19

‘And you say you’ve been suffering from these headaches since your last appointment?’

Dr Shivershev made a long, laborious effort of moving his chair from behind his desk to face mine. He yanked and pulled at the heavy old thing, which squeaked like an old man’s bones and struggled against the pile of the rug. Our knees were nearly touching now, just a sliver of air between us, as good as a steel barricade. He put his cold fingers either side of my jaw and asked me to open and close my mouth like a fish.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I bit my tongue,’ I said. I hadn’t bitten my tongue. We were like the last two children in a game of musical chairs, waiting for the music to start.

‘Only the last week or so,’ I said.

‘Pardon?’

‘The headaches. You asked how long I’ve had the headaches.’

‘Ah yes, I did. Any blurred vision?’

‘No.’

‘Please, look past here.’ He pointed to the tip of his ear with a tobacco-stained finger.

I became preoccupied by the size of his earlobes. They were huge compared to Thomas’s. My husband’s earlobes were small and attached, neat and purposefully arranged, as if Mrs Wiggs had trimmed, pressed and folded them. Dr Shivershev’s, by comparison, were fat and bulging, like uncooked mussels. What could be guessed about a man’s character from his earlobes? Because these two were as far apart as they could be. More importantly, could a man with fat earlobes be trusted? These were the things I filled my head with to stop the flow of embarrassingly indecent thoughts from intruding as the man’s fingers prodded and poked at my jaw.

At least he didn’t look as tired this time, and he’d shaved more recently. Less drunk, more doctorly, which was reassuring. No spots on his shirt. His office had been cleaned, and there were no piles of books sprouting from the carpet like forest mushrooms. I could see the pattern of the rug, the specimen jars had been dusted, and light bounced off the windows, all of which were now graced with curtains that had been tied back with rigid conformity.

‘My housekeeper found her way in,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ I said. I could only ever think of ‘ah’ or ‘oh’ when Dr Shivershev said anything. He gave so little away. I had the suspicion I bored him with my mundane Chelsea gripes. Perhaps Itchy Park vagrants elicited more enthusiasm. Encephalitis or a suffocating goitre might be enough to register a flicker of a response.

‘Irina moves things. It is not that I have a problem with her cleaning, but she moves things and I cannot find them, so we play this game of cat and mouse, all in sport, of course. I stole her key one day and she responded, rather ingeniously, I thought, by slipping a sheet of paper under my door, pushing out my key with a hatpin and dragging it back under. I had to ask how she did it. She had such a look of triumph on her face when she finally explained.’

‘I met your housekeeper – a very elegant lady.’

‘She is a countess by marriage. Before… Well, before. Romanian. Never play cards with her – absolutely ruthless.’

‘I saw you,’ I blurted out, sounding more than a little like a creep.

‘Oh?’ His turn for the ‘oh’. He picked up some spectacles from his desk and cleaned the lenses with his sleeve. I had never seen him wear spectacles.

‘At Itchy Park – I mean, Christ Church, in Spitalfields. The great white church down from the hospital. I was walking past this week and I saw you in the yard, with all the… the people who sleep there. Are you a Methodist, or a Salvationist? My grandparents were Methodists before they converted to Salvationists. I… wasn’t spying, Dr Shivershev. I was only walking past and saw you quite by chance.’

‘What were you doing in Whitechapel, Mrs Lancaster? I can’t imagine Chelsea housewives have much need to visit Spitalfields.’

‘I went to see the murder spots,’ I said, as if it were obvious. It sounded terrible, made worse by my excitable tone. Made so much worse by his uninterested silence. Still, I felt obligated to fill this by further uninvited explanation.

‘You know – the Whitechapel unfortunates, the women stabbed and mutilated. You must have heard. The whole city has heard of the murders. Are you to tell me you haven’t read of them at all?’

‘I don’t read the newspapers, Mrs Lancaster. I find them hysterical at the best of times. I find it impossible to read one without the feeling that someone is trying to make me angry at someone or something, when before the paper I felt ambivalent at best.’

‘They think they know the man now anyway. They say he is a Polish Jew, or Russian. Polish or Russian, I can’t remember – neither have the reputation of being trustworthy, do they? Anyway, they call him Leather Apron, a monster’s name, I think. He is so very vicious that even the other Jews have rejected him.’

