by Carol Birch
The first thing was that time stopped. I remember looking across and seeing that woman with black hair at the foot of the stairs, stark naked with her arms going backwards and one leg dislocated at the knee and pointing upwards in a horrible way, and realising suddenly that I had no idea how long Tim had been gone and no idea of what the time might be. The street was quiet, a strange thing in itself, and yet I had a queer sense of having just been woken up by a loud noise, even though I hadn’t been aware of sleep. And indeed, how could I have slept? Unless I slept sitting upright, cross-legged. Where the hell was Tim? The woman’s eyes were dark, merry slits in a white face, her mouth the merest dot. The lantern made movements pass over her face. I saw that the Eastern lamps were all cleaned and arranged in two straight rows along the counter, though I couldn’t remember having put them there. The box was set down at the side of the counter behind a great creel of fantastical shells, all spikes and whorls and smooth, pearly, opening mouths. I thought the light was going down. So the darker edges grew darker still, blacker and thicker, furry, and the shells appeared to writhe so gently it made a small pulse throb in the vein inside my left elbow. I stood up and looked stupidly at the lantern. We had lamps from all over the world, but there wasn’t one of them I could have kept alight.
Where was he? Surely he would not leave me here alone all night? I wondered if I’d lose my job at Spoony’s. Surely I should have been there ages ago? I liked Spoony’s. I was the best pot boy they’d had in ages, Bob Barry said. They were good to me there. Better than here, I thought. He’s done it on purpose, gone off and locked me in to frighten me. Why was the street so quiet?
A lump was growing in my throat.
I don’t know why I didn’t get up there and then to go and bang on the front door as loud as I could, and shout through the letter box at the top of my voice for someone to come and get me out. But I didn’t seem able to move. My mouth was dry and when I tried to lick my lips, my tongue was thick and sticky. I wondered if I was getting ill. It was quite cold. Somewhere deeper in the shop, somewhere in one of those crowded little rooms, one of those narrow passages, something fluttered. I felt a feather tickling my throat. A dense bank of darkness concealed the open door that led into the first small passage, off which was the musical instrument room. I looked into that darkness, and the flutter came again.
Of course. The birds. I longed for others. I thought it would be nice to be in the company at least of those cheerful white birds in the back room. Even the pop-eyed fish would be better than nothing. Surely Tim would be here soon. I took up the lantern very carefully and walked step by step towards the darkness, which retreated gracefully before me. Strange and beautiful, a dragon’s face appeared, a golden throat gleaming for a second. I turned a corner to the right and felt the left-hand turn open a gaping mouth upon my back. Down there were the tall Ali Baba jars, the vases from Nineveh, the fierce curved blades and delicate sets of china with cups with such tiny golden handles you couldn’t imagine anything but a fairy holding one. Before me were demons and idols, carved gods and sacred gongs, bamboo pipes, poisonous darts. My light threw up the tremendous horns of a buck. Left at the top and I’d reach the good old birds, but I must take care as I turned the corner not to look to the right where I knew I would see the suits of armour standing to attention with their visors hiding God knows what.
Just before the turn, I saw a ship. The raised lantern revealed a painting of a curious vessel that reared up tall out of the sea at either end, a high-shouldered, many-turretted, floating castle of a ship, a thing upon which in a dream you might embark and sail away to the ends of the earth.
The light went out.
I did not panic. I stood there holding my darkened lantern in a void so full it licked me all over like a cat washing a kitten. For a minute or so I just let it. Then I panicked. I turned and ran. All the devils of hell followed after, clutching at my back. I crashed into a wall, turned, ran again, stopped, holding onto the wall and gasping. My own scared breath was loud. The wall beneath my hand held steady.
I would feel my way like a blind boy.
