Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones (9781101614631)

by Wolf, Jack

  Directly mine Eyes settled upon the Injury I could discern exactly what I needed do in order to remedy it. Every Ligament, every Bone appeared before my Gaze as clear as if I had had her living Body opened up in front of me; and imposed upon them, as if they were writ upon a Pane of Glass, appeared the devilish Sequence of Pulls and Twists I must inflict upon her Limb to restore it to its proper Station.

  A raw Breath escaped me. My Loins leapt. The Beauty of her Scream, my Knowledge that I could put everything aright, combined within me into a sudden alchemic Lust: Lead into Gold, Gold into Extasie. By harming, heal; thro’ Torture, love. And how I love you, my Katherine; how I love you.

  Hippocrates would have had me put mine Heel in her Axilla; but instead, following my Vision, I grippt her Arm tight in mine Hands and began a slow counter-clockwise Rotation of the Humerus against the shoulder Socket, seeking out the one magical Location, and one Instant, when the balled End of the Bone would slot easily and quickly into place. Katherine began to shake, and a new Scream burst from her. I drew in Breath, and I was breathing in the Sound, a Cry most piercing; mixing Pain with the Aire and Blood that pumped into mine Heart.

  My Vision began to cloud. Katherine’s Scream was everything; mine Universe, my sensitive World, my rational Mind, my Conscience. By it, I knew the very Depth of our Connexion; the Vastness of my Love; knew too the aweful, irrational Reality of my Terrour that I might fail; that our Child also might have been injured in her fall; that it might not survive. And thro’ it, thro’ it all, undilute, continued the maddening Importuning of mine incomprehensible Lust, that seemed to achieve a greater Potency with every Increase of mine own Distress.

  Potency, I thought suddenly, madly. Is that what Lust is? Hope vivified by Dread, the animal Instinct rising to do Battle against the Fear, the imminent Presence of Death? Not Cruelty at all, not Vice, but the erotick Force turned Weapon against black Despair? These Thoughts had no sooner passed thro’ my Conscience than all on a Sudden, her arm-Bone shifted, gliding underneath the Pressure of mine Hands towards its Socket. Hope whirled within me; I was fascinated by the Movement’s Fluidity; and my Surgeon’s Curiosity flared back into Life.

  The Bone moved as if thro’ Water.

  One short, sharp Shriek, then Stillness. In the Silence, a Magpie chattered loudly from the high Hedge, and took Flight.

  I took hold of Katherine’s Hand and watched her Eyes, as the Texture of her Features changed from Parchment to Vellum, and thence to her, more than Human, Skin. She was shedding Yeares before me: sixty, thirty, sixteen; growing vibrantly alive beneath mine Eyes.

  Mine other Hand was upon her Leg, positioned high against her Belly; and as I sate with her I felt, against my Fingers, a vigorous, wriggling Twitch. The Child lives! Mine Heart skippt a Beat, then slowly eased.

  Sometimes the World is mercifull.

  Carefully, I lifted her delicate Form in mine Arms; so close that I could taste upon my Breath the Sweat of her Forehead. I will never let her fall, I thought. She is my Work; my darling Girl, my Brat, my Leonora.

  * * *

  My Recovery from this Daye on was amazing swift, and utterly confounded even the most optimistic Expectations of Erasmus Glass.

  Perhaps a Sennight after this Experience I received a Letter from Captain Simmins in London, regarding which, I must confess, I had great Reluctance to break open the Seal. After a short while, however, I got up my Mettle and prepared to discover its Contents, whether they be fair or foul, and with Katherine by my Side I sate in the Garden, and we read it thro’.

  The Letter was short, but not unfriendly, and, despite the Fact that as I perused it I seemed to hear the good Captain’s perpetual Stammer, which unfortunately deprived it of some of its Force, compleatly to the Point:

  My Deare Sir,

  I have been Offered a desk Posting in the North, which it suits me well to take. I have to leave this Daye, so by the Time this Letter reaches You I will be many unhappy Miles from Shirelands Hall. I have no Expectation of Returning South in the foreseeable Future. If by any Chance You ever make the Journey to Edinburgh I should be most Happy to see You. Pray commend me to Your good Wife and Your worthy Father.

  I remain forever

  Your humble Servant,

  Captain Isaac Simmins

  Once my Strength was fully restored, I took it upon My Self to discover the Widdowe of the unfortunate Joseph Cox, and to subtilely make a Provision for her and her Children, that they need not starve. Joseph’s Corpse was never found; but after many, many Months his Coat appeared, wrappt around a willow Root that had grown far out into the river Channel. By this the local Coroner ascertained that Cox had stumbled into the swollen Coller whilst drunk, and had drowned himself by Misadventure, and so the Case was closed.

