He found the right house and examined the bells by the door. Beside Beth’s was a brass plaque that bore her name and nothing else.
The voice that answered via the intercom wasn’t hers. It was more melodic, lower in its range.
“Come up. Second floor. I’ll leave the door open. Beth’s on the phone.”
The communal hall’s flower prints and beige carpet gave no clue as to what waited upstairs. He took the stairs two at a time.
The door was ajar. Beth Hurt’s hall was painted matt charcoal. A set of daguerreotypes hung upon one wall, formal portraits that were trapped beneath a silver skin. He liked these antique pictures from the past. Their eyes were alive in a way that eluded modern printing techniques. There were shelves loaded with curios. A set of opera glasses and a peacock fan. Metal syringes shining in their case. A porcelain phrenology head. A nautilus shell.
A navy surgeon’s brass bound chest lay open against one wall. Sam read the label by each viscous instrument, designed for hasty amputations. The line drawing in the lid was a pictorial guide to removing a limb. There were clamp-like contraptions, a pair of petit tourniquets, to stem blood loss. An amputation knife, its curved blade designed to sweep around the limb’s flesh and cut right down to bone. The zigzag teeth of the tendon and D-shaped saws looked like something from a joiner’s bag.
A door at the end of the corridor opened. It was Beth Hurt.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, come through. Did Kate offer you a drink?”
“No, but don’t worry. I’m Sam.”
He held out a hand. She took it. Firm grip. Warm, soft skin. Her hair was short enough to allow its rightful curl around her face. It was a shade between brown and red.
“It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Sam felt a tug of something akin to recognition. He suppressed the urge to giggle. He knew from the wide spread of her smile that she did too. There was a softening around her eyes that drew him in.
“You’ve come a long way. Let me get you a drink. What would you like?”
“Go on then. A coffee would be great.”
Beth opened the door and called out.
“Kate, kettle’s on. Do you want one?”
“Love one,” came the distant reply.
Kate. Friend, lover, or just flatmate? It occurred to Sam that Beth had grown suspicious. Did she regret inviting him here instead of somewhere neutral? Had she rung around until she found a chaperone?
Sam waited in Beth’s professional space, free to look around. It was a patchwork of diagrams and charts. Line drawings and sketches. Plastic models. Some of the words and pictures made him blush. A painting of a dissected heart hung over her desk. Bloodied meat and gaping valves. A fist of an organ, much misunderstood and mythologized. It was just a pump after all.
Sam was examining a set of photos of a dissected brain when Beth retuned carrying a tray. He caught the top note of her scent as she handed him a mug. A citrus smell that energised him. His eyes dropped to her hands.
They were too square, too fleshy to reveal a pleasing amount of the sinews beneath. Bitten nails. Ink stained flesh. Palms seamed and furrowed. Creases like bracelets at her wrists.
“Would you be more comfortable in another room?”
He took a final look at the brain photographs and grinned.
“No, it’s only the sight of my own blood that makes me faint but if I feel funny I’ll let you know.”
“Do you think it’s ghoulish?”
Sam sipped his coffee as he looked at a watercolour of a dissected leg.
“No. Your work’s stunning.”
“Would you believe that I wanted to be a children’s illustrator? I used to make up stories and draw pictures to go with them for my sister after our mum died.”
It was such a personal disclosure that made him embarrassed that he’d lied to her about his reasons for the commission. Her unguardedness disarmed him. She’d let him into her home. He felt he could tell her anything now that he was here.
“So what happened?”
“I took a job with a medical publisher because I was strapped for cash. The editor had loved my work on a book he read to his daughter at bedtime. He said it was just the right look.”
“What sort of kid’s book was that?”
They both laughed.
“Once I finished the job I knew I didn’t want to do anything else. Isn’t it strange how you know that you like something, right away?” She laid out the final drawing before him. “Is this what you had in mind?”
“It’s brilliant.” He meant it. One hand was partially folded against the other. They were elegant and tapered. Beth had made technical perfection seem informal. “You have real talent.”
“Oh no, it’s just about knowing the anatomy. It changes the structure of the work. May I?”
The way she took his hands made him dizzy.
“The finger bones are called the phalanges. Three to each finger. Two in the thumb.”
She touched each one in his little finger and his thumb by way of demonstration. Sam felt the start of gnawing elation.
“Fascinating.” He’d been preoccupied with aesthetics, not construction or mechanics, but her words thrilled him.
“And these are the metacarpal bones.” Sam swallowed when she ran her finger across his palm. “At one end they form the knuckles and at the other they articulate with the wrist bones, which are my favourites.”
“Why?” He relished her pleasure.
“They’re interesting. Each one has a different shape and name but they fit together like a jigsaw.”
She made him arch his thumb to reveal two taut lines along his wrist.
“This gap is called the anatomical snuffbox.” She pointed to the space between the pair of tendons. “The bone which forms the floor is the scaphoid.”
“Scaphoid,” he repeated.
“The rest of the wrist bones are the lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, and hamate.” She worked her way over the wrist to show him where each bone was. “I like the hamate. It has a hook.”
He felt like he was party to the arcane.
“How do you remember all that?” Sam wanted her to know he was impressed.
“Hard work. And mnemonics. Lots of mnemonics.”
“The only mnemonic I know is Richard of York gave battle in vain, for the rainbow.”
A spot of colour had appeared high on Beth’s cheeks. It conjured up Beth Hurt in bed, postcoital, flushed and loose limbed. Intuition told him the reason for her flush.
“What’s the mnemonic?”
“What?”
“For the wrist.”
“Scared lovers try positions that they can’t handle.” Beth tried to sound unabashed.
The physiology of their attraction couldn’t be faked. The symptoms of their chemistry. They were close. Sam’s pupils dilated. It was hard to breathe. His heart no longer functioned as just a pump. His blood was hot. His throat was dry. Beth was a loadstone and he’d been magnetised. Their heads were tilted in sympathy. Lips parted in empathy.
He couldn’t. Beth’s hands were lacking.
“The picture …” He moved away. “It’s perfect.”
“I hope you find what you want.”
“Pardon?”
“Get what you want. The job.” She sounded magnanimous in rejection. Courageous. “I wish you the best of luck.”
“I’ll treasure this, no matter what. Not because of its anatomy but because you’ve pictured exactly what I described.”
“I’ve a confession. It was easier than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a model.”
“A model?”