Ingenious Pain

by Andrew Miller

  SIXTH

  The instant before he wakes he experiences an ecstasy, a moment of luminous terror, such as a man who stumbles from the edge of a cliff must feel, somersaulting over the distant rocks. Or a felon, launched to eternity by the hangman's shove, flying through the crowd's hush. Everything is seen, everything is understood, in clear light, in calm air. Then the wind breaking in waves over his head. The light shrieking. James Dyer dies. Wakes in hell.

  At first he knows only that he must escape from the fire in the bed. Then from the fire on the floor. Then from the fire in the air. Not until he reels towards the door does he realise: he is the fire; the fire is himself. And only by escaping from himself shall he escape the flames. There are knives in his bag, and he is not yet afraid of knives. He could die like Joshua, slaking the intolerable thirst with a razor. He gropes for the bag, cannot find it, cannot see anything, his bag, his hands. There is nothing but a slab of paler dark where one of the shutters is open. He opens the others, fumbles with the catch on the window. He hears himself sobbing. The catch gives, the window opens. Snow dances in upon his face. He drags himself on to the sill, coils as if he means to spring on to the frozen river. Then he is gripped from behind, pulled down to the fioor, lies there, writhing like an insect. He wants to fight her,

  but cannot find the strength. She is fiill of purpose. She is making him dress. She does not understand that he cannot go on, that he is enduring the unendurable.

  Outside they take the darkest streets. The wooden houses are asleep, clinging to the ground, heavier than palaces. A dog whines, an infant bawls, a lamp flickers in a house. Someone is sick there perhaps, the family kneeling by the bed. The doctor will not come on a night like this, nor the priest.

  Mary does not wait for him; neither will she let him go. He labours behind her, on two legs, on four. He knows that she is his only hope, the beginning and the end of the nightmare. What else is there to hold to? He is one hour old, trapped inside of himself, a blind man inside a burning house. He is like the others now.

  When he opens his eyes it is light. There is no sign of the city. He tries to sit up but when he moves the fire courses through his body. He tries to speak but his throat is too dry. He licks at the snow. Slowly, as though crossing a river of the thinnest ice, he moves. His hands curl, uncurl. He turns his head. A bird is watching him, blue-black feathers shivering in the wind. It studies him. The eye has no depth. A black light trembles on its surface. The bird hops closer. Fear of the bird is greater than his fear of the fire. He sits up, screaming, flinging from his hands fistfuls of snow. The bird unfolds itself, flies low over the ground, wingtips almost touching the snow. Then it climbs, caws, circles over him and disappears over the trees. He falls back, face to the sky. Now perhaps, in the light, someone will come to help him, take him to a warm place, heal him. The sky turns red; he hears

  footsteps; he raises his eyes. The woman is there. She crouches by his head and places a hand over his eyes. She smells of smoke and feathers. He sleeps.

  A small flame weaves near his face. Over the back of the flame he sees the woman, stirring a pot. She looks round at him. He speaks to her but does not understand what he has said. They are in a room, a small wooden room. There are no windows. He is lying under a pelt. Under the pelt he is naked. He is too weak to move, too afraid to start the burning again. The woman feeds him from a horn. The liquid tastes of earth. He swallows. Later she takes his hand and leads him from the room. The burning is all around him, a cloud in which he moves, but it does not make him suffer as before. When they are outside she points. There is a man, spreadeagled, face down in the snow. James goes closer, naked over the snow. He does not feel the cold. He kneels beside the man, turns the body over, touches him, the cold-pleated face, the stubble like splinters in the skin, the dark lips showing dark teeth. In Gummer's eyes golden lights are moving. The lights are flames carried in the dark. James bends closer. He sees the face of his mother, tiny, young. Above her the stars are raining over the moor, the village, the hill-fort. He sees a mass of strangers, and a boy lying calmly on a bed. And there is Joshua Dyer in his best coat, frowning, red from sun and drink; and Jenny Scurl, petals in her hair; and Amos Gate, rubbing his chin. Charlie stands at the door and Sarah peeps past his arm. Liza is there, sat on the bed beside him. She is crying for him.

