With and Without, Within and Without

by Euan McAllen

‘Fuck off then, bitch.’

  ‘He didn’t know. Said the culprit would not tell him but would tell you, Mr Mostrum.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘I’ll put my brother on to you.’

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘Ingel.’

  Mostrum tried to laugh, but it hurt too much, so he swore instead.

  ‘Go fuck your brother.’

  That was too much for Miuccia: she lost it and slapped him hard across the face, hitting his bad eye. The most awful pain possible shot a path to the centre of Mostrum’s brain.

  ‘Fucking hell! Get this bitch off me! Before I kill her!’

  Mostrum closed his eyes. It appeared he had passed out. The doctor, at a loss as to what to do, say or recommend, finally suggested strong smelling salts to wake up the patient. Miuccia reached out and grabbed a bottle off a shelf. She opened it and held it under Mostrum’s nose – his dribbling, snot-infested nose.

  ‘You disgust me, you little shit,’ she said.

  No response. The doctor became agitated. ‘I’ll go get help.’

  He was desperate for any excuse to be gone. Miuccia did not hear him: she was in a different world – a world inhabited solely by man devils. Her hand began to shake. She punched Mostrum in the chest.

  ‘Wake up, you little shit, I’m not done with you yet.’

  Mostrum opened his eyes and, upon seeing a mad, manic witch looming over him, tried to push her off.

  ‘Witch!’

  The witch fought back and the contents of the bottle splashed out, to make contact with his cheek. Mostrum screamed out in pain. His face was on fire. He had been hit by acid. Miuccia laughed upon realising what she had done. And she wanted to do it again: she split some more down the side of his face. It was an acid attack, and it was the sweetest revenge. Mostrum was left sobbing and screaming with pain. He could just about make out shouting coming from the other patients. They were truly scared. This was how you got treated in this place?

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Miuccia, and she left him to it.

  ‘Bitch!’

  After she was gone, another doctor appeared to clean up the mess. Mostrum was howling with pain and swearing blue murder.

  ‘I will kill that bitch! I will!’

  ‘Please, sir, sit perfectly still. Let me attend to the wound.’

  ‘Don’t expect me to pay for this!’

  ‘You have nothing to pay, sir. Now please, sit still.’

  Later, Miuccia explained the incident to Doctor Varvareo as an unfortunate accident: someone had moved the bottles around. Varvareo had no choice except to accept her story. No one wanted to believe that awful soldier. No one wanted to be on his side, against her, against the hospital. She had won this one.

  ***

  That evening Sister Miuccia paid a visit to the invalid Fiolotti. She had put him in the wheelchair – admittedly by accident – and she had never forgiven him for promoting Adolphinus; and, by implication, demoting her. She hated the fact that, overall, Fiolotti had enjoyed more private time with Adolphinus than she ever had; far more. The two chiefs had their secrets, and she wanted to vent her fury on him for he was a sitting duck, and right now she needed to attack somebody. Her mind was not right: she had been smoking a piece of weed, known amongst the doctors to bring both comfort and craziness. She sneaked into the room and stood behind Fiolotti, contemplating his miserable existence whilst avoiding hers.

  She started to clap behind his back to wake him up. She laughed. She giggled. She softly repeated his name like it was part of a song – a song to be sung softly into a child’s ear. She watched him squirm, try to turn to face the unknown. She grabbed the wheelchair and began to shake it, wobble it.

  ‘Earthquake!’ she cried.

  ‘No,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You should have died back then.’ She pulled on his hair. ‘You need a haircut, young man.’

  She whispered in his ear. ‘Would you like to have sex with me? I’m standing here naked. I’m desperate for it. Come on, fuck me.’

  ‘No,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Oh, no! Adolphinus is coming to get you, get me too!’

  ‘No,’ he mumbled.

  ‘They want to put you in the pit, with all those other smelly, maggot-infested bodies. Some carried the plague, you know. What a way to go. What a way to go for a chief monk. Sad. So sad.’