  Cox’s unexpected Disappearance meant that Barnaby was forced to abandon his Plan for an uninterrupted View from his drawing Room, as Matt Harris flatly refused to continue by himself, and Barnaby was quite unable to find any other Labourer within fifty Miles now prepared to take on the Task of grubbing up the Willows. I later learned that a Story had begun to circulate in the local Hostelries that Cox had thereby offended the Lords and Ladies of the Chalk, who had driven him, by various Enchantments, to his Death. Mr Barnaby, it was muttered, would be next.

  There are a few small Details more to relate, and I must leap forward in Time to the Morning of All Soules’ Daye, when Mrs H., returning with Molly Jakes from the Village, found deposited beside the iron Gates of Shirelands Hall a ragged beggar Brat with sharp Teeth and no Name; and being in all Truth too kind hearted a Woman, and also much too frightened of the Faeries to have left her where she might have come to harm, she picked her up and brought her inside with the Intent of somehow there concealing her from me, who she feared would not agree to her Residency.

  Her Plan failed; the Girl, while playing innocently by the kitchen Fire, burnt the top of her Foot upon a tumbled Coal, and screamed, and almost brought down the Roof; and this being within Katherine’s and mine Hearing, it brought us down instead to see what was the Matter.

  “Eleanore!” Katherine cried out, at Sight of the Infant. “Eleanore!”

  So that became—or perchance had always been—the Baby’s name.

  We adopted Eleanore, and raised her as our Ward. She was a clever, affectionate Child; we loved her well. I am certain that Viviane, or some kindly Faery, had placed a Glamour upon her Appearance, for tho’ she had the blonde Locks and grey Eyes of the Bat-Changeling I had met upon the Road, her Shape looked intirely that of an Human Girl, and she walked upright. Sometimes, tho’, I would seem to hear the Rustling of Wings, and perceive upon her Countenance the very Semblance of Nathaniel; and I would remember Viviane’s Warning: “None of my Kind can endure long amongst yours.”

  * * *

  Mayhap you think this really was a Dream, or some Misapprehension, or an Event that occurred upon some other Level of Reality. If you do, I do not mind it. It signifies naught, which of these it was.

  Viviane had told me that I might never again leave the Chalk; and in Obedience to the Bargain that I struck with her, never have I done so. Cut off in this harsh Manner from London, and those Pillars of the Scientific Community who lived and practised there, I was obliged to give up mine Heart-held Ambition of becoming the next Paracelsus, and to content My Self with lesser Achievements. This may not, I think now, have been altogether a bad thing, altho’ in the Months and Yeares immediately after mine Arrest I suffered terribly and long upon Hearing Newes of any Advancements within my Sphere, particularly those to do with Aneurysm or Apoplexy, which I thought I should have made My Self. I did not, however, abandon my medical Studies compleatly, for I still had my Theatre; and in seventeen fifty-eight I began to offer my Services freely to any Poor of my Parish who were in Need of Surgery. This Practice, which I grew to enjoy beyond any Expectation, eventually led to my being appointed, after some while, Assistant to the Coroner; and after that I had easy Access to any Cadaver I required
. The Intelligences I gained thereby, and the growing Body of Evidence I obtained from my continued Observation of my Wife, formed the Bases for several short Treatises upon Hyperflexibility of the Skeletal Joints and Diseases of the ligamentary Tissue, but altho’ these may have been read by some among my Peers I gained little Fame by them, and I do not believe that they have ever had any Influence.

  My Son—our only Child, as things fell out—was born easily, and he was an healthy Infant with his Mother’s Flexibility and my dark Complexion. We named him John, after my Father, and Erasmus, for my Friend; but I did not suffer him to be christened, despite the strong Horrour this occasioned on the Part of the Rector Ravenscroft. Mankind, however, being what it is, and young John having inherited my wilful Nature along with my Skin, he ultimately decided by himself that he would be baptised a Christian; so, in Deference to the passionate Conviction with which he stated his Belief, I reluctantly permitted him to wet his Forehead. Mine own religious Practice, or more correctly, my Lack of it, remained quite unchanged. Like my Father, like mine immortal Mother, I knew for sure and certain that there was no God, unless that be a God of material Extension, immanent within this common World of Mind and Matter.

  My Father’s medical Condition did not shew any Improvement, but his Temper did, and after the Birth of his Grandson in that September of seventeen fifty-three he finally put away his Black and began occasionally to leave the House, altho’ always in Company and never without Mrs H., who remained his devoted Nurse. The Chasm that had opened betwixt himself and his Sister never fully closed, altho’ after several Yeares they resumed speaking, and remained on civil, if chilly Terms thereafter. The Jewish Naturalisation Bill, that he had cared about so deeply, was finally passed only to be met with such continued Opposition from the James Barnabys of this World that the Government was forced to repeal it. Nevertheless, I understand that he continued after this to be associated with Mr Pelham’s Party, tho’ we did not ever discuss Politicks.

  My Father’s good Friend, Mr Henry Fielding, resigned as Magistrate of Westminster in seventeen fifty-four, and headed on Doctor’s Orders for Lisbon, where, in October, he died. His Brother John took up his Mission, and his Wigg. Dr Hunter became Physician to Queen Charlotte, and a Surgeon-Anatomist of great Fame. His Engravings for the Anatomia uteri humani gravidi, the Sketches for which had so disturbed my Mind while Katherine was with Child, were published to great Acclaim twenty Yeares later.