‘The Russian ones or the Polish ones?’

‘I’m not sure. Do they not all mix together?’

‘I suppose it depends if the Russians trust the Poles or the Poles trust the Russians. Who knows? Maybe neither are to be trusted.’

‘Perhaps.’ I suspected he was making fun of me, but I was so taken with my own train of thought, I continued. ‘The police have torn apart two hundred houses looking for him. Do you remember Emma Smith?’

He shook his head, eyes down, and continued his polishing.

‘I’m sure you will. She had horrific injuries – beneath her skirts. They think she was a victim of this Leather Apron but that she was too frightened to speak the truth, even as she lay bleeding to death. She must have known she was dying… Or perhaps not.’

‘Tell me something, Mrs Lancaster. Why be so taken by these murders? It is a subject I have heard other doctors express confusion about, that their wives are also fascinated by these crimes. It seems… perverse.’

‘How so?’

‘Such gruesome crimes. Why would ladies especially be so enthralled by the macabre? It seems a misguided romanticism.’

‘Please, Dr Shivershev! I can think of a million reasons for being interested in the murders, yet it is so typical of men to assume a woman’s interest can only be of a romantic nature; about men, in essence. As if in between our busy day of daydreaming of children and wedding dresses we must now make time to swoon over a murderer. For goodness’ sakes! What of curiosity? The will to survive? Strategy and intrigue? These are not the sole domain of men.’

It was precisely these concerns that compelled me to keep my scrapbook on the murders, my personal study; it might not make much sense now but maybe at some point it would, wasn’t this how all scientific discoveries were made? I did not share with the doctor that I had taken up his suggestion of writing in a journal, but I was not done with making my point yet.

‘We are told when we are young to stay indoors, to never venture out at night, and we are raised on fairy tales in which we are in danger of being devoured by beasts at every turn, and yet a woman who dares to think and find ways to defend herself by learning about the very monster who hunts her is somehow an abomination. What do men expect a woman to be, Doctor? I’m sure I don’t know.’

‘Have you finished, Mrs Lancaster?’ he said.

‘Have you heard, Dr Shivershev?’

‘You were an excellent nurse, by the way.’

‘Was I? You never said.’

‘It was implied by its omission, like “thank you” in Spanish.’

‘How so?’

‘I always asked for you.’

‘Did you? I was not aware you even knew my name.’

‘I didn’t. I asked for the tall one.’

‘Is that why I was always given the worst shifts, at night?’

‘Yes. I like to keep my days free for my private patients, and the nights can throw up the real spectrum of the human condition.’

‘Yes, the nights could be especially creative in their variety. Well, it all makes sense now. I thought only that Matron wanted to punish me.’

‘I’m Jewish,’ he said, looking up, peering through the spectacles and checking how clean they were against the light.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You asked if I was a Methodist or a Salvationist. I’m Jewish. My mother was Jewish, my father Russian Orthodox, but it was my mother who made such decisions in the house and it was what she knew. Remove that hat, please.’ He put the spectacles back down on his desk and waved a nonchalant hand at my bonnet.

‘Oh,’ I said. Inside, I had withered, curled in on myself like a burned leaf. I took my bonnet off and set it down on the edge of his desk. I shuddered when I felt his hands at the back of my head. With his thumbs on the corners of my jaw, his fingers searched for something along my neck.

‘Any back or neck pain? Have you received any blows or fallen?’ he asked.

‘No.’

His fingers located the scab hiding in my hair.

‘Then how did you get this?’

‘I fell against the sideboard and cracked my head on the mirror above it. How stupid of me – I forgot it was there.’

‘Were you dizzy when this happened?’

‘Oh no, only clumsy.’ I laughed.

He walked back to his desk and sat down. The chair groaned under his weight. He was a little shorter than me, stocky even, with broad shoulders and bandy little legs. I imagined he ate like a horse when food was put in front of him yet would happily starve if left to his own devices. He didn’t look Jewish to me, though I only knew the Jews from Whitechapel and they were easy to identify by their dress. I had offended him with my ill-conceived attempt at conversation, and I had to fix it.

