A Superior Spectre

by Angela Meyer

  Dr Fallow walks back over to where we stand. I want to know about his work. I want to know about the insides of people.

  ‘I hope this is not too overwhelming for you,’ he says to me kindly. Miss Taylor excuses herself and we both watch her walk away.

  ‘A little,’ I can’t help admitting. My nervous hand half-tips the champagne glass. I right it. Take a breath. ‘Can … I ask about your work?’ I say.

  He looks surprised.

  ‘I may not be as educated as … your friends, but I do have an interest.’

  ‘Very good. Well, my work is with the mind. I’ve worked in asylums around the north since graduating.’

  A shiver goes up my spine. He spends his days around people who are trapped by their own thoughts, who see the world differently, or see different worlds.

  ‘My thesis,’ he continues, ‘was on hallucinations. Do you know what those are?’

  ‘I don’t, no.’

  ‘They are images or sounds or even smells created by the mind, superimposed on the real world; things that are not really there.’

  A city I have never seen before, people in strange clothes, a woman knocking.

  My breath catches and I sip deeply from my glass.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ I say. Breathe. ‘And what did you find? I mean, why do people experience them?’

  ‘There are a great many reasons: physical diseases, emotional disturbances – some of them quite technical.’ He looks around the room. He wants to return to his friends.

  ‘The body and mind, I wonder …’ I begin.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he says with a small distracted smile, and makes his way across the room again. The laudanum flows over my frustration. It is Oskar, the younger Fallow, whose eyes keep turning to me. Even while Miss Mitchell touches him casually as they share a joke, her bodice hanging defiantly loose.

  Dr Fallow joins the Johnsons, Miss Taylor, and my aunt. I stare at a framed etching on the wall, not really seeing it; I move around a little, look out the window at the grey. No one has introduced the young women to me, and I cannot fathom walking up to them myself.

  ‘This Lister from Glasgow, I hear his methods are having a real impact?’ asks Mr Johnson to the group.

  ‘Well it’s not really my area, but indeed they are being adopted,’ says Dr Fallow.

  Miss Ross joins them. ‘Yes, the carbolic acid solution and general methods of cleanliness have led to fewer deaths.’

  ‘Sounds revolutionary,’ says Miss Taylor.

  Ailie gives a small huff. ‘I can’t help but wonder if life were better when we left it up to God – it seems we are meddling somewhat with what might be the true path.’

  And Miss Taylor laughs, rude and loud. The others cannot help but join in lightly.

  ‘Oh Ailie,’ says Miss Taylor, ‘at some point in the evening you always reveal your true thoughts on progress – medical, social …’ I feel embarrassed for my aunt.

  ‘Now, Constance,’ says Mr Johnson.

  Mr Stewart has edged in with a gleeful grin. ‘Och, I’ve missed the action.’

  Ailie pulls at the collar of her dress, her frown deep. ‘I only meant … It all happens so fast, these changes.’

  ‘But for the better,’ says Miss Ross.

  ‘Always?’ Ailie asks.

  ‘In this case, yes,’ says Miss Ross.

  Ailie looks up at the younger woman, who is so confident in her knowledge. ‘I’m … sure you’re right,’ she says quietly. Miss Taylor goes to say something else, but I see Mr Johnson put a hand on her arm. Instead she turns away to refill her drink.

  The room is hot with bodies and breath; the drink mingles with the substance in my stomach and warms my core. Ailie continues to speak with the Johnsons, a frown remaining on her face. Though I was inclined, as an observer, to take the side of Miss Taylor and Miss Ross – it sounds like a fact that this new method is saving lives – I saw my aunt anew, and admired her ability to disagree and question. I saw the moment in her face when she realised it wouldn’t be truthful not to raise the question. But Miss Taylor’s pleasure at mocking her was evident on her face. Really, neither of them was entirely to be respected.

  Miss Taylor stands beside me, with Edward Fallow at her other elbow.

  ‘Might I not send you another chapter?’ I hear him ask her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Edward – as I said, it’s just not right for us,’ says Miss Taylor.

  ‘It’s of great public significance.’

  ‘Then it will find a publisher.’

