Elephant Man (28 page)

“Curtain time!”
he announced in a voice that drink had made carelessly loud. Then his jaw dropped as he took in the sight before him.

Merrick’s mind was racing, wondering wildly how he could have so mistaken the time. He knew the nightly dreaded visit must come, but he had believed later—much later. But while his thoughts whirled his body froze. He stood immobile, a grotesque figure in
his finery, and for almost half a minute Renshaw had an uninterrupted view.

It was Renshaw who broke the silence first, laughing hysterically as some part of the truth began to dawn on him. The sound galvanized Merrick into action and he made frantic, useless efforts to clear away the articles from his dressing case. When he fumbled for the ring Renshaw took two steps into the room and seized him by the cloak.

“No, no, you look lovely,” he crooned. “Don’t change a thing, darling. You look like the bleedin’ Prince of Wales.”

He seized Merrick by the neck and thrust him at the window, kicking it open. Out in the square his audience waited expectantly.

“My friends—” he declared, “… the Elephant Man.”

He moved quickly as he spoke, stripping off the cloak with one brutal movement and shoving Merrick forward to where the light was better. A noise rose from the audience, gasps of horror from those who were witnessing the spectacle for the first time, cheering and clapping from those who were back for a second or third visit.

The young man with the two whores, who had regained Jess in Renshaw’s temporary absence, stood with an arm round each one.

“Horrible,” he neighed, “I told you it was horrible—just horrible.” As if in confirmation he bestowed a smacking kiss on each one.

“Perhaps,” said Bytes, “speaking softly behind him, “the ladies would like a closer look.”

The young man began to laugh, edging the girls forward, ignoring their half-hearted resistance and sniggers of, “Come on Jack—no don’t—Jack …”

The window ledge was just low enough for them to scramble over, and before they knew it they were in the room. Renshaw had pulled Merrick back to allow them to enter. The Elephant Man was no longer struggling, but stood rigid with terror, sensing that this time
a worse ordeal than usual awaited him. Renshaw held him in a tight grip, his head turned toward the girls who were making faces of disgust.

Jack had scrambled in behind them and was surveying the room. His eye fell on the mantelpiece with its multitude of pictures.

“Cor—he’s a real ladies’ man,” he exclaimed. “Come on, give the ladies’ man a kiss.”

The last words were addressed to Beattie, and as he spoke them he seized her wrists and held them behind her, edging her forward.

“Come on,” he said in her ear. “You’ll give him a kiss.”

“Go on, Jack,” she protested, still half-laughing, unwilling to believe him serious.

But a madness had descended on Jack and Renshaw at the same moment. It was as if they were the same man. As Jack pushed Beattie forward Renshaw held Merrick in place for the approaching kiss. His eyes were glittering as he watched Beattie come closer, her face distorting with fear and disgust as she realized what would happen. The crowd outside was leaning in through the window, egging them on, crazed with excitement.

Jack began to bring Beattie’s arms to the front, raising them into the position of an embrace. As she touched Merrick the girl began to scream and struggle, but Jack pressed her forward even harder, while Renshaw and the crowd roared with laughter. Merrick’s wails of fear went unnoticed.

“Here, that’s enough romance …” said Jack. “Now into bed.”

Beattie’s struggles became wilder as her disgust gave her strength. By the time Merrick had been manhandled onto the bed she had managed to escape. Renshaw let her go. His attention was drawn by Jess who had been watching the whole scene from a corner, her eyes wide, her face pale. Her beauty and her petrified terror seemed to bring a fresh charge of life to him. At any other time he would have taken her on
the spot. But now a different desire—monstrous, thrilling—surged through him.

“A prince needs a harem,” he said, grabbing her and tightening his arms against her instinctive struggles. His blood seemed to be running twice as fast as he lifted her in his thick arms and jammed her, face downwards, onto Merrick. She screamed and screamed without end, and Renshaw thought if he could just get rid of the others quickly he’d enjoy her ten times as much after this.

Merrick had backed away on the bed as far as he could but as the girl’s bawling face approached his, he tried to escape again. Too late he felt his head slip backward out of his control and his cries turned to frantic wheezing. Somewhere over his head he heard Renshaw’s voice say, “Mind his head—you’ll kill him.”

