by Paul Magrs
They said that she had horrible contusions. All over the exposed parts of her body. Her neck, face and arms bore awful red weals. She had been strangled, by all accounts, but not by human hands.
Tentacles, some said, had claimed her life and we all started imagining a vile, suckered, leggy thing come crawling out of the squalid river-murk. Perhaps a squid or octopus had come seething inland? Or maybe it was a mad person’s pet? Or a vengeful eel? We talked about nothing else for weeks, it seemed, because ours was a life of misery and only murders – the grislier the better – could ever penetrate our gloom and get us excited.
Friday nights we were all down the pub. The ‘Masks of Satan’ was my local then and I remember once when we were having our usual singalong, there came this godawful ululation from the street. The most dreadful gurgling scream we’d ever heard. The pianist stopped playing at once. The singing died down. Even the pint the barmaid was pulling dried up at once.
We piled outside en masse and a thick bank of woolly mist met us head on. Hurried footsteps were clipping away in the opposite direction. Then we all saw him. A man with – believe it or not – a trunk growing out of the middle of his face. About as long as a baby’s arm, flapping away as he fled the scene. We forgot all about pursuing him down that dark alley because next thing was we found his victim.
She was the old flower seller who’d spent most of her working life outside the ‘Masks of Satan’, plying her withered-up blooms. Now she lay face-down in the gutter, heaped in elderly daffodils. When the doctor in our midst turned her over she was found to have those same ghastly contusions all over her throat.
The facts of the case were bruited all over London. The monster had a lethal and prehensile trunk, with which he choked the life out of unwary ladies.
The last image I glimpse before I snap out of my flashback is that newspaper board again, with the headline about the latest death. Yes, I knew that I had seen a trunk just like Keith’s before. Such a very long time ago, but somehow the memory has surfaced. In order to warn me, I suddenly think.
I stand blinking in my kitchen, becoming aware of the aroma of scorched milk and burning pan. I’m troubled because there’s something else about the Elephant Man. Something I’m not remembering yet. I can’t quite put my finger on it…
I turn off the gas, throw the pan into the sink, and mop up the mess as best I can. Then I go to bed, hoping to dredge up the rest of my memories concerning my life in the late eighteen-hundreds.
However, my sleep is deep and, for once, quite peaceful.
The next morning Effie talks me into taking a morning off and we idly check out the charity shops on Silver Street. I’m always on the look-out for unusual knick-knacks to display in my new home. I’m examining a collection of capodimonte kittens and Effie keeps up a barrage of commentary about Keith.
In the end I burst out: ‘Yes, Effie, I’m sure he’s a lovely man, once you get to know him.’
‘He’s so masculine and self-reliant,’ Effie gabbles on. ‘You know he customized his mobile home himself? It used to be a horse box. And he’s ever so cosmopolitan. He’s been all around the world and back again. Places I’ve never even heard of, let alone spent time in.’
‘Yes,’ I say, examining the largest of the china kittens for cracks. ‘Yes, I heard quite a lot about him last night.’
Effie goes frosty. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
I sigh. ‘He’s a bit fond of the sound of his own voice, isn’t he?’
She looks flabbergasted that I could even think about criticising him. ‘How could you, Brenda? Don’t you realise how shy Keith is? Can’t you tell how hard he’s had to work to overcome the prejudices that his unique physical deformities have forced him to face?’
She’s gone all pious. It isn’t my favourite of Effie’s various moods, I must say.
‘People are so cruel. And I think it’s marvellous that he has managed not to retreat into himself and become a broken, reclusive man. I am grateful that he’s as outgoing and as sociable as he is, and that he can talk so confidently about his life. Why, I think we could all learn a lot from the way Keith has lived his life and overcome…’
‘All right, Effie! Enough!!’ I shout at her in the middle of the Sue Ryder shop. Instantly I feel ashamed. She has a look on her face like I’ve smacked her one. Other browsers are staring at us and I decide on the spot I’d better buy each and every one of the capodimonte kittens, because the ancient shop assistant is looking at us daggers.
