Kneeling on the bed, Hester puts her hand over her mouth and catches the musky smell of him clinging to her skin. She is still sobbing, and though she tries to stop she can’t. She shivers in the warm room, and sits until these symptoms ease. In their place come confusion, and doubt, and desolation; and with them the new, unwelcome realisation that it had been when he’d opened his eyes and seen her that Albert’s state of arousal had waned. Hester moves to the edge of the bed, and sits with her feet dangling over it. She ought to get up, and get dressed for breakfast, but it all seems so pointless. Entirely as pointless as she feels herself to be.
Cat hears the jeering before she sees the unfortunate butt of the abuse. She has walked to Thatcham, and posted letters and a parcel for Hester, and now has to pick up fresh meat from the butcher. This she has to do more regularly than ever, since the weather continues to seethe and stew, and they can’t keep it from spoiling at The Rectory. After more than a day hanging in the well it comes up silvery green, and slick with a wet shine that greases the fingers, smells sharp and vinegary, and turns the stomach. As Cat walked past George’s boat, just now, her heart lurched and her throat went dry. But the cabin door was firmly shut, with no sound from within or signs of its occupant. She walked on past with a slight fluttering in her stomach – butterfly wings of panic, threatening to grow stronger. She wonders what they mean. At the far end of The Broadway, where a wide open area between the flanking rows of shops forms something of an unmade square, a plump woman is standing on a rickety wooden platform. Her bonnet is no match for the powerful sun, and her face is flushed and shining. It’s the colours that draw Cat’s eye, make her catch her breath: a banner of white, green and purple hanging in swags behind the woman; a sash to match, draped over her; ribbons in the colours hanging limp in the still air. Arise! Go Forth and Conquer! the banner reads, painted by hand in purple letters that stand bold from the white sheet. A smaller placard propped beside her reads Newbury WSPU – Bicycle Corps. Licking her dry lips, and with a strange longing inside – almost like when her mother died, though not as strong – Cat makes her way over to the crowd.
It’s mostly men making all the noise, though some women join in too; laughing, passing remarks to one another, firing scandalised looks through their eyelashes. Those folk at the front of the crowd who might have wanted to hear the speech have little chance to. The strain of making herself heard above the din is forcing the plump woman to fight for breath.
‘As Mrs Pankhurst herself explained… as Mrs Pankhurst herself explained, the vote is first of all a symbol! Firstly, a symbol; secondly a safeguard; and thirdly, it is an instrument! Sisters! Comrades! Your lives will never improve until the government of this country is made accountable to you all!’ she shouts, to a fresh round of whistles and abuse. The speaker, short in stature with curly brown hair and a wide, gentle face, casts a glance over the hostile crowd with a helpless look in her eyes. ‘The vote is the instrument by which we may redress the imbalances in education, and law, and employment, all three of which remain to this day weighted so very heavily in favour of the male sex!’ she says, the words all but lost in the din. ‘They say that men and women occupy two different spheres of existence – the home for women, and work and government for men – and that these spheres have been ordained by God, and should remain separate. They say that the political world is too dirty and raucous a one for women. Well, if the home may benefit from a woman’s gentle nurturing and purity, then surely public life could not help but be benefited by the same? If it is so dirty and raucous, then let us cleanse and civilise it!’ she cries gamely.
‘Be quiet!’ Cat says, the words seeming to arrive directly upon her tongue, without first passing through her brain.
‘Yeah, stop your mouth up!’ a man next to her says, looking down at her and grinning his approval.
‘No… you, all of you! Let her speak! Haven’t you the least common decency?’ Cat shouts.
‘Oh, Christ, here’s another one,’ the man mutters to a friend, stepping away from Cat and eyeing her coldly.
‘Let her speak!’ she shouts again, louder now. A few more people turn to look at her. The speaker struggles bravely on, but Cat can no longer hear her. There is a buzzing in her ears that has nothing to do with the jostling crowd or the rising tide of their voices. The stink of sweat and sweltering skin is everywhere. The air tastes used, soiled; commingled breath, hot vapours and sour mood. The man beside her and his friend begin to sing, linking their arms and tipping back their heads in music hall parody.
‘Put me upon an island where the girls are few; put me among the most ferocious lions at the zoo; put me in a prison and I’ll never, never fret; but for pity’s sake don’t put me near a bleedin’ suffragette!’ they carol, and fall about laughing at their own cleverness. At the mention of prison, Cat feels a black fury building in her chest, bitter as bile.
‘Shut up! Shut your mouths, you worthless whoresons!’ she spits at them.
‘Here, you want to watch that tongue of yours, slut. It’ll get you in trouble,’ the first man tells her bleakly, through tight lips. He holds his finger, thick and dirty, right up to her face, and she slaps it away. Just then, a scream from the stage causes a momentary hush to fall. The speaker is looking down in horror at her white skirts, now streaked with red juices. Someone in the crowd has pelted her with a handful of rotting tomatoes, and they cling to the fine muslin; blackened seeds and flecks of skin and pulp.
‘Good shot!’ a man shouts, to much laughter.
‘Really, I…’ The speaker falters. ‘I have every right to come here and speak to you, and speak I shall!’ she rallies, but her voice lacks the courage of her words.
Cat pushes her way through the wall of people, and as she climbs onto the platform more missiles are launched. Eggs land with soggy little crunches, and one hits Cat on her arm as she straightens up, turns to the crowd. Breathing hard, she glances at the stranger, whose face is pinched and startled. The woman’s eyes dart nervously from Cat to the crowd. Cat grabs her hand and turns full face to the crowd’s contempt.
‘Shame on you! Shame on all of you! We’re not afraid of you! You can’t just shout abuse and expect us to go away! We’re not children!’ she shouts. She ducks to one side as more festering fruit is thrown, and an empty beer bottle, sticky and brown. ‘That’s your answer, is it, when a woman speaks up for herself? Attack her! Wound her! No doubt you treat your wives and daughters the same way, since that’s the only way men can continue to impose their illegitimate domination of women!’ Her voice grows louder, hoarse with fury. The speaker hangs from her hand, astonished.
‘Our wives have better sense than to stand about in public shouting about things they know nothing of!’ one man calls up at her.
‘And how can they know anything about it? About politics, or education, or their rights, when they spend all their time in the home, addling their brains with housework and the raising of children?’ she demands.
‘And who else should do those things, then? Their menfolk?’ This to general laughter.
‘I say-’ The speaker tries to interject, but Cat squeezes her hand tighter.
‘Why the bloody hell not?’ she shouts. But this is the final straw, and more objects and insults are thrown, and Cat cannot hear her own words for the cacophony of abuse and name hurling, though she knows she is shouting because her throat aches with it, and the speaker is pulling to free her hand, which Cat will not relinquish; and somewhere behind it all she hears police whistles blowing, and then a dead rat hits her legs, stinking, its eyes filmy and its tongue a dry curl between snarling teeth, brown fur matted with filth on which flies resettle, almost at once. It smells sweet and rank and putrid, so strong that for a moment Cat falters, clamps her teeth together to keep the stench out.