I stilled my breath and set off, feeling my way back in mortal terror every step of the way, till I came to an open doorway, an unseen gaping mouth breathing coldly on me. I couldn’t get past. God knows what lurked silently inside. How long did I stand there? Time froze, I froze, the universe froze. How long until I felt my soul leave my body like a ribbon of smoke and float loose and free through the air, thick with a million other lost souls all hoping for a landing. I floated past the door and found myself once more on earth in Jamrach’s pitch-black shop in the middle of the night, groping my snail-like way along the wall towards where I knew I must find the right turn into the passage that led to the front.
I found it and hauled myself around it as if reaching the top of a mighty mountain. Something touched my ear, a mere flicker, the breath of a fly or a gnat.
I crossed Sinai, inch by inch, fading in and out of myself, and when there were no more walls to hold onto, launched out across the void. I walked slowly, arms before me. Something caught me in the soft part just under my knee, pain pranged through me, sharp and sickening. I went flying and hit my head on something.
I was lying full stretch against something soft that jingled and jangled softly.
So tired.
I cried. Not a trace of light from the shutters. There was no point in getting up again. When I put up my hand to feel, there was a large lump swelling hot on my forehead. The rest of me was icy. I cried, drew up my knees and hugged myself. My brain swirled with all the colours of all the things from every part of the world, all brought here by the sailors and the captains, come to rest at last. As I began the slide down to sleep, there arose before my eyes the tall ship upon the wall, the last thing I’d seen before the light went out.
Did I sleep? It was more of a floating in and out of the real; a pitching, drifting, endlessly renewing progress through a night with no limits and no friendly striking hours. And at some point, some sudden peak of wakefulness, my mind cleared miraculously and stood watching and waiting at full attention. Then something lay down next to me and put its arms round me from behind. True and solid, it cleaved to the length of me and hugged hard.
It was as real as anything I ever felt, but then again, since that night I know that I have taken for true things that were not.
Of course, it could not have been human, because it would have had to put its arm through the floor in order to hold me. The feeling I had was beyond fear. It was a giving in, a swift plummet, a death.
I don’t remember anything else.
The morning assistant woke me up, the turn of his key in the lock. The light found me lying by a sack of shells that jingle-jangled as I sat up, squinting at the glare.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ the man said rudely. ‘You the new boy? You been here all night?’
I tried to tell him what had happened, but he couldn’t be bothered to listen and shooed me out. The sun was above the house tops and I was late for work. I’d missed Spoony’s. I ran straight to the yard. Cobbe was hauling hay. ‘Gor, what you done to your noddle?’ he said. Tim was on the ramp, but he jumped off the side and ran straight up to me.
‘Sorry, Jaf,’ he said, smiling as if it was nothing. ‘Couldn’t help it, could I?’
‘I’ve lost my job!’
My skin crawled with weariness.
‘Well, it wasn’t your fault, was it? They can’t sack you for something that wasn’t your fault, can they?’
‘How do you know? You did it on purpose.’
My eyes burned. I ached all over. I hit him in the chest.
‘Oy!’ he cried, backing off with a hurt look in his eyes. ‘What’s up with you? Wasn’t my fault.’
‘You locked me in!’
‘I know. Only twigged when I seen you come in the gate just now. And there were the keys in my pocket.’
‘You knew!’
‘I didn’t. I met a
couple of friends, you know what it’s like. I thought you’d finish up and go home. What you done to your head?’ He reached out but I jerked away.
‘I fell over,’ I said. My voice caught and my eyes overflowed. ‘The lamp went out.’
‘Baby,’ he said, smiling, ‘don’t cry.’
My nose ran.
He had the cheek to try and sling an arm round me. I hit him again and we scuffled futilely, falling under the ramp. Cobbe barked a warning from the end of the yard.
‘I hate you!’ I screamed.
Tim held my wrists and I kicked out at his knees.
‘Look, Jaf,’ he said in an infuriating, reasonable voice, ‘you won’t tell Jamrach, will you?’
‘I will! I’ll tell him!’
