‘Pull him out of the way, Barry,’ snapped Dr Fyfe. ‘It’s always one of the big ones who goes down. Now the muscles of the arm, pitifully shrunken in the case of this subject . . .’
Barry dragged Jobson into a corner. His face was quite white, indeed a little grey around the nose and mouth. Barry was convinced he was going to be sick.
‘Come on, old chap,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll be all right. Try to swallow.’
‘Oh God,’ Jobson gazed blankly up at an equally pale freckled face. ‘It was that white liquid which came out when he made the incision. White blood . . .’
‘It’s not blood,’ said Barry, pedantically.
‘When you’ve finished pretending to be old ladies, gentlemen, you will be good enough to return to the dissecting table. And if you can’t be sensible, don’t chatter.’
‘Ohhhh,’ groaned Jobson, and his head sank down again.
‘Hang on.’ Barry clutched his hair.
They sat silent on the floor, leaning against a rough scarred bench. Barry looked up at the specimens floating in huge glass jars. There was a sequence of foetuses, in different stages of development, high on the top of a locked cupboard. The first was a grotesque monster, an enormous elongated tadpole with tiny clutching limbs; the last looked like a sleeping child, ready to awaken. He could not see the corpse on the table. The other pupils crowded round. Dr Fyfe’s pigtail wobbled aggressively. It was freezing in his dissecting room. Barry felt the draught under the door. The doctor had his shirt sleeves rolled up over his jacket cuffs. He was talking about the muscles in and around the stomach. Barry ached to see what he was doing.
‘Come on. Try to get up. Are you going to be sick?’ Barry’s sympathy was now diluted with impatience. Jobson looked into the grey eyes, pale face and ginger freckles inches from his own. Barry’s hand was ice cold, but firm. They crept round to the side of the table near the feet of the slippery white cadaver. It no longer looked human, but was shrunken and smooth like a withered eel. The shrivelled genitals resembled aged and inedible giblets. Jobson shuddered again at the evil solidity of the corpse, Barry’s frozen hand clasped tightly in his own.
‘You watch now, boy,’ said Dr Fyfe to Jobson, ‘and remember everything you see. When you’re operating, you’ll have to work fast. There’ll probably be some miserable soldier groaning beneath you. And you won’t have much time. How many methods are there of dismembering this fragile and delicate building? And how many more to be invented? Listen. Watch.’
The doctor caressed his knife. In fact, there was a separate course on military surgery, but the internal geography of all men was much the same. Dr Fyfe nodded curtly at Barry, who already promised to be a good student. No nerves at all for a child, well, he looks like a child. But then, most children have no feelings, finer or otherwise. Or don’t appear to do so. What a row of pale, blank faces! Amoral savages, the lot of them.
* * *
Barry’s coat remained much too big for him. He never appeared to grow. His ears vanished below the collar as he pulled himself into the sleeves, then clamped his hat to his red curls and made for the door. Jobson caught up with him on the steps.
‘I say,’ he cried, ‘don’t run away, Barry. I want to thank you.’
‘That’s all right. Excuse me. I must go. My mother waits tea for me.’
‘Can you come out on Sunday?’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve got to study.’
‘Just for an hour after dinner? You’re never at the club. We could go to the river.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, go on. Ask your mother.’
Doubtful, hesitating, Barry suddenly relented.
‘All right. I’ll ask.’
* * *
The lodgings they inhabited gleamed with a hideous gold and green wallpaper, whose stripes were too close together, so that the family appeared to be imprisoned in a radiant cage. The furniture argued with the wallpaper, retaliating with a vulgar abundance of gold braid. Had it not been for the prospect of moving house yet again, Mary Ann declared, she would have cancelled the tenancy, whatever the penalties. Even if it had meant paying one quarter’s rent. But it was not only the ludicrous vulgarity of the wallpaper which depressed her. She hated the climate and built fires fit for Joan of Arc.