  ‘Go away, please.’

  Each word was painfully, slowly expressed.

  ‘You want me to go? But I take care of you?’

  Miuccia lost it. She almost went beyond crazy: she wanted to punch the patient, shit on the sick; she wanted to dump on the doctors; she wanted to rape the nurse. But all she had to hand was Fiolotti: he would have to do, but at least he couldn’t fight back.

  Fiolotti and Adolphinus: they were all the same to her; corrupted chiefs who happily corrupted others, whether it be for career advancement or just for pure pleasure. Both discarded people when they were of no more use. Or so she thought. As punishment for both of them, she stuck a pin in the back of Fiolotti’s neck. He squealed in pain, sobbing now; unable to get angry; trying to scream out loud for help. There was already enough anger in the room for both of them, but no help.

  ‘Feel the pain, Adolphinus. Feel my pain.’

  Miuccia started to slap her chief around the face whilst still staying out of sight but never out of his poor, failing mind; trying to shut him the fuck up. He was making too much noise now. It didn’t work. So from her pocket, she produced her magic drug. Conveniently, it was already made up into a potion ready for drinking. Such was her ability for contingency and forward planning. (Just like her brother.)

  She pulled his head back and forced him to swallow the lot: this had not been her original intention as she had accidentally made it too strong. No matter, a little extra would do him the world of good. And it did at first: Fiolotti went as quiet as a church mouse; he stopped moving, twisting, fighting her; then a shudder went through him, and he jolted in pain before he went silent and immovable again.

  Shit, she thought. I’ve knocked him out. You shit. And then she realised that the patient was not breathing forever. Shit, shit, shit, she thought. And with that Miuccia vacated the room at high speed; spinning around like a demented dancer as she checked up and down the corridor for signs of life. Nothing. She was totally alone. Relieved, she slinked off, back into her little hole.

  ***

  The next day, Fiolotti was reported dead. The shock news flew around the hospital, bypassing the patients. The ex-chief was dead! The chief might accuse them of negligence. There might be sackings, recriminations. Nurses huddled together in corners to discuss the circumstances and possible fallout, and to support each other; likewise the doctors. No one liked a patient dying on their watch – and this was their most important, most esteemed patient.

  When the news reached Adolphinus, he nearly collapsed. Another dead chief, on his watch! Tongues would wag. A friend was dead, and he had treated him badly. Adolphinus didn’t want to know. He just didn’t want to know. He just wanted to be happy. Let me be happy, God, please! Adolphinus crawled back into bed, refusing to come out; refusing to speak to anybody, except Ingel. Let Ingel deal with it. Get rid of the body and kill the gossip: that was his job. He recalled his last words with Fiolotti. They left an awful aftertaste in his mouth and a stain on his heart. He needed someone to hug. But there was no one.

  When the Chief Accountant was informed, he was found sat over the Sack of Cash. (He had been removing coins and adding them to his own private stash. In his mind, he regarded the act as compensation for miscellaneous expenses incurred whilst performing his job.) Not my problem, he told the doctor. Likewise, his accountants took it well, on the chin: financially, nothing had changed. (Later, the B&B man would disagree with that: a room and bed had be
en freed up, which meant additional revenue.) ‘Terrible,’ said Sister Miuccia to the other ward sisters. They all agreed. Terrible. She did not hang around: she retreated first to her room; to count the coins she had stolen from the collection box, wondering what to do with them. Throw them away? Sick of the hospital, sick of sick people, sick of dead people, she went down to the riverbank, to the place where she had played as a child.

  A subdued Doctor Varvareo sat listlessly in his office, wondering how Chief Adolphinus had taken the news. Would there be questions, an investigation? His meandering, repetitive thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected visit from the chief’s senior policeman. Ingel was here, to question him! But a furtive-looking, almost shy Ingel simply had a request to make – or rather a demand wrapped up in a request. He wanted Varvareo to check over the body. ‘For what?’ asked Varvareo. For anything out of the ordinary. If Ingel was suspicious of the death, now so was Varvareo. He led Ingel to the morgue, avoiding all chat with doctors along the way, to where the body was laid out on a table, covered with a sheet.

