Elephant Man (7 page)

Regarding his own motives, Treves did not feel he could take any great credit for his dealings with the Elephant Man. But he had always spoken to him gently, and touched him only in kindness. And now he realized, with an awful clarity that was like the shifting of a thick fog, that he was almost certainly the first person in years to show him this much consideration. He had studied him, made his notes, and then packed him off back to Bytes with a shilling to pay for his use. He had not speculated too closely on just what he was returning the man to. He had had too many other things on his mind.

Now those eyes were begging him and the feverish clasp on his arm was becoming frantic.

“This man belongs in hospital,” he said abruptly.

“Can’t you fix him up here?” Bytes protested. “Listen—he’s my livelihood.”

Treves bit back the retort “Not any longer.” He didn’t want to have a fight getting the man out of there. Time enough for Bytes to learn the truth when the Elephant Man had passed safely into Treves’ “possession.” Possession was supposed to be nine points of the law, wasn’t it? So he tried to make his tone reasonable.

“You’re not going to have much of a livelihood if this man dies. He’s very weak, and I don’t know how much damage has been done by this ‘fall.’ Now stop wasting time and fetch a cab.”

It seemed that Bytes saw the force of this argument, for he snapped his fingers to Tony, who scurried out. A horrible, ingratiating grin covered his face like slime.

“I truly appreciate this, my friend. You know, there’s many things that I can do for you. I move in the proper circles for this type of thing—” He made a gesture toward the crouching figure. “In fact, anything at all, if you take my meaning.”

Treves took his meaning perfectly and despised himself for the sudden leap of interest and hope inside him. The memory of the previous day’s triumph was still glowing. But a man could not live for ever on one success. He’d need other specimens. He was fixed in his determination not to return the Elephant Man to Bytes, but perhaps Bytes could be squared about that. There was always money. Something could be sorted out.…

He stood there, tongue-tied, unable either to reject such a golden offer, or to utter the despicable words that would seal the bargain, while all the while Bytes squeezed his arm in a man-to-man manner that made him want to punch him on the chin.

“I like doing business with you.” Bytes leaned forward
and favored him with a ginny grin. “You and I understand each other completely. I know I can trust you. Can’t I?”

Now was the moment to say, “I’ll see you in hell before I enter such a monstrous agreement with you.”

Instead he said stiffly, “Everything will be seen to.”

Nurse Nora Ireland hurried as she pushed the cart full of empty breakfast trays down the hall and past the open door of the women’s surgical ward. From inside she could hear Mrs. Mothershead’s voice, and she was unwilling to attract the Head Matron’s attention.

Not that she had done anything wrong, but Mrs. Mothershead, who delighted, it seemed, in finding fault with the younger nurses, had a specially hawklike eye for Nora.

Nora often thought this strange, as she knew, without conceit, that she had been the best student in Mrs. Mothershead’s class during her probationary year. It was usually Nora who produced the right answer first, Nora who grasped a difficult concept the most easily, and Nora’s hands which were the most quick and deft in demonstrating how to change a dressing or staunch a flow of blood. Then there had been the curious words uttered by Mr. Carr-Gomm when she received her certificate.

“Congratulations on becoming fully qualified, Nurse Ireland,” he had said, giving her his most delightful smile. “Mrs. Mothershead thinks very highly of you—er—very highly indeed. We’re glad you’re going to remain on the staff of the London Hospital.”

If Mrs. Mothershead thought so highly of her, Nora thought resentfully, as she clattered along with the cart and tried to control the yearning of her stomach for breakfast, it was a wonder that she always seemed to be ready to pick on her. She would have been amazed
had she heard Mrs. Mothershead’s comments only the night before the certificates were given out.

“Too pretty,” the Head Matron had said crossly. “Too pretty by far to be a nurse. She’ll not last.”

“But we have to give her the certificate,” Carr-Gomm had protested. “You’ve said yourself she is the best.”

“Oh give her the certificate by all means. She’s earned it. But she’ll not last. If I had my way, girls who looked like that would be weeded out at the selection stage.”

