Elephant Man (9 page)

“You’re not such a fool as I thought you. All right girl, get on. Don’t stand there staring.”

Mothershead retreated back into the Isolation Ward with the fresh breakfast.

“Come along,” she said, placing the tray on the table. “This has all got to be eaten, so let’s have no nonsense.”

Treves, who felt that the tone of command might just as easily be addressed to himself as Merrick, aided the man in getting to the edge of the bed and sliding his legs over the side.

“I think he’d better stay here to eat it,” he said apologetically. “He hasn’t the strength to move much.”

“Very well, sir.” Mothershead pulled the chair up close to the bed, and dipped the spoon into the porridge.

She handled the revolting business of feeding Merrick in a way that won Treves’ admiration. Nothing seemed to put her off, from the slobbering sounds that the Elephant Man made, to the frequency with which he spilled the porridge over himself. The smell she did not seem even to notice.

The meal took a long time, and before it was over there was a knock on the door. Mothershead shoved the spoon unceremoniously into Treves’ hand and went to answer.

Treves found that Merrick seemed less nervous in his hands than he had been in Mothershead’s, and wondered if the sense of exasperated duty that lay behind Mothershead’s brisk efficiency had communicated itself. He wondered how the disgusting porridge tasted to one who had been fed largely on water and potatoes.

“I’ll have them send you a good strong cup of tea
later,” he muttered, barely knowing that he spoke. “You’ll enjoy it.”

From the door he could just hear Mothershead in conversation with a male voice that he recognized as belonging to Nettleton, the youngest of the porters.

“It’s heavy, ma’am,” said the voice respectfully. “Sure I can’t carry it in for you?”

“Be off with you, my lad,” Mothershead told him firmly. “I’ll take it in myself. I know very well what you want, and you’re not getting your nose in here?”

She backed in, pulling a large wooden bath tub behind her.

“I’m afraid there’s going to be more of that, sir,” she said when she shut the door.

“More of what, Mothershead?”

“Sightseers. If only that silly girl hadn’t screamed. It’ll be all over the hospital by now …”

Another knock interrupted her. This time it was water, borne by a different porter, and roughly the same conversation took place. Treves listened to it, worried. He felt he could have avoided much of this by planning Merrick’s admittance into the hospital more carefully. But then, how could he have known in advance what would be needed, he argued with himself.

While Mothershead filled the tub with water he finished feeding Merrick and began to remove his clothes. Merrick made feeble protesting movements, as though he would resist, but eventually gave up and sat, acquiescent while Treves knelt and unwrapped the sacking arrangement round his feet. He whimpered, however, when Treves began to unfasten the trousers, and seemed distressed as they were removed.

Without them he was perfectly naked, a fact which plainly bothered him. Treves wondered if Mothershead was the cause of this, and was sure of it when Merrick bent forward slightly, trying to cover his genitals with his left hand. Treves remembered with a sense of shame how casually he had used a stick to direct his audience’s attention to those genitals, how clinically he
had remarked on their perfect formation, so strange in the midst of so much hideous deformity; how confident he had been that Merrick understood nothing of what he was saying. He felt suddenly shaken. Why, even Bytes had not done so much!

Was it only yesterday all this had happened? It felt it was a hundred years ago.

He persuaded Merrick into the tub at last and gently urged him to sit down. At once the water turned black. Mothershead took up a full bucket standing nearby and tipped the contents over Merrick’s back. The water was the colour of sludge before it was half-way down. Making a face of distaste Mothershead took up a scrubbing brush and began to wash him. Whatever her feelings it was plain that nothing was going to get in the way of the job in hand.

Merrick’s body was slowly changing colour under the impact of Mothershead’s scrubbing brush. Treves wondered if the loathsome smell might be no more than the natural effusion of a man who never had a chance to wash. He seemed to be covered with months of filth and accumulated excrescence.

When another knock came on the door Mothershead called, “Wait,” and promptly dipped the two empty buckets into the water. She took them to the door and there exchanged them for a clean pair, in the process becoming involved in another crisp conversation with Nettleton, which the words “Clear off at once!” seemed to terminate satisfactorily.

