The Palace of Curiosities

by Rosie Garland

  I had spent so long chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of a safe and normal life with a husband and a halo of respectability, worshipping at the altar of romantic dreams. To think I believed Mr Arroner was the knight come to save me from my difference; that his ordinariness might somehow rub off on me, burnish me into an acceptable woman. I had been a deluded child. That portion of my life was finished with. Now there was Abel. With him I was neither strange nor normal, I was simply Eve. I had not seen this great gift laid out before me. Until now.

  I raked my claws through my hair to see if there was still a bold girl hidden underneath. I lost her half a lifetime ago, and I was afraid that the breadcrumb trail had been eaten by beasts. My mind had been fly-paper, syrupy with the daydream dust of happy-ever-afters and a world where no-one noticed my fur.

  There’s no such place, said Donkey-Skin.

  ‘You’re back!’ I laughed.

  You just stopped listening out for me.

  ‘You were right: I should never have married him.’

  Tsk, tsk. Come, we have work to do.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘For not believing you.’

  Sorry? It’s not a word I know.

  ‘I am finished with him,’ I said. ‘That husband of mine.’

  About time. Where shall we start? Donkey-Skin giggled. Make it good. Make it tasty. Tell me what you’ve got.

  So I told her. Told her of all the time I had wasted, praying for my husband to take me to bed. I might be called wife, but was let into his life only when he chose to make his pet more profitable. I had kept a candle burning for him too long and now it was guttered down to the stub. I was done with him.

  You’re being too coy, said Donkey-Skin. Too sweet. Too reasonable. Stop pretending to be a saint.

  Come now, Evie, you must have something better up your sleeve. Have I taught you nothing?

  I have been away too long for you to become such a milky maid. They call you a lion. So be one. Roar, unsheathe your claws, rake the life out of those you hate.

  Come on!

  I was angry with myself, for I could no longer hide the truth I had always known: by marrying him I had simply exchanged one confinement for another. When I left my mother, I believed that with my husband I might discover a new world. Not a perfect world, for although I was young I was not a fool; but a small space where I might safely open the doors of myself, and where this opening of myself would be welcomed, understood. I realised how foolish I had been.

  Forgive yourself. How could you know what he was like?

  I curled up in her words.

  Blow your nose.

  You were not like this as a child. You hissed and spat and fought and shrieked when Mama tried to shave you. Even when you were spat on, shunned, called freak, monster, monkey, witch, bitch, sick, twisted, queer. Now you are crying because you’ve had your pigtails pulled.

  Wipe your nose. Dry your eyes.

  Where’s your anger?

  Give me more.

  Yes, I was tired of being the sweet-natured maid who bore her foul features with a good grace. It was time to show myself the beast they thought I was. Time to drool and slaver; sniff myself in polite gatherings; cock my leg against expensive wallpaper; lick myself in the places people wished to look, but did not dare. I once longed to hear him sing my sweet songs of love but I was no longer romantic. It was time. Here be dragons: here be wolves.

  That’s better, but you’re only getting warm. Give me salt. Give me heat. Shout and scream!

  I drew the dream I wanted now: the one where I crept into his bedroom, climbed up the bed-frame, perched on the iron rail, swung back and forth on the balls of my feet, toes in a tight clench round the bar. I wrung my lips together until my mouth swam, squeezed out a creamy drop and let it string its way down from my mouth into his. Heard him gag, champ his jaws together, but not wake; whispered in his ear: I’ll sour your mouth with bitterness. Leak my poison into you. I curse you for what you’ve made of me.

  Donkey-skin clapped her hands.

  Now, that’s more like it! You are come back to me! What fun we shall have.

  Give me fire. Give me sweltering volcano.

  Give it all to me.

  I shall paw his windows-catches, crack a spoon on to his skull, roll his brain down a skittle alley, sieve salt into the hole that’s left, tamp in tobacco and set a lucifer to the bowl, suck in smoke through the pipe of his nostrils, blow smoke rings through his ears.

  I shall build buttons of his knuckle-bones, sew stockings from his skin, knit my hair into a noose for his neck, unrip his lungs and tread them to brawn.

