To Perceive is to Suffer. Part IX
It’s said that familiarity breeds contempt, like something one was bound to come to with time - but he had never thought so.
People at their core didn’t change much as a rule. Sometimes circumstances could reshape them, break them, call something latent to the fore... But for the most part one could see it in them all along, if one had bothered to look. Those he spent time with and despaired at as barely worth the effort he had always found tiresome; proximity simply reinforced the notion. Likewise his respect, once given, remained and wasn’t something that wore off like cheap paint.
What familiarity did breed - which, Watson decided, was all the more dangerous - was a sort of lasse faire carelessness.
Spend all your time with a viper and one becomes used to it. You’ll train yourself to watch it out of the corner of your eye, to always move just out of range of its fangs. You’ll never forget it’s poisonous... but you’ll forget your initial fear of it.
And eventually, when you think you know it, that’s when out of the blue the serpent will grow an extra inch overnight and next morning you’ll suddenly find its fangs in the back of your arm and those copper-jewel eyes looking blank and smug (which is snake for, ‘you’ve only yourself to blame old boy’). As the venom burns in your veins, the only thought you’ll have to console you is that it wasn’t so much stupidity that tripped you up, as familiarity. Thinking you knew something when if fact you didn’t have a damn clue. Not much of a consolation as it happens, since the poison’s spreading through your blood just the same.
He had got used to being around Holmes. It had seemed patently ridiculous to go through every meeting tensed against chaos that was ever-present anyway, so he’d stopped. He stopped trying to be polite, as if the detective was a cobra he could charm. He treated him as he treated anyone else, smiling when he felt like it and sniping at him when he didn’t. Behind his oddly imperious manner his dark eyes had looked bemused; although Watson had no idea in those early days whether Holmes was pleased or just grimly laughing at his audacity whilst he plotted how best to plan his demise. Which made it sound like they’d hated each other at first; they hadn’t in the least, but there had been some inevitable bruising of personalities until they discovered how they best fitted together.
He had got used to a lot of things rather quickly when he came to live in Baker Street. Holmes had given a brief list of his faults as they occurred to him when they first met, but that didn’t cover his foibles in their entirety. Watson had accustomed himself to the fact that personal space and personal property did not mean as much to his fellow lodger as they did to the rest of society. Rooms would be entered without announcement, and on the rare instances he did knock there would be no pause to ascertain whether he was welcome or not. But at the time, having come back from Afghanistan, Watson didn’t find it so alarming; armies in their tents amidst their wars took the view that sand and bullets didn’t announce themselves so neither did the soldiers.
He’d got used to the company too, the physical presence of another in close proximity and the thousand casual touches the detective denied the world but lavished carelessly on Watson. A pat on the shoulder, a hand on his arm, a shoulder pressing against his, fingers meeting briefly over the passing of teacups. Holmes had not seemed to mean anything by it, just as he meant nothing by setting the hearthrug on fire or lying for three days straight on the ottoman and brooding. It was just one of those things. The rain fell, the smog curled through the streets and living with Sherlock Holmes was like rooming with a neurotic but affable scientist the caliber of which wouldn’t be out of place in a novel by H G Wells.
If Holmes’ idea of social interaction with him was somewhat idiosyncratic, with the rest of the world it was positively mordant.
He recalled one of the early cases involving a young man called Mortimer who was reported missing by his fiancé. The trail had led Holmes to a particular corner of Jago’s Isle and a den there frequented by Lascars. He had gone to lengths Irvine wouldn’t contemplate to make himself present the perfect picture of an addict and then submerged himself in mahjong, opium, green tea, abattoir alleys and wharf-side slums for four days. Returning briefly to Baker Street (worn and ragged but determined) he’d found Gregson waiting for him. The Yarder had swiftly concluded Holmes was either a lunatic or a lush and should never have been consulted in the first place. Watson had found himself refereeing a heated argument that never quite managed to boil over into all out insults - although lord knew it came close.
It wasn’t that he believed they’d actually start brawling, nor that he thought he’d be effective in separating them if they did. It was simply that it gave them someone else to scowl at and he got to listen whilst they played at pretending they weren’t doing each other a favour: Gregson in giving Holmes something to do and Holmes in doing it.
