December 14th, 1918
Quite early morning
Back home. Can't sleep. My mother is acting… unusual. I don't want to write it all down now, I feel so drained all of a sudden.
Maybe I shouldn't write it down at all. I'm sure it won't have much relevance to my eventual biographers.
-WpH
Maybe Mother turned up her nose at a little scientific sleep aid, but Wilson did not. As a result he woke up rather later than he had intended, but still had ample time to pick up his suit, drink his coffee, dress for the funeral and sit stiffly in the living room waiting for Mother to be ready to leave.
He still smelled decay.
The most likely cause was that some small animal had found its way into the blocked-off parlour and died. He'd seen how good little animals were at getting into or out of places they ought not.
Of course in that case someone ought to go in there and fish out the corpse, and that someone ought to be him, and if he suggested it Mother would sweetly bite his head off. But there was a back door into the parlour that wouldn't be guarded. Perhaps that would be a job for after he was out of his new suit. He could just do it quietly and not let Mother know and then the house would stop reeking.
Later, of course. He had a funeral to attend first.
The body in the coffin was of Edith Kelly. She was no direct relation to Uncle Morris. She was only tenuously related to Wilson for that matter- and probably only related by marriage.
She had been twenty-one.
Wilson had seen dead bodies before. Loads of them. He'd dissected one or two of them. Many of the corpses passing his way had looked much,much worse than poor Edith. She had been made up skillfully by the undertaker. She wasn't damaged, bloody, gangrenous, cyanotic or anything.
He had not, however, seen anyone he knew dead before. When Grampa had died, Mother had deemed Wilson too young to go to the funeral- even though he had been eighteen then and had already started his summer job at the morgue.
There was nothing outwardly untoward about Edith's appearance except that she wasn't alive. But she'd been alive that summer. He had given her a ribbon for her birthday- knowing her well enough that a gift was required, but not well enough to give her anything more personal- and she had laughed and thanked him and he had stood there like a lump because she was really sort of attractive.
He couldn't think about being attracted to her! She was engaged! And dead!
She couldn't be dead. She was a nice girl. And what about her fiancé? Her fiancé must be feeling- he couldn't imagine. Where was poor Tony? Wilson didn't see him anywhere.
He was alive, wasn't he?
Half the mourners were wearing masks.
Wilson expected to cry during the funeral at some point and braced himself for it, but he just sort of sat there feeling confused and tired the whole time. He had taken a little medicine for his cough and unfortunately it had a sedative effect.
All around him, everyone else was crying. Eventually Wilson bit the inside of his cheek to make his eyes water and then hid behind his handkerchief. It seemed more polite.
Afterwards, everyone gathered around and spoke in low tones about the deceased. Wilson quickly noticed that they were looking at him oddly, as if they didn't think he ought to be there.
Right, because he shouldn't be there, really. He had had only the barest acquaintanceship with poor Edith. He didn't even know most of the people here.
He drifted over to the edge of the room. His mother was in conversation with Aunt Judith. Mother looked quite happy and at ease.
Aunt Judith was as she had looked last summer and as she had looked when Wilson was still in knee pants- a solid woman with a black bun atop her head and the facial expression of a military general.
She had seen him. He drew closer with an acknowledging nod.
"My son is here," Mother said, unnecessarily.
Wilson tried not to fidget with his water glass and failed. "How do you do, Aunt Judith?"
She looked him over, not replying at once. Then: "Why didn't you enlist?"
He rolled the empty water glass between his palms, swallowing hard.
"He's staying with me, Judy," said Mother. "Such a good son." No one paid her any mind.
It was sorely tempting to lie- say he'd been exempted because he was in medical school, perhaps- but he could not lie to that implacable face. "I was a touch underweight," he said. "According to the US army, anyway. It was nothing to do with conscientious objection! Nothing at all!"
"What about your father's people?" By which she meant the whole of the United Kingdom. "They wouldn't take you?"
"Too short." Yes, Wilson had been too small for not one, but two armies! The joys of dual citizenship.
