by Ruth Wade
‘Is there a bus service to Uckfield from here?’
‘Five-thirty from the stop opposite Tilgate Wood. Miss it and you’ll have the choice of a long tramp or getting cooty bites from dossing at the Barley Mow. I’d be opting to wear out my shoe leather if I were you.’
Edith’s words about having to wash the taint of distaste off the coins came into his head as he took his change. He knew exactly how she felt.
*
Stephen walked back down the cottage stairs. The smell in Dr Potter’s bedroom had penetrated even the peppermint-soaked handkerchief he’d tied as a mask over his nose and mouth. The door had been locked but he’d found the key resting on the top of the frame. As well as the ingrained stench of an incontinent old man, he’d had to combat a queasiness from having to look under the mattress that had cradled a dead body two years previously. The pockets of the suits hanging in the wardrobe had been empty. He could push his fingers to the end of the shoes without encountering anything. Short of prising up the floorboards, there was nowhere else for him to try. He’d ignored Edith’s room on the basis that not only would Dr Potter not have hidden anything there, it would be a breach of privacy too far to peek into her underwear drawer or rifle through any of her less intimate belongings.
The study was dusty and stuffy, the floor covered with balls of fluff. Stephen walked across to the desk and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. He stood motionless for a moment in an effort to replace his frustration with something approaching a plan of campaign. Things weren’t suddenly going to leap out and bite him just because he wanted them to. If he thought about it logically, whatever it was would’ve had to have been hidden very well and a long time ago – very possibly before Edith had moved to Fletching.
What else, apart from the ancient desk, was there that might be decades old? A battered armchair was pushed against the wall, the stuffing so lumpy it looked to be a treasured favourite. Stephen went over and tipped it upside down to rest on its wooden arms. Then he took his pocketknife and slit open the back and seat. If Edith wanted it kept then he would pay for one of the craftsmen at Beddingham Hall to do the re-upholstery; there was no doubt it needed work to make it comfortable again even without his butchery. Plunging his hands into the interior, he yanked out every last tangled knot of horsehair until there was nothing remaining of its substance but a frame and rusted springs. Could he have got it wrong and there wasn’t anything to be discovered in the cottage?
He perched on the edge of the disembowelled chair and tried to think. What if Edith hadn’t known her father’s attitude to her all along and it had been the finding of it committed to paper that had propelled her into the fugue? One thing he was certain of: she’d never have allowed herself to destroy something that she might want to stand up one day and wave in the face of his glorious reputation. So, assuming that she’d come across this thing unexpectedly, and the truth contained within it was as devastating as he believed it to be, then she wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to stumble across it and would have re-hidden it straight away without giving it too much thought. Any temporary hiding place must’ve therefore been one she could easily come back to when her mind had settled on a more permanent burial of the secret. The pre-psychotic Edith Potter would’ve taken comfort in the rationality of such an approach.
Stephen stood up and, starting at the short wall by the window, pulled each book off its shelf, opened it to make sure it hadn’t been hollowed out, shook it for loose sheets, and then checked in the gap it had left. Ten shelves: hundreds of books. He took down the one on roses and laid it on the floor in case he forgot that part of the quest in the excitement of vindication or despair of defeat. Then he resumed his systematic examination of the rest until his arms were sore and his back screaming. Eventually there was only a collection of bound scientific papers in several volumes left before he’d have to start the process on the more daunting larger bookcases.
Resting his fingers on top of Index and Introductory Remarks on Notable Royal Society Lectures, he tipped it towards him before sliding the book free. There, pressed against the back wall was a small Victorian pocket journal covered in green leather and tooled with gold swags and curls. He lifted it out and carried it over to the desk where he pulled a pen and paper from his pocket before sitting in the cane-seated captain’s chair.
The corners of the book were dented and it smelt damp but it appeared to have survived the decades relatively unharmed. The first page that had been written on appeared to be a list of dates with some initials or shorthand references beside them. All in a hand he recognised as Dr Potter’s from an annotated article Stephen had studied some years ago. He thought the cryptic notations might be something to do with his early career at the National Hospital for the Relief of Paralysis, Epilepsy and Allied Diseases. If this was a lost record of pioneering treatments or procedures then it would be of inestimable value to the profession, but it hardly constituted the confession of a man half-crazed with grief.
But the pages of excited scrawl that followed told a different story. Even with his experience of reading hastily written medical notes they weren’t easy to decipher. Then, one after another, words began to lace together into meaning. With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Stephen knew he had found what he was looking for. What Edith would never have wanted to see.
For the next three hours, as the afternoon light faded into dusk, Stephen transcribed page after page of Dr Potter’s journal. Now that he had some idea of the narrative he went back to the original page and translated the shorthand notes against the list of dates. Sweat soaked his crotch and trickled down his spine.
