Visitor in Lunacy (10 page)

“To be punished, I suppose. Not by the crown or the court but something greater, something entirely inescapable.... Forgive me, I find this difficult to speak about....” I take a moment to choose my words. “I am in state of sin, doctor: a state in need of constant purging and redress. All my life I have been plagued by lascivious thoughts that come quite unbidden and are hard to reject. Even as a child in Ceylon I was fascinated by the Indian girls who played all day in the sand. I was obsessed by their nakedness and their coffee coloured skin. Is it not possible that my whole existence is a deserved form of punishment? Do not misunderstand me; I am not claiming this as the truth. I am simply offering a possible explanation drawn from a clear-eyed and objective observation of my circumstances.”

Seward listens and nods thoughtfully and scribbles down his notes: “I have been pondering something you mentioned yesterday. Do you remember? About gaining nourishment from living things. Is this something you still believe?”

The brown wax cylinder silently spins, recording not only our words but also the hammering from outside: roofers making repairs. Wishing to make my ideas understood I speak loudly and distinctly towards the mouth of the phonograph's horn.

“Yes, that is what I believe.”

“Would you care to elaborate? It is your opinion that when one living creature eats another a transference of some kind of life force, like a soul, takes place?”

 “Is it not obvious?”

“The scientific community would stand against that theory.”

“Whatever the consensus, I would suggest there is a clear difference between taking something dead into your belly and consuming a living being, rich with energy.”

“Maybe so, but not with regards to the level of sustenance it provides.”

“Honestly, Seward, is it too much to hope that an asylum Superintendent can grasp such a childishly simple notion?” He glances at me over the rim of his spectacles. Seeing I have spoken too harshly I change my tone. It will do no good to turn this young man against me. “I apologise, I don't wish to be insulting. I only mean to say that if someone like me understands it – a lowly prisoner in a madhouse - then I would expect someone of your superior intellect to understand it too.”

He nudges his spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose. It is a new pair, with black frames rather than gold ones: “And all creatures have souls? Not only humans but lesser beings? Flies, for example?”

“Flies, yes. Or woodlice, or worms. All creatures. The larger ones providing more nourishment.”

“I see. Can I ask how you came about this information?”

“Instinct and simple scientific deduction. The concept seems so obvious now I can hardly believe it took me so long to acknowledge it.”

We are both distracted by a scratching noise coming from under my bed. The sparrow hops into sight.

“Birds too?” says Seward, expressing no surprise. “They have souls?”

“Naturally.”

A quizzical frown forms on his face: “Why is this one unable to fly, Renfield?”

“It's wings are broken.”

“How did they break?”

“It is properly fed. I make sure of that.”

“You feed it with spiders?”

“That's correct.”

“How did it get in here?”

“It flew through the window.”

“Is it your pet?”

“Yes. My pet.”

The wax cylinder has run out of space. Apologising for the interruption Seward sets about replacing it.

“While you're here, doctor,” I say, “I have one more request. You have amply demonstrated your generosity by providing me with a new notebook and pencil...”

“Go on.”

“I should like something else to take care of. A new pet. A kitten.”

He looks doubtful.

“A nice, sleek, playful grey kitten,” I say. “For me to teach and feed.”

A fly settles on the shoulder of the doctor's coat and he distractedly brushes it away: “I am sorry Renfield, but at the present time I am unsure that's going to be possible. I will see about it, though. I promise you that.”

This answer fills me with a sudden, hot rage. Who is this little boy to refuse me? I should grab him by his fragile throat and crack his head against the table, thrust my thumbs into his eye sockets and smash his skull. I remind myself to be calm. There is much to be achieved first.

The doctor stirs, unsettled. It seems I was too slow in keeping my emotions from my face. Hoping to repair the damage I offer him a smile but he is already gathering his folders and getting to his feet: “Two more days to clean all this filth up, Renfield. Thank you for your time.”

Leaving his machine to be collected by the attendants he goes out into the corridor where he is obstructed by Hardy, who asks if he has a moment to spare. I lie back on my bed and listen.

