The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber Read Free Book Online

‘undertakers’ ball’ is a private joke between them, jokes being the main thing to have survived the three years since they were neighbours and daily confidantes.
    Soon they’re walking together through a maze of streets neither of them has any use for – streets they know only as the locales of other women’s brothels and introducing-houses, streets already marked for destruction by town planners dreaming of a wide avenue named after the Earl of Shaftesbury. Crossing the invisible boundary between St Anne and St Martin-in-the-Fields, they see no evidence of saints, and no fields unless one counts the tree-lined lawn of Leicester Square. Instead, they keep their eyes open for the same pastry-shop they visited last time they met.
    ‘Wasn’t it here?’ (Shops appear and disappear so quickly in these modern times.)
    ‘No, farther.’
    London’s pastry-shops (or ‘patisseries’, as they tend to style themselves lately) – poky little establishments that look like prettified ironmongers, displaying a variety of squat objects named after gateaux – may appal the French on their visits to England, but France is far away across a distant channel, and the patisserie in Green Street is quite exotic enough for such as Caroline. When Sugar leads her through the door, her eyes light up in simple pleasure.
    ‘Two of those please,’ says Sugar, pointing to the stickiest, sweetest, creamiest cakes on show. ‘And that one too. Another two – yes, two of each.’ The two women giggle, emboldened by that old girls-together chemistry. For so much of their lives, they have to be careful to avoid any word or gesture that might hinder the fickle swell of men’s pride; what a relief it is to throw away inhibition!
    ‘In the same scoop, maydames ?’ The shop-keeper, aware that they’re as much ladies as he’s a Frenchman, leers smarmily.
    ‘Oh yes, thank you.’
    Caroline gently cradles both of the thick paper scoops by their coned undersides and compares the four creamy lumps within, trying to decide which she’ll eat first. Paid in full, the shop-keeper sees them off with a cheery ‘ Bon jewer.’ If two cakes each is what prostitutes buy, then bring on more prostitutes! Pastry will not stay fresh waiting for the virtuous, and already the icing is beginning to sweat. ‘Come again, maydames !’
    Onwards now to the next amusement. As they approach Trafalgar Square – what excellent timing – the fun has just begun. The unseen colossus of Charing Cross Station has discharged its most copious load of passengers for the day, and that flood of humanity is advancing through. Hundreds of clerks dressed in sombre black are spilling into view, a tumult of monochrome uniformity swimming towards the offices that will swallow them in. Their profusion and their haste make them ridiculous, and yet they all wear grave and impassive expressions, as though their minds are fixed on a higher purpose – which makes them funnier still.
    ‘The un -dertakers’ ball, the un -dertakers’ ball,’ sings Caroline, like a child. The wit of the joke has long gone stale, but she cherishes it for its familiarity.
    Sugar is not so easy to please; to her, all familiar responses smell of entrapment. Sharing an old joke, singing an old song – these are admissions of defeat, of being satisfied with one’s lot. In the sky, the Fates are watching, and when they hear such things, they murmur amongst themselves: Ah yes, that one is quite content as she is; changing her lot would only confuse her. Well, Sugar is determined to be different. The Fates can look down any time they please, and find her always set apart from the common herd, ready for the wand of change to christen her head.
    So, these clerks swarming before her cannot be undertakers anymore; what can they be? (Of course the banal truth is that they’re clerks – but that won’t do: no one ever escaped into a better life without the aid of imagination.) So … they’re an enormous party