‘The book with the gold writing along the spine, is that Hebrew? I’ve seen some like it in Whitechapel. What does it say?’ I wanted to prove I was no bigot. So I ploughed into the topic with interest.

‘That book is a Russian medical text, Mrs Lancaster.’

‘The name Robert doesn’t sound very Russian.’ Or Jewish, I thought.

‘The V in my nameplate stands for Vasily, but seeing as I didn’t want to be beaten to death at boarding school, I changed it to Robert.’

‘Why Robert?’

‘Robert the Bruce. I couldn’t quite bring myself to take the name of an Englishman, so I made do with him. Do you know, I think, yes I’m sure, you are the first person to ever ask me about that. Are you always this inquisitive?’

‘Yes! My grandmother used to find it unbearable. As a small child I would ask her “Why? Why? Why?” about everything. I could never simply accept things as they were. She said it drove her insane.’

‘I can imagine. You’ve been carrying heavy loads with one arm, correct?’

‘My grandmother used my arm to keep herself steady when we walked.’

‘You are aware you stoop to one side?’

‘Yes, because of her very short stature.’

‘Do you still walk her?’

‘No, she’s dead,’ I said, and laughed, my second inappropriate reaction so far. This elicited a puzzled flash of his brown eyes, so I explained further. ‘That’s how I was able to become a nurse. If she were still alive, I would still be rotting in Reading, stooped to one side, bored. She died after a fever. It was quite unexpected. Although she was ill for years, the doctor thought she would outlive us all.’ It was mostly the truth.

‘You should correct your posture; it will give you back problems later.’

He glanced at my bonnet, a signal that the consultation was over. He looked at it again and then back at me, as if willing it onto my head.

‘Is there something else, Mrs Lancaster? I’m not known for my scintillating conversation and I charge by the hour, so for your husband’s benefit, you might want to come to the point.’

This was it. I told him about Mabel. He professed not to know who she was, but he was lying – every man noticed Mabel. I explained about the officer, the bruises, the baby, the manager of the shop and his violent wife – a little too theatrically, perhaps, for he seemed bored, and what I described sounded more like a Punch and Judy show. He didn’t react at all. I had no sense if this was going well or if, when I finished, he would shout at me.

‘What made you come to me about this? You know what you are asking for is illegal,’ he said finally.

I had no answer. What could I say? That my husband had told me he had a weakness for whores and abortions?

‘I saw you at Itchy Park and you seemed a man of compassion. I thought it worth the risk of asking.’ In my panic, I pitched straight for flattery. He said nothing. ‘What will you do? Throw me out, refuse to see me as a patient? It seems a small price compared to what Mabel must pay. If not you, then someone else might say yes. I will keep asking.’

‘For God’s sake, Mrs Lancaster! If you walk up and down Harley Street asking doctors to perform illegal operations, what do you think will happen? You have put us both in a dangerous position, and for what? A noble urge to occupy a bored housewife? I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened. Now, please, take that hat off my desk.’

He began to write notes, ignoring me. I refused to move or pick up my bonnet. I dug my fingers into the underside of my chair and shut my eyes. After what seemed like an age he coughed and I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, his nostrils flared.

‘So that we’re clear, Mrs Lancaster,’ he said, pointing at me with his pen, ‘I undertake charitable medical cases, along with a group of my peers: skin diseases, deformities, birth defects, infectious diseases. That’s why I was in your churchyard. I was there for charity, yes, but that was secondary to the scientific opportunity those people – unfortunately for them – represent. I’m not Jesus, Mrs Lancaster, despite being Jewish. I am a scientist. You should understand how scientists think – you married one.’

He stood up and began pacing up and down behind his desk, while I still sat lodged in the chair, gripping my seat.

‘I can’t just leave her,’ I said.

‘Yes, you can. You can do exactly that.’

‘I have an obligation.’

‘Please, Mrs Lancaster, spare me the Christian obsession with saving people from themselves. It’s nothing more than a narcissistic attempt to inflate the ego in the absence of any real purpose.’

That made me angry. I stood up. ‘Do not patronise me, sir. I’m not talking about God – I think he’s made it perfectly clear he’s not remotely concerned. I’m talking about offering someone a chance to rescue themselves. Didn’t you talk about miserable mothers giving birth to miserable children in poverty? Well, here’s one asking for help, ready to make a hard decision, live with the consequences and take responsibility, which is more than the father will ever have to do. Where should such a woman go, Dr Shivershev? Please do not say to Itchy Park. Would you help if you found her there?’

