Visitor in Lunacy

by Stephen Curran

  Through a mist of tears I see something moving beyond the open door at the other side of the room, a figure with shorn hair, wearing a loose white robe. Blinking, I see it is a woman, her skin so pale her lips have, by contrast, taken on the colour of cherries. With her head bowed and her eyes cast down she stops beneath the frame and turns in my direction. I must have inadvertently found my way into the female wards.

  Afraid she might be startled by the sight of me and raise the alarm I remain perfectly still. Apparently oblivious to my presence she steps forward, her movements so languid I wonder if she might be sleepwalking. Each table she passes, each chair, she touches lightly with the tips of her fingers, as if counting them off, accompanied all the while by the sonata-allegro drifting in from another room. It is only when we are within reach of each other, roughly a yard apart, that she realises I am here with her. Stepping away she widens her eyes with fear. In a ploy to placate her I place my hand on my stomach and perform a deep, regal bow. A faltering smile spreads across her face. She is reassured. Crossing her ankles like a ballerina she responds with an elaborate curtsy and continues contentedly on her way. She is the first woman I have seen since my life in Carfax began.

  Beyond this room the corridors become maze-like and complicated by mezzanines. The dividing doors, of which there are many, are made of dark varnished wood and the floors are covered with intricately patterned black, white and grey tiles. Brass plaques on the walls confirm my suspicion that I have stumbled into the administration block: ASSISTANT MEDICAL OFFICER, ENGINEER, SUPERINTENDENT. When the escape siren bursts into action, as I knew it must, it is loud enough to force me to protect my ears. Hurriedly, I double back on myself, taking the first flight of stairs I can find.

  Finally: a window on the ground floor that opens when I give it a push. Swinging my legs out I lower my feet onto the grass. In the moonlight I am just able to make out the lawns ahead of me, the 'Union Jack' pathways, the trimmed hedges and the giant-like poplars which line the drive. From the direction of the main doors people are shouting. A figure in a white nightgown flashes across the space: the painter, being pursued. I must make it around to the other side of the building if I am to reach the church.

  Setting off at a run I follow the grass border towards the far end of the building. After turning the corner I pass by more horticulture: Pleasure Gardens tended by the non-violent inmates, in boxes separated by gravel pathways, each with zinc plate bearing the gardener's name. Farther along, the moon is out of sight and it is considerably darker, shaded by tall firs. This time it is not necessary for me to climb the wall: there is a wooden door which takes me out onto a path across the railway line. Guessing at the direction in which I must go I start down the slope, running through trees.

  When I find the low wall of the graveyard it appears so suddenly before me I almost trip over. Ahead, the church is glowing in the moonlight, its stones humming with an energy so intense I know my master and saviour must be waiting within. I skip over the perimeter, avoiding a tall nettle patch, and head to the front door.

  Again I am confronted by a padlock, but having more presence of mind than during my last visit I look around for a way to break it. Remembering the rusty iron gate I make my way down the stone path to test its horizontal bars and find one loose enough to remove. This I use for leverage, slipping it under the chain between the handles so I can pull against the wood. It takes all my strength but soon the brass plates are giving way, their screws coming free. Through the nearby trees the escape sirens echo back and forth. One last heave and the padlock drops.

  As the door scrapes open I am greeted by the smell of mould and mildew. Nothing is visible beyond the nearest row of pews. Staring into the deep darkness I sense a powerful presence where the altar must stand. My master, at last. Putting aside my fears I plunge into the unknown, regardless of whatever obstacles might stand in my way. Twenty paces down the aisle my toes knock against a raised step. Putting my arms out I rest my hands on a slab of cold marble.

  “Renfield.”

  The voice is soft and comforting. I hold my breath to hear it better.

  “Renfield.”

  Realising the speaker must be somewhere behind me I look over my shoulder. At the threshold of the open door stands a figure, silhouetted by the moonlight.

  “I am here,” I say.

  “It is Seward, Doctor Renfield. Please don't be alarmed.”

  Hearing this preface triggers a flood of memories. Doctor Renfield. The words sound foreign to me now, distant, like the name of a character from a half-forgotten novel I read long ago. It belongs to someone else. Yet it is also my own. It is morning suits and writing bureaus. It is my leather business bag. It is my front door, my books, my excellent mind. It is pacing through the orchard at Devon County Asylum. It is the respect of others.

  “Come back with me,” says Seward.

  Letting go of the alter I make my way down the central passageway. As I approach him the doctor's features come into focus: his boyish face, his sandy hair, the glass in his wire rimmed spectacles reflecting the moon. The youthful Medical Superintendent.

  All at once I am consumed by hatred. Who is this man who seeks to prevent me from fulfilling my destiny? Who has taken my career, my position in society, my life? Here stands my replacement in all things, belittling me with his sympathy while I waste away under lock and key. But even in my diminished state I am still stronger than him. I will tear his throat out.

  Charging at my enemy I leap forward take either side of his head in my hands, pushing him backwards and straddling his torso. Before I can sink my teeth into him he manages to get one hand under my chin, thrusting my head away and jarring my neck. He is wide eyed, terrified. I lunge and push.

