Evil Water and Other Stories

by Ian Watson

  Now, there’s nothing illegal in this. You need no medical qualifications to practise as a homeopathic doctor; and it’s a curious fact, as I discovered, that a good few human beings would rather have their ills tended to by a vet than by an orthodox doctor.

  A doctor is often cursory, reaching quickly for his prescription pad to scribble upon it in illegible Latin. A doctor is frequently inclined to treat his human patients as examples of blocked plumbing, or as broken-down cars—this is the common complaint by patients. Whereas a vet must always fondle and gentle his patients (or else the vet is likely to be scratched, bitten, and kicked). A vet seems more sensual, more full of curative love. He is seen to cure—to a certain extent—by a laying on of hands, whereas a medical doctor metaphorically jabs a fist into you.

  Also, people might prefer to confide in a vet because his trade isn’t viewed as a mysterious Freemasonry. A vet has no cryptic knowledge or secret records.

  Finally, the doctor appears to have the power of life or death over you; yet he will never exercise the power of death mercifully. Indeed the law forbids him to do so. Death can only come after a long, humiliating, and dehumanizing process of medical intervention which often seems experimental to the wasting patient and his relatives. The vet does possess the power of instant death. He can give lethal mercy injections to distempered puppies or crushed cats. Yet it is the instant mercy of this, not the lethal aspect, which is noted primarily.

  (Did I mention love? I have admitted that I did not overly love my fellow human beings compared with the furry and feathered folk of the world. So in common with John—though for different reasons—I too never married. As a result, to many pet-owning widowed ladies I seemed impeccably … shall we say, eligible? Which was perhaps another of my homeopathic attractions. I had diluted and rediluted my spouse potential over the years till I became, to some hearts, devastating.)

  John and I had remained firm friends for many years—as I say—and we met perhaps thrice every year, one of these occasions invariably being our college reunion supper; the other occasions variable. We seemed to have much in common. We were both confirmed bachelors. As regards charitable acts John perceived me as a kind of lay St Francis of Assisi, ministering to the world’s chihuahuas and gerbils. I had told John, at some stage, all I knew about the enzyme-catalysed chemical reactions which coldly light up fireflies, deep-sea fish, bacteria, and fungi; and how one day we might learn to light our homes and cities similarly—information which had surfaced, theologically mutated, in his book. …

  I was welcomed to the palace. We drank excellent pale sherry. We spoke of homeopathy. We talked of John’s book and of its lightning success (de scandale). He mentioned an upcoming television interview to be filmed in his variously lit home, during the course of which he would stride from room to room and thus from firelight era to neon era, expounding, concluding his performance in the candle-lit chapel; but he was rather vague about these plans.

  I tentatively broached the puzzle (to me) of the true intention of his book. Surely an old and discreet friend was privileged to know—especially since I myself had no religious axes to grind? John sidetracked me, to admire a lanthorn from Shakespeare’s day which he had recently bought at auction and which now adorned the mantel shelf of his lounge.

  Then Mrs Mott served us dinner in the next room, to faintly hissing gaslight.

  It was a tasty meal but a queer one. We commenced with escargots and giant champignons, both cooked in butter; and John obviously had some difficulty distinguishing which of the spheres were snails, and which were mushrooms. He attempted to slice through one snail shell and then to prick out the meat from within a mushroom. Had he commanded this menu as a deliberate tease to his bespectacled self?

  A turbot steak in béchamel sauce followed. Next, in sentimental homage to a shared taste from our student days when we had both patronized the same cheap wholesome dive of a cafe, we tucked into tripe and onions accompanied by mashed potatoes.

  Afterwards, came a meringue concoction; followed by a slab of Wensleydale cheese, and white coffee.

  Mrs Mott departed homeward, leaving us alone.

  It occurred to me that the whole meal had been white, or at least creamy-grey in colour; and served upon white plates. Even the wine we drank with it was Liebfraumilch—“milk of a beloved woman”—not that I should have fancied a robust Burgundy as accompaniment to the meat dish in question! Had we drunk Burgundy or some other red wine, it might have looked as though our glasses had miraculously filled with the blood so visibly absent from that part of the cow’s anatomy.

