Tipping the Velvet (2002) s01e02 Episode Script

1 Oh, Miss Astley! You're back already! Hello, are you awake? I came back early! What's this? Nan, you surprised us.
We didn't look for you until tomorrow.
We were going to tell you, Nan, when you came back.
Tell me what? Kitty? No, it isn't true! I'm so sorry, Nan.
Tell me it isn't true, Kitty! It's true, Nan.
Aah! Oh! No, don't touch me! Go away! Go away! Aah.
Oh, Kitty.
What have you done? Don't be horrible to me, Nan.
I couldn't help it.
Oh, he forced you, did he? So that's what all your business meetings were about! All this time, when I thought you were mine! No, it wasn't like that! Until last night, it was just talk and kisses.
I swear it, Nan! We were going to tell you everything.
Everything? Good God, what more is there to tell? Kitty and I are going to be married, Nan.
I'm sure in time you'll come to see it's for the best.
No! No! Don't you see, Nan, it wouldn't do to go on as we were.
I believe you've killed me.
The pair of you.
Oh, come now, compose yourself, Nan! I know this has come as a shock to you, but this carry-on is quite out of proportion! Out of proportion? Don't you know? Hasn't she told you about us? I know that you were sweethearts of a kind.
Of a kind! The kind that hold hands? Didn't she tell you that we fuck each other? I don't care to use such language, Nan.
And if I did, I wouldn't use that word for anything a pair of girls can do.
You need a man for that, I think you'll find.
Eh, Kitty? Good-bye.
Nan! You said we'd be together forever.
You said you loved me.
You said you loved me! You said we'd be together forever! You said we'd be together forever.
You said you loved me.
Loved me.
Loved me! Loved me! Kitty and I are going to be married, Nan.
I walked the streets all that day, not knowing where I was going.
I wanted to see nothing, to feel nothing, to remember nothing.
Everyone I knew and loved had betrayed me.
You need a man for that, I think you'll find.
You need a man.
You need a man, I think you'll find.
You said you loved me! How could she let him touch her? I hated them, and wanted to die.
But I wouldn't let them do that to me.
Morning, Nan.
Oh, you don't look a thing at all.
Kitty's not in, is she? Or Mr.
Bliss? No fear, a bit early for them.
Yes? I've come about the room.
The house I keep here is a tidy one.
I like my lodgers ditto.
I've had trouble with single ladies in the past.
Who you see or what you do outside my house is your concern, but there's one thing I won't have, and that's gentlemen followers in a single lady's room.
You'll have no trouble on that score from me, Mrs.
Best.
5 shillings a week.
In advance.
Late payment will not be tolerated.
I expect the room to be kept clean at all times.
No cats, dogs, rabbits Now I was truly alone, a poor outcast from life's feast, tormented by my memories.
It's nice and hot.
You really should take something, miss.
For nigh on two months, I never left that room.
I barely washed, and never changed my dress, for I had no other.
I believe I would have faded away altogether, if it weren't for the little maid, Nell, who brought me morsels of food and urged me to eat them.
Nice and hot, miss.
Kitty and I are going to be married.
To join together this man and this woman You said you loved me! It was done.
It was over.
I suppose I had been hoping that she would change her mind and come and find me, but now I knew for certain she was lost to me.
It was time to face the world alone, though I had no idea how I should live in it.
But I found that to walk alone in London isn't an easy thing for a woman to do.
Hello, darling.
Oi.
Oi! What's the matter, love? Got sick because you found a penny? You hold onto me and I'll treat you Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Here, only asking.
Cow! I thought, what a cruel joke that I, who had swaggered across the stages of London, should be afraid to walk upon the streets.
And most of all, I wished that I could escape from my miserable self.
Looking for a room? How long, dear? Just an hour.
One hour only, mind.
Hello, dear.
You looking for a nice time? Not today, dear.
Perhaps another time, eh? All right, dear.
Don't forget, now.
And for the first time since that terrible day, I felt a sort of freedom, and a sort of strength.
Somehow I had taken the first steps that would lead me out of my misery and into some different way of living though I had no idea what that would be.
