When he had found his way out of the studio and into the kitchen, he must have been quite a sight; Josephine made a silent scream upon seeing him. His long, greying beard and white shirt were covered in blood, spread everywhere by his excessive perspiration. He tried to reassure her that he was all right, just a small accident. He poured water into the sink to wash, and she went back to her room and locked the door. Locked doors were good things, he thought, as he rinsed his chest. When not in the wilderness, he preferred to live and work behind them, constructing his instruments and carrying out his experiments behind their infallible security.
He resolved to be more careful in the future; he did not want Josephine to be alarmed again. He could not risk her inquisitiveness drawing her fingers to the workings of his delicate optics. The process of logging each variation of light, each arrangement of lens and shutter, and all the effects they subsequently produced in him was a protracted and systematic one. The large, heavy ledger sat in the desk in the corner of the room, a sturdy clasp keeping it shut. Soon, he would visit Gull with his findings, and he was looking forward to seeing the doctor’s expression when confronted with such significant research.
But he was not ready yet. America and Stanford were calling. His two years in England had flown by, and he still needed more time, but that was not an option—he had to return to his adopted homeland as soon as possible. He was musing on this when Josephine knocked on the door. He unlocked it and invited her in. She walked to the chair in front of the camera, touched it, and looked at him. He checked his watch.
“Yes. I do have time for a short sitting this afternoon.”
She actually seemed to enjoy these displays of malady. Even the cruellest of contortions only ever left her tired, and she was always ready for more. He admired this in her. She showed no fear or remorse, never complained or even tried to find a way to; she was so different from the scheming, selfish oaf he had married. He enjoyed her silent company and felt dismal at having to leave so soon with no return date set. He sighed and began to prepare for the exposure, clearing a few things from his workbench and putting them on shelves. He moved his version of the peripherscope from the back of the shelf to make room for a box of negatives. He felt her start behind him and turned to see her reaction.
“What’s wrong, Josephine?”
She pointed to his hand.
“What, this?” he said, holding the clockwork halo of glass and metal towards her.
Her eyes widened and she produced an expression she had not yet demonstrated, a cross between sexual hunger and shortsightedness, as if she was drawing the object towards her; he felt a little awkward. She approached, holding out her hands. He gave her the halo, and she placed it on her head, imitating the sound of its small clockwork motors while placing her flat right hand over her head and making a series of circles with it. Her actions reminded him of one half of a children’s game, one hand circling in front of the solar plexus, the other above the head, to demonstrate the pull of unity between separate coordination of the left and right brain. But this was not a game: She wanted him to operate it for her.
He saw no obvious difficulty in her request. Gull had evidently used it in her previous treatment, and its desirable consequences seemed to have given her pleasure. He took the peripherscope from her and wound the motors. Checking that the mirrors were not loose, he arranged it securely on her head. She returned to the chair with sauntering pleasure. The brass and glass shone in the sun from the bright window, against the darkness of her uplifted head. She was a crowned princess, awaiting her cloak of gold on some distant shore; he, her intrepid provider, the carrier of her inner riches.
They were both smiling when he pressed the tiny levers and set the machine in motion. The effect was instantaneous. Her body tightened and rippled into a firm contour of readiness, as if the nondescript clothing that she wore had somehow become magically tailored to cling to every line of her body. Her posture was catlike, with a salacious stealth that screamed her sexuality. Muybridge was frozen. She closed her heavy lids over smouldering eyes as wave upon wave of orgasm rushed through her body. Every guard, defence, and restraint was swept away from him. His erection was beyond his wildest memories, and it bayed in the constraint of his Scottish woollen trousers. Her sighs turned into mews, then roars. The chair broke, split apart by the energy being driven down through it and into the cringing floor. She stood, fists clenched and head thrown back, panting as the clockwork ran out and the photographer exploded with unbelievable pleasure inside the embarrassed dignity of his thick darkroom underwear.
They went to their own rooms without a word. He waited until he thought she must be asleep, and then he escaped, into an outside world blissfully ignorant of his appalling indiscretion, though he couldn’t help but think that some of the passing mob gave him looks that were all too knowing.
—
The three or four sessions that followed had been very formal and brief. He spent much of his time shut in the studio, working on the new device, which he had not yet named. Somehow, “zoopraxiscope” did not do his little miracle of reflection justice.
Josephine behaved with her usual decorum, as if the incident had never occurred; their formal and professional friendship seemed unaffected by the nameless incident. However, he had noticed with some disquiet that his version of the peripherscope had been moved from its exact place in his studio. Each time he had gone away she must have taken it, presumably to her room. It had always been returned before he came back, but he noticed the slight differences in its meticulous setting down. Nobody else would have spotted the variation: It takes a trained and scientific eye to observe the unmentioned. At first, he thought of scolding her, but that would mean admittance and knowledge of all, and he had no desire to tread that path again. He could have locked it away or taken it apart. In the end, he did nothing. It was easier to ignore her animal appetites and pretend that he did not know about the daily pilfering. At times, he even congratulated himself in letting her use it; another of his acts of uncalled-for kindness. Anyway, the instrument was no longer of much value to him. He had surpassed Gull’s little plaything; she could have it.