  In my frenzy something catches my eye in the sky above the trees. A bat cutting a line across the moon.

  As rapidly as it arrived my anger has vanished, leaving me exhausted but lucid. I step away from Seward, freeing him to search the ground for his smashed spectacles. His hair is messy, his clothes are disarranged, his cheeks are burning red. To the watchers running towards us down the stone path I raise my palms in submission then, unsteady on my feet, bend down to scoop up Seward's glasses and hand them back to him.

  “You needn't tie me,” I say. “I will go quietly.”

  PART FOUR

  Seward has gone.

  I learn this from the night watchers talking unhappily outside my door as they change shifts. His position is to be temporarily filled by Doctor Hennessey, dispatched from the Home Office with a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian with a brutish temper. What has become of Seward is unknown.

  Reflecting on this revelation I remember an exchange Seward and I shared in my room just prior to my first escape. Fitting the wax cylinder into his phonograph he had looked weary and worn, as was so often the case in recent times. I asked him directly if he was unwell.

  “I appreciate your concern but I assure you I am in very good health.”

  “Are you getting enough sleep?”

  “No, but I'm certainly not unique in that respect these days, am I? It is the world we seem to have created for ourselves. Which brings me back to my question: do you have any theory regarding what caused your bad dreams? Did they occur more frequently when you were feeling anxious, for example, or when you altered your diet?”

  “There was no pattern that I can see. Also, I don't think they can accurately be described as dreams.”

  “What, then? Visions? Hallucinations?”

  “Hallucinations, no. Visions, yes, perhaps. I would use that word only for the want of another. It implies my experiences were unreal, and I'm not at all sure that's accurate.”

  “Just because they occurred in your head doesn't make them any less real. Not to you, anyway.”

  “Sometimes I think you misunderstand deliberately, simply to vex me. What I mean, as you well know, is they were not a product of my imagination. They actually happened.”

  “Just
as this conversation is happening now, between you and I, in this room?”

  “Precisely, but on another plain, like another layer of existence, surrounding us all the time and no less solid than our own, but invisible to most. A sphere unknown.”

  “Why is it, do you think, you can see this different world when others cannot?”

  “I have been chosen.”

  “Go on.”

  “I am being prepared.”

  At this point the doctor lifted his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. I asked if he was sure he was feeling well.

  “Perfectly well. Thank you.”

  If it was obvious at the time that he was being untruthful then it was even more so now, given recent events. Looking back I wonder if his complaint was emotional in its nature rather than physical, stemming from a matter of the heart. A man of his age and as yet unmarried is likely to be courting. Perhaps he is heartbroken? I can imagine the kind of woman he might fall for. Energetic, sweet-natured, somewhat naïve, like the doctor himself. It is easy to believe such a woman would attract more than one suitor. Perhaps this is the issue? Picturing her as I do I could almost fall in love with her myself.

  But then, even if my speculations are true, it seems unlikely that such a state of affairs, while troubling, would be enough to take him away from his work. Therefore it must be a matter of a more serious nature. Could his beloved be ill? Again, I think of the plague, the early days of a disease destined to bring the country – the whole human race – to its knees.

  I profoundly regret attacking the doctor. It was undeserved. He is a good man and means well. How could he have known that he was preventing me from finding salvation? When I think of my behaviour that night I am filled with shame. An emotion with which I am more than familiar.

  ٭

  The temporary Superintendent makes his presence known long before I meet him. Under his orders my personal effects are removed: my notebooks and pens, my daily newspaper, my books. The room appears bare without them, like a gaol again.

  To this abuse I submit without protest. It is of little importance to me now. In the room next to mine the inmate has a harder time of it. When the attendants arrive en masse one morning to take his painting materials away he does everything he can to prevent them. On hearing his shouts I step into the corridor in time to see him wrestling with a stocky young man over a painting of a ginger cat with bright green eyes.

  “I'm sorry, Mr Wainwright. I must do as I'm directed. Please let go.”

  “You don't know what you're doing!”

  The moment the frame is tugged from his paint spattered hands the artist lets out a strangled yelp of grief and starts to cry unashamedly, a sight which embarrasses everyone present, myself included. Other attendants file out of his room and down the corridor, carrying a parade of colourful tableaux: depictions of cats in morning suits out for a stroll, cats waltzing at a ball, cats on a fishing boat.

  “What do you intend to do with them?” he asks in desperation.

  “We're putting them into storage. They won't be damaged, I promise you.”

  Wainwright makes his hand into a fist and presses it against his forehead: “This is unacceptable. The Home Office will hear of it, mark my words. Shame on you.”

  Lastly an easel is taken from the room along with a battered box of brushes and paints. Another strangled noise bursts from my neighbour and he doubles over, sobbing with grief. Stepping into my room I push the door closed.

  When Hennessey finally visits he is accompanied by a subdued looking Mr Simmons, to whom he addresses all his comments. I observe him from the edge of my bed.

