Elephant Man (29 page)

“You just let him be taken away and never lifted a finger to help him …”

“No, honest, Mr. Treves, I never saw him being taken away. Last thing I saw he was going back inside, through the window. I thought he’d be all right after that so I went back to bed. I never knew about anything else happening—honest.”

He was telling the truth, Treves realized. Nettleton was thick-headed and lacking in initiative. He worked within the rules and when the rules did not tell him what to do he was lost. But he was not vicious. Blaming him would help no one.

“Are you sure you recognized Bytes?” Treves demanded wearily.

“I dunno his name, but I seen ’im before. He come in one day and slipped through the Receiving Room
when ’e thought no one was watching ’im. I went after ’im to stop ’im but I heard you and ’im having a shouting ma—talking, so I reckoned it was all right if you knew ’e was there.”

“And you saw him again last night? You’re sure of that? You were a long way away.”

“There was a good moon, Mr. Treves, and you can’t mistake that ’at of ’is.”

“All right. That’ll be all, Nettleton.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Treves—”

“All right, all right, I don’t blame you.”

Treves had been vaguely aware of Mothershead passing down the corridor toward Merrick’s room. Now he saw her reappear and stand as if stunned. But he had no time to explain anything to her now. He had urgent business. At this time of the morning he should find Renshaw building up the furnace in the operating room stove.

He covered the distance at a run, flinging the door open and standing stock still on the threshold as his eyes took in exactly what he had expected to see. Renshaw was applying a bellows to the old coals which were still hot, causing a vile smoke to rise from them. He looked hung over, but sleek, contented, and satisfied with life. The sight of that smug, brutal face filled Treves with a coldly murderous rage such as he had never known before. He knew now how men killed for the joy of it.

Renshaw became aware that he was being watched, and looked up. Treves’ face, black with fury, told him that he hadn’t got away with the previous night’s antics, and the doctor’s first words reduced his innards to pulp.

“
Where is he?
” Treves shouted.

Renshaw found that his mouth would form no reply, and all that came out of it were spluttering sounds.

“
Where is Mr. Merrick?
”

“I—I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

Treves stalked over to him like a hunter sizing up the prey. Renshaw backed slightly.

“Don’t lie to me,” said Treves in a voice in which the savagery was barely suppressed. “I know all about it. You were
seen
. You’re in this with Bytes, aren’t you? Where did you take him?”

Renshaw wondered if he was going mad. He no longer understood anything that was being said to him.

“Take him?” he squealed. “Now wait—I didn’t take him anywhere. I don’t know no Bytes. We were just having some fun. We didn’t hurt him … just having a laugh, that’s all.”

“
He’s gone
.” Treves bawled into his face.

“When I left him he was in his bed, safe and sound,” Renshaw declared with a touch of conscious virtue.

Treves felt his last thread of control snap. “
You bastard
. You tortured him. You and Bytes
tortured him
, you bastard.
Where is he?
” But he knew he was raving helplessly. The true horror of the situation was filtering through to him. If Renshaw and Bytes had not acted together, the porter had no way of knowing where Bytes had taken his captive. Merrick might have vanished for ever.

Renshaw had recovered some of his confidence now as his own temper slipped away from him. He didn’t appreciate being bawled at when he had a hangover headache.

“
You’re not listening to me
,” he bawled back. “I don’t know no Bytes and I ain’t done nothing wrong. People pay to see your monster, Mr. Treves. I just take the money.”

“
You’re the monster. You’re the freak! Get out. You’re finished!
”

Hardly knowing what he was doing Treves seized Renshaw’s arm and began to drag him out of the operating theater. Renshaw was filth, Renshaw polluted the place just by being there. Treves acted on
instinct, to dispose of him as he would have done any vermin.

But Renshaw threw him off and whirled round with his back to the door, seizing the poker from the stove. Neither man noticed Mothershead standing quietly just outside the door.

