Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [28]
Another knock interrupted her. This time it was water, borne by a different porter, and roughly the same conversation took place. Treves listened to it, worried. He felt he could have avoided much of this by planning Merrick’s admittance into the hospital more carefully. But then, how could he have known in advance what would be needed, he argued with himself.
While Mothershead filled the tub with water he finished feeding Merrick and began to remove his clothes. Merrick made feeble protesting movements, as though he would resist, but eventually gave up and sat, acquiescent while Treves knelt and unwrapped the sacking arrangement round his feet. He whimpered, however, when Treves began to unfasten the trousers, and seemed distressed as they were removed.
Without them he was perfectly naked, a fact which plainly bothered him. Treves wondered if Mothershead was the cause of this, and was sure of it when Merrick bent forward slightly, trying to cover his genitals with his left hand. Treves remembered with a sense of shame how casually he had used a stick to direct his audience’s attention to those genitals, how clinically he had remarked on their perfect formation, so strange in the midst of so much hideous deformity; how confident he had been that Merrick understood nothing of what he was saying. He felt suddenly shaken. Why, even Bytes had not done so much!
Was it only yesterday all this had happened? It felt it was a hundred years ago.
He persuaded Merrick into the tub at last and gently urged him to sit down. At once the water turned black. Mothershead took up a full bucket standing nearby and tipped the contents over Merrick’s back. The water was the colour of sludge before it was half-way down. Making a face of distaste Mothershead took up a scrubbing brush and began to wash him. Whatever her feelings it was plain that nothing was going to get in the way of the job in hand.
Merrick’s body was slowly changing colour under the impact of Mothershead’s scrubbing brush. Treves wondered if the loathsome smell might be no more than the natural effusion of a man who never had a chance to wash. He seemed to be covered with months of filth and accumulated excrescence.
When another knock came on the door Mothershead called, “Wait,” and promptly dipped the two empty buckets into the water. She took them to the door and there exchanged them for a clean pair, in the process becoming involved in another crisp conversation with Nettleton, which the words “Clear off at once!” seemed to terminate satisfactorily.
Returning, she tipped the clean water into the tub and went on scrubbing. This happened three times more, and each time Merrick became a little lighter. He had given up resistance and was leaning forward in the tub, with his eyes closed. He seemed to have protected himself from the outside world by escaping from it. Treves had taken up a seat by the tub and was leaning forward, examining his patient’s back intently. The strange cauliflower growths on it could be more easily made out.
“Shocking,” Treves murmured.
He was almost unaware of having spoken aloud, but the sound of his voice made Merrick flinch and swivel his eyes toward him. Treves did not notice. He was too fully absorbed in his own speculation.
“I wonder how far it can go before it …”
Merrick jerked suddenly and tried to pull away from Mothershead’s hand.
“Sit still,” she told him firmly. “Don’t wiggle about like a pup. I won’t stand for any foolishness.”
Treves leaned forward until he could meet Merrick’s eyes.
“Where are your parents?” he said slowly.
Merrick made no reply but he grew still. His eyes closed, and he seemed to slip back into the reverie that had held him a moment before. Treves went on talking, half to Mothershead, half to himself.
“It’s pretty certain that if he had the disease as a child he was abandoned. But what sort of parents, what sort of mother would turn her child away? She must have been a cruel, heartless woman.”
Mothershead gave him a cynical look. The mysterious sentimentality of men about mothers