He stood still with his back to me, pretended he was organising books, but I knew he heard me. Aisling used to say that the past existed only to remind us to leave it behind. That this was the only way we could be free. Telling him about Mabel had not been enough, so I offered him a torrid little piece of myself. I told him that my parents had not died of scarlet fever and that in fact I had no knowledge of who my father was at all. I was born a bastard and my mother was still a child herself. I told him about how we lived together in a sordid little room in a dank little courtyard in the Nichol and how my mother was a prostitute who was strangled to death by a man whose company she kept. I couldn’t believe I was speaking these things aloud. I never had before. My voice shook as if it was trying to choke the words before they came out.

‘It is not necessary to leave things to chance, Dr Shivershev, or to God. How will Mabel end if I don’t help her? How will I end knowing I could have helped her? Isn’t this what science is for? So we can save each other when our Holy Father leaves us to suffer?’

The dust stopped floating between us, and after a long while Dr Shivershev dragged a piece of paper towards him as if it were the weight of a rock and started to write. When he’d finished, he folded it and pushed it across the desk towards me.

‘There is a woman who takes on this type of business. You are to give this to your friend. She is to go to this address and follow the instructions. This came from you and you alone. Do not mention my name. I will speak to them so they expect a woman with red hair.’

‘So you do remember Mabel?’

‘There is a cost attached. I assume you will take care of that,’ he said.

I took the folded paper, put my bonnet on and made my way to the door. He stayed in his chair. I was at the door when he said, ‘You should tell your friend this is not without its risks. And one more thing, Mrs Lancaster. I don’t suppose I need to stress that you are not to mention this to your husband. He is not a man I trust. I warn you, if this comes back, I will ruin you with what you’ve told me.’

‘As you can imagine, Dr Shivershev, I am very good at keeping secrets. I only hope you are too. And I do not blame you – I would not trust my husband either.’

*

I waited for the moment I could pass Mabel the envelope. Inside was the note and money. My own money. There was no way I could explain that amount to Thomas.

Mabel glanced around the interior of the milliner’s to see if anyone was watching, then gestured for me to wait. Once she was sure it was clear, she came the other side of the cash register and ushered me to a dark corner at the back of the shop. She stood with her back to the corner so she could see down the aisle.

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ she whispered. ‘Anything! Name it.’

I could not think of a single thing, and yet there was a multitude of things I did want. I wanted to reverse time and go back to the day before Aisling left me. I wanted to grab her hand and run away. I wanted never to have married and to still be a nurse. I wanted to have taken my chances with Matron Luckes, thrown myself on her mercy and asked for help and guidance. In hindsight, I’m sure she would have given it. I wanted to find others like myself. But what could Mabel do with any of those things? What was I meant to ask for? I supposed I did need new gloves.

‘You don’t need to do anything for me. I have everything,’ I said. I realised how smug this sounded and hoped Mabel didn’t think I was trying to make her feel worse.

‘I will pay you back,’ she said. ‘You’ll see. But now I’d better get on.’ She moved to leave and instinctively I grabbed her tiny arm. How would someone so fragile and small survive what was to come?

‘Mabel… you know, marriage isn’t everything, it’s more a concept really. The reality is a bit like being a nurse – or a Catholic, so I hear.’

She stared at me, confusion in her eyes.

‘That was a joke,’ I said.

‘Oh, I couldn’t tell.’

‘Aisling used to say that. I’m not very good at making jokes.’

‘No, I… On reflection, it was amusing, I think,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you must have found it terribly difficult after—’

‘Yes. I’m much happier now, thank you. I’ve been most fortunate.’ Now it was me who moved to leave.

‘Susannah?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you all right? You aren’t unwell, are you?’

‘No.’ I laughed, then remembered I was meant to be discreet, for Mabel’s sake. ‘Good luck,’ I whispered, and then said in a louder voice, ‘Your assistance has been excellent, Miss Mullens.’

‘Thank you, madam.’ Mabel smiled, then whispered back, ‘I’ll write to you when I get home. I’ll pay you back. I will.’