In Search of the Blue Tiger

by Robert Power

  One by one, her mind resurrects the lovers who shared her bed in the years since her husband drowned. The trace of a smile, an old photograph on the pier, ice cream and candy floss, tender words, a gentle touch on her tear-filled cheek, footsteps turning a corner, a branch scratching on a frosty windowpane. And then her current paramour. Strong sensations of those early passionate days and weeks: fiery and breathless, hungry and heady. Immediate. She tastes his skin, feels his strength, recalls the sweet exhaustion. And then more recently a cooling off, a reticence. A foreboding.

  The dawn is threatening to dispel the gloom, but her back still aches and she feels an uncertainty and uneasiness that is unfamiliar.

  Outside, passing by her window, she hears the wings of a bird and then the distinct and harsh caw of a crow.

  EIGHT

  OSCAR GETS TO EAT CAKE WITH MRS APRIL

  ‘Look how he laughs and stretches out his arms, And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine.’ Byron

  There is a rhythm to the town, like the tide in its name. In the early morning the people of Tidetown pop from their houses. They ebb and flow through the streets, sucked into fisheries and factories, offices and boat yards. There they stay, the roads and byways largely empty, dry and still, bereft of movement, save for the trickle of mothers and children. Come evening, the streets swell again and the townsfolk merge and meander back to their homes, once again safe and secure for the night. Out on the headland the lighthouse scours the coastline, picking out any who have strayed too close to shore, illuminating them for all to see.

  A man sat next to me in the park this morning. He stroked Stigir and said my little dog looked liked Victoria Plum jam and could he spread him on buttered toast and have him for breakfast.

  He laughed, so I laughed.

  Then he went quiet and said something Mother said was strange when I told her later. And she said I should always get up and go if anyone says things like that again and she said he was a beast and I should find a policeman and tell them. But I liked what he said and it is not anywhere near as strange as the things I hear in this house.

  This is what he said:

  ‘I hope the noises in my head are not disturbing you.’

  I don’t think he was a beast; he was soft like a cygnet that was having trouble flying.

  Mrs April lives on a street with beautiful trees. They are happy, preening themselves contentedly in the early evening breeze. There is a calmness to this street. The houses have brightly lit porches. The doors have stained-glass panels showing pictures of ships and seascapes. Others are made up of coloured glass shapes, blues, greens and watery whites: translucent as ice. Even though the air is cold, the street feels warm. Lamps are alight. Inside the houses I imagine pots bubble, pans sizzle on kitchen stoves; children play with wooden forts and curtained dolls houses; fathers sit by open fires, reading snippets from the newspaper as they smoke a nightly pipe of tobacco.

  There is a bend in the street and there it is. Mrs April’s house. Number 85.

  I stand for a moment, my hand on the latch of the front-garden gate. There is a low wall and a clipped privet hedge. A tall rose tree stands alone in a flowerbed in the centre of the garden, surrounded by weatherworn flagstones. I open the gate and step onto a gravel path. I fancy I am walking on a beach.

  Standing in the porch, I smooth down my hair like I’ve seen the matinee idols do at the pictures. I even put a hand behind my back to hide an imaginary bunch of red roses. I knock on the door, the shiny brass cold in my palm. She appears behind the frosted glass, her image at first ghostly, then more earthly, more distinct.

  ‘Good evening, Oscar,’ she says, so confident, so composed. ‘I am glad you could come. Come on into the warm.’

  She stands to one side and beckons me forward. As I walk into the hallway she closes the door to the street and the house embraces me.

  Her clothes hang loose. She wears a linen dress that follows each turn of her body, each step. The glass beads around her neck glisten and sparkle. She says something, but I am mesmerised and the words are sucked into the chandelier that hangs above.

  ‘This way,’ she says. ‘And sit here,’ she invites.

  I walk and I sit.

  She asks ‘…Stigir?’ and I say, ‘At home with Mother.’

  ‘Cake,’ she says and I say, ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’ll get the tea things. You just make yourself at home,’ she says to me.

