‘Wait!’ I whispered as I hobbled behind him.
‘What is it?’
‘My shoes are on the wrong feet!’ I complained, sitting down on the stairs.
He waited for me impatiently, flexing the cane in his hands, while I fumbled with my shoes. His fear was infectious. As soon as I could walk again, I took a weapon for myself, choosing a clumsy walking stick with a rubber stopper on the end but a handle as thick as a cudgel.
We rushed down the corridor, burst into the kitchen and snapped on the lights, hoping to frighten intruders into an easy flight. But nothing happened. We stood blinking at an empty room. The freezer trembled. A leaking tap spilled pearls. We searched the cupboards. We glared into corners. We moved to the kitchen window and shone the flashlight into the yard. It was empty. I checked the lock on the kitchen door. It held fast.
Marvel paused and looked puzzled, scratching his bristling chin. ‘The parlour!’ he whispered. ‘They must have sneaked into the parlour.’
‘There’s no one here,’ I protested, plodding after him.
We searched the front parlour and the back parlour, the cloakroom and the dining room, checked the locks on the windows and doors, and poked our sticks beneath chairs and tables, until Marvel had to agree with me that the house had been secured.
‘It’s very queer,’ he said, switching off his plastic flashlight and sinking into a sofa. ‘I could have sworn…’ He looked old and confused, like an unhappy sleepwalker shaken awake in unfamiliar surroundings.
‘Perhaps you were dreaming.’
‘I don’t know.’ He frowned and stared at the cane in his hand, running it through one list and tapping it against the floon
‘It might help to talk to someone…’ I suggested.
‘Talk?’
‘If someone was chasing you,’ I said. ‘If you’re in danger. Who did you think was in the house?’
He shrugged and sighed and balanced the cane between his slippers. ‘It could have been almost anyone. There seems to be so many of them.’
‘Who?’
‘No one to worry you, Skipper,’ he said gently. ‘They’ve no grudge against you. It’s me they want. It’s me they’re trying to find.’
‘Do you want a hot drink?’ The house had grown cold and Marvel shivered in his pyjamas. I thought I could coax him with strong, sweet tea into making a full and detailed confession. It seemed the perfect opportunity. I was wrong.
‘How old are you, Skipper?’ he asked for no reason, tilting his head and fixing me with a yellow eye.
‘Eighteen.’
‘l’m fifty,’ he sighed. ‘Do you know the difference between us?’
Well, I knew the answer wasn’t thirty-two, so I shrugged.
‘Sometimes I think that I’m eighteen,’ he said sadly. ‘but you’ve never felt you were fifty.’
‘I might find some brandy…’ I suggested.
‘What are you going to do with your life?’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ I said.
‘But it’s going to be something special, isn’t it?’
‘Yes!’ I said. It was obvious. It was something I had never doubted. I might become anything in the world. I could be anyone. When the time arrived I might discover myself to be a famous TV talk-show host. A senior newsroom anchorman. Or the cowboy in the Cadillac in the Mexican coffee commercials. In this age of loneliness, television celebrities are what we accept in place of heroes. In truth I lacked ambition. I had nothing to recommend me but optimism and innocence. I was confident that when the time came I could do anything in the world but I hadn’t yet found my purpose. I was waiting to be summoned by trumpets.
He nodded and considered. ‘Because there’s a voice inside you that says you’re different.’
‘Yes!’
‘A small voice whispering in your ear. And it seems to be telling you that you’ve been marked out by fate in some mysterious manner that you don’t quite understand. Isn’t that right?’
‘That’s right!’ I said, astonished by his insight into my soul. How did he do it? This man was a genius!
‘And one day you’ll be famous for something,’ he said with a distant smile. ‘You’ll make your impression on the world. You don’t know how. But you’ll do it. You’ll change it. You’ll get there.’
‘How did you know?’ I whispered.
‘That’s the difference!’ he said with a smile. He spiked the carpet with his cane and used it to haul himself from the sofa.