“Have a care, Mr. Treves,” Renshaw said in a low, intense voice. “I ain’t afraid of you. You and your bleedin’ Elephant Man. I’m glad of what I did. And you can’t do nothing. Only Mothershead can sack me.”

In another moment he would have been dead, as Treves, demented by rage, seized the poker from Renshaw’s hand and raised it with murderous intent. But before he could bring it down on Renshaw’s skull he found the porter had vanished. There had been a loud crack like a hand striking an ear with all the force of hatred, and Renshaw was on the ground clutching his head and barely conscious. Mothershead stood over him rubbing her hand, a look of grim satisfaction on her face.

“Done,” she said.

Treves’ visit to the shop where he had first found Bytes and Merrick was as unproductive as he had known it would be. He had not really imagined that Bytes would hang around to be followed. Such inquiries as he could make in the neighborhood elicited the information that Bytes and Tony had vanished, nobody knew where.

Carr-Gomm was sympathetic but firm.

“I’d like to think I felt no less for John than you, Treves, but face the facts. The man has disappeared. Very likely to the continent. There’s no question of your going after him; you’re desperately needed here by your patients. Remember Treves, you did everything in your power … everything in your power …”

At the start he could tell one day from another. On the first day there was the long dreadful journey in the cart, with Tony driving and Bytes sitting with him in the back, unwilling to lose sight of his reclaimed “treasure.” He shuddered away into the furthest corner to escape Bytes’ evil presence, but it was always there, gloating over him.

About evening the cart changed to a train. He allowed himself to be hauled onto it unresisting, stunned by grief and hopelessness. Already it seemed as though he had always known that this life would one day engulf him again, and that the brief weeks in Treves’ care were nothing but a vision sent to torment him, a vision that seemed to recede further with every moment.

They traveled all night on the train, and in the morning the air had a fresher smell and there was the sound of birds calling wildly. On the quay Merrick just caught a glimpse of a sign that said “Dover,” and a vast expanse of water, before closing his eyes and settling back into the darkness within his mask. He could no longer bear to look out onto the world. To retreat within himself, his consciousness bounded by the walls of grey flannel about his head, was the only solace left.

Tony guarded him while Bytes disappeared on some business of his own. When he returned a conversation pierced Merrick’s darkness.

“I’ve got the tickets. They’ll take us as far as Ostende.” That was Bytes’ voice.

“Where the ’ell’s that?”

“Belgium. There’s a better market for our kind of merchandise in foreign parts, Tony. They ain’t so squeamish over there.”

“Is it far?”

“It’s a good bit in a boat.”

“Howd’you get them tickets? Thought you’d run outa money, Mr. Bytes.”

“Didn’t say anything about buyin’ ’em, did I? Gentleman over there was very careless coming out of the booking office, barged right into me. He
was
going to rush on without apologizing—even tried to say
I’d
run into
him
. I was forced to detain him and put the matter right. He got so flustered he never noticed he’d dropped his wallet. It just happens to contain three tickets to Ostende and enough money to take us by train to Brussels.”

“Why Brussels, Mr. Bytes?”

“The bloke I bought that thing from was planning to join up with a circus that was leaving for Brussels. He made it sound like a good place to do a bit of honest business.”

The two of them assisted Merrick’s clumsy footsteps up the narrow gangplank with many a loudly voiced comment about “our poor friend—sea air—quick recovery.” Once aboard they took him hurriedly to the most inconspicuous place they could find and sat him down. Merrick shivered. It was a long time since he had been outdoors for any length of time and the air was chilly.

He had thought that his despair was complete, but when he felt the boat begin to move he knew that he had not experienced total desolation till this moment. While on land he had somehow clung to the dream that something might happen to enable him to escape and make his way back to London and Treves. He knew that his crippled hip made escape practically impossible, but he had held on to the illusion with a tenacity that he only understood now, when its last shreds were torn from him. With that strip of water
between himself and England widening every second, all possibility of rescue was gone. He did not even comprehend where he was being taken.

