Hyde

by Daniel Levine

  When I woke with a snort it was morning, and a figure was standing a few feet away with a silver tray. For a confused, terrified moment I thought it was Poole. I fisted the gum from my eyes and saw it was Jeannie there with the breakfast tray, watching me. I was splayed in the chair, one leg hooked over its arm, dressing gown spread open. I yanked it shut and sat up, pulse racing, brushing little balls of white upholstery from my lap. Jeannie had averted her gaze, was looking for somewhere to set the tray. She bent and put it on the floor. Would Master care for his coffee now? she crooned in eerie mimicry of the old lady as she rose with the cup and saucer. I wagged my fingers and guzzled the stuff back, gasping as it scorched through me.

  Where’d you go last night? Jeannie asked. She had moved to the sideboard by the wall and was tracing the involutions of its edge with her finger. Against the silver glare streaming through the verandah doors, she was just a slim outline, a downcast cheek. I cleared my throat. A pub. Black Shop Pub. She waited. What for? I frowned, looking down into the silty dregs of my cup, as if to read the mystifying answer in its runes. I had to meet someone, I said slowly. Someone was waiting for me. Who? Jeannie asked. I shook my head.

  You’ve been—Jeannie began. You’ve been different.

  Different how?

  Jeannie traced the scalloped edge of the sideboard. Just different. Dorie said—

  Dorie said what?

  Dorie said the other day—she said you trapped her under the sink. When she was hiding, you pushed a chair or something against the door?

  Th-that, I stammered, that—but that’s nonsense. I found her—she was—she told me to shut it. I touched my temple, seeing again that closing strip of light. I didn’t—

  Jeannie scratched the wood with her fingernail, making a tiny, gnawing sound, then dropped her hand and sighed. Never mind. Dorie lies an awful lot. Call it imagination. Do you want your egg?

  I shook my head. I hadn’t pushed any chair to the cupboard door. Why would she lie about that? I stared at Jeannie, stamped in silver, looking down. Gently she brought her hand to her tummy. I have to tell you something, she said in a small precise voice. But she did not continue. Instead she sighed again, and then she glanced up at me with a certain determination, a coy inclination of her head. Hey, she said. What say we go out tonight? Just you and moi. Someplace rum, like we did that once. All right?

  Someplace rum?

  Yeah. Someplace posh. I wanna do me hair.

  She did do her hair. Washed it in the kitchen sink and curled it into a pile of burnished ringlets. Then Mrs. Deaker made up her face, rouged the cheeks and lined the lashes and painted the eyelids blue. Biting a tentative lip, Jeannie led the way into the entrance hall wearing the frilly pink dress I had bought her, followed by the old lady, who gave me a chilly, cordial nod. Very pretty, she said, fixing me with a raptor’s eye. Doesn’t Master agree?

  Dorie threw a tantrum before we escaped. She wrapped herself around Jeannie’s ankles, swiping a claw at Mrs. Deaker, who made a rueful tsk of disapproval. I wanna go I wanna go I wanna go! the girl wailed. I pottered by the door, watching the antics. I had no sympathy for the histrionic little liar. Dorie caught my sneer, and she suddenly scrambled up and took two alarming steps toward me and then stopped, clenching her tiny fists, complexion hectic and blurred. Sparkling hatred blazed from her matted gaze. Die, it commanded. Die. I stood mesmerised. The girl drew a trembling breath and removed a strand of hair from her feverish lips, then turned and, with a kind of stately dignity, climbed the stairs. That was the last I saw of her.

  I took Jeannie to the George. Like a nobleman’s hunting lodge, wooden rafters and a roaring fire in the stone hearth and stags’ heads mounted round the walls. I told the waiter it was my daughter’s birthday and ordered a bottle of champagne. But my smile felt false and stiff, and my face wore a greasy sheen. She was right. I was different. I was changing. But into what? Jeannie sipped from her flute and eyed the room. Look at these people, she whispered. She jerked her chin at a prim man dining alone. I’ll bet he pays ladies to yoke him and whip him, she said, I’ll bet he’s got lashings all over. And that one there! That one’s a surgeon, see. He goes round at night cutting up stray cats and leaving ’em on geezers’ doorsteps!

  The waiter glided up with the snails, gave us each a pair of silver tongs and a tiny fork. I watched Jeannie struggling to grasp one of the slippery bastards, which leapt from the tongs onto the table and rolled over to reveal its slimy underside. At last she managed to plunge in her fork, twist, and pluck out the meat like an eyeball. With my tongs I turned a snail over, probed the frilled, grey flesh. So, Jeannie said, chewing the rubbery thing. What’s it you do, then? Do? Yeah, do. When you go off. Your other life. My other life, I repeated. I set down the tongs. I’m a doctor. I live in a great big house. Lots of servants. All new clothes. You wouldn’t even recognise me.

