At last my eyes close and I am carried beneath the arch of the sky to a narrow flight of stone steps, my feet pounding up a staircase of stone, one of those tight spirals that wind up the corner of a tall narrow tower; I am climbing ever higher, higher, with an intensity of purpose I do not recognise, panting for breath, hand clapped over my heart, for it seems it might beat its way out of my chest. I am a mild man, yet in this dream I am in a torrent of desire. I wonder what this longing might be: is there a woman at the top of the staircase and I am late to meet her?
I cannot stop climbing, cannot stop putting one foot in front of the other, staggering towards something I know awaits me, and for all that I wish to stop, I cannot, my breath ragged, lungs shrieking for rest; and then suddenly there are no more steps to climb. I cling to the wall, wind tugging at my hair, and then I step out on to a walkway circling great bells hanging down from massive beams. I do not pause to admire them, but pace up and down, wringing my hands together, wiping sweat from my top lip. There is no lady here: I am alone, and in a torment, my breath hammering in my ears.
I jump up on to the ledge, and suddenly realise what this is: what I am doing. My heart catches – both here, now, on my pallet in the cellar; and there, then, on the highest part of this tower. I stretch out my hand to pull myself back, comfort myself with words of love, save myself from the horror I know awaits me. I fail.
I jump; I fall, see the ground rush up to meet me, feel the agony of bones breaking, my heart bursting with the hope of dying; gasping, ‘Yes, yes.’ Straight away I am surrounded by the thump of men’s feet, quick hands that lift and carry me, voices that whisper of miracles. Let me die, I pray. But my body does not listen. The blood in my gorge shrinks back; my ribs withdraw their spears from my insides; my lungs start to sew up their spongy bags.
An uneasy truth scratches at the door of my mind: This is no dream.
I wake to find Alfred seated cross-legged on his pallet, smiling at the little machine in his hands, holding it to his ear to capture the gentle ticking. He looks at me, but I am still gripped by the terror of jumping from a tower – and healing, even from such a fall.
‘Are you all right, Abel? You were crying out.’
‘I was?’
‘Yes. Bad dream?’ he asks.
I shudder. ‘I fell.’
‘Must be dreaming of when you fell into the river. Told you it’d come back, didn’t I?’
‘I fell off a tower.’
‘No towers by the river.’ He smiles. ‘You’re panting like a Derby runner.’
‘Oh.’
‘I hope you won!’ he chuckles.
‘Won?’
‘The race!’ He waves his watch at me. ‘It’s still working,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I was in a poor temper last night, my clever pal.’
Then I remember myself the previous night: picking open the case, dismantling and removing the parts and replacing them, each in its rightful place. Alfred was angry, yes, but it is difficult to recall exactly why. I try to remember the whole of yesterday, and slowly it returns. I mended watches, I spoke to a Dutchman, I ate, I drank. But each meal is so much the same it is as though I have only ever eaten one meal and drunk one glass of beer.
The memories stumble back: the town I lived in; the Dutch tongue I can speak; the clock-mender’s work; my work as a slaughter-man, before I lost my job. Before I discovered my frightful talent for healing. One night’s sleep and it seems I am in danger of losing everything without Alfred at my side to remind me. I wonder what else I forget after a night’s sleep.
Alfred alone has prevented me from losing this completely. I wonder what it would be like if I were to wake one day and find him gone. How I would find myself? Who would I be? The thought is terrifying: more terrible even than the memory of my arm cut open. I need a place to keep this new knowledge, a way of keeping it beside me always.
‘Is it time for you to go to work?’ I ask.
‘No. Not for a while.’
‘Will you show me the way to a stationer’s?’
‘Going into the scribbling trade now?’ He laughs, but takes me anyway and pays for a sheet of cheap paper, pen, nib and watery ink.
‘You’ll pay me back soon enough, now you’re a clock-mender,’ he says, grinning, pointing me back to our lodgings.
I do not know if I can write, for I cannot remember ever doing so, but the moment I dip the pen and set it to the page it forms words well enough. I am a slaughter-man. I correct myself: I was a slaughter-man. My friend is Alfred. I pause, and wonder what to write next. It seeps into my remembering.
