Will You Walk With Me A Way?

 

Dorothy Davies

Still water

 

Will you walk with me a way?

            Not far, just to the end of this road. 

            I am...empty inside and need a few moments of interaction with someone. Oh my, that sounds so formal, doesn’t it? In truth, though, to ask you for a few moments of idle chatter, or gossip would be nonsensical. Especially with what I have in mind.

            You look wet, is it raining? Oh I see; it’s that fine drizzle that no umbrella can ward off, so you didn’t bother. Me? No, I don’t get wet. Call it a shield if you like, rain tends to avoid me.

            Tell me, how are things at the nursing home these days? Does the garden bloom as fine in spring and summer as it used to? I recall the days of sitting out there, listening to the birds that would be singing as if their lives depended on it, the insects buzzing and flitting hither and thither as if their lives depended on it … come to think of it, they did. But us, the static ones, we stayed where we were, in our wheelchairs or sun loungers or wherever the staff had put us, there to bake in the heat until they took us back into the coolness of the home once more. Not a word of complaint from any of us, you know that, but oh the longing at times for shadow, cool water and rest from unremitting sunshine was overwhelming. But it was life and despite its many, many drawbacks, we clung to it tenaciously. Why? I wonder now why I did not just give up and drift away.

            The big problem really, for all of us, is memories.

            They hurt.

            ‘Sometimes memories walk a little hard.’ The wisest words I ever heard, from the most wonderful person I ever knew, my maternal grandmother. Oh she was right! How hard do the memories walk when your means of perambulation is either wheels or a walker? You recall the times when three strides would take you to the door, the cupboard, the TV, whatever/wherever. You recall the way you could walk freely down the road, wander round the shops, visit restaurants and museums, libraries and stately homes. Can you even begin to imagine not walking?

            Of course not.

            It doesn’t come to all of us but enough … oh yes, enough.

            But look at me now. Do I not walk well? Proud, tall and easy? Not so much as an ache in the hip joints or knees, the ankles flex and move as they should. Ah, the joy of it.

            You? You are too young still, in terms of experience, to fully understand the joy I feel at being free to walk again.

            I have to ask … do you not remember me? The old cantankerous lady who sat in her wheelchair in the garden and demanded cool drinks and ice cream and got neither? Do you not recall how I asked for shade and had none offered to me? Do you not know the suffering you put me through, you who were paid to care and didn’t?

Well, I got you to walk with me a way. And look, here we are, right by the cemetery which is now my home. Oh, you will not escape me this time! Now I see the horror on your face as I cast off the mask of humanity and show you what I am. A skeleton.

            Bony hands can grip harder than flesh covered ones, can’t they?

            Will you walk with me a way? Let me show you where I lie, here in the cold earth, with not so much as a snowdrop to lighten the darkness of the earth. No one cared, did they … and you, you were one of the worst. Did I not see you laughing behind closed doors at those who pleaded for respite from sun and thirst and were ignored?

            Oh, you did not know, did you, that after I left your side of life I returned, over and over again, to watch, to record, to – all right, stalk you if you like.

Here we are. This is my narrow bed.

            Will you share it with me for a while?

            Like, eternity?

 

Dorothy Davies lives on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England.  There she works as an editor, writer and medium, channelling books from the rich (and not so rich) and famous from all eras of history, ancient through modern.  Her novels are available from Amazon. She edits and features in Static Movement anthologies.

 Her latest book, I Bid You Welcome, is available from

https://www.createspace.com/3840578 

Check out my writing website:
www.notes-from-a-smaller-island.com

 

For The Greater Good

Dorothy Davies

A stiff whisky

‘Shut the damn door, Crouch!’

‘What’s up, Joseph?  Too cold for you?  Get too hot in here and the stiffs’ll start to rot.  That what you want?'

            ‘ No, just some heat for them as are drinking, is all.’

            Ben Crouch studied the belligerent face of the landlord, wondering what the problem was this night.  He'd had his share of the advance paid out by the surgeons to get the bodysnatching season underway, what else did he want?

            ‘All right, look, the door’s shut.  Now if any of the medical students wants to come in and take a look at the stiffs, they better be quick about it ‘cos if they start smelling we got problems.'

            Joseph Durham swabbed at the bar with a dirty cloth, a token gesture of cleanliness which fooled no one, least of all Ben Crouch and his cronies.  Ale was poured into a thick tankard and pushed along the bar until the ex-prize fighter was able to grasp it and lift it to his lips.  He spluttered and coughed.  ‘In the name of all that’s holy, Joseph, what the hell’s that?’

