04 - Carnival of Criminals (4 page)

“Wait for it, he’ll be telling us next the mothers of
these sad souls were traumatised while pregnant and that caused the
deformities.” Oliver said in Clara’s ear.

“You’ve seen a show like this before?”

“I always came and watched the freak show when I was a boy,
didn’t realise then that these poor people were truly deformed in some way. I
thought it was all faked. Modelling clay and wax, that sort of thing. It never
occurred to me these people look like this all the time.”

“It is very sad.” Clara said just as a man with no arms
appeared on the stage. The announcer explained to the crowd that the unlucky
gentleman had been born this way, but they seemed unimpressed. Considering at
least one man in the audience was also missing a limb from his time in the war,
parading an armless man on stage seemed rather poor taste. The announcer in the
tattered evening suit sallied on valiantly, informing his crowd that “Armless
Arnold” (as the man was unfortunately known) was a talented artist, using only
his feet. Arnold attempted to display his bipedal dexterity by drawing on a
large canvas, but the audience had already lost interest and were moving away.

In a desperate bid to lure them back the announcer
quickly revealed “Yan-Ging and Gin-Yang” Siamese twins from Singapore. The
appearance of the two petite ladies in a single red dress briefly stopped the
exodus, especially when they began performing acrobatics for the mildly stunned
crowd.

“I’ve seen enough.” Clara hissed to Oliver, “Let’s go
around the back and see if we can’t find the bearded lady.”

“Do you suppose those two are really joined at the hip?”
Oliver couldn’t take his eyes off the performing twins as he followed Clara
around the back of the tent.

“Does it matter?” Clara asked.

“I just wondered if it was easier to perform those moves
they did with four feet rather than just two.”

Clara couldn’t decide if he was joking or serious. She
shook her head and motioned to a flap in the tent. They both ducked and went
inside.

If they had expected to find a bustling backstage area,
like the sort found at the theatre, they were quickly disabused of the idea.
Aside from a couple of upturned wooden crates, the only furniture in the tent,
if such it could be called, were straw bales upon which a motley assortment of
the deformed and socially unacceptable sat miserably awaiting their turn.
Armless Arnold was propped on one bale, twisting a pencil between his toes.
Behind him the Siamese Twins were just coming off stage to be replaced by two
dwarves dressed in jester outfits. Further acts dotted about the cramped space
included a girl who was attempting to stitch her legs into a fake mermaid tail,
a man with an extra finger on each hand who was dressed as a magician and an
old woman with horns growing out of her head. Clara found the whole sight very
depressing.

“Excuse me,” She turned to Armless Arnold who gave her a
sad smile, “I am looking for Jane Porter, is she here?”

“Behind that screen.” Arnold pointed with one foot to the
far side of the tent.

“The public aren’t supposed to be back here.” The girl in
the mermaid tail primly told Clara.

“I’m not the public.” Clara answered back, “Nice tail.”

The girl snorted.

“What is this about?”  The man with six fingers looked up
from a deck of cards he was shuffling.

“Nothing that need concern anyone here. It is unrelated
to the show.” Clara started moving through the straw bales.

“Maybe Jane’s been at it again.” One of the Siamese
twins, it might have been Yan-Ging, said in a stage whisper, “You know, with
one of her fancy men. She get herself in trouble.”

“The mind boggles.” Oliver said as he hurried behind
Clara.

“Clearly some men are taken by beards.” Clara grinned as
she stopped before the screen. She gave a polite cough and announced herself,
“Miss Porter? Might I have a word with you, it will be very brief. My name is
Clara Fitzgerald.”

There was a rustling behind the screen.

“I have to go on stage in a bit.” A strained feminine
voice called back.

“It will only take a moment. I just need to borrow your
caravan key.”

There was a pause and then the screen was pulled back a
fraction.

“Whatever for?” Half a face was peeking around the
screen, it was round and distinctly hairless.

“I have permission from Mr Bowmen to take Hepkaptut’s
mummy into my safe keeping.”

“Oh thank goodness!” The face disappeared and then a
shaking hand stretched around the screen with a key, “I hate that wretched
thing. I went to have a nap this afternoon and when I awoke the pharaoh had
fallen over onto my bed. The shock of seeing this desiccated dead face peering
at me caused me to…”

The screen moved back and Jane Porter, professional
bearded lady, stared at them with teary eyes as she presented her hairless
chin.

