The Apple by Michel Faber Read Free Book Online Page B

hands on his hips, there he was, silhouetted against the cloudless sky, his outline shimmering in the heat. An ecstatic dog ran up to him, leaping against his chest, licking his neck, and he embraced it, laughing. To the far left, in the corner of her mind’s eye, stood a dark figure, a Negro bearing an uncanny resemblance to an illustration in Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp , one of several novels by Harriet Beecher Stowe in Emmeline’s bookcase. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘he keeps slaves.’
    Dr Curlew harrumphed. ‘Is that the only reason you wrote to him?’
    Emmeline blinked, looked away from the window, returned home to England.
    ‘Have another chocolate, Father,’ she said.
    ‘Might you perhaps write to him again?’ asked Dr Curlew. ‘Or is he past saving?’
    Emmeline lowered her head and smiled, blushing a little.
    ‘No one is past saving, Father,’ she replied, and fetched up the letter and photograph. The mute form of Gertie was hovering in the doorway, waiting for permission to clear the table. Luncheon had run overtime; Dr Curlew must call upon his patients, and Miss Curlew must retire to her bedroom, her favoured place, always, for correspondence.

The Fly, and Its Effect upon Mr Bodley
     
    M rs Tremain opens the door of her house in Fitzrovia, to find a formally dressed, bleary-eyed, somewhat desperate-looking man standing on the threshold. This is not unusual in itself, although eleven o’clock in the morning is rather early for the first customer. Most men who get a hankering for a whore before midday pick one off the street and conduct their business in an alley, especially on these balmy summer days when no one is likely to catch a chill. Only in the evenings, when gentlemen have been drinking port and reading pornography in their clubs, and when a sumptuous meal has turned their thoughts to cigars and fellatio, does Mrs Tremain’s house become a bustling attraction.
    ‘Why, Mr Bodley!’ she exclaims delightedly. ‘Where is Mr Ashwell?’
    As all the best prostitutes in London know, Mr Bodley and Mr Ashwell are inseparable. Not in the sense of being Sodomites, for they are happy enough to trot into different rooms when each of them has been given a suitable female companion. But they are chums. They confer in all things, including the choice of brothel, the choice of wine, the choice of girl, and afterwards they compare their findings.
    ‘Ashwell is asleep, I expect,’ mutters Mr Bodley. ‘As all self-respecting men-about-town should be at this time of day.’
    ‘Some of us are early risers, Mr Bodley,’ says Mrs Tremain, motioning her guest to step inside. ‘You will find half the girls are available to you immediately, and all but one of them within half an hour, if you can bear to wait.’
    ‘Wait?’ says Mr Bodley mournfully. ‘I can wait forever. I shouldn’t have come. I should be at home in bed. I should be in my grave. My whoring days are over.’
    ‘Oh, don’t say that, sir. Come see what we have for you.’
    Mrs Tremain takes him to the parlour, where two young ladies are seated on the floor, barefoot, dressed only in their undergarments. Their white petticoats puddle all around them, touching at the hems. Their corsets are loose, sagging off their naked shoulders, the loose clasps glittering. Their hair is up, but untidy. They smell of stale perfume, soap and strawberries (a red-stained straw punnet lies discarded and empty in the corner, indicating the street-market origin of their breakfast). In the morning light the lack the erotic allure lent by lamplit shadows, and instead look domesticated, like a litter of puppies.
    Girl Number One is a pale, freckled lass whom Bodley vaguely remembers having tried once before. Girl Number Two is wholly unfamiliar to him, a sloe-eyed Asiatic with lustrous black hair.
    ‘Mr Bodley, meet our newest,’ says Mrs Tremain. ‘She is from the Malay Straits. Her name is something like Pang or Ping, but we call her Lily. Lily,