by Jon Jacks
And, when your own curiosity and amazement got the better of you, and you actually reached out and touched a pot, a house, a person; your fingers instantly tingled, as if you were touching roughened clay, cool brick, or, yes, even living flesh.
The first time anyone experienced this, they would jump back in shock, even horror. But then, inquisitive and intrigued, they would tentatively touch the illustration once more, their eyes widening in surprise as they felt their fingers probing into the softness of a pillow, warming from the heat of a flame, or prickling as they touched the short, fine hairs of a hog. With a little practise, they could smell the tang of a farmyard, taste a freshly made tart, or even sneeze when they seemed to stir up the dust covering a floor.
It was easy to understand why the mother and father of the porcelain child had believed the Illuminator would be able to grant her life, Carey thought as she turned to the page portraying their beautiful daughter. Did they ever realise, she wondered, that their own story would end up being told and illustrated by the Illuminator?
This particular picture was one of Carey’s favourites. You could feel the coolness and smoothness of the porcelain yet, at the very same time, if you stilled your breathing, slowed you heart from excitedly beating, you could also sense the warmth of the life beneath waiting to be awakened.
Carey had been so entranced by the girl’s ethereal beauty that she had made little tweaks to the way she looked herself, trying to capture the way the girl’s hair hung in a silken curtain, or how her eyes appeared to sparkle with a sharp intelligence. Of course, it would have been ridiculous if she had been trying to copy the look of a lifeless puppet. But that strange beauty, that remarkable air of intelligence, was even more on display in her far more numerous portrayals as the Porcelain Princess in The Porcelain Kingdom; a book in which the Illuminator admitted he had overseen an unhappy kingdom until her arrival had helped him rule it wisely, justly and compassionately.
Leaving The Porcelain Child open, Carey reached for the stack of books once more, drawing across and opening up The Porcelain Kingdom. Unlike most of the other books in her library, this one was a book that Carey herself had finally managed to track down, paying out almost a year’s carefully saved takings for it.
If anything, this was even more sumptuously beautiful than the first book. Whereas The Porcelain Child was, for the most part, a book of beautifully imagined and rendered interiors – the multi-coloured linens of bedrooms, the sagging oak beams of a kitchen, the liquid sparkle of chemicals in the workshop, the bloody glow of the furnace – The Porcelain Kingdom worked on a much vaster scale. Mysterious carriages hurtled through a town’s darkened streets. People shuffled around in fear. Even in the day, a towering palace cast foreboding shadows over the houses below. Then comes the dawn, a princess whose skin sparkled like pearls, whose glittering dresses appeared to bring an angelic light to everywhere she walked. The palace is aglow, a beacon of hope and wisdom. Its gates open, not to release darkened carriages, but pageantry and celebration. Suddenly, the town is alive with vibrant markets, with children playing, with feasts and fairs.
Everything that made it so different from The Porcelain Child, of course, also made it almost impossible to put on as a successful show. Worse still, it failed to explain how the Porcelain Princess had arrived in the kingdom, let alone how the porcelain child had been granted life to become the Princess.
There must be another book, a book two in what could only be a trilogy telling the story of the Porcelain Princess.
She had met many people who had claimed to have seen the book, but none who could relate the tale to her.
‘It’s called The Porcelain Palace,’ the owner of another theatre would assure her.
‘The Porcelain Room; a remarkable tale, though I, er, can’t seem to quite recall it at the moment I’m afraid,’ a storyteller would say.
‘No, no, it’s definitely The Porcelain Balcony,’ someone else would confidently declare, only to be rewarded with a room full of jeers and derisive laughter.
This confusion was unusual as, although it was quite common for a book by the Illuminator to be so rare no one had ever seen a copy, at least the story had normally become familiar, spreading through word of mouth alone. The only thing everyone could seem to agree on (apart from the fact that it must have the word Porcelain in the title) was that such a tale must indeed exist, for neither of the other tales recounted how the child’s father had discovered the Illuminator’s kingdom and given his daughter life.
It was a book that Carey had spent all of her own short life searching for.
For, if she found it, it would also show her the way to the Illuminator’s kingdom.
*
Their arrival in the village was a cause for celebration and gasps of wonder in its own right. No one in the village had ever seen a steam wagon.
Even though just about everyone there had heard tales about these weird contraptions, and some were even lucky enough to have seen illustrations of them, in most people’s minds they were fairy tales, works of imagination rather than working machines. Of those who believed in their existence, they were surprised by the reality, having never imagined the vast, clouding plumes of steam, the roaring, the popping, the clattering, and the angry hissing.
Everywhere, people were crouching low to peer beneath the wagon, looking for the legs of the horses or oxen they believed must be hidden away somewhere within the wagon to make it move. They would jump, startled, as the wagon suddenly enveloped them in an abrupt snort of steam, like an affronted lady chiding them for daring to peep beneath her dress.
Of course, not everyone was happy with their arrival. There were complaints that washing hung out to dry had been smudged with soot, that horses, sheep, cows and pigs had all been startled (though no one complained of the crows that suddenly fled the nearby fields). But these people would be placated with tickets promising reserved front seats for their children at the next show.
