Beloved Poison (19 page)

‘I’m sure Dr Bain took it in his stride,’ I said, more sharply that I intended. ‘What happened next? That’s more important.’

‘He looked up and down the street, but there was only fog, thick as porridge. Told me to go home. Said he’d speak to me proper in the morning.’ Gabriel blinked tearful eyes. ‘Gave me a shillin’ too. Even though I said those things.’

‘What time was it?’ I said. ‘Did you see?’

‘It were too dark and foggy to see, but I know it was after midnight. Dr Bain told me. “Go home, Gabriel,” he said. “It’s after midnight. Far too late for a lad like you to be out.” I ran straight home.’ He shivered. ‘That night – the night Dr Bain died – the street was so cold. Soon as I was out in it I wanted to be back home.’

I knew what he meant. It was the sort of cold that made your bones ache; made you long for a warm fire and company. The fog seized your throat so you could hardly breathe and drowned the world in brown. Familiar streets were filled with fearful shadows, inexplicable noises and disembodied footsteps. It came too regularly to surprise anyone, but one never got used to it. For me, it always brought a terrible sense of loneliness, as though I had been deserted by the whole of humanity, even as I stood in the centre of the world’s greatest metropolis. Anything might happen, anything might befall me, and no one would have any idea about it.

That fear crept up on me now, as I sat beside Gabriel in the herb drying room. I had once felt safe at St Saviour’s. Life was always the same for us, circumscribed by ward rounds and prescription making, by the gathering of herbs and the preparation of tinctures, pills and salves. There was comfort in that routine, for all of us, and pleasure in doing it well. How quickly things had changed. People and places I had once regarded with a rather bored familiarity had taken on an unkind aspect. Our world, once so ordered and predictable, now seethed with jealousy, resentment and murderous ambition. I wondered why I had never noticed it before. Perhaps I was not as worldly wise as I thought I was.

I opened the window. Looking down, I could see the men toiling in St Saviour’s graveyard. Coated in the mud in which they worked, it was as though the earth itself had come alive. Beside them, at the edge of the workings, stood Will, his tall hat chimney-black against that world of brown. From being quite unknown to me, he had, in the space of a few days, become the one person I felt I could rely upon; the one person I was sure, in my heart, was a good man. I had known those who worked at St Saviour’s for my entire life. And yet could I say the same about any of them? Could I say that I knew for certain they were good men? Behind Will, in the shadow of the graveyard wall, three dark figures watched. Even from my eyrie in the herb drying room above the old chapel, I could recognise them well enough: one tall and proud; one powerfully built and crouched, always, as if to spring; one weary, stooped beneath a weight of resentment and melancholy as though he carried his troubles upon his own back. Dr Magorian. Dr Graves. Dr Catchpole.

The funeral was speedily arranged. The executive committee had decided to honour Dr Bain’s commitment to the hospital and the medical profession with a commemorative service, and a brass plaque inside St Saviour’s parish church. The plaque was to be engraved with his name, the dates of his life, and a quotation from the Bible: ‘
Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am weak: O LORD, heal me, for my bones are vexed. Psalm 6, verse 2
.’ I had chosen it. No one else had suggested anything, and I liked its combination of meekness, disgruntlement and understated vengeance.

‘He
was
weak,’ Mrs Speedicut had said. ‘Weak as water.’

‘His bones have been wired together into a skeleton and are going to stand in the dispensary,’ said my father. ‘So they’ll be pretty vexed too, I should think.’

Gabriel gave a muffled sob.

‘Let us hope the words are prophetic,’ said Will.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ I replied. ‘D’you know the rest of Psalm six, Gabriel?’

Gabriel shook his head.

‘“
Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed
.”’

The event itself was, in every sense of the word, economical. As there was nothing left of Dr Bain once Dr Graves and his students had finished their work, there seemed little point in bothering with a coffin. And there was no family to object to the thriftiness. The service was brief, the church cold, the afternoon so dark that candles had to be lit. The wicks had not been trimmed and streams of sooty smoke trailed upwards to mix with the smell of tallow and mildew, and the reek of the open graves outside. Dr Bain’s colleagues were in attendance in the front pews. I sat at the back, with Gabriel, my father, and Will. Will had given the workmen outside the afternoon off, so that the sound of the excavations did not impinge upon the service. Instead, the funeral – if one might call it that – was conducted to the thunderous accompaniment of the rain drumming on the roof, and the hypnotic
plop
. . .
plop
. . .
plop
of some invisible ingress of water.

But the indignities accorded Dr Bain in this final acknowledgement of his life did not end there. The chaplain was suffering from a cold, and his words were, more often than not, obliterated by a volley of sneezes, or muffled by the folds of a handkerchief. The organist had sprained his wrist and was obliged to play using only one hand – a performance that could have been bettered by any street musician’s monkey. Dr Magorian read the eulogy. The candlelight threw his proud beaked nose and deep eye sockets into ghoulish chiaroscuro, and as he stood at the lectern I was reminded of an ancient woodcut I had once seen that depicted the Devil emerging from the depths. He spoke for no more than three minutes. It was an insult, and we all knew it. I had heard him talk for longer on the matter of emptying the ward spittoons.

I was wondering whether I should step forward and offer my own celebration of Dr Bain’s life, when there was a great rattling at the door. The candles shrank and guttered and a gust of malodorous wind billowed up the aisle. We heard the moist slap of bare feet running, and a woman’s voice cried out.

‘Where is he? Do you have him here?’

