‘Lucinda, come to me,’ I said wearily. Why was I so tired? She did not seem to hear me. As long as I could see her, I thought,
she will be safe. ‘Why are we here?’ I asked Diprose.
‘We are going to see Sir Jocelyn,’ he casually replied.
‘Not, not, to operate!’ If I had had the strength, I would have gasped and clapped my hand over my mouth, but my arm would
not move.
‘Why, yes, you are right. To operate.’
‘You – are – evil!’ My speech was slurred. I tried to stand. ‘Let us out! Lucinda!’ Still, the smell. It was taking something
from me. My reason wafted on the syrupiness of the aroma. I was losing something to it.
‘Be calm,’ I heard him say. ‘Sir Jocelyn is not going to operate on your daughter.’
‘But you said . . .’ The smell was pungent, like fresh honey, or that confection, that contentment-of-the-throat confection
that Sir Jocelyn gave me, only more concentrated. I was finding something about the situation strangely amusing.
‘He is going to operate on
you
.’
I tried to tell him that I did not understand. I think I started to laugh. It was absurd. How extraordinarily funny it seemed.
‘Sir Jocelyn,’ Diprose continued, ‘has finally conceded that I have been right all along. Exposure to exciting material has
rendered you dangerous and troublesome.’ This, of course, only added to my mirth. ‘It is time to calm your uterine fury with
the surgical amputation of your clitoris.’
I don’t think I stopped laughing. Like a eunuch in a harem, I thought. Mutilate me, so I can serve without threat. My hilarity
grew. Was this what they called hysteria? In which case, Sir Jocelyn’s diagnosis was correct. So, what are you waiting for,
Charlie? Operate on me!
That saccharine gas must have been piped from the noxious exhalations above the river of Lethe, for as I drank in the ether,
I was transported to the depths of a valley that ran the length of the border between sentience and death. I rose upwards
every once in a while, and was able to peer over the valley sides in both directions, either towards death, or towards the
world I was leaving behind, but I was quickly dragged down again to the valley floor, where I languished for I knew not how
long.
But I saw visions when I rose, on which side of the valley I could not tell.
An ochre-hued man with a conical silk hat and a long robe.
A room, suffused with an almost spiritual concentration, empty except for a bed on which a woman was lying, face down, her
legs bare and spread apart.
A long stick of bamboo, with a fan of thin needles stuck into the end like a fantastical bookbinding tool.
A small, bespectacled woman carrying a tray of bowls.
An ivory hammer.
Lucinda, calling for me. ‘Mama, Mama.’
Silence.
A long-tailed pig,
Or a short-tailed pig,
Or a pig without any tail;
A sow pig,
Or a boar pig,
Or a pig with a curly tail.
Take hold of the tail
And eat off his head,
And then you’ll be sure
The pig-hog is dead.
I
found my cheek pressed against crisp white sheets, in a wet patch where my mouth had been drooling. I was lying on my front
with my legs apart, just like the woman in my vision, and staring at a wash-stand. The room was dark, but the moonlight was
shining through the window, directly onto the mirror that backed the wash-stand. The mirror was surrounded with tiles, which
were patterned intricately with cobalt and white designs. The moonlight brought the faces in them to life: the ovals were
eyes, the swirls between them noses. I used to play this game with the old wallpaper in my bedroom as a child, which was enhanced
by water stains and peelings.
I became aware of a burning sensation somewhere around the lower regions of my body, and struggled to recall where I had been.
Lucinda, I thought. Where was she? I lifted my head to see if she was in the room with me, and my pelvis groaned with the
effort. I laid my head back down on the bed. At least, I rued to myself, it was not Lucinda who had had to undergo this, and
I felt my body flood with a curious sense of relief, and gratitude even. I wanted to laugh again. Peace, at last. Where was
my shame? It had been removed, excised from my body. I had been suitably punished. Ah, the relief. Relief at last.