            'My best ale,' Joseph retorted. 'Shows you got no taste, Ben Crouch!’ A ripple of laughter went around the Fortune of War pub.  The regulars knew of the ongoing half-friendly half-nasty banter between the two men; it had been going on for a long time.  It seemed to get worse when the bodies were laid out in the back room, awaiting Sir John Abernethy's minions to come and assess the haul.  Digging up bodies was not illegal, stealing a grave shroud was.  Technically, the Fortune of War was not acting illegally in displaying the bodies, but Joseph Durham was happier when they were not there.

            Even as he thought this, the door opened and two medical students came in.  One was new, his nerves showing even as he tried to hide them.

            'Sir John asks...'

            'Three big ones and one half size out the back.’ Ben Crouch gestured with a sweep of the arm clad in a most elaborate jacket.  The ruffles on his shirt showed, the lights in the public house glinted on his gold jewellery.  He was the most dandified person in the place and stood out because of it.

            The more experienced student made straight for the back room, the other hesitated in front of Ben Crouch.  ‘You the famous prize fighter, Sir?’ he asked with obvious awe.

            ‘That I am, sonny! You heard of me then?’

            ‘I have indeed, sir.  My father has seen many of your fights and said you were one of the best.  I am honoured to meet you, sir.'

            Ben Crouch seemed to grow several inches in all directions in the light of the compliment.  A huge grin split his face and he grasped the young man's hand.  'Right pleased I am to meet you, young man.  Gonna be a surgeon, are you?'

            'I would like to be, sir, I need to see how I get on with the dissection.’

            ‘Nothing to it,’ one of Ben Crouch’s ‘helpers’ butted in.  ‘A body’s a body for all anyone ever wants to say to you about it.  When they‘re dead they’re just meat.’

            Ben Crouch realised the young man was beginning to go rather green, so he clapped him on the shoulder, turned him toward the bar and shouted, 'give this boy a shot of the best hard stuff, would you?  Put it on my bill.'

            A very small glass containing an extremely dark liquor was put on the bar and the young men took it hesitantly, looking at Ben Crouch for encouragement.

            'Drink it down in one go,' he advised, 'then go take a look at the stiffs, go report back to Sir John and tell him we have a right good collection here for him this night.'

            The drink disappeared, the young man coughed and went very red in the face, but it seemed to give him courage.  His associate was beckoning to him from the back room, he walked boldly over and looked in.  'Look all right to me,' he said, his voice slurring very slightly. 

            'But you haven't looked properly!' 

            'Don't need to.  Mr Crouch here says to tell Sir John he has a right good collection for him this night.  Don't need to know any more than that.’

            It was obvious that the other young man was nerveless when it came to dead bodies.  He looked at his slightly drunk companion with disgust.  'We'd better get back then, seeing as how we have a message for Sir John himself.’

            The two young men left the pub.  The drinkers waited until they were out of earshot before they broke into riotous laughter.  Ben Crouch laughed so hard he had tears pouring down his face.  'I never saw anyone drink your liquor like that before, Joseph, good job he don't know what it is!'

            Joseph Durham joined in the laughter.  'Tis naught but the dregs of all that gets left,' he said through his mirth.  ‘And there was him thinking he had my best hard stuff!'

            The door opened and everyone turned to look, expecting to see medical students come to take the bodies away.  Instead the imposing figure of Sir John Abernethy stood in the middle of the floor.

            'Was that your idea of a joke, Crouch?' he demanded.   ‘If it was, it was damn fool, that student is trying to project his stomach out through his mouth outside Bart’s at this moment.  He will soon find it a medical impossibility.’

            Joseph Durham wiped his eyes with the corner of his apron.  'Was but a small jest, sire, the lad were that green at the mere thought of the stiffs, we felt we had to boost his courage a bit.’

            Sir John's stern face cracked into a small smile.  'I can see why you did it, but you must have given him some strong stuff for him to be vomiting it so quickly.'

            'While you’re here, sire, take a look yourself at what we have the night.'  Ben Crouch moved quickly to cover up the moment, knowing they had played a mean trick on the student

            'I will, Crouch, that's a good idea.'  Sir John strode over to the back room and looked in.  'You were right, fine ones tonight, I'll get someone across to collect them.  We can get on with the dissection in the morning.’

