Still Life in The Life Room

Still Life in the Life Room

I see red.

The colour shocks me with its brightness, like the front door I walked through this morning when I arrived at the studio.

But this is liquid and it’s sitting there in my undergarments. 

Vermilion, the artist would call it. From crushed insects. Blood red.

But this is my blood.

I hear myself grunt.

Like a pig, or the feuding dogs down the stinking alleyway that backs onto our sleeping quarters.

I don’t want them decent people inside thinking there’s a hog out here. But it’s hard to be silent.

I clench my teeth and let the sound push through my belly, which feels ready to burst. A low growl I don’t even recognise as me oozes out of my cold, taut skin.

I suddenly am reminded of my little box of a room where I often lie in the dark and cover my ears. A dirty curtain divides me from them. The other girls and their customers. I have no idea the noises my customers make as I lie there, silent. I’ve blocked them even from myself.

I was born into the ‘job’, in one of the busiest pubs in London where, just above the drinking, any time of day, anyone who can pay can enjoy a whole array of entertainment. Not that it’s much fun for us. No choice really. My ma is the ‘Madame’ of the place, which helps. She sometimes slips a slice of sweetbread into my apron when the other girls aren’t around.

But the thought of sweetbread now makes me retch.

I feel a wave.

Like being slapped hard by a wooden beam. Not once but over and over, followed by a low and endless dragging. My insides plucked out of me by something very cold and very sharp.

I moan.

I want to cry.

And I want someone to hold me.

Instead, here I am in a posh building just off the Strand, the good side of the street, sitting in a water closet. Never been in one before if I’m honest. I’d heard of them, but the likes of me don’t ever expect to get to use one.

Which is why I’m sitting here, with my skirts hitched up to my waist trying not to shriek but shocked out of my skin.

The surprises started coming a couple of months ago. Ma told me one morning to get cleaned up as she passed me a new dress I’d never seen before. When I say new, she really meant a hand-me-down from one of the girls who’d ‘moved on’. Always a half-mystery when one of the girls disappears over night, nothing said but everything understood, I stopped paying attention a long time ago. Now, as I sit shaking from the wave of pain that begins to subside, I realise I have joined them in this one experience that nobody can live through but you. Your own flesh and blood. Alone.

I smell iron.

It is not a bad smell.

I know the feel of iron. The hot tongs for the fire, the pans of boiling water, the cold rod on my backside. I remember seeing one of the girl’s once, after a drunken customer swung an iron flat in her face. Blinded her, I think, or I assumed at the time when I got a glimpse of the pulp where her eyes used to be. So, I know iron is strong. But strong is not how I feel here, trembling. Now. Smelling my own waste.

In the pub we make do with chamber pots and the yard out back. Sometimes, when the stench gets bad someone will start a fire but mostly, we hope that the rakers will get rid of the worst of it. I count myself lucky. Lots of girls my age work down the sewers or at the dust-yard.

“I’m taking you down to the Strand today,” Ma had said as I stood by the morning fire the next day in my new dress, hair combed out. She dabbed a few drops of primrose scent under my ears. “Fancy place, so just keep quiet and don’t make a fuss. Do what they tell you and be a good girl.” Then she’d marched me down through the flower market, her shouting greetings to the early risers and me hopping to keep up. I wore a pair of her laced boots with a little heel that needed some practice on the cobbles and rotting flowers. As we marched, I let my imagination follow for the journey. Leaving Long Acre and going down to the river was a rare adventure and I couldn’t even imagine what lie beyond. But it didn’t matter. Soon I had found myself short of breath as we traipsed up a hill and down again, the long winding Strand that straddled the Thames. I arrived at the building, that up close seemed grander than Buckingham Palace itself, panting.

Still panting now, I taste iron. Bitter and salty and a new wave threatens to lift me up and send me crashing. I pray in the pain to be left to be swept away, off into the distance, a far-off time.

I see me when I was a kid, on the streets. So many of us then. Nothing to do but play tricks and lick lamp-posts. One kid got his tongue stuck to an icy pole. Frozen to the post he was. They had to slice off half his tongue to free him. Speaks like he’s swallowing cotton wool even now. I wonder where all those other kids are. I know a few who ended up street-walking. Worst place to be. Never know if a night will be your last. At least, thanks to my mother I got a bed in a decent place, even if I have to share it with a stranger more often than not.

No.

No surprises here. I always knew that was my lot.

But now this.

I push.

Something releases from me, and I sense wet and there’s the vermilion again. More of it now. I don’t want to die, I think, I beg, but I fear the arrival of a live baby too. How can I ever return to the tavern with child? 

I breathe out, long and in relief. A vision fills the little den and I wonder what kind of painting would I make?

A new sound comes from me, and I see a painting of our world. Would anybody want to paint us where we really dwell?

I look down into the pit of the toilet and am jolted from my hallucinations.

What am I going to do with it? It’s larger than I imagined.

I don’t know how this contraption works and I’m afraid to pull the string that dangles from the ceiling. I’m too weak to want to find out, so I scoop up the mass of clotted blood and wrap it in my cape. It’s bitter outside but I can’t just leave it here.

As I step outside, I’m reeling. This is my first time. Ma made a few girls leave when their bellies started to swell, and the label rung like a heavy chain.

I trip down the step into the thawing mud and onto the path leading back into the main house. I can’t feel my legs, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the studio and the stool to sit on.

