Crocodile Soup

by Julia Darling

  I supposed she must have gone back to Marseille. I actually wondered if she had been there at all, or if I had dreamt her up too, and written the note in my sleep.

  First Attempts

  Dear Jean,

  Thank you for your letters. I am sorry I haven’t been in touch before but...

  Dear Mum,

  How dare you write to me after all this time. I...

  Dear Mother,

  I am not well. I had a dream about you...

  I tore each sheet of paper into tiny squares and scattered them around me like snow. My flat was a mess.

  Rosa Van Durk

  Jean took me to see the shrink recommended by Doctor Diamond.

  I was in an oyster shell of a room with an elderly bohemian. Her face was a long brown violin that examined me quizzically.

  She handed me a pencil and a pad of paper and said, ‘Draw.’

  I looked dumbly at the pencil in my hand.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Rosa Van Durk.

  ‘I can’t draw.’

  I put down the pencil and looked into her eyes that were as brown as field beans. Was this another gullible heart?

  ‘There’s a thing in my bedroom. It’s been there since I was three,’ I croaked. ‘I’m not safe,’ I said bravely. ‘Things happen.’

  Rosa Van Durk nodded and asked me to draw a picture of the thing that frightened me.

  Hesitantly I attempted to create an image that was something like the figure I had seen and felt. When I had finished it was just a grey scribbled cloud.

  ‘A poet died in your house?’ asked Rosa with a sweep of her ebony hand.

  I nodded, scared.

  ‘Is it her?’

  I blinked.

  ‘Are there other things?’

  I shrugged. There were things I couldn’t put my finger on. Silences. Gaps in between words. Miseries that you couldn’t name.

  Rosa wrote something down in a small leather-bound notebook.

  ‘When I was young,’ she continued conversationally, ‘I lived in Germany. Like most small children I was afraid of certain dark holes in the house. It was an old country place. I was especially afraid that monsters would come and take away my parents.’

  She paused.

  ‘And one day they did. I hid in a dark hole in the very intestine of the house. I heard them. So my fears were true.’

  She spread her branchy arms out.

  ‘We must assume then,’ she went on, rather intellectually, ‘that what you see and hear is real, not imaginary.’

  I breathed out. Perhaps it was the first proper exhalation I had experienced for many years. I breathed in. My rib cage expanded. I unrolled my tongue. An iron rod that had been clamped to my spine was gently removed. My hair began to grow. My fingers rolled open. My eyes closed.

  Rosa Van Durk removed her round glasses and rubbed them on her draylon trousers. She was wearing a complex pair of hoofy shoes.

  ‘Yes. This is the way forward. We will remove it. This thing that lives in your room. We will put it to rest. Then it won’t meddle with your happiness and safety any more.’

  ‘Will everything be all right after that?’ I asked.

  ‘After we have removed it we will discuss any other problems.’

  ‘How will you do it?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s probably scared like you. It can’t leave the house. We will entomb it, in another place. I have a place in my house where I keep children’s bad spirits. I shall put it there, with the others,’ Rosa Van Durk said slyly. ‘And I shall keep the key.’

  She ushered me out of the beaded room, with its lowered blinds and low shabby chairs. Jean was waiting in the hallway, reading Freud.

  She jumped up and said, ‘Excuse me asking, but is this on the National Health?’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Rosa, nonchalantly.

  Then she led Jean into a curtained parlour and whispered into the bowels of her ear. Jean gradually nodded and shifted from foot to foot.

  I was being an eight-year-old. I swung on the banister. I made faces at myself in the warty hallway mirror. My gullible heart had been given a tonic and my hair began to fall into place.

  On the way home from Rosa’s house, as Jean and I drove along the country lanes filled with wild roses and cow parsley, I started to sing. I sang, ‘The farmer wants a wife!’ and Jean joined in, and for a while we were unselfconsciously together, riding in the same direction.

  Ward One Hundred

  I was finding it hard to endure everyday life, and at the same time deal with the mysterious rubbish which continued to pile up at the end of my garden. I stood alone, staring at a black plastic bag with a sense of injustice and fury.

