The Resurrectionist

by James Bradley

  ‘Hey, Sparrow,’ he says in a slurred whisper, ‘what of those ladies you promised us?’

  ‘I promised you no ladies,’ I reply, but he only laughs.

  ‘I think we’ll look for ourselves.’ He glances at Caswell, who wears a drunken smile, half-eager for this new delight, half-frightened at what might come.

  ‘No,’ I say, moving to keep him out, but I am too slow, for he is already past me and inside.

  ‘They are asleep.’ I gesture upwards, but Chifley is not to be dissuaded. Grasping the handle of the door to the front room, he swings it open, lurching inwards to see what is there. In the hall Caswell collides heavily with the table, and Chifley turns, looking about.

  ‘The cellar, I think,’ he says, fumbling in his pocket for a match.

  In vain I try to slow him down, grabbing at his coat, but Chifley is not to be deterred. Caswell follows us, tittering delightedly at this new scene of chaos. As chance would have it the cellar door is unlocked, and Chifley slips through. Trying to stop him is futile. I follow him down into the darkness. The light from the match dances wildly on the walls, but then the match burns down to his fingers, and with a curse he casts it to the floor, where it gutters and dies.

  ‘Find me a candle,’ he hisses, taking the last few steps with a thud, and a second later the light flares again at his fingertips. From somewhere Caswell passes him a candle, and Chifley lights it, before swinging out into the room’s centre.

  On the tables lie three corpses, two women and a man, and here and there the other remnants of our trade: a pair of arms, a leg still bound in muslin, three torsos hollowed out and a head, this last laid upon its face by Robert earlier today, for it would not sit still in any other way, persisting instead in rolling here and there. The smell is foul, and Chifley makes a face.

  ‘It’s a rare stink you have in here,’ he says, raising a finger to his nose. Caswell snorts.

  ‘Winter work,’ Chifley says inscrutably, and slowly moves his hips back and forth. Beside me Caswell giggles again, but already Chifley has forgotten. Creeping towards the man, he leans close beside his ear and says hello, lingering upon the word so it is made ridiculous. When no answer comes, he tries it again and, unable to bear this latest hilarity, Caswell’s nervous giggles explode into laughter. Wildly I try to silence him, but this only provokes him further. He clasps his hand over his mouth, unsuccessfully attempting to stifle himself. Glancing round at us Chifley lifts a finger and with a sudden motion jabs at the man’s arm. This done he rises and moves to one of the women, making a show of tiptoeing towards her, only to lean down at the last moment and cry ‘Boo!’. Despite myself I grin at this, while Caswell laughs so much that he must lean against the stairs. With a finger Chifley presses down upon her nose, squishing it first this way and then the other. Then, bored with this, he turns to the second woman. She is younger than the first, and although her expression is gaunt and blotchy and her stubbled scalp bare, there is a quality to her face which suggests she might once have been fair enough.

  ‘Good day,’ Chifley says, with another glance at us to see that we are watching. He pauses then, as if waiting for an answer.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asks. ‘You have something you wish to tell me?’ Leaning closer he places his ear at her lips.

  ‘You want me to do what?’ Once more he pauses, as if he were listening, then he giggles prissily, as might a girl, batting his eyelids and covering his mouth.

  ‘Oh no,’ he titters, ‘I could not.’ But then, as if answering, he wriggles his shoulders. ‘Oh, alright,’ he says, ‘but only once,’ and with a mincing motion he lifts his hands and cups the sunken remnants of her breasts. Lovingly he massages them, then slowly he puts his lips to hers, mumbling and murmuring, mm-mm-mm, a sound as if he were eating. Then all at once he slips an arm beneath her, pulling her towards him in an embrace. It is monstrous yet I am laughing. Perhaps it is the gin, perhaps it is the lunacy of the moment, but I cannot help myself. Wildly Chifley looks about, and for an instant our eyes meet, then he pulls her from the table, one arm about her waist, the other pressed beneath her arm so he may hold her upright, and marking out a wild tune he begins to dance, swinging past Caswell and me. Caswell is laughing his idiot laugh, and Chifley is making the sound of a trumpet, ta-ran-ta-ran-ta-ran-ta-ra, as Caswell chases after him, clapping his hands. Around and around he goes, Caswell swirling after him, myself too, for I am laughing and laughing, and then suddenly I am crying, although I do not know it at once. I fall still, letting them swirl on, shaking my head. Away they go, then back again, Caswell now dancing with his hands upon the girl’s shoulder. They pass close by, Chifley’s eyes meeting mine, filled with a sort of exaltation. I step after him, but I do not have to, for he trips upon a bag and stumbles, sent sprawling to the ground with the girl’s body on top of him. Caswell lands heavily upon his backside. Still laughing Chifley begins to clamber to his feet, but I am upon him, and grabbing him by the coat I haul him upright, pushing him towards the door.