  An all-white dinner. Why?

  Had Mrs Mott gone mad?

  “Will you pour the port?” asked my host; and I obliged. The port, at least, was a rich purple-red; a contrast on which I forbore, for the moment, to comment, though my curiosity was by now intense.

  John tasted his wine, then at last confided in a low voice, “I’m going blind, Morris. Blind.”

  “Blind?” I repeated the word stupidly. I stared at John’s round, rosy face and at the thick round spectacles thereon, which from some angles made his eyes seem to bulge. His cheeks were faintly pocked: a bad reaction to a childhood bout of measles, which I knew had nearly killed him and which had certainly impaired his eyesight. The dome of his head was mostly bald and smooth. His skin, and remaining strands of hair, were somewhat greasy. A lot of talcum powder would need to be patted on to him prior to any television appearance; or else he would seem shiny on screen.

  I decided that it was high time to broach the matter of the meal—without insulting it, however, since my taste buds had relished every morsel even if my eyes had not had much to feast on.

  “Er, John … the dinner we just ate … splendid fare! Mrs Mott is to be congratulated. But, hmm, there wasn’t a scrap of colour in it. Everything was white from start to finish. White food on white plates. Highly ingenious! But, um, that doesn’t mean that you’re going blind—just because you couldn’t see any colours. There weren’t any to be seen.”

  John uttered a few staccato laughs.

  “Oh Morris, I know that!” he declared. “Mrs Mott has always been a great admirer of yours. The white dinner was in your honour.”

  “Was it? Why’s that? I don’t quite follow.”

  “You see, that’s her understanding of how homeopathy works. In this case, a homeopathic cure for failing vision. Take something as essential to the health of the body as a well-cooked meal. The smell and the taste play a major role in stimulating appetite. So does the look of the meal: the contrasts, the colours.”

  “Oh, I see! Mrs Mott imagines that by reducing the colour content to almost nothing—”

  “Just as the homeopath reduces the drug content of a medicine virtually to nothing, by repeated dilution. Exactly!”

  “—thereby your visual faculty will be stimulated, rather than dulled? Your brain will strain to discriminate the tiny traces of colour remaining? My word, what an imagination that woman has.”

  “The white dinner was also served as a broad hint in case I didn’t bring myself to ask your help, Morris.”

  Ah.

  Now I could put two and two together.

  Here was another instance where someone hoped for medical advice from a vet rather than from a doctor. A vet who was a close friend. A vet, moreover, who had no special bigoted axes to grind regarding a certain radical bishop who had reduced the visions of the saints to an absence of adequate light-bulbs.

  Doctors often had axes to grind. My patients’ owners had complained to me thus more than once. Male doctors—most are male—harboured gynaecological obsessions, obsessions about the “hysteria” of female patients. They nursed obsessions about plumbing and pills and tranquillizers. They held political views, often of a right-wing stripe, which they allowed to colour their medical personalities. Or else they had religious obsessions—about, say, birth control or woman’s role as a mother. There was no such thing as an objective doctor. Personal beliefs and p
rejudices always flavoured diagnosis and treatment. By contrast veterinarians could easily be objective—and at the same time loving—because (to put it bluntly and very generally) animals had no politics, and no religion.

  “What do you think’s wrong with your eyes then, John old son? Cataracts?”

  John emptied his glass of port, as though to fortify himself.

  “I’m going blind within,” he said. “Blind within.”

  “Now what do you mean by that?”

  “The blindness is like a shadow inside of me. This inner shadow is spreading. It’s growing outward, ever outward.”

  I thought for a moment. “I’m no eye specialist,” I said, “but it sounds to me—if you’re describing this correctly—as though your optic nerves are inflamed. The pressure of the swelling could make the nerves atrophy gradually. The blind spot would seem to enlarge. Part of the retina would go blind.”