My little stock of money was dwindling fast, and I was going to have to find some way of replenishing it, or starve.
Necessity is a hard taskmaster.
And if the opportunity had presented itself, I dare say I should have sunk so low as to become a thief.
Good evening, Tommy Atkins.
Buying a little present for your sweetheart? Couldn't afford anything here, sir.
That's a shame.
She'll have to be content with a kiss, then, eh? Haven't got no sweetheart.
Not anymore.
No sweetheart? Good-looking lad like you? I find that hard to believe.
Are you up for it, Tommy, for a sovereign? Up for what, sir? I don't understand you.
Come on, you know the game, Tommy.
You're all at it, you soldier boys, your hands are never off each other's cocks.
Not me, sir.
I only joined up last week, I've never done anything like that.
Then it's time you began, my boy.
Just take it your hand, only a minute's work, and there's a sovereign in it for you.
Oh, have a heart, Tommy.
I'm hard as a broom handle, and aching for a spend.
Nan Astley could never have given the answer that I gave him.
But Tommy Atkins took us both by surprise! Come on, then.
Ooh.
Slow and steady, Tommy, dear.
Mmm! Go on.
I thought, if this were Walter, I'd bite it off! Oh! Steady on! Ooh! Ooh, oh! Ooh! Oh! Ohh! Oh.
I suppose I should have felt ashamed, but I felt nothing but surprise, and a kind of fierce elation that in a couple of minutes, I'd earned enough to keep me for a couple of weeks.
And so I my new career as a streetwalker, and I found it not so very different from acting on the stage.
I told myself it wasn't Nan Astley who took men's spunk in my mouth or in my hand.
But Tommy Atkins, or Eton Bertie, or Able Seaman Simms, or Bobby Brown, from Birmingham.
But now I was in a regular way of business, I needed a more regular way of life.
I had had enough of changing in filthy rooms that reeked of men's spendings.
Perhaps this respectable lady would accommodate the needs of a rather unusual female.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I've come about the room.
Say good day to the lady, Grace.
Good day, Grace.
Oh, dear.
To tell the truth, we were hoping for someone a bit older.
A widow, perhaps.
You see, um my daughter's, um a rather unusual, trusting sort of girl.
I wouldn't like to have young fellows coming in and out.
There wouldn't be any young fellows, Mrs.
Milne.
That I'll guarantee.
And I'd never get behind with my rent.
Well You see, the thing is, I work as a kind of entertainer, at parties and suchlike.
And for that, I sometimes dress in gentlemen's suits.
Now, if you and Grace don't mind that, I think I might do very well.
Gentlemen's suits, you say? Well, Grace, what do you think of that? Would you like to see one, Grace? Ha ha! My eyes, Grace, what a beauty! Would you like to try it, Grace? Yes, please! Now isn't that kind of the lady.
Ha ha ha! She gave me the first floor front, 8 shillings a week.
I think she'd have let me have it for nothing for Grace's sake.
Sometimes I thought she must have been as simple as her daughter, for she never asked where I went or what I did.
I'm off then, Mrs.
M.
See you tomorrow, Gracie.
You take as long as you like, dear.
You have your own key.
Bye then.
Some nights I didn't need to go out.
I told myself that this was freedom.
Perhaps that was the secret of happiness, to expect nothing, or expect very little.
What is it that soldiers say? If you're warm, dry, and smoking, that's happiness.
Evening, sweetheart.
How are you? Florence, are you ready? Florence! Florence.
Who knows what it is that draws one person to another.
But for the first time in months, I felt something of my old self stirring in me.
I wanted to see more of Florence.
And soon enough, I did.
Hello again.
I hope I didn't frighten you the other night.
I'm sorry, I don't Evening, sweetheart.
How are you? Oh, that was you.
Quite right.
You live up there, do you? I do.
And you live there? That's right.
We were very lucky.
Mother and I lost our other house, but Miss Darby found us this one.
And now I work for her charity, finding homes for others.
Well, that's nice.
I was just going to the park.
Will you come with me? Oh, no, I've got so many calls.