Despite the questions that went round in circles, despite the snide comments and pointed looks, Watson found himself in surprisingly good humour. It amused him (darkly) that sometimes he didn’t know whether he wanted to give Gregson or Holmes the first and hardest swipe to the back of the head. And it relieved him that Holmes was back, unharmed, and might actually have a meal and a full night’s sleep - both of which had likely been lacking. It also pleased him that the argument was serving more purpose than the two of them letting off steam; Gregson had recanted his accusation and Holmes had conceded to keep him better informed of his doings in future. (He wouldn’t, although he’d mean to.)
He had stood and stepped away from the table with its debris of papers, tea-trays, chemistry apparatus, and glasses (whisky for him, brandy for Holmes, and a sneer from the Yarder who’d been too apoplectic to accept a drink when offered,) walking Gregson to the stairs when he left. He felt that to remain sitting calmly sipping his whisky after witnessing such an epic loss of temper on all sides was a slight that the Inspector didn’t deserve and it would be imprudent to spoil his regained equilibrium where Holmes was concerned. So he had stood, manners polished to a shine and shown him out, murmuring how Holmes’ methods may be unusual but they got results and he was sure to have news in a day or so.
Watson’s thoughts had been on his fellow lodger as Gregson walked down the stairs to the front hall and the doctor stared after him without really seeing him at all, too busy privately cursing the brilliance and impossibility that was Sherlock Holmes. With a barely audible sigh he turned on his heel back to the sitting room, the glass full of whisky and the dark-haired embodiment of trouble he’d left glowering at the mantelpiece.
He paused to close the door behind him before facing the room again. As he turned, for the briefest second he registered a body standing close, a scent of pipe-smoke and the Thames, grubby shirt-sleeves, and a tired face with eyes that burnt like opium resin. One hand was on his shoulder, one hand at his waist as the detective eliminated the last inches of space between them and closed their mouths together in a kiss that was both hungry and unhurried.
His nerves sang, his mind dizzied, and for a second lost to surprise Watson felt a deep and agreeable tide of desire before cold shock conspired to drown such feelings out. His hands had almost reached to curl about Holmes’ waist, pulling him closer. Now instead they were pushing him sharply away, creating distance and letting him take a half pace back, putting the detective out of his own arm’s reach as much as anything else. He felt colour rise to his cheeks and tried to laugh, although the attempt was off, growling something about Holmes being drunk.
Holmes stood perfectly still, his face turned a little to the side in an attitude of wariness as he regarded Watson from beneath the safety of long lashes. With contained, unconcerned movements he raised a hand and raked it through the tangles of his hair, pausing to rub at the back of his neck like a hound with an itch. He looked at the doctor for a very long moment, and behind those burnt-umber eyes Watson could see exhaustion, calculation, evaluation, a touch of insolence, and... amusement?
He bowed his head briefly, half hiding a grin that was more mischievous than contrite. “My apologies,” he said, his voice quiet with Sunday school politeness. “Ya pien’s awful stuff.” The corners of his lips twitched higher in what might have been a private smile, and then Holmes left without another word, closing the door behind him.
Watson wanted to swear but his mouth had gone dry. He sat down gracelessly at the empty table and reached for his whisky with a hand whose fingers shook. He drained the glass and grabbed the decanter. Whisky for a snake bite. Burn the venom out. Let the alcohol destroy the taste of him, the taste of a city in sunlight, the taste of rosewood and shag tobacco, the taste of something as crystalline as diamond yet as powerful as a drug... He swallowed down most of an alarmingly full glass without feeling the whisky burn his throat at all.
Damn Holmes.
And damn him - at least he’d stepped away - but had he said ‘what are you doing? What on earth is wrong with you?’ No. He had not.
And Holmes had just looked at him. And smiled.
Watson suddenly felt queasy with dread as a thought occurred, far, far too late.
Holmes had smiled. That particular and un-pin-down-able ‘I know something you don’t - give me a shout when you work it out old chap’ quirk of the lips.
Oh god.
