{"id":438,"date":"2011-05-24T04:00:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T02:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=438"},"modified":"2011-05-24T00:19:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T22:19:55","slug":"strange-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/05\/24\/strange-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange Fruit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bloody<\/a>by Rachel Green<\/h3>\n

tied 2nd place<\/em><\/p>\n

My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the classified ad in the New Medical Practice<\/em>. Third share in General Practitioner\u2019s surgery for sale, including client list and all fittings, Laverstone, Wiltshire. Price on application<\/em>. I\u2019d grown up in Laverstone, still had ties there. An aunt, a cousin…probably most of my childhood friends. It would be odd to go back after ten years away; people there would still remember the child I used to be.<\/p>\n

I answered the advertisement and, a week later, had a reply from Dr Glover and went to meet him. I remembered him well. He\u2019d seen me through childhood inoculations, scraped knees and chicken pox. He was the only doctor in the practice in those days, though the surgery had grown with the town. He always smelled of soap and disinfectant, and kept a jar of barley sugar on his desk for his younger patients. We couldn\u2019t do that now since there are too many regulations about offering sweets to children. We could be sued if they developed diabetes, for example, or be blamed if they got cavities in their teeth.
\n
\nThe years had not been kind to him. Ignoring his own advice with regard to smoking had brought on emphysema. He was retiring early on health grounds although he could still manage to walk eighteen holes after a golf ball. His surgery partners welcomed me, pleased a local had bought the position. It made the transition easier because I knew many of the patients already.<\/p>\n

I was still the new boy, unfortunately, so on the day the district nurse phoned in sick, it fell on me to cover her workload. I looked with dismay at the first job on the list.<\/p>\n

Change sterile dressings. Eleanor Dandy. 9, Barrow Hill.<\/em><\/p>\n

When we were kids we used to be afraid of the house on Barrow Hill. An old witch lived there we told each other in furtive whispers. If she caught you she\u2019d skin you alive and hang you out for the birds to eat. What she did with the skin was never mentioned, though we all had our own thoughts depending on whether we favoured horror films or History Channel.<\/p>\n

That was when I was nine or ten years old, before GCSEs and A levels faded into the excitement of nightclubs, girls, university and medical school. Now I was a fully grown man in a moderately expensive suit and a doctor\u2019s bag, once more standing outside the house on Barrow Hill. The air smelled of iron and ozone, dark clouds scurrying ahead of a westerly breeze as a prelude to rain. I was glad I had a car these days instead on my old pushbike.<\/p>\n

The witch\u2019s house hadn\u2019t really changed during the past fifteen years, though the paint had peeled from the sun-bleached woodwork and the upstairs windows were festooned in spiders\u2019 webs and dust. The roof had sagged at some point in the past decade, probably as a result of the two missing tiles letting the damp and mould at the timbers. The brickwork needed pointing too, and the chimney breast was a few degrees off vertical. It was almost a surprise the house was still occupied.<\/p>\n

I pushed open the gate and marched up the path to the front door. I could see the gnarled old trees that had us so spooked at the back of the house, apples, probably, the shrivelled black remains of old fruit still clinging to the branches. An old line threaded from trunk to trunk, the washing hanging from it limp in the misty rain. I laughed at my younger self thinking these misshapen old dresses were the hanging corpses of adventurous young boys. The rest of the garden was a mass of weeds and overgrown shrubs populated with the wicked thorns of ancient rose bushes and brambles. The broken trunk of a long-dead damson tree sported fungi the size of dinner plates and I had to take care not to slip on the algae-encrusted brick path.<\/p>\n

A tarnished brass lion\u2019s head glared balefully as I grasped the ring it held and knocked. The sound echoed through the house and I had time to pull out a handkerchief to wipe away the flakes of rust and verdigris it showered onto my hand. After a few minutes the door was opened by my patient, Mrs Dandy, dressed head to toe in black lace. She peered up at me through cloudy eyes. \u201cYou must be the new doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDr Mattocks, yes.\u201d I held out my hand but she didn\u2019t take it. \u201cMay I come in?\u201d<\/p>\n

She stood to one side. \u201cI\u2019m in the back room.\u201d<\/p>\n

I followed the sound of the television through waist-high piles of books and magazines, most of them covered in dust. I paused and wiped the top of one pile with my hand. Comics. Hundreds of them. Thousands. There must be a small fortune of collectible ephemera here, all slowly rotting and giving way to the all-pervading damp.<\/p>\n

