Is Sarah Waters Queen of the Tortured Lesbian Romance?

華老師的著作難得提到華人，The Paying Guests女主角法蘭西斯看著1922年英國泰唔士報的國際新聞：'The French were shooting Syrians, the Chinese were shooting each other....'

華老師到美國宣傳新作，其中一站是華盛頓特區的獨立書店。店經理真的很喜歡華老師，甚至慷慨地將近一個小時的新書座談會都上傳到網路上。好難得可以聽到華老師暢所欲言。她在會中朗讀大約四頁的章節，很多人還沒看過，我把它打出來，請配著華老師現身說法仔細感覺法蘭西斯內心的騷動。我跟著她再讀一遍，有些字句便產生另一層涵意。這就是文字的韻味和後勁。而不只是看故事情節。為此，我先暫時不加註眉批。

另外，我很佩服自己的敏感度，華老師在會中提到別人問及scullery，geyser。幸好我在上一篇就先做了功課，不只看了《如果房子會說話－家居生活如何改變世界》這本書，還把它原本在BBC播映的四個小時節目都看完（網路上有），不但了解英國客廳、浴室、廚房、臥房的演變，更能理解僕人的重要和辛勞，我便能理解法蘭西斯在書中的後段為什麼可以完成一般女子做不到的不可能任務。



這一篇是另一份在曼哈頓的訪問，幾乎是上面新書座談會的文字版：Sarah Waters: Queen of the Tortured Lesbian Romance

以下是華老師的朗讀：



She began the moment the front door closed, rolling up her sleeves, tying on an apron, covering her hair. She saw to her mother's bedroom first, then mode to the drawing-room for sweeping, dusting - endless dusting, it felt like. Where on earth did the dust come from? It seemed to her that the house must produce it, as flesh oozes sweat. She could beat and beat a rug or a cushion, and still it would come. The drawing-room had a china cabinet in it, with glass doors, tightly closed, but even the things inside grew dusty and had to be wiped. Just occasionally she longed to take each fiddly porcelain cup and saucer and break it in two. Once, in sheer frustration, she had snapped off the head of one of the apple-cheeked Staffordshire figures: it still sat a little crookedly, from where she had hurriedly glued it back on.

She didn't feel like that today. She worked briskly and efficiently, taking her brush and pan from the drawing-room to the top of the stairs and making her way back down, a step at a time; after that she filled a bucket with water, fetched her kneeling-mat, and began to wash the hall floor. Vinegar was all she used. Soap left streaks on the black tiles. The first, wet rub was important for loosening he dirt, but it was the second bit that really counted, passing the wrung cloth over the floor in on supple, unbroken movement....There! How pleasing each glossy tile was. The gloss would fade in about five minutes as the surface dried; but everything faded. The vital thing was to make the most of the moments of brightness. There was no point dwelling on the scuffs. She was young, fit, healthy. She had - what did she have? Little pleasures like this. Little successes in the kitchen. The cigarette at the end of the day. Cinema with her mother on a Wednesday. Regular trips in Town. There were spells of restlessness now and again; but any life had those. There were longings, there were desires....but they were physical matters mostly, and she had no las-century inhibitions about dealing with that sort of things. It was amazing, in fact, she reflected, as she repositioned her mat and bucket and started on a new stretch of tile, it was astonishing how satisfactorily the business could be taken care of, even in the middle of the day, even with her mother in the house, simply by slipping up to her bedroom for an odd few minutes, perhaps as a break between peeling parsnips or while waiting for dough to rise -

A movement at the turn of the staircase made her start. She had forgotten all about her lodgers. Now she looked up through the banisters to see Mrs Barber just coming uncertainly down.

She felt herself blush, as if caught out. But Mrs Barber was also blushing. Though it was well after ten, she was dressed in he nightgown still; she had some sort of satiny Japanese wrapper on top - a kimono, Frances supposed the thing was called - and her feet were bare inside Turkish slippers. She was carrying a towel and a sponge-bag. As she greeted Frances she tucked back a sleep-flattened curl of hair and said shyly, 'I wondered if I might have a bath.'

'Oh,' said Frances. 'Yes.'

'But no if it's trouble. I fell back asleep after Len went to work, and - '

Frances began to get to her feet. 'It's no trouble. I shall have to light the geyser for you, that's all. My mother and I don't usually light it during the day. I should have said last night. Can you come across? You'll have to hop.' She moved her bucket. 'Here's a dry bit, look.'

