by Ishbelle Bee
Mr Chimes replied, “So your daddy didn’t love you enough. Well maybe you weren’t very lovable. It’s late and I’m tired, what have you come here for?”
“And so you should be tired. I would be too if I were hundreds of years old. Why is it you people are obsessed with living so long on this Earth? Please tell me. I would love to know.”
“You wouldn’t understand. Now get out of my shop.”
“Oh you really are no fun at all. And that detective is so close to catching you. I suppose your little time machines don’t bode too well against the hangman.”
“I can disappear easily enough. I am seven hundred years old. I have killed thousands and thousands of...”
I pulled out my little silver pistol and shot him in the head. “Blah blah blah. You’re boring me.”
A black cat with jewel-like eyes watched me from the cabinet, yawning. I picked her up to take her home with me. I thought the ribbon round her neck was quite charming.
When I stepped into the street, a small boy was staring at me.
“Mr Loveheart?’ he said.
“Yes?” I replied, stroking the cat, “And you are?”
“Death.”
“Ah, I see.” I was intrigued.
“I have been watching you with interest, Mr Loveheart.”
“I suppose I am interesting. Is there anything I can help you with? Directions perhaps? Are you lost?”
“Are you an angel or a devil?” and his voice sent ripples of electricity through the night air.
“I haven’t decided yet.” And I wandered off down the grim little alley, whistling.
IV: October 1887
Grandfather’s Dying wish & Dr Cherrytree
I arrived at the asylum at exactly a quarter past two. A row of fat pigeons sat on the wall, overlooking my arrival, suspiciously. The gates were spiked iron, both gloomy and menacing, encircling the building like the tail of a great dragon, the paving stones underneath wet with a slime trail. The warden’s name was Fuggle and he had wooden teeth, something I hadn’t seen for quite a while. It amused me.
I introduced myself. “Doctor Edmund Cherrytree. I’ve come to see Ernest Merryworth.”
The warden looked me up and down. “Oh, the doctor. You’re doing a study. I remember your letter.”
“Yes, actually I am a psychoanalyst. I have come to examine his behaviour. I am writing a book on the criminally insane.”
Fuggle laughed, his wooden teeth slipping about. “You’ve come to the right place.” He escorted me down a deep, long, white corridor, jingling his keys by his side. “He’s been as good as gold, doctor, since he got the bad news.”
“Bad news?”
“He’s dying. Got a month or so left. Something wrong with his heart.” And Fuggle laughed.
“What’s so amusing?”
“His heart. Of course there’s something wrong with it. He’s a bad sort. You know what he did to his granddaughters.” Fuggle looked at me sideways and continued, “Killed two of them and stuffed the other one in a clock.”
“Man is capable of redemption, Mr Fuggle.”
Mr Fuggle taps his nose. “I’ve seen it all. The very worst of man. Angels can forgive him, Doctor Cherrytree. I won’t.”
We arrived outside the cell of Mr Merryworth. Mr Fuggle opened the door with a little key. Ernest sat by the window reading, and he turned towards me, so I could see the front cover of the book. It was about clock making.
Fuggle coughed into his hand. “Well, I will leave you both to it. I will be outside if you need anything. Just shout.”
“Thank you,” I said, and stared over at Ernest. “I believe you have been expecting me?”
“I got your letter.” His voice was croaky. He was a withered old man. His cell had a small bed and a chamber pot, a desk and chair. The only other item in the room was the book in his hands. “I’m dying.”
“Yes, I’m aware, and I may be able to help you with that. For a price.”
“What do you want?”
“I need to know where your granddaughter is. The one who survived. The one you locked in the clock. If you tell me this I can extend your life.”
Ernest put the book down. “That’s a very tempting offer. And why is my granddaughter so important to you, eh? Do you like little girls, doctor? Do you like to play with them?”
“No. But you certainly do. Where is she?”
“A policeman took her. Adopted her. The last I heard they had gone to Cairo.”