The front door closed with a creak and Mrs Dandy shuffled across the intervening distance. \u201cMy son\u2019s.\u201d She put a hand on top of the pile, the skeletal fingers almost touching mine. \u201cHe believed there was a hidden meaning in comics, one that would free him from his mundane life. Do you subscribe to that theory, doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shook my head. \u201cI can\u2019t say I do, Mrs Dandy. I didn\u2019t know you had a son. How old is he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFourteen.\u201d She pushed past me, forcing me to clutch at a stack of comics to keep my balance. Her dress rustled like newspaper as she passed and I was enveloped by the scent of camphor and stale urine. The shifted comics sent up a cloud of dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll always be fourteen.\u201d Mrs Dandy turned and looked at me, her eyes still gleaming in their dark hollows. She tapped her forehead with her finger. \u201cIn here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned again and walked on toward her living room. \u201cWhen I was expecting him, some boys climbed over the wall to pick the apples off the tree. I went outside to shout at them. A fine game, they thought, to throw my own apples at me as I chased them round the garden. A fine game until I fell and they saw the blood. Toby was born eight weeks early and was never right in the head. He found his freedom, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did?\u201d I smiled at her, trying to ignore the grime of her surroundings. \u201cThat\u2019s good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends on your perspective.\u201d Mrs Dandy reached the sitting room and paused. \u201cToby believed he could fly and, on his fourteenth birthday, jumped off the Oxford Road viaduct. They reckoned he broke both his legs and lay there almost an hour until the express from Glasgow came through and killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh.\u201d What could I say to such a sad story? \u201cI\u2019m so sorry. When was this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNineteen fifty-four.\u201d She moved to the armchair and picked up the television remote control, turning the sound down to a faded whisper. \u201cBefore your time, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA little.\u201d I gave a sort of nervous half-chuckle and looked around the room. It was lit by the television and whatever managed to sidle past the yellowed net curtains and cobwebs. The carpet had seen better days when her son was alive, and the dust had settled into drifts in the corners. I half expected to see a wedding feast set out at the end of the room with a cake festooned with cobwebs and nibbled on by rats. Only the path to the hall and to the television seemed free of the thick layer of times past.<\/p>\n

I looked for somewhere to set my bag. \u201cYou could probably ask the council for someone to come and clean once a week, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you saying my house is dirty, mister…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMattocks. And it\u2019s doctor.\u201d I smiled. \u201cNot dirty as such, Mrs Dandy. A bit of TLC, perhaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTLC?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTender loving care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s be none of that going on in my house.\u201d She sank into an overstuffed, pre-war armchair and picked up her knitting. \u201cWhy are you here, Mr Mattocks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Doctor Mattocks, Mrs Dandy. Please try to remember. The district nurse is a bit under the weather today, so she asked me to look at your dressing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to look at me, do you?\u201d The knitting needles clicked in counterpoint to her speech. With the thinness of her limbs and the over-starched, over-large dress she looked more like a spider than someone\u2019s mother. Had she always looked like that? I don\u2019t think we\u2019d ever seen her when we’d been children. Not close up. \u201cI\u2019m not some specimen for you to poke and prod.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, of course not.\u201d I set the case on the floor next to her chair and pulled on a pair of sterile gloves. \u201cChange your dressing, is what I meant to say.\u201d I looked at her. There was nothing but old age visible. \u201cErm…what\u2019s wrong, exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy leg.\u201d Mrs Dandy twitched back the hem of her skirt to reveal a swollen lump on her left outer thigh. Despite it being swathed in bandages, I could see it was leaking a ghastly amount of fluid. I shuffled a footstool forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould you lift your leg onto this?\u201d I began to set out sterile gauze and a fresh bandage while she raised it. I used safety scissors to cut away the old bandage, a deed to which Mrs Dandy tsked<\/em> sharply.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo wonder the health service is in such dire straits. We wouldn\u2019t have wasted a bandage by cutting it in my day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is why so many people got infections.\u201d The cloth fell way and I pulled off the gauze. Only my training enabled me to keep the shock from registering on my face. The wound on Eleanor Dandy\u2019s leg was a delicate shade of yellow, raw and seeping putrid bile. I looked up to find her watching my face. \u201cYou should have this removed surgically.\u201d I used a tongue depressor to peel back a flap of skin. I could swear I saw the white of bone just below the surface. \u201cThis needs an X-ray at the very least.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust dress it.\u201d Mrs Dandy returned to her knitting. \u201cIt\u2019s been like that for thirty years and has never troubled me. It\u2019s my bad circulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you insist.\u201d I shook my head, incredulous that no one had insisted she have it removed before now. Thirty years? It was barbaric to leave a wound so long. I used forceps to drape the gauze over the top and hold the end of the bandage in place. \u201cI came here as a boy once.\u201d I wound the cloth around her thigh, concentrating on the job. \u201cWe were all afraid of you as kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn case I caught you and skinned you alive?\u201d Mrs Dandy chuckled. \u201cDon\u2019t look so surprised. I heard all the stories. It\u2019s the fate of an old woman living alone to be branded a witch.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tied off the bandage. \u201cAre you sure I can\u2019t persuade you to a hospital visit? We could have you in and out the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told you no already.\u201d She struggled to her feet. \u201cYou will stay for a cup of tea, won\u2019t you doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm…\u201d I made a show of looking at my watch. \u201cI don\u2019t really have time, I\u2019m afraid.\u201d She looked so bitterly disappointed I relented. \u201cPerhaps just a quick one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so glad. I never get any visitors.\u201d She shuffled toward the hall again, a tug boat to my steamer. \u201cNurse Crenshaw always stays for a cup of tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a quick one, as I say. Plenty more visits to do, you know.\u201d We reached the kitchen and I was instantly sorry I\u2019d agreed to stay. The kitchen was a health hazard from all the dirty crockery and dropped food. I could see mouse and rat faeces along the skirting boards and the stench of rotting apples from a crate by the back door filled the room. Mrs Dandy ignored it all, shuffling from sink to stove to cupboard to make a pot of what I hoped was Assam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you carry it through?\u201d Mrs Dandy began the shuffle back to the living room where the television was now showing a morning chat show hosted by people wearing so much foundation they were likely to develop skin cancer.<\/p>\n