I looked around for the big German but there was no sign of him. ‘Fucking hate you, Tim Linver,’ I said, and kicked and pulled free and ran towards the door to see if Jamrach was in the office.
‘No!’ Tim ran after and grabbed my shoulder. He was pleading suddenly, really scared. ‘Don’t tell him, Jaffy. If you tell him he’ll get rid of me.’
‘Serve you right.’
But Jamrach wasn’t in yet. Only Bulter, his feet on the desk, picking his teeth with a long fingernail.
‘Here, you two, out of here,’ he said.
Tim dragged me out into the lobby. He had tears in his eyes. Good. We ran through the silent bird room. ‘It was a joke,’ he said desperately. We were out in the yard again. I picked up my broom and ran at him like a jouster, chased him right up against the alligator pen.
‘You’re mad!’ he yelled.
I bashed him with it, hard as I could, over and over.
‘Stoppit! Ow!’
‘Pack it in, you two,’ growled Cobbe, ‘he’s here, I heard the carriage.’
I dropped the broom and ran for the door. Tim ran after, grabbing my arm. ‘Jaffy!’ His face was white. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t tell. I’ll give you my telescope. I promise, I’ll give you my telescope if you don’t tell him.’
And there was the front door and the voice of Mr Jamrach cheerfully greeting Bulter.
‘Please!’
I wanted that telescope. Dan Rymer’s telescope had been all around the world twice and he had given it to Tim. Dan Rymer had first seen the great Patagonian condor soaring high above the blue sierras through that telescope, Tim said. Once, once only, I had been allowed to look through it, and only for a few seconds. I saw the world anew. I saw the querulous shadow in the eye of a starling.
‘Please!’ said Tim.
I worked till about ten, then I fainted. Or something. Just fell over.
We’d had in three small elephants. I suppose they were very young, one of them was no taller than the big mastiff that used to guard the tannery in Bermondsey. They were not happy. Each had a chain round its foot. Side to side, side to side, trunks curling and unfurling in time, great feet lifting and listlessly kicking, turn by turn they swayed together with no space to turn about, an endless dance. So hypnotic was their movement, so steady and slow, that it got in my head and made me dizzy, and the rake fell from my hands and I fell over. Next thing I knew I was in the office, lying down upon a scratchy coat, and Mr Jamrach was pouring water in my mouth from a jug. Bulter and Cobbe were there, and Tim’s gawky neck was sticking up, an anxious face peering over Jamrach’s shoulder.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ Jamrach said. ‘Are you ill?’
‘I’m tired,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t had my breakfast.’
‘No breakfast! Why not?’
And then it all came out that I’d been up all night in the shop and missed my shift at Spoony’s.
‘Tim locked me in,’ I said.
‘I was going to go back but I forgot!’
I hated Tim at that moment. ‘He did it on purpose,’ I said.
His face went red. ‘I didn’t.’
‘He did.’
He started to cry.
‘Tim,’ said Jamrach sternly.
‘Please don’t sack me, Mr Jamrach,’ Tim said wretchedly. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘Are you telling me,’ said Jamrach, ‘that you locked this boy overnight in the shop?’
‘It was a joke,’ said Tim.
And that was the only time I ever saw Jamrach lose his temper.
His thin lips went hard and quivered. He roared. He cried that Tim was a wicked boy, a vile, cruel boy who’d end up on the gallows and serve him right! He could get out now! And never come back! ‘Always have to be top dog, don’t you, Tim?’ he said. ‘Well, I’m finished with you!’ and lifted me up onto his knee.
And now I was sorry for Tim. He begged. He sobbed. His face was a wreck. He said he was sorry, he didn’t realise, he’d never ever do such a terrible thing again, never, never.
‘Go away, Tim.’ Jamrach touched the great lump on my forehead. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘I fell over in the dark,’ I said.
Tim stood by the door, hands hanging helpless, tears pouring down his face. ‘I’ll give you my telescope,’ he said in a watery way.
‘Don’t sack him, sir,’ I said.
