Elijah’s Mermaid (12 page)

‘But, Elijah . . .’

‘I’m tired. This bed’s too small for the two of us.’

I said nothing more. I did as he said. I left his room and closed the door. He didn’t need me as I needed him. And when we returned from London I felt that loss again, the pillow damp beneath my cheek as I lay in my bed, in my unlit room. And
when I finally did go to sleep I dreamed of that medical specimen jar that had been on display in the freak-show tent, the one that contained the pickled twins – the twins who, when in their mother’s womb, had shared one living, beating heart.

I woke with such a sudden start, wondering whether those twins could have ever survived with their flesh being fused together like that. And when they were born were they already dead, or had they been smothered then and there by the midwife, who saw their deformity, who considered their murder the kindest thing? Had she wrapped those two freaks in a blanket, concealed from their mother’s weeping eyes? Had she sold their remains to a travelling fair? Or had their own parents done such a thing, cruelly disposing of their babes, not caring to give them a Christian grave, not caring to think of their fragile flesh as being condemned for evermore to float in a yellow limbo land?

PEARL

Strong and free, strong and free
,

The floodgates are open, away to the sea
,

Free and strong, free and strong
,

Cleansing my streams as I hurry along
,

To the golden sands, and the leaping bar
,

And the taintless tide that awaits me afar
.

As I lose myself in the infinite main
,

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again
.

Undefiled, for the undefiled;

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child
.

From
The Water-Babies
by Charles Kingsley

A week it has been, since that day in Cremorne, since the night when Tip Thomas came to my room to ask if I had been ‘prepared’, since when I have been waiting, every day staring out of this window to gaze at the river and street below, where so many gentlemen come and go. I watch them. I wonder,
Is it now?

This evening an answer is made at last when Mrs Hibbert appears at my door. The delicate rustle of black silk skirts followed by heavy thudding feet when Sarah the maid pokes her head round the door, announcing through raspy laboured breaths, ‘Mrs Hibbert . . . the doctor is already here . . . I’ve left him waiting downstairs, in the hall. And the lawyer, he said to say he’s done . . . only needing to get the signatures.’

‘
Bon!
What is the doctor’s name?’ Mrs Hibbert’s voice is thin and strained.

‘Fat Evans!’ is Sarah’s stark response.

‘Ah . . . him.’ Mrs Hibbert bows her head, her attitude more urgent when she lifts a hand and points at the maid, ‘Depêchetoi! You may tell him to come on up, but . . .’ she continues in faltering tones, ‘no need to tell Tip . . . at least, not yet.’

A clap clap clap of silk-clad hands and Sarah is gone, the door slammed behind, creating a draught that catches in Mrs Hibbert’s veils.
Hush
, they seem to be saying to me, until she coughs and breaks the spell, such a harsh and rattling sound it is, and when she begins to speak again her voice is oddly querulous. ‘Pearl . . . I can no longer pretend. The time has come for you to leave. It is not what I wish, but I think . . . I think this arrangement will be for the best.’

‘So . . .’ I cannot begin to take it in. It is a shock. It is all too soon. ‘So, what Tip said . . . so, I really must . . . so . . .’ And then I am pleading, down on my knees. I can almost hear the crack of my heart when I think,
Who will tell me stories now? Who will give me Mother’s Blessing? Who will tell me I am extraordinaire?

I am stunned. I am hardly ‘there’ at all when she drags me up and towards the bed where she pours out a spoonful of Murgatroyde’s Mixture. But no promise of sleep and sweet dreams tonight. This is to remedy my nerves, to ease my panic and distress when more footsteps tread the creaking boards.

This doctor is not the usual one who comes to visit the kitchens each month. He is fat. His face is filmed with sweat. He is a panting, swanking crow. He speaks as if I am a senseless glock when requesting my bloomers are removed, that I spread my legs so that he can examine my private parts more easily. I lie on the bed like a lump of meat, almost weeping with the embarrassment – the way he is staring at my sex. I wince and give a strangled cry when I feel his fingers retracing the flesh that Tip Thomas invaded some nights before. He grins and I notice a dribble of slime running out from the corner of his mouth when he spouts, ‘This intrusion is nothing, my dear. My client needs to be satisfied that you are all they say you are.
From now on you must learn to be brave and endure. No need for these whimpering complaints. In time you will find there is pleasure, not pain.’

