Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [20]
Mary's head swung from side to side like a pendulum. 'I can't,' she said. 'I just can't bear the thought of it.'
There was a long silence. Doll Higgins seemed to be looking at her from a great distance.
'Maybe,' Mary began pathetically, 'if you could possibly see your way to lending—'
But the rage had flamed up in the older girl's eyes, and Doll's hand thumped the mattress between them, making the dust leap from the straw. 'So it's all right for me to go out whoring, but not for the Charity Scholar?' she bawled. 'I'm to dirty my hands to keep Madam's clean? Well, let me tell you, little Miss Precious: in this world, what you need, you pay for. You lost your virtue at the end of an alley like any common slut, and it ain't ever going to grow back. You're clapped and carrying, in case you hadn't noticed. You're one of us now, like it or not.'
After Mary had cried her eyes dry, and said how sorry she was, for everything, and, 'Yes, all right, yes, yes,' then Doll was very kind to her. She wiped her face with a handkerchief dipped in Hungary water, and the sharp lemony smell cleared Mary's mind.
'Young thing like you, fresh as lettuce,' said Doll, 'virgin goods, practically—you should get two bob a throw.'
Mary tried this new mathematics. Two bob by three throws— she didn't let herself think what this harmless word covered—meant a crown plus a shilling left over. (And she had done it before, she reminded herself. It couldn't possibly be as bad as what the soldiers did to her in the ditch.) 'Just this once,' she muttered at last.
'That's right.'
'As soon as it's all over'—glancing at her hard belly—'I'm going to find another trade, even if it pays less.'
'Of course you will,' murmured Doll.
She was already pulling on Mary's stay-strings; she tugged them so tight that Mary cried out. But Doll was already leafing through the layers of clothes that hung on the walls. 'No, no,' she said under her breath, 'too quiet by half.' Finally she plucked out something in orange silk.
'But it doesn't even button up.'
'It's not meant to, dolt. It's a slammerkin.'
Doll hustled her into the long dress, tying it at the waist. 'Look, it cuts away and shows a mile of petticoat. The cullies love an open gown. And see how the train flares out behind you! That's another word for us, by the way.'
'What is?'
'Slammerkin. A loose dress for a loose woman. Ever noticed the words for us all sound drunk?' Doll put on an intoxicated slur. 'Slovenly, slatternly sluts and slipshod, sleezy slammerkins that we are!'
Mary realised Doll was trying to make her laugh, to relieve her panic, but she still covered her face with her hand.
Doll ignored that, and threw her a pair of worn red shoes. 'A girl needs to stand out, on the streets. No use fading into the wall!'
'But I don't know how to do it.'
'What's to do?' asked Doll, slapping dust out of the orange slammerkin's skirts.
'The words,' stammered Mary. 'What do I say?'
'The clothes will speak for you, won't they?' said Doll cheerfully. She found a carved wooden busk and slid it down the front of Mary's ribboned bodice where it narrowed cruelly, tapering to a point.
Mary stared at herself in the bit of mirror she held and blushed scarlet. Her small breasts poked out on top of her stays, as white and hard as elbows. The gaudy silk ruffled at her neck and shoulders; grubby blue lace dangled at her forearms. She looked half dressed. She looked like the whore she was tonight.
'See,' said Doll, giving her bodice a lewd tug, 'these lines lead the fellows' eyes directly down to the spot. And your big curved flounces,' she added, snatching at Mary's skirt, 'they're meant to make them think of tits and arses. We loop one bit of the train up to your waist, see, and that's a sign that you're in the trade—in case they haven't guessed!'
'My face is still wrong,' said Mary gruffly, looking in the mirror. 'I look like a bony child.'
'But the gentlemen like 'em young, don't you know? And you have your assets,' said Doll professionally. 'Good dark eyes, and you can wear your own hair, if we comb it