by David Miller
The great cat unpeeled its eyes off Lizzie’s in a trice, rose up on its hind legs and feinted at the whip like our puss Ginger feints at a piece of paper dangled from a string. It batted at the tamer with its enormous paws, but the whip continued to confuse, irritate and torment it and, what with the shouting, the sudden, excited baying of the crowd, the dreadful confusion of the signs surrounding it, habitual custom, a lifetime’s training, the tiger whimpered, laid back its ears and scampered away from the whirling man to an obscure corner of the stage, there to cower, while its flanks heaved, the picture of humiliation.
Lizzie let go of the bars and clung, mudstains and all, to her young protector for comfort. She was shaken to the roots by the attack of the trainer upon the tiger and her four-year-old roots were very near the surface.
The tamer gave his whip a final, contemptuous ripple around his adversary’s whispers that made it sink its huge head on the floor. Then he placed one booted foot on the tiger’s skull and cleared his throat for speech. He was a hero. He was a tiger himself, but even more so, because he was a man.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this incomparable tiger known as the Scourge of Bengal, and brought alive-oh to Boston from its native jungle but three short months before this present time, now, at my imperious command, offers you a perfect imitation of docility and obedience. But do not let the brute deceive you. Brute it was, and brute it remains. Not for nothing did it receive the soubriquet of Scourge for, in its native habitat, it thought nothing of consuming a dozen brown-skinned heathen for its breakfast and following up with a couple of dozen more for dinner!”
A pleasing shudder tingled through the crowd.
“This tiger,” and the beast whickered ingratiatingly when he named it, “is the veritable incarnation of blood lust and fury; in a single instant, it can turn from furry quiescence into three hundred pounds, yes, three hundred pounds of death-dealing fury.
“The tiger is the cat’s revenge.”
Oh, Miss Ginger, Miss Ginger Cuddles, who sat mewing censoriously on the gatepost as Lizzie passed by; who would have thought you seethed with such resentment!
The man’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper and Lizzie, although she was in such a state, such nerves, recognized this was the same man as the one she had met behind the cider stall, although now he exhibited such erect mastery, not a single person in the tent would have thought he had been drinking.
“What is the nature of the bond between us, between the Beast and Man? Let me tell you. It is fear. Fear! Nothing but fear. Do you know how insomnia is the plague of the tamer of cats? How all night long, every night, we pace our quarters, impossible to close our eyes for brooding on what day, what hour, what moment the fatal beast will choose to strike?
“Don’t think I cannot bleed, or that they have not wounded me. Under my clothes, my body is a palimpsest of scars, scar upon scar. I heal only to be once more broken open. No skin of mine that is not scar tissue. And I am always afraid, always; all the time in the ring, in the cage, now, this moment – this very moment, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, you see before you a man in the grip of mortal fear.
“Here and now I am in terror of my life.
“At this moment I am in this cage within a perfect death trap.”
Theatrical pause.
“But,” and here he knocked the tiger’s nose with his whipstock, so that it howled with pain and affront, “but …” and Lizzie saw the secret frog he kept within his trousers shift a little, “… but I’m not half so scared of the big brute as it is of me!”
He showed his red maw in a laugh.
“For I bring to bear upon its killer instinct a rational man’s knowledge of the power of fear. The whip, the stool, are instruments of bluff with which I create his fear in my arena. In my cage, among my cats, I have established a hierarchy of fear and among my cats you might well say I am top dog, because I know that all the time they want to kill me, that is their project, that it their intention… but as for them, they just don’t know what I might do next. No, sir!”
As if enchanted by the notion, he laughed out loud again, but by now the tiger, perhaps incensed by the unexpected blow on the nose, rumbled out a clear and incontrovertible message of disaffection and, with a quick jerk of its sculptured head, flung the man’s foot away so that, caught off-balance, he half toppled over. And then the tiger was no longer a thing of stillness, of hard edges and clear outlines, but a whizz of black and red, maw and canines, in the air. On him.
