Four Bare Legs In a Bed Read online

  Less eagerness to hurry things along,

  More willingness to wait, more gentleness,

  Would favour women’s future love lives more.

  Remember, love makes babies after all.

  (Enter Lucina, strong, broad-hipped, big-bosomed, carrying a bundle of wheat in one hand and a silver kidney dish in the other.)

  LUCINA As Goddess of Childbirth, it behoves me to point out that such trivial complaints about the possibly diminished quality of her future sex life are light-minded in the extreme. The fact is, she’s alive and the baby’s alive. You seem to take that for granted, and yet a hundred years ago – no, even fifty years ago – her friends and family would have been sending up heart-felt thanks to me for her safe delivery. It’s no tea party, you know, even now, and it’s not meant to be. You’ll recall how Eve was told, ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,’ as the bishops quoted at Queen Victoria when they heard she’d accepted sniffs of the new-fangled anaesthetic chloroform (although that didn’t stop her using it the next time, and the next). My goodness, women are so spoilt these days.

  I even hear them complaining if they have to have a Caesarean. They’d have had a sight more to complain about during my heyday, when the Roman Lex Caesarea forbade the burial of a dead pregnant woman before the baby had been cut from her womb. A certain number of babies have always got stuck on their way out, but at least now you’ve got forceps and ventouse suction and other such gadgets to help things along. Not so long ago they were still having to hack awkward infants out piecemeal, cutting off protruding limbs, coaxing out what remained with pot-hooks, spoons, forks and thatchers’ hooks. Many’s the time I’ve seen one midwife take hold of the mother and the other seize the emerging baby, both pulling and tugging for all they’re worth. And of course, with your short memories, you’ll have forgotten puerperal fever? That was caused after the birth of the child by bacteria creeping up through the still-open cervix and infecting the womb. Women died raving. Oh yes, puerperal fever killed more mothers than all the other things put together. So the woman in this little drama should thank her lucky stars and Joseph Lister that she’s living in an age of antisepsis. She may well be a bit bruised and stitched and shocked, but at least she’s still here.

  I can never get over what a short memory the human race has. It makes me impatient, it really does. Why, these days, you hardly know you’re born.

  1 ‘The ordinary leaves of the raspberry canes from late spring to full summer should be gathered and used (fresh, if possible). Infuse in boiling water and drink freely with milk and sugar. It also makes a good drink with lemon and sugar. It is well-known as particularly good during the later months of pregnancy.’ Food in England, Dorothy Hartley.

  Christmas Jezebels

  A seasonal story dedicated to St Nicholas, patron saint of (among others) prostitutes

  THE THREE SISTERS lay curled asleep together like cats in a basket. They had always shared this truckle bed; and, as they had grown older and larger, it had become increasingly crowded. There seemed little hope of an improvement in the situation, however, since the family’s cash-flow problems were by now quite hair-raising.

  Beatrice was the first to wake, frowning and snarling her way out of some dream argument. At eighteen she was the oldest of the sisters, and the most worried. Opposite her snored Isobel, a better pragmatist at sixteen than she would ever be; and in the middle lay her favourite, Jessica, an unnervingly brainy child of twelve.

  It was still very early, but already Beatrice could hear the fishermen down on the beach. The uncurtained window showed December stars fading into another fourth-century Lycian morning.

  ‘Time to get up,’ she announced at last, throwing off their blanket of patchwork sacking. Not being able to afford nightdresses, they slept in their underwear, though they were fastidious girls and always hung their stockings to dry at the fireplace before going to bed.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked her sisters as they shuffled out of bed.

  ‘He’s finally lost his reason,’ said Beatrice, staring at the pile of unfamiliar garments on the chair.

  ‘Look at these,’ said Jessica, holding up a pair of transparent frilly drawers edged with red ribbon.

  Isobel sniggered to herself as she buckled on a stiffly-boned satin bra.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch these filthy rags!’ thundered Beatrice.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Isobel. ‘We can’t go round in our pants and vests all day, and he’s obviously pawned our usual clothes.’ She pranced over to the little mirror and started to wind a feather boa around her neck.

