James Miranda Barry Read online

  Barry attracted attention wherever he went and this appeared to be deliberate. Mrs Lois Chance, who had known Barry in the Cape, on request, wrote a much-cited letter describing the good doctor, which also did the rounds of the stuffy drawing rooms, and was carefully scrutinised behind the fluttering of Japanese fans.

  He is a perfect dancer, and I have had the pleasure many times. He won his way to many a heart with his impeccable bedroom manners. In fact, he is a flirt. He has such a winning way with women and he has the most beautiful small white hands.

  This was the kind of detail that Colonel Bird did not provide, but was manna to the ladies.

  No household keeps secrets from servants. Isaac received a version of the drawing-room excitements. He did not believe that Barry would have sliced off a fellow officer’s finger, even in a rage, simply because, in his official capacity as medical staff doctor, Barry would have been giving himself the trouble of stitching it on again. In any case, Isaac often polished the fruit knives at the residence, and they were barely effective for slicing through the flesh of a ripe apricot. But he firmly believed the story about Napoleon. Barry had closed the Emperor’s eyes, with his cold, pale hands. And what he did gather from the rumours was the fact that Barry was autocratic and opinionated. These are not good qualities in a master.

  * * *

  The first thing Barry heard in the cool dawn was the sound of bells passing outside. The jingling flood had surged over the white rocks and up the fragrant hills, covered with flowering rosemary and wild thyme. Barry flung open the shutters and looked out. The goats had long ears like floppy tongues and pert tails with white tufts. They tinkled effortlessly across the rim of a ravine and ascended the meadows, followed by a boy and two dogs. Barry watched them out of sight. He decided to order fresh goat’s milk, to be delivered every morning.

  When Isaac reappeared, carrying a bowl of hot water, the doctor was already dressed and inspecting the premises, his poodle tucked under his arm. He gave orders concerning his meals and linen quietly and without emphasis. Isaac listened carefully. The doctor preferred fresh milk, from the passing goats, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. Then he asked a question.

  ‘Do you ever have frosts?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. We have a frost every five years. And there is always snow on the high mountains.’

  Isaac delivered this information in tones of reassurance, imagining that the English doctor was already missing the chill of his native land. He was so anxious to say the right thing that he did not notice the ironic curl of Barry’s lip. Barry turned away and looked out with satisfaction at the rough shapes of white rock protruding from the hillside above the colony. The house was surrounded by a small garden, which, from the smell of the red earth, had just been watered. Barry noticed that purple and deep-red bougainvillea was in bloom. He smiled at the sharp lines of colour: the cream walls and green roofs of the barracks, the thick blue of the sky in the early day. He was not thinking of England.

  The army buildings were set apart on a little ridge above the town, occupying the view above the bay and far out to sea. The lights of the barracks were the only things clearly visible to passing ships, for the town was protected by a gentle curling finger of land which ended in a fat little Turkish fort, constructed in the fourteenth century. The bay was full of fishing boats, floating in shallow waters. Barry deduced that the wharf for the big ships must be on the other side of the hill, and invisible from his house. He liked the somewhat withdrawn situation of the Deputy Inspector’s quarters, which enabled him to look down upon the esplanade lined with palm trees, the smart houses and their fragrant, well-watered gardens. He could even pick out the eighteenth-century columns and noble pediment of the theatre, which was decorated with one or two celestial Muses, organised around the chariot of Apollo. When he looked at it more carefully, some days later, he discovered that the seagulls had stained the statues in suggestive places with yellowing excrement and taken to nesting peacefully beneath Apollo’s wheels.

  The sun was already powerful. Barry sat on his verandah, very upright in the green cane furniture and cream cushions. He took his tea with sweet breads and fruit. Isaac watched over his silent master with cautious curiosity. The doctor’s manners were gentle and considerate. He never raised his voice. But every gesture, indeed his very posture among the cushions, indicated that he was acutely aware of Isaac’s presence and observation. The servant realised that he was no longer invisible, that he too was noticed and observed. This unusual fact alarmed him. He could no longer gather information with impunity. Master and servant negotiated their shared territory, circling one another, without a word spoken.