  John shivered. “It’s more than that.” He struck his forehead a blow. “This blindness has taken root inside me like some foul black weed!” His voice faltered and hushed. “It’s because of my book, don’t you see?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve prayed, of course. One does. I pray on my own in the chapel every morning for half an hour. Prayer clears the mind. The day organizes itself. Not that I pray for myself personally! I pray that the whole world shall see the light of goodness.” John seemed embarrassed. He had never mentioned private prayer to me before. “Meanwhile my own light grows dim. Vilely so.”

  “In what way ‘vilely’, John?”

  “There’s a taint of corruption to this blindness. A moral miasma is creeping around in me, spreading its tendrils.”

  “You blame this on the publication of your book? It’s as though you’re being … punished?” I refilled his glass from the decanter. “I hate to say this, John, but a tumour is a remote possibility. If a tumour presses upon the visual centres of your brain there could be emotional repercussions. You might even sense the tumour as something dark and evil growing inside your head.”

  “Oh no I wouldn’t. If I had a tumour, I would suffer from a steady grinding headache for at least a few hours every day. Every now and then I might see complex hallucinatory patterns; or else an aura of flashing lights. You might suddenly look like an angel to me! Or Mrs Mott might. I do have a number of books in my library which aren’t about technology or theology. Medical books. I’ve checked up on tumours. I’ve checked up on eye troubles—I can still read, with spotlight and magnifying glass. Under normal circumstances what afflicts me would most likely be what is known as toxic amblyopia.”

  “Ah. Really? You’d better explain. Obviously I’m not the best fellow to hold a consultation with!”

  “Oh but you are. Now listen, will you? Toxic amblyopia involves a reduction in the acuteness of vision due to a toxic reaction of the optic nerve. I have the symptoms of this exactly. The commonest cause is overindulgence in alcohol or tobacco. But I don’t smoke; and I don’t ordinarily overimbibe. Quinine can also cause the condition; but I’ve never been near the tropics. I’m not one of your malarial missionaries of yesteryear. Other causes are prolonged exposure to various poisons, principally carbon dioxide, arsenic, lead, and benzene. One thought immediately springs to mind: am I being poisoned by these gaslights in here, or perhaps by the candles in the chapel? By something in this very palace which is directly connected with my hobbyhorse? That would be ironic, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe you’ve already solved the puzzle, John.” In which case why had I been invited? And why had Mrs Mott cooked the all-white repast?

  My friend shook his head. “I’ve had the gas-mantles checked. They’re perfectly safe. As for the chapel, ever since I began to suspect candles as possible sinners I’ve only lit one on each occasion. No remission! I’ve thought carefully of every other oddity of lighting. All systems are innocent. And my vision is getting worse. The affliction has no cause; unless of course it has a miraculous cause. Miraculous,” he repeated quietly, “or demonish. It’s a sort of slow, black lightning.”

  “But John, you yourself wrote that demons have no more substance than shadows cast by candles. You don’t believe in demons.”

  “Ah … suppose for a moment that demons exist. I feel somewhat haunted, Morris.”

  “You’re joking.”

  I could see that he was not entirely joking.

  “Don’t bishops know how to deal with demons?” I asked him.

  “Hmm. I should need to involve a colleague from within the Church. Word would inevitably leak out. Likewise, were I to start consulting eye specialists. Embarrassing, don’t you see? Embarrassing to the Church! If I tried to arrange for the exorcism of a genuine—if troublesome—miracle, why, that would be worse. I should be attempting to cast God out of my life.”

  “Time to wheel on the homeopathic vet, eh?”

  “I could do worse. At least I can discuss the ins and outs of this with you. Mrs Mott’s quite right on that score.”

  As we talked, a certain suspicion began to dawn on me; a suspicion which I hardly dared put to John outright.

  John had said that arsenic could cause toxic amblyopia.

  Was it possible that Mrs Mott was slowly poisoning John? Since white is the colour of innocence, did her white meal that evening protest symbolically that she was innocent? But why should she protest innocence unless she knew her own guilt?

  Why should Mrs Mott have encouraged John to seek my advice? Perhaps she did not admire me at all, and actually regarded me as a charlatan whose advice would lead John far astray and keep him away from doctors.