  I shall be skull-splitter, gut-twister, fire-belcher, breath-sucker, brain-squeezer, blood-dabbler, fire floating in my hair.

  Till I am done with him. Till the Hounds of Hell drag him away, and leave a bloody ribbon on the floor—

  It is time, said Donkey-Skin. You are no longer a princess, you are a woman.

  ‘Don’t leave me.’

  Ah, but I must. Every moment from this heartbeat onwards is yours, to take, to keep, to make your own.

  You’ve no need for me, nor mothers, nor magic.

  You’ve found the right one for you. Don’t make the mistake of letting this man go.

  You are already one step off the ground.

  ‘I will fall.’

  I’ll see your first steps safe. I am not cruel.

  It is time for you to end this fairy story. You are halfway out the door. All it takes is to kick it open and step on to the street.

  Do you have a box of lucifers?

  ‘I am ready.’

  I strike the match.

  ABEL

  London, November 1858

  With all the might of a hundred lives, I strive to pull Mr Arroner from the heart of the flames, but he will not let off clinging to his precious money-box. I drag him by the wrist, so forcefully that any other man would have been pulled in my wake.

  ‘You’ll not take it from me!’ he squeals, hanging on. ‘It’s mine! Thief!’

  ‘I want to save your life, you bloody fool,’ I cry against the roar of the gathering inferno. ‘Let me help.’

  ‘Help me? That’s a good one. Help yourself to this, you mean.’

  I pick him up like a stack of kindling and carry him, box and all. We proceed a few steps accompanied by the sound of clanking, only to have our flight arrested by the tightening of a chain that secures the iron coffer to the bed-post.

  ‘Let go. We can come back for it.’

  ‘Never!’

  He laughs, a thin whistling sound. The fire is flattened out like a demonic rug, dashing across the floorboards from one side of the room to the other. It gobbles the bed-curtains, the quilted coverlet, the wallpaper, the press and all the linen stored within.

  ‘If you wish, I will stay here and guard your money.’

  ‘Leave you alone with my riches? I’m not stupid,’ he caws.

  ‘You are stupid. The fire will finish you off. It can’t touch me.’

  He struggles against my grasp, inhales smoke and starts to cough. A tendril of flame weaves round the leg of his britches, but he does not appear to notice. I am also wrapped in fire, but it laps me cool as a breeze from the river.

  ‘You are on fire,’ I try again. ‘Drop the box.’

  ‘No!’ he howls, hugging it to his breast. ‘You’ll not get it, you hear? None of you!’

  Flames scramble up the ladder of his body, from trousers to waistcoat to shirt. His hair is gone in seconds. The ferocious heat begins to crisp his skin and still he will not let go.

  ‘You’ll – not – beat – me,’ he wheezes.

  It is the last thing he says. He gags on the fumes, slackens in my arms. Still I try to haul him clear, but it is too late. I watch as his skin sears, peels back from his cheeks. When I am sure there’s no hope I drop him, and he tumbles to the floor.

  My clothes singe; the fire crisps my skin brown, then black, baking me to a hard crust. Memories flower, of myself in
countless fires, my flesh unassailable. It breaks upon me that all my burnings have been a preparation for this moment. I love Eve, and I can save her with this gift.

  This is the simple offering my Italian master could not accept, nor Alfred, nor any one of innumerable thousands. Why, I do not know, for it is a sun that suffuses my being, flooding me with joy.

  It is time to leave. I pick up the iron coffer from where it has fallen to the floor and it sticks to my fingers. The bed-post is quite burned through so I carry it, chain and all, through the impossible heat to the door, which is so frail I can push it through.

  The street is too bright for this late hour. I look at my body and realise I am the torch lighting the cobbles. I wonder how long it will be before I am consumed; then I remind myself that I cannot burn away, for it is another of my body’s tricks. As I watch, the flames grow green, waver and die.

  I look back at the house, for I have a fancy that Arroner is watching me, rubbing his hands together and chuckling: Yes, I can see the banner! The Human Torch! He burns! He lives!

  It begins to rain, the drops sizzling as they strike.