  The white poodle, which had just wolfed down half a chicken without the bones, was not to be caressed. This creature, as delicate and fastidious as its master, was clearly vicious, and growled whenever he approached.

  Then came the sound of several horses, taking the hill at a bracing trot. Isaac and Barry guarded the verandah, staring at the mounting cloud of dust. A few moments later, amidst a flurry of snorts and thuds, a very large man, formally but hastily dressed, loomed round the corner of the house, leaving a trail of slurred footsteps across the dew on the lawn.

  ‘Dr Barry,’ he bellowed, long before he could possibly have shaken the doctor’s hand, ‘I say, pardon me, won’t you? Grovelling apologies and all that. I was meant to meet you on the quay, with due pomp and circumstance. But you were a day early. And I had a little band, all rehearsed. What’s a fellow to do? I’ve been beaten by the wind, you might say. Never mind. I’ll get them to perform the whole thing on another occasion. We’re always getting up little ceremonies. How do you do, sir.’

  He arrived at last within hand-shaking range.

  ‘To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?’ Barry stepped forward, forever insubstantial despite his padded shoulders and high heels.

  ‘Oh dammit, sorry. Walter Harris. I’m the Deputy Governor.’ Harris was never intentionally rude. He already knew so much about Barry that he treated the doctor like someone he had met many times.

  Barry felt the sweating clamp taking possession of his cold hand. Harris looked like an unemployed privateer who had mislaid his brig. His hair needed cutting and his excessive jewellery suggested that he was not quite a gentleman. Barry liked him at once. Harris commented on the terrifying chill of Barry’s hands.

  ‘Bad trip, eh?’ he thundered sympathetically.

  ‘May I offer you some refreshment?’ Isaac was hovering in the doorway.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do. Good morning to you, Isaac.’ Harris landed in one of the cane chairs with an emphatic thump. He had decided that Barry could not possibly be the medical Ghengis Khan of the colonial service that everybody said he was. He looked a bit odd, but was clearly a good fellow, and an independent, unfussy sort of chap. Colonel Bird had compared him to Robespierre, incorruptibly decked out in a satin coat of the latest pea-green Hayne. To Harris, this now seemed rather scandalous, and certainly uncalled-for. Harris was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation without any outside assistance and did so now.

  ‘But nothing cooked, if you don’t mind. Just tea, Isaac. I’ve breakfasted. I came up to present the Governor’s greetings. My own, of course, too. And everybody’s apologies. First wind we got of the boat’s arrival were the quarantine papers, delivered along with the Haughton girls. I say, you must have been out in that storm. Dreadful business. We lost a palm tree out by the fort. And a couple of roofs ripped off. No real damage. The fishermen were all home. And it didn’t touch the north side of the island. How on earth did Isaac know that you were coming? Must spend his time watching for ships. Mind you, we’ve all been ready for days. Dinner at the Governor’s on Friday? That’s your formal welcome do. He wants to see you before then. Soon as you can manage, in fact. He lost his wife last year. But I expect you heard. I’m at your service. Whaddayou want to do? See the sights? Pop past the club? All the ladies are agog with excitement at the prospect of meeting y
ou.’

  Here, Harris twinkled knowingly for a moment, creating a pause in his own bellowing flow. But it did cross his mind that, since Barry was clearly a delicate sort of a chap, he mightn’t like innuendoes, and so the Deputy Governor rattled on again.

  ‘The colony’s a small place. But we all rub along pretty well together. The roads are dreadful, of course, so the social life is pretty much concentrated in town. I’ve brought you a horse. Compliments of the Governor. He keeps his own stable. Given you one of his best. He’s a generous chap. Thanks, Isaac. Wonderful. There. I’ll have another cup.’

  The horse was a gigantic bay mare with a fiery white streak down her face and four white socks. A terrific ride for a man with a strong seat and firm hands. She was clearly far too large for Barry, who would have looked odd on anything bigger than a child’s pony. For a moment Harris was baffled.