‘Let me find the brandy,’ I said.
But I couldn’t make him stay and confide in me. He shook his head. ‘I’m much obliged,’ he yawned. ‘But I think that it’s time I went to bed.’ And he shuffled for the safety of the stairs.
9
‘It’s horrible!’ Mother sobbed, pulling away and wiping her eyes in her apron. ‘You wake up in the middle of the night and there’s a strange man standing at the foot of the bed wearing nothing but his balaclava. It happens all the time…’
‘It’s never happened to me,’ I said.
‘You’re not a woman!’ mother said, snuffling and stroking her burning face.
‘How do they get through the bedroom windows?’
‘They carry ladders,’ she said ominously.
We were in the kitchen, chopping onions for supper. I had been describing the previous night’s events and Mr Marvel’s fear of intruders. It wasn’t much of a story but the thought of strangers in balaclavas had caught my mother’s imagination.
‘We’re not safe in our beds anymore,’ she said, returning to her chopping board and promptly blinding herself again.
‘They’re looking for drugs,’ father said. They had always shared the opinion that the world was dangerous after dark. Beyond the safety of the privet hedge, in the great black yonder, terrible phantoms prowled the streets, corpses climbed over cemetery gates and lunatics barked at the moon. He was sitting at the kitchen table trying to make sense of his new security system, teasing wires into bundles and wrapping them with bandages of sticky, black insulating tape.
‘They’re not after drugs in the altogether,’ mother argued, wanting to emphasise her special vulnerability as a frail and frightened woman.
‘Well, that’s what the drugs do to them,’ father explained. ‘It gives them enormous appetites.’
We’d spent most of the afternoon discussing our fortifications. The roof was so warped and dangerous that anyone scaling its peaks in the hope of gaining entry would certainly die in the attempt. The old stained-glass windows were formidable obstacles and needed no attention. We knew that most intruders would force an entry through the back of the house but since we also knew that most intruders knew that we knew, we reasoned they already supposed the back of the house to be secure and would make their assault from the front.
‘You have to understand how they work,’ father said. ‘You have to enter the criminal mind. And then you can make their lives difficult.’
He rigged the battleship klaxon high up on the wall where even the most determined intruder would have trouble reaching it, and spent several dangerous minutes balanced on a ladder, arms stretched to the ceiling, while a power drill growled and jumped in his fist.
Mr Marvel came downstairs, attracted by the noise, and was soon involved in the work. ‘You built this from your own design?’ he asked father, weighing the box of tricks in his hands. He seemed fascinated by the contraption.
‘It looks primitive,’ father said proudly, ‘but this is only a prototype. When we go into proper production it should be a little more compact.’ He could already see it in every detail. The Wandsworth Security Watchdog. It stays awake while you’re asleep. All rights reserved. More than a million sold worldwide.
‘Remarkable!’ Marvel muttered. ‘It’s most remarkable!’
‘We thought it would help you feel more secure,’ mother told him, snuffling and wiping the tears from her eyes.
‘I’m much obliged,’ Marvel said and looked overwhelmed
by so much attention. He helped me run the cables from the klaxon as far as the front door and watched father connect the whamdoodles to the great oak frame.
When it was finished we gathered round and waited as father hurried back into the kitchen to switch on the power. I thought he looked flushed and rather anxious. He didn’t like an audience when he was testing a new invention.
‘Has anything happened?’ he shouted.
There was a dull thump as the electricity kicked into the system and a beam of acid-green light crackled between the two plastic boxes, forming a shimmering curtain against the door. We couldn’t speak. We stood astounded.
‘It works!’ he gasped, upon his return. ‘It works!’ He sounded surprised. ‘Who wants to try it?’
No one answered. We frowned at the light and shrank from its glare, shielding our eyes with our hands. There was something in its brilliance that suggested it could eat flesh and drill through bone.