Through the haze that was coming down over him he could just sense that the room was filled with people. Most of the rest of the crowd had jammed into the room, laughing and screaming and trying to see what was happening on the bed. Renshaw pulled the Elephant Man’s head up, hissing frantically, “Quiet down … quiet down. You’ll have the whole place down on us.”

The noise dropped suddenly and in the comparative silence that followed Merrick heard the voice he would know and fear to the day of his death.

“Bring him out then, so we can all see him.”

Merrick began to look round frenziedly to see where Bytes’ voice had come from, but Bytes was not in the room. The crowd was dispersing now, clambering back through the window until Merrick was left alone with Renshaw. He felt himself propelled to the window again.

Suddenly one of the crowd, emboldened by drink and excitement, reached out and caught Merrick’s good hand, pulling him half out of the window. In a moment the others were on him, yanking him from Renshaw’s hands, over the low windowsill and out onto
the cobbles of the square. The clumsy movements knocked Renshaw off-balance and, groping to save himself, he cannoned into the cardboard cathedral which clattered to the floor and disintegrated. He swore furiously as he clambered up, tearing at the bits of cardboard which seemed to be everywhere.

He found himself alone in the room now. Merrick was outside, on his hands and knees on the cobbles. No one was near him. Revolted by the touch of him the crowd had let him go and were staring at him from a few feet away. An uneasy hush had fallen over them, and a little chill wind stirred the women’s hair.

Quickly Renshaw scrambled out and hauled Merrick to his feet. He looked round to see if the noise had roused the hospital, but could see no sign. The crowd was moving in again.

“Give ’im a drink,” said a man, moving forward with a bottle of gin. He grabbed Merrick and poured some gin into his mouth, then pushed him away. At the same moment Renshaw released him so that he went reeling. The porter was beginning to enjoy himself again.

Merrick was caught by another man, force-fed more liquor, shoved again. A woman caught him this time, and shoved him hard into the arms of another woman. The audience took up the rhythm of snatching and shoving till Merrick was whirling around them faster and faster until he fell to the floor, dizzy and sick. His head lolled to one side and he gasped for breath. The first man was standing above him, emptying the remains of the gin bottle over his head.

They were silent now, circling him like a pack of dogs closing in on a terrified rabbit. He swept his eyes round the circle that had formed around him, seeking some spark of human mercy in any of them. But they were animals.

Without knowing it he began to wail, a high, pitiful, endless sound, that seemed to delight them, for they joined in, imitating him, then bellowing with laughter as they came for him, seized him, and threw him
above their heads. They tossed him higher and higher, then spun him round, ignoring his feeble flailing.

At last Renshaw intervened, not from pity but because he wanted to regain control of the situation. It irked him that the crowd should enjoy his exhibit in any way but the one he offered them. And he was beginning to fear for Merrick’s safety. It would be a shame to lose such a prime source of wealth.

“Here now—here now—” he called, pulling at the crowd. “He’s had enough. Show’s over.”

With grunts of disappointment they lowered Merrick to the ground, where he was grasped by Renshaw just in time to prevent his collapsing.

“Meet you at the Peacock,” he called, to encourage them to go.

“Bring your friend,” called a male voice.

Renshaw laughed drunkenly. “He’s had ’is fill for one night.”

He stood where he was, holding up the exhausted Merrick, while he watched them move reluctantly toward the iron gates of Bedstead Square. It was safest to make sure they’d really gone. In the moonlight he could just make out a dark shape beyond the iron gates. It might have been a horse and cart but it was hard to be sure.

It occurred to Renshaw that it was some time since he’d last seen the man with the stove-pipe hat, who had paid him so generously, but he shrugged. If a fool parted with his money and then didn’t stay to see the show, that wasn’t his concern.

He helped Merrick climb clumsily back in through the window and put him on the bed. The room lay in a shambles about them. Renshaw began to pick up some of the pieces of the cathedral. He had a vague idea of making everything tidy again so that no questions should be asked, but after stumbling about for a few moments he realized he was only making things worse. His mind was too fuddled by now to care.