“Is there a problem?”

“All this talk of a plague on its way, sir. I wanted to ask if you thought there was anything in it, being an educated man. My wife's beside herself with worry.”

“A plague? It's possible, of course, but I doubt it.”

“Our grocer was taken ill just a few days ago.”

“Hardly an uncommon occurrence, is it?”

“No, but still. Mrs Hardy has hung a charm by the baby's cot, just to be safe.”

“With respect, Mr Hardy, do you honestly suppose a few scraps of scented ribbon can repel a disease? You shouldn't worry so much. It sounds to me as if the only infection being passed around is superstition. One individual gets it in their head that a terrible plague is coming and soon enough the fear is repeated in the imagination of their neighbours, and their neighbours after that. Use the charm if it comforts you but don't waste your energy fretting. Tell your wife everything will be fine.”

It is once night has fallen and my door has been locked that I suffer another influx of light.

٭

When I regain consciousness I am on the floor, on my front with my head to one side. My chair has been tipped over and my mattress upturned. I take a deep breath and resolve to stay perfectly still until I am healthy and safe.

Without warning a sudden contraction grips my stomach, so painful it pulls my body into a tight ball. It is impossible to call for help.

When the agony resides I struggle to my hands and knees, knowing I am about to vomit. Has Hardy administered some kind of strong emetic while I was knocked out? I puke with such violence I am afraid I might bring up my insides: once, twice. Almost too scared to look I open my watery eyes. A green and red mess covers my hands and the floor. Blinking, I see strange shapes mixed up in the liquid. It takes a few moments before I make out what they are. Feathers, claws, and a beak.

Another contraction strikes and I roll onto my side. I barely recognise the sounds my throat has begun to produce as my own. A long high wail, an animal in distress. It is hard to breathe. What have I been doing while I was unconscious? Did I become something less than human?

The night watcher is in the room, trying to hold me down and calling for assistance. I fight against him but my body is weak. Once I have been restrained a second man enters, then a third: a physician with a briefcase. After rolling up the sleeve of my nightgown he slips a needle into the crook of my arm. Then, nothing.

… I am looking down at what appears to be a scaled down model of my room, with four walls but no ceiling. The bed has been intricately constructed using thin sticks tied together with woollen threads. The upturned chair is made from trimmed matches and a bottle cap. By the door sits the spider box, now no larger than my thumb nail. A low, persistent wind blows outside.

A small bundle of rags shifts on the floor. Regarding it closely I recognise it as a miniature version of myself, dressed in a nightgown. Oblivious to my gaze my tiny doppelganger gets to his feet, replaces the chair in the centre of the floor and sits down.

Something raps on the window shutter, three times in quick succession: knock, knock, knock. Lost in his thoughts, Little Renfield seems not to hear. The rapping comes again. This time he looks up but does not move. For a long time there is no sound except the deep rumbling of the wind. Finally there follows a third set of raps.

“Go away,” we say, both Little Renfield and I. Turning his back on the shutter he covers his ears with his hands.

The rapping turns to scratching, travelling slowly down from the window to the outside of the wall, then beneath the floor. Resisting whatever force pushes against them the boards bend and creak. The bulge inches this way and that, searching for a weak spot. Blocking it out, Little Renfield stares ahead until eventually the shape moves under the bed and falls silent.

Something is emerging from beneath the sheets: a child's hand and forearm. Terrified, Little Renfield jumps up, toppling his chair, and runs towards the intruder, shouting and kicking wildly. Before he can make contact the hand pulls back and vanishes. Slowing backing away, Renfield retrieves his chair and sits down again, fidgeting with the material of his nightgown.

Another hand is reaching out from closer to the head of the bed. It is joined by a third, then a forth. Soon there are more than twenty slender hands extending slowly into the room. Little Renfield grabs the bottle-cap chair and launches it at them. Acting as one, they retract and disappear.

More scratching and scuffling and the bulge below the floorboards rolls out from under the bed then back up outside the window shutter. Over the sound of the wind come three distinct raps: knock, knock, knock.