The crowd immediately bayed.
But the tamer, with enormous presence of mind, seeing as how he was drunk, and, in the circumstances, with almost uncanny physical agility, bounced backwards on his boot-heels and thrust the tool he carried in his left hand into the fierce tiger’s jaws, leaving the tiger worrying, gnawing, destroying the harmless thing, as a ragged black boy quickly unlatched the cage door and out the tamer leaped, unscathed, amidst hurrahs.
Lizzie’s stunned little face was now mottled all over with a curious reddish-purple, with the heat of the tent, with passion, with the sudden access of enlightenment.
To see the rest of the stupendous cat act, the audience would have had to buy another ticket for the Big Top, besides the ticket for the menagerie, for which it had already paid, so, reluctant on the whole to do that, in spite of the promise of clowns and dancing ladies, it soon got bored with watching the tiger splintering the wooden stool, and drifted off.
“Eh bien, ma petite,” said her boy-nurse to her in a sweet, singsong, crooning voice. “Tu as vu la bête! La bête du cauchemar!”
The baby in the lace bonnet had slept peacefully through all this, but now began to stir and mumble. Its mother nudged her husband with her elbow.
“On va, Papa?”
The crooning, smiling boy brought his bright pink lips down on Lizzie’s forehead for a farewell kiss. She could not bear that; she struggled furiously and shouted to be put down. With that, her cover broke and she burst out of her disguise of dirt and silence; half the remaining gawpers in the tent had kin been bleakly buried by her father, the rest owed him money. She was the most famous daughter in all Fall River.
“Well, if it ain’t Andrew Borden’s little girl! What are they Canucks doing with little Lizzie Borden?”
AT THE BEACH
Bernard MacLaverty
Bernard MacLaverty (b.1942) was born in Belfast but has lived in Scotland for most of his life. His work includes the novels Lamb, and Cal and the Booker shortlisted Grace Notes. His Collected Stories were published in 2013 when MacLaverty said, in an interview with the Guardian: “Frank O’Connor said that short stories are a place for loneliness while the novel is a public event. So for me that means it’s a dram not a pint … when you have a pint at the bar there are people around you. It is about society. The short story is more often about an individual; it’s having a dram, of an evening to yourself.”
They sat opposite each other across the table in the small apartment. He was just out of bed. The first thing he had done was to peer through the slats of the shutters at the view – white apartments, two cranes and, beyond, the blue of the Mediterranean. He wore underpants and a shirt to cover his stomach. She had risen earlier to go to the Supermercado for some essentials. The Welcome-pack was only meant to get them through the night – tea-bags, some sachets of coffee, a packet of plain biscuits.
“The price of cereal would frighten you,” she said. He nodded, trying to open the cardboard milk carton. “I’m not exactly sure what it is in pounds or pesetas but that packet of All-Bran costs the same as a bottle of brandy.”
“It’s worth it for the bowels. The bowels will thank me before the week’s out.” He tried to press back the winged flaps of the waxed carton but they bent and he couldn’t get it open. “Fuck this.” He stood up and raked noisily through the drawer of provided cutlery for a pair of scissors. She was looking in the cupboards under the sink.
“Hey – a toaster.” She held it up.
He smiled at its strange design – it was as if someone had removed the internal workings of an ordinary toaster. She plugged it in to see if it would work and the wires glowed red almost immediately. The socket was beneath the sink so the toaster could only sit on the floor. “Stamped with the skull and cross-bones of the Spanish Safety Mark.” She put on two slices of bread.
“Is this goats’ milk?” He made a face but persevered spooning the All-Bran into his mouth.
“I didn’t get you a paper – they only had yesterday’s. And we read yesterday’s on the plane.”
“We want a holiday from all that.” He reached down and brushed an ant off his bare foot. “Did you sleep?”
“It was getting light through the shutters,” she said. “The crickets went on all night. They’re so bloody loud.”