He grinned at Merrick. “I did real well tonight.”

From his pocket he fished a coin which he flipped onto the floor in front of the Elephant Man.

“An almond for the parrot,” he said. “Here—buy yourself a sweet.”

Merrick neither moved nor spoke. He sat petrified, his eyes fixed on Renshaw as the porter made his way to the window and climbed clumsily out. Still he sat immobile, listening as the brass-heeled boots clinked across the cobbles and out of the gate, grew fainter in the distance … died away…

It was silent now and almost completely dark. The ordeal was over. The agony of it had shattered him, but still beneath his suffering pulsed the thought that he had survived. Tomorrow he would force himself to say something about these visits to Treves, or perhaps there would be no need to speak. Treves would see the shambles and ask questions, and the burden of the terrifying decision would be taken from him. After the scene that afternoon, Carr-Gomm’s announcement that he could stay forever, it was easier to feel that he could be protected.

Somewhere far back in his mind lurked the memory of Bytes’ voice, but it was fading. He supposed it must have been an illusion, created by his terror. He had seen nothing of Bytes, and now it was all over. Slowly he let his breath out in relief and lay back against the cool pillows. Their softness brought blessed relief. He relaxed against them, offering himself to exhausted sleep …

“My treasure …”

The voice was soft and husky and seemed to float out of the darkness, but it had the effect of making Merrick’s eyes flash open. He could see nothing, but he
needed
to see nothing. Already he knew that he had been wrong. Bytes’ voice had been no illusion but a frightful reality. Bytes had not gone away. He was here, now, in this room. Even as Merrick strained to see, Bytes appeared out of the shadows by the window where he had been hiding ever since he had
crept in, unnoticed, during the commotion. He was smiling a horrible smile.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked, caressingly.

“Bytes …” Merrick could only utter the word in primeval horror, as a man might repeat the name of a fiend that haunts him. He was beyond conscious thought, beyond reaction. He only knew that his worst nightmares had risen to engulf him.

He had no strength to resist Bytes, and his brain was too stunned to give him the determination to try. He submitted as in a trance to a will stronger than his own, while all the time his mind was silently screaming despairing appeals for help to an uncaring world.

He knew, as if he were seeing it happen to someone else, that Bytes had pulled him off the bed and wrapped his cloak around him, was grunting into his ear.

“Now we’re ready to go. Don’t waste time about that.”

These last words were jerked from Bytes by the sight of Merrick reaching toward the little table where stood the framed picture of his mother. He had almost reached it when Bytes impatiently knocked his hand aside and shoved him toward the window. The picture fell to the floor with a clatter, and lay face up in the darkness. Merrick gave a whimper and tried to pick it up, but Bytes stood firmly in front of him, muttering, “Get on with you, I said.”

Then Merrick made no further attempt. He had submitted totally to the despair that engulfed him, for he knew that hell waited for him again, but this time twice as dreadful for the glimpse he had had of another world, and there was no hope anywhere.

There was only the darkness, and fear, and Bytes’ voice whispering, “We’re moving on again, my treasure.”

The bright morning sun gave a cold edge to the wreck of Merrick’s room. Treves, standing in the doorway,
took in the smashed cathedral, the picture of Merrick’s mother lying face up on the floor, and—strangely—a penny lying beside it. He determinedly fought down the cold grip of horror in his stomach. It was too soon yet to think …

As a last hope he flung open the door to the bathroom, but it was empty as in his heart he had known it would be. To the last moment he clung to the possibility that Merrick might have damaged the room in the frenzied grip of a nightmare, but when the Elephant Man was nowhere to be found Treves knew he was dealing with something evil.

Within a few minutes he knew the worst. In the corridor he was stopped by Nettleton, who had a story to tell. Nettleton slept on the hospital premises, in an attic room overlooking Bedstead Square, and last night he had been roused from his slumbers by a commotion below.

“Why the hell didn’t you do something?” Treves raged, “call somebody—rouse the hospital—something?” Frustration choked him.

“I didn’t know what to do, Mr. Treves,” Nettleton said miserably. “You weren’t there or I’d have called you and—I didn’t know what to do—”