by Julia Stuart
“The day after tomorrow, if the Keeper of the Royal Menagerie gets his act together,” came the mustached reply.
“I heard there used to be a menagerie here years ago,” the Australian tourist continued.
“There was until the 1830s when they finally realised it was a bad idea to have wild animals around the place. Still is, as far as I’m concerned,” said the Ravenmaster, turning his gaze back towards the giraffes.
“Was anyone killed?” asked the man, hopefully.
The Ravenmaster then told him the unfortunate tale of Mary Jenkinson, who lived with the lion keeper. “One day in 1686, she was inside the den stroking one of the animal’s paws when it grabbed her arm in its teeth and wouldn’t let go. Her arm was amputated in an attempt to save her life, but she died several hours later.”
The tourist immediately related the tale to his wife, who beamed with equal satisfaction, and immediately asked her husband whether they could come back when the menagerie opened.
The Ravenmaster looked at his watch and called to the visitors waiting for the tour to step closer. He then threw open his arms and announced in his best theatrical tones, employed to elicit tips from the Americans: “Welcome to Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, the Tower of London! It is my pleasure to be your guide over the next hour as we look back over nine hundred years of history …”
An hour later, he stood at the door of the chapel as the tourists filed out, each pressing a coin into his hand. Once the last had left, he made his way to the ravens’ pens and stood calling the birds’ names one by one. They landed sham-bolically, then swaggered across the grass to their respective wooden homes and flew up inside. Locking the doors to keep them out of the jaws of urban foxes, he looked at his watch and smoothed down his pigeon grey mustache with a leather-gloved hand. High with anticipation, he crossed the fortress to the Brick Tower and, with the furtiveness of a horse thief, glanced behind him. Satisfied that he wasn’t being watched, he unlocked the door. Closing it behind him, he reached in the gloom for the rope handrail, then suddenly remembered that he was still wearing a vest. Recognising instantly that it was not the correct attire for an illicit encounter, he unbuttoned his dark blue tunic, pulled off the undergarment, and left it in a warm bundle on the bottom step to collect on his way out. Once he was dressed again, he continued up the stone steps. Finding the door of the first floor closed, he felt for the handle and pressed down on the latch. The sudden sound startled the birds, which created such an uproar that the Ravenmaster, who had completely forgotten about the new aviary, joined them with a squawk of terror. The birds continued their demented circular flight long after Ambrosine Clarke arrived, dressed in jeans and a sweater, the neckline of which revealed the tormenting depth of her cleavage. The Ravenmaster reached for her in the darkness, recognising instantly the smell of cooking fat. Once their clothes were shed, they sank to the floorboards, where they were covered in a drizzle of seed husks whipped up by the frantic flapping. The cook’s eventual shriek of ecstasy was drowned out by the profanities of the emerald hanging parrot, which had been rudely woken from its upside-down slumber.
Balthazar Jones had remained on the sofa in the same position since returning from an afternoon of patrolling the fortress. He hadn’t bothered to close the curtains, and sat gazing at the night bulging up against the lattice windows that surrounded him. On the coffee table in front of him was the vest he had discovered on the bottom step of the Brick Tower when he checked on the birds on his way home. He could find nothing to account for the gentleman’s underwear, and when he pushed open the door to the aviary, he saw that its inhabitants, terrorised into a state of exhaustion, were huddled together on their perches to keep warm as they slept, while the parrot hung below them, occasionally swaying while it dreamed. The only bird still awake was the wandering albatross, searching the cage for its companion, which was still at London Zoo as it didn’t belong to the Queen.