  ‘Get out,’ I say.

  I push him up the stairs, into the hall. Behind me I hear Caswell coming up too, and with a shove I send Chifley sprawling into the street outside. His collar crooked and jacket torn he stares up at me, neither angry nor ashamed but rather pleased, and though I know that I should strike at him, drive him away, suddenly I do not care, and, shaking my head I step back and away.

  ‘Go,’ I hiss, ‘go!’ And going out the door Caswell is laughing still, but I cannot look at him, and so I close them out and stumble down the stairs to try to right the wrong there.

  I WAKE ILL and miserable. The room is hot, the air close: somewhere in the night I remember waking, my stomach heaving its contents into my chamber pot, and the smell lingers foully. My eyes ache and my throat and nose are sour with bile, and for a time I just lie, face pressed against the sheet, wishing only to slip back into the cool refuge of sleep. Somewhere just out of reach something nags at me, some sense that there is something I have forgotten, and dully I struggle to remember, until all at once the recollection returns, descending like a weight.

  By the time I muster the strength, the day outside is bright, the air in the yard fresh with the smell of leaves. Crouching low before the butt I close my eyes, let the water course across my head and back. Though it is cold I do not pull away, glad for its icy trickle on my swollen face, the sound of the falling water flat upon the stones. When I am done I rise, blinking, to find Robert there, a towel held out to me.

  ‘Your shirt is soiled,’ he says.

  ‘It will do,’ I retort, more sharply than I intended. Lifting my hand I think at first to apologise, but then do not.

  ‘Gabriel …’ Robert begins.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I do not pretend to understand all of what occurred last night, but you harm only yourself this way.’

  I nod. Although my memory is confused I recall now being found by Robert, hopelessly trying to tidy the mess left by Chifley and Caswell.

  ‘Was there any damage?’

  ‘Nothing that was not easily repaired, although I need not tell you it could have been worse.’

  ‘And Mr Poll?’

  Robert pauses, watching me.

  ‘I see no reason for him to be informed,’ he says.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say stiffly.

  ‘Give me the shirt,’ he says. ‘I will have Mrs Gunn clean it for you.’

  The day creeps past interminably, a long sullen march towards evening. By midday the nausea has passed, replaced by a headache which presses hard against my eyeballs. I am clumsy with it, and twice Mr Poll reprimands me for dropping instruments. Our first task is to open the girl, and as I help bear her up the stairs with Robert I am consumed with shame for the events of the evening before. Unfeeling I watch as her body is unpicked, piece by piece. Although I have seen this done many times, today I stare almost unblinking as her throat is opened, the gristled column of the windpipe removed, thick as a child’s arm. Atop it the swollen
mass of her tongue still attached, ridged and coated like that of some beast in the market place.

  When we are done I gather the pieces and the pails and bear her back to the cellar, depositing what is left upon the table with a twinge of uncustomary disgust.

  During the afternoon I slip away and conceal myself in a corner of the dispensary. Resting my head upon the bench I fall into a shallow doze, a fitful half-waking thing, disturbed by phantoms which flit just out of reach. How long I sleep I do not know; a few minutes perhaps, but all of a sudden I wake with a start. Charles stands in the door, one hand upon the knob. That he had not thought to find me here is clear, for he stands poised to turn, as if about to slip away once more. We look uncomfortably at one another: all day Charles has been out of sorts, his mood brittle, and now we are alone together I see he wishes we were not.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I say, rising. ‘I thought only to rest awhile.’ Although my words are apologetic my manner is not.

