The Summer of the Bear

by Bella Pollen

  ‘Mum,’ he squealed, ‘look!’

  ‘Mmm.’ Letty had unfolded a scarf from her bag and was busy tying it around her hair.

  ‘Did you see?’ He danced an excited little jig.

  ‘See what, darling?’

  ‘The bear!’

  ‘Darling, there are no bears in Scotland.’

  ‘It was on a bus.’

  ‘Was it, darling?’ She smiled indulgently. ‘I do hope it was off somewhere nice on holiday then.’

  ‘Come on, Jamie.’ Georgie wound down the window.

  ‘Did you see it, Georgie?’

  Whatever it referred to, Georgie shook her head. She loved her brother, but found him unfathomable.

  ‘I was reading, sorry.’

  ‘Do you think there’s going to be a circus?’

  ‘Jamie, why would there be a circus? We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Get in the Godalmighty car, Jamie,’ Alba said. ‘Or there will be heavy corporal penalties.’

  ‘Don’t swear, Alba,’ Letty murmured.

  Alba rolled her eyes and withdrew to her outpost in the corner back seat. How much patience did one human require? The whole journey she’d had to listen either to the inane bleatings of her brother or the muffled crackle of the radio. Surely her mother could have fixed it before they’d left? Surely a trip to the garage wouldn’t exactly have strained her capabilities? Surely she could make Jamie shut up for once?

  ‘Did you see it, Alba?’ Jamie reached the car and yanked open the door. ‘Did you look?’

  ‘Of course. As you know, I’m fascinated by every tiny thing you choose to point out.’

  ‘You are?’ Jamie found himself momentarily diverted.

  ‘No, Jamie, I’m not. That was an example of the use of sarcasm. Now, I know how keen you are on spelling things correctly, so allow me to help you out. S. a. r. c. a. s. m.’

  ‘But did you see the bear?’ Jamie hid his confusion with perseverance.

  ‘Ah, well, if you mean that large brown animal who was running along the road wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes, of course I saw it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Do you think it was my bear?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you had your own bear.’ ‘Yes! The one from the Zirkusplatz! The one I have the picture of. The one Dada was going to take me to see the day he—’

  ‘Oh Jamie, of course,’ Letty intervened quickly. ‘I know exactly which one you mean. He did look like an awfully nice bear.’

  ‘Then can you drive faster to catch him up?’ ‘Darling, I can’t drive any faster than I’m supposed to.’ Jamie swallowed his disappointment. He stared at the road ahead.

  The bear was long gone. Even if his mother went over fifty miles an hour, which she never did, they would still not catch him up. He closed his eyes and concentrated on retrieving the image on the side of the coach. The stark-ness of the brown fur against the glossy white paintwork. The big grizzly had been standing on his hind legs, one colossal paw extended in a wave. Hesitantly, Jamie raised his own hand.

  ‘Hello, bear,’ he whispered.

  9

  Bonn

  There had never been much to do in the city at weekends. Despite the government institutions, the ministerial residencies, the sub-ministerial agencies, despite the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, the diplomats and the policy-makers, despite the journalists, the writers and thinkers and all the newly minted restaurants and cafes briskly opened up to accommodate them, Bonn was a town destined never to rise above its provincial roots. Even the glare of the international spotlight comprehensively failed to brighten up those dreary streets. Weekends in Bonn were quiet, boring affairs, and particularly so for a small boy. There was the Haribo factory of course, amiable strolls through the Naturpark and those damp, dragging walks along the Rhine, but the outing Jamie enjoyed above all others was a visit to the Museum Koenig with his father. As natural history museums go, it was both well curated and surprisingly inspirational, but Jamie was interested in neither of these commendations. What he cared about was the outrageously large stuffed grizzly presiding over its foyer.

  Technically, the bear was mounted. ‘Stuffed’ was a layman’s term and one which would have undoubtedly irked the taxidermist in question, who had spent weeks preparing the bear’s skin by meticulously peeling the hide from its body then soaking it in a pickling solution of salt and chemicals. Still, stuffed or mounted, it was an impressive creature, standing over nine feet high on its hind legs. Jamie was terrified by the mere sight of it.

