Observatory Mansions: A Novel

by Edward Carey

  On that day, some months, it was estimated, before my required time of purchasing, I left Mr Behrens and his glove shop with ten new pairs, ten new membranes neatly stacked, waiting peacefully for the day when I would call them to life; when the fingers would operate and timidly learn the world.

  The Christmas present.

  Soon Anna felt more confident and was allowed to go on accompanied walks. Sometimes she went with Mother, sometimes she was allowed to go with me. She never went with Miss Higg. Claire Higg did not appreciate outdoor places. Anna’s eyes had begun to completely cloud over, now there was no proof in them that they had ever seen. The irises, the pupils, were all a milky white – they were hard now too. When she was still, she was like a waxwork that someone had forgotten to paint eyes on. She kept touching her white eyes, pushing them, scratching them. I asked her if she remembered what most things looked like. Yes, she said, by memory and by touch. Anna said to me:

  Please let me touch your hands, then I’ll be happy.

  It was Christmas time, at Christmas time people are known to wrap objects in paper. Anna Tap wanted to touch my hands and, since it was Christmas time, that would be my present to her. I would gift-wrap my hands.

  Dressed in my costume (the costume I wore when I was employed in the waxworks), in buckled shoes, in tights, in a white shirt with frilly cuffs, in a long gabardine and on top of my head a long curled wig, I entered the wax museum through the side door with the combination lock that we half-wax-half-human dummies had always used. Still were the inhabitants, as silent as wax. Did they dream? Did thoughts move inside their wax interiors? Was a person seen through the glass eyes of the wax dummies, moving about them? Some of these wax men and women moved themselves, in daylight hours, when the exhibition was open, when electricity warmed their bodies and let them shift in their ugly and jerky movements. But they did not move that Christmas Eve when I walked amongst them again.

  I stopped in front of a certain wax model of a film star, young, deceased. My white gloved hands touched his youthful wax hands.

  I heard the security guard walking about upstairs, doing his rounds. Silently, I twisted the hands off the film star, the wax hands rotated slowly, slowly. There was something appalling in the way those wax hands went round and round: why wasn’t the wax mouth of the wax head screaming?

  Then I held two wax hands, my hands, but made of wax.

  The security guard came down the stairs. I stood still by men in suits, women in ball gowns, fat kings and fat queens in their regal togs. I was kept company by the famous and the infamous and I was altogether welcomed among them.

  The light from the torch entered the room and the security guard came after it. He walked around us. He shone his torch in our faces. He stopped in front of each of us. He was trying to catch us out, but none of us moved, or rather only one of us moved, but it was not me. Further away, at the other end of the exhibition hall, stood, in wax company, a model of a man, about six foot high with brown hair, thin, wearing a pinstripe suit. The eyes of this exhibit moved. They moved in one continuous action from staring straight ahead to staring at me. I knew this exhibit. His name was Ivan. He was not a wax dummy, he was a flesh dummy. He had been working as a flesh dummy before I came to the wax museum but was dismissed from employment on the same day as me.

  That night I saw him again, silent and still, save for the single movement of his eyes. The security guard did not notice those eyes move, he saw nothing unusual in the frozen figures before him, he did not notice that one wax figure had lost his hands, or that another had taken them. As he waved his torch about us his expression did not change. Then he put his torch down and started to take off his clothes.

  Now I only achieved outer stillness, the inner, I confess, had quite gone. The security guard, quite naked, walked up to a certain wax figure and hugged her. He felt her body and kissed her lips, he brushed his hands through her hair. He sighed and he moaned. He stroked the polystyrene breasts and felt under the dress, way up the fibreglass legs. This was a model of a certain celebrated beauty, a singer. He rubbed his body all over her wax, fibreglass and polystyrene skin.

  After he had masturbated, he cried. He dressed himself, walked up to the wax figure he had abused, kissed her on the forehead and murmured sincere apologies:

  I love you. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t startle you. I love you and I am not worthy of your love.

  He picked up his torch, shone its beam around us, particularly at his beloved, and then quietly descended the stairs.

  When he was no longer heard I left my outer stillness and, still carrying wax hands, walked over to Ivan. I stopped just in front of him, smiled and whispered:

  Happy Christmas.

  Don’t tell anyone, Francis. Please. I don’t do any wrong. I just come here to be with them. I don’t touch them or hurt them. Don’t tell anyone, please.

  I promise. Are you here every day?

  Every other day.

  How do you eat?

  I always bring sandwiches and a drink with me. I creep in at night, like you did, through our old entrance while the guard does his rounds. Then I stay with them all day and some of the night before returning home. I sleep for a day and then come back. I am happy here, I’m not doing any harm.

  Will you come out with me now or have you just arrived?

  Just arrived, just before you. I couldn’t leave them alone over Christmas.

  Poor Ivan.

  Francis, why have you stolen those hands?

  They’re a Christmas present.

  If you don’t put them back, I’ll be forced to report you.

  And they’ll ask you how you know. How did you witness the theft? And when you explain they’ll look at you strangely and call doctors and lock you away … They’ll find new hands, Ivan. He’ll look the same.

