The Tenderness of Wolves

by Stef Penney

  ‘What I was thinking of,’ he explained, his eyes dropping to his desk, ‘is a series of studies of, well … you, say, in poses that are typical of certain mental conditions. Um, for example … there is something we call the Ophelia complex, named after an afflicted character in a famous play …’ He looked at me here to see if I showed any recognition.

  ‘I know it,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, excellent. Well … so, you see, an illustration of that would be a … a lovelorn pose, with a crown of flowers and so on. You see what I mean?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It will be a great help to me with a monograph I am writing. The pictures will illustrate my thesis, particularly for people who have never been inside an asylum and find one difficult to imagine.’

  I nodded politely, and when he didn’t elaborate, asked, ‘What is your thesis?’

  He looked a little startled. ‘Oh. My thesis is, well … that there are certain patterns to madness; certain physical attitudes and movements that are common to different patients, indicative of their inner states. That, although every patient has an individual history, they fall into groups which share certain traits and attitudes. And also that …’ he paused, apparently deep in thought ‘… by a repeated and concentrated study of these attitudes, we can discover more about ways to cure those poor unfortunates.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, brightly, wondering what attitudes I, as one of those unfortunates, tended to strike. Several unsuitable pictures presented themselves.

  ‘And,’ he went on, ‘perhaps you could join me for lunch on those days when you are so kind as to give me your time?’

  My mouth watered at the thought. The food in the asylum was wholesome enough but bland, stodgy and monotonous. I think there was a theory (maybe even a thesis) that certain tastes were dangerously stimulating, and too much meat, say, or anything overly rich or spicy would inflame already delicate sensibilities and cause a riot. I was already pleased at the prospect of being a model, but the promise of proper, interesting food would alone have persuaded me.

  ‘Well,’ he smiled, and I realised that he was actually nervous, ‘does that sound … agreeable to you?’

  I was intrigued that he was nervous–of me? Of the possibility that I would say no?–and nodded. I couldn’t for the life of me see how staring at pictures of women covered in flowers would produce a cure for madness, but who was I to say so?

  Besides, he was a handsome, kind, youngish man, and I was an orphan in a mental asylum with no one to sponsor me and little prospect of leaving. However unusual the events that came my way, they were unlikely to change my life for the worse.

  And so it began. To start with I would go to his office perhaps once or twice a month. Watson would have gathered a number of costumes and props to create the scenario. The first one was to be called, apparently, Melancholia, which I felt more than qualified to portray. He had arranged a chair by a window, at which I was to sit, in a sombre dress, holding a book and gazing longingly out, as though, as he put it, I was dreaming of my lost love. I could have told him that there are worse troubles in life than an errant suitor, but I held my tongue and stared out of the window, dreaming instead of braised venison with port sauce, curried chicken, and trifle with nutmeg.

  The lunch, when it arrived, was every bit as good as the ones my imagination had come up with. I am afraid I ate with all the grace of a farmhand, and he watched me, smiling, as I had second and third helpings of a pear and cinnamon tart. I stuffed myself, not because I was so enormously hungry, but because I had been starved of tastes; of piquancy and subtlety. To taste spices and blue cheese and wine for the first time in four or five years (with the odd exception at Christmas) was heaven. I think I said as much, and he laughed, and seemed tremendously pleased. As he walked with me to the door of his study, he held my hand in both of his, and thanked me, looking deep into my eyes.

  As I expected, I was summoned to the study with increasing frequency, and as we became more accustomed to each other, the poses became less formal. By which I mean I gradually wore less and less, ending up reclining against the fernery partially tangled in a diaphanous sheet of muslin. I think that fairly early on any pretence at contributing to the forward march of medical science was abandoned. Watson, or Paul, as I came to call him, made the studies it pleased him to make, sometimes guiltily, blinking and avoiding my gaze as though he were embarrassed at asking me to do such things.