  “So, this is Seward's pet, the famous Mr Renfield, the 'zoophagous maniac'. Let me see.”

  From under one of his meaty arms he produces a folder of notes, adjusting his pince-nez to consult them. His mouth is hidden by a great moustache, a different shade of brown to the wig that balances unconvincingly on his scalp. I observe his medicine-ball paunch with disapproval.

  In his irritatingly nasal voice he reads from the front page: “R. M. Renfield, age fifty-nine. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out... possibly dangerous...” Impatiently, he flips the sheet over. “Then more balderdash. I've encountered his kind many times before. A hopeless case, if ever I've seen one. It will be a long time until he can be considered sane again, if it ever happens at all.” The statement is punctuated by a luxuriantly phlegmatic cough. “Right, on to the next one.”

  He exits without having so much as glanced in my direction, as if I am not present at all. It gives me some idea of what it must feel like to be a ghost, an inhabitant of a secondary plane: invisible, unconsidered.

  I am fifty-nine. An old man. This I did not know.

  ٭

  This vision is different. I am not a participant but an observer of events occurring far away. I am there but not there. As if I am looking through a telescope.

  Here is a hallway, lined with bouquets of flowers. Walking its length is a woman of transfixing beauty in a loose white nightdress, gently brushing the rose petals as she goes by. Her skin is pale, her hair blonde. She seems familiar to me, but not intimately so. At first I wonder if it is the woman who accompanied Elise on the night before I began my vigil but then, instinctively, I know better. It is the woman Seward has fallen in love with. Her name is Lucy.

  Only when she reaches the end of the corridor and comes to the top of a flight of stairs do I notice her eyes are closed, as if she is sleepwalking or under some kind of spell. Terrified she will fall I reach out to hold her back. Then I remember I am in a different place and unable to intervene. When she begins to descend I am hugely relieved: her steps are assured and well-placed. She knows this route well. This must be her home. Without faltering she floats down two flights to the ground floor.

  The front door opens and we are looking out over a coastal town, built around a river running through a deep valley that opens into a harbour. Out of the small front garden Lucy goes, then down a hill, passing rows of pastel coloured cottages. The full moon appears from behind a cloud and lights up the sea.

  The streets of the old town are silent as she moves through them and works her way towards the bay. Passing a wattle and daub public house with a painting of a black swan on its sign, she reaches the waterside. Moored boats creak against their hawsers, waves slap against the harbour side. From here she crosses a wooden swing bridge and heads away from the piers, finally joining a coastal path that will take her up to the hill overlooking the town. Has nobody noticed she is missing from her home? Where is Seward?

  As she climbs, the hem of her nightdress drags along the dirt. The unsheltered track is winding and steep in places but she follows it without hesitation, as confidently as she tackled the stairs, as if her eyes are open and it is middle of the day. Still, she has come perilously close to where the land falls away. One slip would send her tumbling to the rocks below. Another young life ended in its prime.

  Not again. Not again.

  At the edge of the cliff she hesitates, her head bowed and her hair caught in the light breeze, then turns and joins a sandy path leading to the ruins of an abbey. From here there is a view all the way up to the headland where a granite wall stretches out into the water, running parallel to a sturdy black sea wall. A buoy with a bell rings out slowly, mournfully.

  Beyond the abbey is a parish church rounded by a graveyard, where Lucy's journey ends. Taking a bench next to the point at which the land drops – so dramatically that some of the bank has collapsed, leaving dozens of tombstones projecting over the cliff – she sits down and places her hands over her lap. As she rests I realise I have been given a rare opportunity. Without fear of being discovered I can study her delicate features, her milky skin, and the pale hairs on her arms. A shadow falls across the graveyard as the moon slips behind clouds.

  Lucy's position is changing, so gradually that at first it is almost undetectabl
e. Her muscles are relaxing, her posture becoming less rigid. Eventually her hands part and fall to her sides. Her head drops back. It is as if the life is being drained from her body.

  Something dark is shifting in the shadows behind the bench, a palpable presence that refuses to hold its shape. Now it resembles a great bird, now a bear, now a sooty-black animal like a monstrous cat. Lucy slumps and slips forward in the seat, her legs pushed wide apart. The cat swells into a great palpitating mass.

  “Get away!”

  It turns in my direction. It senses me: it heard my shout. Sending me a warning it bristles and hisses, arching its back. Its eyes are cold and depth-less black. I have seen them before.

  Then, all at once, it is gone.

  ٭

  When the young Irish attendant arrives with my porridge I ask him to pass a message to Doctor Hennessey. I must speak with him again as a matter of urgency. It is my intention to demand my immediate release.

  Since the vision I have been unable to rest. I am constantly anxious, my stomach is unsettled. If what I witnessed is to be believed – and I see no reason why it should not – then it is clear I have been deceived and betrayed. No doubt my master selected me because I was at my lowest ebb and vulnerable to manipulation. Using promises of protection and rebirth he sought to utilize me as a pawn in his game, the end purpose of which he intended to conceal until the last moment. This is why he sent such obscure clues and ambiguous signs: to baffle me and distract me from the truth.