Agatha descends. Roster lives on the lower-ground floor, next to the kitchen. He has a couple of rooms which have refused any of the technological or aesthetic developments of the last four decades. When Agatha renovated the house, he insisted on no alteration to his small portion of it. He cooks his own drab meals not in the glossy kitchen, which Agatha’s chef uses, but on his own gas stove. His utensils are Bakelite. His electricity is tungsten. His carpets and curtains and wallpaper are stained with cigarette smoke and spilt whiskey and tea.
She is constantly telling Roster to clean his flat. She enjoys telling him about people she knows who have entirely redeveloped the basements of their townhouses. It has become fashionable for wealthy Londoners to dig deep into the ground and build an underground warren of swimming pools, games rooms and home cinemas. Some have built panic rooms or underground bunkers in case of emergency. It was not unheard of for very wealthy individuals such as her to be the target of kidnapping, armed robbery or extortion. And when London rioted a few years ago, a crowd of looters actually ran down her street wearing black balaclavas, whirling golf clubs and cricket bats.
Agatha knocks. She hears the old man rise from his wing-back armchair. She hears Fedor scuffle and slip on the linoleum floor then leap to the door and sniff its base. Roster pulls it by the handle and Agatha sees him in the smoky gloom. Fedor lifts himself onto his hind legs and places his forepaws on Agatha’s chest.
“You were only supposed to take him out,” she says. “You’re not supposed to keep him down here with you in this dirt.”
“He’s a dog. Dirt is his domain.”
“Nonsense. He is a pedigree borzoi. His ancestors slept on the beds of Russian Tsars. His ancestors were kings among dogs.”
Roster looks down at Agatha. His cool gray eyes are dulled by the light. “And yours were thieves and whores.”
The Stews of Southwark
Tabitha places a copper penny on the bedside table. She and Precious stand and look at it. Tabitha holds her hands above it. Her eyes and mouth are wide in anticipation. Precious frowns.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“It did it before,” says Tabitha.
Precious leans towards the penny, as if heightened concentration will alter its state.
“It was vibrating,” Tabitha insists. “It moved across the table.”
“Well, it’s not moving now.”
They wait for a few seconds. Precious feels like an idiot. Then the penny does begin to shake. It jingles across the surface of the table like a bell being rung, then settles, still and silent.
“What do you think it means?”
“Probably nothing.”
“Why is it doing that?”
“Maybe you have magical powers.”
“Do you think it’s an earthquake?”
Precious concedes London does experience small earthquakes. She picks up the penny and puts it into her purse, then goes to the sofa to sit down.
They are waiting for the rest of the girls to arrive. Precious and Tabitha’s flat is the best place to meet as it’s the biggest, and has access to the roof garden.
Only some of the other women connected to the walk-up live in flats in the building. Others live elsewhere and hire rooms by the hour. For the most part, they get on, but it’s no utopia. Young Scarlet once called Cynthia a basic bitch and now the two women barely speak. Precious, however, is liked by everyone.
Everyone assumes “Precious” is the name she adopted on entering the trade, just as most of the other girls adopted new names. But it was the name her mother gave her at birth. Her childhood was spent between Lagos and London: most of the year in Nigeria, then long summers in the UK, visiting family. Her stepfather spent time between the two cities. He was the pastor of the strict, evangelical church in which Precious was raised, and he had travelled extensively for work, going between the UK and Nigeria and America and Canada, on preaching tours.
A clear path of marriage and domesticity lay ahead of Precious. Sex was for reproduction. She began a midwifery qualification in Lagos and then spent a year with a scheme her church ran which offered medical assistance to women in poorer parts of the country. She toured villages in the north of Nigeria to administer prenatal and postnatal care to mothers, as well as assisting the midwives with births. She saw many things. She touched bodies. She learned not to be squeamish. Although part of an evangelizing programme, this year gave Precious a taste for independence. She lived away from her family, made friends and went out in the evenings. She danced and laughed and sometimes was propositioned by men. Sometimes she accepted these proposals and went on dates, and sometimes she had sex. Sometimes the sex was wonderful. Sometimes the sex was disappointing. But she always felt in control.
She became serious with one of the men and ran away with him to London. The relationship seemed like a good idea at the time. Michael had lofty aspirations and a desire to see the world. In these things, Precious saw similarities with herself. Michael found work in a local business without too much difficulty, but Precious spent longer looking for something. She gave up on midwifery and retrained as a beautician. She got a job at a beauty parlor in Highgate. At that point