Returning, she tipped the clean water into the tub and went on scrubbing. This happened three times more, and each time Merrick became a little lighter. He had given up resistance and was leaning forward in the tub, with his eyes closed. He seemed to have protected himself from the outside world by escaping from it. Treves had taken up a seat by the tub and was leaning forward, examining his patient’s back intently. The strange cauliflower growths on it could be more easily made out.

“Shocking,” Treves murmured.

He was almost unaware of having spoken aloud, but the sound of his voice made Merrick flinch and swivel his eyes toward him. Treves did not notice. He was too fully absorbed in his own speculation.

“I wonder how far it can go before it …”

Merrick jerked suddenly and tried to pull away from Mothershead’s hand.

“Sit still,” she told him firmly. “Don’t wiggle about like a pup. I won’t stand for any foolishness.”

Treves leaned forward until he could meet Merrick’s eyes.

“Where are your parents?” he said slowly.

Merrick made no reply but he grew still. His eyes closed, and he seemed to slip back into the reverie that had held him a moment before. Treves went on talking, half to Mothershead, half to himself.

“It’s pretty certain that if he had the disease as a child he was abandoned. But what sort of parents, what sort of
mother
would turn her child away? She must have been a cruel, heartless woman.”

Mothershead gave him a cynical look. The mysterious sentimentality of men about mothers was something she came across often as a nurse. Merrick’s desertion by his mother did not surprise her in the slightest. She had seen the same sort of behavior too often to remark it. She had seen women who bore deformed children deserted by their husbands, or the men they lived with, and left to endure the consequences alone. And a woman alone with a child was not treated kindly by the world. So she laid down the intolerable burden when it grew too much for her, and the world called her cruel and heartless. Mrs. Mothershead’s sense of duty was too strong for her to approve of such a woman, but her sense of justice did not allow her to condemn as glibly as Treves.

“But in any case,” Treves was continuing, “he’d have had to have care. The very fact that he’s alive bears that out. But where?”

“The workhouse,” said Mrs. Mothershead.

His head went up, alert. “Yes. The workhouse.”

In another instant he had jerked back, startled by Merrick’s violent reaction and the splash of water it sent over the floor. Merrick had begun to babble wildly and thrash about the tub in terror. Treves’ efforts to calm him were useless. It was the first time he had ever been unable to get through to him, but the Elephant Man seemed oblivious to everything but his own panic. His moans rose into a high, desperate wailing as he tried to get to his feet and escape from the tub.

It was Mothershead who subdued him with a hand clamped firmly onto his left arm. He yielded at once and sank back into the tub. His head fell forward onto his knees and his whole body was shaken with despairing sobs. Treves was appalled. He had assumed, without knowing why, that that blank face was incapable of expressing grief.

“The workhouse,” he said softly, as understanding dawned.

Renshaw stared fretfully into his beer tankard, the bottom of which was coming into view too quickly for his comfort. Somehow it didn’t seem as if he could have drunk a whole pint, but there was the last mouthful sliding down now. He felt dreary, and dreariness was a feeling Jim Renshaw couldn’t bear. He liked life to be bright and lively.

“I’m a man who likes a little of what he fancies,” he’d say to any audience who’d listen. If the audience happened to include a pretty girl or two (and it usually did) he’d give them a nudge and a wink and add, “and a
lot
of what he fancies.” There’d be much giggling and flaunting, and usually he’d pick the prettiest, lean down in her ear and whisper, “I do like a bit of fun.”

That was Jim Renshaw. A man who liked a bit of fun. No harm in that, though you’d think there was if you listened to the do-gooders always trying to get between a man and his booze, his betting or his bedmate. Mostly Renshaw contrived to ignore such intrusions into his privacy and have his fun anyway. But things didn’t always work out.

Take now, for instance. There was Mattie, a real little bundle of mischief when he’d first met her and he’d had no trouble getting her to move in with him. Renshaw never had any trouble in that department. He was a big, well-made fellow in his middle thirties with a burly geniality that made him attractive to women who had not looked closely into his eyes and
spotted the gleam of cruelty that lurked there—and even some that had.

