Points of Departure: Stories

by Pat Murphy

  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.

  “Careful there,” John said. “They’ve a nasty, irritable temper. I was stung four times last week.”

  “They’ll not sting me,” Charlie said. The insect crawled over the massive hand, its wings buzzing, but it never stung.

  “Come,” said John. “There’s more to see.”

  John led the way to the fishpond, where he bred carp, tench, leeches, and eels for experiments. On the way, he noticed that larks, finches, and other small birds seemed to be particularly abundant in the fields that day—the grass was alive with them. They fluttered up from the grass before them, circling the giant’s head before flying away. Once, to John’s amazement, a lark landed on Charlie’s shoulder, tipped back its head to release a torrent of song, then flew away. John was wondering at what had brought the birds to this place when Charlie fell behind. John looked back to see the man unfastening his shoes. One large foot was already bare.

  “Feels good underfoot,” Charlie said. “Warm. Not like the streets of London.” He took off his other shoe and set the pair beside a fencepost. Straightening up, he lifted his arms over his head in a prodigious stretch. He looked healthier than he had for weeks.

  “The sunshine agrees with you,” John commented. He considered the giant for a moment. “You could stay here for a time, if you like.” That would solve so many problems—Charlie might live longer, but John would no longer have to worry about losing the body. The situation would be under his control.

  Charlie’s face brightened momentarily, but then he frowned and shook his head. “I cannot do that.”

  “I could take you into London, now and again,” John persisted. “But you could stay out here the rest of the time. The city air’s unhealthy. It does you no good.”

  Charlie shook his head stubbornly. “Until I can return to Ireland, I must stay in London. That is where the Irish are and that is where I must stay.”

  “As you will,” John said. He considered, as he walked, whether the right time had come to ask the giant about his bones. He tried to introduce the notion of scientific investigation gently. “You must see my other animals.” He led the way back to the paddocks surrounding the house. He stopped by the pigpen and leaned on the fence. “I’ve found pigs to be the best for experimentation. They are easily managed and breed well in captivity.” The old sow had pushed close to the fence and was staring up at Charlie. The tall man leaned over to scratch the top of her head, and she sighed in contentment.

  “What has happened to her piglets?” Charlie asked. All three of the young animals bore scars on their right hind leg and limped a little.

  “They are part of an experiment,” John explained. “I am investigating the way bones grow. The French botanist Henri Duhmamel du Monceau claims that they increase by accretion throughout their length. I maintain that they grow from the extremities.” He explained his experimental procedure to Charlie. He had operated on all the piglets.
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  On each one, he had laid bare the bone of the right rear leg, drilled two holes precisely two inches apart, inserted lead shot in the holes, and then stitched up the incision again. In the weeks following the operation, John was butchering the piglets one by one, at weekly intervals, and checking the, bone. Though the leg bone had lengthened overall, the distance between the deposits of lead was the same as it had been on the day that he inserted it. This supported his hypothesis that bones grew through accretion at the ends, not in midspan.

  Charlie stared at the piglets in the pen. “Why is it you want to know how bones grow?” he asked at last. “Isn’t it enough that they do? By God’s grace, they grow quite well.”

  “Can’t always trust in God’s grace,” John said briskly.

  “What else is there?”

  “Knowledge,” John said. “Sometimes, they do not grow, or they grow improperly. I want to know why.” He gazed at the piglets. “There is so much to know,” he murmured. “Do you know, Charlie, if I could look at your bones, I might be able to tell why they pain you so. It would not help you, but it might help someone else whose bones ache.”

  “My bones?” Charlie stared at him, his eyes suddenly wide. “You want to see my bones?”

  “When you die, Charlie, as we all must do,” John said gently. “If I could take your body—”

  Charlie was backing away from him, his expression shocked. “My bones, John? What would you do with my bones?”

  “Examine them, Charlie.” John spread his hand, the gesture of a reasonable man making a reasonable proposal. “You’ll have no more use for them, once you’re dead.”

  Charlie was shaking his head. His big hands formed fists at his sides. “My bones must return to Ireland,” he said.

  “That’s where they belong. I promised my father—”

  “Superstition, Charlie,” John said gently. “You must not take it so seriously.”

  Charlie turned and fled. Startled by Charlie’s reaction, John called after him, but the giant did not look back.

  John ran after him, but did not have a chance of overtaking him. Finally, he let the man go, knowing that he would eventually return to his rooms in London.