The Anatomy of Death (25 page)

“Well, you could supervise, couldn’t you? Make sure the
procedure is carried out safely? The doctor who fed me was a brute. Not only did he force me to swallow his wretched tube, he slapped my face when I protested. And when I refused to lie still, four wardresses were called in to hold me down. It was tantamount to, well—”

Rape.
Dody said the unmentionable word in her head, the act that was implied but never said aloud by any of the victims of force-feeding. The procedure was brutal and cruel and if, in her capacity as a doctor, she were ever asked to perform it, in all but the most extenuating of circumstances, she would surely refuse. But still, Florence was right—there should be something she could do to try to ensure the procedure was carried out in a safe and humane manner.

“Dody, are you listening to me?”

“Be quiet for a moment, I’m thinking.” She tapped her nails on the leather surface of her textbook. “At Pentonville,” she mused aloud, “I met an agreeable doctor called Wilson. He is sure to know the Holloway physician. I will telephone him and see if something can be arranged.”

D
ody put the telephone down, wishing that every door could be opened this easily for her. She looked towards the grandfather clock in the hall. She had just enough time to search her new textbook for poliomyelitis before she was due at the prison. A ring of the doorbell stopped her halfway up the stairs. As Annie was nowhere to be seen, Dody made her way back down and answered the door herself.

Pike lifted a shiny silk hat. “Good morning, Dr. McCleland.”

He appeared much improved. The sea air had put colour
into his cheeks, and he was dressed as smartly as any city gentleman.

“Well, this is an unexpected surprise.” She could not hold back the delight she felt at seeing him looking so well. “How is the knee?”

“Much better, thank you.” He took hold of the crutches propped on the front pillar. “I thought it was time I returned these—may I bring them inside?”

“Please.” She stepped aside to let him pass. He leaned the crutches against a stack of Florence’s boxes and turned to face her, his weight propped on his cane.

“You are back at work now?”

“I start officially tomorrow morning—with a meeting in the superintendent’s office.”

“Something you are no doubt greatly looking forward to.”

He responded with a smile. “And in the meantime I am out taking the air.”

“I would like to examine your knee.”

“Another time, perhaps. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

“Nothing that can’t wait a minute or two, and besides, you are as much my patient as anyone.” She put her hand out for his hat and gloves and placed them on the hall table as Annie pushed through the downstairs door. The maid’s face fell. After a curt nod from Dody, she helped Pike off with his outdoor things. Under his coat he wore a dark frock coat with silk lapels, a grey waistcoat, and matching cravat.

“She seems as pleased to see me as ever,” Pike remarked as he watched Annie drag her feet off to the cloakroom.

Dody indicated the door of the morning room. She wanted him ahead of her so she could assess his gait. He leaned more
heavily on his cane than he had before the beating, she noticed, but he certainly didn’t require the crutches. He sat on the chaise and began to roll up his trouser leg, but stopped with a sudden intake of breath, his hand reaching for his side.

“Your rib is still troubling you?” Dody asked.

He straightened with care. “Sometimes, yes.”

“Here, let me.” She knelt before him and finished rolling up the trouser leg for him. “When did you remove the splint?” she asked, finger and thumb exerting gentle pressure on his knee.

“About two days ago.” He breathed out. “My daughter found the writing most amusing. I believe she has cut it out and kept it to show her school friends.”

“Are you getting used to the idea that you and your daughter have different views upon the matter?”

“I am not made of stone, Doctor; I am capable of seeing the humorous side of some situations. But this will not prevent me from doing everything in my power to stop her from getting involved with the hysterical activities of the unwomanly suffragettes.” She hit a tender spot and he drew another sharp breath. “Fortunately there is not much of this term left for her to make mischief in. Her maternal grandparents will be keeping a close eye on her during the Christmas holidays.”

She continued to manipulate his knee. “The swelling is much diminished. You should be ready for surgery in a month or so—would you like me to make the necessary arrangements?”

The colour left Pike’s cheeks. “Thank you, but no, not just yet. I will need to talk to Shepherd. I am not sure when I can be spared.”