‘I think Skipper should test it,’ father said at last, when it was plain that nobody wanted to volunteer. ‘He’s the youngest.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ mother demanded suspiciously, peeking at him though spread fingers. The light flashed on her wedding ring and glittered on her cardigan buttons.
‘Well, if anything goes wrong, he’s more likely to survive the shock,’ father explained.
‘I think we should ask Franklin!’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Because if anyone must die for science,’ I said simply, ‘he has the best education for it.’
‘Good idea!’ father said.
‘We mustn’t kill him!’ mother said, as if she might accept a measure of mutilation.
‘He won’t come to any harm,’ father promised. ‘But, if something goes tragically wrong at least we’ll have an opportunity to clean out his attic and give it a fresh lick of paint.’
So Franklin was summoned from the front parlour where he’d spent most of the day dreaming of ways to destroy the Dwarf’s reputation, and stood scowling at the fiery cobweb while father explained the situation to him.
‘We just want you to step through the front door,’ father said. ‘It shouldn’t take you a moment.’
Franklin sensed there was something wrong. He wanted to be the star attraction but he wasn’t prepared to risk losing his head to gain our undivided attention. ‘I’m flattered, nay, honoured in every extremity, for this generous invitation to be the first to demonstrate your spinthariscopic bibelot,’ he babbled. ‘And yet, alas, upon reflection, I feel the pleasure, nay, glory of the moment should be strictly reserved for the eldritch Mr Marvellous!’ He made this little speech without once turning to look at Marvel or showing any sign that he knew the man was standing beside him.
Marvel looked doubtful but felt required to take the risk since these extra security measures had been arranged for his benefit. ‘Does it hurt?’ he inquired.
‘You won’t feel a thing!’ father said confidently.
Marvel nodded and pulled a large white handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat from his palms. He cleared his throat, adjusted his collar, puffed himself out and boldly stepped forward. But before he could walk through death’s door it creaked open and Janet appeared on the threshold.
‘For God’s sake, get back!’ father shouted. The prevailing atmosphere of doubt must have affected him for his courage suddenly failed and he seemed to lose faith in the enterprise.
‘Don’t move!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t move and you won’t get hurt!’
Janet shrieked and floundered. ‘I’m electric!’ she screamed. ‘I’m electric!’
The light wobbled and shrank to nothing. But Janet became phosphorescent. The light clung to her arms and legs. It danced in her hair like St Elmo’s fire. She opened her mouth to scream. Her teeth were green. Her tongue was a forked and flickering flame.
I was paralysed with fright. I should have done something. I should have scooped her from the fire’s embrace. I should have borne her away in my arms. I should have carried her up to her room. I should have unbuttoned her shirt, slipped off her shoes, sipped at her tears, soothed her with kisses.
Oh, Skipper, she whispers, Skipper you saved me! I give you my heart. I grant you three wishes.
But it was Mr Marvel who found the courage to pluck at her sleeve and drag her to safety. She went tumbling into his arms and the light was abruptly extinguished. Far away in the kitchen, the klaxon sprang from its moorings and crashed through a cupboard onto the floor. Janet was still screaming but she wasn’t hurt. Marvel helped guide her into the back parlour where mother gave her sweet tea for shock. Franklin smirked and drifted away towards Lilliput.
Father stared at the melting whamdoodles dripping plastic onto the carpet. His face looked grey. He clasped the back of his neck in his hands.
‘It almost worked,’ I said, standing beside him. ‘It certainly scared the hell out of me.’
He shook his head. ‘It must have been a loose connection,’ he said quietly. He was very subdued. The disappointments of a lifetime seemed to crowd down upon him. This public demonstration of his own failure was almost more than he could endure. I helped him dismantle the equipment and we threw the wreckage into the yard. He never mentioned it again.
