William Bishop

William Bishop is a good, honest man, and a Resurrectionist.

Was a Resurrectionist. There are no bodies to exhume in the Threshold, no soil to dig through- half-frozen to split open with a shovel. No coppers to trade between small trembling hands. No cadavers needed for medical study, and no dissections for him to watch, desperately clinging to every word and incision. No more bodies means no more open graves, no pits for him to fall into, no more nights spent staring at the stars through half-closed watering eyes.

William Bishop is a man.

For the first time in half a century he is a real man- a person. Someone beyond a false name and a shovel. Something more than a shadow in a dark alleyway, slipping through cobbled streets like earth through outstretched fingers. A face no longer hidden behind a mask of perfectly painted porcelain. He knows this to be true, can pinpoint the moment of realisation. Can remember the first time he let that false visage fall to the floor, let it slip through his fingers, shattering into the fragile shards it had always been composed of. Recalls how it felt to be seen. Not just observed but seen. Finally. No longer invisible, no longer hidden, no longer painted over.

On this evening in particular William Bishop wants to be seen. He strides across the cobblestones, crooked grin as firmly upon his face as his hat is upon his head. His jacket is a dark burgundy blazer, velvet, rolled up at the elbows, framing a ruffled shirt, and black waistcoat. A gift, one that is too big and too long for him, oversized. A golden cameo brooch pinned to the lapel, heavy and feminine, the hair curled into delicate ringlets, with some swept up, styled to give the appearance of horns. Familiar. A golden chain hangs from his belt, jingling with each step, each uneven pitch of the cobbles. One arm swings loosely at his side, jauntily almost, a whistle half a breath from leaving his lips. The other clutches a large roll of yellow paper, tucked under his elbow- doodled stars and shards and fragments peeking out from an overturned page. Uneven and asymmetrical, but perfect in their irregularity, unique.

He draws to a stop in front of a door, wooden and nondescript, framed by paned windows, a soft warm glow emanating from inside. A stark difference from the earlier silence of the streets, music floats through panes, the sound of laughter, of cheering, of glasses clinking. His smile grows wider, the bridge of his nose crinkling, the light of gas streetlamps reflected in green eyes, freckles shifting to accommodate the grin. Eternity is a long time, but that doesn’t mean any sense of urgency has left him. It didn’t stop him and Queenie from working their way through their first row of the Bingo sheet within a matter of months- barely more than weeks. It turned the mundane into things to be celebrated, enjoyed. Another star on the sheet. Another invitation sent, packaged into handwritten and decorated envelopes.

William knows how to throw a party- has spent nearly half a decade perfecting that particular skill, of catering to what people want. What they need. What they desire most. Knowing what they lack before they have even comprehended that there is something missing. And he takes full advantage of what he has learnt, the information he has gathered, ensuring that there is something for everyone invited. Music from practically every decade of history; a cocktail list long enough that it might be considered an academic thesis and enough tea and liquor to drown several men. He has never been someone to do anything by halves, and he certainly won’t start now. And it serves him well, because as William puts his hand on that door, pushes it open to exclamations of joy from across the centuries, he gets what he wants most too. Not fame, not power, not an endless bounty of wine and playing cards and ballgowns and gold- his friends. Loved ones. Family. All together in one place, celebrating and making merry for as long as the stars drift in the sky. That is enough for William Bishop. Being Queen of an Empire sure was something, but being just a man suits him just fine.

He heads inside, the door closing behind him with a heavy weight, rattling the wooden beams outlining the front of the establishment. A metal sign creaking in its wake, the kind that would be pushed by wind were there any to unsettle it. Brass letters wrought to spell two words, an emblem of a shovel holding the lettering up against the side of the building. The Resurrectionist. Nothing more, nothing less.

– by Faith C.

A chalk-stained hand rests atop the bar, leaving a faint handprint behind as he draws away. Joey scans the rows of brightly coloured liquor bottles adorning on the wall behind the smiling barman, adorned in a burgundy blazer and black waistcoat. Eventually, Joey makes his choice.

“I’ll take a sidecar,” he says, clutching his fedora underarm.

“You’re always testing me, ain’t ya?” says William, dredging up the recipe from the back of his mind and grabbing the necessary bottles to create the cocktail. It’s not often he works the bar here at the Resurrectionist, but some days it’s good to get some hands-on experience, especially when it’s quiet. He takes a bottle of cognac and begins to pour the sweet liquid into a metal shaker.

Joey smiles.

“I like to mix things up, that’s all. What good is eternity if you’re not willing to try something new?”

William nods cheerfully as he adds a dash of lemon juice to the shaker and begins to shovel in a helping of crushed ice.

“Ay, Joey, do you know what film they’re puttin’ on tonight?”

Joey glances to the open door at the back of the pub, beyond which lies the film room. Shelly is currently inside fiddling with the vintage projector, as Zachary tries in vain to hang a sheet from the wall. Joey turns back to his server.

