Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  We agreed on a white wine as less likely to send us into an afternoon coma, and she ordered up a bottle of chablis and some fizzy water. ‘I refuse to be bound by those old ideas of red wine with red meat. Anyway white’s lighter at lunchtime. Convention is there to be broken, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t think I ever had any to break.’

  ‘A gypsy life?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You’re very lucky. No baggage.’

  ‘Oh, everyone has baggage, don’t they? Whole attics full of stuff you can’t look at but can’t throw out. A childhood, parents.’

  ‘Of course. But for some it doesn’t stay there, up in the attic. It comes downstairs and clutters up the living space. Conventions, other people’s expectations. Biology, gender, becoming a parent yourself.’

  I thought of Roger and how easily he had managed to slide himself sideways out of all this, letting his wife take the strain for our family as well as her own. It was still easier for men to get someone else to carry the can and free them up. His example had made me hold out for independence. Even more so when he married and I saw Jenny falling into the role of wife, mother, carer, social secretary, writing the letters, keeping in touch, remembering birthdays, taking up the white woman’s burden.

  ‘So tell me the story of your life.’

  ‘Not much to it. School, Sussex Uni, in-house lawyer to a property company. Ate my dinners, took my Bar exams.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised you’re a barrister. Not just a pretty face. We must look after you. How much time have you spent in court?’

  I had to admit to my court virginity. ‘We must see you lose it soon. I’ll suggest you go along with James next time he’s appearing, get the feel of it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to put Drew’s nose out. He’s been very kind and supportive.’

  ‘If you’re to get on you’ll have to get rid of that sort of sentiment. He’s an able solicitor but essentially an office boy. I have other things in mind for you. We need to see if you can perform. Forget all the stuff about truth and justice, that’s for the tabloids or Perry Mason. You need to be able to act like Olivier and interrogate like the KGB, while flattering the judge and jury. I’ll bet they didn’t teach you that at Sussex.’

  Was I disappointed? My breath was taken away by her sophistication. The combination of power and control came off her like a flash of static, sexy, heady, a gush of irresistible energy that lit up her whole face as she held my gaze with the intensity of her own, iron drawn to a magnet, Amyntas’ lodestone.

  ‘Do you like music, real music not pop? James doesn’t. I miss a lot through having to go on my own which means I don’t go, of course. Do you?’

  At that moment I would have sworn to enjoying baked toad if I’d been asked. ‘I’m better on early.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Mozart backwards.’

  ‘Not too many chanting monks and nuns or nannygoat-counter-tenors, I hope. I can always smell unwashed hair and damp stone.’

  ‘And then I pick up later. Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Britten.’

  ‘Strauss? There’s a good production of Der Rosenkavalier by Opera Bauhaus at Sadler’s Wells. I’ll tell my secretary to get us some tickets. She can ring you for some dates.’

  Was my new lifestyle going to be all as whirlwind as this? I felt like young Kay in ‘The Snow Queen’, lifted up on wings above the earth. But there was no ice splinter in my heart, rather a glowing lump of charcoal that threatened to barbecue me from the inside. The wine was having an effect after only a couple of glasses, that and my heightened awareness of her every look and gesture. They would have made me drunk just on the deep gulps of San Pellegrino I was taking to try to stay sober. I was glad that at least the spotlight was off me and my past and the conversation had switched to music. I sensed that too much knowledge might make me less interesting to her. I couldn’t see Gateshead or Acton as high on her list of places to visit. She certainly wouldn’t have found my evening job now as a Chinese takeaway courier an amusing occupation.

  It must be Amyntas who’s led me into this memorial maze but maybe that’s what I’ve needed to bring to the surface stuff that’s been lying below in the silt and murk, things I haven’t faced, that I was brought up to not to face, Mam and Dad belonging to the old school of so much best left unsaid and ‘what the head doesn’t know the heart doesn’t grieve over’ or ‘no good crying over spilt milk’, a horror of navel gazing or letting go.