  ‘Such obvious garments almost parody his intention,’ observed Jessica. ‘I suppose he expects me to wear this babyishly short smock with the teddy bear appliqués.’

  ‘Oh, my poor lamb,’ moaned Beatrice, hugging her sister. ‘Little do you realise.’

  ‘I think I do, you know,’ said Jessica. ‘He wants you two to dress as filles de joie, but he’s decided to aim me at the paedophile market.’

  Isobel had by now wriggled into a leather jerkin and was squeezing her feet into a pair of high fur-rimmed mules.

  ‘It’s a disgrace,’ said Beatrice, and sat down on the edge of the bed in tears.

  ‘Don’t worry, Beet,’ called Isobel from the mirror. ‘I’m not going to fall in with his wicked plans. I just like dressing up.’

  Jessica put her arm round Beatrice’s heaving shoulders.

  ‘You know what he’s like when he gets a bee in his bonnet,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘But he’s serious this time,’ sobbed Beatrice. ‘And we haven’t got any money at all. And he’s taken our cloothes!’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to wear that baby’s dress,’ said Jessica decisively. ‘And you would look as ridiculous in a guêpière as he would. So I suggest we tear the bedspread in half and share it. We can cut head holes in the middle, and pull it all together with string belts.’

  ‘Do cheer up,’ said Isobel. ‘We’re going to have to stay cool and present a united front, or we’re done for.’

  ‘Meanwhile, I’ll send a letter of protest to the Bishop,’ said Jessica.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ said Isobel.

  Down in the kitchen, they found their father, Mack, looking shifty and making toast.

  ‘Ah, there you are, my dears,’ he smiled, avoiding their eyes. ‘My goodness, Isobel, don’t you look a picture! Quite the glamour girl. But why aren’t my other daughters dolled up in their nice new clothes? I went to considerable trouble and expense, you know…’

  ‘Oh, cut the cackle, Daddy,’ said Isobel. ‘We know what you’re up to.’

  ‘I think you’re absolutely disgusting,’ said Beatrice, cutting more bread for their breakfast.

  ‘I can’t carry on like this,’ said Mack resentfully. ‘It’s not fair to take that line. I’ve only got your best interests at heart, and I don’t want to see you starve. You’re eating me out of house and home. Look at Beatrice wolfing down that last crust. I know you’re growing girls, but we’re getting through five loaves a week. We’ve sold everything we can. Nobody will marry you because you haven’t got dowries…’

  ‘No, you drank them after mother died,’ interrupted Beatrice.

  ‘… And quite frankly, you’re my daughters and it’s about time you started bringing in some money.’

  ‘Why don’t you go out and get a job?’ asked Isobel. ‘After all, you’re a qualified herring-gutter.’

  ‘Times are hard!’ he snapped. ‘You can’t just walk into a job these days.’

  ‘I wish we could get jobs and help you, Daddy,’ said Jessica. ‘But we’re not trained to do anything.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of what I’m suggesting, my dear!’ he beamed at her. ‘You don’t need qualifications!’

  ‘Aren’t you ashamed of trying to force your own daughters into a life of trollopdom?’ enquired Beatrice coldly.

  ‘
Watch your language!’ barked Mack. ‘No, no. You’ve misunderstood. I want you to have careers. And the best career opening for any woman just now is as a hostess.’

  ‘A hostess? A streetwalker, you mean,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Who said anything about streets?’ he asked tetchily. ‘You would be doing business in the comfort of your own home, with all the benefits of a freelance’s life. You could break for meals whenever you wanted, and fit the housework in round clients at your own leisure. I can’t see any drawbacks myself.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be any for you, that’s why,’ said Isobel.

  ‘Except a bad conscience,’ added Beatrice.

  ‘Look, there’s nothing wrong in the job,’ said Mack in self-righteous tones. ‘It’s natural, after all, and it’s useful to society. Think of the loneliness and frustration of travellers on their own, or of sailors like that bunch from Tripolis last week. If they’re able to pass their time in agreeable company and relieve their natural urges, then they’re not going to go round smashing windows and beating up peaceful citizens, are they? It stands to reason.’