            The surgeon walked out of the pub, leaving behind a sense of anti-climax.  It had been a small joke, it was a shame it had such a violent effect so quickly, but on the other hand, Sir John had not made trouble over it, he must have realised himself that the boy was nervous, not having seen a dead body before.  He must also have known that to send somebody so naive into the den of body snatchers was asking for trouble.  Or so Ben Crouch reasoned to himself, as he could find no other explanation for Sir John’s attitude.  He sighed, patted the pocket where the guineas rested and thought bodysnatching was a good deal easier way to make money then prize-fighting had ever been.  This way he didn't have to get hurt, he didn’t have to train, he didn't have to pummel another man into the ground, just to use his cohorts to get them out of the ground and into Bart’s Hospital, there to be dissected for the greater good of the rest of the population.

            Feeling very benevolent at that moment, he threw a golden guinea at Joseph Durham.  ‘Drinks for everyone,' he said, just as the students arrived and took the bodies away.

Factual note:

In one year 8 bodies went into Guy’s Hospital in London for dissection and 137 bodies went into St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London.  No contemporary books make reference to Sir John Abernethy’s use of the body snatchers but it is a matter of record that Ben Crouch and his gang supplied the hospital with all that they needed in the way of ‘raw material’ for their anatomy lessons.  Ben Crouch was known as the ‘Corpse King’.  Records show that Joseph Durham was indeed the landlord of the Fortune of War public house at that time. The building no longer exists; in its place is a banking establishment which has a plaque set in one wall commemorating the Fortune of War and its place in the bodysnatching story.  When I researched the background for my novel on the bodysnatchers (still being written) my mother told me that her father used to drink in the Fortune of War pub...

Bio: Dorothy Davies is a writer and medium who is fascinated with history and the way it reflects on modern life. She is also a horror fan and likes to include horror/ghostly elements in her work. She lives on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, reputed to be the most haunted place in the UK.  It suits her well.

Blood On The Rose

Dorothy Davies

Ruby Grapefruit Juice

You see me not.

            How could you see me? I am no more than the morning mist which rises from the dewed grass as the sun touches it at dawn. I am no more than the fleeting touch of a spring breeze as it passes by your face and you reach out to touch it only to find it gone. I am no more than a name in history even if that name does resonate with you in your lessons on monarchs of the past. No one knows the truth but those who lived then, those who walked, talked, cried, laughed and loved. Oh, how we loved!

            The sorrow of it is, the heartbreaking truth of it is, we loved the wrong people.

            I loved the wrong person.

            It is 469 years now since I laid my head on a block and had it severed from my body. 469 years I have had to regret my actions – but you will note, you who seek the fleeting breeze and the touch of mist at dawn – I said I have had the time to regret, not that I do.

            It was my Uncle Norfolk’s fault, he encouraged and coerced and in the end, blackmailed and blustered me into attracting His Majesty’s attention. It was not difficult, a saucy glance, a bounce of curls, a hurrying away with breasts moving and thighs pressing the silks I wore, skirts lifted enough to show slender ankles, knowing his eyes were firm fixed on me and he was mine for the taking.

            But I didn’t want to take him.

            Know this; then he was not a fine handsome king but an old man, to me anyway, carrying much weight and much illness. The sore on his leg smelled as if a doorway to hell had been left open after the bodies had been in the fire for a while; his smile was an array of teeth and no teeth where the apothecary had removed the bad ones and all in all, I have to say, what was left to be considered was the fact he was King Henry VIII, that I could be queen and have endless clothes, jewels and money.

            Was it enough? I pondered this long into the night, tossing and turning in my bed until my curls were tangled and my bed a snarled mess of coverlets and pillows punched out of shape. In the end, family avarice overcame my scruples. It will not be long, they told me, he will die and you will be rich. And so will we.

You hear me not.

            I speak but the words are no more than the rustling of the grass or the crunch of the gravel as you walk. I can speak and I do now speak of my love, my Thomas, my life, my soul, who I had to reject to marry His Majesty and how I could exchange one huge body and stinking ulcer for the slender strength, the cleanliness and the arms of Thomas Culpeper is beyond me even now, as I think on it.

            Know this, though, I did my duty as wife and Queen. Did I not let him fondle my young body before others at banquets and the like, did I not control my face when he released the wind from his bad digestion and filled the room with a smell almost as bad as his ulcer, did I not let him lean on me when he could not walk well because the leg was paining him so? I did all this and so much more. Can you begin to understand how it felt to ride this gross body, to feel his thrusting, to know I could become pregnant by a man I had fast learned to hate with a deadly burning hatred?