“What is this policeman’s name?”
“Goliath Honey-Flower. He’s Egyptian. Huge bugger. He saved her. Pulled her out of the clock.”
“Thank you.”
“And now will you help me? Will you give me more time, doctor?” and he rested his hand on the book.
“I will send you something in the post, Ernest. You will live.”
“Before you go, tell me what happened to my clock?”
“It never belonged to you. You stole it and it was returned to your employer.”
Ernest looked very sad for a moment. “I loved it. It was the only thing I have ever loved.”
And I left him with his sadness, strange mutterings, and his book on clock making.
It had started to rain when I left Fuggle and his pigeons and walked out of the gates of the asylum. I thought about grandfathers, granddaughters and grandfather clocks. Tickety-tock. The rain fell like seconds and time was laughing, gently. I examined my pocket watch, which had a serpent with ruby eyes. It was soft magic within my hands. I had acquired the watch from Albert Chimes the clock maker. He had told me that inside my watch was the soul of a baby. And I had been so pleased, so very pleased.
July 1888
I suppose at some point I was going to get caught. It was the heat of summer when he arrived. The detective with hawk-eyes.
He was waiting for me in the lobby with his constable. They introduced themselves as White and Walnut, investigating the case of a missing girl and a possible link to the clockmaker Albert Chimes. I was handed a picture of the girl and a client list of Mr Chimes, both of which I examined with unease. “Well, detective sergeant, I don’t recognize the young girl and I am not acquainted with anyone on this list.”
The detective had a very odd expression on his face. “Last night Daphne Withers’ body was found in a barrel floating along the Thames. This morning the body of Albert Chimes was found in his shop. He had been shot in the head.”
Constable Walnut intervened, “And his cat has gone missing.”
“Oh dear,” I said, “I am not really sure I can help you.”
“Can you account for your whereabouts last night, doctor?” The detective had the stare of a mesmerist about him. Deep, like whirlpools.
“Yes. I was here with my assistant, Peter. We were reviewing some of my patient cases and having a late supper.”
Constable Walnut raised an eyebrow.
“Is Peter about to confirm your alibi?”
“No,” I said, and I could see Constable Walnut was very amused with himself. “He will be back later today. I will get him to make a statement at the police station.”
“Thank you. I wonder if you could tell me about the photographs on the walls. If you could explain to me exactly what they are.”
“What do they have to do with your inquiries?”
“I am interested in the individuals who were clients of Albert Chimes. You were one of those clients. And your photographs interest me.”
“Very well. They are spiritualist photographs. They depict the moment the soul leaves the body.”
“How did you acquire them?”
“I am a photographer. I have travelled a great deal in my past. I witnessed some terrible accidents and deaths.”
“And you took pictures while people were dying?” the Detective stared at me. That gaze again. It reminded me of a mirror.
“How exactly do I answer that, detective? Hmm? I couldn’t save these people.”
“You didn’t
try.”
“Are you going to arrest me for photographing the human soul?”
“I would like to see inside your office,” he said. And I let him in. He was interested in two pictures and a photograph that hung on the wall. The largest painting above my desk was a watercolour of a Norfolk view, a white sail boat drifting lazily along the river. Near the window, the detective then examined another smaller watercolour of a dragonfly trapped in a jam jar. “Who painted these?” he inquired.
“I did. I was rather an amateur artist and photographer before I studied psychoanalysis. Sometimes I feel as though I have had two lives,” and I instinctively touched my watch. For a moment I thought he saw this gesture and looked at me curiously.
He moved over towards the photograph behind the door. And he stood there for some time, examining it, then he plucked it off the wall.
“Tell me,” he said, “about this photograph.”
“It’s a picture of me with Albert Chimes in Paris. We are standing on a bridge.”
“Tell me about your relationship with him.”
“I met him twenty years ago, in Paris. That picture was taken shortly after we met. He had an exhibition of his clocks in a small gallery. They were beautiful things.”