  James lays his head against the dead man's chest, curls against the cold body, holds it in his arms. Howls.

  Ice mirrors tell him of what he has become. They show him the blur of a man, beard matted with drool, the dark band of his eyes like a blindfold. Often she makes him drink from the horn, the

  liquor that tastes of must and earth, that tastes of cellars. Then he is a ghost and sees ghostly sights, talks with the dead, or the wandering spirits of those who are yet living. At night he sometimes hears devils; they are like men whispering at the far end of an enormous room.

  And he finds a word for the burning. A word that springs from the lips as it is spoken; that is spoken as if it were a seed to be spat from between the lips: pain. It throws out wind enough to stagger the flame of a candle but not to extinguish it, not at first, not unless the flame is feeble, the candle all but gone.

  His flesh remembers; every break, every beating, every stab of the needles, every burn from the candle. In pain he discovers his history, and the air grows truculent with voices. The night is not long enough to answer their accusations, nor to shed the tears they demand of him. He had thought his hours were like bonfires that consumed themselves, leaving only the palest ash. Now he learns that time trails men like a killer, thorough, even-handed, collecting the evidence of the years. Nothing is lost. That was all arrogance and ignorance. Nothing is lost and the silence was not silence but merely his own deafness.

  'Who are you?' 'Answer!' 'Why does he not answer?'

  'He has not spoke to us at all, sir.'

  'Where is he from? What papers does he have?'

  'Mr Callow read the papers, sir. He is called Dyer, an Englishman run mad in Russia.'

  'Mad from what cause?'

  'The cause was not set out. Only the name and that he is come from Russia.'

  'I wonder they could not keep him there. Who was it sent him?'

  'Mr Swallow, the ambassador.'

  'And was there money sent, for his maintenance?'

  'There is money. Mr Callow has it.'

  'Tell Callow to charge him at seven shillings a week. I knew a Dyer once. Dyer!'

  'Answer!'

  'Do you know where you are, sir? This is the Royal Bethlehem hospital in Moorfields. We shall make you well, sir, or one of us shall perish in the attempt. Why does he wear a restraining jacket?'

  'Sir, he kicked at one of the keepers when he was stripped.'

  'Who was that?'

  'Mr O'Connor.'

  'Did O'Connor vex him?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Very well. Tomorrow I shall begin the treatment. We shall loosen your tongue, Dyer. It is naughty to be to be so stubborn. Who is that screaming?'

  'I think it is Smart, sir.'

  *Why is he screaming?'

  'I cannot say.'

  'Well, we shall go to him.'

  'And this one, sir, shall he wear irons?'

  'Upon his legs. Until we know him better. Then we shall see.'

  'Dyer!'

  'Answer!'

  'Nay, do not kick him. He is still a Christian. How do you like your new home, sirrah? Does he speak yet?'

  'Some words, sir.'

  'Portending?'

  'Sir?'

  'What does he say?'

  'It was mad talk, sir. It was nothing.'

  'When you hear him speak you must make some note of it, or if you cannot, remember the words in your head.'

  'I shall.'

  'How does he like his irons?'

  'He does not complain.'

  'He is to go to the water today.'

  'Ay, sir.'

  'He is to vomit.'

  'Ay, sir. And
shall we bleed him?'

  'Keeper!' 'Sir?'

  'Sit him up upon his pallet. Does he take his food?' 'We put it in his mouth, sir. He will not always swallow it.'

  If you are casual with your food, Dyer, I shall have Wagner here force it down your gullet with a stick. Ay, like a French goose. How did he like the water?'

  'He cried out.'

  Trom the cold, you suppose?'

  'Ay, sir.'

  'Was it a cry only? Was there some word?'

  'A name, sir.'

  'What name?'

  'I fancy it was Maria or Mary.'

  'Very good. Tell us. Dyer. Who is Maria? Wife? Sister? Whore?'

  'Perhaps he is a papist. I might make him talk, sir, if you wished it.'

  'No, Mr Wagner. Nothing of that. This is an enlightened age. Nature and philosophy are our guides.'

  'OOOWWWWWWWWW! OWW OOOOWWWWWW-WWWWWW!'

