The North Water(6)

“Did you do all those yourself?” Sumner asks him.

The man waits a moment, then nods.

“I’m the best taxidermist in town,” he says. “You can ask anyone.”

“And what’s the biggest beast you’ve ever stuffed? The very biggest, I mean. Tell me the truth now.”

“I’ve done a walrus,” the bald man says casually. “I’ve done a polar bear. They bring them in off the Greenland ships.”

“You’ve stuffed a polar bear?” Sumner says.

“I have.”

“A fucking bear,” Sumner says again, smiling now. “Now that’s something I would like to see.”

“I had him standing up on his hindmost legs,” the bald man says, “with his vicious claws raking the frigid air like this.” He reaches his orangey hands up into the air and arranges his face into a frozen growl. “I did it for Firbank, the rich bugger who lives in that big house on Charlotte Street. I believe he still has it in his grand entrance hall, next to his whale tooth hat stand.”

“And would you ever stuff an actual whale?” Sumner asks.

The bald man shakes his head and laughs at the idea.

“The whale can’t be stuffed,” he says. “Apart from the size, which makes it impossible, they putrefy too quick. And besides, what would any sane man want with a stuffed bloody whale anyway?”

Sumner nods and smiles again. The bald man chuckles at the thought.

“I’ve done lots of pike,” he continues vainly. “I’ve done otters aplenty. Someone brought me a platy-puss once.”

“What do you say we change the names?” Sumner says. “On the bill? Call it absinthe. Call it calomel if you want to.”

“We already have calomel on the list.”

“Absinthe then, let’s call it absinthe.”

“We could call it blue vitriol,” the man suggests. “Some surgeons take a good amount of that stuff.”

“Call it blue vitriol then, and call the other absinthe.”

The man nods once and does a rapid calculation in his head.

“A bottle of absinthe,” he says, “and three ounces of vitriol will about cover it.” He turns around and starts opening up drawers and picking flasks off the shelves. Sumner leans against the countertop and watches him at his work—weighing, sifting, grinding, stoppering.

“Have you ever shipped out yourself?” Sumner asks him. “For the whaling?”

The chemist shakes his head without looking up from his work.

“The Greenland trade is a dangerous one,” he says. “I prefer to stay at home, where it’s warm and dry and the risk of violent death is much reduced.”

“You are a sensible fellow, then.”

“I am cautious, that’s all. I’ve seen a thing or two.”

“You’re a fortunate man, I would say,” Sumner answers, gazing round the grimy shop again. “Fortunate to have so much to lose.”

The man glances up to check if he is being mocked, but Sumner’s expression is all sincerity.

“It is not so much,” he says, “compared to some.”

“It is something.”

The chemist nods, secures the package with a length of twine, and pushes it across the counter.

“The Volunteer is a good old bark,” he says. “It knows its way around the ice fields.”

“And what of Brownlee? I hear he’s unlucky.”

“Baxter trusts him.”

“Indeed,” Sumner says, picking up the package, tucking it under one arm, then leaning down to sign the receipt. “And what do we think of Mr. Baxter?”

“We think he’s rich,” the chemist answers, “and round these parts a man don’t generally get rich by being stupid.”

Sumner smiles and curtly nods farewell.

“Amen to that,” he says.

*

It has started to rain, and above the residual smell of horse dung and butchery there is a fresh and clement tang to the air. Instead of returning to the Volunteer, Sumner turns to the left and finds a tavern instead. He asks for rum and takes his glass into a scruffy side room with a fireless grate and an unpleasing view into the adjoining courtyard. There is no one else sitting in there. He unties the chemist’s package, takes out one of the bottles, and dispenses half of it into his glass. The dark rum darkens further. Sumner inhales, closes his eyes, and downs the concoction in one long gulp.

Perhaps he is free, he thinks, as he sits there and waits for the drug to have its effect. Perhaps that is the best way to understand his present state. After all that has beset him: betrayal, humiliation, poverty, disgrace; the death of his parents from typhus; the death of William Harper from the drink; the many efforts misdirected or abandoned; the many chances lost and plans gone awry. After all of that, all of it, he is still alive at least. The worst has happened—hasn’t it?—yet he is still intact, still warm, still breathing. He is nothing now, admittedly (a surgeon on a Yorkshire whaling ship—what kind of reward is that for his long labors?), but to be nothing is also, looked at from a different angle, to be anything at all. Is that not the case? Not lost then, but at liberty? Free? And this fear he currently feels, this feeling of perpetual uncertainty, that must be—he decides—just a surprising symptom of his current unbounded state.