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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
The remarkable true story of Margaret Anne Bulkley - aka Dr James Barry - a surgeon who lived as a man for their entire life London, 1800. Margaret Anne Bulkey desperately wants to be a surgeon - but only men can train as doctors. Fifty years later, Dr James Barry is famous, serving as Inspector General of Hospitals throughout the British Empire. A brilliant surgeon, bold reformer and prickly individual known for his fierce tempter, he fought a duel in South Africa and clashed with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. But Dr Barry has a secret that he is determined no one should every learn... Lisa Williamson is the best-selling author of The Art of Being Normal, a YA story about the friendship between a trans girl and a gay boy described as 'a life-changing and life-saving book' by Philip Pullman and 'extraordinary' by Non Pratt. She has written two other highly regarded YA novels, All About Mia and Paper Avalanche.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
MONDAY 24 JULY 18658
The old woman heaved herself up the narrow stairs, pausing for breath on the landing before pushing the bedroom door open. As she stepped inside, she clasped her hand over her mouth and nose and tried her best not to breathe in. Even though she’d been preparing dead bodies for a living since she was a teenager, she had never quite got used to the pungent smell of death, especially on hot days like this. Keen to get the job over and done with as quickly as possible, she tied a hanky around her face in a bid to block out the terrible stench, rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
The dead man was lying in bed. He was small and slight with pointy features, pale waxy skin and curiously bright red hair. Although he was most definitely deceased, the woman couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous at being in such proximity.
10Before his retirement, Dr James Barry had held the position of Inspector General of Hospitals, one of the most senior positions in the medical profession. As an Army surgeon, he had travelled the world and achieved worldwide acclaim for performing one of the very first successful Caesarean section operations (delivering a baby by removing it from its mother’s womb via an incision to the stomach).
He was equally well known for his ferocious temper. According to the maids downstairs with whom the woman was friendly, Dr Barry’s outbursts were both frequent and intense. The legend went that Florence Nightingale (the famous founder of modern nursing) had once found herself on the receiving end of Dr Barry’s sharp tongue! There were even rumours he had once fought a duel. However, looking at him now, so pale and frail, it was all rather hard to imagine.
The woman paused to bow her head in a mark of respect before reaching down to carefully peel off his dirty nightshirt.
As she began to wash Dr Barry’s skinny body, she noticed something wasn’t quite right. She blinked, almost certain she was seeing things before checking again.
She was not seeing things.
She staggered backwards in shock, her sponge falling from her fingers.
11Although the man’s face was definitely that of Dr James Barry, the master of the house, his body was unmistakably female. Unsure quite what to do with this information, the woman had no choice but to complete her task. With trembling hands, she picked up her sponge and, in a daze, cleaned the rest of the body. After wrapping it in its shroud, she stumbled out of the room and into the boiling hot afternoon, her head spinning at what she had just witnessed.
Over the coming weeks, she could think of nothing else. Dr Barry had been one of the highest-ranking surgeons in the British Army. Had he been tricking everyone this entire time? Just the thought made her feel very confused indeed. She agonized over what to do. Was it her business to tell? She suspected it wasn’t. At the same time, she had a feeling a story as shocking as this one might be of interest to the press. Times were tough and the bit of cash she could possibly earn from selling Dr Barry’s story was all too tempting.
In the end, seduced by the prospect of payment and unable to keep her bizarre and shocking secret to herself any longer, the woman decided to speak out about her discovery, and by the end of August the unbelievable story had been splashed across newspapers all around the globe. The public reaction was a curious mixture of outrage and glee. Was it true? Had a woman really managed to successfully 12disguise herself as a man for over fifty years? And not just any man – one of the most prominent medical pioneers of the century. If so, how?
And, most importantly of all, who on earth was this impostor?
1
A BOLD PLAN
1809
Margaret Bulkley was eating breakfast when her mother Mary Anne dropped a dirty white envelope on the kitchen table.
‘A letter for you,’ Mary Anne said in a grim voice. ‘Looks like your brother’s writing.’
Margaret pulled a face. Her older brother John was not exactly her favourite person. It was his selfish behaviour and spendthrift ways that had brought the once prosperous Bulkley family to the brink of financial ruin, forcing Mary Anne and Margaret to flee their home in Ireland and seek a new start in London. It was thanks to John that instead of the spacious townhouse they had once inhabited in Cork, Margaret and her mother were now sharing a poky 14set of rooms overlooking Fitzroy Square. It was their fifth home in as many months, and although an improvement on their previous lodgings (a noisy, cramped lodging house in the West End), it was a far cry from the comforts they’d once enjoyed.
‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ Mary Anne asked.
‘Maybe,’ Margaret replied, shrugging as she toyed with the envelope.
Even though she hadn’t seen John in the flesh for some years now, the arrival of his letter confirmed that her anger at him had not faded one bit. As a boy, he’d been given opportunity after opportunity, and from what Margaret could work out he’d squandered every single one. It was impossible not to feel cross, especially when she knew for a fact she was far cleverer and more interesting than her foolish older brother would ever be.
Margaret didn’t open John’s letter until after breakfast, taking it up to her bedroom to read in privacy, without her mother peering over her shoulder.
The door shut safely behind her, she settled on her bed and eased the filthy letter from its envelope. As she read, her eyes bulged with fury. John had written the letter from the cramped hold of the Adriatic, a ship bound for military action in the West Indies. Apparently he had left his law apprenticeship in 15Dublin to become a soldier, and although his letter indicated he now rather regretted his rash decision and was actually quite terrified of what lay ahead, Margaret could barely contain her jealousy.
