Exit wounds, p.5
Exit Wounds, page 5
“My body’s more of a slaughterhouse these days,” I said.
She laughed, low and dirty, and it still amazes me really, to think of it coming out of a mouth like hers. A face like that. It felt fantastic to make her laugh. We shared a big packet of crisps and I asked her why she came. “I mean, it’s not like you need to lose weight or anything.”
“You’re sweet.” She leaned her shoulder into mine and took another swig from her bottle. “I’m lazy,” she said. “I need to make myself get out and do things. Anyway, it’s a laugh, don’t you reckon?”
I did reckon, and I told her.
“I work in a stupid office,” she said. “The people are all right, I suppose, but I don’t want to see them after work or whatever. I think it’s good to meet people who aren’t anything like you are. People with different lives, you know?”
She had a voice it was easy to listen to. She wasn’t posh, but there wasn’t really an accent either. Just soft and simple, you know?
“What about you?” she asked.
I told her I was basically there to keep Maggie happy, and get some of the old fitness back. I mentioned that I used to box a bit and she said she could see it. That it was in the way I carried myself.
I had to hide my face in my glass, and I’d all but downed the rest of the pint by the time the blush had gone away.
“Someone needed a drink,” she said.
I went up to get us refills, and exchanged nods with Craig, who was standing in the open doorway with a fag on. I was deeply bloody envious and I might well have ponced one if Maggie hadn’t been around.
“Enjoying yourself?” he said. He tossed his fag end away and came back inside. He looked across at Zoe, then turned to me. His face said, Dream on, mate. It said, Yeah, she’s lovely, but look at me and look at you.
Or he might just have been waiting for me to get him a drink.
Oh Christ, who knows?
* * *
Things really started to go pear-shaped a few weeks later, when Zoe turned up looking like she did and Craig didn’t turn up at all. It was like I suddenly knew all sorts of things at once. I knew they’d got together, that everyone else had probably sussed it a damn sight faster than me, and I knew exactly what had happened to her face.
In class, I stamped on and off that bloody step like I could do it all day. Ruth said how well I was doing and when Zoe smiled at me, encouraging, I had to look away.
Afterwards, she didn’t turn towards the pub with the rest of us, and when I saw she was heading for the car park, I went after her. I tried to get a laugh when I caught her up; made out like I was knackered, you know, from chasing after her, but she didn’t really go for it. “Not fancy it tonight, then?” I said. “Not even a swift half?”
She was digging for car keys in her bag and keeping her head down. “I’ve got an early start in the morning,” she said.
I nodded, told her that one wasn’t going to hurt.
She caught me looking, not that I was trying particularly hard not to. It was like a plum that someone had stepped on around her cheek, and the ragged edges of it were the colour of a tea stain. There was a half-moon of blood in her eye.
“I didn’t know there was a cupboard open and I turned round into it,” she said. “Stupid.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“What is?”
“Have one quick drink,” I said. “Who am I going to share my salt and vinegar crisps with if you don’t?”
It was as though she suddenly noticed that my hand was on her wrist, and she looked down and took half a step back. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Look after yourself.” It came out as a whisper. I didn’t really know what else to say.
She didn’t turn up at all the following week.
* * *
Craig looked confused when I walked round the corner and grinned at him. It was halfway through the morning, and he’d come out the back entrance of the bank for a crafty smoke.
“All right, mate?”
“Ticking along,” I said. “You?”
He looked at me for a few seconds. Took a drag and shook his head. “How d’you know where I worked?”
“Zoe must have said, last time she came to the class, you know?”
Something in his expression that I couldn’t read, but I didn’t much care.
“Shame she stopped coming, really. We were all saying how she made the rest of us work a bit harder, trying to keep up.”
“She just lost interest, I think. Me an’ all, to be honest.” Then a look that seemed to say they were getting their exercise in other ways, and one back from me that tried and failed to wipe it off his face.
It was warm and he was in shirtsleeves. I was sweating underneath my jacket so I slipped it off, threw it across my arm.
“Are you feeling OK? You’ve gone a bit red.”
I stared at the pattern on his poxy tie. “I’m fine.”
He flicked his fag end away. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work …”
“How’s Zoe’s face?”
That took the smile away quick enough. Put that confused look back again, like he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.
“It’s fine now,” he said. “She’s all gorgeous again.”
“Not seen many shiners worse than that one. Cupboard door, she said.”
“Yeah, she forgot it was open and turned round fast, you know?”
I was just looking at him by now.
“What?”
I knew I still had that. You never lose the look.
“What’s your problem?”
Breathing heavily, a wheeze in it. For real some of it, like the red face, but I’d laid it on thick, just to get his guard down.
“I think maybe you ought to go home now,” he said.
I bent over, suddenly; dropped the jacket like I might be in some trouble. He stepped across to pick it up, which was when I swung a good hard right at his fat, flappy mouth.
It wasn’t the best punch I ever threw, but it did the job and I was watching the blood running down his shirt front as he swung me round and pushed me against the wall.
“What’s your game, you silly old bastard?”