When he could no longer see without lighting a lamp and revealing his presence he picked up his notes and the journal and left. He’d never been so glad to get out of anywhere in all his life.
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NOTES FROM DR GERALD POTTER’S JOURNAL
[TRANSCRIBED BY DR STEPHEN MAYNARD, NOV 1927]
[THIRD PAGE]
1893
Can there be any man alive who has been granted such a great opportunity? Nor had such responsibility placed on his shoulders? Please God, I will not fail. Neither will I shirk my duty to Science, to my profession, and to my country. To that end I will faithfully record here in my journal my findings for this, the most profound experiment any man can ever conduct.
It is my contention that human instincts involve more than creatin certain motor aptitudes. For the Alienist, the study of the sexual instinct is of the first importance ... greatest of all mental forces, the disarrangement derangement or disharmony of which is the leading feature, and perhaps the principal ætiological factor, in mental disorder and lunacy.
I will prove the falsity of the sense-stimulus theory of sexual impulse.
[What follows is illegible. Appears to be meaningless scrawl.]
I will undoubtedly attempt to disprove:
that instinctive action is merely compound reflex action
pleasure and pain are the prime movers of all human and bestial behaviour.
Within the next few years I will have shown that what we now think of as immutable is, in fact, as subject to the new laws of Science as everything else.
I am hardly able to sleep at nights knowing what rests on my actions and observations. All surgical intervention has now been completed.
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NOTES FROM DR GERALD POTTER’S JOURNAL
[TWENTIETH PAGE]
[The writing from this point on is less frenetic; the thought processes seem to follow a more logical pattern and it is altogether much easier to read.]
I have committed the following thoughts to paper after an interval of 24 months following the cessation of the experiment. It did not prove practical to continue after the child attained the age of 10 years, primarily due to the increasing demands placed o
n me by the faculty in which I was working. Deprived of the facility of continuous observation, the impossibility of ensuring the purity of the environment for purposes of empirical scientific study became clear. However I am firmly of the opinion that I have amassed sufficient evidence to take my findings before The Psychological Society. I am convinced that it will be on the basis of their reaction to my findings that I will be offered the first directorship of the proposed Cambridge Psychological Laboratory.
Points to note when writing the paper for submission:
A clear difference exists between the sexes from early infancy – manner, habits of mind, and in illness – becoming more marked before the onset of puberty.
Although there are some cases of infantile masturbation, there is much positive evidence that the sexual instinct first awakens in the majority of mankind about the eight or ninth year.
Dr Marie has recorded the case of an insane Egyptian eunuch whose penis and scrotum were removed in infancy yet he had frequent and intense sexual desire with ejaculation of mucus. Although the body had a feminine appearance, the prostate was normal and the vesiculæ seminales not atrophied.
[The journal from hereon in has not been transcribed.]
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NOTES FROM DR GERALD POTTER’S JOURNAL
[PREFACE]
[List as written with my guess as to the meaning underneath. Will need verification.]
5/4/1893 prelim obs. Ep +der caut. Ex tis dam. C – bladder + urth funct. R exam.
[Preliminary observations. Epidermis and dermis cauterised. Extensive tissue damage. Catheter (inserted?) bladder and urethra functioning. Rectal examination.]
12/4/1893 1st op. Gl c: pros damg. V.d: V. s. 1 + mal. Cong?
[Glands – Cowper’s; prostate damaged. Vasa defentia. Vesiculæ seminales – one malformed. Congenital?]
7/5/1893 2nd op. N.P: F.p. Glan T od. Rep muc mem. Ing canal emty.
Anorchism?
Monorchid?
Cryptorchid?
[Not present (or non- ?) Frœnum preputi; glandulœ Tysonii, ororiferœ. Mucous membrane repaired (?) Inguinal canal empty.]
19 – 11 – 70 3rd op. Repair corp cev. Cut trab struct. Rem. exc. Tis. Fibrous septum. Raphe into labia.
[Repair corpora cavernosa. Cut trabecular structure. Remove (excess? Extraneous?) tissue.]
23/5/1893 obs. Scar tis. form. Dec. in pain morp red.
[Observations: scar tissue formed(ing). Decrease in pain; morphine reduced.]
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CHAPTER FIFTY
The blankets lay heavily on her scars and made them itch. Edith supposed she should feel relieved for some sort of sensation; the rest of her felt dead. How long had she been in bed? She’d crawled into it the minute they’d left and had hardly moved since. That made it two nights and one very long day. When Helen had brought the first of the unwanted meals, she’d pronounced rest the best thing to shake off whatever was ailing Edith, although it felt as though she hadn’t closed her eyes once in all the hours following. Helen had been wrong anyway; a bottle of whisky would probably have done her more good.