Their trunks had preceded them and were evenly distributed throughout the rooms with distressing finality. There was to be no escape. Louisa swept into the oppressive, musty sequence of ugly crowded rooms, each a masterpiece of bad taste, that was to become their home. She looked around cautiously and then pronounced, ‘Well. Hideous. But it will have to do.’
The air in the city was clear, hard, and very cold. Louisa walked out in the early morning. She paced the wide streets, arranged all their regular orders with the butcher and the green-grocers, hired the cook and the housemaid, and came to terms with the domestics after a good deal of hard-headed interrogation. She insisted that they should be able to provide written characters and, whether the prospective domestics could read or not, that they should be possessed of a mimimum of instruction. She attended public lectures, took notes and even asked questions. She went to exhibitions unchaperoned. Mary Ann, who was much more conventional, and cautious of other people’s opinions, accused her of causing a public scandal and attracting attention wherever she went.
Louisa paused, her scorn surfacing. ‘My dear Mary Ann, I will be forty this year. Women of forty cannot cause public scandals, however hard we try. You attract far more attention by living like a recluse than you would ever attract in the public street. If you will forgive me for saying so.’
Mary Ann turned pale, then red, then screamed. Louisa swung round to leave the room and found the child standing shaking in the doorway.
‘Please don’t quarrel with her,’ said a small firm voice from the bottom of an overlarge collar. Louisa stared for a moment, then laughed.
‘Persuade her to go out, James. You have more influence than I do. She’ll break her own spirit pacing the cage.’
Barry took his mother’s hand with great courtesy, but familiarity, as if she were an affronted courtesan who had been offered too little money. Then he made his request like a gentleman.
‘Will you do me the honour of accompanying me to the river walks this Sunday afternoon to meet my fellow student and recent acquaintance Mr Robert Jobson?’
‘Darling, you mustn’t take such risks.’
‘But it looks odder if we don’t see anybody. Louisa’s right. We’ve got to give the impression that we have an exclusive circle of friends. If you just avoid people, they’ll think we’re peculiar. Or hiding something.’
Mary Ann shrugged, all her frustration, boredom and misery expressed in the line of her shoulders and the dull sheen of her curls.
‘I’ll book a box at the theatre,’ Louisa said suddenly, stepping up to Mary Ann and kissing her before she could resist, ‘and you must get dressed and come with us, my dear. I’m sorry I was sharp with you. Look at that wallpaper. If you stay here, cooped up with that pattern for one evening more, the green and gold stripes will kill you.’
* * *
James Miranda Barry stood behind his mother’s chair, stiff and polished like a toy soldier just lifted from the box. He looked down at the gold chain around her neck, which Francisco had given her, and felt its duplicate hidden far beneath his ruffles and studs, against his own skin. She was still wonderfully beautiful. Other people were looking at them. The theatre was hot. Mary Ann and Louisa fanned themselves complacently, enjoying the undisguised interest and rustle of attention. In the first interval a messenger appeared with a card on a salver and bowed to Mary Ann.
‘Dr Robert Anderson presents his respects to you, ma’am, Miss Erskine and Mr Barry, and begs permission to wait upon you in your box.’
Louisa raised her eyebrows. Anderson was a well-known literary figure in the city. She had attended his lectures on Scottish literature and philosophy. He was an editor with considerable influenc
e. He was a man other men sought to know. They were less anxious for him to be introduced to their wives and daughters.
The play included a terrifying mad scene and a tempest on cymbals and wind machine. During the deafening horrors of the storm, in which the heroine swayed upon the battlements, Louisa and Mary Ann had a swift, almost inaudible conversation.
‘No, I don’t know him, but Francisco does . . .’
‘Yes . . . I’m sure it’s all right . . .’
‘I think David must have had a hand in this . . . he’d not want the plan to fail . . .’
‘The child will say as little as possible . . .’
‘He’s the one with the very distinguished whiskers . . . the girl on the left is his eldest daughter . . .’
‘Oh heavens, he’s coming over . . .’
The rest was drowned by theatrical screaming.
