Alasdair Gray - Poor Things

“Yes,” said Baxter, and covered his face with his hands.

“So that poor old man really is my father? And that pole of a man who seems afraid to face me is my husband? And I ran away from him and drowned myself? O Candle please hold me tight.”

I am glad I did so because the General turned round.

He turned round and spoke in a crisp, thin, high-pitched voice which grew steadily louder.

“Stop shammin, Victoria. You remember perfectly well that Hattersley is your father, that I am your husband and that you ran away from home to escape from your wifely duties. This absurd story about drownins and morgues and loss of memory has been cooked up to hide the plain fact that for three years you have lived with a freak in order to glut your insane appetite for carnal intercourse, first with him, then with a lunatic libertine, and now with a low-bred ruffian. You are doin it now — here — before me eyes. UNHAND ME WIFE, SIR!”

He screamed the last words so loud I nearly obeyed him. One of his icy-blue eyes may have been glass but it matched the other so perfectly that I shuddered at the hatred I read in them. But I suddenly saw Baxter beside us, every inch as tall as the General and five times thicker, and unexpected support came from the old man who still gazed into the fire.

He said, “Do not talk about my Vicky like that, Sir Aubrey. You know whose carnal appetites drove her from home. If she is pretending to have forgotten then we should thank her. If she has truly forgotten it let us thank God.”

“I am ashamed of nothing in me treatment of me wife,” said the General sharply, but Bella gently untwined her body from mine and went to the old man.

She said, “You are trying to be kind so maybe you are my father. Let me hold your hand.”

He looked at her, twisting his mouth in a painful smile that reminded me of my mother’s smile, and let her take his right hand between both of hers. She closed her eyes and murmured, “You are strong. . fierce. . cunning. . but can never be kind, because you are afraid.”

“Not true!” cried the old man, snatching his hand away. “Strong, fierce and cunning, yes thank God, I am those. Those let me heave myself and your mother and you out of the stinking muck of Manchester, heave us all out by thrusting weaklings under it. I could not haul out your three little brothers — they died of cholera. But I fear nothing in the world except hunger, poverty and the sneers of folk with more money. Only a fool does not fear these, especially when he has suffered them. We all suffered from them until I squeezed your uncle out of his share in the workshop. He squealed like a gashed pig and tried to get his own back by joining Hudson — Hudson! The railway king! But I smashed him and Hudson too. Yes Vicky,” said the old man with a sudden roar of laughter; “your old father was the man who smashed King Hudson! But you are a woman and know nothing of business. Ten years later I had an Earl on my board of directors, was putting men into Parliament and employing half the skilled work-force of Manchester and Birmingham. Then one day you turned seventeen, Vicky, and I suddenly saw you were a beauty. I had been too busy to look at you before that or think of getting you groomed for the marriage market. So I dragged you straight to a Swiss convent where the daughters of millionaires are scraped clean and polished along with daughters of marquises and foreign princes. ‘Make a lady of her,’ I told the mother superior. ‘You will not find it easy. She is headstrong, like her ma once was — the sort of donkey who needs more kicks than carrots to drive her in the right direction. I do not care how long you take or how much it costs, but make her fit to marry the highest in the land.’ It took them seven years. Your ma was dead (feeble action of the liver) when you got home, and for your sake I was glad. Though a good wife for a poor man she was no use to a wealthy one. Her plain ways would have ruined your chances. Ee the nuns had turned you into a lovely thing — you spoke French like a real Mamselle, though your English still sounded Manchester. But the General did not mind — did you, Sir Aubrey?”

“No. Even her quaint dialect entertained me. She was the purest creature and prettiest thing I had ever met,” said the General broodingly. “She had the soul of an innocent child within the form of a Circassian houri — irresistible.”

“Did I love you?” said Bella staring at him. He nodded heavily.

“You adored him — worshipped him,” cried her father, “you had to love him! He was a national hero and cousin of the Earl of Harewood. Besides, you were twenty-four years old and he was the only man apart from me you had been allowed to meet. You were the happiest woman in the world on your wedding-day. I hired and decorated the entire Manchester Free Trade Hall for the reception and banquet, and the Cathedral choir sang the Hallelujah chorus.”

“You loved me, Victoria, and I loved you,” said the General hoarsely, “so we became husband and wife. I am here to remind you of that, and protect you. Gentlemen forgive me!”—and his right eye flickered disconcertingly toward Baxter and me—“forgive me for shoutin and insultin you. Perhaps you are honest men despite the circumstances, and me bad temper is notorious. For thirty years I served England (perhaps I should say Britain) by usin meself as harshly as the regiments I commanded and the savages I subdued. Not a muscle in me body is without its separate ache, especially when I sit down. I can only rest when perfectly prone. Will you allow me to rest for a moment?”

“Please do,” said Baxter.

Lawyer, doctor and detective sprang from the sofa. The doctor helped the General lie down flat on it.

“Let me put a cushion under your head,” said Bella, carrying one over and kneeling beside him.

“No, Victoria. I never use a pillow. Have you truly forgotten that?” said the General, closing his eyes.

“Yes. Truly.”

“You remember nothin at all about me?”

“Nothing certain,” said Bella uneasily, “yet something in your voice and appearance does seem familiar, as if I once dreamed it or heard it or glimpsed it in a play. Let me hold your hand. It might remind me.”

He wearily stretched out his hand but when her fingers touched it she gasped and pulled them back as if they had been scorched or stung.

“You are horrible!” she said, not accusingly, but astonished. “You said so on the day you fled from me,” he answered wearily, his eyes still shut, “and you were wrong. Apart from me military honours and social position I am a man like other men. You are still an unstable woman. Prickett should have operated on you after our honeymoon.”

“Operated? What for?”

“I cannot tell you. Gentlemen only discuss such things with their physicians.”

“Sir Aubrey,” said Baxter, “three people in this room are qualified medical men, and the only woman present is training to be a nurse. She has a right to know why you say she is an unstable woman with insane appetites who should have had a surgical operation after her honeymoon.”

“Before would have been better,” said the General without opening his eyes; “the Mahometans do it to their women soon after birth. It makes em the most docile wives in the world.”

“Hints are no use, Sir Aubrey. This morning in church your doctor whispered to me what he thinks — and you think — the name of your wife’s illness. If here and now he does not say it aloud it will be discussed in court before a Scottish jury.”

“Say it Prickett,” said the general wearily. “Bellow it. Deafen us with it.”

“Erotomania,” muttered his doctor.

“What is that?” asked Bell.

“It means the General thinks you loved him too much,” said Baxter.