Judith looked him over. "Do you know your cousin Jerome?"
"Uh…" There was never any point in lying to Aunt Judith. "No." The thing was, a great deal of Mother's relatives were or had once been Catholic, and so there were a lot of them…
"He's your age. Your coloring, too. He also could not join the army," she said, "because he was underweight. Shortly after he tried to enlist, he fell ill and was found to have tuberculosis."
"Oh, how awful!" he cried. "Tell him I wish him well, please."
Aunt Judith nodded as if satisfied and turned back to Mother.
Well, alright. When Aunt Judith was done talking to you, she was done talking to you.
News like that, and poor Edith's funeral to begin with- reminders of how awful the world was and how much it needed science- always made him eager to get back to school and work, but he wasn't due back until after New Year's.
On a personal, sort of cowardly level, Aunt Judith's story reminded him of some interesting things he'd read about the life-sustaining effects of building statues and filling them with meat. Maybe one day he'd try it. Not now, of course, there was no reason to think his own young life was in danger.
Wilson cleared his throat. He was beginning to feel that he had to cough- the medicine must have worn off- and he couldn't cough in the middle of a bunch of people who were mourning a girl taken from them by the Spanish Flu. He slipped through the doorway.
Now he was standing in the graveyard.
He coughed until he was breathless- holding it in had made things worse. When the little dots behind his eyes had gone away, he saw that the graveyard was brilliantly lit by the sun, the snow white and blinding.
He had been here as a boy, too, and with his breath fogging the air in front of him- a visible reminder that he was alive, and above the earth, while plodding over the remains of those who were neither- he made his way to each of the headstones he was accustomed to visiting. Families had stood here and cried, uncountable numbers of them, but there were no traces of the mourners past but for a few occasional dead flowers and the odd epitaph: Devoted husband or Loving mother. Which meant a sorrowful wife or children somewhere.
A breeze whispered across his body. He shivered and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, interrupted from his thoughts by his living body reminding him that it felt the cold. Oh boy, did it ever.
A movement in the distance caught his eye. A plodding silhouette stooped over a cane.
"Mr. Thornton!" he cried.
That venerable man raised his head. "Well, well," he chuckled. "If it isn't little Higgsbury, back from the war."
"Well, actually, I didn't exactly-" here he noticed that the old fellow was coming towards him, but slowly on account of his limp, so Wilson hurried over to meet him- "-I didn't exactly go. I wasn't what they wanted, you see."
"Oh, now, who wouldn't want you? A sharp boy like you? Inquisitive boy like you? Level-headed boy like you?"
Wilson could not but squirm and preen under this onslaught of praise.
"And what are you doing back here?" Mr. Thornton watched with his glass eye.
"Visiting the family for Christmas. I'll be leaving right after Christmas to make a visit to Father. He's still in the hospital in London." This last sort of tumbled out.
"Ah, I see. And are you still working in the morgue there?"
"No," Wilson admitted. Mr. Thornton showed an inclination to wander between the graves. Wilson offered his arm.
"Don't mind if I do." He leaned rather heavily on Wilson's arm and they made the walk together. He smelled awful. "Now, why aren't you in the morgue?"
"Oh, you see, I'm doing my graduate studies now, and summers I do my own personal research! Except for this past summer, of course, when the hospital was short-staffed…"
"Ah, now. And what sort of research are you doing? It would be a shame to lose you from our ranks. Another bright boy led stray by the glitter of war."
Wilson was not under any sort of impression that war glittered. "Oh, I'm researching all sorts of things," he said.
"Hmm, hmm, yes," Mr. Thornton said. "We've expanded quite a lot since you were last here, my boy." He gestured with his cane to the rows of headstones. "Nasty bit of flu, I'm sure you've heard."
"My cousin once or twice removed is in there," Wilson volunteered. "And possibly an uncle… or two, as far as I know…"
"Ah… congratulations."
Congratulations? That did not seem appropriate in the slightest. Mr. Thornton was quite old, perhaps Wilson would just change the subject a bit. "Have you collected any new specimens?"