  ‘So you mean we’d be like social workers?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Just give it some thought,’ snarled Mack. He locked them in the kitchen and shouted ‘Back at lunch-time’ through the keyhole.

  ‘There always seems to be enough for a glass of retsina,’ said Isobel resentfully.

  ‘He’s gone to drum up custom,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘We’ve finished the bread and there’s nothing for lunch,’ said Jessica.

  Early in the afternoon, Mack returned to the attack.

  ‘You’re lovely girls, all of you,’ he said, and on his breath was the fermented smell of loquacity with which they were so familiar. ‘Even you, Beatrice. Big girl. Nice manners too, most of the time. Oh, we brought you up well.’ He dashed moisture from his eye. ‘You’ll make a good team.’

  ‘I’m worried that our team has only a very limited appeal,’ mused Isobel. ‘I mean, as an all-girl affair, we’re completely missing a large section of the market. Why don’t you join us as a working partner, Father? You’re still a fine figure of a man, and you know what sailors are. Not to mention the boys who come over from Macedonia.’

  Mack stared at her sorrowfully from eyes spider-veined with alcohol and sunlight.

  ‘I’m ashamed to hear a daughter of mine talk like that,’ he said. ‘The trouble with you girls is that you don’t know what life is about. The act of love between two people is a very beautiful thing. It’s not a subject for snickering over. You’re not being asked to do anything unnatural. No more than one at a time.’ He paused. ‘Even though we’d make a lot more like that,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Jessica.

  ‘Blame your sisters, then, and your own pig-headedness,’ said Mack.

  ‘I’d rather starve to death than do what you’re asking,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mack. ‘You think life’s a big tea party, don’t you? You think you were born with a meal ticket. Well, let me tell you, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’

  ‘I never said there was,’ said Beatrice. ‘But I happen to know what I want from life, which is half the battle.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mack again, heavily ironic. ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Freedom, and the same chances as men to earn my living.’

  ‘I want money and pleasure, but only with self-respect,’ added Isobel.

  ‘What about you, madam?’ asked Mack, glaring at Jessica. ‘I suppose you’ve got it all worked out too?’

  ‘Oh, I want true love, by which I mean a tender and enduring passion based on moral judgment and mutual esteem,’ said the girl.

  Mack took a spotted handkerchief from his pocket and wearily wiped his forehead.

  ‘We’re not getting anywhere, are we,’ he said sadly at last. ‘Let’s face it, my dears. Times are hard. Think of the little friends you used to play with down on the seashore. The Okapi girls are all working for their father. The Giliki family have virtually cornered the market down by the Goat in Boots, what with their spangled counterpanes and their oyster-scented candles. They probably didn’t particularly want to do it at first – they’d rather have been lounging around in armchairs all day – but they couldn’t make money any other way and they felt a very proper sense of duty towards their loving parents.’

  The girls remained silent.

  ‘You can’t do anything else,’ reasoned Mack. ‘Well, you could hem togas from five in the morning till midnight for two lire a week, I suppose, but that wouldn’t keep us in bread, and it would ruin your poor eyes. If I turned you out of the house to fend for yourselves, you’d each of you be doing what I’m suggesting inside three months, but without my protection or a roof over your heads.’

  ‘And what would your cut be, Father?’ asked Isobel keenly. ‘What percentage would you take?’

  ‘Naturally I would have to deduct your board and lodging, so that would include the mortgage and all bills. But that’s not the point. No, it would be a two-way process. I’d find the clients and take away all that unfeminine business of haggling; you would be left free to concentrate on being pleasant and pretty.’

  ‘Oh, Father,’ burst out Beatrice, ‘What would our mother say if she could hear you now?’

  ‘I won’t have you dragging your mother into this,’ shouted Mack, his temper in shreds at last, slamming his way out of the kitchen and back to the Goat in Boots without, however, forgetting to lock the door behind him.

