by Robert Power
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ I say to him in a Sherlock Holmes kind of way.
Like true detectives, we adapt to changing circumstances. We follow a hunch and take the shortcut to Mrs April’s house. We set off across the cricket green, go through the cemetery and head for the old haunted bridge over the railway track. From there we will be able to see down Mrs April’s street before anyone sees us.
Standing midway along the solid metal bridge we pretend to be trainspotters waiting for the evening coastal steam train to thunder by. I keep one eye on the track, one up the road. Stigir shudders as the ghost of the headless woman, long since decapitated by the passing freight train, brushes by us on her nightly patrol. Then we see him, Mr Fishcutter, turning the corner at the top of the road. He walks purposefully up to Mrs April’s door. The door opens as if by magic and he disappears inside.
Just as he enters the house I spot the Twins. They are halfway up the road, on the opposite side, partly hidden beneath a hawthorn tree. I watch them watching the shadows in Mrs April’s house. In the distance the steam train approaches. I look up the track and see the train take the bend following the swoop of the sands at the far end of the bay. It gets closer, the clickety-clack of its wheels and the plume of its smoke holding my attention. Suddenly it is upon us, all clatter and noise and smoke and steam. It sucks past us like a hurricane, pulling us momentarily away from our world and into its orbit.
As the smoke clears and the train becomes a distant clamour, I realise we are not alone. There at the end of the bridge, as if arisen from the mist, stand the Twins. They say nothing. They simply stand there. They wear identical duffel coats with large wooden toggles as buttons. Their heads are hooded and I can barely make out the contours of their faces. I turn and look through the open metal-work of the bridge to the lines of train track below in the hope another train will hurtle by and suck me away. When I glance up again they are descending the steps of the bridge. I watch them as they walk back up the road. Once more they take up their position under the hawthorn tree opposite the house, staring up at the window of the librarian who teaches me about books and chess.
Be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful, beware, beware, beware, beware, beware, beware, beware, be were? Be where, be somewhere else, Mrs April.
You are being stalked by a creature of the night. I know these things. Mr Fishcutter is a were-wolf. We will do our best to protect you, though the enemy is strong. We know what these men can do at night. When they change. When the switch takes place and the beast takes over. We will save you from those things creeping in the night. Me and Stigir and Blue Monkey will gather all our strength and wisdom to ward off this evil.
Stigir and me had thought of getting a new scrapbook to record all our findings, all our detective work. But the Mother and Great Aunt might wonder about a new scrapbook, so we decide against it. We work out a plan. It will be better to start from the back of the Cutty Sark scrapbook; that way no one will suspect. The first rule of the good detective: take no chances. Besides, I only have half-a-crown left in my savings tin, hidden far away under the bed. I never know when I might need it: for a rainy day, or a full-blown storm.
So this is how it will be. Mr Fishcutter and Mrs April at the back of the scrapbook, all the wild people from Tidetown and the wonderful animals at the front. Moving towards each other like the Cutty Sark and the Indian Ocean. That gives me an idea. I’ll call him Cutty Sark and Mrs April can be Indian Ocean. A secret code. I tell no one but Stigir. Someone else has to know the code, in case I forget it. Stigir can be trusted with anything. So can Blue Monkey, who I’ll tell later when everyone else is asleep. But I can’t tell the Twins. Something tells me to be wary of them. I’ll be the Lonesome Rover and Stigir wants to be Tenacious Terrier. Anyone else will just have to be who they are.
So we sharpen a pencil on my penknife, turn the book over and upside down, and begin with the first piece of evidence.
The kiss of the suspects.
Log date: 1
Cutty Sark (CS) and Indian Ocean (IO) spotted in the alleyway. Kissing. Lonesome Rover explores the caves. Tenacious Terrier stays in the kennel.
I draw a picture, like a map, to show where everyone was. I sketch an oblong for Mrs April’s house. Inside the perimeter I write LR for Lonesome Rover. Two parallel lines are for the alleyway. I write IO and CS with the C of the CS overlapping the O. That’s to show they were kissing. I then draw a dotted line (to show it’s not to scale) and put TT inside a triangle to show the kennel (which Stigir would like, but doesn’t have). (The Father keeps promising to build one, but hasn’t yet.) I date the map. Every little bit of evidence may be of help.