It wasn’t until the cold finally drove him to his feet that Balthazar Jones found the courage to go upstairs to the bedroom. He closed the curtains, the rings dragging sorrowfully across the poles, then undressed slowly to further delay the moment. Once in his pajamas, he spent longer than usual in the bathroom, having decided that now was the moment to fix the tap that had dripped since the family arrived eight years ago. When, eventually, he could find nothing else to occupy him, he came back out and finally looked at the empty bed. Unable to get into it, he pulled on a sweater, turned off the light, and sat in the armchair next to the window. When, several hours later, sleep continued to evade him, he stood up, drew back one of the curtains, and opened the window. Leaning against the sill, he looked out over the fortress, gruesome in the moonlight, and breathed in the dank night. And out of the deathly silence came the mournful wail of the solitary wandering albatross that mated for life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN HEBE JONES TRIED TO LEAVE the fortress in the early hours with her suitcase, the Beefeater on duty refused to unlock the small door inside the Middle Tower’s vast oak gate. “It’s against regulations,” he replied when she protested. She sat on top of her case, coated in three years of dust, glancing at her watch with the impatience of a prisoner about to be set free. When six o’clock eventually came and the ancient lock was finally turned, she got up and walked stiffly out with the intention of going to work. But as she stood in the crowded Tube carriage, subjected to more intimacy with strangers than she experienced with her husband, she soon realised that a day of attempting to reunite abandoned property with its absentminded owners was beyond her. She climbed the steps to the exit and left a message on the office answering machine informing Valerie Jennings that she was unwell, and started walking the streets. After a while, she found herself by the entrance to Green Park and slipped in to escape the relentless commuters marching to work, knocking her case against her shins as they passed. She spent much of the day on a bench, being pummelled by the wind as she wondered whether she was still a mother even though her son was dead.
When darkness started to descend around her, fear forced her to her feet. She returned to the warmth of the Underground and rode the network wondering where women usually went when they left their husbands. Eventually, she made her way to Baker Street and arrived at the Hotel Splendid, the only hotel she knew, as she took Valerie Jennings there for lunch each year on her birthday. When the receptionist asked whether she required a single or double room, her eyes fell to the desk. “I’m alone,” she replied, wondering whether the woman could tell that her marriage had just ended.
After being shown to her room by a Polish bellboy who insisted on carrying her case, she sat on the bed and her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She ordered a ham and mustard sandwich and ate it at the dressing table, still wearing her coat. Opening her case, she discovered that she had forgotten her nightdress, and she thought of it lying on the bed in the Salt Tower. Her mind turned once more to her husband, and she wondered whether there was anything in the fridge for his supper. Reluctant to sleep naked in such unfamiliar surroundings, she hung up her coat and skirt in the empty wardrobe and got into bed in her blouse and tights. She looked around at the cream swag curtains, the luxurious white bathrobes, and the vase of pink roses on the desk, and imagined the young honeymoon couples who had sealed their marriage in the room. And she wondered how many of them were still together.
Between scraps of sleep, she spent the night listening to doors banging as guests returned, and the intermittent shrieks of laughter coming from the room above. The following morning, despite the grandeur of the dining room with its white linen napkins, polished silverware, and uniformed waiters, Hebe Jones skipped breakfast, preferring the familiarity of people’s lost possessions. After sliding her suitcase underneath her desk, she went to the original Victorian counter and opened one of the ledgers to the previous day. As her eyes fell down the entries, she saw that Samuel Crapper had been in to collect the same tomato plant that he had lost earl
ier in the month, a hand-written musical score had been discovered on the Hammersmith & City line, and a new wedding dress had been found on a bench at Tottenham Court Road station.
She sat at her desk, and was still looking at the phone directory in defeat when Valerie Jennings arrived and stood next to the inflatable doll, unbuttoning her navy coat. “Feeling better?” she asked Hebe Jones.
“Yes, thanks,” she replied, immediately noticing something different about her colleague. Mascara had brought out her eyes from behind her glasses, an embellishment normally reserved for her birthday lunch at the Hotel Splendid. Instead of her usual flat, black shoes, her wide feet were wedged inside a pair of high heels. And instead of holding a white cardboard box from the high street bakery containing a little something for elevenses, Valerie Jennings was carrying a brown paper bag containing what looked suspiciously like fresh fruit.