  Varvareo examined it thoroughly, whilst Ingel turned away, not wishing to see the details of a dead man’s body. Varvareo found nothing – that was until he got round to examining the head. There was a distinctive smell in the mouth and a stain on the tongue which he instantly recognised. A particular drug had been applied to the patient and in a very high concentration. That was not right. That was very wrong. The drug was used to calm over-excited, uncontrollable patients; at the last resort knock them out. Then, to add to that, he found a large spot of dried blood on the back of the neck. There was absolutely no reason for it to be there until that is, Varvareo noticed the entry point of a pin or needle. He was shocked. Ingel was not.

  Ingel thought just one word: abuse. Correction: torture. He told Varvareo to forget what he had seen; to discuss it with no one, not even with Chief Adolphinus. Fiolotti deserved to be remembered as having died a noble, natural death. Any other story would not serve the hospital well. Varvareo agreed: he had got the message.

  ‘So we do not tell our chief, not under any circumstances?’ asked Varvareo, wishing for the clearest clarification.

  ‘No. He is in a fragile state right now. Recently so much has happened that he cannot cope with this additional development. He does not need to know this right now. This man is dead. He was always going to die soon, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘I will tell him when he is ready.’

  Ingel had Varvareo by the balls.

  ***

  The rumblings of dread, discontent, and bad atmosphere were not confined to the hospital; the Free Fast Food Bank suffered much the same. Tibi had arrived early with other monks and novices to hand out food to the peasants. Only there was no food to hand out. The bank had run out of food. The supply chain had broken down. Senior Monks had taken their eye off the ball. The monks agreed to draw the short straw: the loser would have to give the bad news to the hungry, impatient peasants queuing outside. Some had been queueing for over an hour now. Some had missed breakfast to queue. When the news broke, and they were asked to go home, empty-handed, there was outrage. It almost caused a riot. A window was smashed, and the monks cowered inside, as if under siege. The bank had run out of goodwill.

  The peasants demanded to be let in, thinking it was a trick; thinking the monks were keeping the food all for themselves. Their dissatisfied customers stormed in before the monks could lock the door. They overturned empty baskets and pulled open cupboards; looking for those special offers, those free deals; two-for-one, one-for-all. But the monks were telling the truth: there was nothing to be found, nothing to steal; nothing to bite into. The bank was empty. They had been conned. Help for the poor? It was all fake! So they stormed back out on to the street.

  ‘They are keeping food from us now!’ some shouted.

  ‘They want to starve us!’ some shouted.

  ‘Fat monks, thin peasants!’ some bright spark shouted.

  Rigger Junior, out on begging duty, watched from the sidelines. He did not fancy the job of having to tell this news to his mum and dad. They would just lay into each other and argue, and argue, and argue some more about who would have to find extra work; over who had to make savings. He held out his bowl but was swept aside. The protesters had no time for the poor or needy. They wanted their bellies filled.

  The incident was more fuel for the widespread unrest which now permeated every corner of the town. It only stopped at the walls of The Maze, for The Maze was a whole different place. That Chief Monk wanted to teach them a lesson, so the story went. ‘A lesson in what?’ some asked. Respect?

  Some peasants attended the church that morning, not to pray but to protest. The monk taking service could not appease them, or shut them up, or get them to leave. The tradesmen present, though sympathetic, found it tiresome and were happy to forcibly eject them when requested to do so by the rattled monk. Trade was not against protesting over wages and taxes, but there was a time and a place for such things, and the church was the not place. God did not set hourly rates or tax levels. There were rules, regulations and red lines. (And the union had yet to pass a motion permitting a protest.)

