The Specimen

by Martha Lea

  Chapter XLVI

  Lower Amazons. August, 1863.

  They were unpacking boxes properly for the first time since they had left Pará. Before this, they had worked and lived on the boat, stopping in a place for three days, a week, or ten days, and then moving further on, so that Gwen was never able to make any arrangements to get away. Now, she was in a small house rented from some person or other whom Vincent seemed to know. Setting up tables and trying to keep Augusta in sight, Gwen turned around for the umpteenth time to find that she had trundled off again. Following Augusta’s trail of discarded objects, and piling them into her arms as she went, Gwen found herself confronted with the spectacle of Vincent rummaging through her field bag, as she had come to think of it.

  Immediately enraged and finding herself incapable of finding the right sequence of words to whip out at him, she simply stood, with her arms full, waiting for Vincent to notice her. Outside, she heard Edward speaking to Augusta. She watched Vincent’s hands.

  He pulled out the stuck-together book, and Gwen made an instinctive move towards him, dumping her armful of things and stretching her arm out towards the book.

  “That is mine,” she said. The firmness, the tripping anger in her voice thrummed on the bare walls. “As is everything else in that bag.”

  Finally, lazily, Vincent looked up; his expression masked, as always, by the blue tinted spectacles which she had so loved when she had first seen him. But there was a fever over his top lip.

  “Where’d you get this?” His question, demanding, arrogant. The way he held her property in his fist. He began to flick through the book but, of course, was frustrated. He knocked the stiff brick of glued paper against his knuckle. “What’s the point in keeping a book you can’t even read?” Tremulous, his voice wavered between incredulity, annoyance and laughter.

  “I never throw books away,” said Gwen, her voice gentle, its tone massaging Vincent’s shoulders into a droop. She heard Augusta with Edward in the next room and stepped forward, taking the book from his hands as well as her bag. “Even when I have no intention of reading them again.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose where his spectacles had made red dents on the surface of his skin. “Dumb name for a dumb book, anyway. What kind of dumb fool’d think up a name like that?”

  “Shakespeare. It’s the Ghost in Hamlet.” She paused. “‘I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres—’”

  “Is that so?” His posture changed. He pulled himself straight and clicked his tongue at her as though he was speaking to a mare, pushed his blue spectacles up to the hilt of his brow and strode out of the room.

  Gwen’s gaze took in her child’s pale ringlets and her eyes, which had miraculously changed from the deep obsidian of a newborn to the scorching light blue of her father.

  Gwen squared the writing paper lying on the table in front of her, and gave her daughter a spoiled sheet of paper and a pencil to play with. She had not discussed the letter she was about to write. She was still furious and didn’t know what to do with her anger. She avoided Edward, and her play with Augusta now came out as false jollity. She couldn’t say anything without it coming out badly. The child’s puzzlement at her mother’s sudden ill temper made it all so much worse. Augusta had begun to draw in the middle of the page. Gwen noted with satisfaction that the child held the pencil correctly. A tight little scrawl of individual shapes began to emerge. Augusta’s stomach was flat on the floor and her feet were in the air. Twirling feet.

  Gwen cleared her throat as if she were about to address her sister in person, and dipped her pen into the ink. She knew she would not be able to send the letter. Everything in it bore resemblance to the truth—to some degree. A man had lost his life to an alligator in the dark but he had not been going for a swim. The other man had escaped unhurt. Missionaries lost in the jungle. Well, that was true, Gwen reasoned. They had visited a village where the people filed their teeth, but the missionaries had been missing for about thirty years. Edward’s pet leech was already dead, and Edward was convinced that the mysterious fish did not exist.

  But she couldn’t deny that Augusta was her own child. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t add another lie to whatever she might have left with Edward. Lies can so easily dominate, she thought. Deceptively benign in their first instance, they leach the life out of you as they grow, like a tumour on your good intentions.

  She folded the letter and stowed it away amongst her things. She looked at what Augusta had drawn, and wondered if she had been speaking out loud as she had written the letter. Augusta had scribbled a tangle of things, which might be fish, and she had made shapes which vaguely resembled alligators. The child could barely utter a few words but she could draw.

  In the days that followed there were new varieties of Morpho butterflies, which had become something of an obsession for both of them: for Edward, because they were so impossible to obtain; and for Gwen, because of the impossibility of rendering in paint the magnificence of that lustrous blue in flight. Their rigid corpses captivated her, but no other did now. The specimen boxes were filling up with an astonishing array of Coleoptera. Edward’s interest in beetles grew steadily. Easier to catch and observe than butterflies, he said, and less easily damaged in transit.