            And yet he was kindness itself. He thought of me, he treasured me; he called me his rose without thorns. I had clothes and jewellery finer than any I had ever possessed in my life. I had fine apartments and servants and my Lady Rochford as companion, I had horses and squires and all would bow down before me and grant my every wish. And that of my uncle, too, soon the family had the honours they so wished. And I cried myself to sleep every night in longing for my Thomas.

Why do you not sense me?

            I am the presence that haunts the grounds of Hampton Court, where I could find happiness for a while, where I could walk with those I loved and feel the touch of their fingers folded around mine, see their smiles which were radiant and their faces which were full of love.

            Warn me not of the Lady Rochford. How naive was I not to think she would seek revenge for the killing of the Boleyns, how swiftly did she introduce the thought I could bed with Thomas and not let His Majesty know a thing. So I did and I had nights of pleasure and days of anxiety, fearing not for myself but for those I loved so dearly. I am right glad, even now, that she followed me to the block, for did she not corrupt my life and my thoughts entirely? Did she not lead me astray? And did I not go willingly, fool that I am?

            Of course he found out. Of course the court is nothing but the biggest gossip place in England and soon enough my husband, the king, was presented with a record of my infidelities.

            He sent that sour faced Cranmer to tell me I was confined to my chamber; he told me too that my beloved secretary Francis Dereham and my lover, Thomas Culpeper, were at the Tower. I knew all was lost for they would have been tortured – my love, my life, my Thomas, in the hands of the torturers! Was ever love such a painful thing?

            They moved me from here to Syon Palace but a prison is a prison for all that.

            They tore my lover’s body apart, hanged him and held up his guts before his eyes and that day I knew true desolation. That day I knew I wanted to die, that there was no reason to live, that even if I could have persuaded my husband the King to let me live there would have been no life in me. So why even try?

            Do you sense me now, oh visitor who comes to idle away the hours in a stately home beyond your imagining? For then we knew how to live, with magnificence and with wealth, did we not?

            The time between my imprisonment and my execution was a thousand years – in my mind. They tell me now I went bravely to the block, but when love dies, when your only love dies, what is there left to live for?

            Now tell me, visitor who knows me not at this moment, how do I find my Thomas? His body was cut into four and taken to the four corners of London. His head was impaled on a pike. But where is Thomas himself? I can find him not, though I search Hampton Court endlessly, endlessly, looking for him.

            I bid you, if you can at all see hear or sense me, be compassionate with this lonely queen who only sought love in the arms of the man she loved beyond all reason, help me find my one love.

            I can, at times, create a single drop on the perfect roses in the gardens.

           

Tell him he will know where I am by the blood on the rose.

Dorothy Davies lives on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England.  There she works as an editor, writer and medium, channelling books from the rich (and not so rich) and famous from all eras of history, ancient through modern.  Her novels are available from Amazon. She edits and features in Static Movement anthologies.

 Her latest book, I Bid You Welcome, is available from

https://www.createspace.com/3840578 

Check out my writing website:
www.notes-from-a-smaller-island.com

Waiting for the 9.03

Dorothy Davies

Steaming hot water

There is nothing as heartbreaking as a train whistle at midnight across a desolate lonely countryside. Nothing tears at the heartstrings quite as much as the sight of the brightly lit windows making a streak of light as the train clacks and rocks its way along the glittering rails. 

            Nothing draws the wanderlust out of the soul of someone more than the thought of the train travelling through the night to far off places where the people are different and colourful, where the food is exotic and the weather erratic and hot, where the language is like molten silver in the ears and you cannot understand a word of it.

            Nothing is more lonely than standing on the platform of a deserted station and feeling the ground vibrate as the midnight train races through without so much as a nod toward a place where it once stopped to let people off, let people on and to top up with water and coal.

            It’s been a long, long time since a steam train went through here. I know, I have stood here many a long year watching for the steam and smoke rising above the horizon, hearing the clicking of the rail that said ‘I’m coming/I’m coming’ and it was, in all its heat and noise and steam and coal dust glory. But no more.

            I stand on the platform and dream of days gone by  Days of steam and fashion, of porters and guards, of slamming doors and shining wheels that sing their message as they click and clack their way down the lines that lead to – anywhere else but here.

            And I play, ‘do you remember...’