  She is suddenly before me. I try to ask her how long she has been there, what she has seen, but my jaw will not open. Hers will not open either. She reaches out to take my hand, but shrinks back from the charred thing at the end of my arm.

  ‘Abel, can you walk?’ she says at last. ‘Come away, now. Quickly.’

  I follow where she leads. I do not ask where. Up many steps, into a room I fill with the scent of charred meat. My eyes hiss when I close the lids. I lie down and know that if I die this time, it will not matter.

  EVE

  London, November 1858 and onwards

  That first night, I did not sleep, and he did not die.

  I stood in the crowd and watched the house burn, unnoticed in the scald of the blaze. George hurled a few buckets of water, but it was more to prove himself innocent of any involvement, and he tired quickly.

  The fire had much to devour: the costumes, the back-drops, the curtains, the props, the chairs, the rugs, the floors, the window-frames and doors. When I thought the roof was about to go, the front door fell open on a belch of smoke and Abel fell out with it, clutching a tin box.

  ‘It’s the devil himself!’ screamed one woman.

  Fire poured up his body. He teetered forwards with small stiff steps.

  ‘Fetch water!’ cried another.

  No-one moved. As we watched, the flames swimming over his flesh flickered and went out. He steamed with blood. Lizzie and I looked at each other. I stepped forward and waved my hands over my head until I got the attention of our new audience.

  ‘Ho!’ I yelled. ‘I am the Lion-Faced Woman! What a show we have put on for you tonight! See before you the Marvels of Professor Arroner’s Famous Exhibition!’

  They looked at each other, wondering if we could be so mad as to burn down our own house to entertain them. Lizzie danced a flamboyant polka, the conflagration her back-drop. George had slipped away, although I did not see him go.

  ‘Come! Dig deep!’ I yelled. ‘Give generously! Have you ever seen such a marvellous and surprising show?’

  Lizzie passed round an old hat of hers, and I heard the tumble of a few pennies. Behind me, the roof fell in and it started to rain. The people began to trickle away, already bored by the fading spectacle, and to escape giving us any more money. Abel’s body was fizzing gently in the drizzle.

  ‘Eve, my love, I don’t think he can survive this one,’ said Lizzie, tucking the coins into her bodice.

  I wanted to sit down. I wanted to cry. I had not meant for Abel to be caught in it – not him.

  ‘What’ll we do?’ I whispered.

  ‘Let’s go. Now,’ she said. ‘Too hot for me.’

  I stepped towards Abel, but dared not take the cinder of his hand. He was black as the dead bole of a lightning-struck tree. Lizzie took us away from the fire. She seemed to know her way but I cannot be sure: my memory is as dark as that night. Abel stalked beside me, an automaton with rigid limbs. I was out of my wits, for how could a man live through that furnace, even a man like Abel? She led us to an empty attic room, and we helped Abel lie down. He passed me the box clenched beneath his arm.

  ‘It is yours,’ he croaked, and did not speak again.

  The hinges had been so twisted in the fire that Lizzie was able to crack it open with her bare hands. It was full of money. The paper notes were charred at the corners, but the sovereigns were only warm. There were more of them in one place than I could ever have imagined. I sat beside him and I waited for him to die. I wept for my blind stupidity: all the time I had wasted on my husband when Abel was right before me. The only man who saw me for what I am and did not wish to erase any part of it.

  Too late. I had been a fool.

  The next morning Abel was still a living creature of sorts, his whole body scorched tough as a slab of overdone beef. I went into the yard, filled a pot from the stand and dribbled it, drop by drop, through the slot that was once his lips.

  We divided the money. George discovered our bolt-hole, for I declare he was a man who could hear the particular tinkle of any coin he felt he had a claim to. Lizzie gave him one of her glares when he suggested I should get less, on account of how I was Arroner’s wife and would be provided for in the will, and Abel none, on account of him being half-dead and a half-wit.

  ‘All will get their equal share, and not a penny less,’ she said.

  ‘Who will stop me taking it all?’ he grunted, lurching forwards and baring his teeth at her.

  She folded her arms across the thrust of her stomach. ‘Oh, George, I believe I shall.’

