The Spoils of Sin Read online

  Fanny watched him closely. It was a novelty to have a man stand there so easy and undemanding, speaking as if to two ordinary townsfolk, with business to conduct. Her quick mind was already calculating what this business might comprise. Carola, at her side, was holding the bag of candles and shifting restlessly from foot to foot. ‘Until now,’ she repeated, with a low chuckle.

  Eli Canelli looked her full in the face. ‘You mistake me, young lady,’ he said. ‘I mean nothing more than that I have finally laid eyes on your boudoir, in all its luxuriant reality.’

  ‘Your gentlemen,’ Fanny prompted him.

  ‘Many of them would be eager to make your acquaintance,’ he went on. ‘With a little reassurance from me, and some advice on costs and so forth, they would be more inclined to venture through your door. I can be a …supplier, you might say. A conduit through which business might flow to you.’

  The idea had already formed itself, even before their building was completed. And yet, they had failed to capitalise on it. ‘We are guilty of an oversight,’ said Fanny. ‘We recognise how useful you might be to us. And yet, it is not apparent just how we might repay you.’ She glanced at Carola, who had adopted a mulish expression at the barber’s reprimand.

  ‘A percentage,’ said the man without hesitation.

  ‘Oh!’ Fanny’s mind worked even harder. ‘But how are we to know…that is, are we to ask every man whether he comes on your recommendation? And if he pays us repeated visits, would you claim payment every time?’

  ‘It will be evident from his appearance,’ Eli Canelli said.

  ‘I think not.’ Carola’s voice was cool. ‘If the man’s beard is trimmed before noon, and his hair washed, he will have them mussed by sundown, when he pays his call on us.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the barber, and Fanny understood that his wits were not of the quickest sort.

  ‘You do not fancy payment in kind, then?’ she asked directly. ‘Perhaps a weekly visit, free of charge?’

  Canelli cleared his throat. ‘I have a wife,’ he said thickly. ‘It was she who fashioned the candles. It is a skill she learned from her family.’

  ‘A wife?’ Fanny frowned. ‘How is it that we have never seen her?’ She scanned her memory for any instance of a woman emerging from the barber shop.

  ‘We have a small home, just to the south, with orchards and honeybees,’ he explained. ‘My wife suffered a small accident on our voyage here, and is uneasy about appearing in society.’ He lifted his chin determinedly. ‘And I have no wish to betray her in any way. She knows I have come here and she is unworried by it. Her absolute trust is all I require to avoid temptation.’ He looked from one face to the other. ‘Comely young ladies as you are,’ he finished gallantly.

  ‘What percentage were you hoping for?’ Fanny pressed him. ‘Assuming we can arrive at a system whereby we recognise which men come at your bidding.’

  ‘Ten per cent,’ he replied promptly, his eye falling on their notice of the price. ‘That would be fifty cents for every man.’

  ‘You must provide him with a token, then,’ said Fanny, feeling proud of this piece of inventiveness. ‘A special coin or pin that he hands to us on arrival, and which cannot be used again. At the conclusion of each week, we count the tokens and pay you fifty cents for each one. That way, we will be sure it is a direct introduction from you that brings him here.’

  ‘That is a clever idea,’ Canelli nodded. ‘And you return me the tokens for re-use?’ He thought carefully. ‘I would be free to issue the same man with a second token, would I not?’

  ‘I think not,’ said Fanny. ‘The introduction would have been made already. The fifty cents cannot be earned twice.’

  ‘How many men would you estimate we would gain each week?’ asked Carola.

  The barber spread his hands. ‘Who can say? Some weeks there might be five, another week closer to a score. There are sometimes groups who travel together, more often just one or two riding southwards.’ He shrugged. ‘It seems they all head south these days.’

  ‘And why would they take the trouble to keep the token safe and hand it over to us?’ wondered Carola. ‘There is no advantage to them in it. They might simply discard it in the gutter.’

  This was a new thought for Fanny. ‘True,’ she admitted. ‘We cannot give them a discount if we’re already to lose ten per cent of their money.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Carola. ‘And we cannot make any distinction between them and others. That would cause dissension.’