  ‘No matter,’ he says stiffly, and we are so close we might touch. Even now, when I know so much more of him than I did, Charles possesses a sort of grace, a beauty few can resist, and I find myself wishing to forgive him, and so, I think, does he. But it is not to be.

  ‘I have work to do,’ I say, stepping past him and away.

  That night I cannot sleep, floating in the darkness of my room. From the street below come the cries of the night – drunkards singing and the clatter of the wheels upon the stones. At three I hear the bells of St Giles, and slipping from my bed I make my way downstairs. Through the window moonlight falls, soft rectangles of light upon the stairs, the wood cool against my naked soles. In the dispensary I draw opium, and drink. It brings sleep, a drifting restless thing of sound and fire, a restless motion in which I move, as a swimmer might, just beneath waking’s surface. That I dream I know, yet still I dream and cannot break away, even as I feel myself pursued. What follows me I do not know and yet can only fear, something both horrible and familiar, and whose touch upon my shoulder stills me so I turn to face it, my body sick with terror, turning once and then again and then again and then again until suddenly I see it and in that instant wake.

  THE DAYS THAT FOLLOW pass in sullen silence. Though we have work enough I am left much to myself. Twice I bear messages to Whitechapel and Kentish Town, winding my way gratefully through the city streets, and in between I bend to my books or idle in the yard. What it is that ails me I do not know: though I grieve for Amy it is more than that, my anger mingling with a shame which will neither shift nor dissolve, and with it too the remembering of my desire for Arabella.

  It is Charles who tells me of Amy’s funeral, drawing me aside in the morning of the Saturday. For three days we have barely spoken, and now he is awkward with me.

  ‘They bury her this afternoon,’ he says. I look at him coldly.

  ‘If you wish to go I will tell Mr Poll you are on business on my behalf,’ he says. I nod uneasily, for I have no wish to be beholden to him. Perhaps he sees this, for he does not press the point, and so it is me who must accede.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, though stiffly.

  And so, an hour after noon I am at the front door. But then comes Mr Tyne’s voice from the stairs.

  ‘You’re wanted,’ he says.

  At first I think to keep walking, to close the door behind me and leave him there. But I hesitate, Mr Tyne watching with a mocking smile.

  ‘What?’ he asks – ‘there is somewhere else you must be?’

  In the theatre Mr Poll has a body, brought last night by Lucan, laid out for examination. Banister, owner of a counting house in the city, struck down by a spasm of the brain three nights past. As I enter, Mr Poll glances up at me, telling me to gather his instruments.

  I do not protest. Removing my jacket I roll up my sleeves and tie on my apron. Barely looking at me Mr Poll motions to me to pass him the scalpel, and with a practised motion he slices from ear to ear across the dome of the skull, bisecting the scalp, then, putting aside the scalpel, he slips his fingers into the cut and pulls the face down, exposing the yellow bone of the skull. There is always something unsettling in the way the face slips so cleanly from the bone, as if it were merely a mask, worn and discarded. Repeating the process at the back of the scalp he takes the saw and begins to cut away the dome of the skull. The bone is dry, the saw’s motion bringing first fine yellow dust, then a smell of burning. It is not quick work, but to appear impatient will only earn me some reprimand, so I will myself not to look up at the clock which stands above the fireplace. The minutes tick by, the saw moving in the quiet of the room, until with a last slide the skull splits. Handing me the saw Mr Poll draws forth the brain, severing the column which holds it in its shell; then, placing it on the slab, he regards it thoughtfully.

  ‘I have measured the brains of halfwits and simpletons,’ he says. ‘They do not differ from ours in weight.’

  Since his words seem not directed to me in particular I do not reply, and a moment later he takes up his knife, bisecting the brain once and again until the dark and white of the haemorrhage comes into view. Pleased, he grunts, scooping up the brain and squeezing it so the jellied blood drips forth. Not for the first time I wonder at the way these lumps of meat contain us, at the wonder of the motion of our selves through this brute matter. What must he have felt, this Banister, as the blood spilled forth into his mind? A sound like water, or wind? The falling away of himself?