Many a year ago I came here day by day to board the 9.03 train for London and work and people and bustle and taxis and everything. So sophisticated, stiletto heels and bucket bag, those huge handbags we all carried at that time, stuffed with everything the girl about town needed, including a book. Everyone carried a book or a paper. It was not done to speak on a train; you buried yourself in the words and did not look at your fellow passengers. The great engines huffed into the station, metal dragons tamed by man, all steam and smoke and coal dust. With much slamming of doors we would climb aboard, find a seat if we were lucky, hang from a strap or the overhead luggage rack if we were not, book in the other hand, immersed in the words. Outside the whistles and slams went on, the last minute passengers running for a compartment, any compartment, until the final blast and the dragon found its breath to carry on its journey.

            It was on one of those days I saw her. She was standing at the very end of the platform, alone, lonely. I wondered all day why I thought she was lonely. She was wearing vaguely old fashioned clothes, as if she had come from another time almost, but that was stupid, wasn’t it?

            Wasn’t it?

            I looked for her when the long frantic people crushed day was over and I got out of the train. She wasn’t there. Had she got tired, or had the person she was waiting for actually arrived and they had gone off somewhere? My imagination was working overtime. I created all manner of stories over the weeks that followed, all wild and wonderful and no doubt every one of them a million miles from the truth.

            Then I saw her again. Same clothes, same sad face, same point on the platform. I wanted to speak to her, to find out why she stood there, what she wanted but the crush carried me onto the train and London-bound before I could get near her. If I had, what would she have thought of a stranger asking such personal questions?

            The biggest question of all was; why was she getting to me?

            As we – I say we meaning that dragon puffing steam and coal dust and the motley collection of commuters being dragged along behind in carriages that were close to being cattle trucks – came into the station, I realised what was getting to me.

            The woman was my twin.

            If I was to go to a ‘vintage’ shop and buy a similar outfit and stand next to her on the platform, no one would be able to tell us apart.

            The thought was scary.

            I looked for her day after day. She wasn’t there. I went to work feeling oddly empty, something missing, something needed filling and only she could do that.

            But I didn’t know who she was. How could someone I didn’t know be responsible for my feeling empty and lonely and lost?

            How could someone I didn’t know look so much like me?

            It was about that time I began to change my clothes. It wasn’t a conscious decision; it was just that the clothes the woman wore seemed more attractive to me than the mini-skirts, tight tops, stilettos and everything I had been wearing.

            The people on the platform, the people on the train, hardly gave me a second glance when I wore the different clothes and it was about then I realised that as commuters we were all anonymous. The only thing which had character was the train itself, the huge puffing dragon which towed us back and forth from our station. 

            The ‘modern’ clothes were discarded, binned, handed in to the charity shop, depending on the state of them at the time. The wardrobe became filled with 20s clothes, elegant, pastel coloured suits and beautiful blouses, the small hat perched on a new (to me) hairstyle that suited the suits better. Flowing dresses with long strings of beads. I looked more like the woman on the platform than ever before.  It bothered me and yet it felt right.

            I saw her again one morning as I was waiting for the 9.03. She smiled and gestured to me to walk over to her. I did, pushing my way through the commuters who turned away in their studied indifference to my passing them by, jostling their papers and briefcases, brushing against their arms or back.  I was all but invisible.

            She smiled widely when I reached her and held out her arms. Without thinking I walked into her embrace.

            And changed places with her.

            I watched her walk back to my place on the platform, watched the steam announce the arrival of the 9.03, saw her climb on board with a smile for the man who stood back to let her get on first.

            I’ve been here ever since.

Nothing is more lonely than standing on the platform of a deserted station and feeling the ground vibrate as the midnight train races through without so much as a nod toward a place where it once stopped to let people off, let people on and to top up with water and coal.

            It’s been a long, long time since a steam train went through here. I know, I have stood here many a long year watching for the steam and smoke rising above the horizon, hearing the clicking of the rail that said ‘I’m coming/I’m coming’ and it was, in all its heat and noise and steam and coal dust glory. But no more.

            I stand on the platform and dream of days gone by  Days of steam and fashion, of porters and guards, of slamming doors and shining wheels that sing their message as they click and clack their way down the lines that lead to – anywhere else but here.

            And I play, ‘do you remember...’

            When I looked for the arrival of the 9.03 and saw a woman out of time standing on the platform waiting, waiting, waiting...

Dorothy Davies lives on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England.  There she works as an editor, writer and medium, channelling books from the rich (and not so rich) and famous from all eras of history, ancient through modern.  Her novels are available from Amazon. She edits and features in Static Movement anthologies.