When I reached the other side of the room, I doubted my eyes at first, thought it impossible that people could be watching something like that. It took me a while to understand what was happening. A couple were having sex on a bed in the corner, in the presence of an older man who was standing by the mantelpiece alongside. He was perhaps fifty or more, with big grey whiskers and wearing a red jacket with medals. I was scared he might be a general or someone of authority, but there was something about his uniform that didn’t look right; it was tatty and worn, like the ones for sale in Whitechapel.
When I looked more closely at the couple on the bed, I realised that the one I’d thought was a woman was actually a man, with whiskers, and clownish rouge smeared across his face. He was on all fours and a man with reddish brown hair and a beard was buggering him from behind. The man dressed as a soldier was watching, along with all the others in the room.
I felt as if I were glowing, that I’d be found out at any second. I was not in a crowd of men and women as I had thought, but only men, some of whom were dressed as women, in old-fashioned crinolines, bad hairpieces, and make-up clumsily applied around facial hair. I was now desperate to get out and moved towards the nearest door as fast as I could. I assumed Thomas had gone that way too.
It took a while to steer through the strange clutter in the room, past the tables covered in cheap jewellery, old fans and tatty bonnets, and the screens hung with wigs and torn and dirty dresses. To the left of the door, a man was sitting on a chair with his trousers round his knees, moaning and sighing as he pleasured himself. The man next to him wore a fair wig with ringlets and was smoking a long pipe. His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. As I passed, I dipped my hat and realised it was Dr Richard Lovett – Thomas’s best man! The man he’d wanted me to have as my physician. Good God. I had to move quickly before he recognised me.
As I reached the door, the crowd behind me erupted in cheers. I did not bother to look back and find out why but took the chance to exit. I was sweating and my heart was thumping. The next room was less busy, and still no Thomas. It had beds, sofas, a chaise longue and more people puffing white clouds at the ceiling. I nearly died when a chubby man in rouge and black eye make-up brushed past me and whispered ‘Hello’ into my ear. I tucked my chin into my neck as far as it would go and quickly headed out the room and up the flight of dilapidated stairs beyond.
Thomas had to be upstairs somewhere. Now that I knew what the place was, what company he was keeping and what he must have been getting up to, I felt even more compelled to find him, to discover exactly why he was there, and with my own eyes. I still had difficulty believing it. My husband, secretly hiding away in a mollies’ house! Was this where he disappeared to when he wasn’t slaughtering women?
A series of doors, each set back in a small recess, opened off both sides of the landing. From behind the peeling green and blue paintwork came the rustling of busy vermin and the gentle groaning of humans. I listened at the first keyhole, heard nothing, moved on, tried again and was nearly exposed when the second door was suddenly wrenched open. I retreated to the shadows, and prayed.
Thomas stepped out onto the landing! I thought he would catch me, but he was focused on other things. He strode to the far end of the landing, walked through another door and shut it. I was about to scarper – I had come too close to my luck running out – but as I stepped towards the stairs I noticed that the door he’d come out of was ajar.
I probably only had seconds before he returned. I peered through the gap in the door, saw a wooden chair in the corner next to a nightstand and what looked like a belt on it. The decrepit walls were grottier still in the lamplight. Somehow I found the courage to push the door open. I pulled my lapel across my face and took in the scene: a bed, and a young man lying on his back, wearing stays held together with pink ribbon, pearl earrings and red lipstick. I gasped, I couldn’t help it, and the boy looked at me. He was curly headed, fair, and more of a boy, probably the same age as the doe-eyed girl outside. His body was soft and hairless, except for his genitals.
He lifted his head, looked at me and smiled, seemingly not at all startled, and continued to lie there unabashed. ‘Well, aren’t you the nosy one,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the wrong room, sweetheart – mine doesn’t like to share his toys… You’d best clear off – he does have a temper.’ He drew on a long, narrow pipe and lay back on the bed.
I pulled the door to, the way it had been left, and shot off as fast as I could. I flew down the rotten stairs, through both rooms and into the pub. My insides screamed and my ears whistled. I pushed and shoved my way through the bar. I heard swearing and tutting, but it didn’t matter. I had to get out.
I thrust open the doors to the street and in my haste stumbled on something and went flying into the back