  The hour of the funeral is already past when we are done, and I leave the house at a run, dodging through the carriages and passing traffic. The church lies not far from Percy Street, in a little close behind Charlotte Street, and at its rear the graveyard is a quiet place shaded by a beech, walled in on each side by houses to which ivy clings. As I come about the church’s side I see the funeral party in the far corner, silent while the priest intones the words of the service.

  Quite suddenly I am uncomfortable, hot and awkward, as if my presence here will be unwelcome.

  Arabella stands alone in the centre of the group, staring downwards at the coffin. She stands so still, so stiff it seems her very body refuses all sympathy. Mary is behind her, dressed all in black, face set.

  The service is not long in finishing, the party breaking up as the gravediggers lower the coffin into the earth. Beside Arabella a ginger-whiskered man says something I cannot hear, bowing close to her as he speaks. She nods curtly, and her eyes catch mine across the yard, but she gives no sign. As she passes through the group the others touch her arm and hand, murmuring words of sympathy; only when this is done does she approach the place where I stand.

  ‘You came,’ she says, extending her hand. I press it tight, not wanting to let it go. Many times I have heard Robert and Charles offer consolation to the grieving, but it is not an art I have ever shared. There seems so little to be said, and yet everything, as if words cannot encompass it. But as I see she does not want my pity, nor my grief, only quiet, only for this thing to be done and her to be away.

  ‘I did not know…’ I falter.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘If I would be welcome.’

  ‘She was your friend,’ she says softly.

  ‘Had she family?’ I ask, but she shakes her head.

  ‘None that would have seen her were she alive.’

  ‘Then they do not know?’

  ‘I wrote to her brother, and to an aunt she spoke of, yet neither have replied.’ Shaking her head she looks away, then back.

  ‘Then those here?’

  ‘Friends,’ she says. ‘And few enough of them. No mind, it will be over soon.’

  I shake my head. ‘It should not be like this.’

  ‘No,’ she says angrily, ‘it should not.’ Then catches herself, as if she will not show this thing, nor give it voice.

  The man with the muttonchops appears at her elbow.

  ‘Gabriel, this is Mr Gardiner. It is his theatre in which you have seen me play.’

  Gardiner looks at me. Though his face
is ruddy and his shining features coarse there is a shrewdness to his gaze I cannot help but like.

  Begging my pardon, in a booming Scots accent, he turns to Arabella. ‘The carriage,’ he says, and she nods.

  Back at the house the few who came to the funeral stand in the drawing room and speak quietly. The occasion is not an easy one; those who have gathered seeming uncomfortable and anxious to be away. Only Mr Gardiner seems in his element, speaking casually and cheerfully. Sitting sullenly in their midst I feel awkward, out of place, yet it is not them I watch, but Arabella. As she moves and speaks I see the way she hides herself, the way she laughs and smiles, and anger rises in me at her pretence. Finally I stand and absent myself, descending to the kitchen. From upstairs comes the sound of voices, the opening door, but still I do not move, willing her to come to me, to find me here. An hour passes, then another, and only then is there a foot upon the stair.

  Her hair is awry somehow, her face composed.

  ‘You are here,’ she says. ‘I thought that you had gone.’

  I rise so I may face her.

  ‘I am glad that you have not,’ she says. All at once I know why I have stayed, that I am angry with her now, angry for the way she will not let this thing affect her, and suddenly I want to strike at her, to make her weep, to jar her somehow into some sign of grief. Perhaps she sees this in my face, for she shakes her head, and comes close.

  ‘Why did you come today?’ she asks.

  I pull back. ‘How could I not?’

  She hesitates. ‘You are angry at me.’

  ‘No,’ I say, but she takes my hand, holding it firm as I try to twist myself away.

  ‘I am glad of it,’ she says. The two of us stand so close I can smell the scent she wears upon her throat, see the way her powder is clotted here and there upon her face. I feel it all within me then, the anger and the grief, and I do not know whether I should strike at her or take her in my arms. And then she lifts her face to mine, and with a hungry, urgent mouth kisses me, once and then again, her body pressing close against my own, as if she sought to lose herself in this, to be unmade in the dissolving need that rises in our chests and mouths and hands.