  ***

  Ingel went looking for his sister, determined to extract the truth from her. He would get nothing except denial. He found her down by the river; sitting, arms folded over her knees; like a little girl whiling away the time, of which she had too much; waiting for a dream to form, for the present to end, for her life to start. He sneaked up on her – just like he had when a small boy in shorts – and shouted ‘boo!’

  ‘Not you.’

  ‘Yes, me.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Miuccia threw a twig into the water.

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘He’s dead. Did you have a hand in it?’

  No reply. Miuccia threw a small stone into the water.

  ‘That sounds like a yes to me.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘You hated him, and I know why.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Miuccia threw another stone into the water.

  ‘Talk to me then. Set the record straight.’

  ‘Go away.’

  Ingel sat down. ‘Don’t talk to me then. But I won’t go away.’ He looked around, faintly interested. He knew this place like the back of his hand, as did she. He had happy memories of it, as did she. This had been their childhood hunting ground and play area. He had hidden from her. She had hidden from him. He had chased her. She had chased him. He had fallen on top of her. She had fallen on top of him. Now they sat a few feet apart. The gap would never close. They could never be close again. They could only get further apart.

  ‘So his death was just an accident?’

  ‘Yes. His heart packed up.’

  ‘How do you know that? Were you there?’

  ‘I don’t. Just a guess.’

  Ingel fixed his sights on a particular tree, a large oak.

  ‘We used to climb that tree.’

  ‘We used to do lots of things.’

  ‘We used to skinny dip in the river.’

  No reply. Miuccia threw another stone into the water.

  ‘Remember how we were going to sneak into The Maze, have a great, big adventure.’

  No reply. There were no more stones within reach.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Fed up, Ingel got up to leave. ‘Don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.’

  ‘And your secret is safe with me. Now piss off.’

  Ingel did as instructed. He had had better conversations with Craccus. Just to confuse him a crow, watching, squawked as if satisfied, and then flew off.

  ***

  Tibi turned up at the hospital; nervous, sick in his stomach; wishing to see his dad; hoping that the
operation had gone well; only to be informed that the man was dead. The patient had died the previous day: the operation had not been a success.

  ‘Not been a success,’ said a doctor.

  These words ran and ran around inside Tibi’s head as he sat; traumatized, trying to recover his balance and make sense of it all. From the hospital’s perspective the man had died almost without comment, and was quickly forgotten for he was not important. He was now an inconvenience, taking up space in the morgue, a loose end.

  One nurse tried her best to console Tibi in between other duties, but otherwise, he was ignored – except by the B&B man who wanted to know when or if he was going to take the body away for burial. Burial? thought Tibi. I can’t afford a burial. I can’t afford just to take him away. Tibi asked what would happen to his father’s body if he could not take charge of it.

  ‘The Pit,’ said the B&B man. ‘Bodies are dumped in the hospital pit.’

  ‘That’s the pits’ was an expression which Tibi, try as he might, could not stop from entering his head to mock him and make him feel even more miserable. He asked the B&B man to give him some time to see what he could do, to see what his options were. He had until the close of the day, he was told. Bodies could not be left lying around.

  ‘Bad for the hospital,’ said the B&B man.

  Tibi rushed back to the monastery and sought out Paminio, almost forcing the man into a corner; leaving him surprised and perplexed. Paminio made it clear he did not want to talk to him, engage with him in any way. He did not want to be seen with the novice. He did not want their bodies to stand too close. He did not want Tibi to be friendly, so pleased to see him. He tried to be the exact opposite but failed.

  Paminio asked the boy what he wanted, but be quick about it, and be gone. Tibi did not hang around. He did not mince his words. He came right out with it and offered Paminio a blowjob for money. Paminio visibly recoiled and began to sweat profusely. Disgusted, he told Tibi to go fuck himself. Tibi, seeing the magnitude of his mistake, apologized profusely and fled; crying at the stupidity of his action, and over the death of his dad. Paminio, seeing this, did feel sorry for him.