Sugar work takes place in the basement kitchen, a long, dim room in the bowels of the old house. The others are apt to complain of the gloom, but I like the severe wooden paneling and wrought iron fittings. For it seems to me that any material as dour as walnut wainscoting must surely know how to keep a secret.
Sunlight has not yet touched the cold crust of the Earth by the time we sugar workers are huddled around the groaning stove, neatly tucked into our calico aprons. Everyone looks quite ridiculous in the frilly caps. Everyone that is except for Clarice, whose pale face is framed by white-blonde curls as radiant as a halo. Clarice is Mrs. Beaton’s favorite, and we’re all supposed to look up to her.
We begin by melting sugar. One by one, we fetch our portion from the unlocked pantry and return to our stations, cradling the stout paper bags as if they were babies. I love everything about sugar. I love turning back the crumpled edges of the packet and peering in to see the innocent contents. I love the hiss of the granules spilling into the bottom of the skillet almost as much as I love watching them liquify. At boiling point, sugar could be mistaken for water but the trained eye can discern the slight tackiness of the bubbles, their reluctance to pop.
Come girls! Come here and see how it should be done. Mrs. Beaton’s shrill voice rings off the copper pots. Dutifully we gather around Clarice’s hob. Her hand flutters like a dove’s wing as she spins threads with the tines of a fork. Strands as fine as silk catch the low lamplight and shimmer for an instant before floating away to become invisible.
After spinning, Clarice moves on to the main task. She drips caramelized sugar from a pewter spoon onto an enormous domed vessel. Round and round her hand dances. The strands cross and twine over each other like molten gold. When she slowly separates the brittle caramel from the mold, the others catch their breath. Their gasps reverberate around the room as Clarice displays her creation, a gilded bird cage. Marianne, Mrs. Beaton’s jowls tremble as she addresses me. Take Clarice’s masterpiece to the setting room.
My work has never made it into the setting room. The majority of my creations are crushed by Mrs. Beaton’s heavy rolling pin and fed to her pet pig. Any surviving pieces are put up on the high shelf as examples of what not to do. I don’t mind much. The only time I cried was when she destroyed my candied wasps. I’d taken such care to preserve their bodies using clarified sugar syrup and gelatine. You could even see the sheer membranes of the insects’ tiny wings when you held the candies up to the light.
Clarice’s bird cage wobbles in my hands as I walk along the narrow passage to the setting room. She has overworked the dome. The whole thing is top heavy. It’s not inconceivable that the sugar cage might topple and be dashed to pieces on the flagstones. Mixed with dust and cobwebs, the broken shards would be swept out of the backdoor where they’d lie in the courtyard until the magpies came to peck at them. I could withstand a couple of nights punishment in the cellar just to see the look on Clarice’s face. It’s more likely, however, that such an offense would get me expelled, and I have nowhere else to go.
The air in the setting room is almost too pure to breathe. Weak light streams in from a high window, reflecting off the whitewashed walls. Mrs. Beaton had a special worktop commissioned to display the sugar work. It’s made from pink marble shot through with purple veins and minute flecks the color of lard. The effect is reminiscent of ground meat, but there’s no arguing with Mrs. Beaton’s taste. I set down the bird cage beside the other celebrated creations. There are candied nuts which look like comets with golden tails as long as my forearm. Delicate nests, like puffs of fog. A swan with wings as intricate as lace. The golden rule is Never Taste Anything. In the kitchen, not once has the tip of my tongue even so much as grazed a broken scrap. In the setting room, however, I don’t think I have ever left a piece on the marble slab that has not visited the inside of my mouth. I lean forward and slowly lick the top of the bird cage, uncertain whether it’s the heady sweetness I’m savouring or the intense, bitter aftertaste.
Footsteps alert me to someone’s approach and I draw back, pressing my spine to the wall. It’s Harry coming to collect the sugar work on behalf of the masters. He sets down a large silver tray laid with a starched linen cloth and needles me with his eyes. You alright? I can only nod in reply, nervously licking the corners of my mouth. Tasty stuff, he says, picking up Clarice’s bird cage to inspect the glistening dome. His cackle follows me down the corridor as I scuttle back to the kitchen.