"Oh, yes, yes, more than a few."
"Is Mr. Johnson still hard at work, then?"
"Yes, and how grateful I am."
Perhaps Wilson ought to ask about the man's prices. He could really use an anatomical model or two for study, and Mr. Johnson's house wasn't far from town, Wilson could maybe walk there if he made a day of it. Or just bum a ride from Fred. Anyway, a skeleton would be just the thing for his lab.
"Wilson! What are you doing?"
He turned. Mother was tearing across the yard towards him.
"The female is angry," Mr. Thornton said languidly.
Before Wilson could react Mother had grabbed his wrist. "Get back inside!" she hissed. "You get away from these poor people! What have you done?" She looked at his hand. She was looking for dirt. She thought he'd been digging!
He tore his arm out of her grasp. "I did that once when I was ten!" he snapped. "Look, I don't even have a shovel! For crying out loud, the ground is frozen!"
"Don't you talk back to me!"
Mr. Thornton watched them with clear amusement.
Wilson's ears burned. "I only came out here for some fresh air," he said.
Mother harrumphed. "We're leaving," she said.
"All right." He wasn't sad to go. It was nice to see Mr. Thornton again, but he was feeling the cold something awful.
The rest of the day was spent ignoring the smell, reading in the living room in front of the fire, and watching Mother wander to and fro throughout the house with no apparent purpose that he could ascertain.
It might have been inappropriate given the day's activities- regardless of how little he knew the deceased- but he had to admit he felt a certain quiet contentment. It was nice to have a rest, and it was nice to reacquaint himself with some of the old books that had been left in his room. Unfortunately, it turned out that some of the books he had liked as a boy had been awful. He remembered being quite enchanted with some of the worst ones, too. No accounting for the taste of children, he supposed.
When night fell, he said: "I think I'll go to bed now, Mother."
"Good night, darling." Before he could realize what was coming and perhaps dodge, she had kissed him on the forehead. Her lips were cool and distraught and he nearly flinched.
"Why, you're warm," she fretted.
"I've been by the fire," he said.
"You have a chill. I can tell. Wrap up warm and go to bed."
"Yes, Mother."
He set his timer to go off in three hours and lay down for a short rest.
When the timer went off, he got up, dressed warmly- he did not plan to be outside long, but one never knew when a simple rodent-disposal mission might end in complications- and slipped downstairs, going softly in his socks, with his shoes held in one hand.
He stepped outside. Oh, but it was cold! He held his handkerchief over his mouth while he caught his breath.
Okay, now, just around the corner ought to be the door into the parlour.
He stepped forth and was greeted with a deep, low growl.
Wilson darted back around the corner.
He peeped around the wall. There was a large dog lying on the doorstep. It was tied to the door handle.
"She didn't," Wilson said to himself under his breath, but she had. His heart sped along in his chest and presented him with unhappy, lurid visions of his throat torn open by fangs, his life's blood making a huge red pit in the snow. Just like something out of one of those cheap magazine stories.
Now, that was dramatic! How big even was the animal?
He took another look at the dog.
The dog was definitely big enough to kill him.
It gazed back at him, showing no inclination towards murder. Its tail thumped once, twice. It whimpered pleadingly.
Now, hold on! He knew that dog. More importantly, that dog knew him. That was Mrs. Fields' mastiff. Enormous, but as docile as a new-born lamb.
A laugh bubbled up in his chest. He tamped it down and it got confused and turned into a cough- but was soon over.
"Reginald!" he whispered, stepping around the corner.
Reginald got to his feet with a series of lusty, excited pants. The air fogged white around his muzzle. Wilson squatted on the ground and dutifully received his helping of slobbery, stinky dog-love square in the face.
"What a good boy! Sit, now." Reginald sat, looking up at Wilson with eyes full of adoration.
Wilson ruffled the fur on the back of the old fellow's neck, then extricated himself enough to open the door and escape inside.
Despite his long and intimate associations with this particular odour, he still gagged when he stepped through the door. The decay was quite strong.
