Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [67]
They tried to look bright and failed.
“Don’t look so glum, girls,” Mothershead told them. “Such enthusiastic volunteers should be more cheerful.” At the door she turned. “And don’t forget, either of you. Under no circumstances are any mirrors to be brought into this room—even if he asks. If he does ask, I want you to let me know.” She departed.
“He’s so—ugly,” said Kathleen after a silence.
“Ugly or not, you’re going to help me,” said Nora firmly.
The door of the bathroom opened and Merrick came slowly into the room. He was dressed in clothes that for him would have to pass as “Sunday best.” The billowy white shirt and baggy black pants had once belonged to a very large man who had died recently in the hospital. His family had not known what to do with his clothes, and had jumped at the bargain Treves offered them. Mothershead had got to work shortening the trousers and generally making the clothes fit Merrick’s unusual shape, and the Elephant Man now had something that could be called a wardrobe. Strange as his present garb looked, it was at least clean and freshly pressed.
Both girls offered him forced smiles, but he was unable to look at them.
“Feeling better now, Mr. Merrick?” queried Nora politely.
“Yes.”
Kathleen’s eyes went wide at the sound. Merrick had not said a word during his bath, and she had come to believe that the story of his conversational powers was a myth.
“You look very nice in your new clothes,” Nora persisted.
Merrick looked down at himself. “Thank you very much,” he said in a pleased voice.
“Well, if there’s nothing more—” Nora began to edge toward the door, “I suppose we’ll be leaving you now.”
She and Kathleen departed hastily. Merrick began to walk round the room, moving this way and that to get the feel of his new clothes. He liked the sense of them against his skin. They felt finer than anything he had ever worn before.
A knock on the door announced Treves, dressed for departure.
“You look splendid, John,” he said in a hearty voice.
“Thank you very much.”
“When one is invited to tea, one must look one’s best.”
But there was still the enveloping disguise, which even on this day must protect the world from the sight of him. Treves helped him on with it (it was a good deal cleaner now, thanks again to Mothershead’s efforts) and the two of them went out to the waiting cab.
Anne, alone in her house, waiting for the arrival of her husband and their guest, was near to screaming. She could not take her eyes off the clock, and each faint movement of its hand toward four heightened the tension within her.
She had done everything Frederick asked. She had made sure that the house looked its best and most welcoming. She had put on her prettiest dress. She had spent hours studying the photographs so that the Elephant Man’s appearance should not come as a shock to her, and now she began to wonder if she had been wise to do so. She had stared at those nightmare pictures till they seethed in her brain with a horror that grew every minute. The thought of that “thing” coming into her house, polluting it was the way she thought of it, drove her hands to clench and her throat to constrict, and she wondered how she could bear it.
She began to walk about touching small objects, while her mind went round like a mouse in a treadmill. The children were safely dispatched to friends, the pictures of Merrick were safely cleared away so that he would not know how she had studied to become accustomed to him, every mirror in the house had been removed, the tea was all ready, and it was a splendid tea, such as would be prepared for an honored guest. She wondered if she might even have overdone it. It was possible, she was so anxious to please Freddie.
To please her husband had been the only motive in this, because he cared so desperately about what happened to Merrick, and had asked her to help him. She felt a small stab of resentment somewhere within her—that he should care so much about this, should talk about Merrick constantly,