‘I’m going to get my shawl.’ Julia ran down quickly. Coming back with the shawl around her shoulders she saw Rates’s door at the end of the passage and thought, I’ll go there now and talk to him, no more of this drifting, put her hand in the pocket of her dress and closed it on the gris-gris bag. Courage and luck, the Doctor said. Be brave.
‘Julia!’ said Rates, as if delighted, ‘I was just about to . . .’
‘Mr Rates,’ she said, with no idea what to say, ‘what are your plans?’
‘My plans, Julia?’
‘Someone wants to buy me.’
‘Everyone wants you!’ Rates laughed, came out into the passage and pulled his door to behind him. ‘Barnum! Barnum sent someone! Soon sent him packing. Didn’t come himself, you note. Sent someone.’
‘So,’ she said, ‘am I to come to Philadelphia with the others?’
‘Don’t you want to?’
‘To tell you the truth, Mr Rates,’ she said, ‘I haven’t really thought any further ahead than this moment. And now suddenly, I don’t know why, but I’m feeling nervous.’
‘No need for that!’ Rates smiled down at her. ‘No need to rush into anything. Have the girls been talking?’ His face took on concern. ‘I’m sorry, Julia, perhaps I should have mentioned it, but I didn’t want to bother you with the details.’
‘But Mr Rates,’ she said, ‘I need to know what’s happening.’
‘The truth is,’ said Rates, all business, ‘I’ve had three or four offers and I’m weighing them up, settling in my mind which is the best for everybody all round. But, more to the point . . .’
‘I don’t want to go with just anyone,’ she said.
‘Of course not!’ Rates was shocked. ‘What are you worrying about, Julia?’
‘Who are they?’ she asked.
‘Associates. I don’t deal with anyone shady, as you know.’
‘I’d like to know.’
‘I promise,’ Rates said firmly. ‘I’ll tell you everything from now on. The truth is there’s nothing to tell right now, at least not as far as that’s concerned. But,’ and he bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet, ‘there is something very interesting, very interesting indeed. I’ve had a request from one of the most distinguished medical men of the age.’
Julia’s eyes went blank.
‘Desperate to see you. Desperate.’
She’d seen a few medical men as a child. They’d studied her teeth, peered down her throat and down her ears, made her lie down and close her eyes and sing a little song to try and make her forget where they were poking their fingers. But that had been a long time ago. ‘I suppose I’ll have to see him,’ she said, dully resigned, ‘him or someone else. I know. They’ll say I’m a fake otherwise, won’t they?’
‘You must realise, Julia,’ he said. ‘Oh, it’s a bore, I know, but the medical establishment will inevitably take an interest.’
‘I know.’
‘Anyway, I’ve spoken to this Dr Mott. He’s the best. Very top of the tree. Extremely hard to get to see him normally but he’s made a space for us. Tomorrow, three sharp.’
She must have looked worried because he patted her on the shoulder encouragingly. ‘Sooner the better!’ he said briskly. ‘Get it over with.’
When she returned to the pink parlour, Delia was there, doing Myrtle’s hair. ‘How much is he paying Rates?’ she asked when Julia told them about the doctor.
‘I’ve told her,’ said Myrtle, ‘time and again. You get something out of it for yourself. You ask how much he’s getting for it. You want your cut.’
‘He’s not getting anything,’ said Julia.
‘Ha!’ Delia gave a little shriek. ‘He says!’
Myrtle just snorted.
They drove from the Bowery to Madison Avenue, where Dr Mott lived and had his practice. Through the veil, through the coach window, she watched the great show of the streets. New York made New Orleans seem quaint. It was like an ant’s nest nudged by a foot, the clanging of the omnibuses endless and deafening, the noise of children, beggars, hawkers. This was really The World, whatever that was. Slap centre of the Big Adventure. By night, coming and going between the theatre and the rooming house, the city had seemed smaller, enclosed by darkness. Daytime revealed its colours, sombre for the most part, slashed with brightness here and there. The further they travelled, the grander it got. Great buildings rose up like mammoths
‘Shall we walk a little coming back?’ she suggested.
Rates raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Julia.’
‘It was fine in New Orleans. With my veil.’
‘This is a rough city,’ Rates said. ‘Now, if my memory serves me – yes – it’s just along here . . .’
She kept her veil on till she was in the inner room, which was almost filled by the doctor’s enormous desk. Dr Mott, still holding a white towel, emerged from a side room where he’d been washing his hands. ‘Miss Pastrana,’ he said, tossing it aside onto a windowsill and coming toward her with his hand outstretched. ‘I am delighted.’ He showed no surprise, having seen her twice already on the stage.
‘How do you do,’ said Julia, taking his hand and smiling. Rates returned to the waiting room to read the newspaper he’d brought with him, and Julia took off her coat. She’d rather have seen someone older and plainer. Mott was handsome, young but already distinguished. On his desk was a framed picture of himself with his wife and little boy.
‘Come,’ he said, ushering her deferentially before him into the room next door. There was a high narrow bed, a chair, a screen, and a sideboard laid out neatly with medical implements she didn’t dare look at.
‘You’ll find a gown behind the screen,’ he said.
He was thorough. He got the nasty bits out of the way first. She closed her eyes and did what she always did, what Solana had told her to do. Said a prayer. Sang a song in her head. After that he paid particular attention to her teeth and ears, turned her eyelids inside out, lifted her tongue and looked under it, measured every part of her meticulously from her toes to the circumference of her head, inspected the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet closely, rang bells behind her head and asked if she could hear them.
‘I’m told you know your letters,’ he said.
‘I do.’
‘That’s excellent.’ His eyebrows went up. ‘Mr Rates tells me you enjoy reading novels?’
‘I do,’ she said, ‘very much so.’
‘Good, very good. Now – starting with the top line, if you please—’
She could read all but the bottom line.
‘Very good indeed,’ Dr Mott said. ‘And tell me – what do you like to read?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘whatever I can get hold of. I like The Linwoods, The Wide, Wide World. And The Curse of . . .’
The doctor smiled and scratched his whiskers. ‘Very very good indeed,’ he said, more to himself than her.
Then it was over and they were back in the carriage, and it was only when she saw the next show pamphlet that she read what Dr Mott had said about her: ‘She is a Semi-Human