Yet he could not so easily ignore the image of her that afternoon; it tugged at his consciousness each time they met, and it always had the same physical effect on him. After a while, he stopped trying to restrain the memory and its attendant arousal, choosing instead to reclassify it as the normal reaction of a particularly healthy and virile fifty-two-year-old man.
He had begun the process of packing away his things. Josephine knew that he was leaving but that he would visit again upon his return. She had seemed genuinely downhearted at the news of his departure, but perhaps that was just her reaction to the prospect of being separated from the peripherscope.
He had contacted Gull, telling the doctor of his progress and sending the previous batches of pictures to him; the last batch would be picked up the next day by one of his men. But he was hesitant—he could not find it in himself to pack his new invention away, to stop testing it; he certainly did not want to leave it behind. He had had another fit while operating it and was getting butterflies about using it again; he was so close, it was madness to stop now, but he couldn’t continue alone—he needed a guinea pig. Then he heard movement next door and the idea came full circle. Gull would be delighted.
—
He cleared all appointments for two days and brought provisions to the rooms so that he would not have to go out. In the corner of the studio he set up the camp bed the maid had previously used. All he had to do now was convince Josephine to help.
He arrived very early the first day; she was still sleeping while he made tea and toast in the kitchen. She heard the early kettle boil and came to see what was happening at this time of day. Her hair was tousled, and she wore a heavy hospital dressing gown over her nightdress.
“Good morning, Josephine!” he said to the blinking ex-slave yawning before him. “I have made you some toast and br
ought us some excellent marmalade.”
Such hospitality was alien to her, and the gaiety of his breakfast making was beyond expectation; she regarded him, and his culinary efforts, with a wary delight.
“These are my last few days before I go away. I have only one important piece of work to finish and I wanted to show it to you later, because I think you might like it. Now, come and sit down.”
He drew a chair out for her to sit, then went to his side of the table and started buttering the toast. “You will like this marmalade; it’s come all the way from Oxford. Some people, myself included, believe it to be the only thing of any value that has been produced by that city!”
The joke was beyond her, and she sipped her tea. He pushed the toast towards her as she looked blankly at him, his scruffy beard full of sharp crumbs that caught her eye.
“I have a gift for you!” he said suddenly, bounding across to the wide-open studio as she looked from him to the food and back again. She was not fully awake, and the marmalade and gifts were causing her the exact amount of confusion he had been aiming for. He returned, grinning, with one arm behind his back.
“I want to give you this; I know you like it.”
He thrust the brown paper parcel in her face and she frowned as she accepted it. Two days before, he had taken the peripherscope from its normal place, wrapped it up in thick brown paper, and placed it in a drawer. Now she held it in both hands, turning it, feeling its obvious form. She immediately knew what it was and started to pick at the string.
“Oh no, not here—it’s yours now. Take it to your room; you can open it there.”
She was suspicious, delighted, and confused. Unable to convey all three emotions at once, she beamed at him and crunched into her toast.
“After breakfast, I will show you my new machine; it’s a bit like that one, only better,” he said, jabbing a prurient finger at the parcel.
She finished her breakfast and went to dress, while he prepared his nameless device. He had moved its component parts around so that she might lie down on the table with her head between the reflecting mechanisms. He had brought the sunlight to the machine with the aid of three parabolic mirrors. It was less smelly and irksome than using the oil lamps, and the day was very much brighter than had been the case in recent weeks.
—
She was at the door, observing his joyful demonstration. “See? It works just like the other device; these little mirrors spin around, cupping the light from over there. There are lenses all over, look!” He was pointing and fluttering his hands over the polished wood and brass; the sunlight glinted in the lenses. “There are two disc shutters and a rotating drum shutter back here. It’s all controlled by this crank, which I shall turn for a few moments. So what do you think? Are you ready?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded and sat on the table, swinging her legs up to lie flat. He positioned her head and put a simple, thin restraining band across her forehead.
“Excellent! Let’s begin. Ready?” Her eyes blinked “yes.”
He pushed against the crank and the machine spun into motion. By the third turn, he had found his rhythm. The lenses turned into glowing, spinning spheres, stretching, chewing, sphinctering, and splitting the now invented light, which drilled into the sides of the black, responsive eyes, as the shutters chopped and shaved pulses of shadow, brilliance, and darkness. For the first time, the machine hummed. He looked back and forth from it to her face and body, which remained motionless, and to his half-hunter pocket watch, propped up on the shelf nearby. After three minutes, he began to slow down, eventually bringing the machine to a stop. He removed the head strap and helped her to sit up. She was breathing normally, her eyes looked normal, and there wasn’t the faintest trace of any effect. He gave her some water and asked her to walk around the room, which she did while drinking. He was mildly perplexed; there should have been some effect. He consulted his logbook, made a few minor adjustments, and said, “Could we try again, please?”
