there in one of two ways. I could remain isolated, a misanthrope, or I could make a performance of it. The first path was more in keeping with my true nature and was seductive to me, but I also knew that I would gain far more from the experience of being a student at Exeter College, Oxford, if I … how should I put it? … partook fully of it.
I found I was rather a good actor — something of a natural mimic, in fact. I learned to disguise my voice and adopt different personae. I experimented with sartorial styling, facial hair, dyes and postures. I actually enjoyed it. And, I have to say, I’m quite a handsome fellow. I have fashionably long hair which is dark blond. I have a strong, intelligent face and large blue eyes. My lips are perhaps my least attractive feature, they are slightly too thin, but I have a manly chin, a powerful neck and broad shoulders. I’m several inches above average height, and of muscular build. But, more important than my physical appearance, I succeeded utterly in taking on the role of someone devoid of any anomalies of character, which meant I was readily able to make friends with others of my own age. I knew these were not real friendships, these people were mere stage props to me. Some may even have been fellow thespians — who could tell?
One such associate was Winston Merryfield, a medical student at Lincoln College. I can’t honestly remember how I first met the man, and really it does not matter. I liked the sharpness of his mind. He was something of an old-fashioned intellectual type, always reading weighty German novels in the original language and extolling the virtues of his favourite composers. I hate music, always have done, and Merryfield’s insistence that I attend the concerts he so loved tested my acting skills to the limit. But I thought from the off that young Winston would be a useful person to know, so with him I made a special effort.
One of the things I learned early in my university career was that there is a very important link between art and medicine. This is a fact many people ignore. As a student of Fine Art I was taught the rudiments of anatomy in the belief that it would facilitate a more realistic rendering of the human and animal form. That is an important area of expertise for the artist. Indeed, the Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci wrote about it. But the teaching of anatomy for painters is, well, let us say, less than comprehensive. And, as you know of me already, dear lady, I have always been inquisitive when it comes to bodies, dead or alive.
Merryfield was delighted when he learned that I was happy for him to bore me with his intellectual posturing, and even more so when I told him one evening, after a particularly tiresome performance of a plinky-plonky Mozart concerto at the Sheldonian, that I wanted to know more about human anatomy than I could gain from my own courses of study.
‘My dear Sandler,’ he replied with characteristic enthusiasm, ‘that really is a very easy matter to resolve.’
‘What do you mean exactly?’ I replied, leading him on.
‘Are you tired?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, why waste a moment? Come with me.’
We were walking along Broad Street but he turned us both round by gripping my shoulder and spinning on his heel. ‘Our lab is not far, just past Wadham on Parks Road. There’s always someone working late.’
And so I saw my second dead body. As a third-year student, Merryfield had his own key to the laboratory. He was right, there were two other students working there still. The place was freezing. It was a cold November night, but I surmised the place was kept cool by some clever artificial means.
The cadaver Merryfield showed me was that of an old man. He was kept packed in ice in a steel cabinet. Merryfield opened the door to the unit and slid the body out on a narrow tray. I glanced down at the forlorn figure on its metal bier. His skin was yellow and as wrinkled as a dried prune. ‘He was seventy-seven when he died,’ Merryfield commented.
‘But how do you obtain your specimens?’ I asked. ‘Is there still a trade in grave-robbing?’
Merryfield looked greatly offended. ‘No, there is not, Sandler!’ he snapped. ‘We are morally minded students, just like you. The dead bodies we use are all officially accounted for and their passage from the workhouse, the prisons and the hospitals is documented in triplicate.’
‘I’m sorry, I …’
‘Burke and Hare went out of business a long time ago,’ he added.
I held my hands up and made a very fine show of trying to pacify my ‘friend’. The fact was, of course, that I was greatly amused by his reaction, though I could not let him know that. ‘So how on earth do you preserve the corpses?’ I said, quickly putting Merryfield back into a position where he could do his best to impress.
‘Well, that’s actually a very good question,’ he said, his ill temper evaporating. ‘It’s not at all easy. Have you heard of refrigeration?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what we do here. We have a gas generator at the back of the building which keeps the room cool. You must have noticed?’
‘Yes, I did,’ I retorted with a shiver.
‘The body is embalmed with a special chemical called glutaraldehyde and packed in ice in the box there.’ He pointed to the dead man’s steel tomb. ‘The glutaraldehyde has turned Franklin’s skin yellow.’
‘Franklin?’
‘That was his name. A murderer, apparently. Killed two small children.’
I stared down at the sinewy naked form and could not visualise it as ever having been a living thing, let alone a person possessing the passion to kill.
Later Merryfield and I walked back to Broad Street together. After arranging a date and time for my first extra-curricular anatomy lesson with him, we parted on good terms. He wandered off to his room in Lincoln College and I walked slowly along Turl Street towards Exeter. But I knew even then that I would not sleep until I had spent some more time with Franklin.
I waited for three hours, watching the clock on my mantelpiece until the hands reached one. We were all supposed to be tucked up in our rooms by ten at night, and the curfew was strictly enforced. But, as you will have gleaned, I’ve never been an entirely conventional fellow. Within twenty-four hours of arriving at Exeter I had found at least three different ways to avoid the Bulldogs. It was a simple matter to slip unnoticed past the head porter, Mr Cooper, as he read the
Another useful skill I had acquired years earlier was the ability to pick locks. To this day there is still not a lock that has defeated me … and, believe me, good lady, I have picked a few.
I have a near-perfect memory and could recall every detail of the inside of the lab. Another useful skill of mine. You have to admit, I am a rather clever chap. The room was black, but there was a gas lamp close to the door. I pictured the layout of the room: the wooden and metal benches, the chairs, the sinks and the metal ‘tombs’. I made my way in the dark straight to the part of the room where Merryfield and I had been talking the previous evening. I lit the gas mantle, turning the tap to produce the palest, most sallow light.
The memory of it all is as clear as crystal in my mind today. Most people would probably have felt uncomfortable in that place. The cold was biting, my cheeks felt numb and my fingers were freezing. I could see my own breath in the air. But aside from these discomforts, I felt remarkably relaxed. The dead have never scared me, and in this dark, frigid room, I felt absolutely at home. And so I set to work.
I shall not describe precisely what I did. Let us just say I was searching for something. I always had been. This was in the days when I believed there was still something to find inside the human body. A time before I realised there was nothing there. Before I gleaned the real truth.
I haven’t really explained this so far, have I? Perhaps I should. My parents’ religious zeal repelled me, this much is undeniable. I had no time for myths and legends, and I certainly did not believe in a benevolent God. But at the same time, I could not come to terms with the idea that this meagre existence on Earth was the end of the story. I realise now that it was just my ego making me think this. After all, it is human ego that drives all religious faith, and like most people I needed to believe in the existence of the soul. As far back as the days when I’d vivisected rats and frogs, I was searching for a physical manifestation of it. I knew it had to be in there somewhere. That is what I was doing that night in Merryfield’s lab. I was hunting for tell-tale signs that the dead murderer’s body had once hosted a soul, that traces of it somehow remained. I realise the futility of it now, dear lady. But I was young once.
Anyway, I digress. I half-expected something concerning my nocturnal adventure to appear in the local paper,