Oh.
But I go along that way.
So, you're not in your trousers today, then? No.
I like to change and change about.
Boy one day, girl the next.
Does that shock you? No, I don't think so.
I can see it must have advantages.
I suppose you can go where you like.
You can do as you like.
Exactly so! Hit the nail on the head! Miss Darby would be most interested.
She's writing a book about the woman question.
Perhaps she'd like to put me in it, then.
I certainly think she'd be interested in meeting you.
I didn't give a tinker's fart for Miss Darby, or the woman question.
But I knew I wanted to see more of Florence.
I wonder, would you like to come to a lecture with me? At the Atheneum Hall? It's on women and labor.
A lecture? I say, that's just my style, I don't think.
But I'll give it a go, if you like.
Really? Said so, didn't I? When is it? We can meet for some tea beforehand, if you like.
Done.
You live with your mother, don't you? That's right.
Before that we lived just round the corner.
Do you know, I've never been out of Islington? Very adventurous, eh? You don't have to travel far to have adventures.
You're not from round here, are you? No.
So, where did you come from? Kent.
Whitstable.
It's a seaside place.
I used to work in an oyster bar.
So, do you go back there very often, see your ma and pa? They're dead.
Oh.
I'm sorry.
No need to be.
It was a long time ago.
So, what work did you do in London? In a shop.
What sort of a shop? A hat shop.
Well, I'd never have imagined that.
Why not? I don't know.
You just don't seem the sort.
I bet they don't let you wear your trousers in there.
Ha ha! No! No, of course not! So What do you do there exactly? Do you serve in the shop or are you in the back making the hats up? I just can't seem to imagine you there somehow.
I well no.
I couldn't keep it up.
She was so sweet and straight I couldn't bear to lie to her.
But I couldn't tell her the truth either.
Is there a ladies' lavatory here? Yes, through there, I think.
I won't be a tick.
What made me think I could be friends with a respectable girl? All that was over for me.
If she could have seen me, known what I really did and what I really used those clothes for.
I belonged in the gutter.
What's your business? Don't do anything I wouldn't do, dear.
You game for it, sonny? It's a sov for a dubbing, two for a suck, but I won't be buggered.
I don't pay more than a sov for a soldier.
Dubbing or nothing, then.
Know a place? Follow me.
This is the place, sir.
Come on, then.
Ah! Let's see what you're made of, soldier boy.
No! I said no! Let me up! I'll cut you, I will! Keep still, or you'll get worse.
Ah! Uh! All right, me boy.
Your safe now.
You come with me.
You won't be hurt.
Please, constable, let me go.
It was my very first time, sir.
He made me! Constable? I'm no constable.
Somebody's taken a fancy to you.
You've got nothing to fear.
I won't be buggered! In you go.
Good evening.
I never thought Well, now you see, you have nothing to fear.
I'll see you safely home.
Or my own house is quite nearby.
Let me offer you a hot toddy to calm your nerves.
You were in a little difficulty just now, I think.
Yes, thanks ever so.
That chap said he'd buy me a drink, and next thing I knew, he dragged me off the street.
I had a bad fright there, but I shall know better next time.
Shall you? So you were perfectly innocent, were you? No idea at all what a gentleman on the town might want with a young soldier boy? No, miss.
Well, that's a surprise.
I had the impression that you understood the game pretty well.
I've been watching you for a while, young man.
There's no need to be coy with me.
I'm sorry, miss, you've made a mistake.
No, I don't think I have.
Truly you have, miss.
I'm very grateful, but honest, I'm not what you're looking for.
Oh, yes, I think you are.
But I'm a girl! Do you think I didn't know that, you little fool? Though you wear the outfit far better than most of the lads do, and you have the legs for it too, oh, yes.
And none of your gentlemen guessed? If they did, they didn't say.
And anyway, I was pretty strict about what they could and couldn't touch.
And it all went off all right.
Until tonight.
Pretty strict, were you? I wonder, should I like you to be pretty strict with me? There's no need to be afraid.
This could be the luckiest night of your life.