‘What are we doing squabbling?’ I smile at my best friend in all of Whitby.
She still looks sore. ‘I don’t know. I think maybe you’re jealous of my happiness with Keith. Why else would you be so nasty about him?’
I hasten to the counter and wind up spending ten pounds on more china cats than I’ll ever have use for. The volunteer sales assistant takes a terribly long time to wrap each one in used tissue paper.
Effie and I don’t exchange any more words until we’re out on Silver Street again. The morning sun feels lovely and I wish we weren’t at loggerheads. And especially over some silly man. Then a new thought strikes me about something she said and I make things even worse by bursting out: ‘Effie! I meant to tell you! Keith’s condition isn’t unique at all! I’ve seen the very same thing before!’
She glares at me sideways. ‘What are you saying to me?’
‘It was a long time ago, and far away from here.’
Effie tuts. ‘Is this more of your dreary lies?’ she asks fiercely. ‘Like last night, when you were three sheets to the wind on poor Keith’s vodka? You were babbling on about being back in Victorian times!’
This brings me up short. ‘Yes! You’re right! I was, wasn’t I? I really was. Thank you for reminding me!’ Suddenly I feel like hugging her. She guesses this and backs off. ‘But what I wanted to tell you, Effie, isn’t about that. It isn’t about Joseph Merrick. Like I say, he never had a great big flapping trunk hanging off his face. Of course he didn’t! But someone else did, back then in Victorian times. Someone who looked just like your Keith! The London Monster, Effie! And I saw him with my own two eyes!’
Effie is looking at me like she thinks I’m the one who’s the monster.
Late that very night – after a wearying afternoon I’ve spent doing heaps of laundry – there’s a loud banging at the door in my side passage. I assume it’s Effie come round to apologise for being so shrewish, but it isn’t.
‘Keith!’ I burst out. His appearance startles me somewhat. Under the porch light his trunk casts most of his face in deepest shadow. He’s wearing a tatty pork pie hat and his eyes are narrowed at me. I didn’t realise he even knows where I live. ‘This is a surprise!’
‘Can I have a word, Brenda?’
All of a sudden I’ve got a bad feeling about letting him in. I look him up and down, taking in the fact that he’s wearing a ghastly shell suit that’s seen much better days. As I let him in and lead the way upstairs it strikes me that everything about him is quite shabby, including his caravan, whatever Effie says about it. I wonder if he’s latching onto her because he fancies she must have a few bob stashed away?
Up in my attic sitting room he refuses to sit down, or to accept a mug of tea.
‘I shan’t beat about the bush, Brenda.’
‘Go on, then.’ I try to sound as cool and businesslike as he does.
‘I thought we could be friends. But it seems we are destined not to get on.’
He tosses that trunk of his arrogantly. Its pink tip quivers at me and I feel revolted, I really do. What can Effie see in this man?
I tell him, ‘I’m very easy to get along with, actually.’
He chuckles and fingers his absurd hat, thoughtfully stroking its brim, though he doesn’t remove it from his head.
‘Oh, I saw your expression last night as we sat in my mobile home. I could see all too plainly what you thought of me. I’m not good enough for your precious bosom buddy. I’m a freak! A mutant! A loathso
me monster!’
‘That’s not what I was thinking at all!’
‘Pah!’
He trumpets, looking furious.
‘I would never let anyone’s looks prejudice me against them,’ I shout. ‘Even yours!’
He snarls at me and his ears flap.
‘I might have a low opinion of you,’ I tell him. ‘I might think you’re a chancer and a seducer of defenceless old ladies, but it isn’t because you look like an elephant that I don’t like you.’
My dander’s properly up now. I hate to be accused of being something I’m not.
‘I don’t think you’re right for Effie, no,’ I tell him. ‘And I don’t trust you a single inch.’