  Back in the office I was pretty useless for the rest of the afternoon. ‘Well?’ Drew asked as I sat down at my desk.

  ‘Hard to say really. She seems to want me to get some court experience, shadow the boss to learn how it’s done.’

  ‘He’s not Marcus Lately. You’d do better sitting in the public gallery.’

  ‘Can’t argue with the Begum. Theirs to command; ours to obey.’ I got out a file and tried to look busy.

  ‘Let’s have a quick one when we leave before I go home to the family.’

  Drew still lived with his mother and sister. I had been to his home to dinner where we had eaten so many delicious south Indian dishes that the finest curry restaurant in town would have been put to shame. Tonight I didn’t want to join a bevy of lawyers in the Globe downing pints. I wanted to go home and try to make sense of it all but I knew I couldn’t say ‘no’ to Drew.

  Later in the pub half listening to his account of a complex piracy case he was working on, I found myself watching a girl, probably in her first job, being sent up by a posse of young suits, becoming flushed and a bit shrill as she tried to hold her own against a barrage of heavy teasing. That’s what you had to deal with if you were straight and pretty. The disproportion in numbers of male and female lawyers makes any girl, especially in her first job, irresistible prey to a gang of young men vying for her attention. If she’s cool and tough enough she can handle it, even enjoy the experience and give as good back. But if she gets flustered then the pack will goad her into unwitting double entendres, to be pounced on and held up to braying laughter until she’s close to tears or takes refuge in a shouting match that only eggs them on. It wasn’t just a broken heart that made me duck out of Settle and Fixit.

  Now the days passed for me on leaden feet, alone except for the servants, and the sick people I was charged by my lady to tend at Ramsbury. When Twelfth Night had come and gone and all our sports were over, the wagons and carriages were laden with beds and coverings, clothes and necessaries of every kind, both for the long journey and to furnish the castles fit for my lady to lie there while she attended to her affairs.

  First we returned all together to Ramsbury from where my lady might most conveniently set out for her journey west. Two nights she lay there. Then in the morning they set off again after breakfast, muffled in mantles and rugs against the cold, the wheels and the horses’ hooves skittering on the hard ground glinting with frost, as they strained to set the countess’ progress, almost as great as her majesty’s own, on its slow way towards Wales. They would lie first at Marlborough, then Chippenham, where they would turn north to Malmesbury, Stroud and Gloucester to take the bridge over the head of the river, thence south to Chepstow and Cardiff, her domain still by her late lord’s will.

  When she had settled affairs there she intended to visit her other castle of Ludlow where she was happy as a child among her brothers and sister when her noble father’s duties took him there as Lord President of the Council of the Marches of Wales. I was sad not to be able to go with her to see this beloved place but the length of the journey and the necessity often for many to lie together for want of beds, and the great size of her household made it too likely that I might be discovered. There was rumour also that some in their drunken sleep cared not who they lay with, whether man or woman, so long as they were young and fair. It was therefore a kindness and wisdom in my lady that I should remain at Ramsbury.

  Nevertheless when they were gone I moped about the house, thinking myself abandon
ed and alone until I came upon the duenna working at a tapestry in my lady’s chamber where I had strayed to feel some nearness to her in absence.

  ‘So,’ said the duenna, ‘you and I both are left behind Master Boston, I out of the kindness of her heart that would not force me upon such a journey at my age. And you, why do you stay behind?’

  ‘I am to take on the cure of her patients that when she returns it shall not be to a string of sick people needing her attentions at once.’

  ‘And will they trust you to cure them Master Boston, being still green?’

  ‘They have seen me with my lady on many occasions and if I indeed cure some then by word of mouth they will come to me. And I am to replenish all our stock of medicines, cordials, pills and unguents against her return.’

  ‘Where did you get the knowledge to step into my lady’s shoes?’

  ‘From my father who was a physician in Salisbury, and often my lady would have had him to live with her but he would not be persuaded.’