“Not too sure. I made a few suggestions of my own, but I don’t think Shelly’s gonna go for it. My tastes are… shall we say a little old fashioned by her standards.”

“Ol’ fashioned by ‘ers, maybe, but not by mine,” chuckles William, straining the cocktail into a glass and coating the rim with a pinch of sugar. As he pushes the drink towards the customer, his voice becomes suddenly earnest.

“I… I wanted to thank you, Joey. For helping set this all up, y’know?”

“Trust me, pal, it was no thing. I had all the booze, the food, the equipment, all locked up in storage after I shut my business down. And what else was I gonna do with it? After all, the Whippoorwill's become a dump.”

He grins as he takes his drink in his bare hand, forming white fingerprints on the glass.

“Well, I better head in and help Reisner and Fairbanks over there with that projector, or there won’t be a movie to watch. But before I dust out – I noticed some wannabe poet scribbling something on a napkin on the table over there. Might be worth a read before you clear up for the night.”

And with that, Joey gestures one last time with his drink and disappears into the backroom to help Shelly.

A few moments later, a woman appears behind the bar, surprising William by wrapping her huge arms around him. She kisses his neck playfully from behind, as he giggles. Eventually, she lets him go, and moves over to the taps, grabbing a large pewter cup from under the bar and filling it with warm ale. William feigns annoyance.

“Ay, Ingrid, just ‘cause I let you behind the bar, don’t mean you can drink all the stock!”

She laughs heartily, as she takes a spoonful of honey and mixes it into the ale.

“Elskan mín, you could not stop me if you tried…”

She takes a sip.

“… and you have tried. Many times.”

She goes to move past him, but William grabs the fur-lining of her denim jacket and draws her in for one last kiss, briefly sharing the sweetness of the honey between their lips. She smiles at William, his own face smiling back at her from beneath his jaunty cap.

“I shall see you in there, my mountain orchid,” Ingrid says, as she too heads towards the film room. More patrons trickle in, the regular crowd. They order their drinks and then vanish into the back room, anxious for the film to start. William exchanges brief but kind words with Titus and Antonius, Judyth and Juliette. Queenie, her crown sat proud upon her head, excitedly talks to William about the stars, their shared Bingo game, as William pours her drink. Then she too vanishes into the back room.

William is about to close the bar and head in to watch the film, when another figure enters the Resurrectionist, this time someone who is far from a regular. William winces as the man strides through the tastefully furnished pub in his tall leather boots and deposits a dusty old book on top of the bar. William crosses his arms and scowls.

“Philemon. What are you doing ‘ere? I thought you were still clinked up in that concrete block. Rather deservedly, at that.”

Philemon shakes his head.

“Oh no, I was able to talk my way out of that. Listen, my friend, I am no fool. I know my presence is not wanted here, and I have no intentions of staying. But I thought I’d leave you this, just in case it is of interest to you. I hear you want to try your hand in studying anatomy. It’s certainly a noble pursuit… and such a pursuit requires noble practitioners. Frankly, it’s a profession someone like me did not deserve – but so were the idiosyncrasies of my time, I suppose. I won’t apologise for that, but… but I am glad things changed, in the end. Maybe not by your time, but they did.”

He gestures to the book.

“This is all I had growing up to nurse my curiosity on the subject. It’s what awoke the fire in me that unfortunately soon eclipsed all other sources of light. Nevertheless, I think you’d learn a lot from it – even if it is a little outdated for a man of your standards.”

He wanders to the exit, before looking back over his shoulder.

“Read it. Discard it. Burn it. I don’t mind. I just wanted to give you the option. It doesn’t sit well with me that some people never got that chance in life, while I squandered it.”

Philemon pulls up the collar of his long dusty jacket and heads out into the night. Somewhat dumbfounded, William looks down at the book the strange man left behind, the words “ANATOMIA CORPORUM HUMANORUM” staring back at him in bold lettering. The book claims to be addressed to the “heirs of Hippocrates” - now, that’s certainly a thought.

Shelly pops her head out of the back room and tells William that the film is about to start, breaking him suddenly out of his reverie. He places the book back down and steps out from behind the bar.

“I’ll be in there in a sec, Shelly, just cleanin’ up some last bits and bobs.”

He looks around at the room - the Resurrectionist - and becomes suddenly aware of all its imperfections. The mismatched furniture; the garish wallpaper; the tiffany lighting fixtures that always seem to be on the fritz. The Resurrectionist is by no means a palace, and it’s certainly not the O Fortuna - but nevertheless these walls are going to see a lot of good times, and William is ready to experience them all, not as a goddess, or a shadow on the wall, or a spider, or the Queen of Sheba, but as an ordinary man.

As he cleans up the last table, he spots the discarded napkin that Joey had mentioned. Indeed, some would-be wordsmith has scribbled a poem here in black ink:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

William smiles. He finishes cleaning up the table and heads into the film room.

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