Alasdair Gray - Poor Things

“I have done nothing wonderful,” he said gloomily, putting the other rabbit down. “In fact I’ve done something rather shabby. Mopsy and Flopsy were two ordinary, happy little rabbits before I put them to sleep one day and they woke up like this. They are no longer interested in procreation, an activity they once greatly enjoyed. But tomorrow I will put them back together in exactly the way they were before.”

“But Baxter, what can your hands not do if they can do this?”

“O, I could replace the diseased hearts of the rich with the healthy hearts of poorer folk, and make a lot of money. But I have all the money I need and it would be unkind to lead millionaires into such temptation.”

“You make that sound like murder, Baxter, but the bodies in our dissecting-rooms have died by accident or natural disease. If you can use their undamaged organs and limbs to mend the bodies of others you will be a greater saviour than Pasteur and Lister — surgeons everywhere will turn a morbid science into immediate, living art!”

“If medical practitioners wanted to save lives,” said Baxter, “instead of making money out of them, they would unite to prevent diseases, not work separately to cure them. The cause of most illness has been known since at least the sixth century before Christ, when the Greeks made a goddess of Hygiene. Sunlight, cleanliness and exercise, McCandless! Fresh air, pure water, a good diet and clean roomy houses for everyone, and a total government ban on all work which poisons and prevents these things.”

“Impossible, Baxter. Britain has become the industrial workshop of the world. If social legislation arrests the profits of British industry our worldwide market will be collared by Germany and America and thousands would starve to death. Nearly a third of Britain’s food is imported from abroad.”

“Exactly! So until we lose our worldwide market British medicine will be employed to keep a charitable mask on the face of a heartless plutocracy. I keep that mask in place by voluntary work in my east-end clinic. It soothes my conscience. To transplant a simple abdomen would need an operation lasting thirty-three hours. Before I started I would spend at least a fortnight discovering and preparing a body compatible with my patient’s. In that period several of my poor patients would die or suffer great pain through lack of conventional surgery.”

“Then why spend time refining your father’s techniques?”

“For a private reason I refuse to disclose to you, McCandless. I know this is not the frank answer of a friend, but I now see you were never my friend, but tolerated the company of a harmless, insignificant madman because other well-dressed students would not tolerate yours. But have no fear for the future, McCandless, you are a clever man! Not brilliant, perhaps, but steady and predictable, which people prefer. In a few years you will be an efficient house-surgeon. All you hunger for will be obtained: wealth, respect, companions and a fashionable wife. I will continue to seek affection by following a lonelier road.”

While speaking we had re-entered the house and climbed again to the dim lobby where the five dogs sprawled upon Persian rugs. Sensing their master’s hostility they erected their necks and ears and pointed their noses at me, then grew as still as dog-faced sphinxes. In the stairwell above I sensed rather than glimpsed a head in a white cap staring down over the banisters of a landing, perhaps an ancient housekeeper or maidservant.

“Baxter!” I whispered urgently, “I was daft to say these things. I promise I did not mean to hurt you.”

“I disagree. You did mean to hurt me, and have done so more than you intended. Good-bye.”

He opened the front door for me. I grew desperate. I said, “Godwin, since you have no time to publicize your father’s discoveries and your refinements on them, lend the notes to me! I’ll make it my life’s work to publicize them. I’ll attribute everything to you— everything , without ever trespassing on your valuable time. And when the public outcry comes — for there will be huge controversy — I will defend you, I will be your bulldog just as Huxley was Darwin’s bulldog! McCandless will be Baxter’s bulldog!”

“Good-bye, McCandless,” he said inflexibly, and the dogs were growling, so I let him usher me onto the doorstep where I pled, “At least let me shake your hand, Godwin!”

“Why not?” he said, and held one out.

We had never shaken hands before nor had I looked closely at his, perhaps because in company he kept them half-hidden by his cuffs. The hand I intended to grasp was not so much square as cubical, nearly as thick as broad, with huge thick first knuckles from which the fingers tapered so steeply to babyish tips with rosy wee nails that they seemed conical. A cold grue went through me — I was unable to touch such a hand. I shook my head wordlessly at him, and he suddenly smiled as he had done in earlier days when I winced at the sound of his voice. He also shrugged his shoulders and shut me out.

Then came the loneliest months I have known. Baxter no longer came to the University. The bench was removed from his old workspace, which became a cupboard again. I strolled round Park Circus at least once a fortnight, but saw nobody enter or leave his front door, and I lacked courage to climb the steps and knock. Yet clean unshuttered windows showed the house was occupied, and I should have realized that when not with a visitor he would prefer to use the servants’ entrance through the back garden. My longing for his company was not mercenary, for I no longer thought him a scientific miracle-worker. My studies showed we could not even graft the forepart of a worm or caterpillar to the hindpart of another. This was twenty years before Jannsky identified the main blood groups, so we could not even transfuse blood. I classified my experience of the rabbits as a hallucination based on a natural coincidence and provoked by something hypnotic in Baxter’s voice, yet at weekends I followed old paths through woodlands and moorlands because they recalled our conversation when we walked them together. And of course, I was hoping to meet him again.

One cold bright Saturday when winter was becoming spring I walked up Sauchiehall Street and heard what at first seemed an iron-shod carriage wheel scraping a kerbstone. A moment later I recognized a familiar voice saying, “Bulldog McCandless! How is my bulldog this weather?”

“A lot better for hearing the sound of your ugly voice, Baxter,” said I. “Have you never thought of getting a new larynx? The vocal chords of a sheep would twang more melodiously than yours.”

He walked beside me at the usual stumping trudge which carried him as fast as my own swift stride. A walking-stick was clenched under his arm like an officer’s baton, he wore a curly-brimmed topper on the back of his head, his chin was held high and an exuberant smile showed he now cared nothing for the glances of other pedestrians. With a pang of envy I said, “You look happy, Baxter.”

“Yes, McCandless! I now enjoy more flattering company than you ever provided — a fine, fine woman, McCandless, who owes her life to these fingers of mine — these skeely, skeely fingers!” 6

He wagged them in the air before him as if playing a keyboard. I was jealous. I said, “What did you cure her of?”

“Death.”

“You mean that you saved her from death.”

“Partly, yes, but the greatest part is a skilfully manipulated resurrection.”