  ‘This is the first time I have heard of anyone that refused to come under her roof. So many of them there have been that were like sponges to sop up her goodness, in special the poets and physicians who thought by their dedications and experiments to have her favour or her lord’s.’

  ‘I do not care for favours if I have her love.’

  ‘Indeed, that I see. But what love is it Master Boston? Is it like mine that asks nothing but to serve, with enough food to maintain my old body and somewhere to lie?’

  ‘I have never asked for more mistress.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I think there is something more you crave. I feel the hunger in you. Be careful. It is witchcraft to incline another to unlawful love.’

  ‘I have no practice in witchcraft madam. Indeed my father taught me that all such were mere deceptions of weak minds.’

  ‘There is the witch of Endor in the Holy Book that had dealings with Saul and brought up Samuel from the dead. Will you go against scripture and deny the possibility?’

  ‘Those were other times and countries. Who knows how Saul might be deceived when he had gone against God’s will in opposing David, his kingship.’

  ‘So you are priest as well as physician.’

  ‘My father taught me to study the Bible and I have continued to read in it, especially since my lady gave me a copy of her psalms. This witch of Endor was but a cozening woman, for she professed to call up Samuel as our skryers do yet Saul saw nothing. Only he asked her what she saw. To which she replied “an old man in a mantle” and then Saul prostrated himself to the ground so that he still saw nothing but only heard a voice, until he fell into a swoon for he had not eaten that day.’

  ‘You know this story very well Master Boston. As if you had made a special study of it.’

  ‘As I have madam, for my father commended it to me as showing the folly of even great kings, who believe those who say they can call up the dead or angels and demons, for who else might they be that the witch said she saw in the form of gods ascending out of the earth?’

  ‘Some might say that such as you should not presume to teach. You will be preaching next.’

  I thought then that she suspected my sex and that I must do everything in my power to win her over or she might cause me great harm, not least with my lady.

  ‘I am content to be my lady’s servant and follow her example of service to the sick as our religion teaches through the pattern of Our Lord who commended his followers for tending the sick as she does.’

  ‘You know how to win my heart Master Boston by praising my lady but my head is not swayed, and my eyes will keep watch to see you do her no harm, even though you may not believe in the power of your own witchcraft.’

  I bowed and left her to her tapestry. Returning to the laboratory I thought how I might best occupy my time so that I would stand well in the countess’ sight on her return. I determined to embark on some experiments that might yield something of interest.

  First noticing that we had little opiate left in any form, and it being a time of fevers and restlessness because of the sharp cold, I set about converting the plants that had been gathered in the summer and stored in jars, in their most efficacious forms. These were of the garden poppy which self-seeding grows wild among the vegetables. Its leaves are of a whitish green, much cut about the edges, and it has a pretty pale violet flower. It has many white threads at its heart about the seed box, which at the last hardens with a little stiff lace ruff at its crown through which the seeds scatter. All parts of it are gathered at their different seasons from June to September and all may be used.

  There are some physicians who pretend that all opium comes from the East and that the juice of those poppies is the tears of the moon, yet we see them grow freely in English gardens and even the wild crimson poppies of the field, or corn roses, may make a syrup good against pleurisy and the falling sickness. Therefore I ground the heads in a mortar and mixed them with treacle and boiling water to form a syrup which would bring rest and sleep to the sick and weak and abate the cough caused by catarrhs and defluxions, which may often be the forerunner of a consumption.

  Some heads with their seed I boiled and mixed with sweet wine to make a cordial that would dry the flux of the belly and women’s courses. This I put aside in stone bottles to cool. For an unguent I pounded the seeds very fine until they gave up their oil, and this I mixed with hog’s grease. I stored this in jars, labelling it carefully as being precious, the quantities small and laborious to make since many seeds are needed even for a teaspoon of oil.