‘Well! Thanks for being honest with me! The feeling is mutual, I might tell you. There’s something I don’t like about you, Brenda. When I look at you all my deepest instincts run riot. I detect something rotten and from beyond the grave. What it is I don’t know yet. But I will find out, and expose you for the freak show that you are!’
He advances on me throughout this horrible speech until he’s waggling that horrid trunk right in my face. Flecks of spittle are flying off it.
I keep my voice calm. Unflappable.
‘Please will you leave my home at once.’
‘Got you frightened, have I?’
‘I – er, no,’ I say. Though my heart is pounding and I expect he can hear it with those ears of his.
‘You know what I should do? I should do away with you. Just put you out of the way – right now!’
Before I’m even aware of the danger I’m in, he lashes out with his trunk and it winds its way around my neck. He starts to squeeze and squeeze tighter. It’s like being got at by a boa constrictor. With every deadly little squeeze Keith’s murderous face draws closer to my own.
He says dreadful things. Though they sound rather congested.
‘You wid die id hoddible abony, Benda. Jud like all my udder vittims.’
The edges of my vision are spiralling, turning into a black kaleidoscope of impending mortality. But what can I do? I was foolish to let him get this close. And when he gets as close as this – just the length of his lethal appendage – then there’s no stopping him. Just like the London Monster!
After all this time, I have invited this homicidal pachyderm into my sitting room. But surely I can’t die like this. I simply can’t let this be the end of me.
Throughout my prolonged strangulation my free left hand has been scrabbling away on the wall unit behind me. I draw upon my final reserves of strength and take tight hold of the heftiest object that comes to hand.
Then I bring my arm round as hard as I can. I’m like a demon bowler as I smash the ornament down on Keith’s head.
He shrieks in pain and his trunk loosens its death-hold. I see at once that I have brained him with the biggest of my capodimonte kittens. And it hasn’t even broken! What a fortuitous purchase and a bargain to boot!
My assailant is staggering about on the rug, making a bigger deal out of my retaliation than he needs to. There isn’t any blood, after all. The pottery kitten hasn’t even broken his leathery skin. He’s shouting and swearing and lashing his trunk about. This time I make sure that I keep well back.
‘You were going to throttle me to death!’ I cry, rubbing my throat, and knowing before I even get to a mirror that I’ll have the same tender pink marks those poor girls in London bore. ‘You must be descended from the Limehouse killer, aren’t you? What was he? Your great grandfather?’
Keith seems in no mood for a spot of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ with me.
‘That was just a taster. If you go anywhere near Effie and tell her about this, or try to warn her about me – I’ll do you in. And I’ll finish you off next time, as well!’
I can’t believe that he’s still issuing threats! I must prove to him I won’t put up with any more of his nonsense.
I make a quick dive for the mantelpiece and snatch up the first thing that comes to hand. Unfortunately it’s the furniture polish and he sneers as I brandish it in his face. I soon wipe that sneer of his face with a quick spray of lavender-scented wax.
‘Oooowwwwwwwwww!’
He starts backing off towards the door and I know I have won. His hat’s fallen off and I notice that I have, it seems, left a curiously-shaped mark on his skull with that ceramic kitten.
‘Go on! Get off with you! Get out of my Guest House!’ Then he turns tail and thunders into the hall and down the stairs. The outer door crashes behind him. I’m still yelling: ‘Go on, you great big Nelly!’
And that’s how my B&B guests find me, at the top of the stairs, waving my furniture polish and bellowing at the top of my voice. As they come to console me I burst into noisy tears. It’s delayed shock, I suppose, at the awful violation of my home’s sanctity.
I don’t – as my worried guests suggest – report my attacker to the police. Best if I deal with this in my own way. Though I don’t at the moment have any idea what my own way might be.
Then I think – I have to make Effie aware of what she has on her hands here.
This man is a potential killer, just as his forefather was. I ring her and she doesn’t pick up. I leave a breathless message begging her to ring back, but she doesn’t. All at once I know that terrible man is in there with her, in her dusty and junky house.