Detective Sergeant White held the photograph in his hands like a holy object.
“Is there something wrong, detective?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “There is something wrong with this picture. You say this was taken twenty years ago and yet neither of you have aged. How is that possible?”
“I really don’t understand what you’re trying to insinuate. You are accusing me of not aging. Are you going to arrest me for it?” and I laughed.
Detective Sergeant White looked very seriously at me. “I believe that somehow these clocks are extending your lives. Children are being murdered and you are involved.”
I sat myself down on the sofa intended for my patients. “You can prove absolutely nothing. And you have now placed yourself in a very dangerous position.”
Detective Sergeant White placed the photograph on the desk and left with his constable. I put the photograph back on the wall and brushed the dust off. Albert Chimes smiled back at me, that wicked old alchemist.
October 1887
Mirror in Egypt
When Goliath rescued me from the clock and lifted me deep within his arms, I remember closing my eyes, keeping them shut. Soft darkness in my head, pounding, fizzing pressure. A sheep’s head boiling in the pot. For the light was burning my eyes; like grandfather striking matches to ignite his tobacco pipe, gripped by his great fingers, those dirty sausages. The flame, a phosphorous green glow with something alien underneath. He spat on the flame to put it out.
That’s what you do with fire
* * *
put
it
out.
Goliath had lifted me out of the clock, my coffin. An alien whiff surrounding me, as the hinges creaked open. I had been swimming, I had been drowning, I had been with the dead, talking with ghosts. But he carried me away, far away. My eyes shut tight. To Egypt, to Egypt.
I was holding his hand, under a sun that looked like a lemon floating in the sky.
“Why is it so bright?” I said, peering squinty eyed.
Goliath squeezed my hand. “To sizzle up the demons.”
We were standing outside a lopsided wooden bookshop in Cairo. It was painted orange and pink with little balconies and pot plants with creeping greenish fingers. Goliath showed me around Cairo while we were staying with his father, the archaeologist: he is a man who digs up the dead and finds secret things.
I know I am supposed to be with Goliath. I am sewn into him, the threads in my tummy criss-crossed with his. If you cut us apart we fall to pieces.
In the street was a man with a donkey, the saddlebags loaded up with books for delivery. I patted the donkey’s nose. He smelt of earthy things and warm fuzzy fur. Wet tongue, black flies buzz like wicked angels around his eyes. I slapped them away. We walked onwards down the street, the air smelling of sweet-shit and honey. A sort of fairy stench. I liked the smell of this place, I liked the feel of Goliath’s great hand and its black fuzz of hair. He held me so tight, a bearish grip. That is what safety feels like. Safety is a great bear standing beside you.
always
a wall of muscle
a great row of teeth
I would think, If you touch me again, Grandfather, he will crush you with his great paws. Chomp on your bones. Lick your blood from his fur. Leave no trace of you.
We passed a café where men were sitting smoking tobacco with their snake pipes. They watched us pass, I think the colour of my hair caught their eyes. Grandpa always said my hair was too red. The Devil likes red, he said. The Devil likes red and little girls.
“They are staring at me,” I said.
Goliath rubbed my head with his great hand, so my hair would stick up. “Because you look like a little fire imp,” and then he picked me up into his arms and carried me onto his shoulders. I got a whiff of the tobacco and its hot, smoky beetle-scent. I waved at the pipe smokers, who wore long white nightshirts, as though sleepy and ready for bed. I thought, I am a fire imp. I am a fire imp. I am fire.
And someone will try to put me out.
I reached upwards towards the lemon floating in the sky. I saw boys sewing a tent with ripples of colour like peacock eyes: dazzling emerald and deep-sea blues, and they were smiling and laughing. Goliath pointed to the university – its entrance carved in leaf-like patterns. A student sat on the steps, putting on his slipper-like shoe. There was a hole in it and his toe was sticking out. We continued along the streets of Cairo, hot and yellow, burnt. White donkeys with cargo, bright birds in wicker cages, moon symbols on doors and onion shaped towers reaching into the sky like telescopes. I wondered if there were princesses in the towers? Hair like a cloth of gold? But the princesses in Egypt would have hair as black as nightfall. Black as a theatre curtain closing. Black as an ending.