  But I’ll know.

  Happy Christmas.

  Francis, don’t go.

  I must, the security guard could return.

  I’m frightened. It’s because of the young man without hands. People should have hands, he doesn’t look like a person without them, he just looks like a model. He makes the others look like models. Please put the hands back.

  Happy Christmas.

  Then take the whole figure.

  I only want the hands.

  I’m frightened. Look, my hands are shaking, my hands want me to cut them off and give them to the young man.

  Ivan, he’s made of wax.

  You’re betraying us.

  Why don’t you come out now?

  Stay here with us. It’ll be like before.

  I’ve got to go home. I must deliver these.

  I think one day someone will come in here, one of the officials, and remove me from the exhibition. They’ll lift me up and drag me away. They’ll put me in a cold room and lock the door. I’ll stand still even then. I shan’t move. And maybe days or maybe weeks later they’ll come into that room and pull off my arms or legs and give them to somebody else, to some other model. Then they’ll burn the rest of me. And what’s certain is that when I am burning, my flesh will drip from me, like wax.

  I think you should leave the exhibition, it’ll be fine without you. Come outside.

  You’re jealous.

  No, Ivan.

  Ivan resumed his stationary pose and would not talk again.

  Christmas morning.

  On Christmas morning I went to flat eighteen. Anna Tap sat across the table from me.

  Anna, you can touch my hands.

  Wax hands at the ends of my jumper sleeves, my own gloved hands up my jumper holding wax wrists. She touched both my elbows and slowly crept her fingers down my forearms. She touched my hands.

  They’re so cold.

  She felt them.

  They’re so hard.

  She took hold of the fingers and gently pulled them towards her. The wax hands came free. She felt the weight of them. They banged on the table. Anna screamed.

  They are my hands, they are my f
ingers and knuckles. Wax casts made by my friend William.

  Another commission?

  Not for me, for the wax museum. They were for a wax model. They’re yours now. My hands, from me to you. Happy Christmas.

  And what did Anna give me for Christmas? A pair of spectacles. Spectacles that were mine already. Spectacles that belonged to the exhibition, that were on loan. So was it a happy Christmas? Not really, no.

  A shadow called Tap.

  Anna Tap, blind, mid-twenties to early thirties, in a blue dress, in black shoes, needed, she said, to be by me always. She said she felt uneasy if I wasn’t near. She didn’t want to be left alone. When she was left in the largest room of flat six she would sneak away in search of me. She followed me down to the cellar and found the door to the tunnel and knocked on that door and wouldn’t stop knocking until I had let her in:

  I’m busy now. Go back upstairs.

  I won’t disturb you. I’ll just sit here. I won’t make a sound, you won’t know I’m here.

  I would resume my work.

  I do like your exhibition, Francis. Or almost. I don’t think I quite understand it. You said that it was an exhibition of love. But I didn’t see that, I just saw abandoned and stolen objects. Perhaps you should tell me about the other exhibits I didn’t get to see. Perhaps you should read me your catalogue.

  No, never.

  When I went into the city to stand on my plinth, she would insist on accompanying me. She would stand near to the plinth and smile whenever a coin was thrown into my box.

  I could never be alone.

  She was still losing weight, as the bathroom scalesman was eager to inform me whenever Anna and I went to the park. I sometimes tried to leave her with the chalk artist. I walked towards the broken fountain, sat Anna down on the nearest bench to the chalk drawings and told her I’d come and get her soon. She called after me, she looked frightened. She took Saint Lucy’s eyes from her pockets and passed them nervously from hand to hand. But despite my irritation at the almost perpetual presence of Anna Tap, I found that I could never leave her alone for very long. I felt guilty when I walked away, I saw her pathetic expressions and heard her rubbing the wooden eyes together. I often felt guilty enough to return to her and say – Yes, all right, you can come. But the moment I said that the irritation would reappear. So I sat her down somewhere else and promised to return. So she called out to me. So I felt guilty and sad. So I let her come. So I felt disgusted by her.

  I was a solitary person. I was happiest with just myself for company. But now I could no longer talk to the most precious object in my exhibition because she was there; I could no longer achieve inner stillness because she was there; I could no longer think because she was always there. Silences would be interrupted by – Francis, what are you doing?

  She said to me once, when we were in the tunnel: I am filling your days with love, Francis. You’ll get used to it. Be patient.

  I would ask her – Are you still alive behind those white eyes, Anna. They make you look dead. I’m still alive, Francis, she’d say, come closer.

  She was always smoking. It dirtied everything. I was sure that if I spent too much time with her that my gloves would become tobacco stained.

  I stole her toothbrush. I threw it away (it wasn’t worthy of the exhibition). I complained that her breath smelt, asked her to keep her distance. I climbed up to her flat whilst she was with my mother and moved her possessions about. I placed bricks outside the entrance door, I saw her fall over and cut herself. I would take her for a walk in the city and leave her there and hear her scream out my name and follow her as she desperately asked people for help. I would follow her all the way home, and even watch her standing on the curb, panic-stricken, listening to the traffic rushing around Observatory Mansions and see her waiting there for an hour, begging every passer-by to take her across.