She nodded with a shrug and climbed back into the device. He cranked it into action again, this time for five minutes. He was perspiring under his tight, itching collar and cuffs. He sat her up again. Nothing. He asked her to lie down and close her eyes, expecting at least dizziness to manifest. She fell asleep. He gently but irritably shook her awake. “One last try, please. Just one.”
They went back to the table. He fastened the strap and cranked again. Eight minutes later, he stopped: The machine was a failure. It worked only for him; she was totally impervious to its influence. It did nothing. He dismissed her with great irritation and sat, gloomily staring at the ridiculous hand-built tangle of disappointment.
He sat until it started to get dark; then he dragged himself together, snatched up his topcoat and hat, and left, slamming the door and waking her again in his exit. He stomped the gritty and dissolute streets for hours, walking in circles, trying to exhaust his rage and fathom what had gone wrong. He stopped at a public house and quietened it for a long moment with his wrong, brooding entrance. He made his way to the bar and ordered Nelson’s Blood from the surprised barman; men of Muybridge’s class were never seen in such neighbourhoods, and certainly not drinking concoctions as potent as the admiral’s blood. Of course, unbeknownst to his unwilling bar fellows, he had been in much rougher establishments than theirs: from the shabby beer halls of the Arctic to the decrepit ratholes of Guatemala, to the gambling house of the Yukon, decorated with icicles of human blood. But he had never drunk alone in a public house in England. Here it was improper; the chronic barriers of position and wealth forbade the fluidity he found everywhere else.
The second drink hit, stirring some mirth out of the sediment of his gloom. Everybody in the cramped, overvarnished rooms of the pub was intensely aware of the gaunt, scraggly-bearded man with crazed prophet’s eyes, who had started talking to himself and grinning into his drink. He was oblivious to them all.
His mind wandered to an earlier time and place, where he had consumed a weighty amount of the potent black-rum-and-port mixture, with a man who had since become an infamous figure, even to those on this miserable rock. They had been in Cheyenne, in the wild Dakota Territories, distinguishing themselves by making loud toasts to the Bard and to Scholarly Conduct, to the Fine Arts and Chivalry. The saloon had been full of armed riffraff; many there with a price on their heads had ignored them and refused to be stirred by their conduct. Muybridge’s drinking companion that day had been John Henry Holliday, the notorious gambler and gunfighter who had made the London newspapers a year earlier, when he and the Earp brothers had staged a magnificently theatrical gunfight in the little-known and appropriately named town of Tombstone. Muybridge was sure that “Doc” Holliday had done most of the killing and maiming on that day, and he wished he had been there to see it, maybe photograph the heroes afterwards.
He shoved his hand into his topcoat’s inside pocket, looking for more money but finding instead the loaded Colt pistol. It was getting like the old days, he slurred to himself. He now had the appetite for a bit of gunplay. Then, with all the rhyme and reason of an amateur drinker, his thought switched to Josephine, to her passive and inert reaction today, to her electric performance with his copy of Gull’s device. Her pliant and sensual magnetism seemed a much better option than shooting the worthless clientele of the Roebuck.
He pulled himself up and made for the door. No one caught his eye, and the pub breathed out when he was gone. He sobered on his way back, getting lost twice and deciding never to drink publicly again, especially with a charged revolver. He stopped over a gurgling drain and emptied the bullets out of the gun; they fell like brass comets into the speeding firmament below.
—
He turned the key very slowly and entered the apartment without a whisper. He crept back towards his camp bed, trying not to make a sound. He did not want to wake her, to let her see him tipsy after she had seen him in defeat.
As he dragged off his coat and unlaced his boots, he heard a no
ise that made the hair stand up all over his body. Something was scratching in the rooms. This was no faint animal, no rat or mouse scrabbling for figments of foods; something else was clawing nearby. He patted the walls, finding his way to the shelves. He found the simple tin candelabra and matches, lit its three stubs of candles, and peered through the rooms. The scratching stopped. He was totally sober, with an icy wire inside his spine. He waited, and the clawing began again. He heard wood splinter and rip, and he pushed the hushed light towards it. It stopped again, but he saw a mass on the kitchen floor. It was Josephine’s dark body against the black floor. She was naked and lay very still, staring with unblinking eyes at the flaking ceiling. He brought his light close to her to ward off the unseen creature that scraped in the room. He knelt and touched her arm; it felt very cool, as if she had been out of bed for hours. He held the light high above his head to scan the room and keep the thing at bay; hot wax spilt and splashed across her face. There was no reaction.
“Josephine?” he whispered urgently. “Josephine!”
He touched her neck and felt no pulse. He bent over and put his hairy, impudent ear between her breasts: There was no heartbeat. She was dead. He sank back like a sullen, wet sack, into the collapsed quiet of the rooms and the world. Then the clawing started again. He spun the candles towards it and saw her left hand, frantically digging a pit in the floorboards. The nails were broken and the fingertips bloodied, but the old wood yielded under their insistence. He looked again at her set, dead face; she was elsewhere, but the floor was being eaten away by the live hand’s independent labour. Then silence fell again. He dared not breathe, waiting for the hellish tattoo to start again, wondering fearfully at the life force that sustained its momentum.
The Vorrh Page 28