Log date: 2
Lonesome Rover and Tenacious Terrier head off to the fishmonger shop for cod roe. The Father is back from the sea and has been drinking whiskey again. He comes down to breakfast with a clean white shirt and a shaven face. The Father gives the Lonesome Rover a ten-shilling note to go to Cutty Sark’s shop. He says raw cod roe is the most nutritious of all foods. He seems to wink. Does he know something? As we leave he is reading the paper, drinking from a big mug of tea and eating hunks of bread and dripping like they have gone out of fashion. The Mother smiles as we pass by. Is she involved as well? She is holding a duster, which I’ve never seen before. Is this a sign? The household is eerily normal. Even the Great Aunt is sitting quietly, staring out of the window. It is very unnerving and unsettling, this peace and pretence at normality. You never can trust adults, but we’ll just have to take our chances.
At the fishmonger’s shop, Cutty Sark is chopping up eels. Each segment takes on a life of its own, wriggling, unaware its number’s up. The Lonesome Rover says something like this, recorded as remembered:
LR: My Dad has stopped drinking whiskey. He says he needs raw cod roe as it’s the only food for the stomach, stout and whiskey being brain food.
CS: (looks surprised – is he suspicious?)
LR: So he sent me. I’m on my way with my dog to the library to see if they have some more books for my project.
CS: (looks more surprised, but goes on chopping eels into little bits)
LR: We hope Mrs April is going to be there. (Heart pounds to the beat of the chopping).
CS: Does your father like a whole roe or slices?
LR: Whole.
CS wraps a whole roe, its shimmering film, thin blue veins and all, in a sheet of newspaper (the Daily Post).
LR: So we’re off to the library now. To see if Mrs April is there. To get some new books.
CS. Good. Goodbye.
Later at the library it must be Indian Ocean’s day off as the man from the children’s library is doubling up. We don’t stay. Anyway, the cod roe juice is seeping through the newspaper and making my coat smell.
Back at base the Father eats the cod roe raw, as if he’s never been taught to eat properly. He holds it in his hand and talks to me as he eats.
‘Body food,’ he says, ‘all the minerals and vitamins you’ll ever need.’
The little eggs stick to his tongue like mouth ulcers. He scrapes them off with his front teeth and down the gullet they go.
Log date: 3
Cryptic message on postcard sets time and place for secret rendezvous. Remember to research Wells Cathedral for any hidden meaning.
Cutty Sark leaves dry dock at 2040 and arrives at bay in Indian Ocean at 2100, just before the 2102 steam train. Surprise meeting with other clippers following in his wake.
The Father stands in the corridor, his hand on the door. Peering through the slit between the door and frame he sees his son lying face down on his bed, writing and talking to himself. The Father strains to hear the words his son is saying, but the whispers elude him. He wants to push the door open, to be in the room with his son, to tell him what it means to be a man. But something holds him back. As it has always done.
An old image flits to mind. It is of his own Father pushing him out into the street, to stand alone and fight hi
s own battles, to rely on no one and nothing but himself. To take the beating awaiting him.
The boy shifts on the bed and the Father moves away and out of sight, his back pressed to the wall. He so wants to find a way to talk to his son, but no words have ever come to his aid. Maybe when they both are men.
Tiger Fact
A tigress without dependent cubs can have babies every fifteen to twenty-five days. When the time is right the tiger and tigress spend about five days together. A new mate will kill any small cubs and push larger ones away so he can make the tigress ready to mate. This is so he can spread his own genes. If there are not enough territories, men tigers cannot spread out. They end up fighting over tigresses and killing each other and even get forced to have babies with their own sisters and daughters. If they inbreed, genes that save them from bad diseases are lost.
