The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry

Author:Ambrose Parry [Parry, Ambrose]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2019-08-28T23:00:00+00:00

FORTY-ONE

he unmistakable odour of putrefaction still hung in the air, even though the corpse had been removed. Sarah observed Raven raising a hand to his nose, indicating that he suspected the smell might be coming from him. His subsequent expression confirmed that this was indeed the case. He moved to the sink and began running his hands together beneath the tap.

‘I’ve washed my hands three times already,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to get rid of the smell.’

‘“Common ablutions are not enough”, remember?’ Sarah said, adding chloride of lime to the water in the bowl.

The resultant chemical scent was a relief. Sarah had begun to feel queasy again. Curiosity and her keenness to be involved had made her determined to suppress any squeamishness she might feel, and for the most part the knowledge that it was Mrs Glassford’s remains had not been a problem. She was able to look at the body in abstract, particularly once Raven opened it up and revealed the organs within. However, the lingering smell was prompting an instinctive revulsion, and she did not wish to appear weak by being sick.

It was not her only reason, either. Raven had seen her vomiting a few days ago. He had been sharp enough to deduce Archie’s condition, so perhaps it was folly to think that, as an obstetrician, he was not already suspecting hers too.

She did not like to think about it, and yet it was always there, waiting, inexorable, like Archie’s illness. She knew this was one of the reasons she was so motivated to pursue her investigations. She needed some kind of distraction, a purpose to consume her in the here and now, because in the future there lay only the daunting certainty of Archie’s death and the daunting uncertainty of the new life growing inside her.

Archie had said her future would be assured, and she did not doubt his sincerity, but it was the nature of that future that worried her. Assured also meant inescapable. Was a widow and a mother now all she would ever amount to? A life defined and dominated by raising a child was better than one defined and dominated by domestic service, but she had allowed herself to hope for so much more. For all Archie’s talk of wishing her to educate herself and to put that education to practical use, she did not envisage how that could be compatible with the demands of raising a child on her own.

She thought of Mrs Glassford, of the strange and disturbing entity that had consumed her, and could not help but see it as a twisted, grotesque parody of her own condition. She carried inside her a creature that would swell her belly and then devour her, leaching from her the many lives she had dreamed for herself.

The image shook something loose from her head that jolted her back into the present, a terrible possibility forming in her mind.

‘The leeches!’ she said.

‘What leeches?’ Raven asked, understandably confused by her random exclamation.

‘The ones Dr Fowler was bemoaning the loss of.

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