The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace Page A

of ’em a power of good,” he said. “Leeches, on occasion.”
    “Women hate leeches,” Lucas said.
    “Even so. She might have benefited from a cooling of the blood.”
    *   *   *
    They walked along the passageway and into the parlor, where Lucas lit both lamps, adjusted the wicks and poured whisky into two crystal tumblers. Keeping the glass with the chipped rim, he passed over the other.
    “Cheers.”
    “To your experiments,” Maddox said, raising his glass.
    There was a tap at the door and a head wearing a red scarf appeared around the edge of it.
    “I’m off now, sir, if there’s nothing more you want.”
    “Good night, Stickles.”
    The basement door banged as both men sat down by the fire. A dustbin lid clattered to the ground outside in the darkness, followed by a curse. Footsteps receded down the pavement. Lucas had taken on Stickles as a plain cook, which she proved not to be. Downstairs in her kitchen empire she didn’t so much cook as conduct experiments. She concocted salve from beeswax and insisted he apply it to his hands, to counter the effects of the chemicals; produced unidentifiable jams involving petals and bits of aromatic bark, or pickled nuts and root vegetables in jars, occasionally serving one up on a plate. The lumpy defeat in their shapes reminded Lucas of the preserved hearts and kidneys in the labs at university.
    He lived on bread and cheese but kept Stickles on because she didn’t insist on getting the skivvy to clean the darkroom or tidy up. He stored his periodicals and case notes on the dining room table in what looked to others like random heaps but were in fact a carefully calibrated system, foolproof until some other hand interfered in it. All he asked, he told her, was that she should keep down the dust in the house and especially on the second floor. Stickles laughed. He would have to remove to the countryside, if he wanted to get away from dust. “It’s what Lunnon’s made of, sir,” she said.
    The lamplighter climbed down from the post in the street outside; a round-topped rectangle of flickering light appeared across the floorboards. The heat in the sole of Lucas’s foot, the smell of singeing leather, had become impossible to ignore. He shifted his leg along the fender, emptied the last drops of whisky down his throat and got up to jerk the heavy curtain along its pole. It always got dark earlier on Sundays.
    “Time you went, Dox. I’m on duty in the morning and I’ve got work to do tonight.”
    “In a minute. Have a look at this.”
    Maddox dug in his breast pocket and passed over a small card. It was a photograph of two girls lifting their skirts, showing bandy legs and childish pudenda. The print was amateurish, with no contrast and no detail, the flesh crudely colored with carmine. Lucas grimaced and passed it back.
    “No thanks.”
    “Come on, old man. Every chap enjoys looking at pictures of naked women. Especially drawn from the life.”
    “I don’t disagree with that. But not when I’m thinking about work. Anyway, these aren’t women.” He exhaled and looked at his friend through the softening drift of smoke. “It’s time you found a wife.”
    Maddox grunted. He was fingering his tooth again, tracing its outline, his top lip drawn up like a snarling dog. He looked like the old statue of a raving maniac, outside Bedlam. Maddox bared his teeth further, lifting his top lip on both sides.
    “Got it done by a chap in Holborn. Swore it was ivory. D’you think women care, about teeth?”
    “Some of them might, I suppose.”
    Lucas himself had no interest in marriage. He was too busy for social life. And if he wasn’t, he would want a woman he could talk to. Not some creature who spent her energies on stitching and sketching and tinkling the piano keys. Half the female patients in his care had been driven to the edge of reason by their limited lives, in his private opinion. Human beings needed a purpose.
    While Maddox entertained a string of