He began to scout with his lantern for a little rotting mouse or something of the like. He was so intent on finding this mysterious perished rodent that he nearly missed the long, wrapped-up figure lying on the table.
It was wrapped in linens and looked quite like a mummy.
Wilson blinked down at it. Surely he was mistaken!
No matter how much he blinked, the thing stayed there on the table.
He began undoing the wrappings. A tug revealed a human face with the flesh falling away- and a fresh wave of stench.
Wilson's eyes watered. He turned away, retching dryly a couple of times. The smell hit one differently when one was not steeled to enter a morgue but was instead in one's own parlour where a body shouldn't be. Where a body should never ever ever be. Ever.
So who was this? A relative with a bizarre last wish? A mummy, purchased as curiosity? What was going on?
He couldn't identify the face, but that meant nothing, most of it had sloughed away. Or caved in.
Caved in?
Wilson raised his lantern for a better look. That wasn't decay- that was a wound. A bullet hole.
The door was opening. Wilson recoiled, knowing he had seen something that he was meant not to see.
Mother stood in the doorway. Her voice was rough. "I told you not to go in here!"
"There's a dead body in our parlour!" He nearly screamed it.
"That's your cousin! He died of the flu! We're just holding him for a little while!"
Wilson's heart hammered. "Oh he died of the flu, did he?"
"Yes! Everyone's dying of the flu!"
"I wasn't aware the influenza learned to shoot bullets!"
Mother stopped short, her lip trembling. Oh, oh no, he'd upset her!
He'd upset her? He'd upset her? There was a murdered man in his house! "What is going on?" he demanded.
And then Mother began to cry.
Wilson ought to remain resolute, and demand answers until he got them! "Oh, don't cry," he said instead, rather pathetically. "Just let me know what happened. Can you tell me what happened?"
"He broke in," she sobbed, "oh, I thought I was going to die! So I grabbed your- your father's service pistol. It was sent home to me, you know- he was afraid with me l- living alone."
"Why didn't you call the police afterwards?"
"I was afraid. I was so afraid, darling." And she sobbed into her lace-trimmed hanky.
Wilson looked down at the dead face. If he'd broken in intending to do some mischief, well, he deserved what he got. Poor Mother must have been so frightened!
She moaned. "Look at this horrible mess! I don't- want to go- to prison- because someone broke in and terrified me-"
Wilson bit his lip. She was becoming quite blotchy and tear-stained.
"I don't- know what- to do," she hiccuped. "The ground is frozen and I couldn't bury him."
"I can…" He said it slowly, hardly believing the words were his own. "...take care of it…"
She looked up at him with eyes that glittered with tears. She and he had the same very dark blue eyes.
"You can do that?"
She didn't sound surprised. She sounded… pleased.
This time Mother let him drive- refused to accompany him, in fact, although if she had wanted to he would have discouraged it. It was better, he thought, for her not to be present.
The night was frigid. Wilson shivered and sweated at the same time inside his topcoat. At least the cold, still air kept him from smelling the thing in the backseat.
Alone, his mind chewed on the situation, turned it over, came up with odd, morbid, disloyal things:
Would a woman in terror during a break-in be able to hit her target squarely between the eyes? Especially if she'd never used a gun before?
Had Mother used a gun before?
His sisters weren't coming for Christmas. They were 'too busy', according to Mother. But what if they hadn't been invited?
What if only Wilson had been invited?
What if only Wilhelmina Higgsbury's youngest child- her least social child- her only son, who though small, was strong enough and well able to move a body- her only son, who had worked in a morgue for years- had been invited for Christmas?
This train of thought could lead to nothing good. He put it out of his mind.
Then another one came creeping in, this one starting off with:
Why had Mother taken the man's identification out of his pockets?
Wilson had voiced the worry that the man might have family who would be wondering where their loved one went, and hadn't they ought to know, or more selfishly hadn't they better not turn up on the front door with the police, and then Mother had said-
"Oh don't worry, I looked in his wallet, he's single. I burned everything after."