  ‘She’s a big filly, though,’ he said doubtfully, as if reconsidering an unfortunate marriage proposal.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Barry, with a slight, ironic smile. He had followed Harris’s thoughts.

  ‘Oh well – you’ll manage. Gather you had a carriage and four greys in Cape Town.’

  Barry raised one eyebrow. He suddenly realised that a hurricane of gossip, probably consisting of adventures more preposterous than those put to amorous use by Othello must have preceded his arrival.

  ‘Ah yes. All stallions,’ he remarked. ‘I put them out to stud for part of the winter season, and made a little income that way. Which helped pay for their upkeep.’

  This was in fact true. But a man who has handled four stallions is a man to be reckoned with, in anybody’s book. The Deputy Governor was indeed winded for a moment, but he drew breath and then forged ahead. He let fly another inconsequential gust of gossip.

  ‘Colonel Bird was here last winter, you know. Told us all about you. So we’re forearmed!’

  Barry decided that the conversation had gone far enough. He rose and indicated that he wished to visit the hospital immediately.

  ‘By all means. I’ll take you over there at once.’ The polished boards of the verandah shook as Harris achieved the vertical in two hefty jerks.

  ‘Word gets about a bit, you know,’ said Harris, not altogether tactfully. ‘The hospital staff are somewhat apprehensive. They’ve heard that you’re a little chap with a big punch.’

  He was suddenly very embarrassed. Barry had an open, encouraging manner, but Harris feared that he had overstepped the mark in directly referring to the doctor’s proportions. He had no way to claw back his comments, and stood there biting his tongue. But Barry took no offence. He smiled up at the Deputy Governor, rightly detecting nothing but affable good will.

  ‘We found that in Cape Town the smallest snakes are the most deadly.’ This remark, not altogether comforting, was delivered with candour and sweetness. ‘Well, Harris, let’s have a look at this Trojan horse you’ve brought me.’

  Barry was good at reading other people, men and women alike. This was what made him an excellent physician and gave him confidence in his own diagnoses. He sensed malice, hypocrisy and malingering immediately. He had a very short temper and was often alarmingly violent in his responses. But he never imagined insults where none were intended. He liked this gigantic buffoon of a man whose hearty simplicity was warm, attractive and genuine. Harris was clearly unobservant and uncomplicated. He patted Psyche without thinking and almost lost a finger.

  ‘I say, Barry, that creature’s not to be trusted, is she?’

  ‘My apologies, sir. She is still a little discomposed after our long voyage.’

  A sea breeze caught them as they rounded the corner of the house. The horses stood in the yard, flicking the first flies of the year away with their tails as they nibbled the sparse bush. Barry was undaunted by the precipice of the bay’s long shoulder and simply led her over to the house steps, tightened her girth and used the steps as a mounting block. Once astride, he had to adjust the stirrups up to their highest notch, so that he looked like a jockey, perched on top of a prize racer. He noticed the glittering eyes of the house boys peering through the muslin screens. And so he leaned down into the rich-smelling, dim enclosure and called out with sinister authority, ‘I shall inspect the kitchens on my return. Be ready.’

  A small explosion of panic erupted in the wake of his departure.

  * * *

  The hospital staff were advisedly anxious at the advent of Dr James Miranda Barry. The doctor interfered with everything. Habitual systems were overthrown overnight. New régimes were instantly enforced. Sensibilities were understandably ruffled and, in private, tempers were well and truly lost. Long before the transmission of infectious and contagious diseases was fully understood, James Miranda Barry had grasped an essential necessity for every hospital: absolute cleanliness. This was his obsession, his religion. On the question of hygiene he was neither liberal nor tolerant. He was a fanatic.

