Читать книгу The Way of All Flesh - Ambrose Parry - Страница 9

THREE

aven lay in the dark for a while and concentrated solely on breathing. With his assailants gone, he felt relief flood through him, an uncontainable elation that he was not dead. Unfortunately this manifested itself in an unexpected urge to laugh, which proved far more containable under protest from his ribs. Were they broken, he wondered. How much damage had been done? Were any of his organs contused? He could imagine blood dribbling between the layers of the pleura, putting pressure on his bruised lung, constricting its expansion even now that the brute had removed himself.

He put the image from his mind. All that mattered was that he was still breathing, for now, and while that remained true, his prospects were good.

He put his hand to his cheek again. It was wet with blood and mushy, like a bruised peach. The wound was deep and wide. There was no option to return to Mrs Cherry’s without this being seen to.

Raven dragged himself to Infirmary Street, where he decided it would be best to avoid the porter’s lodge and the stern questions his appearance would surely prompt. Instead he made his way along the wall to the section most favoured by the house surgeons for climbing over. Henry and his peers used this means of ingress when they did not wish to draw attention to late-night excursions, as such behaviour might see them called in front of the hospital board. It took several attempts in his enfeebled state, but Raven eventually hauled himself over the wall before climbing in through a low window that was always left unlatched for this specific purpose.

He shambled along the corridor, leaning against the wall when his breathing became too laboured and painful. He crept past the surgical ward without incident, hearing loud snoring emanating from just behind the door. The noise was likely coming from the night nurses, who frequently imbibed the wines and spirits supplied for the benefit of the patients in order to ensure for themselves a good night’s sleep.

Raven made it to Henry’s door and knocked repeatedly on it, every second it remained unanswered adding to the fear that his friend was in a post-tavern stupor. Eventually, the door swung inward and Henry’s bleary and tousled visage appeared around it. His initial response was one of horror at what creature had visited him in the night, then came recognition.

‘Gods, Raven. What the bloody hell has happened to you?’

‘Someone took exception to the fact that I had nothing worth stealing.’

‘We’d better get you downstairs. That’s going to need stitching.’

‘I diagnosed that much myself,’ Raven said. ‘Do you know a competent surgeon?’

Henry fixed him with a look. ‘Don’t test me.’

Raven lay back on the bed and attempted to relax, but this was not easy given that Henry was approaching his lacerated face with a large suture needle. He was trying to recount just how many times Henry’s tankard had been refilled, calculating the implications for how neatly he would be capable of stitching. Drunk or sober, no quality of needlework was going to spare him a scar, which would be the first thing anyone noticed about him in the future. This was likely to have ramifications for his career, but he could not afford to think about that right then. Most immediately his priority was to remain still, but the pains wracking him and the prospect of Henry’s needle were militating against that.

‘I realise that it’s difficult, but I must ask you to refrain from writhing, and when I commence, from flinching. Part of the wound is close to your eye and if I get the stitching wrong it will droop.’

‘Then I will have to be rechristened Isaiah,’ he replied.

‘Why?’ Henry asked; then it came to him. ‘Mother of God, Raven.’

Henry’s expression was funnier than the joke, but any relief it gave Raven came at a sharp cost to his ribs.

Raven lay still and attempted to transport himself from the here and now, so that he was less conscious of the procedure. Unfortunately, his first destination, quite involuntarily, was Evie’s room, the sight of her twisted body appearing in his mind just as Henry’s needle first penetrated his cheek. He felt it push through the skin and into the soft layer below, could not but picture the curve of it bridging the sides of the wound before re-emerging, which was when he felt the tug of the cat-gut through his already ravaged face. It hurt far more than the Weasel’s knife, that being over in a couple of seconds.

He put up a hand as Henry was about to commence the second stitch.

‘Have you any ether?’ he asked.

Henry looked at him disapprovingly. ‘No. You’ll just need to tolerate it. It’s not as though you’re having a leg off.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. Have you ever had your face stitched?’

‘No, and that good fortune might be related to the fact that nor do I have an inclination to bark at the moon and pick fights with Old Town ne’er-do-wells.’

‘I did not pick any— ow!’

‘Stop talking,’ Henry warned, having recommenced. ‘I can’t do this if your cheek is not still.’

Raven fixed him with an ungrateful glare.

‘The ether doesn’t always seem to work anyway,’ Henry told him, tugging the cat-gut tight on the second loop. ‘Syme has just about given up on it, and with someone dying of the stuff recently, I think that will nail down the lid.’

‘Someone died of it?’

‘Yes. Down in England somewhere. Coroner said it was a direct result of the ether but Simpson continues to champion it.’ Henry paused in what he was doing. ‘You can ask the man about it yourself when you start your apprenticeship with him in the morning.’

Henry continued with his needlework, his head bent low over Raven’s face. He was close enough that Raven could smell the beer on his breath. Nonetheless, his hand was steady, and Raven got used to a rhythm of penetration and tug. No stitch was any less painful than its predecessor, but nor were any of them more painful than the ache in his ribs.

Henry stepped back to examine his handiwork. ‘Not bad,’ he declared. ‘Maybe I should conduct all my surgery after a bellyful at Aitken’s.’

Henry soaked a piece of lint in cold water and applied it to the wound. The coolness of the material was surprisingly soothing, the only pleasant sensation Raven had felt since his last swallow of ale.

‘I can’t send you back into the arms of Mrs Cherry looking like that,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll give you a dose of laudanum and put you in my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor for what’s left of the night.’

‘I’m indebted, Henry, truly. But please don’t allude to Mrs Cherry’s arms again. In my current state, the image is liable to make me spew.’

Henry fixed him with one of his scrutinising stares, but there was mischief in his tone.

‘You know she provides extra services for a small additional fee, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I gather many of her young lodgers have sought comfort in those arms. She’s a widow and needs the money. There’s no shame in it. I mean, between the scar and the droopy eye, you may have to begin revising your standards.’

Henry led Raven to his bed, where he lay down delicately. He hurt in more places simultaneously than he had ever hurt in individually. His face was full of cat-gut and, joking aside, he really might have to alter his expectations with regard to his marriage prospects. But it could all have been so much worse. He was still alive, and tomorrow was a new beginning.

‘Right,’ said Henry, ‘let’s get you that laudanum. And if you are going to be sick, please remember that I’m on the floor beside you and aim for my feet rather than my head.’