  I marched towards the hospital and into its stuffy corridors. Harry was not about, but an elderly receptionist was combing her grey hair and listening to a Walkman. I shouted ‘Excuse me!’ as viciously as I could, and she slowly teased the headphones from the innards of her ears and looked at me plainly, as if I was just one of the regular shouting customers.

  ‘Who keeps putting plastic bags in my garden?’ I shouted, banging my fist down on the desk. ‘It’s not hygienic!’

  ‘I know,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll call main office,’ and dialled mysteriously.

  ‘I have a lady here’, she whined, ‘who is a little upset about her refuse.’

  ‘Your refuse, not my refuse!’

  ‘She’s a little upset. Shall I send her up? Oh I see. Ward One Hundred. Yes.’ She immaculately replaced the telephone. My head was full of wires.

  ‘I’ll take you up myself,’ she offered courteously.

  We walked along awkwardly together, her in front, tapilappying on tiptoes, and me stamping along behind her. Then Frank suddenly called, screaming into my telepathic signal box,

  ‘Gert!’

  ‘What?’ I snapped out loud. The receptionist turned round and for a moment we faced one another in the narrow neck of walls.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Gert!’ screamed Frank. ‘Don’t go up there!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To where she’s taking you.’

  ‘We’re just going to see someone from main office. It’s just a stupid domestic thing Frank. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘But you don’t want to go there. I know about those places.’

  ‘Well, what am I supposed to do then?’

  ‘Please don’t go Gert.’

  ‘You mean that you’re actually concerned about me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About time,’ I sighed, touched.

  I tapped the receptionist on the shoulder.

  ‘Where are we going exactly?’

  ‘To see someone important.’ She showed me her watch. ‘We’ll have to hurry.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I haven’t got time for this right now,’ I said, backing away. ‘I’ll come in another day.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ She stopped and smiled. ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘Yes, it’s up to me.’ I turned and ran, leaving her standing marooned in the jugular corridor. She put her Walkman back on and listened carefully.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ whispered Frank. ‘Stay away.’

  ‘OK,’ I bleated, as I revolved through the great wooden doors, into the bright daylight.

  The Exorcism

  The day Rosa Van Durk came to the attic, with a black bag and a butterfly net, George was away counting crocodile skins in London.

  Rosa wore a long matted green woollen coat, even though it was summer. She appeared in the hallway in the guise of a hedge.

  She was in a very jolly mood, and peered into all the rooms with dancing feet and elaborate movements of her arms. She accepted a sherry from Jean who was dressed for the occasion in overalls.

  Frank had taken up photography and was documenting the visit. He stood behind a tripod with a black hood over his head. I couldn’t help thinking that he was seeking attention when it was really my day, not his, but R
osa completely ignored him, as if it was perfectly normal to be photographed while exorcising spirits.

  Rosa ran her fingers along the mantelpieces and peered out of each window.

  Then she announced ‘I will go alone!’ and strode up the stairs in the direction of the attic. I was quietly afraid. Rosa Van Durk was just an old lady. I thought of her bravely hiding in a dark hole. Yet my gullible heart was full of admiration for Rosa Van Durk. She told us to wait for her in the hall, and on no account to follow her. Frank took a loud photograph of her back as she climbed up the stairs.

  Jean and I waited, listening. Jean was perplexed. Frank took another picture of me and Jean. I still have it. We both look guilty.

  We heard loud thumps, and bangs and then Rosa’s authoritarian voice barking a series of words that had a rhythm.

  There was a demonic squawk, and a waft of yellow smoke drifted out from under the low wooden door.

  Jean shook her blond head and started to run up the stairs, but I clung to her ankles. Upstairs Rosa was singing something that sounded like a hymn.

  A river of ink was dripping down the attic steps. There was a terrible, nauseating stink of camphor.

  Jean called out, ‘Mrs Van Durk? Are you all right?’ but there was no answer, just an unearthly clamour. It sounded as if the room was bursting with voices.