The painter is preoccupied mixing paints and turpentine when I return and I pick up the small easel I am pretending to draw with. I clutch the pencil and attempt to feel like I know what I’m doing. I don’t.

The artist returns to the tableau and begins adjusting my hand and the angle of my head.

Our eyes meet for a second. I don’t know the colour to describe them. I only know I feel scarlet.

“Are you alright my dear?” she says, shattering the illusion. I barely nod, so as not to disturb the pose. “You look flushed”.

I die to be able to tell her how I am feeling, throbbing and in shreds.

“I’m fine, thanking you mistress. Perhaps I am coming down with cold,” I reply. It is a common response and covers so much so often, I don’t believe she’ll argue with it. But she does. “Well, I’m sorry if you’re feeling unwell but I really do want to get this piece finished by today. I’ll call for tea.”

She walks to the door and rings a dainty bell then quickly returns to her easel and continues with her brush strokes more determinedly than before. Her eyes squint and her brow is intent. I would love to, but I can’t watch her while she works. I must observe the headless bust of a Greek God that sits before me. I look forward.

I sit in silence. Do what is expected of me. The tea arrives and she pours me a cup. Sweet and hot, I think I am about to dissolve to the floor when I feel a dull cramp gripping tight and my mouth twinge. I hope she can’t read it on my face. I glance at my cape rolled up in a ball on a chair in the corner and I see red. The blood is beginning to seep through the fabric. My own bones start to sag as the afternoon wears on and my energy to keep upright seeps away, the dwindling light in the room matching the daze in my head.

I drop the pencil.

“Don’t worry my dear”, she says as she steps back from her easel and lets out a harassed sigh. “It’s done.” She smiles and for the first time I realise she has a slight accent to her voice that I recognise as both familiar and different from the many tongues we get up in Covent Garden. I feel compelled to speak.

“Can I see it?” I say and I know I am blushing.

“Of course, please, come,” she says and makes some space for me on my cotton legs. I pray I don’t fall. Her soft hand steadies my arm as she continues to scrutinise her work. To me it is sublime, and I gasp. I am in another world.

“It’s beautiful,” I manage eventually though I hear those words, my meagre words rattle in the room where magic is made. But she only laughs.

“Thank you my dear. You’re too kind.” She squeezes my arm, and I am brave enough to speak again.

“Excuse me mistress, but,” and I feel I am flailing around in the River Thames. I search for the right words. “Why can we not go into the Life Room?” It is a question that has been intriguing me for days, weeks even, while I watch her watch me, watching the stone Greek bust of a man.

“That’s a very good question,” she says, “and one I will happily answer.” She takes my other arm and looks into my face with an expression that is both energised and fatigued. She almost sings. “For so long, so very long, women artists have had to struggle to be seen. All women have to work so much harder at what they do and are rarely noticed, listened to or even recognised in many walks of life and yet we have so many more rules to follow.” She sighs. “In the art world women are not allowed to draw nude bodies. Nude male bodies. And God forbid! We cannot even enter the Life Room!” She tilts her head to our statue and laughs, “That’s why you’re here. To represent the female gaze as she contemplates the male form.” She looks at me, trying to gauge a reaction, wondering if she’s said too much and raises her eyebrows feigning dismay. “But we can’t do that in real life.”

She takes my hand and walks quickly towards a painting on the wall. A large, colourful vase of flowers, mostly white, crimson and my favourite, vermilion.

“But we can paint all the still life we want,” she says as she points up at the picture. “Flowers and fruit! The two most natural beauties of the world!” She makes the words ring sour and gives my cheek a playful pinch. “Or we can draw ourselves. My hope is," and she stops to look out of the window towards the river, towards the south, "things will change one day. For the better." She turns back to look at me again and I cannot look away. "I’m sorry, I’m probably just a little tired and I wanted to complete this painting in good time. You know, I’m leaving for London very soon, and I wanted to leave the country leaving my mark.” I retreat slightly, feeling timid of this bold and outspoken woman, whose hands I hold. Hands that are so soft to the touch but that can create such miracles and defy such restrictions. I feel certain she has made her mark. I will remember her, for what that’s worth. She leads me back to the painting and with a quick flourish of her brush, adds her signature.

When I leave to go home, she pushes a roll of canvas into my hands.

“Take this and take care,” she says, squeezing my arm again, since both my hands are full. “Down by the river are the pyres. They’ll be lighting them soon. If you hurry you can still add that.” And she nods to the blood-soaked bundle that was once my shield to the cold. I shudder to remember its absence will require an explanation. And a brisker walk than usual. If I’m lucky my Ma will be busy serving customers and won’t notice my arrival. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I hurry down the steps into the dim London night and scurry towards the river embankment just as the artist advised. As promised the streets are strewn with festering litter and I have to cover my face to stomach the stench. When I can withstand the vapours no more, I dispose of the soiled cape at the base of a pile of rubbish, high like a brick wall.

The canvas roll I hold tighter than ever and trundle back uphill to more familiar streets.

When I return to the pub I go straight up the stairs, feeling not even one step. The dingy bed edged by filthy walls has never seemed so welcoming.

I sit down and unwrap the canvas. The artist has gifted me the small canvas I held for the sitting and the pencil I held in my hand.

But there is something else. A small mirror drops onto my bed. I look into it though the glass is smudged, as transparent as London smog.

I don’t see red. I see me. My smile. My mark.

Tomorrow, in the light of day, I decide I will try to draw what I see.

Me.

I am tired, but I’m alive.

There is still life.