“When are you seeing Arthur Catnip again?” Hebe Jones asked.
Valerie Jennings immediately looked away. “I don’t know,” she replied, hanging up her coat. “I haven’t heard from him.” She then unfolded her newspaper and handed it to Hebe Jones. “Remember that man I told you about who came into the tea hut and asked whether we’d seen a bearded pig?” she asked. “Apparently it escaped from London Zoo and it’s still on the loose.”
Hebe Jones looked at the front-page photograph taken of the creature while still in its enclosure, its resplendent snout whiskers stretching across several columns. She handed it back to her colleague with a shudder, and returned to the directory. She peered at where she had left off, picked up the phone, and dialled the number.
“Is that Mrs. Perkins?” she asked when it was finally answered.
“Yes.”
“This is Mrs. Jones from London Underground Lost Property Office. Something has been handed in to us that relates to a Clementine Perkins who died last year. I was wondering whether you happen to have known her.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“You’ve found it?” came the eventual reply. “We haven’t been able to rest since it went missing. My husband will be so pleased. I’m not sure how to get to you though. I’m not too good on my legs and my husband doesn’t go uptown anymore. He says there are so many people he just ends up walking on the spot, and then it’s time to come home again.”
“Would you like me to bring it round? It’s not something I want to put in the post.”
“That would be very kind of you.”
It didn’t take Hebe Jones long to find the house, which stood out from the others in the street due to its overgrown lawn. She pushed open the rotten gate, which felt rough under her fingers on account of the peeling paint. Warmed at the thought of having finally found the urn’s owner, she walked along the concrete path, looked at the “No Hawkers” sign, and rang the bell. When there was no reply, she checked to see that she had the right house number. She rang again, and eventually an elderly woman wearing a pink dressing gown opened the door.
“Mrs. Perkins?”
“Yes,” the woman replied, squinting in the light.
“I’m Mrs. Jones from London Underground Lost Property Office. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” she said, stepping back. “Come in, love. Cup of tea?”
While the woman was in the kitchen, Hebe Jones found somewhere to sit in the chaos of the living room and gazed around at the slumped piles of free newspapers on the floor, the cabinets over-filled with cheap ornaments, and the unwashed dishes balanced on the mantelpiece.
Eventually Mrs. Perkins returned with a tray bearing two cups and saucers and placed it on the coffee table. “Biscuit?” she asked, holding out a plate. When Hebe Jones declined, she helped herself, moved a pile of unopened letters from the armchair, and sat down. “What did you say your name was again?” she asked.
“Hebe.”
“That’s a nice name. I’ve got some in the back garden,” she said, nodding towards the French windows.
Hebe Jones picked up her cup and saucer and rested them on her knees. “I was actually named after the goddess of youth, rather than the plant.”
There was a pause.
“I thought my parents had named me Flora after the goddess of flowers. Turns out I was named after the margarine,” Mrs. Perkins replied, staring in front of her.
Hebe Jones looked down at her tea.
“What did you come about, again?” the old woman asked.
“Clementine.”
“Oh, yes. We loved her so much,” she said, reaching for a tissue in her dressing gown pocket. “She was getting on a bit, and we knew she was going to pass away sooner or later, but it’s always a shock when it happens. Even now I can’t believe she’s gone. I still keep imagining her walking in here through those doors, and sitting where you are now. We buried her in the back garden. It had meant so much to her. She was always out there, pottering amongst the rosebushes.”
“I see,” replied Hebe Jones, still holding her cup.
“My husband reckons it was one of those urban foxes that dug her up again. Attracted to the smell.”
“The smell?”
“Things start to rot, don’t they? I told my husband not to use that cardboard box, but he insisted. I said Clementine deserved better, but he said I was being too sentimental. So I wrote her name on it to make it a bit more special,” said Mrs. Perkins, fiddling with a thread on the end of the armrest.