  Suddenly the door opened and Rosa emerged in a stream of light. Her grey hair was flying in all directions, and all the buttons had dropped off her green coat. She was holding a shoe box. There was no sound at all now, only our breathing. Rosa walked past us, down the stairs, with the box held in her outstretched arms.

  We followed her. I was very impressed.

  Downstairs Rosa told me, ‘It’s in the box. I am going to take it home and put it in a safe with all the other children’s nightmares. She won’t bother you anymore Gert.’

  Then she turned to Jean. ‘You can use the room now.’

  Jean was staring at Rosa as if she was demented.

  ‘Have you fumigated it?’ enquired Jean, as if Rosa Van Durk was from Rentokil.

  ‘I have,’ said Rosa, winking at me. ‘It could do with a hoover.’ Then she turned to Frank and said, ‘No more pictures please.’

  I blew a kiss at Rosa Van Durk as she stepped carefully out into the street. A row of tourists watched her tiptoe along the pavement, box in hand, as if she was carrying an unexploded bomb.

  Jean turned to me, looking perplexed. ‘Happy now Gert?’

  ‘Yes!’ I blurted, and then ran about feeling childish, jumping on the furniture, whining for extra pocket money. And then I threw my arms around her, and I cried, and when I lifted my head Frank was standing staring at us through the lens of his camera, but both his hands hung limply down by his sides as if he had lost the use of them, so that’s the photograph I don’t have.

  Eva Takes Me Dancing

  After the Cotton Club Eva treated me with even more affection, although I caught her shaking her head once when she looked at me, as if I was some kind of lost English eccentric. She often came to see me in my moist darkened basement, and once put her hand on my neck as I examined a potsherd, making me have near-death palpitations. Gwenny sent me a card. It was a picture of a woman astronaut grinning from the bubble of her space helmet. Gwenny had written, ‘She reminds me of you. Let’s go out again soon.’ Her signature was flamboyant and curvaceous. I stuck it above my desk, and found it strangely comforting.

  Then Eva invited me to come to the Jarrow Ballroom Dancing Championships. I nervously agreed. She said she would meet me there, and that I could watch her dancing with her partner Adrian.

  The evening of the championships was so dark that even the street lights seemed to have lost their beam. It was a night when the city felt soaked in silence as if it might never awaken. Perhaps it was to do with February, and poverty. Or a lost football match.

  I put on a pink T-shirt in an effort to appear feminine, and painted my lips in matching cerise. I looked clownish and eager. I examined myself carefully in the mirror before I left the flat. My eyes were cloudy with unrequited love, and neediness was pinned to my front like a badge.

  A taxi sounded its horn outside, and I slipped out into the dead night for my second rendezvous with the extraordinary Eva of Shields. I told myself that already my life was changing. My hibernation was nearly over. In the taxi it was warm and furry. The cab had fairy lights around the dashboard and a plastic sign saying HAPPY NEW YEAR, even though it was well into February. The driver was so fat that he spilt over his seat, and his bulging thigh touched mine across the handbrake.

  ‘Going somewhere nice?’ he drawled, not looking at me.

  ‘Hope so,’ I answered, noncommittally.

  ‘Student are you?’ Taxi drivers always say this.

  ‘No, I’m a taxidermist.’ The lie jumped out so easily that I hardly noticed it.

  ‘Fancy that!’ he chuckled. He smelt of a slow divorce, this driver, and I didn’t like him.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he probed, his massive leg pressing down on the clutch.

  ‘A place called the Kingdom of Leaves,’ I said casually. ‘You wouldn’t know it.’

  We pulled up outside a shabby cinema with dark blue paint flaking off the walls, and a silver sign saying DANCING, that flashed on and off in a pulse.

  ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ he muttered nastily as I awkwardly overpaid him. Then, as I disentangled myself from the seat belt and searched for the door handle, he grabbed my arm.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind stuffing you!’ he quipped.