That night, I slip out of bed and sit on the stone ledge of the dormitory window with my nightgown pulled over my knees. Wind whistles through the crevices. Once, it had been possible to gaze upon the sugar refinery on the other side of the valley. It was a monstrous factory made of galvanized steel with three pointed chimneys. The day the refinery exploded, this is where I sat to watch the flames engulf the entire building. The horizon burned orange and a plume of black smoke choked the sky. The wail of sirens could be heard for hours.
Giggles erupt from the bed closest to the window. It’s Clarice and two of the others donning their slippers. With her index finger through the loop of a candle holder, Clarice leads the way down the aisle between the metal bed frames. At the door, she pauses and turns around to look at me. The candle flame glows weakly beneath her chin, sinking her eye sockets deeper into shadow. She beckons me closer. I slide from my perch and pad over to the simpering group. Just as I reach them, one of the others flicks her hand towards me. The shock of cold water against my chest stops my breath. Don’t bother to wait up for us, Clarice says, smiling as the wet patch spreads across my breasts.
I return to the window, holding the damp cotton away from my skin. In the courtyard below, Harry lifts a cigarette to his mouth, leaning against one of the columns near the kitchen door. Moments later, three ghostly figures appear. Two of them waver amongst the ivy. The tallest one with a stream of pale hair sets off with Harry in the direction of the stables. I pull my wet nightgown over my head and press my palm to the windowpane. The cold sends a shockwave up my arm, turning my nipples erect.
+
Next morning, we take lessons in the great hall. Mrs. Beaton’s chalk screeches across the blackboard. Sucrose consists of twelve carbon, twenty-two hydrogen and eleven oxygen atoms. She attaches some colored balls to wooden dowels to form a replica of the molecule. What happens when heat is applied? The others doodle on their notepads or inspect their fingernails. Clarice pops her chewing gum sarcastically. It decomposes, she says. Mrs. Beaton beams at Clarice and clip-clops back to the chalkboard in her court shoes. None of them, not even Mrs. Beaton, hears what I hear. None of the sugar workers appreciates the immense power contained in the white crystals as well as I do.
There was an inquest into the explosion. The report found that the sugar refinery’s manufacturing process was to blame. All that relentless heating and grinding. The long conveyor belt carrying the desiccated sugar like a great white waterfall, plunging into the silo. Friction causing sugar dust to lift into the air. Each speck holding the potential to set off a chain reaction in response to the smallest spark. Imagine them, floating insipidly, millions of infinitesimal bombs.
In the basement kitchen, I practice the wet method; two cups of sugar to four tablespoons of water. I turn up the heat, stirring the solution until all the granules are dissolved, at which point I remove the spoon and watch the bubbles froth. Any further agitation at this stage will cause crystals to form. The liquid turns the yellow of lemon rind, then the amber of strong urine and finally takes on the deep, rich brown of the walnut paneling. With a deft turn of my wrist, I lower the heat. A moment longer and the flavor would be like licking the inside of the coal stove.
Clarice comes over to my station. Interesting color, she says, glancing into my saucepan and smiling benevolently. I raise the spoon to eye level and watch the scalding caramel trickle down. Clarice’s white hands rest on the worktop. At this temperature, liquid sugar would burn right down to the bone.
I wonder what the air in the refinery smelled like. Sometimes, I imagine myself standing on the factory floor. Louvered windows cut shadows with sunbeams. Looking towards the light, I see them, the speckles of sugar dust, suspended, glittering. White particles cling to my eyelashes and rim the moist edges of my nostrils. The smell of the air is honeyed breath but no one else realizes. As Mrs. Beaton tips my burnt caramel down the drain, I say it softly; the smell of the air was sweet. I look them straight in their coal black eyes; oh yes, the smell of the air was sweet.
+ + +
Marilyn Parr is a South African writer currently living in Bath, UK. Her writing explores unlikeable female characters, insider / outsider narratives, and how we relate to the world—especially at this time of ecological uncertainty. Her writing has been published by various online journals and, in 2021, achieved second place in the Cambridge Short Story Prize. Find her at www.marilynparr.com and occasionally on Twitter @Marilyn_Parr_.