That was oddly collected of her, wasn't it? Intentional?
Oh, and the corpse's jaw was missing, there was that. Fell off, Mother claimed. Fell off, or removed by someone worried about dental identification?
But he had to stop thinking about it, he was here.
Mr. Johnson lived in a cosy little hut tucked into the base of a mountain. At least, Wilson thought he did. He'd been given the directions a while ago and had never actually visited the man at home- only seen him in the graveyard- but this seemed like the right place.
Wilson pulled up outside and stopped the car engine.
And then he just sat there.
It was 2 AM. Needless to say, he did not have an appointment.
He tipped his head back against the headrest, looking up at the sky.
He had the body. He had the car. It wasn't too late to turn around and go to the police… they might think he'd done it, at first, but the train ticket would prove otherwise. Mother, though…
The man was already dead- what did it even matter? It wasn't as if anything would make him less dead. Wilson could choose to inflict a great deal of stress and panic onto his poor mother who had already lost an unspecified amount of family members and might- might also lose her husband…
Or he could get rid of the body.
Wilson tapped the horn.
The door to the hut opened, becoming a bright square with Mr. Johnson silhouetted inside it. He was hefting a rifle.
Wilson silently raised his hands palm outward in surrender. His heart thumped and the world around seemed one layer removed. It did not bother him in the least that if he made the wrong move he might be shot, and it did not bother him that this did not bother him, though it did strike him as odd.
Mr. Johnson lowered the gun. "Why, if it isn't little old Higgsbury. Come in, come in! Don't stand out there in the cold."
"It's so late, though," Wilson said stupidly.
"No one told you I do all my business at night? Well, I do. Come, come."
"I've got a… a question for you."
"Oh, you're a customer!"
Wilson had put together a whole story on his way here but it was fast slipping away from him. He clutched it back. "Yes! Strangest thing. I was stopping by the hospital to visit a colleague, and they had this John Doe, no identification, unclaimed some time. Why, since it's Christmas, and they know me there, they gave him to me for a specimen."
"Well, congratulations! Let's bring him in, then." He came outside.
Wilson was momentarily quiet, having not expected Mr. Johnson to actually take the body- he had not known details of what the man did and thought he was only a contact for purchasing anatomical specimens, and might know where Wilson should go- but this was better, he supposed.
"Yes, let's," he said.
They brought the deceased into a little shed behind the house and put it on a table.
Wilson looked around at the blood-slimed surfaces. The shed smelt like a slaughterhouse. It was a body-processing hut.
He felt a sudden, horrible, powerful urge to laugh.
This gave him a giddy gadfly air as he said: "Sorry about the late hour! I'm out late so often that I forget other people are asleep! You know how it is!"
"Oh, no trouble at all! I'll get to work on him first thing tomorrow." Mr. Johnson tipped back the corpse's head to study its face. "Might need to find you a new skull for him."
"Mm, yes, that one's not-" Wilson clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the giggles. No! Not now! "-that head's not good for m- much anymore," he finished, and he staggered outside, snorting desperately.
What's so funny? he demanded of himself. Nothing is funny! Stop it! STOPPIT!
He bent his head, succumbing to squeaky, crackling giggles that soon turned into a wet cough and then into dry heaves.
"Good night for a drink, eh?" said Mr. Johnson amicably behind him. To an outsider Wilson supposed he must look quite drunk.
"Yes, lovely," he mumbled. "I oughtta be getting home now."
"Want to come in and warm up a bit first? It won't bother the missus a bit, she sleeps right through these visits."
Wilson straightened up to his full- though meagre- height and dusted off his topcoat. "No, that's all right. I'm very busy." He managed to sound quite even, though inside he was recoiling in horror at the thought of entering the man's house. "Christmas break is only once a year!" he added lightly.
"Oh, sure, that it is. And you're only young once. Off with you, then. Be back in a week."
Wilson scrambled to the car. He nearly knocked over Mr. Johnson's mailbox on the way out.