Barry had ordered iced drinks for his mother and Miss Erskine. While the juggling interlude was proceeding on stage, Barry paid for the drinks. All his formulas were perfectly correct, but his voice was stilted and nervous. As he negotiated the process of command, the barrage of distinguished whiskers loomed over him.
‘Good evening, young man. I’m a good friend of Lord Buchan, and delighted to meet you.’
A giant clasp engulfed him. Barry’s manner often appeared to be disconcertingly rude. He rapped out his comments brusquely, to disguise his fear.
‘And a good evening to you, sir.’
Robert Anderson had been ready with his bluff, affable patronage and found himself confronted with a gleaming stare, as if he had just encountered a magic toad, awaiting the kiss. He peered down at the tiny, immaculate character, who stared back. The silent pause was just slightly too long to be polite. Finally, puzzled, and not a little curious, Dr Robert Anderson introduced his daughter.
‘Isabelle, this is Lord Buchan’s ward, James Barry, who is studying medicine with Dr Fyfe. Barry, this is my eldest daughter, Miss Isabelle Anderson.’
Barry bowed and kissed the girl’s hand with a swish as if he were an Austrian archduke. She bowed too, utterly serious, towering above him. Then she giggled.
The meeting in the box passed off extremely well, and a good part of the theatre enjoyed the incident, rarely in mid-season having new faces about which to gossip. Barry was pronounced quite a little gentleman and Dr Robert Anderson inspected Mary Ann’s very charming naked shoulders with undisguised admiration. Well, one way and another this was all very interesting. Lord Buchan’s ward. If a wealthy aristocrat with no children takes a growing child under his wing, that usually indicates a near relationship that cannot be openly acknowledged. But David Erskine is nearer fifty than forty and this ravishing girl with the creamy shoulders would have been no more than a child herself – unless, no, this is her child all right, the auburn colouring and the grey eyes are a perfect match. And Louisa is an ageless old lizard. I saw her at the back of the hall when I was giving those lectures. The audience always think you don’t notice them, but you do. There she was, always in the same place, sitting as still and watchful as a snake by the rabbit’s hole. I wonder why she never married. Ah, Mrs Bulkeley, may I have the pleasure . . .
Dr Anderson insisted that his carriage would be at their disposal when the performance was over. Mrs Bulkeley, Miss Erskine and Mr Barry accepted graciously. An invitation to dinner was already prowling in the wings when the orchestra struck up. There was a good deal of bowing and withdrawing. Mary Ann and Louisa had enough material for an hour’s whispering.
The last act began.
Our heroine was dying amidst Gothic ruins. She was beyond medical help. Her mind was shattered forever. She saw spectres of the loved and lost flit amongst the ruins. Her bandit lover, in peril of his life, muffled in dozens of cloaks, appeared on every part of the stage, broken by a gigantic grief. He was recognised by the ancient nurse, who must have been clairvoyant, as he was now ‘horribly altered’ by duelling scars and a wild forest of beard and moustachios. He admitted all his crimes, a catalogue of horrors.
‘Yes, I have sinned greatly! But I have also loved with the force of tempests and volcanos! My passions have outrivalled Nature! In a world of little men, I alone have withstood the blast. On rocky crags, in stealth by night, I have performed the justice of the avenger . . .’
Barry was entranced.
‘That’s all translated from the German,’ whispered Louisa.
‘Justice?’ The nurse wrung her hands. ‘How dare you speak of justice? You who have tormented peaceful sleep and flung your gauntlet in the face of God! Behold, my mistress, her mind adrift in the storm of her love for you! Thou wretch! Unworthy scoundrel! Thy fate awaits thee! Bend your proud heart before your judge – your God!’
‘God’s justice was not mine,’ snarled the desperado, and the audience gave a delighted gasp.
Little torches fluttered in the wind machine. There was a bell clanging offstage. Our heroine’s family arrived, swords drawn. The brigand took her in his arms. She appeared to awaken from a stupor. She knew him. She flung her arms around his neck. In her first moment of lucidity since the second act, she cried out in thrilling tones, ‘Rodolpho! At last. I am in heaven. For neither man nor God will part us more.’
