Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [41]
She sat by the window for a long time, not consciously thinking, but brooding with a sense of loneliness. She had reached Frederick only briefly the night before; she knew that. Then he had slipped willingly back into that distant world that had started as a fascinating challenge and was rapidly becoming a torment for him.
She sighed as she went back to bed. Often she wished that he could learn to be more cynical, like other men. But then, he would not be the man she loved.
Treves ran through the streets, searching for a cab that would get him to Whitechapel quickly, but not expecting to find one at such an hour. He could not have stayed at home a moment longer. He felt driven with inspiration. A kind of glorious terror possessed him. He had the answer. It had come to him as he lay awake in the small hours with Anne sleeping quietly beside him.
It was often so. She could not reach his mind with her own, and sometimes that chasm yawned between them. But she could reach his mind with her sweet body. Sated with the gifts she brought him in the decorous darkness he would find the ideas falling into place in his head, the pieces interlocking neatly as if they had been oiled. In the blue-grey dawn the inspiration had come to him, and he had got up and left her. It wasn’t the first time she had woken to find herself alone. He tried to make a mental note to make it up to her that night, then made an impatient noise, because he knew he would forget.
The idea was beautiful in its simplicity. A psalm. He would teach Merrick a psalm. Carr-Gomm was a pious, God-fearing man with a plain uncomplicated belief in his Maker and a disposition to think kindly of all who worshiped in whatever degree. It was something that sat oddly with the legal precision of his soul, but then so many strands in the Chairman’s character starkly contradicted other strands. He was no more consistent than any other man, but because of his exposed position of authority his inconsistencies were more nakedly revealed.
Treves planned to make use of this aspect of Carr-Gomm now. Just let Merrick recite a psalm convincingly—the twenty-third would be a good choice—and in Carr-Gomm’s eyes he would have acquired a golden patina that would assure him of the Chairman’s protection. Treves increased his speed.
It was six-thirty before he reached the hospital. The porter gave him a sleepy shrug. Treves took the stairs two at a time until he was on the top floor. He was heaving for breath and had to lean against the door of the Isolation Ward.
Merrick was asleep when he let himself in, propped up against the mountain of pillows at the head of his bed, his head dropped forward against his drawn-up knees. Treves closed the door quietly and regarded his patient. How could Merrick sleep in that uncomfortable position? He tried imagining it for a moment and at once he could feel the strain on his spine that would turn into an intolerable ache before the night was over. Never to be able to lie down, to stretch out luxuriously; how would it feel?
Bytes’ words came back to him—something about Merrick dying from a broken neck if he tried to lie flat. Presumably you could do anything, however uncomfortable, if you knew you’d die if you didn’t.
He listened to the heavy, wheezing noise Merrick made as he slept, and shuddered.
“John—” he touched him on the shoulder. “John, wake up. I’ve come to see you.”
The wheezing turned into a violent snort as Merrick jerked himself out of his sleep and hauled his head up with a force that seemed likely to break his neck. For a moment his eyes were defenseless and Treves was shocked at the naked terror in them. How often had Merrick been startled out of sleep to be kicked or cuffed, or jeered at?
“It