  Me, the boy from the House of the Doomed and Damned, at tea with the librarian. She lifts the needle of the gramophone and places it on the record.

  ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’ And she leaves the room to the voice on the record.

  ‘I have a bonnet trimmed with blue,

  do I wear it, yes I do,

  I will wear it when I can,

  going to the fair with my young man.’

  ‘And what do you want to be going there for?’ said the Mother, the week previous, holding the letter in her hand like it had the plague.

  ‘Mrs April is going to help me with my scrapbook,’ I replied. ‘See, it says so in the letter.’

  The Great Aunt looked up at Mother, awaiting a response. Tasting the distance between us.

  ‘I don’t know that I approve,’ said the Mother, glancing sideways at her Aunt. ‘But she is a librarian, so it can only be educational.’

  The Great Aunt sucked her teeth, staring long and hard into the fire.

  ‘I see no harm in an educational visit,’ Mother said hurriedly. ‘But friends of your own age, Oscar, you need friends of your own age.’

  I just stroked my dog, for I knew better.

  ‘… to the fair with my young man.’

  The lullaby stops.

  ‘Did you like the music, Oscar?’ she asks, as she bends over to take the record from the turntable.

  The wallpaper is bright; the tabletop shining and dusted.

  I remember the Father sitting with the cigarette glowing against the dark of the night. The arm and needle of the old phonograph grating and bumping against the dead space at the end of the record. Songs of Old Ireland, sorrow, rebellion, Fenian Men and bloodlust. Mother bruised and bloodied in the bed next door. He draws on his cigarette and the amber glow sharpens the shadows of his face.

  ‘These things happen because I love her.’ The smell of whiskey sounds in his voice. ‘Because of our passion, Oscar. Do you understand me?’ The needle on the record scratches and bumps. His voice burns a question mark through the cigarette smoke.

  ‘Oscar? Oscar? A penny for them.’ I hear her voice drawing me back. When she says my name, when she remembers my name, I feel I might faint. She is handing me a small plate from the sideboard. I take it and say, ‘Thank you.’ I keep my eyes low, averted. I stare at the little triangular biscuits. They are covered in a snow of fine sugar. The pattern on the plate is of a rose garden and the biscuits look like large paving stones in it. I rearrange them so they fit neatly together.

  I look up. She is standing by the window. She is the picture I have never seen, in the gallery I have never visited. The room, its plants and gilded frames, its soft fabrics and fresh painted and papered walls, hints of a home I have never had. She pats her hair with the flat of her hand, checking it is in place. A shadow, like a cloak, drifts across her face as she leans forward. Something has taken her attention. Her hand rests gently on the curtain, holding it back to see the street below. She sees something that I can’t see. After a moment she releases her grip on the curtain and turns back into the room.

  Then she smiles again and sits down opposite me, only a small table of tea things between us. Delicate cups and saucers, a sugar bowl, a teapot with a hunting scene racing around it. I follow the horse and hounds as they hurtle towards the spout in pursuit of the fox. At the front of the pack is a man in a blood-red coat. He is straining forward, willing his horse on, keen to kill the quarry.

  ‘Why are adults like that?’ I ask of her.

  ‘Like what Oscar?’


  I look at her. I look at the pot: the hunting scene.

  ‘Why do they chase after animals, kill them, kill each other?’

  We are talking. She and I. This lady librarian and me.

  ‘Why do they do things the way they do? Why do they say things that make no sense? Calling each other by their animal names.’

  I stop. I feel the guilt of the betrayer. I’ve let out the scent of a secret from the House of the Doomed and the Damned. But Mrs April looks so kindly at me. She sits with her hands in her lap. She is thinking, phrasing a reply in her mind, but letting me talk, encouraging the words to tumble out.

  ‘I mean, like Great Aunt and Grandmother’s teeth.’

  I don’t really mean Great Aunt and I don’t quite understand what happened with my Grandmother’s teeth. I want to speak about the parents. But I hesitate. Mrs April looks slightly confused, but she nods her head, encouraging me on.

