Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

Canning says: 'Did you find those things for me. Lute?'

'I have 'em here, sir.'

He passes Canning a small leather bag. It looks very new. Canning quickly opens it, looks inside, nods. The clock strikes eight. Outside the hour rings across the city. James stands next to Canning, looking over the men's heads to the gardens. It has started to rain.

'Gentlemen! Fellow members ... I am here tonight - as I promised I should be - to discover to you the latest of my prodigies. It is a boy I found performing - quite innocently - in the booth of an itinerant quack. The rascal used the boy to demonstrate the powers of an analgetic. The demonstration was remarkably convincing, but when I investigated the nostrum I found it to be entirely bogus. Yet I had seen with my own eyes this boy here apparently unaffected by the application of pain. If this was not -as it plainly was not - an action of the drug, then how might it be explained? I attended a number of these 'demonstrations' and had my agents at others. Naturally I suspected some imposture, a sleight of hand such as card-sharps and conjurers are adept in. Only when I had satisfied myself that this was not the case did I rescue the child

from his unhappy situation and bring him to the protection of my own home. I should Hke now, with the indulgence of the company, to perform a small experiment which will I am sure convince the most sceptical that here is an extraordinary subject worthy of the society's attention.'

From the bag Canning takes a seven-inch needle. It has a more medical look to it than the one Gummer favoured, but is in all important respects the same. Canning pricks his own thumb to demonstrate the needle's sharpness. He turns to James. James holds out his hand, palm up. Canning takes hold of the fingers, poises the tip of the needle and drives it through the boys hand. James screams. Canning stares at him. The room is silent; someone chuckles.

In a low voice Canning says, 'This is not the booth, child. We are not selling anything.' His eyes are not friendly now, nothing parental. He addresses the company. Behind his back James stares at the fat man, who grins fatly back.

'I should explain, gentlemen, that the boy was required to mimic pain in the first instance in order to convince the crowd that he was a normally sentient being, was indeed one of them. If I might crave your further indulgence I shall repeat the experiment.'

He repeats it. This time the boy does not flinch. A growl of astonishment from the company. A sound the boy knows well.

Canning delves in the sack, pulls out a pair of pliers, holds them up amiably before the company, then uses them to tear off the boy's left thumbnail. It requires considerable force and sets up a sweat on Canning's lip. He holds up the pliers, the nail between their steel teeth. There is applause. Some of the gentlemen are standing. Canning binds the thumb, pats James's head.

'I wish, gentlemen, I could say I have discovered how it is that a boy, otherwise quite like any boy of his years, should feel no pain. Alas, I have not. It is - as you have witnessed - as if the faculty of suffering were frozen, and indeed we know that the

application of cold to a hurt will often give relief. It may be in this instance the expression "cold-blooded" is more than merely figurative. And should this prove to be the case - that the senses are in some way frozen - it is a nice question to consider how this ice may be thawed, and what the effect would be should the child experience pain for the first time . . .'

The next speaker is the Reverend Joseph Seeper. He has a curious vole from his garden in Stroud. Neither seem at ease. The company drifts out.

It is past midnight when the carriage rolls up Charles Street into Grosvenor Square where Mr Canning rents a small but luxurious dwelling. They have been kept up by their admirers, the gentlemen of the society, who have wined and dined them in the upstairs room of the Mitre in Fleet Street. Several were anxious for Mr Canning to repeat his experiments but he would not, claiming that it would compromise the dignity of the society to do so. James meanwhile worked his way through a bottle of wine, largely unobserved. He was curious to see what effect it would have, if it would make him as loud as the others, but there was nothing beyond a distant sensation of warmth, a slight quickening in his thoughts. Poor stuff to place such value on.

As they mount the stairs into the house. Canning is in good spirits. He sings softly in Italian, greets all the servants by name, allowing them to kiss his hand as though he were the bishop. In a room full of crystal globes he binds the boy's thumb. The needle wound already shows signs of healing.

James is taken by a servant to a room on the first floor. When the servant leaves, the boy sits by the window looking out over the gardens in the square. Despite the hour there are still people about, still a to-ing and fro-ing of carriages. The watch comes - 'Past one of the clock. All well!' A fellow in a ragged coat scuttles across the

square like a cockroach. James uses the chamber pot, then cUmbs into bed.

It is still dark out when he wakes, no sign of morning. His mouth and throat are dry as cloth. He does not know how long he has been asleep. He climbs out of the bed. There is a candle by his bed but nothing to light it with. He feels his way out