  'Gag him!'

  'My name is Adam. I have brought you some drink. Do not spill it. It is milk. Fresh milk. If you have money you may buy what you will here. If you are easy they will let off your chains and you may go out into the galleries. I have been in this place three hundred and nineteen nights. Three hundred and twenty days. I shall go free when the world grows sane. They are madder than us, friend, but do not tell them so. Tell them only what they wish to hear. They are fragile men. Now drink, for one must be strong to be mad.'

  'Dyer!' 'Answer!' 'Shall you speak to us today?'

  'Yes no yes no yes no yes no yes . . .'

  'What does he say?'

  'He says he shall speak.'

  'You will not howl today?'

  'No.'

  'Howling, sir, is for dogs. How came you those marks upon your hands?'

  'I do not remember.'

  'Note, Wagner. The lunatic is a very cunning creature. I wager he made those marks himself. Who is the woman you call Mary?'

  'I do not know.'

  'He is a great fluent liar. You know your own family, I suppose?'

  'They are all dead.'

  'What of your friends? Even a madman may have friends.'

  'I have none.'

  'Dyer! You wish to be free? To walk in the galleries?'

  'Sir, I do.'

  'What would you give to be free?'

  'I have nothing.'

  'And if you had, what would you give?'

  'Everything.'

  'Everything is too much, sir. It is a mad answer. Ha! We have him there, Wagner. Is the patient civil? Is he compliant?'

  'There are others worse than him.'

  'Well, we shall see. Another month. If he is a good fellow he shall have the irons off. See that he has fresh straw for his bed. I have never known such stinking. My dog would not step in here.'

  'Adam. I think I must die here.' 'Many think so at first.' 'And then?'

  'Those who do not die, live.' 'How do you live?'

  'By being no man's enemy.'

  'That is enough?'

  'I go away inside my head. There I may travel where I like, speak with whom I like.'

  'I heard a woman. Singing. Last evening or yesterday. I do not know when.'

  'The keepers bring them in at night. They are for the keepers' comfort.'

  'And are there mad women here?'

  'They are locked up separately. You may sometimes see them or hear them.'

  'Adam? How long have you been here?'

  'Three hundred and sixty days; three hundred and fifty-nine nights.'

  'Dyer!'

  'Sir?'

  'I wish to blister your head.' 'I beg you do not.' 'Why do you beg?'

  'When you blister my head the pain is very fierce.' 'Come now, there is no remedy without a little discomfort.' 'I beg you do not.' 'I think you do not wish to recover.' 'I do.'

  'I think you do not.' 'Sir, I do.'

  'Then I shall blister your head. I always get my way. Ain't that right, Wagner?'

  'Ay, sir, it is very true.'

  All Hallows 1768. James Dyer is freed from his chains. Though now at liberty to walk in the galleries he stays in his cell until Adam leads him out and introduces him to the society there. Cromwell, Pericles; half a dozen Old Testament prophets haggling with the beer-seller, the boy with his bucket of shellfish, the girl with her basket of oranges. O'Connor is the keeper; he remembers James and prods him in the chest with the end of his stick, up-ends him, then loses interest.

  From the stairs an addled Methodist, preaching in dumb, wards off swarms of diabolic bees. Other inmates sit or lie or stand: in rags, in motley, in blankets. They pick at sores, rock on their heels, moan, slobber, weep. At the feet of the Methodist a bald tailor sews nothing to nothing. The noises echo, like a bestiary in a cathedral.

  James points through the bars that separate the men from the women. 'What is that?'

  Adam says: 'They call it the Coffin. It is to punish those who are violent.'

  They walk to the bars. On the other side is a narrow box, five to six feet in height and set on two small iron wheels. Near the top of the box is a hole six inches across. Through it, James sees the pale dial of a woman's face.

  Adam says: 'It is Dot Flyer.' He calls to her: 'Good day to you. Dot.'

  Says James: 'How she must suffer.'

  'She is used to it. She is wild. The keepers fear her.'

  'Sure she is not always in the device?'

  'She has her calm seasons.'

  A voice speaks out of the Coffin, distant and solemn as an oracle. What is thy name?'