  I stare at the triangular biscuits on the plate balancing on my knees.

  Mrs April leans forward and arranges the cups and saucers, lifting the teapot to pour the tea. ‘Steady boy,’ says the huntsman as the horse lurches forward, nearly losing its footing, then righting itself as the cup is filled.

  ‘She spits in the fire, Aunt does. Like a cobra, but really she’s a lizard. Not a small one, but one of those big dragon ones that walk on the beaches. The ones that have poisonous germs in their mouths and bites that kill horses. And she gives me chocolate and tells me stories of the coach-house. And when I tell Stigir, he has to walk away and hide. And then she plays with her beads and looks at me like I’m the devil or some kind of were-wolf child …’

  Mrs April looks at me, slightly aghast, as if I have said something to surprise her. I forget: she is not from my family.

  ‘Have some tea, Oscar.’ She stirs in two full spoonfuls of sugar, then pushes the cup and saucer to my side of the table.

  ‘Being a child is difficult,’ she says slowly, thoughtfully, ‘but so is being a grownup. Don’t try to understand everything. There’ll be plenty of time for that.’

  Her face lightens.

  ‘Be a boy, play with your dog.’ She is still holding the spoon, waving it around as she talks. ‘Be with your friends in the park. Don’t trouble yourself with adult things.’

  I stare at the floor. I may have said too much, too soon. The carpet is thick, a jungle. She doesn’t know that she and Stigir and Blue Monkey are all the friends I need.

  She is tapping the spoon on her teeth. I glance up and around. On the sideboard is a photo of a young man in a sailor suit. A diversion, a way out.

  ‘Who is that?’ I ask.

  The tapping stops. She lays the spoon gently on the table.

  ‘That fine young man,’ she says, ‘is Mr April.’

  Mr April looks back at me. He is tall and as handsome as a film star. His hair is blond. His eyes remind me of Mrs April. They smile and glitter, even though the photo is black and white. He is standing by the dockside. In the background is a huge grey battleship, bristling with guns, flags flying high and proud.

  ‘He was lost at sea,’ says Mrs April, her voice drawing me away from the quayside and the shiny canons. ‘His ship was hit by a mine in the Bay of Biscay. It was the end of the war. It was all over. They were on their way home, but no one made it. The boat sank and there was no one there to rescue them. All souls were taken.’

  I look into his face. He seems young to me. Too young to be drowned. I look away from the photo, towards Mrs April. She smiles, her eyes never lose a trace of kindness.

  ‘It was all a long time ago,’ she says softly, absent-mindedly. ‘Things happen to a person … His name is on the War Memorial in the town square. We were together a very short time. He loved to play chess. Do you play chess, Oscar?’

  I shake my head, concentrating on the jungle carpet.

  ‘Then one day soon I will teach you,’ she says, clapping her hands. ‘Anyway, enough of this. Let’s have some cake.’

  Somewhere in the house a clock chimes. Mrs April gets up, walks over to the sideboard and picks up another plate.

  ‘Chocolate éclairs,’ she says with an exaggerated squeal. ‘Real dairy cream for a treat. And then, young Oscar Flowers, you must tell me all about why animals and people find it hard to be friends.’

  It is quite dark in the cellar, but I have smuggled a candle and matches from the cupboard under the stairs. When I strike the match and light the wick, Stigir clacks his teeth together in excitement. Stigir is such a good listener. He loves it when I tell him stories from the books I’m reading.

  Rummaging in the trunk I pull out my Grandmother’s peacock scarf and wrap it loosely around my shoulders. I am off to the Castle of Otranto, I say to Stigir, waving the lighted candle from side to side to create an air of mystery. There are giants in the Castle and armoured statues with eyes that trace your steps and walls that shift and move from Birnham Wood to Dunsinane. Follow me, I add, with a flourish of my scarf, and Stigir trots along behind me. We walk a few steps. I unravel and wave the scarf from side to side. The peacock takes wing. What is this strange creature of the night that switches form from man to beast?