Come, come, where's your sense of adventure? Take my arm.
Don't think of making a run for it.
Corder is quick as well as strong.
That will be all tonight, thank you, Blake.
Yes, ma'am.
Good night, ma'am.
Night, sir.
Come, come.
How warm it is in here.
Not too warm for you, I hope.
Perhaps a bit.
What's your name? Nancy.
King.
And I think you might have offered me a glass of wine and a cig.
I beg your pardon, Miss King.
My name is Lethaby, Mrs.
Diana Lethaby.
Have you heard that name before? No.
All the better.
There.
If you were the king of pleasure, and I were the queen of pain You're very handsome, Miss King.
I know.
Oh, what have we here, I wonder? So, all your promises come to nothing after all.
Take those off.
Give me the glass and the cigarette.
Quickly! You may leave the jacket on.
And the boots.
And the hat.
Good.
Now go through there into the bedroom and open the chest under the mirrors.
Pronto! Put it on! Put it on and come to me.
Come here.
You exquisite little tart.
Oh, you sleep like a child.
I've been up this half hour making a fearful row and still you slumbered on.
I've rung for breakfast.
I hope you're hungry.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
Good.
Ah, here she is.
Good morning, ma'am.
Good morning, miss.
Very good, Blake.
Draw a bath for Miss King.
Oh, and tell Mrs.
Hooper I'll speak to her about luncheon.
Yes, ma'am.
There's a Persian story I read as a girl.
A beggar sets a genie free from a bottle and is rewarded with a wish.
He can live in ordinary comfort for 70 years or in pleasure, with a princess for a bride, servants, every desire satisfied for 500 days.
Now if you were that beggar which would you choose? The pleasure.
Good.
Ha ha ha.
So did the beggar.
So will you stay with me, Nan and be pleasured and pleasure me in your turn? Stay with you as what? Your guest, your friend, your servant As my tart, you silly girl.
No, no, no, no, not in a hole and corner way.
You'll ride out with me to the park, attend me at the theatre, wear the finest clothes but you'll belong to me and we'll pleasure each other.
How does that seem? I don't know.
I don't know enough about you to know whether I like you, and you don't know me.
I know all I need to know about you.
You're like me.
You showed it last night and you're showing it now.
You hunger for your own sex.
You hunger for the pleasure I can give you, don't you? Yes.
There are moments in our lives That night when Kitty cast her rose at me and sent my admiration tumbling over into love, and this was another, the start of a new life.
How do you like yourself? Not bad.
Smarter than anything I wore down the dilly.
It's your coming out suit.
I had begun my new life.
And what a life and what a world! It was so easy to get sucked in.
Look how they eye you, men and women both.
Hah! They'd all love to have you, but they shan't 'cause you're mine, bought and paid for.
Diana, you old roue.
You've done it at last.
Ladies, allow me to present my companion, Miss King.
This is Mrs.
Jex, Nan, quite my oldest friend in London and quite the most disreputable.
Everything she says and does is designed to corrupt.
I'm afraid I've been corrupted already, Mrs.
Jex.
Ha! Good! Good god! It talks.
That is Dickie, Miss King.
A touch of the green-eyed monster there.
Charmed.
Likewise.
So, tell me, Miss King, where does a little treasure like you come from? Like me? There's no one quite like me, Mrs.
Jex.
But if you want to know, I was born by the seaside in Whitstable, where the oysters come from.
Whitstable! Would you believe it? She's a Whitstable mermaid.
Like a mermaid.
Come along, child.
But the Whitstable mermaid was no more.
This was my life now.
For the most part, she kept me close and displayed me at home.
The boy, they called me.
She contrived tableaux so that they could feast their eyes on me.
She enjoyed that, that they could look but couldn't touch.
They knew that she would be enjoying me later.
Ladies, tonight we give you Hermaphrodite.
Oh! Oh! Oo.
We were a perfect double act.
I was the living proof of her perversity.
I was the stain left by her lust.
She had awakened something perverse in me, too, and I couldn't imagine a life beyond her shaping.
Ow! Sorry, Miss.
Easier to put on than take off this stuff.
