Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [29]
“But in any case,” Treves was continuing, “he’d have had to have care. The very fact that he’s alive bears that out. But where?”
“The workhouse,” said Mrs. Mothershead.
His head went up, alert. “Yes. The workhouse.”
In another instant he had jerked back, startled by Merrick’s violent reaction and the splash of water it sent over the floor. Merrick had begun to babble wildly and thrash about the tub in terror. Treves’ efforts to calm him were useless. It was the first time he had ever been unable to get through to him, but the Elephant Man seemed oblivious to everything but his own panic. His moans rose into a high, desperate wailing as he tried to get to his feet and escape from the tub.
It was Mothershead who subdued him with a hand clamped firmly onto his left arm. He yielded at once and sank back into the tub. His head fell forward onto his knees and his whole body was shaken with despairing sobs. Treves was appalled. He had assumed, without knowing why, that that blank face was incapable of expressing grief.
“The workhouse,” he said softly, as understanding dawned.
Chapter 6
Renshaw stared fretfully into his beer tankard, the bottom of which was coming into view too quickly for his comfort. Somehow it didn’t seem as if he could have drunk a whole pint, but there was the last mouthful sliding down now. He felt dreary, and dreariness was a feeling Jim Renshaw couldn’t bear. He liked life to be bright and lively.
“I’m a man who likes a little of what he fancies,” he’d say to any audience who’d listen. If the audience happened to include a pretty girl or two (and it usually did) he’d give them a nudge and a wink and add, “and a lot of what he fancies.” There’d be much giggling and flaunting, and usually he’d pick the prettiest, lean down in her ear and whisper, “I do like a bit of fun.”
That was Jim Renshaw. A man who liked a bit of fun. No harm in that, though you’d think there was if you listened to the do-gooders always trying to get between a man and his booze, his betting or his bedmate. Mostly Renshaw contrived to ignore such intrusions into his privacy and have his fun anyway. But things didn’t always work out.
Take now, for instance. There was Mattie, a real little bundle of mischief when he’d first met her and he’d had no trouble getting her to move in with him. Renshaw never had any trouble in that department. He was a big, well-made fellow in his middle thirties with a burly geniality that made him attractive to women who had not looked closely into his eyes and spotted the gleam of cruelty that lurked there—and even some that had.
Mattie, like many before her, had fallen into his waiting hands like a ripe peach. Her predecessor had made a bit of trouble, but after Renshaw had twisted her arm a little (only a little because knocking about the girls he’d lived with spoiled his memories of them, and Renshaw was sentimental about his memories) she’d seen sense. Mattie had moved in and he’d had the best six months of his life. Mattie willingly fitted her hours to his, sleeping in the day when he slept and rising in the early evening to cook his “breakfast” before he went off to his job as night porter at the London Hospital. She was a good cook, never nagged about his boots, and was ready and willing at all hours. Renshaw had told himself his luck was really in this time.
And then the silly cow had spoiled it all by getting pregnant.