I put my boot into his shin nice and hard. I tried to bring my knee up, but the pain in his leg must have fired him right up, because suddenly his fists were flying at me. It was no more than a few seconds. Just flailing really, like kids, but blimey, I’d forgotten how much it hurts. Every blow made the sick rise up. I felt something catch me and rip behind the ear; a ring maybe. Stung like hell.
When the gaps between the punches got a bit longer, I knew it was my chance to get a dig or two in, just to keep my end up, you know? The last one snapped his head back and he was already falling when the background went blurry and his face started to swim in front of me. I dropped my fists to clutch at my arm and heard something crack when he hit the deck, right before I went over myself. But trust me, it was the pain in my chest that put me down, and not him.
Not him.
* * *
Some people can take a punch. I learned that the hard way a long time ago. Then there’s the unlucky ones that can dish it out, that like dishing it out, but struggle a touch when they’re on the receiving end.
The ones with glass jaws.
I said as much to the two coppers at the end of the bed, when I found out he still hadn’t come round. A glass jaw or a thin skull, it’s much the same thing.
Blimey, the quacks are at me again …
Poking and prodding. Talking over me, like I’m deaf as well as everything else.
It’s not … pain exactly.
It’s warm and wet and spreading through my arms and legs like I’m sinking into a bath or something. They’ve got those things you see on the TV out again, like a pair of irons on my chest. Like they’re going to iron out my wrinkles.
Now they’re going blurry either side of me, same as that scumbag did when I was sorting him out. The sound’s gone funny too, and I’ve just got time to decide that some people don’t deserve to be missed and to wonder if the coppers are going to be annoyed or relieved, and then all I can see is her face.
Clear as you like …
That stain around her eye and the purple bruise. And then the music starts and I’m standing there; a silly old bugger in baggy shorts, sweating in front of that stupid plastic thing.
And it’s time to step up.
ON THE ANATOMIZATION
OF AN UNKNOWN MAN (1637)
BY FRANS MIER
JOHN CONNOLLY
I
The painting titled The Anatomization of an Unknown Man is one of the more obscure works by the minor Dutch painter, Frans Mier. It is an unusual piece, although its subject may be said to be typical of our time: the opening up of a body by what is, one initially assumes, a surgeon or anatomist, the light from a suspended lamp falling over the naked body of the anonymous man, his scalp peeled back to reveal his skull, his innards exposed as the anatomist’s blade hangs suspended, ready to explore further the intricacies of his workings, the central physical component of the universe’s rich complexity.
I was not long ago in England, and witnessed there the hanging of one Elizabeth Evans – Canberry Bess, they called her – a notorious murderer and cutpurse, who was taken with her partner, one Thomas Shearwood. Counterey Tom was hanged and then gibbeted at Gray’s Inn fields, but it was the fate of Elizabeth Evans to be dissected after her death at the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, for the body of a woman is of more interest to the surgeons than that of a man, and harder to come by. She wept and screamed as she was brought to the gallows, and cried out for a Christian burial, for the terror of the Hall was greater to her than that of the noose itself. Eventually, the hangman silenced her with a rag, for she was disturbing the crowd, and an end was put to her.
Something of her fear had communicated itself to the onlookers, though, and a commotion commenced at the base of the gallows. Although the surgeons wore the guise of commoners, yet the crowd knew them for what they were, and a shout arose that the woman had suffered enough under the Law, and should have no further barbarities visited upon her, although I fear their concern was less for the dignity of her repose than the knowledge that the mob was to be deprived of the display of her carcass in chains at St Pancras, and the slow exposure of her bones at King’s Cross. Still, the surgeons had their way for, when the noose had done its work, she was cut down and stripped of her apparel, then laid naked in a chest and thrown into a cart. From there, she was carried to the Hall near unto Cripplegate. For a penny, I was permitted, with others, to watch as the surgeons went about their work, and a revelation it was to me.
But I digress. I merely speak of it to stress that Mier’s painting cannot be understood in isolation. It is a record of our time, and should be seen in the context of the work of Valverde and Estienne, of Spigelius and Berrettini and Berengarius, those other great illustrators of the inner mysteries of our corporeal form.
Yet look closer and it becomes clear that the subject of Mier’s painting is not as it first appears. The unknown man’s face is contorted in its final agony, but there is no visible sign of strangulation, and his neck is unmarked. If he is a malefactor taken from the gallows, then by what means was his life ended? Although the light is dim, it is clear that his hands have been tied to the anatomist’s table by means of stout rope. Only the right hand is visible, admittedly, but one would hardly secure that and not the other. On his wrist are gashes where he has struggled against his bonds, and blood pours from the table to the floor in great quantities. The dead do not bleed in this way.
And if this is truly a surgeon, then why does he not wear the attire of a learned man? Why does he labor alone in some dank place, and not in a hall or theater? Where are his peers? Why are there no other men of science, no assistants, no curious onlookers enjoying their penny’s worth? This, it would appear, is secret work.