“When we discovered that she’d been dug up, we were heartbroken. Some people just couldn’t understand. We expected her to turn up in one of the neighbour’s gardens, but you said she was found on the Tube. That doesn’t seem right to me. I reckon that lot next door had something to do with it. They never did like her. She kept piddling against their new greenhouse. But cats won’t be told,” she added, finally taking a bite of her Custard Cream.
AFTER CHECKING THAT THE WORKMEN had erected all the signs in readiness for the opening of the royal menagerie that afternoon, Balthazar Jones let himself into the Develin Tower. He caught the bearded pig in a state of unfettered ecstasy, its eyes shut and hairy nose pointed heavenwards as it rubbed its considerable flank against the corner of the stone fireplace. The Beefeater sat down on the straw, resting his back against the circular stone wall, and stretched his legs out in front of him. On seeing its keeper, the animal sent the battered grapefruit flying to the other side of the room and charged after it. Once it had caught up, the pig turned its head towards the man with inferior whiskers. There was no response. Lobbing the fruit again with its snout, it galloped after it, its tasselled tail flying like a flag over its fulsome buttocks. It looked again at the Beefeater staring blindly ahead, but received not the least encouragement. The pig slowly made its way across the straw, and lay down next to him, pressing its back against his thigh.
Oblivious to the damp seeping through his tunic, Balthazar Jones wondered again where his wife had spent the night, and hoped she hadn’t been cold without her nightdress. Suddenly he felt a chill as he imagined her having all the warmth she needed in someone else’s arms. He picked up a piece of straw and started to fiddle with it, remembering the day, all those years ago, when she had promised to be his forever.
Balthazar Jones invited Hebe Grammatikos to Hampstead Ponds two years after they met with the sole motivation of wanting to see her in her red bikini. When they arrived, she immediately took up a horizontal position on the bank in her new swimwear, her hair forming a black halo on the grass. When he tried to lure her into the water, she insisted that it was too cold. But the country was experiencing a record-breaking heat wave that had led to the dismissal of a weatherman for a prediction of continual clouds. Refusing to accept her argument, Balthazar Jones eventually talked her into the freshwater pond. It was only when the young soldier went to fetch his camera, and turned to look at her from the bank, that it occurred to him she might not be able to swim. He watched as she disappeared without a sound into the dusty water shaded by the overhanging oak trees
. Several seconds later, she rose again, her hair floating on the water like an oil slick.
When she immediately sunk again he thrashed towards her and groped with desperate hands for her body. Unable to find her, he breathed in and dived underwater, but failed to see anything in the murky depths. It was only when desperation sharpened his vision that he saw a tendril of black hair floating on the top of the water in the distance. After grabbing her body, as slippery as an eel, he hauled her back to the bank. As he held her, her eyes rolling, he asked her to marry him, as he would rather be betrothed to the dying Hebe Grammatikos than to any other woman alive.
When she eventually came round in the hospital, a piece of pondweed still in her mouth, she was congratulated by the nursing staff for not only having survived, but also for being engaged to be married. During the sultry days of their engagement, while lost in the contentment of each other’s arms, they often spoke of the proposal that had been so much more romantic than anything Balthazar Jones could have planned. Hebe Jones’s only regret was that she had no memory of his asking her to marry him, as she recalled nothing after walking into the water in the hope that the ability to swim would suddenly come to her like a holy miracle. Each time she asked Balthazar Jones what her reply had been, he would quote back her words that evoked the Greek mysticism of her grandparents: “It is better to tie your donkey than to look for it.”
THE BEEFEATER WAS BROUGHT ROUND from his memories by a sudden snort from the dreaming bearded pig. Getting up gently so as not to disturb it, he looked at his watch, brushed himself down, and hurried off to meet the man from the Palace before the menagerie opened.
When he pushed open the door of the Rack & Ruin, he saw Oswin Fielding already sitting at the table next to the framed signature of Rudolph Hess. He approached the landlady and ordered an orange juice, despite his urge for a pint. He carried it past the tables occupied by numerous Beefeaters on their lunch break, and sat down opposite the courtier.