  There are shadows on the heath ahead. Stop, it is the weird sisters calling us from the cliffs. Abandon ship, we will be lured and dashed upon the rocks. Out, out, brief candle. I am dead.

  I fall to the ground, the peacock floating gently to my side. Stigir licks my cheek and snuggles down beside me. We stare into each other’s eyes, seeing who’ll be the first to blink. We lie close together, on a dusty old rug, my little blue dog and I. Does he dream of me? I wonder, listening to our breathing. Does he dream of fields and sheep? It is my last thought as I fall asleep and dream myself of Mrs April.

  She is under the water, playing chess with her dead husband. His face is white with so much washing. Her heavy linen dress sways like reeds in the current. She holds the black queen in her hand. As she speaks, bubbles flow from her lips. Like pearls. Like pearls drifting in a stream to the surface. Way, way above. Further away than the roof of a cathedral.

  ‘How can you miss the boat if no one shows you the pier?’ asks Mr April, his tears running down his face, mingling with the salty ocean.

  ‘I will teach you chess,’ she replies, holding out her hand, unclenching her fist to show him. ‘Here, look, I have the black queen.’

  And they both look at the precious object as if it were their child, their very own baby child. She puts her arms around her dead husband’s shoulders and they swim off together, a trail of pearly bubbles whispering in their wake.

  ‘I will teach you to play. Chess. Chess. Chess,’ she sings as they drift away on the tide.

  ‘Get that dog out of the house,’ shouts the Father. He is drunk and in that dark place where evil lives. ‘Yapping around. Get it out before I kick it through the window.’

  My Great Aunt is sitting in the alcove with Mother, who is crying but not weeping. I turn to them, but they offer me nothing. Something has gone before.

  Then Stigir pricks up his ears, trots to the door and goes out into the garden. I begin to follow him, knowing there is more sunlight out there than ever inside this house.

  ‘Where are you going?’ booms the Father.

  I know this is a command to obey. I stop stock-still. His eyes are wild, there’s a brown smudge of stout on his cheek. This is a bad sign.

  ‘What’s all this tiger nonsense your mother has been telling me about, that you’ve been writing about?’

  His face is close to mine. I can smell the beer and cigarettes on his breath. But I will stand my ground. Stand up to this huge male.

  ‘My scrapbook, you mean?’ Tears are bubbling in my throat but I’m determined not to let them out, however horrible it all gets.

  ‘Yes, I do mean. And that librarian woman. What’s the use of it all?’

  He is grinning at me. The grin that can mean anything.

  ‘So when I go to see animals in the wild, see them for real one day
, I’ll know all about them and how to be with them,’ I say, as if life in the House of the Doomed and the Damned has not taught me enough about wild animals already.

  ‘When you go to see them? How to be with them? Who are you? Saint Francis of Assisi?’ He laughs, taking a half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray, straightening it out, breaking off the burnt hardened end, then lighting it.

  ‘You’ll be like her,’ he mocks, pointing at Mother. ‘Going nowhere and doing nothing. Useless.’

  I glance over at Mother and Great Aunt. Mother is hunched over in her seat, but Great Aunt has such a look of defiance in her face. Defiance and anger.

  ‘I will go,’ I say. ‘I will go out in the world and see for myself. One day, you wait and see.’

  Father laughs and laughs. I feel a rage take over me. I fly at him with tears spraying in all directions. But there are no claws on my fingertips, no sharpened teeth in my mouth. He laughs all the more as I pound my fists at him. Hail on a mountainside. He barely troubles to fend me off.

  ‘You’re weak like her and you’ll go nowhere like her,’ he sneers.

  I am trapped in this orbit of tears and fists and harsh words. I am only a child, but he laughs at my childness, my weakness. I strike him with all my might, but hardly move the flesh against his bones. Then with one sweep of a mighty forearm he pushes me to the floor.

  ‘Get out, get out the lot of you!’ he yells, his laughter abruptly gone. ‘I’ve had enough of you all, you useless collection of gobshites!’