  Jeannie watched me, a lump of snail on her fork. What kind of doctor?

  A head doctor. An alienist, it’s called. I treat the insane.

  She gave me a sad smile. That’s not true.

  It is true, it’s all true. Ask me anything.

  She put her fork on her plate, and looked down at her lap, gathering courage. All right. In this big house of yours, d’you have a wife?

  No. No wife.

  Why not?

  Because. I’d make her very unhappy.

  An effervescent pain was expanding in my breast, as if I’d swallowed a gulp of champagne down the wrong pipe. Jeannie nodded vaguely at the tablecloth between us, and I ached to reach over and smear the speck of pepper from the wick of her mouth with my thumb. Instead I tugged the napkin from my collar and stood up, muttered something about the loo, and lurched off toward the back of the room as if across a pitching ship. In the gentlemen’s I unfastened my collar and splashed my bristly face, regarded my dripping reflection. My eyes were pink and glassy; a squiggly vein stood on my temple. A wife! Why would she ask me that? What did she think I could do? I couldn’t protect her. I didn’t even know what I was protecting her from. Myself, it was beginning to seem. I gripped the porcelain basin, struck by the urge to punch my reflected face in the glass and splinter it. We did not deserve her. We were only dirtying her with our soiled hands. And something far worse was going to happen if we held on to her much longer. I could feel it coming like a cloud about to cross the sun and throw the world in shadow. She was not safe. No one is safe! I whispered, like a fervent prayer. From a stall behind me came a thunderous flush.

  I looked up in the mirror to see the stall door open and a man stroll across the tiled floor toward me: heavyset, brown beard going grey at the chin. At the sink next to mine he began washing his hands, squelching the soap into a lather. I watched his reflection, the root of my tongue beginning to stiffen like a ramrod down my throat.

  Oh God. Not another one.

  I knew this man too. For a numbed moment I could not think how, and then the secondhand knowledge trickled in. Horace Waller. Georgiana’s husband.

  The man meant nothing to me. Yet I could not stop staring. He wrung his hands and shut off the tap and glanced up in the mirror and found me watching. A broad, common face behind the thick beard. He tipped me a doubtful nod, accepting a towel from the old attendant in uniform. Have we met? he asked, wiping his paws. My larynx was locked. For an instant I saw Georgiana in the chair by the cabinet windows, touching her belly, hair shining. I looked down at the gushing sink, twisted off the tap. The gents’ door swung shut. I was alone with the ancient attendant, shuffling toward me with a towel and a sweet, encouraging smile.

  Back at the table, Jeannie had moved on to my snails. I had made a mess of refastening my collar. A vessel thumped at my temple. I did not want to be drawn into yet another addling misadventure. What did I care about Georgiana’s husband? Yet even as I struggled to concentrate on Jeannie I could feel my eye veering off, scanning the dining room for Waller. Soon I had spotted him over Jeannie’s left shoulder, his thickset back and low s
cruffy head, at a table with three other men. Of all the loos in London. What did this sequence of appearances mean? One after another, these men were being placed in my path, as if by some hidden arranger, like those three ghosts in Dickens leading the old miser to enlightenment. Enlightenment! This was its opposite—murky, baffling implications. I was being toyed with. It was all interconnected, like a web. And here was Jeannie snagged at the centre of it, oblivious to the danger. I had to let her go. Get her far away from me.

  Bring me the bill, I told the waiter when he sidled up with our wine. I shakily refilled my glass, downed it, and caught the desperate glass eye of the stag’s head affixed to the timber above our table. The bill arrived in its elaborate leather portfolio. How much, then? Jeannie asked. A lady shouldn’t inquire, I quipped, attempting a smile. Then I offered her the bill and when she snapped it up I snuck a glance at Waller’s table, where the men were pushing back their chairs and getting to their feet. I groped in my pocket for the wad of banknotes, peeled some off and dropped them on the spotted tablecloth. I stared at the remaining stack and then with a wobble of grief presented it across the table to Jeannie, still examining the bill in amazement. She saw the money in my hand. What’s that for? I shrugged, grinning miserably. You might need it. Never know. Her fingers accepted the lump of crumpled paper. My eyes were starting to smart, the candlelight blearing. Ready, then?

  The four men came out of the George and dallied on the kerb, shaking hands and clapping shoulders. I held Jeannie by her coat lapels, teetering in her tall shoes. She had the hiccoughs. I can’t stop, she complained, as another one seized her. You have to help me, she said, gasping, you have to say my name and tell me to hiccough. Dorie—hic!—Dorie does it and it works. Tell me to hiccough—say, Jeannie, hiccough!