Look: there, in the corner, behind the anatomist, face tilted to stare down at the dissected man. Is that not the head and upper body of a woman? Her left hand is raised to her mouth, and her eyes are wide with grief and horror, but here too a rope is visible. She is also restrained, although not so firmly as the anatomist’s victim. Yes, perhaps “victim” is the word, for the only conclusion to be drawn is that the man on the table is suffering under the knife. This is no corpse from the gallows, and this is not a dissection.
This is something much worse.
II
The question of attribution is always difficult in such circumstances. It resembles, one supposes, the investigation into the commission of a crime. There are clues left behind by the murderer, and it is the work of an astute and careful observer to connect such evidence to the man responsible. The use of a single source of light, shining from right to left, is typical of Mier. So, too, is the elongation of the faces, so that they resemble wraiths more than people, as though their journey into the next life has already begun. The hands, by contrast, are clumsily rendered, those of the anatomist excepted. It may be that they are the efforts of others, for Mier would not be alone among artists in allowing his students to complete his paintings. But then, it could also be the case that it is Mier’s intention to draw our gaze to the anatomist’s hands. There is a grace, a subtlety to the scientist’s calling, and Mier is perhaps suggesting that these are skilled fingers holding the blade.
To Mier, this is an artist at work.
III
I admit that I have never seen the painting in question. I have only a vision of it in my mind based upon my knowledge of such matters. But why should that concern us? Is not imagining the first step towards bringing something into being? One must envisage it, and then one can begin to make it a reality. All great art commences with a vision, and perhaps it may be that this vision is closer to God than that which is ultimately created by the artist’s brush. There will always be human flaws in the execution. Only in the mind can the artist achieve true perfection.
IV
It is possible that the painting called The Anatomization of an Unknown Man may not exist.
V
What is the identity of the woman? Why would someone force her to watch as a man is torn apart, and compel her to listen to his screams as the blade takes him slowly, exquisitely apart? Surgeons and scientists do not torture in this way.
VI
So, if we are not gazing upon a surgeon at work, then, for want of another word, perhaps we are looking at a murderer. He is older than the others in the picture, although not so ancient that his beard has turned grey. The woman, meanwhile, is beautiful; let there be no doubt of that. Mier was not a sentimental man, and would not have portrayed her as other than she was. The victim, too, is closer in age to the woman than the man. We can see it in his face, and in the once youthful perfection of his now ruined body.
Yes, it may be that he has the look of a Spaniard about him.
* * *
VII
I admit that Frans Mier may not exist.
VIII
With this knowledge, gleaned from close examination of the work in question, let us now construct a narrative. The man with the knife is not a surgeon, although he might wish to be, but he has a curiosity about the nature of the human form that has led him to observe closely the actions of the anatomists. The woman? Let us say: his wife, lovely yet unfaithful, fickle in her affections, weary of the ageing body that shares her bed and hungry for firmer flesh.
And the man on the table, then, is, or was, her lover. What if we were to suppose that the husband has discovered his wife’s infidelity? Perhaps the young man is his apprentice, one whom he has trusted and loved as a substitute for the child that has never blessed his marriage. Realizing the nature of his betrayal, the master lures his apprentice to the cellar, where the table is waiting. No, wait: he drugs him with tainted wine, for the apprentice is younger and stronger than he, and the master is unsure of his ability to overpower him. When the apprentice regains consciousness, woken by the screams of the woman trapped with him, he is powerless to move. He adds his voice to hers, but the walls are thick, and the cellar deep. There is no one to hear.
A figure advances, the lamp catches the sharp blade, and the grim work begins.
IX
So: this is our version of the truth, our answer to the question of attribution. I, Nicolaes Deyman, did kill my apprentice Mantegna. I anatomized him in my cellar, slowly taking him apart as though, like the physicians of old, I might be able to find some as yet unsuspected fifth humor within him, the black and malignant thing responsible for his betrayal. I did force my wife, my beloved Judith, to watch as I removed skin from flesh, and flesh from bone. When her lover was dead, I strangled her with a rope, and I wept as I did so.
I accept the wisdom and justice of the court’s verdict: that my name should be struck from all titles and records and never uttered again; that I should be taken from this place and hanged in secret and then, while still breathing, that I should be handed over to the anatomists and carried to their great temple of learning, there to be taken apart while my heart beats so that the slow manner of my dying might contribute to the greater sum of human knowledge, and thereby make some recompense for my crimes.
I ask only this: that an artist, a man of some small talent, might be permitted to observe and record all that transpires so the painting called The Anatomization of an Unknown Man might at last come into existence. After all, I have begun the work for him. I have imagined it. I have described it. I have given him his subject, and willed it into being.
For I, too, am an artist, in my way.
THE PITCHER
SARAH HILARY
It took a day and a half to find the bloody place. You’d think tracking down la tasca, an authentic Spanish tavern on the west coast of England, would be a piece of cake, but trust me. A day and a half. The rental car guzzled petrol; I had to refuel twice en route from London, tackling the last leg on foot having parked, after a fashion, in a hedgerow rotten with blackberries. My sandals were thick with dust by the time I reached the whitewashed shack with its red roof, a jaunty blue sign bearing the unlikely name of TIMANFAYA.
