‘Such oblivion is dangerously compelling, Mrs Weekes. For… for years I relied on tincture of opium to liberate me from this. It brings on a wonderful kind of living death… a release from all thought and care. At one time I lay near to death because if it. Only my mother saved me then, removing the stuff from me, and leaving me to suffer in its absence. She saved my life, I think, though I did not thank her for it at the time. I’m not sure I thank her for it now. It would be simpler to die, I sometimes think.’
‘Our lives are God-given,’ Rachel said softly. She shrugged. ‘It is not for us to decide when we relinquish them, and what would be simpler is not pertinent.’
‘Is that so?’ he said, his mouth twisting in disgust.
He stared blackly at her for a moment, and then erupted out of his chair. ‘You say it is for God to decide, then? Does God put guns in men’s hands? Does God make men rape young girls to death? Does he take aim with flying shrapnel and artillery fire? Does he place one fateful finger on each man on a battlefield and say “fever, gangrene, dysentery”? No!’ His voice had risen to a shout, and Rachel didn’t dare reply. He seemed to tower over her so she stood up, knotting her fingers in front of her to keep them still, and watched as Jonathan strode to the bookcase and fetched down one of the large glass jars he kept there. It took some effort to lift it; the liquid inside sloshed. Rachel could sense the weightiness of it, and inside was a wrinkled, knobbed thing, trailing tentacles from its underside. ‘Do you know what this is?’ he said.
‘No,’ Rachel whispered.
‘This is a man’s brain. He was a criminal – a murderer, in fact.’ Rachel stared at it in horror.
‘How… how came you to have such a thing?’
‘I befriended one of the doctors my mother sent to me. An anatomist. He thought he could cure the pains in my head by cutting a hole in my skull the size of a sovereign, to relieve the pressure. By exposing my brain to the sun and sky I would be cured, so he proclaimed. What do you think? Should I have let him?’
‘Sweet Lord, no, he would have killed you, surely?’ said Rachel. Inside the jar the brain was moving, the cords beneath it wafting like the sentient tendrils of some creature. She began to feel queasy.
‘He said not. He said he had experimented up in London, upon a woman who’d been driven quite insane by the deaths of her six children. He thought the procedure would let the ill humours out of her mind, and restore her reason.’
‘And did it?’ Rachel’s voice was near strangled.
‘Well, she raves no more. She speaks no more either, nor walks, nor eats. They feed her through a tube, and when they stop, she will die.’
‘Why do you tell me this?’
‘I would make you see, Mrs Weekes. I befriended this doctor, though I did not let him carve my skull. I went with him to watch the opening of cadavers brought down from the gallows; I… I wanted to learn how the body worked. I wanted to find the place inside a man where the soul resides; I wanted to be sure, again, of its existence. Because otherwise we are just machines, aren’t we? Like the digesting duck – like that copper mouse? So I watched, and I studied, and this is what I found out: we are just machines, Mrs Weekes! We eat and we sleep and we shit and then we do it all again, just like the other beasts that walk this earth. And when we die it is because another man has broken some part of us – removed some cog from the machine so that it may not run. And this, this-’ He shook the brain in its jar so that the fluid sloshed and the lid rattled; he took one slow step towards her, then another. ‘This is what decides it. Not God. Not fate. So I ask you, Mrs Weekes, if another man may decide when I should die, why then should I not decide it for myself?’
Jonathan Alleyn stood in front of her, eyes snapping; holding the jar out in front of him like some gruesome gift. His hands were white with the effort of gripping its smooth sides; shudders ran up his arms.
‘We are not mere machines, sir. I am sure of it. Man was made for a higher purpose… in God’s image…’ said Rachel, shakily, fighting the urge to run from him. She could not take her eyes from the greyish thing, the dead thing, in the jar. Is that truly what I keep inside my skull? It seemed desperately wrong that it should have been torn away from its owner and kept in such a hideous manner, for living eyes to look upon. Such things are meant to stay hidden.
‘In God’s image?’ Jonathan laughed then – a mirthless sound. ‘Then God is a murderous bastard, Mrs Weekes, and you are a wilfully stupid woman.’ Rachel flinched, cut by the insult.
‘What then of love?’ she said desperately. ‘Where in that machine of blood and bone does love reside, Mr Alleyn?’
‘Love?’ he spat. He stared at her blankly as if he didn’t know the word, and then his eyes blazed anew. Anger disfigured his face, turned his lips bloodless and thin, put deep furrows between his brows. It made him look bestial indeed. ‘Love is an illusion. Love is a myth. Love is a story we tell ourselves to make living more bearable! And it is a lie!’ he roared, lifting the jar high above their heads.
Rachel froze. Jonathan’s sudden rage assaulted her like a flare of agony, so intense it slowed time, and made everything else hollow and unreal in comparison. In that moment, she glimpsed its black, ravaged heart; the look in Jonathan’s eyes chilled her. He can’t even see me any more. Then his arms came down abruptly, swinging with tremendous force. At the last second Rachel managed to take a step backwards, and so the jar exploded into shards at her feet, not over her head.
Silence rang in her ears. The reek of spirits rushed to fill the room, stinging her eyes and nose, bringing tears to blur her vision. There was a stinging from her leg, too – blood was welling from a cut above her ankle, a neat slice through stockings and skin. The murderer’s brain had come to rest on the toe of her right shoe. When Rachel moved her foot she felt its soggy weight. It rolled away sluggishly, shining wet and looking more alive than it should. Her gorge rose; she shuddered and clamped her hands over her mouth. Jonathan was breathing hard, staring straight ahead without blinking; his empty hands hung at his sides. A sliver of glass had flown up and nicked his cheekbone, and a thin line of blood ran straight down from it, looking like a scarlet tear. Gradually, Rachel saw some awareness return to his expression; he blinked, and then his eyes widened, and he swallowed. As if released by this, she stepped past him hurriedly, her heel grinding a fragment of broken glass into dust. Her walk became a run, and she left him there, standing in silence, as she pulled open the door and fled.
At the bottom of the stairs two figures were waiting for her – Starling rushing from the door in the panelling, and Josephine Alleyn coming from the front parlour. Rachel stopped and leant on the newel post to catch her breath.
‘Mrs Weekes! I heard a terrible noise, I feared…’ Mrs Alleyn chose not to say what she had feared. Her face had worn panic, but soon resettled itself.
‘He… the jar… I think…’ Rachel fought for words. ‘I am not injured,’ she said.
‘But, you are. Your ankle… come – come at once and sit down. Starling, why do you loiter? Send up some tea, and some warm water and cloths.’
‘Madam,’ Starling muttered, scowling as she vanished. Josephine led Rachel through to the parlour, and seated her on the couch.
‘I do hope my son has not… What is that dreadful stench?’ Mrs Alleyn recoiled, putting her fingers under her nose.
‘Oh, I can hardly tell you!’ Rachel cried. She felt the liquid sloshing around in her shoes, between her toes, and nausea washed through her again. ‘It was one of his… specimen jars. The h-human brain. He… dropped it.’ Mrs Alleyn leant away from Rachel, revolted.