  John depended upon Mrs Mott. He trusted her implicitly. Dared I cast any shadow of doubt upon their relationship? And what could the woman’s motive possibly be? An inheritance—of a load of peculiar lighting apparatus? (The Palace certainly didn’t belong to him!) Inheritance of royalties from his book? Those could hardly amount to a fortune.

  Finally I decided to take the plunge.

  To sugar the pill, I chuckled. “Speaking of phosphorescence,” I said (though we hadn’t been, for a while), “in the old days phosphorus was often used as a poison because it’s difficult to detect. Some phosphorus occurs naturally in the body. There’s a famous case in which one intended victim was alerted when he noticed his bowl of soup glowing while he was carrying it to table along a dark corridor!”

  “Hmm,” said John without more ado, “so why should Mrs Mott wish to poison me?”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “Oh yes you did. Tiny doses of an arsenic compound, eh? A little bite of rat-killer day by day. In rather more than a homeopathic dose! She has no earthly motive.”

  “Maybe she has an unearthly one?”

  “Explain.”

  “Maybe she regards your book as, um, blasphemous. Maybe she believes you’re in league with the Antichrist.”

  “Mrs Mott? I hardly think so! Do you?”

  I thought about the comfy, devoted, cheery soul in question; and shook my head.

  That night as I lay on the verge of sleep in John’s great oaken guest-bed, my mind wandered back to the story of the phosphorescent soup. A soup bowl aglow in a dark corridor. …

  Is this a tureen which I see before me,

  The ladle towards my hand? Art thou lobster bisque,

  Vichyssoise, or plain beef broth with arsenic?

  Art thou not, fatal bouillon, sensible

  To tasting as to sight? Or art thou but

  A potage of the mind?

  I don’t know quite why I decided to get up out of my warm bed to roam the November-chilly Bishop’s Palace at midnight. Maybe I had some notion that in the pitch-dark kitchen I would spy some spice jar glowing phosphorescently, betraying the true poisonous nature of its contents. But get up I did, shuffling my slippers on by feel and belting my dressing gown about me, then proceeding to the door with hands outstretched.

  I didn’t use my pocket torch, nor had I opened the curtains. I knew
that it was a dark, moonless night outside but I wanted my eyes to retain the sensitivity of a cat so that the tiniest dose of light might register.

  I felt my way along the upstairs corridor, tiptoeing past John’s room next to mine, though I had little reason to fear that my faint footfalls—or the noisier creaking of the boards—might disturb him. John had long since told me that he invariably slept the sleep of the dead. As soon as his head touched the pillow he became a log until dawn.

  Still, the bathroom was in the opposite direction. How could I explain my nocturnal perambulation?

  To cut the story of a long prowl short, I fumbled my way to the kitchen—then to all the other downstairs room, and even the chapel. Nowhere did I spy anything unusual.

  The chapel was bitterly cold, but the chill I experienced was innocuous—winter was to blame. Unless a thermostat switched some heater on in the early morning John’s half-hour of prayer must have been something of a penance. Supposedly there’s another species of chill which runs down spines and makes dogs howl like banshees. Yet if it was devilish cold in John’s chapel, I’m sure the Devil had no hand in hypothermia, no finger in frigidity.

  I returned upstairs, only stubbing my toe once.

  In the darkness of the upper corridor I miscalculated distances. I twisted a brass doorknob. It wasn’t my own bedroom door that I opened—it was John’s

  I realized my mistake at once because a ring of light illuminated the head of the bed, showing me John’s face asleep beneath. He was wearing, of all things, a woolly nightcap with a big pompon which Mrs Mott must have knitted for him.

  The ring of light was no wider than his head, over which it seemed to perch. Though my eyes were well accommodated to night vision, the light wasn’t brilliant. But it clearly showed me John’s slumbering countenance, and outlined the bed. Obviously the light was some reflection or refraction from outside, through the bedroom window. Perhaps of a powerful arc-lamp at the railway station?