  ‘I might tell them that you only entertain men carrying the token,’ said the barber. ‘It is like a secret sign, and must be handed over in such a way that nobody can see what goes on. It is your way of maintaining security, and protecting yourselves against those who might bring disease or violence to you.’

  Carola snorted. ‘How very Italian,’ she said rudely. ‘So fond of your conspiracies and secret signs. Perhaps we should construct a hidden passage between your place and this, so the men can creep unseen from one to the other.’

  Fanny was torn between an amused delight at this image, and alarm at her friend’s impertinence. ‘Carrie!’ she protested.

  ‘My apologies,’ said the older girl. ‘But I hold to my sense that this is becoming unduly complex. We certainly value your friendship, and your endorsement of our business. It is a relief and a pleasant surprise to find you so much in favour of our activities. Your loyalty to your wife is admirable. Your candles are quite splendid. We would be foolish to jeopardise your goodwill.’

  Fanny interrupted before this speech became any more mawkish. ‘We are essentially in the same line of work,’ she realised. ‘That is, helping men to feel comfortable, less travel-stained and lonesome. There is a direct connection, as we had already recognised. If you are right in thinking that a few words from you could overcome any hesitations about coming here, then that is something we should pay due recompense for. Perhaps we can simply take note of any increase in business, especially from fresh-washed and clean-shaven men, and calculate what we owe you, on that basis.’

  ‘That demands a considerable degree of trust on my part,’ objected the man. ‘It leaves the calculations entirely to you.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ said Fanny. ‘You will know how many men you referred to us. Assuming not every one finds the desire or the courage to follow your promptings, we might still arrive at a comparable figure each week. Forget my fanciful idea of the tokens. We must be ready to trust each other in friendship.’ She held out her hand. ‘Am I right?’

  He took her hand after a moment’s hesitation, and shook it gently. ‘Thank you, young miss,’ he said. ‘We must trust each other in friendship.’ He eyed Carola thoughtfully, before giving her a smile. ‘And if I might interest you in a regular supply of candles, they will come at a price of twenty cents apiece.’

  In the first week, there were eight customers identified as having come through Eli Canelli’s conduit. Fanny took him four dollars and a length of velvet ribbon she had cut from a large swatch used to cover one of the couches. ‘For your wife,’ she said. ‘With my humblest regards.’

  If making friends were always as easy as this, she reflected, they would be top of the popularity stakes. As it was, the majority of the townsfolk acted as if they did not exist.

  Over those early months Fanny learned a very great deal from the men who availed themselves of her body. Their shapes and sizes varied more than she could have guessed. One man had a tiny organ, even when at its most engorged. Another had such length that she feared for much greater injury than John had inflicted.

  And then there was Charlie.

  About thirty years old, pale-skinned and hesitant, he had sidled through the door late one evening, just as the girls were thinking of closing up. Fanny and Carola exchanged a practised glance, which resulted in the younger girl taking him on. Wearily, she sent him ahead, according to their routine, while she went out to the privy for the fourth time that evening.

  The man undressed with
his back to her, peeling his clothes slowly down his legs, and pulling them off awkwardly. ‘You need to look at me,’ he said thickly.

  A thrill of apprehension gripped her. This was unusual and potentially troublesome. Men liked to look at her, but very few demanded that she feast her eyes on something she had come to regard as unlovely and unexciting. ‘As you wish,’ she said.

  He turned towards her, arms crossed over his chest, face shadowed as he ducked his chin. His naked belly and hips were smooth and lean. His body was washed and entirely acceptable. But at the base of his torso was a monstrosity. Ridged with scar tissue, bent and dry, it resembled nothing Fanny had thus far witnessed. ‘What happened?’ she gasped.

  ‘A botched circumcision as an infant. It went septic and a sawbones had to remove some of it.’

  She stared, first at the deformed stump of an organ, then at his face. ‘Circumcision?’ The word was not new to her, appearing as it did in the Bible, but she had yet to witness its physical effects. ‘Can you…? Does it…?’