Instead of muddying his thoughts like ether the whisky had burnt away his shock, allowing him to remember the incident with indecent clarity. He hadn’t said ‘Good god man, you’re drunk!’ although he’d thought he had - assumed he had. He’d said, “For god’s sake, not when you’re drunk!” Which, as things went was both infinitely more true and more incriminating than he’d ever meant to let on.
He had known Holmes for roughly four months, which he was very aware wasn’t long at all. But in that time he had learnt several key facts of his character; it had been a very steep tuition curve.
If some whim came to mind, he would indulge it. If someone opposed him in any way, he would have retribution - usually by outsmarting them. When working on a case he considered no trick, deception or ploy beneath him - as Watson had discovered scarce a month into their acquaintance when Holmes had false-faced insanity and suicidal tendencies to get committed to an asylum whose superintendent he was investigating. His interests were as varied as the topics which bored him and he perused one with as much fervor as he shunned the other. He judged everyone as he judged himself: by his own just, exacting yet peculiar set of values, not giving a damn what society or anyone else thought along the way. Oh, and if something hadn’t exploded, imploded, drowned, eviscerated, burnt, turned toxic, been shot, experimented on or had fits of the vapors in the man’s presence then it was only a matter of time.
Despite all of this, he had still never imagined that he would be standing outside Holmes’ door, breath held and hand raised to knock, wondering how on earth to have a conversation about the fact Holmes had just kissed him. Frankly that took ‘bohemian’ and added brass knobs, ate the biscuit and whistled ‘Peasepudding Hot’ whilst it did so. It was just like Holmes to ignore all forms of etiquette and sense when it suited him, yet contrive (whilst being dead beat, half-cut and in the middle of a case) to dare Watson into having a conversation on such an indelicate and outlandish topic. And it was a dare - because Holmes knew if no conversation was had Watson was sweeping everything under the carpet. And if a conversation did occur, they both knew that would not be the end of it.
He knocked and, taking a leaf from Holmes’ book, entered immediately before he lost his nerve. “Why did you do that?” he demanded without preamble.
The detective was perched on the edge of his bed, perusing various case notes. His eyebrows canted at an angle, an almost pantomime ‘do what, my dear fellow?’ but at the last moment his expression softened and he raised his shoulders in the smallest of shrugs. “Because I wanted to.”
For a moment Watson wondered if he’d been wrong, if this had all been a crazed whim no different from a thousand other crazed whims and just as devoid of meaning. He couldn’t tell if the fizzing sensation in his gut was intense relief or intense disappointment. “That’s all?”
A smile, sincere and dangerous. “Because I’ve wanted to for the past five weeks, three days and sixteen hours. Give or take,” he added, as if it mattered.
Watson felt his shoulders slump and heard the breath rush from his lungs in a wholly lost and inadequate, “Oh.”
Dark eyes took his measure second by second, reading a hundred answers and a thousand truths in his posture and the cast of his face. Holmes dropped the papers he held and advanced. Suddenly skittish it took all the doctor’s nerve not to give ground. Holmes stopped, paused in motion and resplendent in disarray like a Hogarth sketch come to life. “I’m not drunk you know, nor was I in the dens - spent most of today evading Mr Oldgate and being chased through Jago’s Isle as it happened, before holing up in a delightful little establishment in...”
“That’s not the point!”
“Given what you said earlier I rather thought it was. And you have been with men before...”
“That isn’t...”
“What - likely? Discernible? Polite?”
“The point!” Watson snapped.
“Very well,” he folded his arms. “What is the current point?”
“The current - the point - is that this isn’t something we ought even be contemplating.”
“So you are contemplating it? Capital. I couldn’t be certain...”
“There would be consequences!”
“Of course there would,” he agreed with a hint of wickedness.
“Not those consequences!”
He looked disappointed.
“We’d be breaking the law!” Watson realized later that he’d never known true insouciance until seeing the expression on Holmes’ face at that instance.
“That isn’t law,” he announced with a perverse and grandiose certainty.
“I think you’ll find it is,” he retorted.