Jamrach heaved a great sigh. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should I keep him after this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
The soft snuffling of Tim crying was the only sound for a moment. Jamrach’s eyes were sad.
Bulter put his head round the door. ‘Mr Fledge’s man’s here,’ he said.
They come from all over. Russia, Vienna, Paris. Clever men. Jamrach cursed in German. ‘What’s he want this time?’ he said. ‘A unicorn? A hippogriff?’
Bulter sniggered.
‘Where is he?’
‘In the yard. Looking at the elephants.’
‘Tell him to wait,’ said Jamrach, and sighed again.
When Bulter had gone, Mr Jamrach put me down and stood up. He brushed his knees. ‘Tim,’ he said, ‘wipe your nose and stop whining. Make yourself presentable and go straight over to the Spoony Sailor and tell them there exactly what you did, tell them Master Jaffy is in no way to blame, and he will be back at work this evening. Tell them I sent you and that I vouch for Jaffy. Then you can get yourself back here as quickly as possible and get back to work.’
Tim ran.
Jamrach took me by the hand and led me out through the yard. ‘A moment!’ he called to a tall thin man standing by the elephants. There was a door at the side which he unlocked, and through this we passed into a narrow alleyway with high brick walls and weeds growing out of the cobbles. I had never walked like this, hand in hand with a man as I had seen others walk with fathers, and it made me feel peculiar. My own father’s name I didn’t know for sure. Sometimes Andre, sometimes Theo, you never could tell with Ma. A dark sailor with a glass to his eye. At the turn of the alley was a little house with an open brown door moulting paint. Jamrach rapped with his knuckles.
‘Mrs Linver!’ he called. ‘Patient for you!’
There appeared, wiping her steamed-up eye glasses on her apron, the wild-faced woman who had stood at the front of the crowd when Jamrach rescued me from the tiger. Her bulbous, unseeing eyes wavered over me with a look of startled and overdone emotion, then she put her glasses back on and focused. ‘The little tiger boy!’ she exclaimed, dropping to one knee in front of me and taking me by the shoulders. Mr Jamrach told her all that had happened and said she should give me a good feed and send me home to bed.
‘I’ll skin that boy!’ she cried when she heard of Tim’s crimes.
Mr Jamrach took himself briskly away down the forlorn alley, and she took me by the hand and led me into a room full of drying laundry that was draped all over everything, chair backs, a table, a massive rack which hung from the ceiling above a blazing fire. A round, pale, hairless man sat in a saggy armchair by the fire, smiling vaguely and whittling away at a stick of wood, and the little girl who’d smiled at me from the crowd was there, standing by the range, turning with a dripping spoon in
one hand. She smiled again.
It was not love at first sight, but love at second sight. Her hair was straight and fair, her face bright and innocent, her apron filthy. She had dimples.
‘Ishbel,’ her mother ordered, ‘get him some porridge. Your brother’s a nasty horrible boy,’ scrubbing my face and hands and knees with a hot cloth as she talked, her voice thin and quavery. ‘Well, you can see why the old man’s taken a shine to this one,’ she said, rinsing out the cloth, ‘just like poor Anton, he is. Bless!’
I saw the gnawed-down nails and bleeding fingers of the fair-haired girl as she cleared a space at the table for me. She pushed a bowl of porridge under my nose. Her skirt was dark red. I thanked her and she dipped a sarcastic curtsy. ‘Welcome,’ she said, twirling away and sitting down by the man’s feet. He had a look of Tim and of the girl, how it might be if you shaved them and puffed them up like balloons and took away their wits.
‘Don’t make yourself too comfortable, young lady,’ her mother said, but Ishbel leaned back against his legs, put her arms round her knees and her head on one side and stared at me with open curiosity.
Tim appeared in the open doorway. His mother ran over and screamed in his face. ‘He’ll give you the boot! You hateful boy! You! You! He’ll give you the boot and no doubt! You’ll ruin everything!’