Before I came to London, I was a clock-mender in Holland, I write. In Nijmegen. I have a wonderful facility for mending timepieces. I pause. I can speak Dutch, I continue. I can speak Italian. I ran up a tower. I wanted to jump. Then I write, When I cut, I heal. I do not wish to record this, but it is true. I think of that other thing that happens when I cut myself, but it is too shameful to put into words. Finally, I write the date at the top of the sheet: 14th May 1857. It seems very important. Written by my own hand, Abel. I fold the paper and tuck it inside my shirt. The day passes.
The next morning I wake early and lie a moment, gazing upwards and waiting for my eyes to bring the room into focus. Something scratches at my left armpit. I draw a piece of paper out of my shirt, and as I hold it I remember that I placed it there. I unfold it. Only a few lines, at the top of the page, in writing that I know is my own, though I cannot swear that I recognise it. I am intrigued. What message have I left myself?
I note the date first, and of a sudden know it for yesterday. Then I read my words, and with the reading, remember. In a few lines of ink I make my history mine once more. I am filled with terrible relief, and clutch the paper to my heart. I know who I am. However strange, I have not lost myself overnight.
Alfred continues to be happy. I bury myself in the busyness of repairing watches. Men bring them broken; I send them away restored; they pay me. I give Alfred the money I owe him for lodging and food, and he tries to refuse, but in the end accepts the money, somewhat ill-humouredly.
Customers come in greater and greater numbers as word of my skill gets about. One regular visitor brings a small bag each time, four or five of them. I say how fortunate he is to own such a quantity of timepieces, and wonder why he has need of so many.
‘I am a lucky man.’ He laughs in a way that is difficult for me to copy, and pays me fourpence for each one I mend.
Alfred suggests we look for better lodgings, but when I ask why, he claps my shoulder and calls me his dear innocent friend.
‘Right now,’ he says, ‘we’re in a doss-house cellar. But put a bit aside and who knows? We’ll get a room upstairs where there’ll only be six of us. And up and up till we have our own room.’ His eyes sparkle.
‘I am very comfortable here, with you.’
‘Where’s your ambition?’ he exclaims. ‘Think of it! The peace and quiet!’
I do not want it quiet. My memories crowd in far more insistently when all is calm. I grit my teeth against the word ‘memory’.
‘I like a bit of hustle and bustle.’
He chatters on as though I have not spoken. I want to understand: what could be better than the place I live now? I have a mattress to sleep on, a roof to keep off the rain, a friend to wake me each morning. I am not lonely, for the cellar is full of comings and goings. Alfred’s companionship steadies me. I have discovered a new talent, and the labour binds me to each day with a sense of purpose. Even more delightfully, the more I work, the less I reflect upon the more frightening aspects of myself.
I have my paper to remind me who I am each morning, and it seems that with each day I am less dull, less stupid. I have the clever idea of recording the street names of my neighbourhood until my document is a map: a thread through the labyrinth not just of my cluttered inner lands but also the heaving world outside. It is almost as though I have forgotten that time of di
sturbing dreams of towers or rivers, of cutting and healing and the shameful and demeaning way in which my body flares into arousal when I slice myself deeply. I push the thoughts away. I shall work and work, and not think about any of that at all.
With each morning the weather becomes warmer, the cellar stickier until a fug of sweaty heat hangs over us in the evening. One afternoon, late in the summer, Alfred returns from work with a look of excitement on his face.
‘Fancy a bit of fun tonight?’ he asks.
‘Where?’
‘It’s the tenting season. There’s a bit of a do up Mile End way. Plenty to see, plenty to eat and drink. Come on. Shake a loose leg, Abel. It’ll do you good.’
When we step up to the street it is late enough in the day to be early evening and the city is gilding itself with the lowering rays of the sun. I sigh, caught up in its unaccustomed beauty.
‘Are you tired? If you are we don’t have to go,’ says Alfred.
‘I am not tired.’
‘Good.’ He smiles. ‘We deserve a bit of a knees-up.’