  He was kind and thoughtful, and was interested in my opinions, which many men who have known me outside the asylum have not been. I liked him, and was happy when he put his hand on mine, trembling, one day at the end of the meal. He was sweet, desperate, terrified at doing wrong, and apologised every time we met for taking advantage of me, and giving in to his base nature. I never minded. For me it was a thrilling secret, a sweet craving, although he was always nervous and jumpy when we consummated, swiftly, after another spectacular lunch, behind the locked study door.

  And he smelt of the greenhouses, of tomato leaves and damp earth, sharp and satisfying. Even now, I cannot remember that smell without also thinking of fruit pies with cream or steak in brandy. Even the other night, years later, in a frozen tent in the forest, when I smelt that scent from Parker, it brought water to my mouth, and the recollection of a bitter chocolate tart.

  What happened, I don’t suppose I will ever now find out. Somehow Watson was disgraced. Not through me, as far as I know, and certainly nothing was ever said, but one morning it was announced by the head attendant that Dr Watson had to leave suddenly, and that within days another superintendent would be taking his place. One day he was there, the next not. He must have taken the apparatus, and the pictures we made together. Some of them were beautiful; dark, silvery shadings on glass that shimmered as you tilted them to the light. I wonder if they still exist. When I feel melancholy, and that is quite often nowadays, I remind myself that he trembled when he touched me; that I was once someone’s muse.

  We have been walking across the plain for three days with no end or change in sight. The rain that brought the thaw persisted for two days and made progress very difficult. We waded ankle-deep in mud, and if that does not sound very much, I can only insist that it is bad enough. Each foot was weighted with a couple of pounds of clinging slime, and my skirt dragged, heavy with water. Parker and Moody, not burdened with skirts, trudged on ahead with the sled.

  Late on the second day the rain stopped, and I was just thanking whatever gods are still sparing me a thought, when a wind got up that has been blowing ever since. It has dried the ground and made walking easier, but it comes from the north-east and is so cold that I experience the phenomenon, previously only heard of, of tears freezing in the corners of my eyes. After an hour my eyes are red raw.

  Now Parker and the dogs wait for us to catch up. He stands on a slight rise, and when we finally stagger up to him, I see why he has waited: a few hundred yards away is a complex of buildings–the first man-created thing we have seen since leaving Himmelvanger.

  ‘We are on the right road,’ says Parker, although road is hardly the word I would have chosen.

  ‘What is that place?’ Moody is peering through his spectacles. His eyes are bad, made worse by the dim grey light which is all that struggles through the clouds.

  ‘It was once a trading post.’

  I can see from here that there is something wrong with it; it has the sinister quality of a building in a nightmare.

  ‘We should go and look. In case he has been there.’

  Closer to, I realise what has happened. The post has been burnt to a skeleton; rafters stand gauntly against the sky, broken beams jut out at wrong, upsetting angles. Where walls remain they are charred black, and sag. But the strangest thing of all is that it was recently covered with snow, which melted by day then froze by night, layer on layer of meltwater congealing so that the bare bones are swollen and glazed with ice. It is an extraordinary sight: black, bulbous, glittering, the ice engulfing the buildings as t
hough they have been swallowed by some amorphous creature. It inspires me, and Moody as well, I think, with a sort of horror.

  I want, more than anything, to get away from here. Parker walks in between the walls, studying the ground.

  ‘Someone has left clothes.’ He indicates a shapeless bundle on the ground in one corner. I don’t ask him why anyone would do something like that. I have a hunch I don’t want to know.

  ‘This is Elbow Ridge. Have you heard of it?’

  I shake my head, fairly sure this is something else I would be better off not knowing.

  ‘It was built by the XY Company. The Hudson Bay Company didn’t like the fact that they tried to set up a post here, so they burnt it down.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  Parker shrugs. ‘Everyone knows. Things like that happened.’ I glance over towards Moody, thirty yards away through a vanished door, poking about by a jumble of wood that might once, a long time ago, have been a piano.