  ‘The grizzly is one of the largest of all land carnivores,’ his father translated off the plaque on the wall, and Jamie could well believe it. Each of the bear’s claws was the length of his hand and sharp as a machete. Its teeth were so yellow they might have been made of solidified poison, but it was the bear’s eyes which scared him the most. It was five-year-old Jamie’s first visit to a museum, his first grizzly bear, and he shrank behind his father.

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of, old chap. This one’s a nice bear.’

  Jamie shook his head.

  ‘No, really. The fangs and claws are only for show. The truth is, he was once a child’s teddy who grew too large to keep in the house and so he left home to seek his fortune. He’s in this museum today only because he became very famous and made his mark on the world.’

  Jamie crept out from behind his father’s back. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Ah well, let’s see, shall we?’ Nicky pretended to consult the museum’s information leaflet. ‘It says here that his achievements are too numerous to be listed but I quite often sneak down here to have a chat with him when you’re at school.’

  ‘He can talk?’ Jamie’s eyes stretched wide.

  ‘Of course. Bears are highly intelligent and this particular one has been well educated.’

  ‘Does he talk in English or German?’

  ‘He speaks fluent German, perfect English, passable French and a smattering of Russian, which he picked up on a state visit.’

  ‘How do I make him talk?’

  ‘Well, you have to be introduced first. Like most people in the service, he’s a stickler for protocol.’

  ‘Can you ask him to talk to me?’

  ‘If you like.’ Nicky stepped up to the grizzly, cupped a hand towards the bear’s musty ear and began whispering.

  ‘What are you telling him?’ Jamie demanded.

  ‘That you’re a pretty decent fellow and you want to have a quick word. Only don’t let Rosa Klebb catch you.’ He raised an eyebrow towards the turnip-faced security guard hunched on her stool in the corner of the room.

  Jamie took a tentative step towards the bear.

  ‘Go on,’ Nicky encouraged. ‘Don’t be shy’

  ‘Hello, bear,’ Jamie croaked.

  Nicky covered his mouth with his hand and pretended to rub his chin.

  ‘Hello, Jamie,’ he growled.

  10

  The Highlands, Scotland

  ‘This looks like it!’ Letty steered the Peugeot down a muddied track. ‘We came here once before . . . I expect you were too small to remember,’ she added quickly, as Alba groaned on cue. The anger sparking from her daughter’s eyes threatened to set the car’s upholstery on fire and Letty fought a surge of panic. The drive to the islands had always seemed like such an adventure but this time she had felt the drag of the children’s apathy at every turn. The previous evening they’d arrived in Fort William only to discover that their favourite hotel, the Alexandria, had been refurbished and hiked up its prices accordingly. She’d had to scout in ever-widening circles until she’d found a B&B that had trumpeted a vacant family room and bilious supper for the extra price of two pounds a head. Still, today would be better, she promised herself. Nicky had always been snobbish about lowland scenery, claiming that Scotland didn’t really begin until the grass turned to tussocks and the moors raised themselves into hills, but now only a few miles behind them lay the purple heather of Rannoch Moor and
in the distance, rising into the clouds, was the misty shark fin of Ben Nevis. They had already negotiated the pot-luck timing of the little Ballachulish ferry and the drive through Glencoe, where she and Nicky had once blown out two tyres simultaneously and ended up walking for hours through those menacing black hills while Nicky tried to spook her with blood-curdling stories of the massacre. As if he could. She’d been driving through Glencoe since she was a girl. She’d been in love with the west of Scotland her whole life. From Glencoe there had been the smell of wet bracken and a salty wind to blow them north until finally they were in reach of the coast road, the sea and the promise of the islands to come.

  No, no, I remember.’ As always, it fell to Georgie to bridge the gulf between her mother’s pretence at normality and her sister’s mutinous rebuttal. It was hardly the weather for a picnic but she understood her mother’s need to live in the past. After all, she spent a considerable amount of time there herself. And besides, it was a beautiful spot. The track petered out into a circular clearing on the bank of a river. A fish jumped, dragonflies hovered neurotically over clumps of desiccated reeds. The scene had all the ingredients of an idyllic summer’s day – save for any genuine warmth.