  Gwen and Augusta set off along the shore, stopping every so often to look at the drifts of butterflies feeding amongst the thick carpet of flowering shrubs. They had stolen away from that other leech, Vincent. He was making it his own little parlour game to know exactly Gwen’s intentions for every moment of every day and to be there, to advise her. As Augusta slithered down off her hip, and stumped about barefoot, Gwen looked back over her shoulder for a glimpse of the man. Gwen had tried to teach Augusta not to grab at things. Plants had poisonous sap and thorns. Broken twigs might reveal legions of ants. Vines were sometimes a snake. Yet these dangers to her daughter’s small chubby fingers were only part of Gwen’s concern. She did not want her child to grow up believing that the natural world was her plaything. Now she smiled, as the chubby fingers cupped a flower. Their owner looked up for approval. This was a game, too. Everything was a game.

  Later, when Edward had returned from his ramble, and with Augusta asleep, Gwen began to chew a piece of tobacco. Neither of them remembered encountering quite so many ticks as in the area around that village. Naked to the waist, Edward waited for Gwen to spit the juice onto his back to loosen the ticks; he was conscious of the effort she was expending.

  Edward had referred many times in his field journal to his “assistant”. He felt slightly uncomfortable in omitting Gwen’s considerable contributions to his work but could not bring himself to name her, either. He had thought on it quite often, changing his mind every time. She was as competent as any man might have been in the tasks she set herself. She familiarised herself with everything, and her observations were meticulous. If she had been a man, he mused to himself, he would have been envious.

  Edward sat at his makeshift desk, constructed from crates and rough planks, and opened his journal. On a fresh page he wrote:

  A heated discussion on the very first day that lasted into the small hours has culminated in an unfortunate but illuminating incident. The main thrust of my argument that first night was that if a parasite caused its host to die and in the process its own extermination, then the species would not last long enough to establish itself as a viable Link in Nature’s chain of Life.

  In the days and weeks which have followed, the discussion regarding the candiru fish has re-emerged and re-ignited passionate debate several times. Until today, I believed strongly that the tales bandied about by the local inhabitants regarding this fish were entirely apocryphal.

  It would seem that Mr Coyne has indeed proved his point by using his own body as example. Of course, now I see the inadequacies of my argument, but this would hardly merit such a blatant lack of regard for his own self-preserva
tion.

  Edward read over what he had just written and scored through it all, beginning again, incorporating what he could remember of Gwen’s observations and conclusions.

  The candiru is a phlebotomist, attracted by the urea of larger fish, excreted at the gills. The candiru would seem to follow this trail of urea in the water and attach itself to the inside of the gill belonging to the larger fish. This in itself does not cause the fish to die. When the candiru has had its fill of blood it detaches to digest its meal, functioning in much the same manner as the leech, with which we are all most familiar.

  The rather stronger allure of human urea passed in water was attractive to such an extent that the confused candiru navigated Mr Coyne’s trouser leg in pursuit of the source. The candiru is in possession of fearsome barbs which assist its attachment to its more usual host. I was able to remove the candiru from the patient’s urethra by means of a two-inch incision, thereby limiting damage.

  The patient has successfully passed water since the operation, but this caused loss of consciousness. The local rum has proved useful not only in the preservation of specimens, including the rather poor specimen of the candiru, but medicinally it has been of great importance.

  I admit freely that, until the evidence before me is irrefutable, I am disinclined to alter my position, and remain sceptical of apocryphal tales. I claim no responsibility, for one must question such intractable determination on the part of the patient and balance it against an apparent underlying inconsistency of rational thought.

  Edward closed his journal and set down his pen. Now his attention was drawn to the heaps of unsorted lepidoptera. He took up his pen again.

  Infection, followed by fever, in circumstances such as these, is usually followed rapidly by a glissade into unconsciousness from which the patient is most unlikely to recover. The patient has indeed spent two days in a delirious state (curious, indeed, how, suffering from the effects of the barbed fish, the patient began to speak in various tongues). However, frequent and assiduous attention to the wound may have contributed to the patient’s remarkable recovery; although much weakened, the patient is able to sit up and converse lucidly.

  During Vincent’s fever, Gwen had tried to talk to Edward about the practicalities of finding a way to separate themselves from Vincent and continue their journey without the air being filled with the sound of his voice. From sunrise to sunset. It was almost impossible to find quietness, to be able to think. Even when Gwen and Edward retired behind their makeshift screen to deal with the various parasites—or to pretend to, as they had begun to do—Vincent was audible. He’d sing, if he couldn’t think of anything to say, and when he’d run his limited repertoire thoroughly ragged, he’d make up his own verses.

  “We must leave him,” she said. Her clear voice quivered, but Edward said, “Irritating he may be, but the man is on his deathbed.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It is out of my hands.”

  “Will you not consider an early departure from this place, without Mr Coyne?”

  “We have much to do here yet.”

  It was torture trying to speak to him. Gwen’s chest rose and fell with short and rapid breaths. She looked over to the hammock where Vincent lay as another tirade of strange, uninhibited utterances issued forth from his mouth. The blackest water, she thought.

  Over the course of the next month, Vincent recovered fully, as Gwen had known that he would. By the beginning of September he was back on form; Gwen thought even more so. She had resented the respect she felt for the way he had used his own body as a subject for scientific study. She knew it had come from his madness, and she regarded it now as coincidence that his madness had manifested itself in such a logical fashion.