  Two of the men climbed into the first hansom by the kerb and went clopping off. Another man got into the second. Waller waved as the cab pulled away, big-bellied in his overcoat, breathing rags of steam. A third hansom was rolling forward to take him, but he turned to plod off down the street.

  Do it! Jeannie was pleading with me. Just try it—hic!—say my name and tell me to hiccough, it works, I promise. Pleeease? Jeannie, I snapped, giving her a rough shake. She looked at me, startled, tottered a step. I think that did it, actually. Good. Let’s go. I hooked my arm through hers and tugged her down the pavement after Waller. A quiet, well-tended lane behind Regent with regular trees and lampposts and shops all shut for the night. Waller scuffed along, a model of shambling innocence, the family man ambling tipsily home to his wifey. Jeannie clip-clopped at my side. What’re we doing? She panted. Listen, I said, my throat hard with heartache. There’s something I want you to do.

  She slid her arm from mine, and looked at me with slow, disgusted bewilderment. As if I had pulled off my face like a bandage and bared the real, raw flesh to the air. She stepped back, her mouth sour, her eyes starting to shine. Why would you want me to do that?

  Because, I answered recklessly. Why’s it matter? It’s a simple thing, isn’t it?

  And what’re you gonna do? You gonna watch me with him?

  No. My voice felt clotted. Maybe. What’s the difference? This is what you do, no? Make friends? With me, with him, with anyone. How many have there been, eh? How long you been at it? I feed you and your bitch of a sister, I keep you safe. I’m not your da. Not your sweetheart. I’m just some bloke you let lick your cunny for room and board. Am I wrong?

  Jeannie looked at me. Her bewildered brow had loosened into a kind of disappointment, mature and tired. As if she had known all along that this was who I was and yet had wanted to pretend otherwise. I’d been trying to make her angry. This was so much worse. My eyes were smarting again. A nearby lamp lent Jeannie’s hair a russet corona. She moved back another step and again touched a hand to her belly. Yes, she said. You’re wrong. Then she turned and walked away.

  Sprawled on damp grass, I awoke. Early morning. Someone was standing over me, prodding my shoulder. I shielded my eyes, smacking my rancid mouth. The man held a blunt stick in his hand, poised to prod me again. Thick leather belt, gold buttons down his tunic, a rounded hat like a riding helmet. I sat up in cold panic. A park. A wine bottle on the grass beside me. Wakey, wakey, sir, the copper was saying, you can’t sleep here. I nodded, wincing. What park is this? I tried to say, but I could murmur only Park. That’s right, sir, this is Hyde Park, you can’t sleep here. What’s your name, sir? I touched my fragile head. Hyde. That’s right, sir, the copper said, Hyde Park. He sighed. Let’s get you on your feet.

  The earth rocked like a boat. I clung to him, swallowing back the rising bile. Apologies. Last night, an argument, the old lady. Took things a little far, it seems. I tried to smile and imagined my dark-ringed mouth and wine-stained teeth. He was inspecting me, my clothes, my boots, my bloodshot eyes. Where’s your residence, sir? Ghyll. Ghyll Road. He frowned, his brigadier’s moustache pulling down. Then he nodded brusquely, slid his stick into his belt. In that case, sir, might I suggest you go home.

  Home. A drizzle was falling as I stood in the stone courtyard, looking up at the grey house, fighting a mean, heartbroken urge to find a stone and smash it through the drawing-room window. A cat was yowling out of the mist, repetitive and mournful. The stone angel atop the fountain mutely echoed the sound from its corroded open mouth. When I stepped into the entrance hall I sent a pair of cockroaches scuttling across the floor. I trudged upstairs to the top landing and pushed open the girls’ bedroom door. The chaise longue lay askew under the window and its dingy shaft of morning. Downstairs I wandered into the kitchen, stared blankly at the table and chairs. The door to Mrs. Deaker’s room, beyond the stove, was partly ajar; there was flickering within. I went over and eased it wider with one finger. The room was high and windowless. The leaves and pearls of scalloped moulding leapt with shadows. Mrs. Deaker? I said, stepping into the bedroom, peering uneasily about. I could smell her sharp, musty tang. My eye found the oblong flash of a mirror, in the far corner—a vanity table. Mrs. Deaker was sitting before it with her back to me. Her long silvery hair was down, as if she had been brushing it. But she was not moving now. Her stillness was frightening. I had the ghoulish notion that it was not actually her but a stuffed mannequin, with glass eyes and horse hair. Mrs. Deaker? I whispered. With a soundless swivel she turned on her stool, then rose and began to shuffle toward me like a sleepwalker, her dressing gown flowing, her eyes eerily vacant. Gin hazed the air around her; I stepped back in alarm. Eudora, I said, and she stopped, swaying, a few paces away. Her zombie eyes focused upon me, and her lips drew back.