I am sitting at the kitchen table, my scrapbook opened up in front of me. All my coloured pencils are arranged in a line, from the yellowest on the right to the bluest on the left. I have just finished colouring in the map showing the whereabouts of were-tigers, which I copied from the book in the library. I’m halfway through the labelling of all the key places: Kelantan, where the Orang Asli live, whose shamans inhabit tiger bodies; Khao Yai, where tigers like to make eye contact with humans …
My concentration is broken by the ring of the doorbell. Stigir’s ears spring alert. Not often does the doorbell ring unexpectedly around here. Early on this morning I’d heard some shouts, a crashing of a vase or mirror, tears and doors slamming. All has been quiet for some time, so I assume I’m the only one likely to go to the door. The bell rings again. No one else stirs. If the Mother or Great Aunt were about they’d look surprised and ask each other if anyone is expected.
I go to answer it. Stigir jumps up and follows me along the corridor to check out the excitement. The low wintry sun rushes in as the door opens, silhouetting the two figures on the porch. I squint, recognising Mrs Fishcutter and one of the Twins.
‘Good morning,’ says Mrs Fishcutter. ‘Are your parents in?’
‘Er … no … not really,’ I say, clamping Stigir between my knees as he pushes forward for a better view of events.
The two on the doorstep look at each other. Both hold small black bags and are dressed in their Sunday best, freshly scrubbed and groomed.
‘Stepmother,’ says the twin confidently, ‘let me speak to the boy.’
‘Yes, of course, dear,’ says the stepmother.
Perch, or is it Carp, opens up her bag and pulls out a small, plain, sky-blue book.
‘Today,’ she begins, showing me a cartoon picture, ‘we are asking you and your neighbours whether you would like to outlive this giant turtle?’
She says all this as if she has never met me before, as if she is performing a part, reciting lines.
Is this the play for the school competition?
She shows me the open page of the book, pointing to the picture. Her fingernail is chewed and bitten to the quick.
‘This turtle can live to be a hundred years old,’ she proclaims. ‘When Jesus returns, you can live for a thousand years in Jehovah’s new kingdom.’
‘Can I be a tiger?’ I ask.
They both look at me with broad smiles. Where is the other twin? I wonder. I have never seen Perch without Carp, or Carp without Perch.
‘Who is it?’ comes a voice from inside the house. ‘Who’s at the door?’
I turn to see Mother in the hallway.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Flowers,’ says Mrs Fishcutter, popping her head to one side of the Twin in order to be seen. ‘It’s only us. We are calling this morning, on you and your neighbours, to spread the good news of Jehovah’s promises.’
I sense Mother tensing up.
‘Thank you, but we have our own beliefs. Good day to you,’ she says, bustling past me and pushing the door closed.
As the door slams she swivels around, grabbing me by both shoulders.
‘Never, ever, open the door to those people again,’ she says.
I think she means never open the door of our strange world to anyone. Her eyes are wild and her face flushed. There is more to this than unexpected visitors. Through the glass panel of the front door I can see Perch or Carp: they are so alike when apart. Stigir yelps, frightened by the commotion. The shadowy figure recedes.
Log date: 4
Lifeboats from the Cutty Sark come to the door to warn us of storms. The Mother says she does her own meteorological forecasting. The Lonesome Rover gets blamed for good or bad weather.
Gazing out through the bay window, I see the Mother sitting on the bench by the greenhouse. It has been raining all morning, but has eased up a little. She looks lonely, her shoulders hunched over, an old raincoat pulled tightly around her. Stigir is beside me, looking out to the garden, his ears pricked in anticipation of some fresh air and a run around.
‘Come on then,’ I say, and we leap down the scullery steps and out through the back door. When we get closer, Mother looks up as if she’s been lifted from a strange dream. She has a cream scarf wrapped around her head, from her jaw to her crown. It is tied in a knot at the top, with two bunny ears hanging down.
‘I’ve got a terrible toothache,’ she says, bringing her hands to her mouth. Her bunny ears flop forward.
‘You look sad?’ I say, not sure why.
‘Why do you say sad? I’m sore not sad. I’m in pain and your father has gone away again and left me with a hole in the roof and damp creeping all over this God-forsaken house. And, on top of it all, this toothache will drive me mad.’
‘Can toothaches make you do mad things?’