Where's Mrs.
Lethaby? Gone out, Miss.
She went out before you woke up.
Well, she might have told me.
Well, she can please herself, can't she? Not like you and me.
Do you like being a maid here, Blake? It's a very good place, Miss but I'd rather be my own mistress.
What would you do if you were your own mistress? I'd set up my own boarding house in the colonies.
I'm saving from my wages towards it now.
A boarding house in the colonies? Yeah, for ladies.
Well, maybe I'll come and stay in it some day.
You'd be very welcome, Miss.
To mark the passing of time.
Do you know you've been with me longer than any of the others? Quite an achievement.
Take our coats.
Dickie, Clara, The boy will take our coats.
Oh, there, there.
What a little angel.
There.
Take care, will you? Ladies and gentleman, will you please hurry along to your seats? The curtain will rise in 3 minutes.
Thank you, sir.
Two gents and two ladies.
Don't you know me, Bill? Nan King.
Have you got a sec? Give us two ticks, Raymond.
What happened to you then, Nan? What have you been doing? Oh, you was missed and you still are.
There was never an act like you and Kitty Butler's.
Do you hear from Mr.
Bliss? Or Kitty? Oh, yes.
They've got an act together now playing just down the road at the Strand Palace.
What? Tonight? What time are they on? Second half, just after the interval What's the boy doing? He's talking to the nigger at the cloaks.
I'd better go, and thanks, Bill.
Can't take him anywhere.
I think you should get a collar and chain, Diana.
And a whip.
Tssssss.
Excuse me.
Call of nature.
See where she's going.
I had to see her.
I had to see Kitty again.
Where's my little Willie now He's my only comfort and my only joy Now his mother's gone to heaven All I've got's my little boy Can anybody tell me Where's my little Willie now Ooooh! Ooooh! Hey, father! I've been looking for you all over! Oh, Willie! Come to your dad and give us a kiss.
And don't you ever run away again, me boy.
Can anybody tell me Where's my little Willie now Been sick in the gents.
Sorry.
I know where you've been tonight.
Corder followed you.
But what I want to know is why! There was an actor I wanted to see! Who? A girl I used to know.
Who, damn you?! A girl I once loved more than anyone, more than myself.
More than you love me?! Much more than I love you! I don't love you at all! I hate you! Oh, Kitty.
Kitty.
You feeling better, Miss? You looked ever so poorly last night.
Oh, yes.
I shall live.
Come sit down, Blake.
Talk to me.
What about, Miss? Well what's your first name? It's Zena, Miss.
Mrs.
Lethaby says she got you out of a reformatory.
What were you there for? I was sent there on account of a girl I was friends with at a house in Kentish Town.
We were maids there together.
So, you were a maid before you came here.
Went out as a skivvy when I was 10, and then I got the place at Kentish Town when I was 14.
I was a housemaid then and I got very thick with another maid there called Agnes.
Agnes had a chap.
She threw the chap over, Miss, for my sake.
That's how thick we was.
And it was Agnes got you sent to the reformatory? No, Miss.
It was another girl.
She was jealous of me and Agnes.
It was her that told the missis.
And Mrs.
Lethaby, does she know why you were in the reformatory? Oh, yeah, she knows alright.
She's a great friend of the Lady Governor.
Has Mrs.
Lethaby ever tried Not since you came, Miss.
It was only once or twice in any case.
I think she just wanted to make it clear-like that she could do what she wanted with me.
Oh, yes.
I can believe that alright.
Will there be anything else, Miss? No not just now.
Thank you.
Very good, miss.
What had become of me? What had I become? She spoke of love, and it touched me.
But I felt too spoiled and stained for love.
Besides, I was still obsessed with Diana, for all her casual cruelty.
I must have been, for it would've been easy enough, you would think, just to walk out of the house one day when she was out, walk out forever and leave no word of farewell.
Thank you, Corder.
I hated myself.
But still, after nearly two years, I was on fire for her as she was for me.
I had started, and I had to take that journey with her right the way to the end though I feared it would be a bad end.