  I look back at Parker to see if he intended any malice, but his face is blank. He has picked up the stiff, frozen cloth and stretches it out–the ice creaks and splinters in protest–to reveal a shirt that was probably once blue but is now so dirty it is hard to be sure. It has been soaked and stained and left here to rot. I suddenly, belatedly, realise the import of this.

  ‘Is that blood?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  He pokes around some more, and lets out an exclamation of satisfaction. This time even I understand why–there are traces of a fire, black and sooty, close by a wall.

  ‘Recent?’

  ‘About a week old. So our man came through here, and stayed the night. We could do worse than copy him.’

  ‘Stay here? But it’s early. We should go on, surely?’

  ‘Look at the sky.’

  I look up; the clouds, sliced into quadrilaterals by the black beams, are low and dark. Storm-coloured.

  Moody, when told of the plan, is bullish. ‘But what is it–another two days to Hanover House? I think we should keep going.’

  Parker replies calmly, ‘There is going to be a storm. We will be glad of shelter.’

  I can see Moody’s brain whirring, deciding whether or not it is worth arguing, whether Parker will yield to his authority. But the wind is getting up, and he loses his nerve; the sky has become ugly and oppressive. Despite the brooding strangeness of the abandoned post, it is a good deal better than nothing.

  Accordingly, we pitch camp within the ruins. Parker constructs a large lean-to against one of the remaining walls, and reinforces it with blackened timbers. I am alarmed when I see how much sturdier this shelter is than any I have seen him build before, but I follow his instructions and unpack the sled. Over the past few days I have become much more adept at the tasks necessary for comfort and survival; I stack the food inside (does he really think we will be trapped for days?), while Moody collects wood–at least there is plenty of that around–and chips ice off the walls for water. We work quickly, infected with a dread of the darkening day and rapidly increasing wind.

  By the time we finish our preparations, snow is whipping about us, stinging our faces like a swarm of bees. We crawl into the shelter; Parker lights a fire and boils water. Moody and I sit facing the entrance, which has been secured with large beams, but which has begun to twitch and heave as though desperate men are trying to get in. Over the next hour the wind rises in force and volume until we can hardly hear ourselves speak. It makes an eerie screeching noise, together with the sharp snapping of canvas and a horrible creaking of wall timbers. I wonder if they are going to withstand it, or will collapse under the force and the weight of ice on top of us. Parker seems unconcerned, though I would wager that Moody shares my fears; his eyes are wide behind his spectacles, and he jumps at any variation in the noises around us.

  ‘Will the dogs be all right out there?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes. They will lie down together and keep each other warm.’

  ‘Ah. Good idea.’ Moody laughs shortly, glancing at me, then drops his eyes when I don’t summon up a laugh to keep him company.

  Moody swallows his tea and takes off his boots and socks, revealing feet covered in dried blood. I have watched him tend to his feet on previous evenings, but tonight I offer to do it for him. Perhaps it is the thought of Francis, that the age difference between them is not so great; perhaps it is the storm outside, and the thought that I need all the friends I can get. He leans back and stretches out one foot at a time for me to clean and bandage with strips of linen, which is all we have. I am not gentle but he makes no sound as I clean the wounds with rubbing alcohol and bind them tightly. He has his eyes shut. From the corner of my eye Parker seems to be watching us, although what with the smoke from the fire and from his pipe, visibility in the tent is practically nil and I could be mistaken. When I have finished bandaging his feet, Moody digs out a hip flask and offers it to me. It is the first time I have seen it. I accept, gratefully; it is whisky, not particularly good, but bright and fiery as it burns down my throat, making my eyes water. He offers the flask to Parker too, but he merely shakes his head. Come to think of it, I have never seen him touch liquor. Moody replaces the blood-soaked socks and boots–it is too cold to keep them off.

  ‘Mrs Ross, you must be a tough backwoods-woman indeed if you can keep this up without blisters.’

  ‘I have moccasins,’ I point out. ‘They don’t chafe the feet in the same way. You should try to acquire some when we get to Hanover House.’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ He turns to Parker, ‘And when will that be, do you think, Mr Parker? Will this storm blow itself out tonight?’