  In the Spring of fifty-five, Erasmus unexpectedly announced that he was returning to London to take up a Post with Dr Oliver at St Luke’s Hospital. Within the Fortnight he had decamped. Shortly after Easter, my Sister ran off to join him. The Scandal occasioned by this Elopement, and the subsequent Divorce, gave Barnaby a severe Shock, and he was never the same Man afterwards. I would assert that he was greatly improved; but that may have been merely my—arguably, unobstructed—View of him.

  I never found out what became of Annie Moon. I can only hope that she succeeded in buying her Freedom of Mrs Haywood, acquired honest Employment somewhere else in the City, and did not fall Victim to some Monster more murderous than My Self; but in Truth, I have scanty Confidence of that.

  * * *

  I often wonder at Nathaniel, and whether he could be truly dead; and if dead, at the Thoughts that must have passed thro’ his Head as he had stood beneath the ash Tree, in the May dawn Light.

  “I am going home.” Indeed, indeed. Had it really been for Shame? Had it even been for Love of Leonora, or Katherine, whom he had so briefly possesst, and yet could not have? Had it merely been for Boredom with this Human World, and its relentless ticking Time? Or had he perhaps formed some Apprehension that there was a Monstrosity in him that he could not defeat: a black Shaddowe, a Cancer, a Goblin; and he had perceived that the only thing to do to excise it from his Conscience was to strike that Conscience intirely from the World?

  Sometimes, I ask My Self: what would have happened had I gone with him? It is a futile Thought, and Heart-breaking; I do not permit my Mind to linger upon it. I do not know, and I never shall.

  I do know that there is terrible Monstrosity in me; that I, if I were to permit My Self, would happily and at one Moment’s Provocation, transform into a Bloody Bones of chilling worldly Ambition and ruthless Curiosity, who would drag to my grisly Den and do real harm to Friend and Foe alike with little Care for anything except the Fulfilment of mine own Desire for Knowledge. I know too that this intellectual Evil, which is of a Species peculiar to me and other Men of Science, will remain within me, spreading its bloody Filaments thro’ my Tissues until the Daye I die; but I will never seek its Excoriation. I control it. I am that Kind of Monster.

  If God is a Balladeer, then we are no mere Characters, our Roles and Choices fixt for us providentially within a Song. The World, this World, my Mother’s Lord, mine intellectual Deus, is a Deity of living Thought, cloathed in Atomies; star-Fire and earthly conscious Flesh. He—nay, It—may not merely be worshippt in a Church; it must be known, perceived, interpreted; seen thro’ the bright Lens of a May Morning’s Mist; heard in the Whispering of the Wind above the High Chalk. God is this World, and this World only, which is the one World of all things. It hath no Plan, It doth not judge; simply It is, and all are of It; and thus It is within the free willed Man, who may choose, or not choose, to recognise It.

  Good and Evil, Right and Wrong: Human Terms, misguided and sorry; for, in Truth, there is but one Choice, and that is whether to act or to refrain from Action. A Man, an Human Man, Angel and Beast incarnate, may choose to inflict Pain and Harm, or not to do so, but the Authority to make that Choice lies with him and with him alone, and there is neither Hell nor Heaven presumptive upon it.

  And even as there is great Sorrow in the World, even as there is Tragedy as dark and ignoble as any dreamed up by Aeschylus, so too is there Mercy, even if there be no mercifull Father to dispense it. And verily, this is good, for Mercy is not therefore dependent upon Conduct, hath not to be earned, as if it were a Wage; receiving it dependeth not upon a Christian Life or on a virtuous one, but only upon one’s Capability to perceive that this Mercy freely exists, and flows; and it is beautifull. And there is Mercy in shared Pain, and in Lust, and in Human Love; in the Crying of a newborn Babe and the Sighing of the Dead. It is present in the Rain, and in Heaven’s bluest Bowl, and in the sudden Death of a Mouse; and the Screaming of a Woman, and the Incision into her Breast of the surgical Blade that aims to save her Life. It is in that visionary Madness of the Mind that permits a Madman to perceive Truth in extremis, when all else had seemed lost. Mercifull, indeed, is this worldly Existence, and cruel; and beautifull; and vile, and filled with Pain; and greater in its Scale, and in its Depth, and its Complexity than mere Men can ever hope to understand; and profound wonderfull in its Capacity.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Tracy Brain at Bath Spa University for her unwavering support during the early stages of this novel, Will Francis for seeing it thro’ to the end, and everybody else along the way who read bits of it and persuaded me to get rid of the ones that weren’t working. Special thanks to Becky Hardie for her clear thinking and perceptive criticism in the final stages.

  My thanks also to various Druids, Artists, Musicians and other Spirits for introducing me to the beauty and mystery of the Land around the Uffington White Horse.