The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull Page A

they all going? All these individual lives acting out their progress simultaneously in the tumult of the city street, just like Dickens. I dare not open my eyes as I know there are hundreds of Visitors clamouring through this tempest to speak with me and I cannot bear the din.
    Father finds a cab and helps me up the one step into the sprung seat inside. I sit between Lottie and Father and we are off, moving into the stream of traffic and bouncing with the trit-trot of our driver’s horse. The rattle of the clanking wheels jostles my bones and jogs me against my companions.
    Father finds my hand and asks, ‘What do you think of London?’
    ‘Noisy!’ I joke.
    We dismount in a quieter street, the stiller air punctuated by a coach or cart here and there, but much more subdued and welcome. Lottie tells me it is called Wigmore Place. I did not know streets had names. She says it is a very smart street and there is even a motor car parked at the far end, the first she has ever seen.
    ‘There must be someone ill nearby,’ Lottie tells me, ‘as the road has been covered with straw to spare their ears.’
    We wait to cross the road. Lottie describes an old man with a long beard who is called the crossing-sweeper. She says all along the kerbs are horses and carriages top-to-toe and our man must find a place for us to squeeze through on to the pavement. Lottie says two little boys further up are crawling under a horse’s belly to get across.
    We mount five steps and I feel Father rat-a-tat-tat on the door knocker. The door scrapes open and we tread on dense carpet. As we progress down the hall, I flutter my fingers along the wall. Thick wallpaper and heavy curtains absorb the vibrations from outside. We are in a haven of peace from the stormy seas of London.
    We enter a room that smells of Brasso and a hand finds me. It is a man’s hand: warm, chubby and good-natured fingers grip my own in a confident handshake and I am at ease. Lottie tells me this is Dr Knapp. He smells of medicines, a minty flavour lingering about him, but its sharp clean lines are comforting. He lets me feel his face, which is fat and jowly with a soft beard and kindly smile. I am led to a chair that has a reclined back and Lottie says I should sit and get comfy. She tells me the doctor wishes to examine my eyes, so I must sit very still and keep them open. I like the brush of his fingertips on my eyebrows and do not mind his attentions. Lottie says he is holding up a succession of instruments to look carefully into each eye. At periods, she asks me to look up, left, right, down and straight ahead. Then a change comes.
    ‘I can see that,’ I tell Lottie.
    He has shone a light into my eyes. I perceive it, as I do the bright sunshine when it shines directly on to my face at noon.
    Lottie says, ‘That is good news.’
    The examination continues for some time, then Lottie tells me the doctor has thanked me for my patience.
    I go to sit down in a chair like those in our dining room at home, flanked by Lottie and Father. The doctor sits opposite me and takes my hand. In it, he places a curious object. I feel it all over. It is a sphere, like the globe, but bumpy and lumpy, and it comes apart into pieces. Lottie feeds me information through my left hand, as my right hand explores the curious thing in my lap. The doctor has given me a model of an eye. Liza tells me the names and they are beautiful: iris, cornea, lens, retina. Then I am asked to leave the room, so that Father and the doctor can talk. But I will not. I want to know everything. I reach for Father’s hand.
    ‘I want the doctor to explain it to me. Please. I want to understand.’
    Father agrees.
    Through Lottie, Dr Knapp tells me about my eyes: ‘Your eye lets in light. It travels through the lens. This helps to focus the light on the back of your eye and lets you see clearly. When you were born, you were very short-sighted. We call it high myopia. Your eyeballs were too long. When the light came