  Parker shrugs. ‘It may. But even so, the snow will make the going harder. It may take more than two days.’

  ‘You’ve been there before?’

  ‘Not for a long time.’

  ‘You seem to know the route well enough.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There is a short, hostile pause. I’m not sure where the hostility came from, but it is there.

  ‘Do you know the factor there?’

  ‘His name is Stewart.’

  I notice that this doesn’t exactly answer the question.

  ‘Stewart … Know his first name?’

  ‘James Stewart.’

  ‘Ah, I wonder if that is the same one … I heard a story recently about a James Stewart, who was famous for making a long winter journey in terrible conditions. Quite a feat, I believe.’

  Parker’s face is, as usual, unreadable. ‘I can’t say for certain.’

  ‘Ah, well …’ Moody sounds tremendously pleased. I suppose that if you know no one in a country, having heard of someone before meeting them is tantamount to having an old friend.

  ‘So you do know him, then?’ I ask Parker.

  He gives me a look. ‘I met him when I worked for the Company. Years ago.’

  Somehow his tone warns me against making any further pleasantries. Moody, of course, doesn’t notice.

  ‘Well well, won’t that be splendid … A reunion.’

  I smile. There is really something rather endearing about Moody, crashing about like a bull in a china shop … Then I remember what he is trying to do, and the smile fades.

  *

  The snow does not stop, nor does the shrieking wind. By unspoken consensus, the canvas is not rigged into a curtain to give me privacy. I lie down between the two men, rolled in layers of blankets, feeling the heat from the embers scorching my face but not wanting to move. Then Moody lies down beside me, and finally Parker smothers the ashes and lies down, so close I can feel him and smell the scent of greenhouses that he carries with him. It is pitch dark, but I do not think that I will close my eyes all night; what with the howling of the wind and the battering the tent is getting; it billows and trembles like a live thing. I am terrified that we will be buried in the snow, or that the walls will collapse and trap us underneath; I imagine all sorts of awful fates as I lie with racing heart and wide stretched eyes. But I must
have slept, because I dream, although I do not think I have dreamt in weeks.

  Suddenly I awake to find–as I think–the tent has gone. The wind is screaming like a thousand banshees and the air is full of snow, blinding me. I cry out, I think, but the sound goes unheard in the maelstrom. Parker and Moody are both kneeling, fighting to close the mouth of the tent where it has been torn free. They eventually manage to secure it again, but snow has gathered in drifts inside the tent. There is snow on our clothes and in our hair. Moody lights the lamp; he is shaken. Even Parker looks slightly less composed than normal.

  ‘Well.’ Moody shakes his head and brushes the snow off his legs. We are all wide awake and extremely cold. ‘I don’t know about you but I need something to drink.’

  He pulls out the hip flask and drinks from it before handing it to me. I give it to Parker, who hesitates and then accepts. Moody smiles as though this is some sort of personal triumph. Parker lights the fire for tea, and we are all grateful, huddling round it with scorching fingers. I am trembling, whether through cold or shock I do not know, and do not stop until I have drunk a mug of sweet tea. I watch the men smoking their pipes with envy; it is another warm and soothing thing and that would be welcome, as would a rosewood stem to clench between my chattering teeth.

  ‘It looked deep out there,’ Moody says when the whisky is finished.

  Parker nods. ‘The deeper it gets, the warmer it will be in here.’

  ‘Well that is a nice thought,’ I say. ‘We will be warm and comfortable while we are smothered to death.’

  Parker smiles. ‘We can easily dig ourselves out.’

  I smile back at Parker, surprised to see him so amused, and then some little thing recalls to me the dream I was having when I awoke, and I bury my face in my cup. It is not that I remember what I was dreaming exactly; it is more that the feeling around it washes over me with a sudden, peculiar warmth and causes me to turn away, feigning a fit of coughing, so that the men cannot see my cheeks colour in the darkness.