  ‘Constance …’ His voice comes down an octave. I feel her shift. He is touching her elbow. I look away. Then he stalks off across the room, his shoulders high and scrunched. She puts her hand on my arm again and I look at her face. She smiles comfortably. Conflict and drama, they make my chest tighten. Maybe I am more my aunt’s niece than I thought I was. Miss Taylor’s smile calms me, though, along with the drink, and I sigh. I find myself leaning.

  ‘Do you need a seat?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your aunt resents me,’ she says.

  ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  She shrugs. ‘For many reasons perhaps she should. I can’t help but push her to try to think differently about certain matters, because she has it in her to think differently. Why else would she spend time with all of us?’

  ‘Think differently?’

  ‘Gas, locomotives, big cities, women doctors.’ She takes a large sip of her drink. ‘You know, it’s not her fault. I really shouldn’t …’

  I listen. A tendril of bronze hair has fallen across her pale forehead.

  She purses her lips. ‘I am ungenerous. But Ailie provokes me – because she doesn’t understand me.’

  ‘Doesn’t understand?’

  Miss Taylor pauses. ‘I … never wanted a child. She thinks that is unnatural.’

  She is being very forward. Either she sees an ally in me or this is just the way she is.

  ‘But she never had a child,’ I say.

  Miss Taylor tilts her head at me, almost with pity. ‘Well, that’s just it. For her, it wasn’t a choice. She had one man – a very flawed man was Charlie, but she loved him dearly. It just does not happen for some people.’

  I look over at my aunt, now laughing, cheeks ruddy.

  ‘It’s very rare that we get what we want,’ Miss Taylor says. ‘We’re not supposed to want anything much at all.’

  I don’t know if she is talking about people in general, or being a member of our sex. Perhaps both.

  ‘I want only to live in the Highlands, surrounded by animals,’ I say, surprised by my openness.

  ‘And love?’

  I don’t know how to answer that. I frown.

  ‘Men are animals too, you know,’ she says.

  We both take a sip. Do animals love? Did my dog Duff love me? She needed food, comfort, but she could get that elsewhere, too. Is the human animal unique in the desire to bond for life?

  ‘Let me just say that if you are in touch with your own inner animal, you will find it very difficult, in a social sense,’ she gestures around the room, ‘to find ways of exploring that.’

  As she says this she locks eyes with Edward Fallow across the room.

  ‘Of course it is understood that men may find ways of expressing this, but not us.’ Miss Taylor looks me in the eye. ‘You just have to be careful.’ She smiles.

  Desire: an invasion. Like him in my head.

  ‘Oskar is sweet but he is young, and eager,’ she tells me. Was it obvious that I’d noticed him? I blush. ‘I’m going to eat something,’ she says. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and then let myself perch on the edge of the couch. Oskar is young, and eager. Those words may have the opposite effect on me than she’d intended. I look at him and I remember kissing William – that press and urgency. That affection. Oskar’s eyebrows are dark and there’s a fine sheen of stubble around his lips. He looks qu
ite different to William. He’s bony, almost hunched. I imagine rubbing his back in a circle. Where did that come from? I imagine bending him over, spreading his cheeks. Nausea envelops me. I stand and walk to the kitchen, resist the urge to lie on the cold floor. I clutch my stomach, leaning against the wall, and breathe, breathe, breathe.

  I have decided to stop. Painfully, because what will I do then? But I have been selfish enough. Now she sees a man who resembles my Eric and she thinks of doing to him what I would. Or is it? How can I know? Some women would lick a man all over, lick his arsehole, stick a finger in it. Yes, they love to give pleasure; it turns them on. But this is the nineteenth century. Wake up. She wouldn’t even think to do that. It is me.

  Oskar. God, I would like to see him again. See what happens, feel what happens. But I’ve completely lost the line where I end and she begins. I absolutely have to admit I’m having an effect on her – maybe not all negative, but the visions of unfamiliar people and landscapes in an unfamiliar time, the drives, those are negative. And I care about her. I never thought I’d care about anyone again.