10
I was a disappointment to my father. He was a man ruled by principles and formulations, charts, tabulations, weights and measures. He could chant the laws of thermodynamics like pages from the Book of Common Prayer. He would recite, chapter and verse, the architecture of chemicals. He could measure the wind and forecast the weather, classify insects, label rocks and even perform minor surgery on a range of domestic animals. He was never called upon to exercise his skills as a surgeon but he had the manuals. He took an interest in everything. He was acquainted with engineering, electronics, plumbing and photography. He was familiar with geology, botany, astronomy and microscopy. Nothing escaped his attention. He might, upon request, name all the bones in a skeleton or guess the atomic weights of iridium and uranium. This thirst for knowledge made him pragmatic. He wasted no time in gazing at stars or trying to fathom the universe. He would rather build a radio or an automatic cat-food dispenser. He wanted me to share his interest but I couldn’t tell a sprocket from a number three grommet. It was hopeless. His head was filled with the certainty of meticulous diagrams. My head was filled with the smoke of dreams.
Once upon a time he’d kept me enchanted with toys and gadgets made in his workshop. I remember rubber spiders, cotton-reel snakes and troupes of mechanical penguins that clattered their wings and staggered like sailors. I remember the robot that lost its head and the submarine that went missing in action. I remember, when I was seven, a steam-powered rocking horse, a horse from hell for a birthday boy, that flared its nostrils and rolled its eyes and could not be tamed but kicked and bucked and threw itself from a bedroom window.
In the damp, draughty days of autumn he would turn to the manufacture of fireworks, mixing sulphurs, salts and household bleach to his own particular recipe and producing volatile crystals that he packed into blue paper cartridges to fire from heavy, metal tubes. At the dead of night we would creep from the house and stand shivering in the back yard, wrapped in overcoats and mufflers, to watch my father bombard the city with Bengal lights and Chinese mortars. He tossed rainbows into the sky and showered the rooftops with sparkling cinders.
He had the violence of a magician and the patience of a craftsman. His fireworks exploded like thunderstorms. His toys were intricate creatures that came to life at the flick of a switch and tumbled and danced on tabletops. Yet he always dismissed these achievements as trifles. He wanted to create objects for a future world, miraculous household objects for the metropolis of tomorrow. He wanted to live in a labour-saving utopia of indestructible plastic shoes and personal jet-powered aerocycles. This plain, old-fashioned view of the future was something he must have carried with him from his own childhood and he would not rest until he had climbed its gl
ittering towers and strolled through its shimmering thoroughfares. Yet no matter how he laboured to create the elements of this perfect world, his efforts seemed doomed to failure.
His most ambitious invention was the Life Expectancy Wristwatch. I was fifteen years old when he took me down to the cellar and introduced me to its sinister calculations. It was the size of a regular wristwatch, but rather heavy and square in the beam and secured with a thick leather band. The face of the instrument contained a cluster of white enamel dials designed to measure the minutes and hours, the days and weeks, the months and years.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, holding the watch in the palm of my hand. The case was polished and finely engraved with acorns and clusters of oak leaves.
‘Silver,’ he said proudly.
‘How does it work?’ I asked him.
‘It’s simple,’ he said, gazing down at his work with a soft and tender expression on his face. ‘Regular wristwatches give you the time of day. But this watch gives you the time of your life. The owner adjusts the calibrations according to his age, health, education and background. It will come with a full instruction book. When the instrument is properly set it provides an estimate of your life expectancy and starts to work backwards to zero. Do you follow me?’
‘No.’
‘Well, let’s say, for example, that you can expect to live for another sixty years. You’re fit and healthy. You still have your teeth. Sixty years. What do you think?’
‘Fine!’ I said. Sixty years seemed like a good long time. It sounded like an eternity.
‘If you wear this wristwatch it will help you keep track of the time. It’s a friend for life. When you reach your fortieth birthday you’ll look at your watch and know that you have another thirty-five years. When you reach sixty you’ll check your wrist and know that you still have another fifteen years ahead of you.’
Mr Romance Page 6