“The fright made my beard fall out.” Jane gave a sob and
half collapsed onto a straw bale, “I’m ruined!”

“Oh dear.” Clara said softly, crouching in front of the
formerly bearded lady, “That is such a pity. It will grow back, I imagine.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, I’m sure it was just the surprise. Give it a few
days and you’ll see some stubble coming back.”

Jane dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Th…thank you. It’s not much of a life, but show business
is all I have got.”

“Naturally. Don’t take it so hard though. Perhaps take a
short holiday until things start to improve.”

Jane gave a little nod.

“And you are removing Hepkaptut now?”

“Hopefully.” Clara answered, the thought crossing her
mind that moving a mummy through a crowded fairground might not be the easiest
of endeavours.

“I’ll show you to my caravan, I can’t go on like this
anyway.”

Jane Porter escorted them out of the tent and a short
distance away to a portion of the fair that was marginally quieter and was
clearly a private area for performers’ caravans. She motioned to one that had
been painted red with gold filigree work all over the sides.

“That’s Arnold’s work.” Jane pointed out, “He has a lot
of talent.”

“He does indeed.” Clara noted the crisp lines of the
paintwork. Who would have thought someone could paint like that with their
feet.

“Well, there’s Hepkaptut.” Jane had unlocked the door and
was pointing inside.

King Hepkaptut was leaning propped against a built-in
cupboard, staring at them with closed, blackened eyes. He looked rather
despondent, if that was possible for a corpse.

“Exactly how are we going to carry Hepkaptut home without
drawing untoward attention to ourselves?” Oliver asked the question that had
been bothering Clara.

“Oh Bowmen had him rolled up in a carpet.” Jane
interrupted. She kicked a rug with her foot, “You can use that if you like.”

Clara and Oliver exchanged a look that echoed the surreal
nature of the situation they were now in.

“Oh well.” Clara shrugged, “I’ll grab his head if you
take his feet.”

It was not easy negotiating the mummy onto the rug in the
cramped space of the caravan. Jane was no help, fearful that if she got too
close to the mummy she would end up beardless for life.

“I swear he is cursed.” She said through the doorway as
the reluctant pharaoh finally made his way onto the carpet, “Everyone who goes
near him has bad luck. It is some Ancient Egyptian magic.”

“Well Mervin Grimes certainly had some bad luck.” Clara
muttered to herself.

“I’ll be most relieved when he is out of the fair. Why
did you say you were taking him anyway?”

“For safety, because of the attempted thefts.” Oliver
quickly answered, “We’re from Brighton Museum, you see.”

“Ah, that makes complete sense.” Jane nodded, “I wondered
why anyone could want an old mummy. Is he worth a lot?”

“Not really.” Oliver hastily added, “But not everyone
realises that. They think if something is old enough it must be worth a fortune
and, as he is of historical value, we felt it wise to take him under our care.”

“I see, I see.” Jane agreed enthusiastically.

Clara gave Oliver a questioning look from where she was
trying to wrap the mummy in carpet. Oliver returned the look with a wink and
leant forward to help. Five minutes later they were leaving the caravan with a
rather fat roll of carpet.

“Thank you Jane.” Clara said.

“My pleasure.” Jane could hardly contain her relief to
have her caravan back to herself.

Oliver took the lead as they headed out of the fair,
keeping the top of the carpet as high up as was possible to avoid people
looking in the roll and seeing Hepkaptut.

“Brighton museum?” Clara asked as soon as they were out
of earshot of Jane.

“I had to say something.” Oliver shrugged, “Why else
would I want a mummy?”

“Why indeed.” Clara answered, beginning to feel that her
life had taken another of those curious twists that it seemed rather fond of, “I
say, we never did find your father.”

“He’ll turn up.” Oliver said happily, “He always does.”

They exited the fairground and followed the sea wall
along the front, Hepkaptut bouncing in his carpet roll.

“I must admit this is the weirdest thing I have ever
done.” Oliver mused, “Rather puts an end to my plan for finishing the evening
with a hot coffee at Lyons.”

“Once you have dropped this at my house you will still
have time to go. They open until nine.”