Well did you miss me? What do you care if I miss you or not? Now, now, little soldier, no sulks.
Of course I care.
Don't you know you're the love of my life? And then, in March, came Diana's 40th birthday.
She decided to celebrate it with a fancy dress party.
I chose to go as Antinous, Hadrian's favorite page who drowned in the Nile.
His sad fate suited my mood.
I hated my life, but I couldn't leave it.
What do you think? I think you look lovely, Miss.
I hated it all, but I still had my pride.
I would still be the most beautiful thing in the place, desired by all, inaccessible to any but my mistress.
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
Ladies, ladies.
I give you Antinous.
What, no dildo?! Where's Monsieur Dildo? He might come later, but remember, this is a very sweet and virtuous Roman boy.
Yes, delightful, mmm.
You look like a picture from a bugger's compendium, my dear.
Thank you, kindly, I'm sure.
And what might you be wearing under that, young man? Just a little au de Cologne.
No.
You mustn't touch or look.
Just use your imagination.
Don't get much chance to use anything else these days.
God, look at Dickie.
What's she supposed to be? Dorian Gray, I believe.
I swear to you, it was as big as a boy's doodle and as stiff as my thumb.
She blames it on her Hindu nurse.
I've seen that amongst the Turks as well.
They're bred like it in order to pleasure themselves and the seraglio.
We needn't go as far as that to find it.
English girls in the slums all have 'em.
They're brought up 20 to a bed, frgging all night.
No wonder they look at I was sick of it, the backbiting, the bitching.
Something inside me was getting ready to explode.
If we had a girl from the slums here, I'd pull down her drawers myself and show you the proof.
Oh, what does Antinous say? You used to be a little slum slut, didn't you, once upon a time? Of course, Blake.
Come here.
Come here.
Ooh! You're a reformatory girl, aren't you? Oh! Aren't you? Yes, ma'am.
Good.
Lower your drawers and lift up your skirt.
Oh, good god, girl.
Do I have to come and do it for you? Leave her alone.
What? Let her alone! Go back to the kitchens, Blake.
Stay where you are! And as for you, ha ha ha, do you think you're mistress here? What's it to you if I ask my girl to show me what she's got between her legs? You've done the same thing yourself often enough.
Get back behind the curtain.
And when we finish with Blake, perhaps we'll all take turns upon Antinous.
You shouldn't talk to me like that.
You don't own me.
Oh, Lord, what a bore.
What a bore.
Ha! Nothing to you, you old cow! Got up like a boy of 17, Dorian Gray! Look in the glass! You're more like the portrait in me attic.
And that goes for the rest of you, you tired old trotters! Why don't you all just fuck off on this girl's word.
I can't take any one of you! I think you're a little overexcited, Nancy! You'll go to your room now and when you've had time to think, you will come down and apologize.
Then we'll devise a little punishment for you.
Something suitably Roman, maybe.
What are you gonna do then? Throw me to the lions? I know one thing.
I'd make a tastier meal than you, you worn-out, pathetic old trollop! Oh, Zena What a night.
I've got a cloth with a bit of ice in it.
If you just let me It's all right.
It's all shh.
What is it? Can I stay here with you, Miss? I'm frightened to go back to my own room with those ladies roaming all over the house.
Yes, you can stay.
What's in the bottle? Brandy Miss.
I I I thought for the shock.
Give it here.
Oh, Miss! Oh, please do.
Did you used to frig yourself in the reformatory? You're as bad as them downstairs to think of me with a cock.
I'd like to see you with one.
What you don't mean Oh! It's only human nature after all Oh, some they like it this way And some they like it that The lady dips a curtsey And the gentleman tips his hat And some they like 'em big and fat And others neat and small But whatever you say It's only human nature after all Last Sunday I went out the park Just to take the air I saw a girl upon the swings And she was pretty fair I said, "Now shall I give a push And catch you if you fall" "Push on," she said "It's only human nature after all" Oh, some they like a nightingale And some they like a lark And some they like a pretty girl To cover in the dark And some they like a pansy And some they like a bull But whatever you say ? It's only human nature after all ?