Slowly and with tremendous fear I worked my hand down between my body and the bed. I tugged at my skirts, and pulled enough
of them up by my waist to be able to get my hand between my legs. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find. Bandages stiff
with blood, presumably. But there were none. My thighs were smooth, and not sticky with drying fluids. My hair was still as
it should have been.
With trepidation, I placed the very tip of my middle finger where my clitoris used to be, and waited for it to descend into
an excruciating mess of tissues, a raw savage wound, and recoil in agony and disgust. Oh, but I was angry now. This was the
seat of my new-found sexuality. This was where Din had been. This was where I found myself. And now it had been taken from
me.
But it hadn’t. I touched it gently, and then more firmly, and it answered me willingly with its usual golden rush. I pulled
my finger away, not comprehending. This wasn’t right either.
The pain, I started to realise, was coming from my behind. I pushed upwards on my hands until my arms were straight and my
trunk almost upright, and twisted my head to see. My skirts were still covering my bottom, so I reached round and yanked them
upwards. But it was too dark; no light fell on the bed. In the darkness I passed my hand over the skin of my bottom. It was
a series of raised dots and small welts. It stung, like a scrape.
I stood up slowly; my head felt surprisingly clear despite my recent stupor. I twisted again to get a look at myself in the
mirror, but I could only see myself from the waist upwards. I stood on the bed; I was the right height now, but out of the
light. I got off the bed, and pulled it laboriously a couple of feet towards the mirror, and stood on it again, directly in
the shaft of moonlight. I pulled up my skirts once more, twisted round, and over my shoulder could see that the moonlight
was illuminating my bottom perfectly.
On the left cheek it seemed as if someone had painted an ivy wreath, in the centre of which was a portrait of a young woman
with a snub nose and an indoor cap and ribbons. She looked not unlike me. On the right cheek, someone had painted the insignia
of the Noble Savages, and the word
Nocturnus
underneath.
I rubbed at the artwork with my finger. It was too sore for me to press firmly, and when I examined my finger in the moonlight
I could see that not even a smudge of paint had transferred on to it. Comprehension only dawned very slowly. I knelt on the
bed, with my bottom in the air, for I could not sit down on it.
I had, I finally realised, been tattooed.
What had he, ‘Nocturnus’, said, in my bindery? ‘Strange to think we find such beauty in the posthumous scarification and gilding
of an animal’s hide. He had said that tooling was like a tattoo, on dead skin.’ What else? Of course. ‘I have left instructions
in my will to bind my complete works with the skin from my torso, with the scar left by the spear wound resplendent across
the front panel, and the tattoo round my navel on the back cover. Is it not a fine way to achieve immortality?’
One cannot tattoo leather, I thought to myself, only living skin.
My magnum opus
, he had called me, in Glidewell’s study. I had not thought to take him literally.
My skin was being prepared to become the leather for a future book.
I would be Volume Two.
* * *
This, surely, was a knowledge I was never meant to possess. Does a tree know of its life beyond the papermill? Had the buffalos,
crocodiles, goats, calves I had so casually used known of their destination? Or was only I to go to the slaughter with this
horrific awareness of my future reduction? I, who was once woman, was to become a book covering?
Sartor
Resartus
. The binder re-bound. Was I nothing more than the beasts of the field, air, swamps, prairies, which I now would join in death?
And when would that be? Would I be permitted to live to a ripe old age, and die of natural causes, after which Sir Jocelyn
would come and claim my hide? Not likely. It was reasonable to surmise that, pretty much as soon as my skin had healed from
the tattooing, I would die. I would, more precisely, be killed.
A key turned in the lock, and the door opened. ‘Ah, she is awake,’ Diprose said, as he entered, with Sir Jocelyn close behind
him. I glimpsed the corridor beyond them, and realised that we were back in Berkeley-square.
‘Good evening, my dear Dora,’ Sir Jocelyn said.