“I think you missed my point.”

Clara reconsidered his statement and it dawned on her
what he had actually been trying to say.

“Oh.” She was silent a moment, “You know, Annie makes a
jolly good coffee. It would be the least I could do, after tonight’s events,
but to offer you a drink before you leave for home.”

“It would be damn impolite of me to refuse.”

“It would indeed.”

Oliver grinned.

“I accept your invitation Clara Fitzgerald.”

“Jolly good.” Clara smiled, “Because you didn’t have the
option of refusing.”

There were two things Tommy really detested in this life;
one was waiting, the other was having to visit the doctor. Naturally quite
often these two hated things came together at once, producing an effect of such
tension and frustration in Tommy that he would swear to himself he would never
be forced to do either again unless he was dying. Of course, Tommy had at one
time thought he was dying. It was during that long, cold night in No Man’s
Land, when he stared at the stars and tried not to cry out in pain. He still
remembered the chilling sensation of the Flanders mud seeping into his clothing
and the terror that he might be sucked beneath it and drowned – he had seen
that happen before to men and horses.

When they found him he was almost delirious with pain. A
bullet had shattered into his pelvis, crippling him and leaving him in agony.
They came for him in a brief lull in the shelling. The stretcher men ducking as
they nipped over the mud, hoping to avoid an enemy bullet. It was one of those
all too infrequent moments when both sides called an unofficial ceasefire so
they could collect their wounded. You just had to hope you were rescued before
some uptight colonel spotted the truce and ordered the bullets to come hurtling
again.

Tommy had been lucky. Not that he had felt lucky at the
time or, for that matter, for many months afterwards. He had never walked
since, though the doctors in the military hospital were convinced he should be
able to. Nothing medically wrong with the legs, they would continually state.
Well, in that case, why can’t I move them? Tommy would retort. And they would just
shrug and silently imply it was something to do with his thinking. As if Tommy
hadn’t tried to move his legs! Wouldn’t he love to get up and walk if he could?

After three years of immobility Tommy had surrendered the
small amount of hope he had left that he would ever walk again. What was the
point of holding on to such illusions? He had to get on with his life, even if
it was not what he had expected it would be. Naturally he was bitter about it,
hard not to be, but one made the best of things, didn’t one?

Which made him wonder all the more why he had allowed
Clara to convince him to do that most hated of things – visit a doctor. Here he
was in the front parlour-cum-waiting room of a man called Dr Cutt (which name
alone failed to inspire confidence) awaiting yet another verdict of “nothing we
can do.” Annie had wheeled him there and gone to do the shopping, he assumed
this was so she could avoid being persuaded to take him home before seeing the
doctor. There was something terribly humiliating about knowing your actions and
choices were dictated by the presence of other people. Tommy found his mood
rapidly going from merely frustrated to morose. A young man should not find
himself immobile, he told himself, better to have died than live as an invalid.

He was about ready to let himself tumble into despair
when a head appeared around the parlour door.

“Mr Fitzgerald?” A man with a broad round face and small
glasses smiled at him. He had to be eighty at least, “Very pleased to see you
could make the appointment.”

Dr Cutt held out his hand and Tommy shook it.

“Your sister informed me of your problem, I hope I may be
of service.” Dr Cutt took the handles of the wheelchair Tommy sat in and pushed
him through the doorway and down a hall. They turned right into a back room
which served as the doctor’s surgery, “Now then, what appears to be the
matter?”

Dr Cutt took a chair by a desk as Tommy stared at him
incredulously. The doctor raised an eyebrow indicating he was awaiting an
answer.

“My legs, obviously.” Tommy almost spluttered. His sister
had clearly lost her marbles sending him here.

“Yes, but what is the matter with them?” Persisted the
doctor.

“They don’t work.”

“Yes, but why?”

Tommy found himself without an answer, or at least one
that was polite. What sort of a fool was this man? He had been shot and left
for dead, for goodness sake, of course his legs didn’t work after that! But the
doctor was still waiting for him to answer the question, smiling patiently.
Finally Tommy gave in.

“I don’t know.”

“And nor do your doctors, apparently.” Dr Cutt tapped a
finger on a grey cardboard folder at his elbow, “I requested your notes from
the military hospital, I know one of the doctors there. According to these
papers there is no reason for you to be crippled. There was a lot of tissue
damage for sure, but the nerves were intact. You can feel pain in your feet and
toes yes?”