  And there are consequences for her. She fears going mad; she could act unconventionally and be shamed. She is a woman. I can’t escape that. She has to act within the confines of her society, to have the best chance. Ugh, but how disgusting this feels – I am a man centuries in the future determining her fate. As though dealing with the patriarchal paradigms of Victorian society are not enough!

  I will stop.

  Look, William, I feel sick, but I am holding this tab above the bin. No, that way I can retrieve it. Come with me, we’ll throw it into the bay.

  I can’t do it.

  No, I’m doing it.

  I retch. It is so cold. I’m shaking. With fever, with emotion? I care about her so I want to know what’s happening to her. I care about her so I don’t want to infect her anymore.

  If I were born a woman, if she were born a man. No … that would solve nothing.

  If I were never born.

  I threw it. Oh God, I threw it. It’s gone. What will I do? I have to face myself now. Truly. Oh God. When will it come? Where is that fucking wraith with the scythe? I’m aching. My throat is tight and raw. I can’t get up now, William. I can’t. You’ll have to drag me inside.

  There is no sign on the door, heavy wood with chipped green paint and a large brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. My body is shaking but I cannot feel it; there is a gold blur around me like candlelight. I had a few drops before leaving. It is dark and hazily starry and Ailie is asleep. She’d started on the claret before supper and fallen asleep at the table, so I knew she’d be sleeping deeply. I had to take the opportunity, as tonight is one of the nights advertised on the flyer.

  I shake with fear and the thrill. The visions have calmed a little since the party, but then last night I saw a man that wasn’t a man – cold and painted like a puppet, wearing clothing like a second skin. I knew it wasn’t a man by his eyes. I wasn’t afraid until I woke up. Then the unfamiliarity washed over me. This non-man was something I was not supposed to know about.

  Finally, the door in front of me opens. The corridor is dark and there stands a short, white-haired woman in a long black cloak. ‘Ye’re here for the meetin’?’ she asks.

  Nerves choke me. I nod.

  She moves aside and I enter. Her candle threatens to flicker out when the door closes. She asks me to follow. As I walk, loneliness slides down through my chest, settling in my stomach. I have not become close enough to anyone in Edinburgh to ask them to accompany me, to ask for help.

  We take a stone spiral staircase down, and down. The temperature drops; the floor of the stairs above presses upon me as we circle down.

  ‘What is your name?’ she asks. It echoes off the stone.

  ‘Leonora Duncan.’

  ‘Ah! A name surely tae delight the energies. Is this yer first time seeking the Odyle? Wha’ brings ye?’

  Her expression is seemingly of delight but looks leering when half in darkness. I hear other voices around the bend in this underground stone cavern.

  ‘It’s difficult to explain, Mrs …’

  ‘Call me Davina.’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, on your first visit we usually do a standard test tae determine whether ye’re a sensitive,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘Cannae be lettin’ just anyone in now, can we?’

  My chest is tight. ‘Perhaps I can just tell you what I’ve been experiencing. It just might take a while to find the words …’

  ‘Come in here, Miss Duncan.’ Davina leads me into a small stone chamber, the size of a water closet, away from the sound of voices. ‘Deprivation of the senses helps the spirits tae commune.’

  I clutch my stomach. The space is too small. It has the feeling of the attic with the sloping roof, rough floor under my knees as a child. Sick mother on the bed.

  Without another word Davina moves quickly out and closes the door. I reach for it. Complete darkness. I find the handle and pull, with shaking hands, but it doesn’t move. Is this truly for sensory deprivation or am I a caged animal for some other purpose? I have made a terrible mistake.

  The laudanum has made my muscles languid and soon I do not wish to stand. My skirts provide some layering beneath me when I sit on the floor.

  I am not afraid of the dark. I have missed the complete darkness of the Highlands, and the quiet. But there is a drip somewhere. And the more I look into the darkness the more I notice that it is not absolute. There are blotches of light, of colour. Even when I close my eyes.

  I yell, and then feel impolite, and then yell again. I brought myself here; should I not play by the rules? But then this is unnatural, to lock a person up.

  Time moves slowly. Has it been merely minutes or an hour? Will I be here all night?

  The blotches become shapes.

  Round, draped, thatched.

