Points of Departure (42 page)

“What a pretty song,” the bird seller exclaimed. “I’ve never heard a greenfinch
sing like that in all my days.”

“Then you’ve never heard a greenfinch sing,” John said abruptly. The attempt at deception, however clumsy, annoyed him. “A greenfinch is worth three pence, but with a little paint, you’ve more than tripled the price. I’ve half a mind to—”

The bird seller’s eyes widened as he looked past John.

“You there,” he cried. John looked around in time to see finches and
sparrows explode through an opening in their cage and make for the open sky. Beside the cage stood an enormous man. In one hand he held the wooden slat that he had ripped from the cage; in the other, a wooden staff decorated with hawthorn blossoms.

“God save us!” shouted the bird seller, running to the broken cage. The last of the sparrows flicked its tail and took flight, leaving the cage empty
save for loose feathers and bird droppings. The bird seller began to shriek. “You blasted noddy-headed fool!” He turned on the big man, raising his hand as if to strike.

The man straightened to his full height and glared down at the bird seller. “They wanted to go free,” the big man said.

John stared at the giant, amazed at his dimensions. He had, on occasion, visited freak shows that advertised
tall men or giants, but this man topped them all.

The bird seller lowered his hand, his fury tempered by a fearful respect. But he continued shouting. “Who’s going to pay for my birds? They were my livelihood, and now they’ve flown. I’ll call the constable on you, you great lout.”

“Here, man,” John said hastily. “I am sure that the constable would be interested in this foreign bird that you
painted at home.”

The bird seller glanced uneasily at his one remaining bird. “Now, sir, there’s no need of that. This quarrel is none of yours.”

John reached into his purse. “Stop your shouting,” he said, handing the man a few coins. “Take this for your trouble, and leave well enough alone.”

“Hours of collecting for nothing.” The bird seller continued complaining bitterly as he pocketed the
coins.

“What about that one?” the giant asked, waving a hand at the caged bird.

John dug two shillings from his pocket and took the cage. Then he glanced again at the giant and suggested, with a jerk of his head, that they leave the place before the grumbling bird seller changed his mind. The giant led the way down to the River Thames. At the river steps, he sat down and held out a hand for
the cage. Heedless of the mud and fascinated by the big man, John sat on the stone beside him.

“Poor bird,” the giant muttered, looking at the greenfinch.

“The color will wash off,” John said. “I’m sure the bird seller used the cheapest paint he could find.”

The giant opened the cage door and the bird hopped out onto the man’s finger. He splashed the bird with river water. The runoff was scarlet,
and the tail feathers lost a touch of color.

John marveled at the bird’s passivity—no doubt it was stunned by the heat of the day. But more than that, he marveled at the giant. A magnificent specimen, John thought. He wondered, gazing at the man’s oversize hands, what the bones looked like underneath. Ah, what he would give for a skeleton like this man’s in his collection.

The man’s face was
broad and young looking. His blue eyes were a little wild—a hint of lunacy there.

“Why did you pay for the birds I let go?” the giant asked John.

“I wanted to make your acquaintance,” John answered honestly. “I’ve never seen a man as big as you before.” He was watching the giant closely. “Do your hands pain you? I noticed the knuckles seemed reddened.”

“They ache, right enough.”

“I thought
so. Your knees and hips—they give you pain too?”

“My knees, and hips, and feet, and hands. They all ache, God save me. They have since I came to London.”

John nodded thoughtfully. “I have a salve that might help a bit with that,” he said slowly. “Worth a try. If you’d like to come to my office, I could give you some.”

The giant looked down at John. He seemed to be grateful for the man’s attention.
“Perhaps I will.”

Just a few days later, in the dissecting room of his Jermyn Street house, John Hunter instructed a group of would-be surgeons in human anatomy. The corpse of an old man lay face down on the dissecting table. Over the course of his instruction, Hunter had neatly laid back the layers of skin and fibrous tissue covering the muscles of the lower leg, lecturing his students on the
treatment of injuries to the Achilles tendon. He stressed, as always, the need to experiment and observe.

