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

her bills. He will bleed old men and their wives then drink with them half the afternoon, discussing politics and chiding in the gentlest vein the follies of the young people, though now he will turn to his new assistant, nod and say: 'Present company excepted,' and the old people crinkle their eyes and beam beneficence at Mr Munro's good fortune.

In the unremitting cold of March - the blackthorn winter -Munro is too drunk to leave the house. Messengers who call for him are sent home to ask if Mr Dyer can be of assistance. Most agree that he can. After the first visit it is him they want, not the old fellow.

In ballrooms and salons, the lame, the ailing and the bored, their breath sour with nostrums, discuss the New Man, only twenty if you can credit it. Very able. Very able indeed. Not as genial as old Munro, of course. Robert Munro, decent a man as you could meet in a day's walk, but . . .

Mrs Nigella Pratt's ingrowing toenail, botched by Mr Crisp of Beaufort Square, is remedied by James Dyer. She says: It is almost indecent the speed he works at. Why, I don't imagine he was in the house five minutes before it was done. God's truth - one moment he was walking through the door handing his hat to the girl and the next he was stood in the hall having his guinea off Charles. I don't believe he said more than five words the whole time he was here.'

Tobias Bone, Justice of the Peace in the County of Middlesex, a great mole removed from the end of his nose. Recounting in a coffee house by the Pump Rooms he raps the table for emphasis.

makes the china jump: 'James Dyer is the only competent surgeon in Bath, apart that is from old Munro himself. Reminds me of a man I had before me once accused of poisoning both his parents.'

'Munro?'

'No, sir. Dyer. Damn good hands, mind. Hands of a lady, eyes of an eagle, heart of a something or other - how does it go?'

Salvatore Grimaldi, musician and intimate friend of Lord B, is cut for the stone. He has left it late. There is a total suppression of urine, and he is carried into the house, faint, sallow, shot through with spasms. Despite his agony, he comports himself with great patience; only once, when the chairmen knock him against the table as they lift him up, does he shout, a brief and furious burst of Neapolitan blasphemy. He begs pardon immediately and asks if Mr Munro will be with him soon.

Munro, wrapped in blankets, a sealskin cap on his head, is sat in his bedroom breakfasting on Madeira and hot water. He has heard the commotion and when his wife comes in he asks her who it is.

'Some foreigner with a pain. James can deal with it.'

He nods. 'Where should we be without him?'

She knocks at James's door. It is opened by Gummer who carries in one hand an open razor. Behind Gummer, James sits coatless at the dressing table.

She says: 'Mr Grimaldi is below. A foreign gentleman of some influence. He suffers with the stone and Mr Munro begs that you would be so kind . . .'

'As soon as we are finished here we shall come down.'

She pauses. 'I pray you not to be too long for the gentleman does suffer so.'

James looks at her in the mirror. 'That depends on Mr Gummer. You would not have me operate in a beard, I take it?'

'No indeed. I am sure that would not be proper.'

It is half an hour before he appears in the chill back room used by Munro as his theatre. His face shines from the razor, and a sweet expensive scent creeps through the air where it mingles with other, less agreeable stinks; the sweat of suffering, old blood. James examines the patient. The patient's eyes flicker; he looks at the young man across a dim and widening gulf He mutters something about a priest. James ignores him, orders the chairmen to strip off Grimaldi's breeches and then changes his own coat for one of the blood-stiff jackets that hang from a wooden peg behind the door. From the third button of Grimaldi's waistcoat a thick gold chain leads to a watch pocket. James draws out the watch, a gold repousse pair-case, enamel dial, London-made. He frees it from the waistcoat button and hands it to Agnes Munro, who has retired into a corner of the room. He says: Tou time from the first cut and stop as soon as the stone is out.'

He goes to Grimaldi, leans by his ear. 'Mr Grimaldi, the fee for this operation is your watch. Is that agreeable to you, sir?'

Grimaldi's Ups twitch into a smile. There is a perceptible nod.

'Draw up his legs.' James takes a knife, forceps and staff from the drawer, then looks over at Mrs Munro. Trom the first cut, madam. And you' - he addresses the chairmen - 'will be witnesses. So . . . now!'

One minute and twenty seconds,

James holds up the stone. It is about the size of a small pickled walnut.

Munro comes in, blinks at the party gathered around the table. He steps over and admires the wound.

'Lateral cut, eh?'

'As recommended by Mr Cheselden. But I am twenty seconds or more outside his best time.'

'Cheselden! We must celebrate this, James. How is the gentleman? Is that not Mr Grimaldi? How do you go on, sir?'

Grimaldi whispers: 'I have lost my watch.'

Says Munro: 'Lost your watch but kept your life. I tell you, Mr Grimaldi, I have seen these operations last above an hour.'

Grimaldi sw^ivels his eyes to James. 'Caro dottore. He is . . , an instrument of God.' He sketches a cross over his heart; the chairmen ease him back into his breeches, back into the chair, carry him off. Grimaldi waves feebly through the glass. Munro fetches a bottle of Frontiniac, the