  All these, and other receipts we lacked took me many hours spread over several days but at last I had an array of medicines stored and labelled in the different shapes of bottle and jar. They gave me much pleasure when I looked on them and thought that they were all the work of my own hands, more pleasing to me than if they had been the finest jewels. And indeed they shared with jewels the clearest colours as amethyst, emerald, ruby, the yellow of topaz, the milk of opals. Only sapphires were missing. They not occurring easily in nature, for blue flowers turn blackish in preparation except they be candied. You must have some powdered mineral mixed for a true blue as lapis lazuli or sapphire.

  When all our dispensary was set in order against my lady’s return I turned my mind to what new thing I might do that would entice her admiration. Then I remembered Dr Gilbard, his book, which I had not studied since it came into my hands through want of occasion while attending on the countess, there being so much to do towards the feast of Christmas. Now I took it up and set myself to study its two hundred and forty pages.

  For those who have not read in it I will describe what is writ therein so that if ever any read these memorials of mine in time to come they may know its nature and that it is far from any practice of witchcraft and indeed as I found in several places Dr Gilbard makes scorn of such as profess these artifices and especially of Paracelsus with his poultices of powdered lodestones. The book is called in our mother tongue, Of the magnet, magnetism of bodies and of the great magnet of the earth. A new natural philosophy demonstrated by many arguments and experiments.

  First he shows how necessary it is to ascend from simple experiments to the more difficult arguments. To this end he has gathered instruments from many nations and constructed lodestones of many shapes and magnitudes to use in his experiments. That of most novel application is a sphere modelled upon that of our mother the earth, and for this reason called a terrella, behaving in all ways like to our mother herself so as seaman’s needles placed alongside the terrella do turn just as they do in the differing latitudes of the globe.

  Many observations were sent him by the great mariner Sir Francis Drake and other famous seamen. More, he found his terrella to be enclosed by an orbis virtutis or sphere of influence and if this is true of the model may it not be true of the earth? But this we might only know if we could fly above it as the birds do.

  All this was set forth with many woodcuts showing his experiments with great clea
rness, but I wanted a lapidary to grind the lodestones to their different shapes so that I might accomplish the like. One thing I was able to do was to magnetise an iron rod by laying it out in a north and south position, according to the compass, and beating it with a hammer. The picture which depicted this experiment enabling me to fulfil it perfectly, was like those in books of alchemy where the magus is shown at work. It made me think upon my father’s labours though I understood that Dr Gilbard might not have looked kindly on his search for the philosopher’s stone as a thing impractical.

  But what I might do and carry further than the doctor came in the second book where he discoursed on his discovery of the electrics, called by him after electrum or, vulgarly, amber, wherein the property was first noted. For both amber itself and jet being rubbed upon will attract light objects as straw, paper, feathers, as had been known since antiquity, and such powers attributed to magic in the gems themselves. Dr Gilbard by making trial of many substances shows that this is a property of them and of a natural origin. Yet there were some still which I might examine and note whether they were electrics or anelectrics, as he has called these: not having this property.

  I determined to pursue this and to let him know of my intention, yet not as myself but as if my father still lived and was forced to use his son as his secretary and assistant through failing sight, for I feared such a great man would not accept the work of one still so young. Much of the next part of the book was concerned with matters of moment to seamen as the variation and dip of the needle and his hope to produce a new table of latitude for the aid of navigation.

  In Book 5 he wrote of the animate nature of the whole universe as a thing living, while in Book 6 he embraced Copernicus his theory of the central position of the sun, and said more that there was no eighth sphere above us where the stars were fixed but that every one had its station at greater or lesser distance from the earth. That night I went out into the garden, it being fine and frosty to look up at the heavens and gauge whether he were right or no, a thing hard to do. Yet I thought that those that were of a greater brightness as the Plough or Orion, that their brighter shining might denote them as nearer to us, and those very faint and small might be further away since all things diminish with distance. If this be so then where are those mansions where God is to dwell, the thrones and angels sitting upon them? They must lie at the very edge of the heavens where the stars go out.