Only after dissecting the leg to the hip did he complete his lecture and dismiss the students. He watched them go, wondering if any of the lot would, ever amount to much.

Or would they become like their learned teachers at St. George’s, relying on historical hearsay, failing to test and
experiment and observe.

Hunter removed his bloodstained smock and washed his hands in a basin of clear water. He was climbing the stairs that connected his basement dissecting room with the rest of the house, when Mrs. Shields, the housekeeper, appeared in the doorway.

“A tall man named Charlie Bryne is here to see you,” she said, looking a little flustered. “A very tall man.”

“Very good, Mrs.
Shields,” John exclaimed. “Very good indeed. Send him right in.”

The giant stood uneasily by the fire in the small room that served as John Hunter’s examination room. He was out of his element, John thought. By the river, he had seemed confident, powerful. In this confined space, he lacked that expansive vitality. His shoulders were hunched, as if the ceiling were pressing too close. His face
was pale.

His hands were clasped behind his back, like a schoolboy who had been told not to touch anything. John studied him, estimating how large a display case he would need for the skeleton.

“I’ve come for that salve you told me about,” Charlie said. “I thought it might help warm me.”

“I’m so glad you could come,” John exclaimed. “Sit down. Mrs. Shields will bring us some tea—or perhaps
a glass of sherry. That would help warm you.”

“I’ve never tried sherry,” Charlie said.

“Then you must try it now,” John said. “Please sit down.” He gestured to a chair. “How’s the greenfinch? Did its feathers come clean?”

Charlie nodded. “It flew off. Back to the country.”

Mrs. Shields brought the sherry, pouring the glasses and setting the tray down on the table by the fire. John lifted his
glass and smiled at Charlie. “Here’s to the birds.

I’m glad they didn’t die uselessly in the smokes of London.”

“Aye,” Charlie said, and sipped his sherry.

John hesitated for a moment, considering his words, then spoke quickly, eager not to miss the opportunity.

“Would you mind if I took a few measurements while you’re here. Your body temperature, your heart rate—a few simple things, really.”

Charlie frowned. “Why do you want all that?”

John chose his words carefully. “I study people like you,” he said.

Charlie shook his head. “I do not think there are any other people like me.”

John waved a hand to dismiss the objection. “Not precisely like you,” he said. “Not giants. But people who are smaller than most, or bigger, or somehow different. The differences are where Nature’s secrets
lie. I have dedicated myself to the study of amazing things. By studying these things, I learn about the world. If I knew why some lambs grew two heads, I’d know why most grow only one.”

Charlie finished his glass of sherry and John poured him another. “Why do you want to know that?”

John set his glass of sherry on the table and leaned forward. “Your body is a remarkable machine, Charlie. When
you will it, your fingers move, your eyes blink, you stand, you sit.” He reached out and tapped lightly on Charlie’s chest. “Your heart beats in your chest, steady as a clock. Why?” John sat back. “You grow and keep on growing, so much larger than other men. Why?”

“Because the old blood runs in my veins,” Charlie said, but John ignored the interruption.

“The answer’s in there,” John said. “In
your body. Ticking like a clock.”

Charlie glanced uneasily at his own chest.

“I want to understand these things,” John murmured.

“Perhaps you cannot understand,” Charlie said. He drained his second glass of sherry and held out his glass so that John could fill it again.

“I just don’t know enough,” John said. “Nature is keeping her secrets, but I will outsmart her.” He sipped his own sherry.
“If you will do me the great favor of letting me take a few measurements …”

Charlie shrugged. “As you like,” he said.

John counted Charlie’s pulse, took his temperature, measured his height, his girth, the length of his hands, his feet, the reach of his outstretched hands, and the circumference of his head. As he worked, noting each measurement in the pages of a little book, John made conversation.
“I have the bones of a great whale, strung together just as they were when the animal lived. Fascinating creature.”

“I have never seen a whale,” Charlie said. “Biggest fish there is, they say.”

“I’ve never encountered a live one, but a student of mine supplied me with the pickled carcasses of two smallish specimens. They’re less like a fish, from the build of their skeleton, and more like a
cow.”