  A full image, painted. A basket of ripe, verdant fruit, and browning leaves. White folds of robe. A muscled shoulder and deep collarbone crease. Trace the neck to a tilted chin and parted peach lips, to bite to the seed. Heavy-lidded eyes. Dark curls in just-woke tufts. Shadows at his shoulders like wings. The image is delicate but strong.

  I gasp. I fear this vision but it is breathtaking. I have stared at this painting for a long time. Somewhere.

  I feel warmer. My mouth is open; I pant almost like a dog. Ecstatic light in my chest, to the tips of my nipples. Time, in my chest. I am not sitting in the dark.

  When Davina opens the door the image shatters. I realise I cannot feel my legs; I have been sitting on them. There is drool on my chin, my eyes are dry. I can’t see beyond her candle flame though I think she is studying me. She holds out her hand and helps me up.

  I knock the pins and needles out of my feet as we walk through to the room with people in it. The cold descends upon me and I shiver. Davina hands me a cloak, silently, and I sit on a wooden chair, joining a circle of shadowy figures.

  ‘Everyone welcome Miss Duncan,’ she says firmly.

  ‘Welcome, Miss Duncan,’ is a chant.

  ‘Good evening, thank you,’ I say. The warmth of the image is departing, and this chamber holds an aged, mossy cold that seeps into my bones.

  ‘Will you tell us what happened?’ Davina asks.

  Do I tell them about just now, or about all the times before? This is what I am here for, and after that frightening experience I will not be back, so I must use my time well. I start by clearing my throat and shakily describing the image I’ve just encountered, without mentioning the accompanying bodily experiences. It was as though it had completely taken over. What if one day I can’t come back from that?

  ‘Why, that sounds like a painting of Caravaggio’s!’ says one cloaked figure.

  ‘She has probably seen it in a book.’

  ‘I assure you I have not,’ I say.

  ‘Sometimes we dinnae remember wha’ we see, and then it can come forth.’ That voice is the druggist’s, the man who handed me t
he flyer.

  ‘I have had other visions,’ I say. ‘Some I cannot even describe because there are no words for the … places, the objects, the clothing, the materials …’

  The figures are silent for a while.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Davina.

  ‘Like a vehicle that runs without horses or steam.’

  ‘Perhaps your Odyle communes with a time where things exist we dinnae yet know about,’ says one man. ‘Like Jock – ’member the way he saw the tall silver buildings?’ He says this to the group and they nod.

  I have seen those, too. I swallow. ‘But I don’t want to be invaded by this … Odyle. Is there a cure?’

  Davina shakes her head sadly. ‘Ye must not throw awae such a gift!’

  ‘But it … feels like a kind of madness.’

  ‘Only tae those who do no’ understand, Lass,’ she says.

  I am still sceptical. To embrace their ideas is to embrace the invasion, to let it take over, but it is somewhat a relief to explain my experiences to a group of strangers, and for them to not be dismissive, or treat me as though I am mad.

  ‘What happened to this man, Jock?’ I ask.

  ‘One day the visions just stopped, he told us, and after that we saw him nae more,’ says a man in the group, sounding disappointed.

  ‘How long was I in the chamber?’ I ask.

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Then I must go!’ I jump up. I do not want to come back, and yet, I wish to hear their stories. I need to find out if this could be a larger phenomenon. Or find out if they are all mad. To believe it acceptable to lock someone up for two hours, to go through it themselves and keep coming back, means there is certainly some madness. I will think on it. For now, I must go in case Ailie is restless. I must hurry into the night.

  William, what does the spot on this wall resemble? I am taken by it as with a lover’s mole. Faye had a mole in her pubic hair; you could only see it when she’d trimmed. Mostly she let the hair grow, musky and wild. A woman’s cunt has such a specific scent, berries dipped in honey rolled in spice, but it changes throughout the month, and after exertion. She didn’t like me to go down there after exercise but I liked the way it brought out the bitter notes. She would get so wet, slick on my fingers while my tongue worked above. I always bathed before she went down on me. I wanted to bathe before she even kissed me. Sometimes she’d try to talk to me about it. I’m just OCD, I’d tell her. I like to be clean.