  ‘You—’ said George and raised his hand.

  ‘And I shall also,’ I added and stepped forwards too.

  ‘So, the cat’s found her claws,’ he sneered. ‘All right, have it your way.’

  Lizzie buried her portion in the valley of her breasts. George took his share and did not bother us again, there being no sign of further monies forthcoming.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Our business is done. It seems we shall make our adieus.’

  ‘Oh no, Evie. I won’t leave until I see you set. I promised, remember?’

  ‘In faith, Lizzie, I shall—’

  ‘I shall not hear of it.’

  So she stayed. I barely noticed the passage of night to day and day to night, for I sat with Abel and ate only when Lizzie placed a plate into my lap or a cup into my hand. One evening she came back with the news that the police had found a man’s body in the ashes of the fire. She peered at me, but I discovered I had no tears for my husband.

  ‘It appears no-one is much concerned about the burning of weird folk,’ she remarked. She gathered me into her vast arms and kissed the top of my head.

  I watched Abel. Fed him water and milk when he would take it. He lay in a half-death, arms frozen in a clutch around the space where the box had been, as though he cradled a baby of air. It was just wide enough for me to crawl into and sleep; in the consolation of his wooden embrace, I whispered my confession.

  ‘I did it, Abel. It was me who lit the match. I know what you did; how you tried to save him. I’m glad you didn’t manage it.’

  He said nothing. A half-corpse cannot speak.

  I sniffed. ‘I am sorry. I saw you come out, lit up like a torch. I have lost you.’

  It seemed I could do little else but cry out the days, weep through the nights. Then one day he stirred. The black beetle casing of his old flesh cracked along joins I could not see, and came away like the shell of crackling on a piece of roasted pork. I lifted off the lid of his skin. Beneath he was pink and hairless as a baby. His eyelids split along their seams and he opened eyes pale and liquid as soft-boiled eggs.

  ‘Your name is Eve,’ he croaked.

  ‘And you are Abel,’ I said.

  ‘Am I?’

  He fell into a drowse once more. I held his hand, more to comfort myself, and with the holding I entered
his mind. He burst into me, or I into him, in a headlong plunge so precipitous my soul caught in my throat. I bobbed like a cork on top of the swelling tide of his memories, and at first I could get no purchase on the torrent of images. But either it slowed, or I became a better navigator, and I read him.

  As carefully as I could, I swam into the sea of his lives. At first I stood in a slaughter-house, carcases swaying so close I could sniff the dangling meat, slippery against my skin. Then I stepped into a clock-mender’s shop, awash with the kindly tick of a myriad pocket-watches, and felt the twitching of his fingers, aching to be at work. Next, a place filled with the deep peace of dead bodies, and the anatomists who worked upon them. And back, a wheelwright; and back, a blacksmith; and back, a soldier; and back, and back.

  He was nested with lives, the skin between them thin enough to shine a candle through. The past poured out of his palm and into me, life upon life: I saw him stumbling through each, unchanging, with no understanding of his true nature, given glimpses which terrified rather than awed him. Wondering always: Will this be a place I can rest awhile? But he found no respite, only movement – and in one direction: forwards. Oh, the wonders he had seen, and forgotten. It was surely the cruellest joke, to live for ever and remember nothing of it.

  He stirred in my hand, and came to wakefulness.

  ‘You are reading me,’ he husked, voice still rough.

  ‘Abel,’ I said as tenderly as I would to a child. ‘Do you still wish me to stop? All you need do is say the word, and I shall.’

  ‘No.’ He ground his teeth. ‘I must do this. Tell me: what have you seen? What do you know?’

  ‘I have seen some of your lives. The most recent: at the slaughter-house before you joined the troupe; your friend Alfred.’

  ‘Alfred,’ he sighed. ‘A lonely man. I had forgotten.’

  ‘A fortune-teller also. Something of a mountebank. What greed!’

  ‘Ah yes. I can still feel him pawing at my lives, trying to force his way in.’

  ‘And before that, your sojourn in Holland, as a skilled watch-maker. Very skilled. And quite well-off, too.’