‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘that gentleman is on the board of governors, and he said I am making a name for myself as unreliable. I cancelled a friend of his – a whining pain of a man who’s constantly self-diagnosing with tropical diseases he has read about and has little chance of acquiring in London. I couldn’t care less about him, but the governor is an important member of the group of doctors with whom I have my other work and I cannot have him think badly of me. I shall have to remedy the situation somehow. It’s really not fair. I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to without question, and to have some whining old boy spread rumours and ruin my chances… I won’t have it. He said he told me because he used to know my father. So it would appear that even though the old man is long buried, he still finds ways to judge me.’
I stayed silent, head down.
‘Aren’t you going to offer any wisdom? No wifely comfort?’ he said.
‘Do you not think it was kind of him to tell you, so that you might remedy this… false perception?’
‘Oh, you think it kind, do you? How kind of him! Susannah thinks he is kind.’ He mocked me, his voice high like a little girl’s, then said, ‘I have been summoned to do more private work for this man already, so I must be sure to go over and above any expectations. It is stressful work, Susannah. The position I play is beneath me, I’m aware, but if I am to be accepted and progress, I have no choice. The money is what keeps us, and these are not the sort of people to let down.’
I had no idea what this ‘other work’ was, but I was not about to start asking questions. ‘That’s good, isn’t it, if he’s well connected? Isn’t that what you wanted? And you said yourself, this work is handsomely rewarded.’
‘But of course you don’t care, as long as I can keep you in furs and dresses.’
‘Thomas, it was your idea to buy all these things…’ There, the wine had dulled my senses, and I had walked into his trap, baited and hooked.
I was still gawping with my mouth open. I didn’t even flinch when he slapped me across the face with his gloved hand; it happened so quickly. The sting spread like fire across my cheek.
‘You enjoy humiliating me, don’t you?’ he said, and when I didn’t answer, ‘I said, you enjoy humiliating me, don’t you? I’m asking you a question.’
I was turned away from him and he was addressing the back of my head. With one hand he gripped my hair, yanked my face towards him and pulled me closer.
‘I won’t get drawn into it.’
‘Do you have any idea of how you embarrass me? How people laugh because my wife went and picked the fucking Jew as her physician. You did that on purpose! You knew how it would make me look.’
I fell further into the trap of explaining myself, convinced I could reason with him.
‘I didn’t know he was Jewish when I chose him. I didn’t think of it. I only knew him as a good doctor. Why would I care about anything else?’
‘You know he hates me with a passion, which is why you selected him, to antagonise me.’
‘I didn’t, I swear. All I know is… I know he takes charity cases. I’ve seen him, in Spitalfields, looking for vagrants with skin diseases. I thought he would be a good doctor, that is all.’
He burst out laughing. ‘You really are a fucking idiot.’ He stopped laughing and leaned close into my face, but he still had hold of my hair so I could not pull away. ‘Poor, simple Susannah. So stupid. You know the real reason he goes there, don’t you? He pays them, he tests his new little surgeries on them. He pays them, because only the most desperate accept money for operations they don’t know whether they’ll wake up from. Sometimes they don’t need operations at all, he just likes to ferret about inside and have a good look, especially with the women. Everyone knows he likes to open them up and tinker around inside his whores. What do you think of your doctor now?’
I said nothing.
‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think the man loves his whores. And you are a tired old whore, aren’t you? Do you enjoy fucking Jews, Susannah? Do you moan underneath him, and then act the dead dog with me?’
He pulled and then pushed me onto the floor by the front of my dress. I lost my breath when my back hit the floor. His hands were everywhere, tearing at the dolman clasp around my neck, trying to rip it off me. His face bulged over mine, his eyes a freezing blue against the livid red of his cheeks. I undid the clasp myself and threw the dolman off my shoulders. It wasn’t white any more but brown from the dirt and spotted with my blood on it. My lip had split where he’d hit me.
I sat on the floor with my knees bent up to my chest as the coachman shouted, ‘What’s going on down there?’
‘Drive on!’ shouted Thomas, and he thumped the roof of the coach. He pushed me onto my back by my neck and slapped me twice round the face. Now I could taste blood.
The driver shouted again, but Thomas told him to keep driving.
