Visitor in Lunacy (4 page)

“If you don't come with me,” she said with some intensity, “I will go on my own.”

We stepped out of the water and dried our feet on the grass at the top of the slope. Half way over the river I looked behind me again, fascinated to see such a familiar scene from an unfamiliar angle. Oscar was still fast asleep, his hands resting on his chest and his rib cage moving slowly up and down.

As we passed through the line of trees on the other side of the bridge the temperature dropped, encouraging in me a feeling of portentousness. To our right an overgrown and ill-defined path wound away and was lost to slight amid the thickening trees. Clouds of midgets hung in the air. An unwelcome memory came to me of a story I heard in Ceylon, concerning a man who had met the devil in a forest and been tricked into surrendering his soul. Above us a canopy of branches cast a steady shadow, unmoved by any breeze.

Magdalene's anger dissipated as quickly as it appeared. Setting off down the track she smiled to herself and removed her hat: a relaxed attitude that helped to assuage my fears. Idly she asked if I knew the species of the trees around us and I jumped on the chance to show off my knowledge.

“The ones along the river bank are Common Alders,” I said, trying to conceal my excitement by controlling my breathing. “These are Fraxinus excelsior, although you probably know them as Ash trees. Those plants by your feet are Hosta, I think. I'm fairly sure that's correct.”

“How do you know? Do they teach that at your school?”

I was delighted at what I took to be an acknowledgement of my expertise: “No, I read a few books.”

Reaching a deep ravine we stopped at a tree with a broad trunk, against which Magdalene rested. At the bottom of the sharp drop ran a path of jagged rocks, glistening with water. One of my trouser legs, I noticed, had become snagged on a thorn. I removed it carefully to avoid tearing the material. A cloud had passed over the sun, causing my irrational worries to resurface.

“We should go soon. In case Oscar wakes up and wonders where we are.”

In response to my caution Magdalene merely shrugged then, with renewed energy, sprang forward and ran deeper into the wood, skipping to avoid a nettle patch. To my relief she came to a halt after only a few seconds: it seemed she had spotted something on the ground a few feet ahead: “I wonder how it died?”

On the lip of a shallow ditch a recently deceased animal lay on a damp patch of soil: a hare, flopped on its back, half eaten with its eyes missing and its guts exposed.

“Poke it.”

“No!”

“Go on!” She picked up a stick and offered it to me. Reluctantly I accepted it and stepped forward. Pressing the tip against the hare's hind leg made me nauseated, although I tried my best not to show it. Something in the way the creature's body was splayed struck me as obscene.

“What's been eating it, do you think?”

“A fox, maybe?” I said. “Or a wild dog?”

“You don't really think wild dogs live around here, do you?”

Seeing a chance to encourage her to leave I said that yes, I thought they probably did. My effort made little difference.

“See if you can pick it up.”

“It's too heavy.”

“At least try!”

Blocking my nose for fear of any smell the corpse might emit I managed to slip the stick under its hindquarters. Flipping it on its side revealed a squirming ball of fat white maggots. Magdalene's exclamations of disgust contradicted the look of wonder in her eyes.

“Come on,” she said finally. “Let's go.”

On our way out of the wood she broke a period of silence to ask if I was afraid to die.

“No,” I replied. In truth I had never given the matter any thought.

“Nonsense, of course you're afraid. Everyone is.... Your mother died, didn't she?”

“Yes, but it was a very long time ago. I don't remember much about her.”

“My mother died too. I still miss her. But I think daddy misses her more. What do you think happens after we're gone? Do we go to heaven?”

The question confused me. The answer seemed so obvious that it was barely worth addressing, like asking if the sky was blue or the grass was green: “If we've been good, of course we do. Where else would we go?”

Without answering she skipped up onto the side of a fallen ash tree and reached out her hand to help me up. Thick, fleshy fungus with caps the size of dinner plates grew on the underside of the trunk. Once we were safely on the ground again I tried to release my grip but my friend refused. We walked like this, our fingers wound together, until we were back at the bridge.