  ‘I can piss,’ he said shortly. ‘For the rest, it remains to be seen.’

  ‘Why did they do it to you?’

  He shook his head in disbelief. ‘A woman in your business must surely be aware of the practice. Do you not have any Jews amongst your visitors?’

  She remained bemused. ‘Jews?’ She thought again of the references in the Bible. ‘Oh. I guess not.’ She took a closer look. ‘What were they intending to do?’

  ‘They remove the foreskin, when the child is a few days of age. My mother is a Jewess, and insisted upon it. She by rights ought to regularly implore my forgiveness. But instead she behaves as if nothing is amiss, and runs from the room if she suspects the matter might be mentioned. Which of course it never could be. It merely hangs in the air like a smell.’

  ‘She should be consumed by guilt,’ said Fanny with feeling. ‘The idea is barbarous.’

  ‘I agree,’ he nodded, and lifted the mangled organ with one hand. ‘I have been years summoning the guts to do what I am doing now. You are young and soft, from the looks of you. I ask you to permit this attempt, this experiment. There is no hazard to you. It might be that I require more assistance than you would normally provide, but I trust that will not discommode you.’ He forced out the words, without meeting her eyes.

  Her heart grew soft and she lay back invitingly. It was unclear as to the degree of readiness in the man. There was a certain redness she thought might indicate excitement.

  ‘Could you…handle it?’ he asked.

  ‘Gladly.’ She worked it with gentle fingers, awash with pity and concern for the disappointment he was sure to suffer. And yet, she supposed he must occasionally handle it himself. This much he would have already essayed. ‘But I guess we need to try further than that.’

  ‘I guess,’ he agreed shortly.

  She pulled him onto her, and waited for what might happen. Contact was made, and a minimal penetration. She rocked against him, watching his face. Pain, panic, concentration accompanied the rhythm she established. ‘Yes!’ he shouted after a minute or so, and she felt a stickiness.

  Silence followed, until he had rolled off her with gritted teeth. ‘Painful,’ he gasped.

  She rubbed his shoulder and said nothing.

  ‘Thank you,’ he managed finally. ‘Now I know.’

  ‘Perhaps…’ She wasn’t sure what she intended to say. His plight affected her much more deeply than she might have wished.

  ‘I can perhaps sire children,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘If I can persuade anyone to be my wife.’

  ‘Perhaps the pain would fade, with increased use,’ she managed.

  He tapped her lightly on her thigh. ‘Eager for more business, are you?’ he teased.

  She was amazed at the pleasantry. Something, it seemed, had gone right for him. ‘The box on the shelf is for your payment,’ she said, disliking herself. There was no avoiding the essential nature of their encounter and she had quickly learned to maintain a hold on it. There was little place for friendship or even a reflective aftermath.

  The man was plainly rebuffed. He pulled on his clothes and found the money. ‘My name is Charlie,’ he told her, with a little salute. ‘I trust you will not object to a subsequent transaction? Some good has been done here tonight, for which I thank you.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said. The softening she continued to feel towards him was disconcerting. It was a topic she and Carola discussed regularly: the dangerous quicksands of affection. Liking a client was almost as uncomfortable as disliking him. Any emotion was to be avoided as far as possible. Keep it businesslike, they adjured each other at regular intervals.

  Charlie left without saying anything more, and Fanny slept poorly that night.

  By October it was apparent that winter was fast approaching, and with the last of that year’s wagon trains arrived a month or more past, there was a gradual increase in the size of the town. The new migrants took a while to choose their future pathways – whether to set up home on their square mile out on the hillsides, or to establish a business in one of the new streets. Along with the families were always plenty of single men, alert for employment opportunities, lonely for female company and hiding the ever-present fear that they had made a serious mistake.

  Fanny was never sure, afterwards, where and when she first heard the rumours of gold being found to the south. The word itself seemed to float in the air, almost from the first days of their boudoir, uttered with scepticism or downright derision. It rapidly became a metaphor for unrealistic hopes and fairytale ambitions. Precise facts were entirely absent, but somehow it became known that something was going on, more than five hundred miles away in California.