‘Lucinda,’ I said. ‘Where is she?’ They did not answer me. ‘Take me to my daughter.’ They took an arm each, and led me like
this out of the room, and down the stairs. I wanted to spit in their eyes. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Tell me where Lucinda is.’
I was really scared now. We passed maids, dusting cornices with long feather dusters, and Goodchild, carrying a tray. None
of them flinched at the sight of me. We went into Sir Jocelyn’s office.
A large leather trunk and two smaller wooden crates stood in the middle of the room. Many of the shelves were empty; the floor
was strewn with papers, books, and the paraphernalia of scientific exploration waiting to be packed: sextants, telescopes,
microscopes, compasses, even a portable bath. Was it here that they would kill me?
‘Be seated, Sir Jocelyn,’ Diprose said eagerly, and rubbed his hands together. ‘You, over here,’ he said to me, and pulled
me to the corner of the room behind the anatomy model. Vesalius’s
De humanis corporis fabrica libri septum
was still on the shelf; I spotted its large black and gold binding immediately. ‘Now, lift your skirts.’
‘I will not, Mr Diprose!’ I said, in a rage. ‘I will not!’ I clutched his hands with my own, and dug my flaky nails into his
flesh. He only smiled, and grabbed at my skirts. I pushed his hands down again, and kicked his shins with my boots, then seized
his greasy beard and yanked it firmly downwards, such that his chins bumped onto my collarbone.
‘Come, come, my little sauce-box,’ he chuckled. ‘You shall do me some damage, tiger.’
How dare he laugh? I scratched upwards into his eyes, but he jerked his head out of the way, caught both my hands in his,
then forced them down behind my back.
‘Possibly you enjoy antagonising me. I suggest you learn a little
obéissance
.’ His chest pressed against mine, his black whiskers scratched my cheeks, and his breath was hot and smelt of whisky. I could
see the fur on his tongue, the gold of his molars.
All the while Sir Jocelyn sat and watched us from the other side of the room, as if observing one of his fellow travellers
subduing some gibbering native in order to carry out an anatomical study.
‘Well, Charles. I see you are struggling to unveil your Galatea to me.’
Still holding my hands tightly, Diprose was able to turn me round, but as he tried to lift my skirts again I kicked him sharply
in the shins, and he howled with pain. He was not deft, or agile, and he was too old to have any real strength. If I continued
to struggle, I thought I could hold out.
But as I kicked backwards again, he intercepted my ankle with his foot, and I fell forwards. He would not relinquish his grip
on my hands, so he stumbled on top of me, and we collided with the anatomy model, which crashed to the floor too, and we were
a mess of limbs and organs, chipped paint and bruised bones, and Diprose was sitting on my back. He had my skirt up, and started
to investigate my bare buttocks.
‘Good, good,’ I heard him say, and felt his finger following the inky wounds. ‘Sir Jocelyn, I shall trouble you to attend
to us here, for I cannot persuade the termagant to come over to you willingly.’ I heard Sir Jocelyn rise, and slowly pace
over to us. He picked his feet carefully over the scattered pieces of his precious anatomy model.
‘You are evil,’ I hissed, at them both.
‘I prefer “exceptional”,’ retorted Diprose, still squatting ignominiously on me. ‘Sir Jocelyn, regard.’ Sir Jocelyn’s feet
were by my head; I could bite his ankle, I thought, if he takes half a step towards me. ‘May I present to you the cover of
your next
oeuvre
.’ I beat my fists on the floor, and tried to buck him off me. He was a dead weight. Sir Jocelyn was silent for a moment.
‘Quite exquisite, Mrs Damage,’ Diprose continued, ‘if I may say so,’ he said, as if congratulating a lady on her flower arranging.
‘And they are healing so quickly. Only minor scabbing. It won’t be long.’
‘What in the devil’s name have you done, Charles?’ Sir Jocelyn eventually said. His voice was low and urgent, as if his teeth
were clenched. ‘Get off her.’