I was awakened from these reminiscences by the stuttering old man opposite me in the carriage, asking me where I was travelling to. It was as he faltered over the 't' for the fourth time over that I lost my patience and interrupted.

“What possible b-b-business could that be of yours?”

Casting me a wounded look he gathered his things and went into the corridor without a word. Looking out at the passing tenements I ran my tongue searchingly over the swollen ulcer on the inside of my bottom lip.

The Visitor in Lunacy

HAVING measured the width of the subject's jaw line using a pair of steel callipers, Doctor Monastero set about carefully arranging the electrical conductors around her face. Roughly the shape and size of cigars and mounted on metal stands of varying heights, they were attached to trailing wires which disappeared behind a Chinese silk screen. Once satisfied with his work the elderly Italian limped back to his camera and evaluated the composition with a thin-lipped frown.

Seated at the centre of the scene was a woman in a loose white gown and a shawl, her hair scraped away from her face in a severe ponytail. Two of the copper conductors touched against her eyebrows, two more had been placed on her cheeks. Buckled brown leather straps bound her wrists to the armrests of her chair while another, broader strap around her neck helped keep her head upright and steady. Only the whites of her eyes were showing, her pupils having rolled up beneath their lids.

Monastero's assistant – a bear-like German with a swallow-tailed beard – looked up from his notebook and suggested in flawless English that the room should be made a shade darker. With a shallow nod of agreement the doctor asked for the curtains to be partly drawn. We were on the ground floor of Sutton Asylum, overlooking over the gardens. Four small circular impressions remained on the carpet where the billiard table had been hauled out to make way for the photography studio. An empty cue rack rung on the wall.

The light sufficiently dimmed, Monastero gestured with his liver-spotted hands. His frame, diminished by age, was too small for his immaculate frock coat and his sleeves hung low over his wrists. Responding to the command the German dropped his pencil smartly into the pocket of his brightly coloured waistcoat and stepped behind the screen.

“Number four. Strong stimulation of zygotmaticus major and corrugator supercilli.”

All at once the subject's countenance was transformed. Deep creases cut across her forehead and her mouth turned down sharply at the corners. She was like a gargoyle, her features becoming exaggerated and grotesque while her eyes remained as lifeless as stone.

Monastero took the photograph and replaced the lens cap. As the humming of the generator died away the woman's expression collapsed.

“So you see, gentlemen, combine the muscles associated with joy and pain at certain degrees of contraction and you will produce a grimace.”

“So it would seem.” I blinked away the residual light from the flash lamp and waved at the smoke. My hay fever was nettlesome enough without this additional irritation.

Superintendent Godalming grinned from the chair next to me, the light at his back glowing red through his jug-handle ears: “Fantastic,” he said. “Fascinating.”

I asked him when I might be allowed to continue with my inspection.

“Soon, Doctor Renfield, soon. You'll want to hear the rest of this. Do go on, Doctor Monastero.”

With a nod the Italian continued with his presentation: “The human face has five primary expressions: joy, misery, pain, pleasure and fear. Combinations of these five basic arrangements allow us to exhibit more complex emotions: restrained jubilation, for example, or embarrassment, or regret. If we activate them properly, as if by the spirit, the facial muscles respond in characteristic patterns, allowing them to be documented and classified.”

Monastero had taken short-term residence in the asylum and been given his pick of the inmates to use as subjects in his studies. Godalming, it seemed, considered this work to be of unparalleled significance. I had been partway through my tour of the institution when he took me by the arm and insisted I be given a demonstration.

“It is my hope,” said the Italian, “this photographic collection will be of practical use not only to physicians in diagnosing a patient's state of mind, but also to artists. What better way to learn how to correctly render an emotion on the human face?”

While he spoke the German was busy consulting his notebook and rearranging the conductors. A spot of drool appeared on the inmate's bottom lip, which he distractedly wiped away using the pad of his thumb.