  Barry insisted on a daily change of linen for every patient, frequent dressing of wounds and the boiling of all surgical instruments. He ordered his staff to achieve a level of disinfective scrubbing that prepared the way for godliness. His assistants were forced to hold out their hands like little children, for the doctor’s inspection, before they trailed off behind him on the ward rounds. When he was called in for consultations he ordered all the previous doctor’s prescriptions to be removed without even looking at them. Such tactics did not endear him to his colleagues. He opened windows, even in the coldest weather, and insisted upon what one rival described as excessive ventilation. Barry swept into overheated sick rooms on a gust of cold, fresh air.

  The colony’s hospital was fortunately placed, in view of Barry’s fresh-air methods. It was situated less than a mile away from his quarters and built on a little hill. There were two main wards, both designated for men only, and a small female ward in a house with a verandah, a hundred yards away. This tiny building also served as a lying-in hospital for difficult cases. But most of the colonial wives who did not trek home to England preferred to give birth at home, aided by the midwife. Soon everyone wished the delicate Dr Barry to be there too, in constant attendance. The women’s hospital was quiet and empty. A mountain spring that rose out of the earth a little higher up had been tapped to supply constant, fresh, ice-cold water from the belly of the earth. Barry had the water analysed in the first week of his command and found it to be rich in minerals that would do no one any harm. But he still insisted that all linen should be boiled, as should the water used for operations. Under Barry’s rule, bed bugs became a thing of the past.

  But on that first day, early on a February morning, when Barry trotted up the uneven narrow road, much pitted by erosion and potholes, the hospital staff, patiently engaged upon their usual business, did not suspect that they were about to enter the vanguard of nineteenth-century medical reform. Barry had spent most of his life banning medical practices that were centuries old, and that day was to be no exception. No word of the doctor’s early arrival had reached the hospital and Barry caught them unawares.

  The Deputy Governor abandoned him in the courtyard. ‘Well, here you are, old chap. I’ll pop back in a couple of hours to take you down to the Governor. You’ll have an office in Government House too, of course. And I must be there to make all the formal introductions.’

  Harris bounded back onto his horse and made off as fast as possible. Despite the fact that the hospital never knowingly took in contagious or infectious cases if they could not be isolated, Harris was quite sure that he was in danger of catching something that was either disfiguring or fatal. He stuck to the old methods and purged himself regularly. He had never suffered a day’s illness in his life.

  Barry was greeted on the step by the hospital’s Superintendent, who was a big, serious-minded and unsmiling Greek. The doctor introduced himself and shook hands, ignoring the look of horror fixed to his colleague’s face.

  ‘Your name, sir.’

  ‘George Washington Karage
orghis. Sir!’ The Superintendent saluted. Barry peered at his armpits to see if his coat was clean.

  ‘And from that I may gather that your parents are friends to the Republic?’

  Barry’s rare, warm smile appeared and the terrified Superintendent relaxed.

  ‘Yes, sir. My brother is Thomas Paine Karageorghis.’

  Barry laughed. ‘I shall look forward to knowing him too. Let us proceed with our inspection. I want to see all the wards, kitchens, storerooms and offices. I want to meet all the staff and become acquainted with all your regular routines and procedures.’

  Despite this promising beginning the initial round of the wards did not go off well. Barry discovered that most of his assistants were still gripped by medical philosophies which were, at best, a quarter of a century out of date. A fully fledged doctrine of bodily humours was current among the native population, and blood-letting, as a preventive measure, was commonly practised. In the early spring, dozens of patients, a crowd of whom Barry encountered at the dispensary door, presented themselves to be bled, in order to evacuate the bad blood that had accumulated over the winter. This tradition generated a modest income, which was pocketed by the establishment.

  Barry lost his temper and scattered the crowd, who decamped, bitterly disappointed and muttering discontent.

  ‘Your namesake, George Washington, was bled to death by his doctors in 1799,’ snapped Barry. ‘This practice is to cease at once. On my authority, I will have neither venesection nor cupping practised in this hospital. I doubt that even the wealthiest inhabitant could procure leeches in this climate, but in any case, leeches are banned too. Listen to me, Mr Karageorghis, and remember this. Bloodletting has more to do with magic and quackery than medical science. And I will not have it.’