  Edward heard her step and continued sorting his butterflies. “I do like collecting on the campos,” he said to her, with his head still bent over the setting boards. “The thrill of being able to walk in an open space again is exhilarating.”

  Gwen waited for a moment to see if he would say anything else. She went over to the table to look at the butterflies. How strange it is, she thought, that we can continue to discuss insects in such a casual way. The accident had no place at the setting table, but she knew that she must speak. She said, “We have been very fortunate, Edward.” He nodded, and she could see that he thought she was referring to his morning’s entomologising. “But until today I did not appreciate our fortune. I have never considered my own mortality. Our mortality.”

  “Has something happened?”

  Gwen said, “What will happen to Augusta, when we go back to England?”

  Edward stood up straight and looked into her face. She saw thoughts of classification drop away from his mind as he comprehended her.

  “What I mean is, Edward, if I were to die I don’t want her to be near Isobel.”

  He stared at her incredulously, that woman’s name on her lips. “I can’t see that ever being an option, no.” He half turned back to the specimens on his work table, and then looked at Gwen again. “Isobel was dying when we left England. I had word of her passing away not long after we arrived in Pará—and so, in any case, that person should no longer concern you.” He studied her chin, and Gwen instinctively wiped it with the back of her hand. He licked his thumb and pressed it to her face.

  Gwen waited for him to say more. I’ve finally been able to speak her name, she thought, and you brush it aside carelessly, as if I had known of her all this time. “Edward,” she said, taking hold of his wrist and moving his skin away from her face. “You had a wife, called Isobel?”

  He did not flinch. She observed him minutely, only the glimmer of a ghost across his eyes. She dropped his wrist. “You left her to die alone, and put me in her place?”

  “You promised never to mention her name.” He did not so much whisper the words as breathe them out over his tongue.

  “Now I know it for certain. You have deluded yourself completely. If I had known that you were already married, I would have stopped meeting with you. Immediately.”

  “I put that letter into your hand—” But even as he said it, Gwen could see that he knew that it was not the case.

  “No,” she said slowly, eliminating any passion from her voice. “Even Miss Jaspur, especially her—” She couldn’t go on. “What manner of deceit have you created, Edward? What kind of trouble have you peddled with your lies?”

  As she came out of the room she walked into Vincent, but this time she did not care if he had heard it all. “Mr Coyne. At a loose end, again?”

  “No, I’m wondering —” He looked past her into Edward’s room and quickly back at her again. She knew that Edward was watching them. “I’m wondering if the Oxbow excursion is still on for tomorrow or —” He looked past her again. “—if plans might have changed?”

  “Nothing has changed at all, Mr Coyne,” she said. “You may assume that everything will go according to plan.” She swept up Augusta and placing her on her hip walked out of the house.

  Chapter XLVII

  Pará, Brazil. November, 1863.

  “Mr Edward Scales!” Tristan Grindlock grasped him by the shoulders with a happy grin. “How long have you been back? Hettie will be delighted. Come in, come in. Do they follow on? Are they waiting somewhere? Let me send someone for them.”

  The cool enclosure of Grindlock’s house, the resonance and gaiety of the man’s voice on the walls—Edward remembered his first entrance to the house with Gwen and knew suddenly that in a moment he and Tristan Grindlock would be surrounded by a clamour of excitement. He must say it now. He met Grindlock’s gaze and stared unblinkingly into his grey eyes. Grindlock was no fool. Edward needed, in the end, to say nothing. He did not have to declare it in words. Tristan Grindlock pulled Edward into an embrace the like he could not remember having received since the very earliest days of his boyhood. The man was strong and did not let go for many minutes. Edward felt the sobbing from Tristan Grindlock spread through his own body. He was wr
apped up in the man’s grief and condolence in one never-ending squeeze and was enormously touched.

  Later in the evening, after a faltering start, he told Tristan and Hettie Grindlock how he had left bait for the alligators and had stood ready with his guns primed. He had registered the broad, flat snouts on the huge beasts and had not been afraid of their enormous length or their girth, or the rows of teeth which he later hacked from their stinking gums. He had no regard for his own life in those hours of killing and butchering as he had searched for the remains.

  “But you know the way they consume their prey, they rip and churn; I could not discern from the mess. The abomination of it was too much. I did not pause in my quest for twenty-four hours, but then I was overcome. I had to leave the place. I brought their belongings with me, and I left everything else.”

  He could not mention the fact that he and Gwen had spoken words that could never have been undone. That she had chosen, suddenly, to go with Augusta in the second canoe with Coyne, leaving Edward to search for the black caiman with the hired men.

  “I should have insisted that they stay behind. I told Coyne to look for hatchlings only. Something for—” He had been going to say that he’d thought the hatchlings would be harmless and easy to secure with a woman and a child as company. “Coyne stayed on, when I came away, to continue where I left off. He would not hear otherwise. He claimed responsibility.”