“What’s it like outside?”
“Hot – and it’ll get worse as the day goes on. The Supermarket has …” She laughed. “I was going to say central heating but I mean …” She wobbled her hand above her head.
“Air conditioning.”
“Yeah – you come out onto the street and feel that hot wind – like somebody left a hair-dryer on. The Supermarket’s a Spar, would you believe. I thought they only existed in Ireland. And I got Irish butter – here in Spain.”
He killed an ant on the table with his thumb.
“These wee bastards are everywhere.” He bent forward and stared down at the maroon tiled floor. “Look – Maureen.”
“The toast.” She hunkered down and turned the bread just as it was beginning to smoke.
When they had eaten breakfast they made love and after a while he said, “I love you,” and when her breath had come back she said,
“Snap.” She reached out and touched the side of his face. “I mean it, Jimmy,” she said and smiled, hugging him to herself. Their faces were close enough to know they were both smiling.
In the plane Maureen had bought a long-distance Fly-Travel kit which contained light slippers and a neck pillow. It also included some stickers which said Wake for Meals. Jimmy stuck one on his forehead and pretended to be asleep. Maureen laughed when she saw it.
“It’s what life’s all about,” he said. He put on his salesman’s voice. “Have you seen our other bestselling sticker, sir? We give birth astride the grave.”
“Wake for meals.” Maureen said it aloud again and laughed. “Let me have a shower – then we’ll find out where this pleasure beach is.”
He laughed and said, “We know where it is.”
They followed the signs which said Playa. His hands were joined behind his back, she carried a bag with the camera and the towels and stuff. They stopped on the hill overlooking the beach to study which part of it would suit them best. The place was crowded and colourful.
Sun-beds were stacked at intervals. When they got down they took one each and camped near the beach bar. Jimmy sat on his like a sofa while Maureen stepped out of her dress. She had her bathing suit on. She stood putting sun cream on her shoulders and legs.
“Do my back,” she said, handing him the bottle. She lay on her front on the sun-bed. He squeezed some cream into the palm of his hand and began to rub it into her skin. He looked around him. Most of the women were bare-breasted. Everyone seemed to be tanned. Mediterranean people with jet-black hair and dark olive eyes.
“We’re pale as lard,” Jimmy said.
“Only for a day or two. Who cares anyway – nobody knows us here.”
“I care,” he said – then after a pause, “Nipples the colour of mahogany.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Act your age, Jimmy. They’re young enough to be your daughters.”
“I can look, can’t I? Anyway, who’s talking about girls – the boys have nipples, too.”
When he finished doing her back he did his own arms and legs. He opened his shirt and saw the pallidness of his own skin. If anything, it was whiter than Maureen’s.
“Don’t forget the top of your feet and … your bald spot.”
“I meant to buy a fucking hat.” When he had his body covered with cream he joined his hands and rubbed the top of his head with his moist palms as if he was stretching. Then he lay down on his back. That way his gut was less noticeable.
“Do you miss the girls?” Maureen said.
“Like hell. It’s about bloody time we got away by ourselves.” He laughed and said, “It’s like it used to be. Just you and me, baby.”
“It’s different now.” Even though her eyes were closed she made an eye-shade cupping her hand over her brow. “Maybe better.”
“God it’s hot.”
“That’s what we paid all the money for.”
“Did you remember to put the butter back in the fridge?” Maureen nodded.
“I hate butter when it’s slime.”
“I hate anything when it’s slime.”
“This place makes me so …” Jimmy looked around at the people sprawled near him. If they were reading books he could tell by the authors whether or not they were English-speaking. Jilly Cooper, Catherine Cookson, Elizabeth Jane Howard. Others who just lay there sunbathing gave no clue. So he lowered his voice. “It makes me so fucking randy.”