  *It is Adam, sister.'

  'And the other?'

  'He is called James. Lately sprung from his irons.'

  She starts to sing. Adam says: 'Her father was a musician. He drowned himself in a well.'

  Her voice swells, the song booms inside the box. A woman keeper, Passmore, raps on the wood. Dot Flyer rends the air with her song, chases out what silence is left in the place. In Bedlam. Another keeper comes. They wheel the Coffin away. The song dwindles.

  He sees her the following day; the shadow and glaze of her face. He goes to the bars, leans against them, presses his cheek against them. Sometimes her face seems to disappear, and then the device is like an empty clock case, standing on its trundle wheels amid the slotted light and dark of the gallery. The light comes through the windows of the open cells. On the wind he hears the sounds of the world without, its small music. The calling of cattle on Moorfields, the drumming of coaches and the swooping calls of the hawkers on London Wall . . .

  Then she blinks or turns her head and he is aware of her again. He does not speak to her. He wonders if she is watching him, or if, in her suffering, she watches no one other than herself. He whispers his greeting, waits, then shuffles back to his cell.

  She is not there the next day, nor the next. He does not see her for a week, and when he does there is no Coffin but he knows her by the quality of her stare. She is stood amid a court of madwomen and keepers, her copper hair shaved on to her skull, one eye bloated in a green bruise, a cold-sore flourishing on her lower lip. When

  he goes up to the bars she whispers to one of her gossips. All turn, laugh, Dot Flyer loudest of all. James is ashamed; of his rags, his old man's face, the way his movements are all graceless and cringing. Ashamed that he should want her to like him.

  Seeing him discomforted, the women laugh louder. One turns her back, hoists her skirts and moons him; a vast crumpled arse. Dot Flyer is not laughing now. She is looking at James, and there is something of Mary in her expression, so direct is it, so penetrating. Then, as if she has conclusively seen the presence or absence of what she was looking for, she walks away from him into the women's wing, her court processing behind her; a robust and miserable sisterhood, a sorority of the damned.

  In the darkest and most troubled reaches of the night, the graveyard watch, he seeks to know what it is he has become. What is he? A madman in a madhouse. A stranger to himself. At night incontinent in thought, sometimes in body. There are coarse grey curls in his beard.
His hands shake like the palsy. Some mornings when he wakes his leg so pains him that were there a weapon to hand he would destroy himself in an instant. He lives in terror of the Physician, of Wagner, of O'Connor, of all the keepers, even those who treat him kindly, for nothing disturbs him more than kindness. His heart is raw, and this woman, this daughter of a drowned father, moves him. Her name seeps into his sleep like water into a cellar. He thinks of her continuously. He avoids her. It is her name now he mouths when they force him naked into a corner and fling iced water over him; when they burn him for blisters; when they cup him; when they physic him on to his knees, the vomit burning in his nose, afraid he shall bring up his own stomach. Dot, Dot, Dot. What a beautiful name!

  To his amazement he acquires a despairing vanity. He begs the barber to shave him more closely, though the razor jags his face and makes the skin burn as though his sweat were the juice of an

  onion. He binds his hair with a ribbon of straw, digs out the filth beneath his nails.

  On the water in his pot one morning, as the bell rings for slopping out, he sees the reflection of another man. Not what he was, nor what he has become. It is the mirage of a possible self, unborn as yet, perhaps never to be born. A man poised on the edge of a lit and crowded room. He is smiling, and the eyes, though haunted, are calm. The memory of it dogs him for weeks. What impossible efforts must he make to become such a man? He must lose the carapace of madness; adopt the common valour of a common man. For that he is not ready. Not yet. In his prayers, his urgent mutterings to whatever god waits on lunatics, he begs deferment of this grace; the long postponement of salvation.

  'Mr Rose,' says the Physician, 'this man was brought to us from Russia. Precisely such a case of vitiated judgment as I describe at length in my Treatise on Madness. Mayhap you have read it?'

  Says Rose: 'I have heard it spoke of. How is he now?' 'He is not outrageous. I think we may make him right by and by. Should you care to feel his skull, sir?'