  Georgie wandered down the bank, rolled up her trousers and induced Jamie to pitch some twigs into the swirling eddy, but the water was cold, and as soon as she felt everything possible had been done to bolster her mother’s feelings, she steered Jamie up to where Letty was attempting to make merry by laying their jackets on the heather and spreading a picnic on top. An emergency dash into Fort William had produced buns, hard-boiled eggs, thick slices of ham with a crumbly yellow edge and a bag of still-warm sausage rolls. Georgie sat cross-legged on her anorak and squeezed the last of the Primula onto her tongue. Jamie had sequestered the packet of Jaffa Cakes and moved to a rock he had deemed a safe distance from his sister. Had Alba liked Jaffa Cakes, no distance would have been safe, and Georgie was mildly surprised she hadn’t already snatched the biscuits off him, if only for the fun of it, but that was the thing with Alba, just when her level of malice had you thumbing through the Yellow Pages for the nearest child-catcher, she would perform a bewildering volte-face, and was now curled into Letty’s body, holding her mother’s arm protectively around her. Georgie relaxed and allowed herself to tune into the near-silence – the rustle and munch of Jamie’s chocolate fest, the sneery whine of a midge cloud. She decided she liked sitting up on the hill, with its prickle of heather, watching the river twist and flow towards the low grumble of the waterfall. It reminded her of Bonn and the first glimmer of spring when they would haul their bikes up the cellar steps and cycle to the restaurant on top of the Drachenfels, where you could sit under an immense arch feathered by ivy, admire the smoky waters of the Rhine below and gobble down buttery pretzels and frankfurters dipped in luminous yellow mustard.

  Her eyelids had almost drifted shut when a flash of movement brought her back to the present.

  ‘Mum?’ She frowned at the roof of the Peugeot below them.

  Alba sat up and shielded her eyes with a hand.

  ‘Mmm?’ Letty rolled sleepily onto her back.

  ‘The car,’ Alba said.

  ‘What car?’

  ‘It’s moving. It’s rolling backwards.’

  ‘Mum!’ Georgie cried.

  But it was Jamie who was already up and running.

  ‘Jamie, no!’ Too late, Letty launched herself down the hill after him, but age had her at a distinct disadvantage. Jamie’s body was oiled by youth. His eight-year-old bones were as supple as willows, his every sinew elastic and forgiving. He was not yet a veteran of life’s wear and tear, not even a rookie. Uncoordinated, unsporting he might be, but compared to his mother, his feet were winged – and now the car was gaining momentum, its front end slowly tilting upwards as its back wheels connected with the bank’s incline. ‘Don’t worry,’ Jamie had yelled, ‘I’ll stop it,’ and as it dawned on Georgie exactly what her brother was thinking, her heart pulsed with fear. Next to her, Alba was yelling and something must have penetrated, because Jamie glanced up, as in – what on earth was all the fuss about? But he quickly dismissed his sisters, because, let’s face it, weren’t they always shouting at him? Weren’t they forever criticizing him, so much so that sometimes it was all he could do to think for himself? And besides, it felt good to have identified a problem and be dealing with it.

  ‘It’s down to you now, Jamie.’ The Ambassadress had patted his head with her hard, flat hand. ‘You must be brave and look after your mother. After all, you’re the man of the family now.’ Until his father returned, it was the truth. His grandfathers were dead. Jamie had no uncles or brothers. ‘One by one the boughs of the Fleming family tree have withered and died,’ he had once heard his father lamenting, and Jamie, willing to believe that the mystery of procreation began with an acorn, had projected to a time when he would seed a new tree. He would plant an entire forest of Flemings! Meanwhile, there was the more immediate problem of the car. The Peugeot was rolling into the river and strapped to its roof was his suitcase and inside his suitcase were those things that mattered most to him – the flyer from the Zirkus, the box of IOU promises from his father, his roll of comics – all destined to be lost forever. No! He would not let that happen. He would stand brave! Hold the car back from the brink. After all, how often had he witnessed his father jump-start the old Peugeot? Push it along the street from a standstill, one hand on the steering wheel? One hand! So he closed his ears to the screaming and powered on.