  ‘Get stuffed!’ I yelled, unaware of the pun. I pulled myself from the car, and slammed the door in an attempt to fuse his fairy lights. He swerved off violently. I forgot to catch the car number plate. That’s the kind of thing that happens when I wear pink. I don’t know how other pinker women put up with it.

  Shaken, I walked into the once grand foyer of the building. I could hear distant sounds of sequins brushing together, and feel the heat of shoes tapping on a parquet floor. Inside the old cinema was as glamorous as the Ritz, with a deep pile carpet and golden chandeliers. I walked into the ballroom grinning and was nearly swept away by a tide of glittering dresses and tight, unmasculine trousers whirling in fixed lines on the dance floor. I saw Eva wearing a dangerously pink creation that might have been made from tropical birds’ feathers. I waved, but she was concentrating on her performance and didn’t look up. I sat down on a velvet seat and ordered a glass of water, determined not to get drunk. I wanted to drown in this vision; Eva dancing.

  I watched the foxtrot, the samba, modern and improvised, the waltz and the flamenco with total absorption. Gradually I noticed Adrian, fluttering like a small moth at Eva’s side. He was neat and quick, but it was she that held the floor. She was the controller, the vial for the roll of music that unfolded beneath her feet.

  By the time the judges had come to a decision, Eva had still not seen me. To my despair she didn’t win and the golden cup went to a snake of a dancer with an oily smile.

  When it was all over the house lights went on, and the dancers disappeared backstage. Then Eva stepped out from a side door, dressed in a dark grey suit, carrying a suitcase, and saw me. My cheeks burned like the soles of a dancer’s feet. Adrian was standing next to her, a meek and obedient shadow. He whispered in her ear and she smiled and pointed at me.

  They came over, and I said, ‘That was fantastic!’ and Adrian sneered.

  ‘Did you think so?’ said Eva. ‘This is Adrian, my partner.’

  He kissed me three times on both cheeks. Then Eva enveloped me in her grand arms and I squeaked out compliments, flattery and approval. She cooed, ‘Thanks for coming,’ and I could hardly cope. Love was surely not supposed to follow such an even path. Adrian gazed on grumpily, like an unwilling bridesmaid. His body was the shape of a pipe cleaner.

  ‘So how long have you been... dancing together?’ I enquired, like an amateur journalist.

  ‘I’ve known Eva since I was th
ree. I know everything about her. Her feet are my feet,’ boasted Adrian.

  I was getting jealous.

  ‘And his feet are mine.’ Eva pinched Adrian’s skinny chin.

  ‘I’ll teach you to dance, Gert, if you like,’ Eva offered.

  Perhaps. I didn’t answer. I was a long way from my feet. There was no connection between them and my head or my hands.

  ‘Are you angry that you didn’t win?’

  Adrian’s eyes narrowed, and he scowled like a ferret at the champions who were laughing loudly across the bar. ‘She looks like a bloodsucker in that dress,’ he snapped. Adrian grimly lit a cigarette. He turned to Eva. ‘You missed a beat on the third turn of the last dance,’ he growled.

  ‘Now, now!’ Eva sipped a gin.

  ‘You always do that.’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ he sighed. ‘I hate losing.’

  ‘I thought you were best,’ I mumbled childishly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Eva winked at Adrian. ‘Gert’s a big fan aren’t you?’

  Adrian turned spitefully to Eva. ‘And you were a bit slow on the tango,’ he sniped.

  My hackles rose.

  ‘All right Adrian, we’ll talk about it later.’

  He got up then and kissed her on the top of her head.

  ‘So long, sweetheart.’

  He skipped off, nodding at me.

  ‘Prat,’ Eva muttered, then winked at me. I nearly got down on my knees then and proposed, but at that second the lights flashed on and off and we had to leave the building. Eva had a taxi waiting, but this time it was driven by a thin woman who bred dogs. She told us all about her latest litter and I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Instead I gazed at Eva’s profile against the car window, and the way that the street lights flickered across her features, and felt the currents that ran through my own body, like music.

  When Eva got out of the taxi she leant towards me, kissing my cheek. Her breath smelt of violets, and I felt a strand of her hair falling across my face.