“Surgical techniques and anaesthesia have improved greatly in the last ten years,” she said.

“I’m sure they have.” He rolled down his trouser leg.

“You don’t even have to have the operation in a hospital,” she persisted. “I can do it here if you wish.”

He looked up from the bootlace he was retying. “You? Here?”

“Home surgery is always an option. I can employ a private nurse and another doctor to administer anaesthetic.”

Pike reached for his cane and pulled himself to his feet. “Thank you, Dr. McCleland, but I am in your debt as it is. I do not wish to impose further.”

“Is it because I am a woman? I admit to not being a fully qualified surgeon—women are barred from the profession, you know—but the technique is a simple one. Or perhaps you do not think me capable,” she said, even though her instinct told her this was not the case at all. She felt sure his reluctance had more to do with his experiences in South Africa. His demeanour, the sparkle of perspiration on his brow whenever the subject of surgery was mentioned, reminded her of Florence after her prison ordeal. Encouraging her sister to talk about her ghastly experiences had helped very much. With a man of Pike’s reserve, however, it seemed unlikely he would be willing to talk—to her or to anyone—about something that he would see in himself as a lack of moral fibre.

“No, no, not at all, I know you are quite capable of operating on my knee,” he said. “I have seen how you work and I am full of admiration. If I were to allow anyone to perform my operation, it would be you.” He flicked her a smile that did not reach his eyes. “But now I must leave. I have taken up enough of your time.”

“Wait, we still have more to discuss. Please sit down, your consultation is not yet finished.”

With a murmur of protest, he sank back down onto the chaise.

“You are aware of the golf course sabotage and the arrest of three of the Bloomsbury WSPU members?”

He paused. “I am.”

“And you approve, I suppose?”

“Of course. They were about to detonate a bomb. People could have been killed. They must suffer the consequences.”

“Even if the consequences mean force-feeding?”

“Yes, if medical intervention is necessary to prevent the crime of suicide,” he replied evenly, “but I cannot see what this has to do with my knee.”

“Your knee? Oh, nothing at all.” Dody smiled with contrived sweetness. “Recently you gave me the opportunity to witness something I had never seen before. You told me it would assist with my further education.”

He shifted on the chaise. “Ah, the Crippen execution …”

“And now I would like to return the favour. I would like to give you the opportunity of witnessing something that will further
your
education. I would like you to accompany me to witness a force-feeding—medical intervention, as the legal profession euphemistically call it.”

She was being cruel to a kind man, she knew it, but she wanted to shake him out of some of his rigid beliefs, and this was all she could think of. As she rose from her chair, she realised Florence and Pike were different sides of the same coin.

He gazed at her for a moment. “You are throwing down the gauntlet, Dr. McCleland.”

“You have never seen a force-feeding?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps it is time you did. It was your department, after all, that bribed the informer and subsequently arrested the women involved. Are you aware that the poor Treylen woman has since taken her life?”

He said nothing, but the tightening of the lines around his mouth told her his answer would have been no.

T
he prison cell was no warmer than the hospital mortuary. Dody did her best to control her shivering as she sat next to Olivia on the plank bed and took hold of her icy hand.

“Must you continue with this?” she said.

Olivia squeezed Dody’s hand. “Please don’t waste your breath trying to dissuade me. Until all suffragettes, regardless of class, are treated as political prisoners, I will continue with this course of action—even if it kills me.”

And well it might
, Dody thought, looking around the cell. Dim grey light filtered through barred windows, which were high up on the walls so no view out was possible. An odiferous bucket stood in a corner. “It doesn’t look to me as if you are being treated as a political prisoner anyway.”

“There are inequalities for men and women in prison just as there are outside it. Male political prisoners can rent better cells, wear their own clothes, and have as many visitors as they like.”

Dody touched the sleeve of Olivia’s coarse blue dress, so different to the brightly coloured kaftans she favoured. “But you are not even in your own clothes.”

“I soiled them with vomit.”