I saw the heads of men up here, little white caps and coloured turbans. Heads floating towards a blue Mosque. Star shapes imprinted on the walls. A temple of the night sky. I reached out and touched the magic shapes with my hands. Lay a hand on a star surface. An imprint.
“Do they worship the stars?” I asked Goliath.
“Yes. They believe when we die, we return to the stars,” he replied, and handed me some figs which I gobbled up. I tried to count the stars on the temple, but I ran out of numbers in my head and the stars took over. Head full of them, we walked on.
Two old men were bent over a game of draughts; I saw them move their pieces. Old knobbly fingers, white beards, missing teeth. A piss pot rested by the entrance to their home, freshly emptied. Onwards we walked, and I saw a great white bird fly overhead. Soaring. Its wings were made of angel pieces.
That is freedom. That is what freedom is.
V: 1887
The Underworld
Did I tell you that Daddy was dead? Yes, I think I did. He’s floating in space, somewhere. Space, that heavy spooky hole of stars. I remember the night before Mr Fingers came to our house, I looked up into the dark sky at all that glitter, at all that wonderland of emptiness and I wanted to be sucked into it. And I suppose, in some ways I got my wish.
I remember watching Mr Fingers stuff my father into the black obsidian Egyptian sarcophagus in the hall. He wanted my father to tell him where the grandfather clock was, the clock that was stolen. My father was crying – he had no idea. And then Mr Fingers shut the lid and my father disappeared like a magician’s assistant.
Goodbye, Daddy.
Mr Fingers, the man with the black spectacles and the waistcoat dancing with ladybirds. Some sort of magic man. Some sort of demon. Some sort of father. And he took me by the hand and we walked outside in the snow. Everything was so white, as soft as sugar dusting. Hand in hand through the garden we walked, our footsteps squelching into the fuzzy snow.
“Where are
we going?” I asked. And he smiled, a smile of a thousand cats. A smile of angels. A smile of sharks. Ice cool. Devil hot.
A spiral staircase appeared in the earth and down, down, down we stepped into the Underworld. The layers of earth were moulded into human faces, whose eyes, bulging and swollen, watched us descend. Souls trapped in the mud. Some glittery and green, others with eyes like leaves. Green beetles burrowed into their eye sockets and laid eggs in their mouths. I wanted to touch them with my finger but Mr Fingers kept hold of my hand and we continued down into the wet darkness.
In the Underworld a black river coils like a serpent around the palace of the King of the Dead. It bubbles and shimmers and I imagine there are strange creatures underneath with black scissor teeth and eyes swelling like pearls. The palace of Mr Fingers is enormous and filled with clocks that chime every quarter of an hour. There are odd shaped rooms and strange carvings. It is like a museum or mausoleum, stuffed with oddities. He squeezed my hand. “You are now a prince of the Underworld. This is your playground,” he said, like any proud father. He is a kind of magician. He is a kind of madness.
My bedroom was in one of the towers. It was painted with stars and the cosmos. A great telescope peered out of the window like an enormous eye. I peered through it. What do the stars in the Underworld look like, I wondered? They seemed smaller, further away. Tiny dots of starlight, winking like fairy tale frog eyes. I am in the Land of the Dead. This is how the dead see the stars, at a greater distance. And this made me feel a great sadness.
I was in a great empty space. I was a prince of a great empty space. My room had a bookshelf stuffed with books, again, all on the stars and the planets. I sat on my bed and flicked through the pages of star charts and sketches of constellations. I held in my hands maps of the universe and yet I could only peer into them. Like my father, I had been placed in a tomb and I had disappeared.