Through the small window in his flannel mask he peered out at the only thing he could see—a seagull perched cockily on a large funnel. It seemed totally at home. In the air above, other members of its kind wheeled and screamed as they followed the boat out to sea. A small boy came into sight and reached out to make a grab at the seagull. But it was too swift for him. It eluded the hand that would have captured it and swooped into the air. The little boy grabbed upward, but the seagull avoided him easily and rose high, shrieking abuse. Merrick raised his head cautiously to watch the bird’s progress. As he stared the seagull wheeled freely in the air and headed back toward the land.

Merrick leaned his head forward on his knees and cried wearily.

The journey was terrible. A violent wind blew up, making the boat toss. Merrick was sick and terrified, but even his prayer that the danger might claim him and his life be ended, was denied. When they reached Ostende he was half-unconscious, but alive.

At Ostende there was another train, on which he fell asleep, and there his perception of days ended. When he woke up, the train had stopped and he was being hauled out. He did not see the name of the station, but he gathered from the talk that they were somewhere near Brussels—wherever that was: the words meant nothing to him.

Bytes fell in with a circus and joined his lot to theirs. He had been right in his estimation of the continentals as less squeamish than the British. The circus had a large, permanent freak section attached, and it was always this that attracted the biggest crowds.

The days became one day; the weeks ran together. He lived in an old wagon that Bytes had managed to buy from one of the circus families. Here he slept, ate, and exhibited. His days were an endless round of
“performances,” his nights a torment of memory. He prayed constantly for death.

The comforts that had made his life bearable before were lost to him now. The picture of his mother, his Bible, his prayer book, all these had been left behind in London. These days he had but one solace, a small visiting card on which were printed the names of Frederick Treves and the London Hospital. It was the card he had taken in Treves’ room one day, long ago. He had kept it ever since in the pocket of his cloak, and there it still was. In his moments alone he would take it out and draw what little comfort he could from it. It had now the sense of a message signaled from a distant star that had spun off into space and left him stranded. It spoke to him of a life that increasingly he felt he must have imagined.

He was kept a semi-prisoner. Bytes never allowed him to go far from the wagon, but he placed little restriction on who came to see him there. And Merrick had a surprising number of visitors.

They were not spectators, for they lived in the circus and they came between shows. They were the other freaks, interested to see the new addition to their numbers. They too backed away a little when they first saw him, so that Merrick discovered that he was a freak even among freaks. The knowledge would have hurt him if he had not been beyond hurt by now.

But they recovered themselves quickly. Their eyes were not blinded by what was “normal.” To them the abnormal was normal, and within a short time they had accepted Merrick into the fellowship of the deformed. For the first time in his life he was one among equals. It was something even Treves had not been able to give him.

Few of them spoke much English. They were French, German, Belgian and some Slavs. They had crossed Europe to find this little refuge in a place where freaks could band together and find the solace of companionship. They communicated with Merrick
in pidgin English and signs, but mostly they offered him their silent sympathy.

They became his friends, insofar as the life permitted him to have friends. He discovered in them deformities and mutations so strange that for once it was he who looked in wonder.

There were the pinheads, a brother and sister called Tip and Top, whose heads were cone-shaped and elongated. To emphasize their oddity they shaved their heads and left just a small tuft growing out of the tops. There was a hermaphrodite called Sammy, who had the shape of a woman, the genitals of a man, and one well-developed breast. As long as the genitals were hidden the overall impression was female, but Sammy was known to have the strength of a man, and to be prepared to use it on any unwary male spectators who showed too much interest in his female half.

George and Bert were among Merrick’s most frequent visitors. Two men down to the waist, and one man beneath that, they were the first creatures he had ever met who struck him as possibly worse off than himself.

Then there was “the lion-faced man,” a man with a large growth of yellow hair on his face, who had decided to make the most of it. He constantly combed it to produce the right effect, and had been known to express the opinion that exhibiting for money was better than working for a living. He had struck up a close friendship with another of the same mind, Fred, who appeared entirely normal until he pulled at the skin of his face and demonstrated the incredible distance to which it would stretch.