Mattie, like many before her, had fallen into his waiting hands like a ripe peach. Her predecessor had made a bit of trouble, but after Renshaw had twisted her arm a little (only a little because knocking about the girls he’d lived with spoiled his memories of them, and Renshaw was sentimental about his memories) she’d seen sense. Mattie had moved in and he’d had the best six months of his life. Mattie willingly fitted her hours to his, sleeping in the day when he slept and rising in the early evening to cook his “breakfast” before he went off to his job as night porter at the London Hospital. She was a good cook, never nagged about his boots, and was ready and willing at all hours. Renshaw had told himself his luck was really in this time.

And then the silly cow had spoiled it all by getting pregnant.

He groaned when he thought of it and banged his tankard on the bar to attract some attention.

“Fill it quick, Betty,” he told the girl who hastened to him. “I’ve got to get to work.”

“Shouldn’t you ’ave been there long ago, Mr. Renshaw?” She smiled archly at him as she drew the beer.

He told her to watch her lip but grinned as he said it. It was nice to be sauced a bit by a pretty maid whose face wasn’t blotched with tears or twisted with screaming. Mattie had been like that in the beginning. Why did they have to change?

Marriage she wanted, if you please! What the hell had got into her? Their kind didn’t marry and well she knew it. Renshaw’s parents hadn’t been married, neither had Mattie’s, and now that he applied his mind powerfully to the subject he couldn’t think of any couple he knew who were married—and some of them had a dozen kids. You set up home, you had kids (not that he wanted kids). Tying it up all legal-like
was for toffs with money to spend on that kind of thing.

He examined his behavior to Mattie, and couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. When she’d first started snapping about “not wanting a little bastard” he’d agreed wholeheartedly and offered to find her some really experienced woman who’d do the job all right and tight and no trouble. He had a sister who’d used the woman three times. But that wasn’t good enough for Mattie. Oh no. She wanted marriage.

He’d started spending less and less time at home during the day, wandering out in the streets to escape from Mattie’s nagging, her sickness, and her general evil temper. He felt hard done by. If only she’d agree to get rid of it, she’d be her old self again and they could go on enjoying themselves as they had before. But if she was going to be unreasonable, he’d have to give her the shove. There were other women who could cook and look after a man. He took a long look at Betty, who was serving at the other end of the bar. She caught his eye and came tripping toward him, her breasts swiveling against each other in a blouse she was rapidly outgrowing.

“Give me a bottle of gin, Betty. I’ve got a long night ahead of me.”

When she produced it he snatched it from her, ripped the top off, and took a large swig. Then he thrust it at her.

“Have one.”

She giggled and tipped the bottle up to her mouth, taking a swallow almost as large as his own. He regarded her in dismay. Never mind. He’d get his repayment later. He leaned over to her and spoke softly.

“I’m a bit short of cash till I get paid Betty. Could you—?”

Her eyes wavered. Having drunk from the bottle herself she was cornered. Then she gave him an arch smile.

“Your credit’s always good, Mr. Renshaw. I’ll put it on the slate.”

“That’s my girl. I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll’ave a good time together.”

He wandered out feeling justifiably pleased with himself. He knew that bottle would never appear on the slate. Betty would “forget” about it. He took another swig.

Somewhere a clock struck ten-thirty. He was late for work but he refused to hurry. It was beneath him. Besides, there was something he wanted to think about, something that had happened earlier that day, something very funny …

It had been about noon. He’d fled Mattie and headed for his favorite pub using a shortcut that had taken him past the rear of the London Hospital. He had stopped in a small alley that gave him a good view of the back entrance, and stood for a moment considering the sight of Nettleton staggering clumsily through the big iron door, bearing two buckets that seemed to be very heavy. Renshaw had nothing against Nettleton. He was a harmless young bloke who’d be all right when he’d learned a bit of respect for his elders and betters. Renshaw’s enjoyment of Nettleton’s difficulties was quite devoid of personal malice.

But the smile dropped off his face sharply when Nettleton tipped the contents of one of the buckets onto the stones. Renshaw jumped as some of the thick, sludgy material splashed in his direction. He took a step out into the alley so that the young man could see what he’d done. He was pleased to note that Nettleton seemed nervous in his presence.