backstreets. A nearly-full moon sails high above. Just as she passes the end of John Ruskin Street, she spots a big dog fox strolling ahead, making towards Walworth Road. The light from the street lamp gleams on its fur. It sees her, pauses. They gaze at one another. The fox obviously has no fear of humans. It trots on, towards a huddle of wheelie bins overflowing with empty pizza boxes.

  Further along Orchard Street, just past the playground, something else gleams. More fur? Another fox? Fleet as a fox, certainly, skimming through the shadows. No. A youth striding towards her. Hands in pockets. Slender build. A voice says: hi! She pauses. Recognises those cheekbones. Not a boy at all. She’s run into Rose. Even at night she shines: her dark hair, her brown eyes, her pouting red mouth. She stops: what you up to? Where you been?

  They stand on the pavement under the plane trees, by the light of the moon, and talk. Rose is off scavenging: easier to rummage through skips this late, when no one’s looking. Bits and bobs. Doors, you can get in some skips. Much better quality than the rubbish the Council ha
s put on all our flats. I’d like to put better doors in, proper solid old ones, all down the street. Give everybody a nice old door, starting with my nan.

  Rose is also after shelves, boxes, all kinds of wood. She’s got storage space now. She’s renting a room in the local community house, for a fiver a week, and she is going to take all the wood back there and fit up a studio. Build things. What kind of things? Dunno yet.

  Rose balances back and forth on the soles of her trainers. They smile at one another, nod goodbye, and part. Rose lopes off towards the end of the street. Madeleine walks on, feeling light: Rose stopped to talk, recognised her as a kindred spirit, a lover of the city at night. Rose is indeed like the fox, tawny and untamed, a swift, secret prowler, and in her tipsy state Madeleine speeds along the pavement, the lithe vixen scenting the air, part of a pack, all of them hunting for treasures, under the light of the moon.

  THREE

  Joseph

  On some evenings Joseph reached home by a circuitous route, cutting up towards Holborn from Blackfriars or Waterloo, depending on the day’s business, then letting himself get sidetracked, letting himself wander.

  Free: simply one shadow among many. From behind a wall a watchman might step forward, offering a smoke, five minutes’ company. An invisible woman’s skirts might rustle ahead. A hoarse female voice, exactly pitched to brush his ears, might sidle from an alley’s mouth. London sighed and growled and shook itself, a dog burrowing through dreams, and Joseph dreamed too. Reaching his little house in Lamb’s Conduit Street he had to jolt awake.

  Sometimes, when he came in, the three younger children would still be up, would patter downstairs for a kiss, to be bade goodnight. Alfred, Charley, and Flora. Three little curly brown heads. Three white nightgowns bunched up round knees. Three little pairs of bare feet.