“A cow that spends all its life at sea?” Charlie commented. “Not bloody likely.”

John shrugged. “They lack the gills of a fish, but have lungs of a sort. Most peculiar. I’ve preserved their skeletons in my museum. The skeleton betrays much about the working of the body.” He settled back into his chair, done with measurements for just then. “We share an interest in natural history,” John
said. “Perhaps you would like to come to my country house sometime. See my gardens, my menagerie. A pleasant break from the streets of London.”

He watched Charlie’s face for a sign of fear. Ah, the man was an innocent; he smiled at John.

“I’d like that,” Charlie murmured. “That I would.”

They became friends, of a sort. On many a fine afternoon, John went to meet Charlie at his rooms. Sometimes,
he brought the giant a bottle of sherry and they sat by the fire and talked. John brought a salve that seemed to ease the pain in Charlie’s hands, though he still complained of aching knees and hips. He seemed to feel most comfortable by the fire.

In his own way, John genuinely liked the giant. The man fascinated him. John had decided quite early in their acquaintance that Charlie was quite mad.
He had a peculiar turn of mind—he told John quite seriously about the most amazing things: haunted meadows and ghostly kings and magic swords. John could tell, from Charlie’s wild tale of his own conception, that the man was of illegitimate birth. Charlie told John about his quest—he had to bring the Irish back to Ireland—and John nodded politely, accepting this as just one more indication of
the giant’s madness.

John was struck by the giant’s remarkable staff and its seemingly permanent crown of flowers, though he gave no credence to the miracles Charlie claimed it had perfumed.

He examined it closely, verifying that the blossoms sprouted directly from the wood. He had heard that the branches of certain trees in the West Indies continued to bear leaves even after they had been cut
from the parent tree, and he speculated that the staff might be of a similar plant, one that only resembled the common hawthorn. He wanted to cut the staff in half to see if the wood were green inside, but Charlie would not allow it, would not even allow the staff out of his sight.

As the weeks passed, it became obvious that London did not agree with Charlie. Clearly, the man was dying.

His
hands trembled as he raised a glass of sherry to his lips; he could never get warm. He developed a cough that made his frame shake like an oak tree in a gale. His skin grew pale and broken blood vessels in his nose and cheeks betrayed his affection for gin. He took to wearing shoes, trying desperately to keep his feet warm. John noted Charlie’s decline with a mixture of regret and anticipation.

He would miss the opportunity to study the living giant, of course, but he was eager to examine the body and bones.

He worried, sometimes, about Charlie’s drinking habits.

If the giant died in the gutter, who could know where his body might end up. Body snatchers abounded, and John feared that some other surgeon might obtain the body.

It was during this time, on a fine sunny afternoon, that
John took Charlie to his country house at Earl’s Court.

They rode in John’s coach, though the giant had to hunch his shoulders and bow his head to fit in the seat. The lethargy that had grown habitual seemed to drop away from the giant as soon as they left London. Charlie stared out the window, grinning at the trees and meadows.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “Just wonderful to see green fields
again.”

At Earl’s Court, John took Charlie around the grounds, showing him the exotic beasts and fowl. Charlie gaped at the zebra and smooth-skinned Asian water buffalo that shared a paddock, shook his head in amazement at the two young leopards and’ the African lion. In the conservatory, he marveled at John’s beehive, a box that had been built of plate glass. Beneath the glass, the worker hees
hurried through the complex combs, going about their business.

Through the glass and from the surrounding fields came the faint sound of buzzing.

“It reminds me of home,” Charlie said, his voice a soft rumble. “I used to sleep in my mother’s fields, listening to the sound of the bees in the clover. A beautiful sound.”

“I’ve studied the pitch of their humming and compared it to the pianoforte,”
John said. “It’s treble A above middle C.”

Charlie did not seem to be listening. He was leaning close to the glass, watching the workers making their way through the combs. “So many of them, so busy.”

“An average of approximately three thousand four hundred to a hive, by my count. And there’s always a queen bee, you know. In every hive I’ve checked.”

Charlie held out his hand, and a bee that
was returning from the fields landed on a finger.