“That would be very hard on the patients, Mrs. Mothershead,” Carr-Gomm ventured. But his smile faltered and died under Mrs. Mothershead’s virtuous stare.

It was not that Nora was a great beauty; rather that she had soft brown eyes, a neat, well-sculpted face, and a perfect complexion. True, her features were rather on the blunt side. She had yearned for delicate features ever since she had been a small child and planned how she would go on the stage and sweep the world with her beauty. But she had had to settle for being merely pretty and becoming a nurse, which was the job pressed on her by her father, a Methodist lay preacher, who had dreaded the thought of his daughter becoming “an actress and a wanton” as he was used to put it.

Safely past the ward door now Nora decided she could relax a little. At the top of the stairs she stopped to rub her back. The cart was built at just the level that meant you had to lean uncomfortably to push it. Just as she was about to go on something caught her eye. From here she had a perfect view down the stairs and into the hall to the entrance, and of the two figures who were coming through it. One she recognized at once as Dr. Treves, but the other one held her riveted.

She couldn’t see what was underneath the enveloping cloak and grey flannel mask that hid the whole face and head. But whatever it was seemed to be
having a lot of trouble. It was moving slowly and wheezing desperately with every step. The two moved toward the bottom of the stairs and began to climb them laboriously, Treves’ strong right arm supporting the other figure. Nora shrugged and passed on into the kitchen.

She gasped at the heat as soon as the door closed behind her. The kitchen nurses were absorbed with a grey mush that they were ladeling into bowls. Nora remembered the rich creamy porridge her mother used to make and felt faint. She yearned for breakfast, but when it came it would be this stuff.

A nurse pulled the cart of empty trays away from her and signaled her to wait. Gasping from the heat Nora thrust her head out of the door into the corridor. After the steam and cacophony of the kitchen it seemed a haven of peace. She could just see Treves and the shrouded figure at the far end of the corridor, about to climb a staircase. On the wall by the stair a notice pointed upward, stating “Isolation Ward.”

The new cart, piled high with fresh full trays, was ready for her now, and she wheeled it out and down the corridor to Women’s Surgical. With any luck Mrs. Mothershead should have gone.

Her luck was out. The Head Matron was still in the ward, but down the far end, absorbed in a conversation with a patient. Nora edged the cart in slowly and steadied it while other nurses came forward to lift trays off and begin gliding swiftly down the ward to serve breakfast. Many of the patients looked as though the sight of the grey sludge made them want to gag. Nora wondered if it was cooked on the assumption that sick people didn’t know what they were eating. Just how sick did you have to be not to notice this stuff?

She remembered the strange hooded figure in the corridor. What sort of illness made someone want to cover himself completely? A skin disease perhaps that covered him with ugly patches? That would fit in with the patient being taken to the Isolation Ward.

She wished she knew more about skin diseases. In
fact she wished she knew more about everything. Nurses, it seemed to her, weren’t taught anything much except how to be medical maids of all work. Half of it was scrubbing and cleaning and cooking as you did at home. It wasn’t really interesting work like doctors did. Now if only …

“Nora!”

She came out of her reverie to find Mrs. Mothershead’s stern face confronting her. “Nora, mind your duties. If you don’t concentrate, you’ll only make more work for the rest of us. Now get about your business.” She frowned. “And
do
get your collar straight, dear.”

The last word was not an endearment, but it took some of the brusque edge off the words. Nora fumbled hastily with her collar.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Mothershead.”

“Do get on with it, Nora.”

She walked on without waiting to see the results. Nora finished her repair work and picked up a tray to begin serving. When next she looked the Matron had gone. She wondered when she’d get her breakfast.

It took Treves nearly twenty minutes to get the Elephant Man to the top floor of the hospital because of the lengthy stops at the start and finish of each staircase and the slow dragging progress down the corridors. At first he was aware of the odd stares from people they passed, but absorbed in his patient, he soon became oblivious to them. He did not even notice when the door of Mr. Carr-Gomm’s office opened, and the Chairman of the Administrative Committee looked out for an explanation of the strange noises in the corridor. After a moment Carr-Gomm returned to his office and closed the door.