Terrible pause. She launched into the ‘Daisy Song’, which they had sung together as infants, and which had been her chorus in her madness. The relatives closed in, forming a wonderful tableau, lit by glittering torches.
‘Rodolpho, my dearest . . .’ The song ended in a gasp, a convulsion and a wonderful dying exhalation, which thrilled every spine in the house. Rodolpho let out a terrific groan and then arranged her corpse in an artistic pose upon the boards. The doomed hero froze for a moment, his weapon lifted, so that during the thunderclap the public got the full benefit of the scene in all its pathos.
‘Nevermore!’ he shouted. ‘We shall part no more, beloved! I am thine forever!’
He cast his sword aside, whipped out a dagger, plunged the instrument into the midst of the cloaks and buckled with a mighty cry. The circle of torches closed around him and the curtain whirled across the stage.
The audience roared their approval. Yes, indeed, the last act, with all its horrid stage effects, was a work of power and magnificence.
‘I think that the song was rather better done in the London performance by Mrs Siddons,’ Louisa hissed above the applause.
Barry realised that he had bitten his tongue during Rodolpho’s suicide and that his mouth was full of blood.
* * *
The Anderson barouche arrived on Sunday at two, driven by a professional coachman with a postilion seated on the rumble. Mary Ann gasped with pleasure when she saw it waiting at the hall door. Their landlady became a flutter of politeness as they descended in their fine dresses with impeccable hems, pelisses, bonnets, top coats and fur muffs. It was windy, but not yet cold. Mary Ann was taking no risks. She kissed Barry’s nose, which was all that was visible, as she throttled him with a gigantic scarf.
‘Keep very close with your new friend Jobson, darling,’ she advised. ‘Thank Heavens Lord Buchan has sent us a protector.’
This was the plan. Barry was to be delivered to the park, where he would promenade for an hour with his peers, then make his own way to the doctor’s house in George Street. The child had learned the geography of the city very rapidly and insisted on his independence. But he never ventured into the rougher parts of town. For Barry attracted attention wherever he went: his coat was too huge, and his figure too small. He looked like a very well-dressed dwarf that had escaped, in full costume, either from the stage or from the circus. Sometimes children ran after him in the street, shouting and throwing pebbles. Mary Ann despaired of rendering him inconspicuous. And Barry’s surprisingly volatile temperament did not help. He picked fights with impunity whenever he suspected that people were jeering at him. He was ferocious in his solitude.
The barouche paused at the park gates and Barry climbed down.
‘Take care
, my love,’ Mary Ann cried after him as he vanished among the barren walks, untouched by spring.
Jobson was waiting on the bridge, whittling sticks with his knife. They shook hands solemnly, like tiny ancient generals who have agreed on a truce.
‘Got a knife?’ inquired Jobson as they hunted for suitable pieces of wood on the muddy banks along the river, slipping on the dead leaves. Barry produced an assassin’s implement with a double blade.
‘That’s a splendid murder weapon.’ Jobson admired the knife. ‘Who gave you that?’
‘A South American revolutionary general,’ said Barry, who always spoke the truth if he was asked a direct question.
‘Go on with you,’ chuckled Jobson.
‘I’ll probably be going out to join him in Venezuela when I’ve finished my studies,’ Barry insisted. ‘He’s there now. He’s not coming back till the end of the year.’
‘I’d like to travel too,’ said Jobson, ‘but we’ve both decided on the army, haven’t we? We should sign up for the same regiment.’
Barry hesitated. Then agreed.
‘Look at this one,’ cried Jobson. He held up a bit of wood that boasted a keel. ‘It’s a schooner already.’
The winter afternoon gleamed silver. The river was a thick, cold rush of lead. The tree trunks shone brown and damp in the fading light. Barry slithered down to the edge, his boots sinking into the mud. Jobson, watching from the bridge, gave the signal and Barry launched their frail, fresh-created arks into the flood. Then he scrambled up the bank and raced through the trees towards the bridge. Jobson was scanning the waters, his hands turning his eyes into two small telescopes.
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