  By the end of October, the rumours had become steadily more concrete. Yes, really, everyone was saying – there was gold in great quantities being found in a river somewhere not far from San Francisco. Men were leaving their work in droves, purchasing picks and buckets and mules and swarming south like ants. But others – primarily the homesteaders - still dismissed the stories as having little to do with them. They had made their choices and were prospering well enough on their government-issued acres with their healthy contented families and burgeoning apple trees. California had already been considered and rejected before ever they set out on the Trail. To overturn a decision often hard-won would feel capricious and even ill-omened.

  It was halfway into November 1848 before the girls met a man who had seen it for himself.

  Jim was his name. He rode a horse that almost glowed with quality. His spurs were made of silver. He was almost fifty years old and had a compelling story to tell.

  ‘But first, young lady, I must avail myself of your services,’ he said to Carola with an impatient smile. It was a busy evening, with four men waiting round the piano under Hugo’s steady gaze and one more upstairs with Fanny. Jim offered double payment if he could be given priority ahead of his rightful turn.

  The other men grumbled at this and Carola gave him a look. ‘Strictly in order of arrival,’ she said. ‘Any other way leads to trouble.’

  ‘Handsome horse you’re riding,’ remarked a man, clearly hoping to avert any unpleasantness. He had kept a wary eye on Hugo since stepping through the door. ‘Must have cost ye a fair few bucks.’

  ‘Right enough,’ agreed Jim. ‘How about this, then? In exchange for a most remarkable tale I have to tell, you agree to let me go up next? You won’t regret it. I don’t intend to take too long, and you’re sure to hear things to your advantage.’ He looked round at them. ‘Single men, the lot of you. Nothing to tie you to this place, pretty though it be. I can give you good reasons to head south the moment the sun rises in the morning.’

  The men glanced at each other and rubbed their freshly-shaven chins. ‘’Tis a nice horse,’ said one.

  ‘Time enough, I reckon,’ said another. A third picked out a simple tune on the keys.

  ‘Go on, then, and be quick about it,’ said the first one, evidently speaki
ng for them all.

  Jim was true to his word and, having returned from his session with Carola, spent the next hour or two regaling his listeners with accounts of the extraordinary finds in California. So compelling were his words that Fanny and Carola found themselves also sitting in the circle, the demands of the bedroom forgotten.

  ‘And why, pray, be ye here and not there, then?’ asked the most vociferous of the men.

  ‘Got out while I could. Another month or two and there’ll be a mad rush and ’twill all be spoiled. Whole shiploads of Chileans were arriving when I lit out. I found my little seam, more by luck than anything, and filled my pockets unmolested. Changed it for eight hundred dollars and the horse and a few other things. Enough to see me through my days, most likely. And if it runs through my fingers, I shall go back again.’ He shook his head, at some unspoken thought. ‘Greed be a terrible thing, mark you. When the word spreads, the whole world will head for California and the west will be changed forever. But, boys, if you get down there now, you’ll still be ahead of the worst of it. I can help you to know what to look for.’ And he drifted into details of geological science that the girls found a lot less fascinating.

  Later, when they had finally all gone, Carola said, ‘This gold business – if it’s true, it surely will bring some changes.’

  ‘Even though it’s so far away? How many rich prospectors are going to find their way to Chemeketa, think you?’

  ‘We shall have to see,’ said Carola. ‘But I fancy there might be some most favourable consequences for us all.’ She nibbled her lower lip. ‘And, if it truly turns out as that Jim suggests, we might consider removing ourselves to a point closer to where the riches are.’

  Fanny thought of the magnificent horse and the silver spurs and the apparent common sense shown by Jim, and wondered how many men would know when to stop if there was a chance of digging untold wealth out of the ground. ‘I should be sorry,’ she murmured. ‘Sorry to leave this place. It has become home to me now.’

  ‘We could return with our bags full of gold.’