Free A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close

trade that depends so greatly on the practitioner’s affability. His teachers have impressed on him the vigilance required if he is to rise to a social distinction matching his intellectual gifts. The first question he asks in any situation is not how do I feel? But does this demean me? And, how can it be turned to use? Every impulse but one is filtered in this way. The exception is irritation. The portcullis of his intellect lifts. That country boy’s body unbends. Heart pumps, lungs fill, muscles flex. This is his only indulgence.
    Lord knows, he’s provoked to it. There’s a case of tuberculosis in the men’s hospital that could yet turn into an epidemic. Summer is always bad for contagious diseases. A housebreaker has shingles. In the upper ward, a wife-killer lies baw-faced with parotitis and a baker who used adulterated flour is sweating his way through scarlatina. Half the criminal lunatic department has gone down with enteric. On top of that, he must deal with the thirty or so women the last damn-fool Medical Officer weaned off gin with prisoners’ laudanum. He has enough on his hands without having to worry about healthy women trying to kill themselves for the vote.
    An MP is asking questions in the Commons about his treatment of Ethel Moorhead. There’s a procession of busybodies trying to get into the women’s hospital: chaplains and town councillors and freemason solicitors, respectable matrons who lick envelopes for women’s suffrage. The Governor forced his way in last night. What’s the point of writing daily reports if the old soak doesn’t trust him? He’ll be turning the Prison Commissioners against him, passing on tittle-tattle from Matron. Careful how he does it, nothing that puts him out on a limb, but the Commission secretary can be relied on to read between the lines. Why else would Dunlop be here? Doctor Dunlop has been a friend to him in the past, but he’s another who has not risen so high without knowing how to hedge his bets. ‘Just a flying visit,’ the Governor says, as if you can introduce the Prison Commission’s medical adviser into a situation like this without stirring up a byke.
    The wardress is instructed to give Prisoner Gordon an extra dose of laudanum, which should keep her quiet, but one glance will show Dunlop she’s not gaining weight. Thank God for Prisoner Scott. A complete vindication of the feeding policy, if only she would behave. But she has a genius for sensing what he wants of her and doing the exact opposite. She knows something’s afoot, and puts up an extra struggle against the morning feed. Not that she’s ever passive, but today she’s like a demon. Lindsay has to straddle her. The milk that comes back up is pink with blood and gritted with chips of tooth enamel.
    At eleven he comes back and tells the wardress to bathe her and comb her hair. She wants to know why. He puts on a show of changing his mind and her face falls, but she won’t beg him. So now neither of them have what they want, unless he can think of a way of getting her washed that won’t look like weakness. He’s sounding her chest when she announces she has heard screaming. This seems unlikely: the hospital and the female cell block are separate buildings. Has the wardress been gossiping, or is she fishing for news? He says her ears are playing tricks again, but the blasted woman is like a terrier with a rat: she knows there are other suffragettes here. Why are they not in the hospital? He tells her she should be able to work that out for herself. The hospital is for the sick. They are taking their meals and serving out their sentences. That shuts her up.
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    She passes the empty hours by ranking all the people she hates in order of precedence. Before she began campaigning for the vote she would have been shocked by the thought of hating anyone. It was ignorance that made people do hateful things, they just needed