A couple in their early twenties came up and kicked off their sandals. They dropped all their paraphernalia on the sand and began to undress. Jimmy watched the girl, who was wearing a flimsy beach dress of bright material like a sarong. Beneath she wore a one-piece black swimsuit. The lad pulled off his T-shirt. He was brown with a stomach as lean as a washboard. He said something to his girlfriend and she replied, laughing. They sounded German or Austrian. The girl elbowed her way out of the shoulder straps of her bathing suit and rolled it down, baring her breasts. She continued rolling until the one-piece was like the bottom half of a bikini. They both sat down and the girl took a tube from her basket. She squirted a teaspoonful of white cream onto her midriff and began rubbing it up and over her breasts. They lifted and fell as her hand moved over them. She looked up in Jimmy’s direction and he quickly turned his head towards Maureen.
“What?” said Maureen, sensing his movement.
“Nothing.” He shook his head.
About mid-day Jimmy put his shirt on and they went up to the patio of the beach bar for a drink and something to eat. They sat in the shelter of a sun umbrella looking over the beach. The luminous shadow cast by the red material of the umbrella made them look a slightly better colour. Maureen leaned towards him and said,
“Don’t look now but I hear Irish voices.”
“Jesus – where?” Jimmy, with his elbows on the table, arched both hands over his brows and pretended to hide.
“Behind me and to the left.”
Jimmy looked over her shoulder. There were three men around a table smoking. They all were wearing shirts and shorts. One of them had a heavy black moustache. Maureen was about to say something when Jimmy shushed her. He listened hard through the foreign talk and rattle of dishes. He heard some flat vowels – but they could have been Dutch or Scottish. American even.
“I’m not sure,” said Jimmy.
“Well, I am.”
“Let’s steer well clear.”
A waiter approached their table.
“Try your Spanish,” said Maureen.
“Naw – it’s embarrassing.” But when the waiter opened his pad Jimmy said, “Dos cervezas, por favor.”
“Grande o pequeño?”
Jimmy cleared his throat.
“Uno grande y uno pequeño,” he said.
“That’s one large and one small, sir.”
Jimmy nodded. “Gracias.”
“De nada.” The waiter disappeared indoors to the restaurant. Jimmy raised his eyebrows in a show-off manner.
“Not bad at all,” said Maureen. “I hate all the th’s – like everybody’s got a lisp.”
When the beers came they toasted each other. Every time he raised his glass an ice-cold drip would fall down the open fron
t of his shirt onto his belly and startle him. He cursed – thought there was a crack in the glass or the beer mat was wet.
“They put the stupid fuckin beer mat round the stem instead of underneath.” Maureen pointed out to him it was condensation. The beer was cold – the air was hot – condensation formed on the outside of the glass – each time he picked it up it would drip on him. The beer mat round the stem was a none too successful attempt to prevent this.
“You’re too smart for your own good,” he said.
Maureen looked up at the menu displayed on the wall.
“We’ll have to eat a paella some night.”
“Yeah – seafood.”
“It’s a kind of enforced intimacy. They only do it for two people.”
“No paella for spinsters.”
“Or priests.”
“If it was in Ireland they’d make it for his Riverence and throw the half of it out.”
They both smiled at the thought. There was a long silence between them. Jimmy shifted his white plastic chair closer to hers. His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Who – I don’t know whether I should ask this or not …”
“What?”
“Naw …”
“Go on.”
“Who was the first man you ever did it with?” She stared at him. “You don’t have to tell me – if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to and it’s none of your business.” She spoke quietly and without anger.
“Can you remember the first time you had an orgasm? I mean – not even with somebody. By yourself, even.”
“Not really. All that early stuff is smudged together.”
“Come on,” he whispered. “That’s one of those questions like where were you when they shot Kennedy. Everybody knows. The first time that happens to you it’s like being in an earthquake or something. You remember. It’s like your first kiss …”
She hesitated and screwed her face up. “It might have been the back of a car …” He leaned forward to hear her better. “This is nonsense. Why do you want to know?”