“Well, yes.”

“There you are then. Nerves are the messenger boys of our
body. If they are disconnected or damaged the messages don’t get through. But
you, my lad, you have all your message routes intact. So the question remains,
why can’t you walk?”

“I thought maybe something wasn’t connected properly?”
Tommy said weakly.

“Your legs are made up of bones, muscles and nerves, oh
and blood vessels of course, but for our purposes bones, muscles and nerves
will do.” Dr Cutt stood and opened a cupboard, on the inside of which was a
chart of a human body showing its inside workings, “I keep this hidden as it
disturbs some of my old ladies.” Dr Cutt smiled, “Here is a drawing of the legs
with the muscles and nerves. So, the bones are your foundations, the scaffold.
Break one of those and it is painful, it may even heal wrong and leave you with
a twisted leg, but once it is mended you will be able to walk on it, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Of course, I even know of patients who have carried on
walking on a broken leg without realising. Now, as for the muscles,” Dr Cutt
pointed at the muscles coloured in pink on the drawing, “They can be damaged,
cut, withered, but they restore themselves. They might be weakened, but even
then they can be strengthened. Unless they are removed completely or reduced to
pulp they will heal and become functional once more. Do I make myself clear?”

Tommy nodded.

“So to the nerves. Nerves are the vital bit and quite
frankly we still need to know a lot more about them. What we do know is that if
you break the path from the nerves to the brain a person may
think
about
moving their limbs, but that message will never reach its destination. In
short, broken nerves are the cause of many cases of paralysis. Now, here is the
interesting part. Nerves also tell us about pain and other sensations. A good
indicator that nerves are damaged is when a person cannot feel pain in their
extremities.”

“But I do feel pain.”

“Precisely.”

“So my nerves aren’t broken?”

“Not physically, no.” Dr Cutt closed the cupboard door,
“Now we come to the delicate part. When all the body appears to be functioning
as it should physically then we naturally have to assume there a psychological
aspect to the problem.”

“It’s in my head, you mean?” Tommy started to feel angry,
“Look I have tried to move my legs, tried and tried. You think I want to be
stuck in this chair? I lay in that hospital bed for hours trying to get my legs
to work. I’m not deliberately stopping my legs from working!”

“You misunderstand me.” Dr Cutt held up his hands in a
placating manner, “Or rather I explained myself badly. I don’t think you are
deliberately crippling yourself Mr Fitzgerald, at least not consciously.”

“Then what do you mean?” Tommy was close to letting his
frustration get the better of him.

“The mind is very complicated. Have you heard of Dr
Freud?”

“Yes.” Tommy admitted.

“He proposed the idea of a conscious and unconscious
mind. It is a fascinating idea we are only just beginning to grasp. Say there
are two parts of the mind, the part that we use all the time, that we are using
right now, that is completely in our control and then the other part, the part
that operates outside our control.”

Tommy wasn’t much into psychology and his expression said
as much.

“For instance, sometimes your body reacts to things that
you were not consciously aware of. Say, while asleep. Your body will react to
an outside stimulus even though you are not awake to tell it to do so.
Something is controlling it. We are starting to think of this
something
as the ‘sub-conscious’ and we are learning, through scientific experiments,
that it is exceedingly powerful.”

“I don’t see how this has any bearing on my legs.”

“It could be that there is a barrier in your
sub-conscious, a mental fence that is preventing you from moving your legs. It
is interfering with the messages.”

“Why? Why would my own body not want to walk again?”

“This is not about the body.” Dr Cutt smiled softly, “The
body is a mere machine, it has no wants or desires of its own. It is the mind
that wants, that thinks, that feels. And the mind is a fragile thing which can
so easily be damaged. Tell me, do you have nightmares?”

Tommy shuffled in his chair.

“Sometimes.”

“The same ones?”

“Usually.”

“Have you ever heard of shell-shock?”

Tommy gave him an odd look, then he mumbled.

“There were some mutterings in the hospital.”