Indeed, Dody thought, the smell hung about her still.

“How many times have they force-fed you?” she asked.

“Three times yesterday and once this morning.”

“Will you let me examine you?”

“What is the point? The prison physician has already done so, and I know you have no legal power to stop them.”

“But I might be able to make the process more humane.”

Dody exchanged her bowler hat for a light reflector, adjusting the strap around her head. Giving Olivia no opportunity for further argument, she took hold of her jaw and turned her head towards the light. “Please, dear, open your mouth for me.”

Olivia licked dry, cracked lips and complied like an obedient child. Dody caught the thin beam of light from the window and directed it into Olivia’s mouth, pressing down on the tongue with a wooden blade. The throat was raw, the mucosa of the inside of her mouth dotted with purple ulcers, sections of gums still seeping blood from the morning’s ordeal.

“They have only used the stomach tube?” Dody asked as she put the tongue depressor down and redirected her light up Olivia’s nostrils. Thankfully these seemed free from irritation.

“Yes.”

“With clamps to lever your mouth open?”

“They used a metal clamp for the first two feeds, but when they saw the damage it was doing to my mouth, they exchanged it for a wooden one.”

“How considerate of them.”

A fleeting smile passed over Olivia’s pale features.

“Your mouth and throat are raw. They cannot continue to feed you this way. The next feed will have to be through your nose.”

“And when my nostrils are destroyed, I will be fed through the back passage, and after that …” Olivia shuddered.

Dody flinched. The only reason for feeding a prisoner that way was to torture them. “For the love of God, Olivia, pray eat something, and then this torture will stop!”

Olivia said nothing. She had lifted her gaze to the window high in the wall, the whites of her eyeballs showing beneath her pupils and a strange gleam in her eyes.

Dody took off her light reflector and spent a moment adjusting her hat.
Olivia must be coming down with a fever
, she thought, though she had failed to notice any other sign. She raised her hand to feel Olivia’s brow, but Olivia dodged her touch and clambered to a standing position on the plank bed, stretching out her arms on either side.

This parody of a crucifixion was not the plump and affable Olivia she thought she knew. She realised then that the gleam in Olivia’s eye was not fever; it was fanaticism and it was far worse than anything she had ever worried about in Florence.

“Don’t you understand, this is the only way to make them see reason?” Olivia cried. “If I die, I will die a martyr to the cause and then, ultimately, maybe not this year or the next, but eventually, the women of Britain will be set free!”

Dody looked around the cell. “Hush now, I haven’t finished your examination—do you want the wardens rushing in?” She took Olivia’s hand and urged her gently back on to the bed.

Olivia fell silent, stared at Dody for a moment, and then shook her head like one waking from a nightmare. She allowed Dody to guide her back into a sitting position on the bed
and open the buttons at the back of her dress. She sat limply as Dody listened with her stethoscope to her breathing and heartbeat. Both were faster than normal, probably caused by her sudden burst of excitement, Dody surmised, but no faster than the hammering still reverberating through her own chest.

As she redid the buttons, she observed that Olivia’s generous figure showed no sign of malnourishment.

“As you can see, Dody,” Olivia said, speaking levelly again, “I am hardly at death’s door. That puts paid to the lie that force-feeding is necessary to save lives. The doctor weighed and measured me yesterday. He said I could safely afford to lose three more stone before my life becomes endangered.”

The cell door creaked open and a warder appeared with a tray of food. A tin plate of potatoes sat next to a cylindrical tin of watery soup. The rims of the containers were black with grime as if they had never been cleaned.

“As a political prisoner, you are entitled to have food brought in from the outside. I’m hardly surprised you’re not eating this,” Dody said, though she knew this was not the point.

“Dody, have you not heard me? I will not eat. Even if they send in venison with cherry sauce.”

At this the white-bonneted warder said, “I might just as well call them in now, Doctor; get this over with. Everyone’s waiting in the corridor for your say-so.”

Dody gave Olivia one final squeeze of the hand and rose from the bed. “Very well, then.”