  The car was almost in the river by the time Jamie caught up with it, but now the closer he drew, the bigger the car looked. Nevertheless, duty was duty. He stretched out his arms, shut his eyes and in the same instant felt himself blindsided by the full weight of his mother’s body. There was a breath of wind on his cheek, thinner than a razor blade, as the car rolled by. The wheels hit water, the exhaust snapped with a muffled pop. The momentum of the car’s backward roll drove it ten feet along the riverbed before it jammed to a stop. The current rose quickly, surrounded the roof rack and tugged at the elastic octopi, until, with a further succession of splashes, the suitcases slid one by one into the river and embarked on a docile bob towards the waterfall.

  On his stomach, his face mashed into the soil, Jamie searched for air while his mother’s voice reverberated with anger and fear around him. ‘What were you thinking? How could you be so stupid?’ Finally, she pushed herself off his crushed chest and only then, as oxygen sawed up through his deflated lungs, was Jamie able to burst into tears of rage and humiliation.

  ‘I want Dada!’ he wailed. ‘Where is my Dada?’

  Part Two

  11

  Bonn

  This much Jamie knew: his father had suffered an accident. He’d gone away for some time, then somehow – Jamie didn’t fully comprehend how – his father had got lost.

  In the months that had passed since his father’s disappearance, he had turned these facts round and round in his head, examining them for the sharp edge of a clue, a slight fissure of information, always on the lookout for something, anything tangible to hold on to.

  That there had been an accident was unfortunate, but not necessarily odd. Accidents were nobody’s fault. They were bad luck and you had to grin and bear them. Next, there was the question of going away. Jamie didn’t like it, but he was used to it. His father travelled all the time. When Jamie had been smaller and noticed the suitcase packed and stationed by the front door, he would burst into tears, wrap himself round his father and beg him not to leave. ‘Now, come along, fish-face.’ Nicky would gently prise him loose. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘But where are you going?’

  ‘Ah, well, since you ask, I’m going on a mission.’

  ‘Really,’ Jamie breathed. ‘A secret mission?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘No . . .’

  Jamie’s face fell.

  ‘Well,’ N
icky relented. ‘Perhaps just the teeniest bit dangerous.’

  ‘Do the others know?’

  No, and you mustn’t tell them, either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s to remain between us.’ He tapped his finger to his nose and winked.

  ‘But you will come back soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will, and when I do, I’ll come and find you and maybe . . .’ He picked up his son and swung him around. ‘If you’ve been exceptionally good, I’ll bring you a present.’

  His father never told fibs. He always came back. He always came looking for Jamie and he always gave him a present. A Russian babushka, a slim waxed package of stamps, a lead soldier on a charging horse. This last time, however, everything had been different – and it had made no sense. No sense at all.

  The last time Jamie saw his father had been one Saturday morning in Bonn, the day before the circus opened, and Nicky had been picking at his Brötchen and scanning the papers when Jamie asked for help with his homework.

  ‘What’s the subject?’

  Jamie pushed over his exercise book. Nicky looked at the hieroglyphics of his son’s attempt at the English language and sighed. There was already a mound of paperwork on his desk in the embassy that needed deciphering.

  ‘When is it due in?’

  ‘Monday,’ Jamie said dolefully.

  ‘Well, that’s not so bad, is it? Do what you can on your own and we’ll tackle the rest before supper this evening. That way it will all be done before we go to the circus.’

  As luck would have it, the Circus Krone was being erected on the barren area of an as-yet-undeveloped piece of land behind the embassy. ‘If I sneak up to the roof, I’ll be able to watch them setting up the big top,’ Nicky had told his son. ‘I’ll check every day and give you a progress report.’

  ‘Promise you’ll be back in time?’