The other man made a noise that sounded like ‘t’feh’ and was drenched in disdain, following it with, “I think you’ll find I don’t care.” Abruptly he dropped both topic and attitude and focused again on Watson with a look that said a great deal, none of which was printable without the aid of a censor and a quart of black ink.
He rolled his eyes - dear god he was incorrigible. “I am not adding a criminal undertaking to my daily life. I’ve got enough trouble dealing with you!”
“But I’d join in, obviously,” he countered, moving closer again, sensing a victory or at worse a tie when Watson didn’t so much as flinch. “You always claim I need things to keep me occupied.”
Watson had lost - was lost. He growled, bowing his head and hiding his face against the detective’s shoulder, since it was there and it seemed the thing to do. “I’m not your next experimental project, damn you,” he huffed, words muffled by Holmes’ shirt which still smelt of river-silt, sweat and opium.
“In truth dear boy I rather feared I was yours.” There was a smile hiding in his words. His jaw dipped as his lips brushed Watson’s ear and, “Consequences,” he commented appreciatively.
Watson tried not to laugh.
Holmes tilted his head back this time, arching his spine a little so he could see Watson better. After a moment a diamond-pure grin graced his mouth. “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”
In reply the doctor made a small incoherent sound of amused despair. Four months - four damn months. “I’m trying to think of a perfectly reasonable excuse to say no,” he shushed him.
The grin grew wider. “But you can’t think of one, can you?” This was not strictly true. Holmes could think of at least five, which meant the man whose nose was currently pressed against his collarbone could certainly name three.
Four months and he’d already caught Holmes’ brand of insanity. “No,” he admitted, stuck as usual between the mild horror and abject wonder of the whole surreal situation.
“Mm, consequences,” leered the detective happily.
==========
And then, later, he had got used to a world without Sherlock Holmes too.
It was - and he’d given the matter thought because there were some sterling contenders for the title - the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Candahar and the slaughter at Maiwand had been awful - biblically so. Enteric fever had been hell. Returning to London and not falling to ruin had been a hard slog worthy of a Salvation Army parable. But day after day, existing in a world that no longer held Sherlock Holmes was indescribable.
Holmes had said it once, when he was in one of his moods, like Hamlet complaining of prisons and nutshells, that the world was stale. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? He had, Watson considered, no damn idea of the true meaning of any of the words he used. Nothing was as hopeless, as prosaic, as dismal as awaking each day and knowing that Holmes was dead, and the world - no, damn the world - he would never see his like again.
When Stamford had first described him, Watson had thought (amongst other things) Holmes sounded downright toxic. And he’d been right. The atmosphere of Baker Street was rarified to the point of poison by Holmes and his insanities. But cocaine is a poison, alcohol and morphine too and that does not lessen their allure to some nor their usefulness. Toxic becomes intoxicating as the poison becomes a drug and then a vice. After that heightened, madcap, macabre excitement, the world held no appeal: all the colour was bled from it until it was like existing with an exsanguinated corpse.
To make it worse he knew that he should have been happy. His life had been enviable. A charming, intelligent, beautiful and loving wife, a modest and well-kept home and a thriving practice. The fact that his friend had died should not effect him so; he should speak a eulogy, don a black armband, make his goodbyes at the graveside and move on.
And because he knew the importance of appearances, that was exactly what he did.
Slowly pressing home a silver bodkin of propriety each and every day until his heart was like a pincushion, until he wondered if he had any heart left or just a spillikin-pile of bloody silver pins.
Mary’s death - and he felt shameful for admitting it - had been easier to bear. When some cataclysm has torn the moon from the sky, the loss of the stars soon after does not rend the spirit in quite the same way. He had been there at the end, clasped her hand, touched her cheek and told her he loved her, quietly begged her not to leave. And she had smiled, said ‘Oh, John...’ as if he was a schoolboy, and then said no more.
Society had expected him to mourn and so did not begrudge him his grief. He wore black for her. But, late at night as he sat in his study (leaving for as long as possible the time he would retire to cold and empty sheets), when tears ran silent and unchecked, it was for both the people he had loved that he wept.
=======
NOTES
Ya pien - Chinese name for opium
Onwards...