We make our way in warm comradeship. Every few paces Alfred opens his mouth as though an idea has come into his head, but at each turn he is confounded, either by some drunken fellows staggering past, or by a cart rolling by, its wheels shrieking from lack of oil, till at last he gives up, grins and drops his chin to his breast. We settle into a comfortable rhythm, steps matching and our breath also.
‘Just like our old walks to the slaughter-house,’ he says in a brief moment of quiet. ‘But this time it’s sport we are headed to!’
He is in such a good humour I wonder if I might be bold enough to ask him once more about my strange dreams, but each time I open my mouth he makes some joke, or points out an interesting sight. Indeed, he is so cheerful I fear that my thoughts would serve only to dampen his spirits. So I chew my tongue and we walk on.
We turn a final corner and find ourselves at our destination. It is crammed with booths advertising wonders and wrestling matches, fortunes to be told, prizes to be won. Swing-boats squeal; hawkers shriek out their wares just as noisily. The aroma of grilled pork tickles my nostrils, and music weaves with shouts and laughter into a tapestry of sound and scents. A boy passes with a tray of cups slopping with gin and Alfred seizes two, throwing down coins with a tinkle.
‘Let’s drink to us!’ he shouts, shoving a cup into my hand. ‘Down in one, Abel!’
I peer at the liquid, and pour it into my mouth. Straight away, my eyes spring water at the rough brew.
‘Another?’ he asks.
‘Not yet,’ I wheeze.
He takes my cup, laughing, and returns it to the boy.
‘So then,’ he asks, rubbing his palms together, ‘what shall we do first? Knock down a few skittles?’
Two gaudy females swagger across our path: one has pale yellow curls and a length of lace tied around her eyes; her companion has thumbed a line of rouge along her cheekbones, as scarlet as her hair. Both are sweating out strong spirits, so that standing close to them is as intoxicating as taking the drink itself.
‘Give us a kiss, lads!’ they howl, and press their faces to ours, smearing us with red grease, before leaving to claim more embraces. ‘First one’s on us!’
Alfred looks as though he has been slapped.
‘Are you ill?’ I ask.
‘People do not kiss me,’ he mumbles, ‘as a rule.’ Another gin-seller passes, and he grabs three glasses, swigging two of them. ‘Pay me no mind. It is nothing.’
He passes me the remaining glass and the searing mouthful brings on such a fit of coughing that he has to slap my back. As we make our way deeper into the multitude, a thin arm snakes out from a gypsy’s stall and catches me by the wrist.
‘Come now! You’re a fine gent!’ she cackles. ‘A silver coin, one sixpence only, and I shall uncover the secrets of your future!’ She digs into my palm and spreads the fingers wide. ‘A fine fortune for you, sir! Yes, I see good fortune, and wealth!’
‘Leave him be,’ Alfred grunts, taking my free hand and pulling me away.
‘A fortune, a good one!’ she rattles on, not letting me go. She rubs the stub of her thumb into my flesh, as though searching for a way in. ‘Good health, and—’
Her hand springs back, dropping me as you would a hot coal. I stare at the reddened skin.
‘Ha!’ Alfred crows. ‘Too much for you? I told you to leave off.’
‘Get him away from me,’ she hisses, all her showy patter stripped away. She horns her fingers and shoves them at me.
‘You? Frightened of him?’ Alfred laughs. ‘My pal, of all people? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years. Come on, Abel. Let’s get away from the old bitch.’
‘Yes, Alfred.’
I am still entranced by the bruise.
‘It’ll fade,’ he says, taking my hand in his, inspecting the darkening spot. ‘Come on. Plenty to do. Indeed, look. There is a dancing bear.’
The creature is a sorry sight, with a shaved snout and a tattered bonnet strapped to its head. It keeps swiping at it with clipped paws, missing each time. It peers about, as though searching for something it knows is close, but unattainable, and at every blink its keeper jerks the chain, chafing the metal collar deeper into the welts about its neck.
Alfred squeezes his nose.
‘Christ, it stinks!’
He has to shout, for the crowd are clapping and chanting, throwing apple cores, urging the beast to sprightlier movement. It opens its maw and groans a gale of cheap beer.
‘Come on. Let’s go. This is no fun.’