Diprose’s weight shifted on my back, crushing my ribs into the floor. Then he stood up, and I breathed out heavily, and pushed
myself quickly up to standing, arranging my skirts.
‘Come, Sir Jocelyn,’ Diprose said hastily. ‘Could there be a more appropriate way . . . ? Just think of the beauty . . . The
perfect accord with . . . The pricelessness . . .’
‘Of what, Charles?’ I could not read Sir Jocelyn’s face.
‘Come, Sir Jocelyn,’ he said again. ‘This time I will prove to you I’m no circus master. You shall know that your masterpieces
are not made from white pigskin, unlike those shrunken heads and miniature mummies in the street shows.’
‘All this, because I didn’t believe your feeble inscription.’ Sir Jocelyn had started to laugh, shaking his head. ‘Really,
Charles, you have excelled yourself this time.’ He wiped a tear from his eye.
‘Why, thank you, Sir Jocelyn.’
‘You idiot, Charles,’ Sir Jocelyn snapped.
‘But, Sir Jocelyn, you told me to dispose of her,’ Diprose protested. ‘You have always referred to her as our whore. Before
I throw her into the Thames, I thought I might as well get our money’s worth. So they will discover that one of the many prostitutes’
corpses they find today has been flayed.
Qu’est-ce que cela peut bien faire
?’
‘I said that I believed she was coming to the end of her employment with us, and that we had to find a reasonable way of disposing
with her. Reasonable. Not barbaric.’
‘Dispose of . . .’
‘Yes, but I didn’t mean kill her! Relinquish. Remove. Not rub out! And reasonably, too.’
‘So what are we to do?’ Diprose asked. I looked from him to Sir Jocelyn, and back again. My future was held in their decision.
Sir Jocelyn walked towards me, looking me up and down.
‘I always thought you were too scrawny, Dora,’ he said at last. ‘Charlie, couldn’t you at least have found me a woman with
an arse that had been fattened on the cushions in the Dey’s harem? The perfect quarto, you said? Mrs Damage’s arse, I’m afraid,
will cover little more than an octavo, and a crown octavo at that.’
Mr Diprose’s vile mouth broke into a smile, then a laugh, and soon the two men were chuckling heartily at my demise, and I
knew I had no ally in Knightley.
‘Never mind,’ Sir Jocelyn continued. ‘She shall be our perfect pocket-book!’
‘And as for her daughter,’ Diprose adjoined, laughing so hard he could scarcely get the words out, ‘there’s no pleasure like
the ploughing of a first edition.’
Quicker than the men could follow what I was doing, I ran to the wall and seized one of the tribal spears, feathered with
orange and yellow. It came off easily in my hand, and I hurled myself with it towards Mr Diprose’s shaking back. I rammed
it in hard. It met with resistance. I saw his round, purple face turn to me with surprise; his eyebrows were lifted, and his
wet little mouth grinned over his shoulder at me. I battered the spear into him again, this time into his side, and then,
now he was facing me fully frontal, into his chest. Still nothing. He was still laughing, and looking at me in wonder. Possibly
the spear was blunt. Again, and again, I hammered it on to him, fear growing with every blow, from every angle I could, until
he simply caught hold of the shaft and held it upright to keep me from attacking him further.
‘I had not thought until now how fortunate I am to wear this wretched back brace,’ he said superciliously. ‘ “
The advantages
of scoliosis as a life-protector
.” Another treatise for you to write, Sir Jocelyn.’
But before he could finish smirking, the spear was removed from him and he was flattened against the wall with the same spear
across his chest, before any of us knew how it had happened. But then it became obvious, for the man holding the spear across
Mr Diprose, the man whose face was pressed up against his, eyeball to eyeball, and threatening to crush the very life out
of him there and then, was Din. Din, holding the spear, the same spear he had brandished at Sylvia’s bosom.