Mrs Barber, however, had come further down the stairs, and her color was deepening: she was gazing in a mortified way at the duster on Frances's head, at her rolled-up sleeves and flaming hands, at the housemaid's mat at her feet, still with the dents of her knees in it. Frances knew the look very well - she was bored to death with it, in fact - because she had seen it many times before: on the faces of neighbors, of tradesmen, and of her mother's friends, all of whom had got themselves through the worst war in human history yet seemed unable for some reason to cope with the sight of a well-bred woman doing the work of a char. She said breezily, 'You remember my saying about us not having help? I really meant it, you see. The only thing I draw the line at is laundry; most of that still get sent out. But everything else, I take care of. The "brights", the "roughest" - yes, I've all the lingo!'

Mrs Barber had begun to smile at last, But as she looked at the stretch of floor that was still to be washed, she grew embarrassed in a different sort of way.

'I'm afraid Len and I must have made an awful mess yesterday. I wasn't thinking.'

'Oh,' said Frances, 'these tiles get dirty all by themselves. Everything in this house does.'

'Once I've dressed, I'll finish it for you.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort. You've your own rooms to care for. If you can managed without a maid, why shouldn't I? Besides, you'd be amazed what a whiz I an be with a mop. - Here, let me help.'

Mrs Barber was on the bottom stair now and clearly doubtful about where to step to. After the slightest of hesitations, she took the hand that Frances offered, braced herself against her grip, then made the small spring forward to the unwashed side of the floor. Her kimono parted as she landed, exposing more of her nightdress, and giving an alarming suggestion of the rounded, mobile, unsupported flesh inside.

They went together through the kitchen and into the scullery. The bath was in there, beside the sink. It had a bleached wooden cover, used by Frances as draining-board; with a practiced movement she lifted this free and set it against the wall. The tub was an ancient one that had been several times re-enamelled, most recently by Frances herself, who was not quite sure of the result; the iron struck her, today especially, as having a faintly leprous appearance. The Vulcan geyser was also rather frightful科幻小說之父 might make a trip to the moon.

'It has a bit of a temperament, I'm afraid,' she told Mrs Barber as she explained the mechanism. 'You have to turn this tap, but not this one; you might blow us sky-high if you do. The flame goes here.' She struck a match. 'Best to look the other way at this point. My father lost both his eyebrows doing this once. - There.'

The flame, with a whose, had found the gas. The cylinder began to tick and rattle. She frowned at it, her hands at her hips. 'What a best it is. I am sorry, Mrs Barber.' She gazed right round the room, at the stone sink, the copper in the corner, the mortuary tiles on the wall. 'I do wish this house was more up-to-date for you.'

But Mrs Barber shook her head. 'Oh, please don't wish that.' She tucked back another curl of hair; Frances noticed the piercing for her earring, a little dimple in the lobe. 'I like the house just as it is. It's a house with a history, isn't it? Things - well, they oughtn't always to be modern. There'd be no character if they were.'

And there is was again, thought Frances: that niceness, that kindness, that touch of delicacy. She answered with a laugh. 'Well, as far as character goes, I ear this house might be rather too much of a good thing. But -' She spoke less flippantly. 'I'm glad you like it. I'm very glad. i like too, though I'm apt to forget that. - Now, we oughtn't to let this geyser get hot without running some water, or there'll be no house left to like, and no us to do the liking! Do you think you can manage? If the flame goes out - it sometimes does, I'm sorry to say - give a call.'

Mrs Barber smiled, showing neat white teeth. 'I will. Thank you, Miss Wray.'

Frances left her to it and returned to her wet floor. The scullery door was closed behind her, and quietly bolted.

But the door between the kitchen and the passage was propped open, and as Frances retrieved her cloth she could hear, very clearly, Mrs Barber's preparations for there bath, the rattle of the chain against the tub, followed by the splutter and gush of the water. The gushing, it seemed to her, went on for a long time. She and told a fit about her and her mother's use of the geyser: it was too expensive to light often; they drew their hot water from the boiler in the old-fashioned stove. They bathed, at most, once a week, frequently taking turns with the same bathwater. If Mrs Barber are to want baths like this on a daily basis, their gas bill might double.

But at last the flow was cut off. There came the splash of water and the rub of heels as Mrs Barber stepped in the tub, followed b a more substantial liquid thwack as she lowered herself down. After that there was a silence, broken only by the occasional echoey plink o drips from the tap.

Like the parted kimono, the sounds were unsettling; the silence was most unsettling of all. Sitting at her bureau a short time before, Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms - as something like two great waddling shillings. But this, she thought, shuffling backward over the tiles, this was what it really meant to have lodgers: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself and a naked Mrs Barber was a few feet of kitchen and a thin scullery door. An image sprang into her head: the round flesh, crimsoning in the heat.

She adjusted her pose on the mat, took hold of her cloth, and rubbed hard at the floor.