Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [64]
Treves approached him with caution, anxious to wake him gently. But as soon as he touched him Merrick uttered a great cry and jerked up with such violence that his head was thrown back. For a moment he fought uselessly for breath until Treves’ hands took hold of his head and eased it forward. Merrick supported it in his hands and set still, breathing heavily.
“What is it, John? A bad dream?”
“Yes,” Merrick gasped.
“What was it?”
Merrick fought for the word. “Wo-workhouse.” He made an effort to recover himself. “Now I’m awake—I shall be all right.”
“Good. Can you get up now? I’ve come to take you to your new home in Bedstead Square.”
He was aware of the other’s sudden flinch of alarm, and patted his arm encouragingly. It was natural that Merrick should be reluctant to leave a room where he had known some sort of security, even for a few days.
He helped him on with the long cloak, and adjusted the grey flannel curtain round his head. Merrick moved uneasily to the table and drew Alice in Wonderland toward him.
“I’ll carry that if you like,” Treves offered.
“And I should like to take this …” Merrick pointed to the Illustrated London News that he had been reading the day before. It was still open to the picture of the Eddystone Lighthouse.
“Take them all,” said Treves.
“No—just this.”
Treves picked up the News and added it to Alice. Then he handed Merrick his stick and offered him his arm. As soon as Merrick took it he could feel that he was shaking, but he decided to leave questions and explanations till later.
They moved slowly down stairs and along corridors, retracing the steps they had taken less than a month ago until they came down into the hall near the main front entrance. Merrick’s hand tightened, he seemed to shrink back, but Treves guided him firmly to one side and into a corridor that led to the back of the hospital. Within sight of the rear entrance they turned aside again, and a few more steps brought them to the door of the little apartment.
“Wait here,” said Treves. A quick look inside reassured him that the mirror had been removed. “All right. Come in.”
He stood back as Merrick edged his way slowly into the room, looking around the walls in apparent confusion.
“This is your new home, John.”
Merrick pulled off his hood and stared at the room, which he could see better now. His eyes were bewildered.
“This—is my new home?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Merrick turned incredulous eyes on him. “This hospital?”
“Of course. What did you think?”
Merrick’s answer was to turn back to the room and begin running his good hand over some of its objects in tentative wonder. And for the first time Treves realized what had been going on in his mind. Merrick’s own story, told to him in bursts of confidence over the last fortnight, could have given him the key if he had thought to look for it. A life without peace or rest, being shunted about from pillar to post, from workhouse to owner, and from owner back to workhouse. This was what “moving” meant to Merrick. And the man who called himself his friend had never given it a thought; had said glibly, “We’re moving you to a better place,” and assumed that Merrick would understand the word as he himself understood it.
Again he was made sharply aware of the wide gulf between Merrick’s experience and that of the rest of the world, and the need to cross the narrow line that stretched across it with the care of a tightrope walker.
Merrick was almost sobbing in his joy and relief. “How long will I stay here?” he stammered.
“I promise you,” said Treves slowly, “you will never see the inside of that horrible place again. You will never, ever go back to the workhouse—or that man.” Even as he spoke he felt mocked by his