Fan of the Gothic

When we received the news that the cancer had returned, Dennis brought me a stack of antique books. A copy of the mysterious 1799 ‘Tales of Terror,’ attributed to ‘Monk’ Lewis, brought particular pleasure with its macabre frontispiece of flesh eating ghouls. Also, its clean pages: cut but unmarked.

Not quite unmarked. While Dennis drew the idarubicin and fiddled with the catheter, I noticed a cramped scribble in the margin of one page.

I read it to Dennis: “Don’t fold the page corners.”

“Quite right too, Matilda,” he replied, “beastly habit.”

“I like to leave my mark,” I protested. “The dog-ears are, I don’t know, like breadcrumbs showing the way that I’ve come.” 

I bent the page corner firmly and stretched out my arm for Dennis to attach the syringe to the PICC line.

The next morning, the first page of ‘The Wolf King,’ revealed another scribble.

“You have been warned!”

“How petulant,” said Dennis absently while squinting at the chemo prescription through his varifocals.

“I think the original owner was a little bit OCD,” I joked.

“Only Complains Daily,” said Dennis, kissing my forehead. “Like you.”

I took a pencil and wrote firmly at the bottom of the page: “THIS IS MY BOOK NOW – MATILDA ROSALLEN!”

The next day, I turned to enjoy ‘Grim, King of Ghosts, or, The Dance of Death’ and found a third comment in that now-familiar style.

“You will pay for this!”

I read it to Dennis.

“I wonder who she was writing to,” he said, drawing out the dose.

“What makes you think the original owner was a woman?”

Dennis muttered to himself, “10 mg or 60? I wish doctors would make their minds up.” While pressing the syringe, he peered at the page. “You’re right: can’t tell from that writing. An anonymous fan of the 18th century Gothic.”

He went to answer the phone downstairs. I finished the tale and found another scribble on the next page.

“Did you enjoy that, Matilda? I can write on YOUR important things too, you know!”

I looked down at the catheter and across to the bottle of idarubicin, the dosage written as "60mg" in that familiar cramped style.

“Dennis!” I called, but my throat was already closing.

“Dennis!” I whispered, while tongue swelled and the book fell from my twitching fingers to the floor.

---

Matthew Gregory Lewis was a 18th century novelist who specialises in especially gruesome Gothic horror, notably 'The Monk.' The anthology 'Tales of Terror' probably isn't by him thought it imitates (and even parodies) his blood curdling style. It has a great frontispiece of graveyard ghouls eating corpses (reproduced above).