I nod and walk at his side. I shudder; I see myself bound, dragged to my knees, a metal collar about my throat, chains linking me to the man in front, the man behind, throat parched, muscles shrieking. I shuffle forward, head bent under the burden of a blazing sun, ears ringing with shouts that urge me forward: a foreign tongue I understand although I have no reason to.
‘Abel? You’re as pale as a ghost.’
‘It is nothing,’ I lie, stumbling against him.
‘Do you want to go?’
‘I am well,’ I say.
A knot of children dashes past, squawking, and one clouts Alfred on the side of the head with a pig’s bladder on a stick.
‘Little bastards,’ he says good-naturedly. ‘That’s kids for you.’
A skinny boy bobs before us, pulling a square of paper from the sheaf hanging over his arm.
‘Here you go, mister,’ he says politely, pushing it towards me. ‘The Wonders of the Age! Come and see the only true and genuine Lion-Faced Woman, Star Attraction at Professor Arroner’s Marvels!’
Alfred plucks the playbill from the boy’s hand and snorts with laughter.
‘Coo, that is one ugly sight,’ he declares and passes it to me.
The youth shrugs. ‘Please yourself. It’s not for the faint of heart,’ he says with an innocent air. ‘No, definitely for brave men.’
‘You cheeky little shit—’ starts Alfred, but the boy has gone, skipping through the mob.
I examine the paper. Bold lettering at the top of the page announces her as The Non-Pareil of the Female Sex. Beneath is the crude engraving which so amused Alfred. Her hair cascades in a veil down her face, locks brushed carefully away from her eyes and curling to her shoulders; the eyebrows combed upwards; the beard tumbling as far as her breasts, a luxuriant braid hanging out of each ear. There is not one spot of naked skin to be seen. Alfred yanks my sleeve.
‘Come on,’ he says, taking my arm and tugging it roughly. ‘Enough of gawping at monsters.’
‘She is not a monster,’ I say. ‘She is just not …’ I search for words.
‘A woman?’ he suggests. ‘Bloody right.’
‘She is a woman. But not the same as any other.’
He hoots, slaps his thighs. ‘You never said a truer word! What a freak!’
‘She is different.’ I do not mirror his smile.
‘Oh, come on, Abel. Humour me. A bear is a bear a
nd can’t help stinking. A female should be a female. Not something halfway between, like that.’ He stabs a finger into the playbill.
‘But I am different also,’ I say. ‘Is that what you think about me? A freak?’
We stare at each other for the length of time it would take to fill a pipe of tobacco. He chews at his moustache, casting his eyes about.
‘Don’t take on so, Abel. Only joking. Don’t pay me no mind. I’ve had a few.’
He snatches the advertisement from me, and I make a grab for it. He shoves me away, tossing the paper to the ground.
‘I want to look at it.’
‘No,’ he grunts. He puts his foot upon her face and grinds it flat. ‘I’ll not see you get mixed up with circus folk.’
‘Nonsense. Give it back.’
‘You’re a good man, but a simple one. They’re a bad lot.’
‘Bad? How?’
‘Thieves. They’d have the shirt off your back as likely as not, and wouldn’t even take off your jacket to do it.’
‘No, you’re surely mistaken. She looks—’
I want to say unafraid. It is not the right word to say to Alfred.
‘Vile habits, too.’ He hawks and spits mightily. ‘Perversions you can’t imagine. They’re filth.’
‘I want to look at the picture,’ I growl. ‘Why shouldn’t I be interested?’
He takes my shoulders and shakes till my head snaps back and forth.
‘Listen,’ he hisses. ‘Pay attention for once. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of good honest dirt, but they wallow in cesspits of their own making. Fucking animals.’
He hangs on to me. I do not want to look at him. Gradually, his breathing slows. ‘You see? I’m quite the poet when I get started. Anyhow, you wouldn’t quit your old pal Alfred, would you?’
His eyes are fearful.
‘No! Why would I do that?’
‘You were drooling over that ugly bitch for long enough,’ he grumbles.
‘I said she was different. Not that I wanted to marry her, you idiot.’ I smile.
The Palace of Curiosities Page 9