It had been the shock of course. Seeing the policeman and the Gypsy together like that. As if she’d needed any reminding of what had happened. She’d been reliving every detail ever since Edward had brought it all back. How much easier it had been when she’d been drugged and couldn’t remember anything. They’d talked at her about births and christenings and the September Taro Fair, and how the gyppo had stayed in Fletching because her horse was getting too old to climb icy hills. She could only throw in a remark about how Wilf Drayton’s geese hated the snow, or ask if either of them wanted another sandwich. Even then she’d thought it amazing the way her mouth could engage in pleasantries whilst everything behind it was numb and void.
This time she hadn’t thought PC Billings had come to arrest her. This time it was herself she didn’t trust. Not to blurt out the lies Dr Maynard had put in her head. She was merely guilty of a lesser crime. Not murder. She accepted she was ultimately responsible for the death, but it had been Edward’s doing. He’d been the one ... Only it had been an accident so why was she now adding lies of her own; was her mind finally disintegrating, twisting reality of its own accord without waiting to have them whispered like poison into her ear?
She wondered if that young man who’d come to the Ministry that day and cut his throat had felt as she did now, crushed by a hopelessness that flattened everything into a grey cloud filled with nothingness. Had he believed, as she had once done, that the afterlife was a continuation of earthly existence? Because, if so, he had condemned himself to everlasting misery. But surely the alternative would be to elect to commit suicide in a moment of supreme happiness and what sort of a person would want to do that?
Defeat. Despair. Despondency. Depression. Why did they all have to begin with D? Like dank, dark, dreary. All those things contained in this moment, wrapped in these four walls. So entrenched that it would be like this tomorrow, and the day after, and fill every imaginable stretch of time.
When they’d left, Old Sophie had patted her on the cheek and said this, too, will pass. But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. Not completely. If she ever did survive this then she’d be left with scars of bleakness as permanent as those on her skin. Every failure, humiliation, and withering sadness she’d ever encountered had scoured her like a retreating glacier but this would be worse because it was her sense of self that was being eroded.
The trial by fire had been easier; the drowning in madness, more comforting.
The minutes of her life were slipping by. Untouched. Untainted. Pure in their transience. How many more did she have left to call her own? If she were dead there’d be none to mourn as unfulfilled; but lying here, staring blankly up at the ceiling, she felt the breath of each one passing. Diminishing her. Her fingers clawed at the mattress. She could catch them if she tried. If she wanted to enough. It was all a question of desire. Or of need.
Perhaps they amounted to the same thing.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The night air was biting. A clear sky pinpricked with stars meant there’d be a heavy frost; all the talk in the bar had been about the expectation of snow. Stephen hadn’t bothered to wear a coat over his jacket; somehow it felt fitting that he should be chilled to the bone. Light from the un-curtained windows of the ground floor chequered the terrace. He heard the heavy front door of the Hall open and close. He hoped to God it wasn’t Peter, he didn’t think he could cope with his brand of teasing quite yet. He was still slightly drunk for one thing and his tongue couldn’t be relied on not to run away with him. But it wasn’t.
‘Since when did you take up smoking, Stephen?’
Helen had wrapped a travelling rug over a jumper that was baggy enough to be her husband’s. She looked sweetly vulnerable in the moonlight.
‘I haven’t. I just needed this one. You could say to calm my nerves.’
‘That’s not the only self-medication you’ve been indulging in by the smell of gin. Did you spill more on yourself than made it down your throat? Why drink that stuff anyway? You know it makes you maudlin.’
‘It seemed a good idea at the time. Whisky doesn’t cut such a neat path to oblivion for me these days. A clear case, my dear doctor, of over-familiarity breeding sobriety.’
He laughed softly at the joke to stop the tears from springing to his eyes. Helen was right: gin always had been his emotional ruin.
‘Why didn’t you come back when we expected you? Or any time over the past fortnight come to that.’
‘Were you worried about me?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself – I really don’t like you very much when you’re like this, Stephen; self-pity is a remarkably unattractive quality when it’s shared. Snap out of it.’
‘Sorry. And sorry I didn’t let you k
now.’
‘You don’t have to, you’re not a resident, but it was unforgivably selfish and thoughtless to stand Edith up. Luckily for you she was feeling a bit under the weather and, in any event, would probably have refused to undergo any sessions; when I took down her meals – which remained untouched I might add – she hadn’t stirred out of bed. Neither did she feel like speaking much but then I haven’t been her favourite person of late; think her nose was out-of-joint because I declined to reinforce her belief that she was more important and special than the other residents. So ... did you get a better offer?’
The cogs in Stephen’s brain whirred for a moment until he realised what Helen meant. A gin-soaked flush crawled over his skin.
‘I couldn’t get a lift back from Uckfield that evening so I took a room at the Chequers Hotel. Then decided to cry off work, sick, and stay there.’
‘Where the residents’ bar never closed.’
‘Can’t you throw a hangdog even a small bone of compassion? I was suffering from a terrible shock.’
‘Okay, so you’ve wheedled an apology out of me ...’