But he lies to me, because there is pain. A prodding jab that makes me squirm, gritting my teeth at his meddling. But then the intrusion is done on the fly, almost over before it is begun. And now this man is looking down while wiping his hands on a handkerchief. That cloth is removed from his pocket with such a swaggering flourish I think he may be a magician about to conjure up a dove. But a dove is the symbol of godliness. There is nothing godly about this cove, who glances towards Mrs Hibbert again, who is standing at the end of the bed. When he nods his jowls are wobbling. Two sweaty red jellies on a plate when he says, ‘Bene. She is intact. All appears to be in order . . . as far I can tell. Of course, I can’t swear her free of disease.’

I’d like to tell him to sling his hook when he goes on to query the marks on my thighs where Tip Thomas’s nails went needling. He asks, These imperfections . . . are there more . . . apart from the creature’s feet? An unfortunate indication of sin . . .’

He breaks off. Mrs Hibbert inhales a breath, so sharp that her veils suck hard to her lips – through which she makes the convincing lie, ‘The child scratches herself in her sleep, and the chats such a plague this warm weather too. We’ve had all the older mattresses burned, the bedsteads carried outside to the garden for scrubbing with the sulphur soap.’

The doctor gives the slightest of frowns. A curt bow and then he takes his leave, and the next little act in this charade is when Mrs Hibbert tells me to rise, to replace my bloomers and pull down my shimmy before she leads me out to the hall, on through the heavy velvet drapes and past the guarding Chinese jars, down, down, down through the labyrinth of stairs until we pass her study doors.

Here the walls are aheave with shelves of books, and I try to concentrate on those, but the first is too ironic to bear with its title of
Randiana – The Amatory Experiences of a Surgeon
.

Below those shelves there is her desk, before which her
screever is scribbling, blotting then holding some papers out, asking for my moniker, asking whether I understand that –
In this entitlement deed, I, Pearl, do hereby agree that I give myself into the care and protection of
. . . (and at this point the paper is empty, awaiting who knows what name)
and to confirm that I am a virgin, as verified by a physician, and that as of this day, 15th May, 1864, I have reached the age of fourteen years and have therefore attained the age of consent
.

Beneath that there is an addendum clause which says that should I disappoint, or my services no longer be required before I reach my majority, then Mrs Hibbert will have first refusal to take me back into the House of the Mermaids at half the original rate of exchange, thus resuming her role as my guardian. I can only assume that as time goes by, when my husband – whoever that man might be – has finally tired of his chavy bride then my value might lessen considerably.

Despite the humiliation my voice remains steady, solemn and low, as if I am swearing a marriage oath, though the papers are trembling in my hand and I hardly know whether to scream my dissent or to fling myself down on to the floor, to curl into a tiny ball and close my eyes and make the wish that this is nothing but a dream, a story for Mrs Hibbert to tell when she next opens up her Book of Events and makes a note of expenses incurred – with meticulous columns of numbers that list the lawyer’s and the doctor’s fees, all to be set against profits raised; the push for my virginity.

A sob erupts from the back of my throat – at which she tells the lawyer to leave, and only when we are alone, the study door closed with a gentle thud, does Mrs Hibbert reach for my arm. At the same time her other hand lifts the veils – and so shocking is this revelation that I feel as I if have been clocked, a pain in my breast and a cry in my throat that comes as no more than a feeble ‘Oh!’ through which I hear her shrill demand, ‘Pearl . . . Look at me! Look at my face!’

I refuse. I jerk my head away and I hardly notice the door open up, only starting at the drawl of a voice grown much too
familiar. ‘Oh dear . . . not that dial on show again. Is there really any need? Such horrors will send the poor creature mad!’

He whiffs of gin and laudanum, no doubt on the ran-tan for hours and hours, almost falling over on his arse when Mrs Hibbert lashes out. But he only laughs, quite unperturbed, as if he is used to this countenance. And such a strange trinity we make when he rests his hand upon her arm and, after a moment’s silence, Mrs Hibbert demands of me again, ‘Look at me, Pearl. Look . . . I insist!’