“Consider the sensation of love. The difference between the expression of terrestrial love and the more sublime expression of celestial love is only slight, and something which artists have frequently failed to appreciate. Bernini's sculpture in the church of Saint Maria della Vittoria, for example, depicts Saint Theresa in what appears to be a state of base sensual pleasure rather than what we must presume the artist intended: Christian rapture. Her eyes are half closed, her lips are full and parted. The image verges on the obscene. In my own work, using only electrical pulses, I have been able to produce representations of a far purer joy. The joy of a soul devoted to a higher being.”

Confident the subject was sufficiently sedated and posed no threat, the German unfastened her straps and crossed her hands over her chest. After pulling her shawl up over her hair he once again concealed himself behind the silk screen.

Monastero approached his subject and, with the deftness of a conjurer, produced a silver necklace from his coat pocket: “This,” he said, placing it around her neck, “is the ideal poetry of human love.”

Taking the sound of the generator as his cue he stepped aside to reveal the woman's suddenly altered features: her raised mouth, her widened eyes, her tightened skin. She looked exalted, rapturous. On her chest the silver cross flashed in a beam of sunlight.

I took out my handkerchief and blew my nose: “Doctor? May we? Time is short.”

Godalming relented: “Let's get on with it then.”

I was led to Block 6, which housed the inmates considered to pose the highest risk to themselves as well as others: the violent, the suicidal, and the epileptic. As was befitting an area of this type in a hospital for the criminally insane, the corridors were prison-like and heavily staffed, the walls featureless and grey. Somewhere in the grounds the peafowl were calling to each other. Selecting a padded cell I asked to be allowed inside.

“I presume you are able to provide me with a satisfactory justification for Mr Arscott's restraints?”

The patient was balled up at the foot of the wall adjacent to the doorway, his tense figure strapped into straight waistcoat made of duck cloth.

“Of course,” said Godalming. “He has cast the attendants as his enemies and feels compelled to defend himself. Mark my words, if I were to remove his jacket he would attack as soon as the final buckle was loosened. Mr O'Conner will testify to that.”

The young attendant guarding the door lifted the peak of his cap to show off his black eye.

“Do you administer surprise baths as part of his treatment?”

Mr O'Conner chimed in with a reply: “We find he responds well to them, sir.”

“Young man, do you make a habit of responding to questions that were not addressed to you?”

“M apologies, sir.”

Godalming looked as if he might be stifling a yawn. His hair, I noticed, was showing signs of receding: “It is occasionally necessary for us to give him a dunking, yes.”

I first met the doctor two years previously, when he took over the running of the asylum from John Mitchell after an inmate hit the former over the head with a rock concealed in a sock. Aware he was well respected by the more Evangelical members of the Lunacy Commission, I distrusted him from the start. Although I had no reason to doubt he was a competent biologist and bookkeeper his skill as a Superintendent left much, in my view, to be desired.

A voice from down the corridor called for Mr O'Conner's assistance with another patient. After receiving a nod of approval from his superior the attendant hurried away. The inmate, I noticed, had shuffled into an upright position against the rubber cushioning and was regarding me as if he had something to say. Opening his mouth he strained his neck and let loose a series of guttural clucks. Outside, the peafowl were shrieking.

“What is it, Mr Arscott?”

“He cannot answer you,” said Godalming. “He has no tongue.”

“How did he lose it?”

“He bit it off, sad to say. When he was an adolescent.”

Urgently struggling to form words the mute gulped and retched, threatening to vomit from the effort. Inside his mouth the short stump of what remained of his tongue was just visible.

“I suggest you have your man administer a sedative when he returns,” I said.

“Naturally.”

On our way to the lobby I was forced to listen to the Superintendent's tedious attempts at making conversation, describing the shortcomings of the building's plumbing system in near obsessive detail. Even he seemed bored by what he was saying. At the main door I interrupted him mid-sentence: “You will receive your report from the Commission sometime next week.”

“Very well.”

All the way down the long gravel path he insisted on accompanying me, now in silence, finally taking his leave at the grand lodge.

With mechanical formality he shook my hand: “Until we meet again.”