Little Renfield has been taunted enough. In one swift and decisive movement he paces bravely to the shutter and flings it open, revealing nothing but the dark blue of the night sky. Relieved, he bends down and rests his hands on his knees.

All at once the model begins to shake. Dozens of children are scaling the outside walls. They wear dirty long-johns and have wild hair and long fingernails and sharp teeth. Over the top they clamber, into the room, joining streams of other children from through the window and beneath the bed, hundreds of them. Little Renfield cowers, uselessly putting up a defence as they rush ceaselessly toward him. They claw and bite at his shivering body, his arms, his chest, his neck.

Unnoticed in the corner, the spider box flips open, as if the lid has been yanked by an invisible thread. From within a huge, hairy, searching limb appears: the leg of a spider, large from my perspective but immense within the confines of the model. Improbably the creature manages to squeeze its swollen abdomen through the gap and crawls towards the ever growing pile of children, its legs tapping and twitching. Little Renfield is buried, his screams no longer audible.

A flare of brilliant white blinds me before I am once again plunged into a void...

… Much, much later a single pin point of light appears, unique in the expanse. In time, a second light appears, orange tinged and wavering. It is warm and friendly, a presence reassuring enough to quell my fears. I try to lift my hand to my face but I cannot find it. No hand. No face. No body at all. Only two lights and nothingness.

Gradually – so, so gradually – I become aware that the expanse is not empty at all but filled by a vast and multicoloured array of stars. Constellations of every imaginable shape and size begin to reveal themselves. A whole universe around and within me. All of creation, all time, all of a piece.

One of the stars is significantly brighter than the others, like a marker or a waypoint. If I concentrate I can see it is becoming brighter still, slowly gathering strength... No, not gathering strength, but drawing closer.

If it is coming to meet me it has a long way to travel. Its progress is so slight it is barely discernible. More than a millennium passes before it has even doubled in size. I am content to wait. Having no body I cannot grow old, or fall ill, or die. In every direction stars are born and are extinguished, while solar systems swell and disperse: as if the universe is breathing.

Countless lifetimes go by. I begin to make out a shape in the approaching star. The object is not circular as I had thought, but humanoid. By the time it has completed a quarter of its journey I can see it is a naked woman, silvery skinned with straight black hair hanging over her shoulders. Halfway closer still and I see she is opening and closing her mouth, as if she is singing, although she is too far away for me to hear her voice. For this I must wait another billion years.

Only when she is close enough, when I am looking into her glazed milky white eyes and can feel her breath on my face, am I rewarded with a sound so quiet as to be almost undetectable but still entirely human. It is pure and intelligent and achingly beautiful.

On she comes and nothing is left in my field of vision but her mouth, her perfect white teeth and glistening tongue. Compared to her I am nothing: bacteria; a mote of dust. At the back of her throat I glimpse something unexpected: a black polished shape like a beetle's shell. This, too, draws closer as the woman envelopes me, taking the whole of me inside her cavernous mouth. I was mistaken: it is not a shell but the horn of a phonograph, the source of the singing voice. The sound is so unguarded and simple it breaks my heart.

At length the mouth of the horn swallows me too and I am left hanging in emptiness with nothing but the song. Finally it weakens and dies, as all things must...

… The smell of burning coal. I am in my chair at home by the hearth. David is sat opposite me, a glass of wine in one hand and his cherry-wood pipe in the other. Outside the window fog swirls under the street lights. Miss Morley clatters pans in the kitchen downstairs.

“David,” I say.

He has aged little since we last met. His hair is as untameable and his eyebrows as arched as ever. Lit by the crackling fire he breaks into an easy smile.

“David,” I say. “I'm so glad you're here.”

He looks as if he is about to reply but thinks better of it. Again he smiles, more to himself than to me. Somehow sensing I may not be here for very long I resolve to make the most of my visit and settle into my old familiar seat, enjoying the leather creaking under my weight. A full glass of red is waiting for me on the table. I pick it up and take a sip. Outside, the fog continues to swirl.