One glance, one brief moment has been enough to know that the image wrapped up in my heart, the one in which Mrs Hibbert lay naked and lush on an unmade bed, soft white arms entwined with a gentleman’s – that that was no more than a fanciful whim. The reality is a hideous thing, to see the elegant ‘widowed’ Madame as vile as that freak in the mermaid tent.

I want to bolt, but she has me trapped, her hand like a claw upon my arm, such a note of sadness in her voice. ‘Don’t be afraid, ma chère. I did not always look like this. Once, I was . . .’ Black fingers release their hold on me to caress the lace that bands her throat and the golden chain always hanging there, upon which is linked a small brass key, though what it might fit I have never known. From there black fingers grasp my chin, forcing it up so that I must see, as she says, I was as pretty as you in my time. But all too soon this curse began . . . this creeping mask of the syphilis.
This
is how you must remember me, the monster who stands before you now.’

A welling of sorrow in my breast, all at once too tight; too constricted. From what sort of face had she once looked out through these eyes that are neither blue nor grey? Now, her brow is a mass of uneven lumps. Half the flesh of her nose has been eaten away. On one side of her mouth the lips are curled as if they belong to a snarling dog; a permanent sneer of blackened gums. All that remains of the hair on her head are one or two tufting ribbons of grey, as fragile and fine as spun gossamer. She
might have been dug up from a grave. She might have lain there for a hundred years.

‘Pearl . . .’ Her voice drags me back to my senses; that lovely voice much softer now, but an undisguised note of authority when she says, ‘Look at my ruin. Look at what remains . . . and only made worse by the toxic brews that I slathered on in the early years, all of the quacks’ miraculous cures that ate as deep into my purse as my flesh. My last resort was the use of this veil . . . though it does add a certain je ne sais quoi.’ Her chuckle is throaty and bitter. ‘I removed myself from the public eye and found some new employment here. I made myself a mystery while awaiting the final one of death . . . the summons that comes to us all in the end, though perhaps the cloven-footed old goat won’t be able to see me under these . . . won’t force
me
to jump from . . .’

‘Hush, old woman!’ Tip hisses his warning.

To be honest I had forgotten him here, still focusing on the single word that has struck such a dagger of fear through my mind, recalling Tip’s tales of raddled old men being cured of the pox by a virgin fuck.

‘Syphilis?’ My heart is racing. My flesh is cold, dreading to think of that ravaged face as simply a mirror of my own; the future I have to look forward to. But at last I find the courage to ask, ‘Am I really to be sold . . . given to some diseased old lush?’

I start to cry. The tears stream hot across my cheeks where I suddenly feel the slap of silk. Not too hard – after all, the flesh of the peach is spoiled when bruised – but pressure enough to shut me up before her fingers swiftly drop, renewing their grip on my arm once more while Tip Thomas releases his hold on her and begins to pace around the room, sighing his exasperation, running a hand through his long fair hair, eyes darting from us to the door again when he warns, ‘I knew there’d be trouble . . . all of these years you’ve been spoiling the girl, cosseted and moddley-coddleyed and . . .’

‘Tais toi, tais toi!’ She spins round, spitting her answer back
at him. ‘You! What would
you
have done instead? Would you be so happy to damn her soul, the same as . . .’

As what?
I am never told for she breaks off mid-sentence to face me again, the harshness of peppermint scent on her breath mixed with the noxious stink of decay as her twisted lips whisper close to my ear as if not wishing Tip to hear, ‘Pearl, you must believe, ma chère. What I do this evening I do for you . . . to give you some hope . . . to escape this house.’

‘But this is my home, living here with you. Mrs Hibbert, please . . . what else do I know?’

She draws away from my embrace. There is a great deal you do not know. But you will learn. We all do in the end. I give you this chance to be redeemed . . . to be free of me . . . to be free of Tip. I want you to be respectable, to grow up and make your own choices in life. This night will find your protector and patron and . . .’

‘And,’ Tip interrupts, ‘one who is able to pay the fees, to reimburse your expenses here.’

Beneath Mrs Hibbert’s Medusa glare, a wonder Tip does not turn to stone as she swiftly counters his remark. ‘Safe from those who might seek to lay
other
claims, who might try to take you for their own . . . then share you with
anyone
who pays.’