I can’t stand this. I’m dithering late at night. Should I go next door? Should I chance my neck? Would she even listen if I tried to warn her? I just don’t know. What if he’s wringing the very life out of her skinny old body right at this very moment?
I sit at my writing desk, where each night I update my journal. This window looks out over the back of Effie’s house.
I can see her bedroom lit up all warm and peachy. The curtains at the side aren’t drawn yet and I realise that her net curtains are giving a kind of puppet show. Oh, my goodness! Yes! There are two silhouettes standing in her bedroom. I’m frozen here like an awful Peeping Tom.
Yet I can’t drag my eyes away from this horrible scene. As she crosses to him!
Effie in a slinky negligee…! Keith in his pork pie hat and a vest!
And his prehensile trunk – reaching out to Effie…!
Days pass by and I can’t seem to shake those awful images. My imagination keeps embroidering them. Effie in all sorts of ghastly congress with her gentleman friend. She never replies to my phone messages. She never comes round and, when I bang on her door, she never answers. Her emporium remains closed. I decide that Keith must have fed her disinformation about me, and is busy turning friend against friend.
What can I do? I know that he’s dangerous. She might even be dead already. I realise this with a shock. Maybe that’s why I’ve seen neither hide nor hair! But then – each night – I peep out and see – their silhouettes standing at that bedroom window. The scene exerts a hideous fascination over me. Effie never struck me as one who’d have her head turned so easily by a bloke.
Meanwhile… I am continuing with my strange tussle with my own memories. Perhaps because I now feel so settled here in my new life, the old recollections come trickling back…
I am flabbergasted by the lifetimes I have led – and the extent of them. They come back in dribs and drabs and dreams…
What I am seeing most in these memories is a face. A kindly face, full of understanding. A strong and complicated face, staring back at me down the years. It’s a beloved face, and one I knew well, once upon a time. His misshapen nose, his bulbous brow and sunken eyes. The lopsidedness of that face as a whole looks as if it has been thrown together by an inept sculptor out of clods of clay. It’s a face that is very dear to me, and not at all frightening. It is the face of the actual Joseph Merrick. Not John, as they often got it wrong. Joseph. The real Elephant Man. He’s sitting up in his bed behind the thick red drapes. Hidden away in his carriage. He’s chatting away with me. Easily, freely, or at least as easily as his impediments and catarrh will allow.
I
used to nip into his caravan to see him, didn’t I? I’d sit on a wickerwork chair beside his bunk and we’d talk up a storm. We’d talk for hours. It was that tour we did, all round the country. A whole summer in caravans, in what was essentially a freak show.
Oh, goodness. It’s all coming back. That’s how we two knew each other, all that time ago. They put us on display for the gawking, peanut-crunching crowds. I’d listen to them gasp and cry out in horror at Joe when he shuffled out to stand before them. He met their appalled stares bravely, but I could see that it was killing him inside, these days and nights in this horrid circus.
Joe was the star of our show, along with the much less spectacular bearded lady, Siamese twins, dancing midgets and alligator men. At the start I was just an usherette, flogging my tubs of melting ices and tarry cigarettes under the flaring gas lamps. Then, sometimes I would be shoved out before the crowd, when our owner, Mr Diodati was feeling particularly cruel.
I would be The Half-Dead Woman.
‘It’s Amazing That She’s Still Alive…!’
All my scars and monstrous deformities were put on show. All for the price of a tuppenny entrance ticket.
I was a fool to fall into the hands of Mr Diodati.
At that time in my life I was at such a low ebb. I thought all I could do with my life was parade my ugliness. I had no other gifts or skills, I thought. Only my hideousness. Which human beings would shriek at. Laughter, fear – it was all the same to me. Their reactions meant that Mr Diodati graciously allowed me to stay in his circus of freaks.
It was Joseph who befriended me. He saw the me in me.
He gave me back my self-esteem.
I watched him and saw his indelible grace and his massive dignity. His great good nature and humour. Nothing could dent it. Even when they stripped him and jeered and called out to him. Nothing could truly touch him inside.