Mrs Dandy settled back into her chair with her knitting. \u201cYou can be mother. I take milk and two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course.\u201d I hesitated over the cups. The dirtiest was obviously hers?it displayed traces of the lipstick she was wearing but that left me the chipped cup with a crack that ran down one side. I could almost taste the botulism. I resolved to take a few sips for politeness and make my excuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cLovely.\u201d She accepted her cup and stirred it several times. I sat back and sipped, my mouth well away from the chip. It was a bitter brew. She glanced across at me. \u201cI do remember you, Mattocks. You were tall for your age. Lanky. You stole three apples and threw one at me when I shouted at you. It hit me on the cheek.\u201d She touched the spot. \u201cI knew you\u2019d be back one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

I grimaced, both at the memory and at the sudden pains in my stomach. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing as she chattered on, only looking up when she fell silent. At least I tried to look up. I just couldn\u2019t move my head. I could only lift my eyes as far as the lump on her leg. It must have been a trick of the light, for I\u2019d swear the thing was moving of its own accord.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you quite comfortable?\u201d She rose from her chair and pulled back the net curtain, then came over to my chair, stopping just in front of me, the ulcer on her leg pulsing. She raised my head between her hands. \u201cAtropa belladonna<\/em>, the deadly nightshade. Ingestion causes stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting and paralysis. You\u2019ll notice I didn\u2019t drink the tea.\u201d She turned my head to face the window. From this close I could see it wasn\u2019t damp washing at all, but the skinned body of a child. She turned away to withdraw a pair of flat-bladed knives from her knitting bag. \u201cI always get them in the end, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

She began to undo the bandage I\u2019d so carefully tied around her ulcerated wound. Once free, the mass unfolded like the head of a turtle from its shell. The glimpse of white I\u2019d thought was bone were actually teeth in the head of a monstrous, atrophied, conjoined twin. One eye peered myopically from the folds of flesh. Mrs Dandy placed the knives against the skin of my neck and began to peel away thin strips.<\/p>\n

\u201cEdith\u2019s looking forward to having skin again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Copyright \u00a9 2010 by Rachel Green
\nSomething Wicked<\/em> has no affiliation with Bloody Parchment<\/em>, please direct all queries to the official Bloody Parchment website<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rachel Green tied 2nd place My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the classified ad in the New Medical Practice. Third share in General Practitioner\u2019s surgery for sale, including client list and all fittings, Laverstone, Wiltshire. Price on application. I\u2019d grown up in Laverstone, still had ties there. An aunt, a cousin…probably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,226,60,58],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-bloody-parchment","tag-fiction","tag-rachel-green","tag-shadow-realm-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}