“Shell-shock is a form of mental trauma no different to a
broken arm or stab wound, except it is in the mind and very difficult to treat
with traditional methods. Mr Fitzgerald, some elements of the medical
community, myself included, believe that as many as 8 out of 10 men who served
in the trenches has been affected in some manner by shell-shock. It comes out
in different forms. Some men seem to go crazy, others are described as losing
their nerve and many more have far more subtle symptoms, such as nightmares. It
is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Tommy didn’t agree with him, but he said nothing.

“Still I see you don’t believe me. That is all right, but
I want you to start considering the possibility that it is shell-shock that is
preventing you from walking. It is damage to your sub-conscious mind that has
not healed. You are neither mad nor weak, any more than a man with a broken arm
is mad or weak.” Dr Cutt realised his patient didn’t believe him, “Let’s try
something, anyway. Your sister said that sometimes your legs move when you are
only semi-conscious. With your permission I will give you a mild sedative and
we shall see if we can encourage your sub-conscious to let go its paralysing
hold on your legs.”

Tommy hesitated. He didn’t like the things Dr Cutt had
said. The idea that his mind was damaged in some way troubled him, implied that
he was somehow defective. He had hated how the doctors had implied the same
thing at the hospital. Admittedly they had done so in a dismissive manner, whereas
Dr Cutt seemed genuinely sympathetic. Dr Cutt gave him another kind smile.

“I realise that we live in a world that doesn’t approve
of people having damaged minds. We are going to have to learn to get over that.
So many men came back damaged in ways no ordinary surgeon can fix.”

Tommy swallowed hard, there was a painful tightness in
his throat.

“The military doctors gave me the impression they thought
I was faking my inability to walk.” He said quietly, “I’ve never even told my
sister that. I’m ashamed that I am like this. Ashamed that I was never able to
go back and carry on fighting. If this really is in my head, then those doctors
were right. I let my friends down, I let my country down, because my mind
wouldn’t let me walk. If you’re right then… I’m a coward.”

“Thomas Fitzgerald,” Dr Cutt leaned forward, his voice
was gentle but firm, “No man is a coward because he is injured and unable to
fight. Did I not say that your mind was injured in a way you could not help?
Just because you cannot see an injury does not mean it is not there. If a man
has his eardrum pierced it is not visible on the outside, but his injury
nonetheless makes him deaf. Do not be swayed by fools who think the mind is a
mere tool to be used as we see fit. It is far more wonderful than that and far
more delicate. Something happened to your mind. Had it been pierced by a bullet
the military doctors would have understood, it is only because they can’t see
the bullet that got you that they shake their heads. Don’t listen to them.”

Tommy stared at his hands for a long time. There was a
wedge of emotion in his chest that prevented him from speaking. The worst of it
was the horrid anger he felt towards himself, the anger that not only had he
been injured in the first place, but that he had not been able to recover.

“My grandson was in the war.”

Dr Cutt’s voice broke into Tommy’s bubble of
self-loathing. He risked looking up.

“He was an army doctor. He saw so much horror, it
overwhelmed him.” Dr Cutt picked up a picture from his desk and showed Tommy a
sepia photograph of a young man in uniform, “He saw the damage done to men’s
minds. He fixed up their bones and their bullet wounds and they seemed healed,
but he knew they were not and yet he sent them back to the front. The one that
truly upset him was a lad of eighteen. He had been shot twice and sent back
twice. The third time he was shot my grandson patched him up. He said the
bullet wound was nothing compared to the lad’s mental state. He jumped at
shadows, had night terrors and would slip into periods of depression where he
seemed unaware of anything. My grandson knew he was not fit to fight, but the
bullet wound healed and back he went. The last my grandson saw of him he shook
his hand with a smile and joked that he hoped not to see him again. Two days
later that young man shot himself in the head.”

Dr Cutt put down the photograph. His hand trembled
slightly.

“My grandson returned home a hero among his
contemporaries for the number of soldiers he had been able to save and send
back to the front line. However, he hated himself because he had seen men in
agony, an agony he could not cure and he had done nothing. What none of us
realised, not even my grandson himself, was that he too was carrying a war
wound. January last year that wound got the better of him. He shot himself,
just like his eighteen-year-old patient had. Since then I have put all my
energies into studying shell-shock and other mental traumas. Trying to prevent
similar tragedies befalling other young men. The war is still claiming victims
you know.”