The Isolation Ward was a small attic under the roof, well away from the rest of the hospital and containing only one bed. High up on one wall was a small window, tightly barred. All too often contagion meant typhoid, and typhoid meant delirium. Not too many
years ago a typhoid patient had hurled himself from an upper window to his death.

Apart from the one bed the room was furnished with two hard chairs and a table. Treves dumped his bag on this and used both arms to help the man lower himself slowly to the bed. He loosened the cloak and pulled it away, letting it fall round the man on the bed. The hat and mask he tossed onto a peg on the wall. The Elephant Man neither helped nor protested. He seemed ten times weaker than when they had left Turners Road. The journey had exhausted him and his breathing was more agonized than ever.

Treves went to his bag and took from it two bottles, one of dark fluid, one of light. He took out a glass and in it mixed a small quantity of each fluid. Then he looked critically at what he had mixed. It was what might roughly be described as a “pick-me-up,” of little medical value but useful in the short term.

He pressed it gently on the Elephant Man, who spluttered and gagged but finally managed to get it all down. Treves’ mind went back to the potatoes and water he’d seen spilled on the cellar floor. Doubtless that was what the Elephant Man lived on. Here at least was something that could be remedied quickly. The kitchen would be just serving up breakfast now; though whether the hospital’s breakfast would do him much more good than Bytes’ potatoes and water was something Treves wryly doubted. He wondered what would happen if he abandoned all medical etiquette and gave the man good, strong whisky. Probably perk him up like nothing else.

At the door he stopped and looked back. There was something he had to say.

“I don’t know if you will understand this,” he said slowly and clearly, “but you will never go back to that man again. You’re safe now. No one will ever harm you. Do you understand?”

He had his answer in the blank eyes that met his unseeingly. He sighed as he closed the door behind him. It was hopeless; hopeless. But he felt better for
having said it, as though somehow he had safeguarded himself against temptation.

His arrival in the kitchen caused a pleasurable stir. He was a favorite with the nurses, for both his personable looks and his pleasant manners. He always said “please” and “thank you” to nurses whom other doctors, especially the older ones, often treated like skivvies. Nor did he mind cracking an odd joke with them. There were smiles when he picked up a bowl and advanced toward the nurse ladeling porridge out of the huge urn.

“Breakfasting with the patients this morning, Mr. Treves?” she said archly, allowing a big dollop of the unappetizing stuff to flop into his bowl.

“It’s for a patient,” he told her.

He felt self-conscious making his way down the corridors clutching a bowl of porridge, and when he saw Carr-Gomm approaching him he tried to be inconspicuous. But without success.

“Mr. Treves, come over here a moment, won’t you?” Carr-Gomm’s voice was as genial and courteous as it ever was, but Treves did not make the mistake of failing to recognize an order for what it was. He had seen other men underestimate Carr-Gomm, who positively invited underestimation by hiding a shrewd and often ruthless mind behind a smile as bland and ingenuous as a baby’s. Those men had always regretted their blindness. Carr-Gomm was fifty-four, a tough medical administrator who made sure he knew everything that was going on in the little world under his rule.

Treves intended to approach the Chairman about the Elephant Man himself, but later, when he’d had some time to improve the man’s condition and do some thinking. In the meantime he wanted to keep his presence in the hospital a secret. He knew it would be difficult to hide anything from those deceptively guileless eyes, and impossible if he gave himself away by creeping round the hospital corridors clutching bowls of porridge. He silently cursed his luck, and
made foolish, clumsy efforts to hide the bowl, which were abandoned when he realized Carr-Gomm was regarding him satirically. There was nothing to do but brazen it out.

“Good morning, Treves.”

“Good morning, sir.”

Carr-Gomm pointed at the bowl. “You’ve acquired a taste for this?”

“It’s quite nutritious, sir,” Treves hedged.

“Don’t be mad. This muck can kill you,” Carr-Gomm declared robustly. He signaled to Nurse Nora Ireland, who had just come into view further down the corridor, relieved Treves of the bowl, and gave it into her hands, requesting in a smooth voice, “Take this up to the man in the Isolation Ward when you have a moment, won’t you?” He cast a humorously malicious look at Treves’ stunned face.