The rows of black-clad backs, the bowed shoulders and heads, slowly turned around. Faces, pale as mushrooms in a dung heap, peered into the gloom, looking back towards the door. I could see frowns of disbelief, hear the clicking of tongues. ‘This is no place for a woman,’ someone muttered. ‘Who is it?’ But I knew who it was. I recognised the voice – ragged with emotion, and taut with grief and desperation.

Mrs Catchpole moved swiftly up the aisle. Her hair was undone, plastered to her head and hanging about her shoulders in lank, dark strips. Her feet were bare and covered in mud. She was dressed in only her shift – had she run all the way from Angel Meadow dressed like that? Once white, it was now ragged and filthy. Her hands were caked in mud from finger tips to elbow. Her face was streaked with clay, two pale rivulets scoured through her muddy cheeks by her falling tears.

I dashed forward and slung my coat about her shoulders. ‘Mrs Catchpole,’ I whispered. ‘What are you doing? You should not have come here. Not like this. Your husband—’ I recoiled. I could not help it. She stank of putrid flesh. ‘Where have you been?’ I said, pulling a handkerchief from my pocket to cover my nose.

‘I’ve been looking for him,’ she whispered. Her eyes darted here and there, searching for a beloved face. ‘Where is he? Why does he make me hunt for him? They say he’s dead. But he isn’t. He can’t be!’ She peered up at me, her eyes glassy and unfocused. ‘I looked in the churchyard. But none of them were him.’ Her sudden smile was wild, crazed. Her voice was hushed, her words tumbling from her lips. ‘He wasn’t there at all! I knew he wouldn’t be. He’s alive, you see! They lied to me to keep me quiet, to make me say nothing, to keep us apart from each other. But I know better. I looked everywhere and he’s not there at all. Where is he? You’re his friend, I know. You’ll tell me. Where is he?’

I realised then why she reeked of death; why her hands, clasping and unclasping, were slathered with brown; the sleeves and hem of her shift all caked in the stuff. I imagined her outside in the rain, amongst the excavations, sifting through the churchyard mud, prising up bodies, the sucking earth plucking the shoes from her feet as she floundered and fell – against a decaying coffin, into a pool of ancient slime – searching for her dead lover.

Her teeth were chattering now, despite my coat. Where on earth was Dr Catchpole? He seemed to be taking an age to extricate himself from the congregation. ‘I looked and looked. Out there in the graveyard.’ She smiled again, and then she laughed gleefully, the sound ringing against the walls and rafters. ‘He has tricked them all,’ she cried. ‘He’s not dead at all. He was sleeping, only sleeping. I saw him, and I . . . I
knew
,’ she sank her voice to a whisper. ‘I saw!’

There was a movement behind me and Dr Catchpole appeared at my side. ‘Annabel,’ he said. ‘My dear—’

Mrs Catchpole drew back at the sight of him, and her expression was suddenly furious. ‘Where is he?’ she said. All at once she darted forward, pushing past her husband’s outstretched arms. ‘James!’ Her voice rose to a shriek – ‘James! James!’ – on and on, until the place echoed like a madhouse with her cries. Hands reached out to seize her, but she slipped past them all and dashed free. She turned about, still calling his name, her shift clinging to her legs like a winding sheet, her hair wet and dirty about her shoulders. On all sides now the granite faces of St Saviour’s medical men closed in on her – grey cheeks, glinting spectacles, long fingers. And amongst them, taller and thinner and more aghast than all the rest, was her husband. He put out a hand to her, his lips drooping in despair as he mouthed her name. Mrs Catchpole screamed and reeled away from him. She attempted to run, to flee back down the aisle the way she had come. But her bare foot caught in the torn and trailing hem of her wet nightdress. The sound of her head striking the stone floor rang out like a pistol shot.

I came back from the ward rounds to find that the world appeared to have returned to normal: Gabriel was making worming lozenges; my father was examining the account books. Outside the rain had stopped, though the clouds were so low that they seemed to be wiping themselves across the rooftops. The apothecary was a warm and cosy cave in a dark and dreary world. I was glad to slam the door behind me, but not so glad when I saw who else was there. Dr Graves and Dr Magorian. Dr Graves was talking – as he usually was.

‘Due to Dr Bain’s death, his cases have been redistributed amongst us remaining surgeons.’ He made it sound as though Dr Bain’s death had been both selfish and deliberate. ‘I have taken the liberty of overseeing the recovery of the patient whose hip you and he excised, Dr Magorian. I know you already have your hands full. I am the same, but who else might attend to the man?’

Dr Magorian nodded. He pulled out his sugar box and offered it to Dr Graves. ‘How is the fellow?’

‘In great pain.’ Dr Graves selected a lump. ‘There’s evidence of suppuration. I’ve drained the area and packed it with gauze. Let us hope Dr Bain’s ridiculous behaviour with the aphid pump has not done lasting harm.’ He slipped the sugar into his pocket.

I opened my mouth to speak. Then I caught Dr Graves’s eye, and I closed it again. I had nothing to gain by provoking those I now believed to be our adversaries. Far better if I watched, and listened. I wanted to speak up, to defend the ideas of my friend, but I knew there was more at stake than the intellectual honour of a dead man. Dr Bain’s approach to cleanliness – the spray, the white smocks – was persuasive, but without Dr Bain himself to advocate such ideas there was no chance they would gain common currency amongst his colleagues. I wondered whether Dr Graves had sabotaged Dr Bain’s experiment after all, rubbing something toxic into the patient’s severed stump to make it weep. And yet it hardly mattered now (as long as the fellow did not die as a result). It was clear that the subject was closed, and that surgical procedures would be undertaken as always – with dirty instruments and filthy coats.