  She would bear all the little abuses I subjected her to with patience and pretend I was just tired, that I didn’t mean what I said. She would always forgive me: I forgive you, Francis. But I thought it would be more interesting if she didn’t forgive me, if she shouted at me and insulted me and left me in peace. My days were filled with the fug of Anna Tap and I struggled for clean air.

  She gave me gifts: she gave me her spectacles case, she gave me her love dress (which I had every intention of stealing anyway, lot 995).

  I know this is hard for you, Francis. I know it will take time. But do not worry, I am patient.

  Of eyes and sticks.

  I walked Anna to the eye hospital. They gave her a white metal stick with a rubber end. People taught Anna how to use the stick and kept her away from me for hours while she tapped the ground and was given instructions on how to know the streets by beating them. And strangely, when Anna was away at her lessons, I wanted her back, I was bored without her. When she had finished at the eye hospital for the day I would be there waiting for her. With each lesson she was regaining her confidence.

  The eye hospital had ordered some glass eyes for her and expected them to arrive in a number of weeks. But she wanted to wear wooden eyes in her skull and screamed and kicked when the eye people refused her. Unhygienic. Unsavoury. Unmentionable.

  Tap walks alone.

  After she had been a few weeks with the eye people, Anna was happy walking alone. She would not allow me to guide her, she did not cling on to my arm or try to grip my hands as she had before. She stood erect and alone, and if when following her I came a little too close I was struck by the stick. Anna Tap was confident again. She stopped giving me presents.

  Anna Tap no longer visited me in the tunnel, even when invited. She spent a lot of time with her stick tutors, girls of a similar age to her. Plotting.

  An outing.

  One mid-January day was, and is, my birthday. On that particular birthday I was given as presents:

  1. From the Porter: a hiss.

  2. From Claire Higg: nothing.

  3. From my mother: a pair of red cotton gloves.

  4. From Anna Tap: an outing.

  This outing of Anna’s was a surprise outing, one she said that she had been busying herself with for several weeks, in fact ever since a certain person, who was wearing white gloves, announced (dropping this unconnected information casually between sentences) that his birthday was approaching. The outing began with a bus journey. I sat in the front seat next to Anna Tap. I noticed, slightly frightened, that the bus was not heading in the usual direction towards the city but away from it, in a direction I was unaccustomed to taking, we were moving towards the countryside. Ever since Tearsham Park changed its name I had somehow forgotten that the countryside still existed. After half an hour we had arrived. The bus moved off without us.

  What do you smell, Francis?

  Decay, rotting.

  Is it a pleasant smell?

  No.

  Look up, Francis. Are there any birds?

  Pigeons and seagulls.

  What is in front of you?

  A metal wall stretching out for miles.

  Is there an entrance?

  There’s a metal door.

  Open it, we will walk inside.

  A man ran up to us dressed in a filthy boiler suit, wearing boots and thick rubber gloves, a helmet and with a paper mask over his mouth and nose. Anna took a piece of paper from her pocket, the man read it and left us alone, instructing us first, for safety’s sake, to remain on the perimeter.

  What do you see, Francis?

  I don’t know … there’re things everywhere, old mattresses, old bicycles, smashed televisions, ruined cars, carpets, suitcases, papers, magazines, bags, curtains, books, bones, cardboard boxes, rotting food, rubble …

  Are you crying?

  No.

  Good, then keep going.

  There’re broken chairs, floorboards, window frames, twisted and smashed shop’s mannequins, clothes, till receipts, beams, lamps, cans, record players … all smashed …

  Stop crying and go on.

  I�
��m not crying.

  Keep going.

  There are tables with three legs, there are plates and clocks. There are cups, smashed glass, bottles, paintings, posters, tyres, cartons, wires, shoes, spectacles, wigs, wardrobes, drawers, doors …

  Don’t stop.

  Please can I stop?

  Go on.

  I think I’d better go now.

  KEEP GOING!

  There are pens, suitcases, briefcases, filing cabinets, sheets, blankets, buckets, saws, iron poles, plaster, a caryatid missing its head, tiles, coats, rocks, mirrors, a doll’s leg.

  On! ON!

  There are bed frames, dresses, plastic jewellery, telephones, photographs, a blackboard, a tricycle, a doghouse, a chimney, a snooker table … a walking frame … I want to stop.

  Besides the objects, what else do you see?

  People walking about it all – It’s so high in places, it’s like mountains!

  What are the people doing?

  Collecting?

  No, they’re scavenging.

  What is this, Anna?

  It’s all the rubbish from the city.

  No, it’s not rubbish, not all of it.

  Describe the smell.

  I can’t.

  It’s decay, it’s rotting, it’s the smell of everything that we throw away, heaped together. It’s the smell of everything we don’t want any more.

  It’s so sad.

  It’s the smell of dying objects, Francis.

  Objects don’t die.