  The girls passed a long afternoon discussing their predicament. Jessica had noticed on the way downstairs to breakfast that morning that the parlour had been divided by makeshift curtains of sacking and old fishing nets into several small cubicles. This observation now assumed a sinister significance in their minds.

  ‘He’s planning a major assault tonight,’ commented Isobel. ‘So we must take precautions.’

  Accordingly they made what preparations they could.

  In the early evening Mack put his head round the door and winked at them roguishly.

  ‘I’m throwing an impromptu cocktail party, girlies,’ he said. ‘But for goodness’ sake do something about your faces. You’re all as white as turnips. You could at least dab some cochineal on your mouths; it’s in the pantry. Hurry up, though. I want you to meet my friends.’

  ‘Let’s have a butcher’s,’ came a voice from somewhere close behind him.

  ‘Not yet,’ he hissed, and closed the door again.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Isobel, and the sisters kissed each other before trooping upstairs to the parlour.

  ‘Let me introduce you to my gorgeous daughters, gentlemen,’ said Mack, sweating and smiling like a crocodile. By the window stood three men holding thimblefuls of Mack’s best Smyrna liqueur. The girls eyed them up and down with interest.

  ‘Not a pretty sight,’ muttered Isobel.

  The most self-assured was a heavily built blond of about fifty, expensively dressed, his velvet shoulders lavishly powdered with scurf.

  ‘Beatrice, my dear,’ said Mack, ‘This is Mr, er …’

  ‘No names,’ said the man.

  ‘No pack-drill,’ responded Beatrice smartly. Mack pinched her and took her to one side.

  ‘He’s a very important man, and he’s rolling in it,’ he hissed. ‘Be nice to him or I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.’

  Isobel had been staring with interest at another of the men, a blushing bull-necked redhead with skin like orange peel.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Soska!’ she called gaily across the room. ‘He’s the police constable from Apamicea, where Aunt Sophia lives,’ she added, as if in explanation to Jessica.

  ‘Will you be quiet!’ hissed Mack, steering her towards a cubicle and throwing a smile which was both appalled and fawning at the policeman, who was by now incapable of raising his eyes from the ground.

  ‘And this is my youngest child, little Jessica,’ sai
d Mack to the remaining customer, a jittery old greybeard with a swinish eye.

  ‘You’re quite sure she’s, ah, as we discussed?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ enthused Mack, ‘all my girls are guaranteed absolutely intacta, of course, but this one even more so.’ He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the old man lead his youngest daughter away.

  Beatrice was explaining her position to the nameless man.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t possibly do what you’re suggesting as I live my life by the Kantian Imperative,’ she said. ‘Do you know it? “Act in such a way that you never treat humanity, either in your own person or in the person of others, as a means only, but always equally as an end.”’

  ‘No problem,’ he sniggered. ‘I want your end for my own means.’

  ‘As far as I can see, mutual desire or generative impulses are the only proper motives for the sexual act,’ she said as she dodged his grip. ‘But you are trying to use my poverty to buy me. Doesn’t it make you weep to see how vast numbers of people are forced by the wolf at the door to sell themselves to the wolf in the bed?’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he snarled, grappling with the string around her sacking robe. ‘Girls go on the game because they enjoy it.’

  ‘So you think the real attractions for me are your surface moistness as of a cheese in summer and the way spit crowds the corners of your dewlaps,’ panted Beatrice.

  ‘Just shut up and lie down! I don’t pay you to talk.’

  ‘For your own sake I think you should buy a blow-up rubber doll,’ she gasped, parrying a clumsy rabbit punch with ease. ‘Because you’re harming yourself even more than me by taking that attitude towards a fellow member of the human race.’

  They wrestled each other into a swaying clinch.

  ‘I can see your dilemma, I can really, and I sympathise,’ she continued. ‘Even so, I haven’t yet mastered the art of transcendental meditation and I can’t divorce my body from the rest of me while you use it to give yourself relief.’

  By this time the man had inched and grappled her over towards the bed, and now he tipped her onto it. Holding her down with his knee, he paused to unbutton himself, but when he looked up she had produced a large carving knife from inside her dress.