‘What do you mean?’ she says, her tongue pushing out her cheek, searching for the pain.
I think for a second and then ask the question that’s been nestling at the back of my mind.
‘Well, didn’t the doctors take Grandmother’s teeth out to stop her from singing so much and dancing in the garden? I thought it was to make room for all the milk in her mouth, but maybe she wouldn’t want to do mad things if she had no teeth.’
‘Who told you about all that?’ she says, shocked, the bunny ears flapping around her face.
‘Great Aunt Margaret,’ I answer, without a second’s hesitation, long schooled in this house of lies. The Mother scowls, so I carry on to cover my tracks. ‘But I don’t think just singing and dancing is being mad. I’m reading a book about a woman who was mad and who was kept in an attic, so no one would see her. But I don’t think she was mad either. I think she was just different. And that’s why she set fire to the house, because no one would listen. Just like Miss Haversham and the dusty cake and the wedding dress and that long dark room. Maybe Grandma just wanted to dance, but no one would let her.’
The Mother sighs, the intake of air igniting the pain that shoots from her jaw to her brain and back again like an electric shock. She looks at her boy, standing in the dripping rain in his short trousers and over-sized jumper, socks around his ankles and his old school sandals scuffed and worn. His little dog pants beside him, staring up at his young master in adoration.
She sees her own mother in the eyes of her son, in the way he looks up at the sky to watch a single raindrop fall from way above, getting bigger and bigger and then dropping onto his tongue. And she recalls, from far distant days, sitting on this same bench, her mother reading to her from one of her father’s books. She remembers the sound of her mother’s voice reciting lines, telling her that ‘there is a special place reserved in Hell for those who purposefully live their lives in sadness.’ Those words have sat in her mind ever since. She rubs her jaw to calm the ache. But the tears forming in the corner of her eyes are because she thinks that special place is here and now and has always been waiting for her.
‘Don’t cry, Mother,’ she hears from the voice of her son.
‘It’s the pain, Oscar, from my teeth.’
The following day in the school playground I sit on an empty bench. There’s a lolly-
stick in my hand and some fresh soft tar under the bench to keep me happy. I’m bending double, digging away at the soft goo, when I sense a presence. I look up. There in front of me are the Twins. They are dressed in matching grey smock-dresses and pale blue polo-neck jumpers.
Perch, who is on the right, speaks first.
‘Little boy, we have decided to give you a second chance to enter Jehovah’s Kingdom.’
‘To witness to you again,’ adds Carp, who is on the left.
‘To prove yourself worthy to act in our play,’ says Perch.
The playground is alive with children, shouting and running in all directions, but the Twins stand like statues, oblivious to all the commotion. I stare back at them, unsure that a response is needed.
‘We will begin our Bible study on Monday,’ commands Perch.
‘Here, on this bench. After lunch,’ adds Carp.
Then they walk away, leaving me to wait for the whistle and the call to the classroom.
I am nearly asleep. A time when memory creeps in. I hear the night-wind rattle the glass in the window. I feel the cold draught on my cheek. Am I asleep?
I see Mother in a fur coat. Where has that come from? Both the coat and the memory. And the ruby-red lipstick. The way she flirts with the young fishmonger. The looks passing between them. And the smell and sheen of the fish. Samson, I call him, the fishmonger, because of his strong arms, sleeves rolled up past the elbow, exposing biceps. Mother has taken to wearing the fur coat. She seems wilder, wanton, and she cries in the afternoon. Her hair is very black, hung loose around her face and neck. Tresses of thick black hair.
We are in our parlour. I’ll pretend to be a tiger and you pretend to be scared, I say to the Mother, to frighten Father when he comes home from work. So we set up the charade, Mother and me. She wishing, me wishing. The overturned chair, a scene of carnage.
When the key sounds in the front door, I throw the fur coat over myself, growl and snarl. A sense of power and victory overcomes me. All because of the magic of the fur coat. The Father expresses horror and surprise. We tussle for a second or two (we are almost a family; it is almost a family scene), but he shifts and tires, becomes angry at the child in me. The game has to come to an end. The fantasy of the tiger from the forest gives way to the early evening.