  We just keep them, she whispered. That was the idea. We keep them.

  Listen, I said. Listen. Uselessly I shook my head. They had to go. It has to be this way.

  It seemed the old woman might laugh. You men, she said, in almost a kind of wonderment. You made it this way. I didn’t, I cried. I don’t have any control over this. It’s just—how it is.

  She stared at me, her eyes filled but not spilling over, her little teeth bared. Then she spat on the floor at my feet. A speck struck my cheek, wet and intimate. I blinked.

  Get out, she said.

  Day Three, Before Dawn

  I’m convinced of it now: there is a bird’s nest in some cranny of the surgery block. I’d wondered if I was imagining things when I first heard it, but there it is again, that tiny hopeful cheeping. I would like to stick my head out the window and have a peek, but that wouldn’t be wise; it’s almost light and Poole might be watching the windows. Listen to them, though—the minuscule things, all feathers and beaks and quivering hearts, chirruping in the half dark for their breakfast. Remarkable, to think of life growing in the cracks of this cursed workshop. You could almost take it as a sign of something good. But I know better. I am being taunted again with these birds. All those birds dead in Ghyll’s courtyard fountain. That’s what I am meant to remember, all those inexplicable little bodies. Birds are like tiny minions flung here and there by the handful. To d
ie in my fountain, to build a nest under my window and lay eggs—like it’s all the same, birth and death, interchangeable.

  As I move from the windows my eye falls on last night’s chicken dinner. The carcass gives me an unpleasant start—the flayed skin glistening in the early light and a shredded hole hacked into the breast; the legs awry. This looks like the leftovers of a lunatic. When did I do this? Gingerly I bend one of the legs back into place, feel the gristle click in the socket. When I release it, the leg begins to rise again on its own. No, this is no good, I can’t have Poole see this. Bracing myself, I take hold of the knobby bone end and lift the weighty carcass from the plate with one hand, ease the window open a bit wider with my other. I dangle the thing through the aperture and let it drop to the courtyard below. It hits with a damp, meaty thump. At least it won’t go to waste out there. The birds have been pecking up everything I drop.

  Chicken, though. Is it cannibalism for a bird to consume another bird?

  Oh, who cares. Birds eat each other every day. Everything devours its own kind.

  Get out, Mrs. Deaker said, and I did. I went back upstairs to the girls’ room. Feverish sleep on the chaise lounge: I woke bathed in sweat, parched, head pounding. I couldn’t tell if I had slept for a day or a minute—the grey drizzle pattering the slanted skylight was unchanged. I flopped back to the cushions and dreamt of digging through moist, falling earth, and when I woke again, the morning sun was roasting me alive.

  I was famished. I staggered heavy-legged from the house into the sparkling day. Silver clouds shifted over the sun; a warm breeze gusted up the road. I bought a sausage roll from a stand, piping hot and bursting with gorgeous bits of fat. I devoured it on the spot and dragged a sleeve across my mouth, invigourated, and continued on. I was heading eastward; soon I’d crossed Crown Street and left Soho behind. I knew where I was going. I did not question it. Yet I couldn’t remember the exact route Jeannie had taken that night. Everything looked different in the daylight. The lane was crowded: a swaying omnibus groaned with people clinging to its sides, the air thick with noise and plaster dust. I ducked into an alleyway lined with open stalls and workshops, furnaces glowing molten. Women kept pulling my arm and trying to show me their wares—jewellery, urns, enamel saints, candlesticks, leather harnesses, seat cushions—I stumbled away through the milling throngs. At last I found myself climbing an uphill lane strung with washing lines overhead, sheets and linens flapping in the high breeze. Spurred by recognition I clambered to the top and came onto a wide street of dreary brownstones sealed together in a barricade on either side. Yes, this was her street. I went up some steps and pushed into a stinking lobby, but I could tell it wasn’t the right one. I tried another, and another, before stepping into that specific smell of mildew and soup, with a pattern of broken tile on the floor. This was the place. I climbed the stairs to the third landing. A yellow stain spread over the bloated wallpaper like a country on a map. I tiptoed to the first door on the left, pressed my ear to the wood, and listened. Silence. I tried the knob—it was locked, but the lock was flimsy; the door gave a little when I weighed my shoulder against it. Hell with it. I backed up and kicked it open: splintering crack and a ping of something metal clattering off. The front room was empty. Four mismatching chairs at the tilted table; flies stitching the air above it. It stank of rotting vegetables, bad plumbing. I stood panting, waiting. Two peeling doors stood opposite each other, one partly ajar. I crunched across the gritty floor and nudged it open.