As soon as they reached the village square, Carey and Grudo began to set up the theatre box, pulling out awnings and panels from the side of the wagon, fixing them to other sheets of thick, brightly painted boarding that had been stored in the trailer beneath the engine’s wood supply. All quickly and easily slotting together, and held in place by wooden or iron pegs, it was a contraption that was almost as ingenious as the wagon itself, yet another piece of mechanical ingenuity that Carey had inherited from her inventive ancestors.
In the back of the wagon, the others were already preparing for the show, selecting their costumes, even dressing the regular puppets who would also be taking part in the play.
‘This is not my favourite play,’ Dougy gruffly complained as he slipped into a costume and a heavy head piece specially designed to make him look like a small horse.
‘Ah, but it is my favourite,’ Durndrin replied happily as he neatly adjusted his farmer’s jerkin. ‘And all you’ve got to do, Dougy my friend, is to remember not to wag that damn tail of yours when you’re playing being happy!’
*
Chapter 6
The Meaning of Life
As Jacob toiled in his field, driving his horse and plough before him to turn the soil, he wondered why his life was full of such arduous, repetitive tasks.
He stared miserably ahead, taking in all the solidly packed soil he still had to break up.
He looked behind him towards the many furrows he had already created. He still had to sow the seeds, of course, then water them, hopefully with help from the rain. They would need protecting from the birds, then, as they put out their first delicate shoots, from the wind too. They would also need just the right amount of sun. But eventually, God willing, life would result from his hard work, wheat that would feed his family and thereby grant them life too.
And suddenly, like a strike of lightning could set a tree ablaze, the answer that had eluded so many important and learned men struck him; he knew The Meaning of Life!
‘Pen and paper! I need pen and paper, to write it down before I forget it!’ he yelped with glee.
He dropped his plough. He left his horse in the middle of the field. He ran back across his carefully turned furrows.
‘Wait, wait; what’s the rush for Jacob?’ cried out one of the other ploughmen working the fields.
‘Can’t stop, can’t stop,’ Jacob yelled back anxiously, worried that he might forget The Meaning of Life before he had time to write it down. ‘The Meaning of Life! I know The Meaning of Life!’
‘Jacob, Jacob, why this mad run?’ laughed children playing in the street.
‘Can’t stop, can’t stop,’ Jacob shouted back breathlessly. ‘The Meaning of Life! I know The Meaning of Life!’
‘How do you do, Jaco – well I never, how rude!’ complained his neighbour as he hurtled past her, the mud from his boots splattering all over her clean dress.
‘Can’t stop, can’t stop,’ Jacob apologised, thinking he would just have to explain the reason for his rudeness later. ‘The Meaning of Life! I know The Meaning of Life!’
At last, he was at the door to his house. He flung the door open, barging into his own kitchen as if the hounds of hell were after him.
‘Margie, Margie,’ he cried out through the door leading to the rest of his house. ‘I need a pen, I need paper! Quick, quick; this is important.’
Of course, without waiting for his wife’s reply or response, he began to frantically rifle through the drawers in the kitchen, trying to recall where he had last seen a scrap of paper he could use.
‘What is the meaning of all this commotion, Jacob?’ his wife sternly demanded as she appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Pen, paper!’ Jacob cried, still fruitlessly rummaging through the clutter of items that had been pushed away into the drawers. ‘I need pen and paper!’
‘Whatever for Jacob? Have you forgotten your manners? Haven’t you remembered that you’re supposed to ask nicely for things you need?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry Margie dear; but I need it to write down an inspiration, an inspiration that could make us famous! Make us rich, dear!’
He beamed excitedly as, at last, he found the crumpled scrap of paper he’d been looking for.
‘But just look at the mess you’re making, Jacob!’ his wife stormed, looking on in horror at all the things he was strewing across the floor in his eagerness to find pen and paper. ‘Have you forgotten that it’s best to remain calm and thoughtful when you can’t remember where you’ve put something?’
‘Found it, found it!’ Jacob yelled in triumph as he held up a blunted stub of a pencil along with his scrap of paper.
He flattened out the crumpled paper. He pressed the pencil against the paper as he began to write.
‘Jacob!’ his wife shrieked as she tugged the paper out from beneath his hand. ‘Has it already slipped your memory how your complaint to the council wasn’t taken seriously because you’d written it on a worthless bit of paper?’
With a flourish, she produced a sheet of the finest paper from a drawer that Jacob hadn’t got around to searching.
‘Yes, yes,’ he agreed, taking the paper from her with a grateful smile. ‘The Meaning of Life needs to be presented on the finest paper to be taken with the seriousness it deserves!’
‘The Meaning of Life?’ his wife declared in awe and admiration as Jacob prepared to write his amazing insight down on the perfectly linen-white paper.
She snatched the stubby pencil from his hand.
‘Jacob! You can’t write down The Meaning of Life with that!’
She turned towards a cupboard, producing a wonderfully elegant quill and ink reservoir.
‘Can’t you hold anything in that empty head of yours? Have you already forgotten how I bought you this for your birthday?’
‘Yes, yes, I remember now,’ Jacob replied, gleefully accepting the elegant quill handed to him by his wife. ‘You said that it would make me look like a man of letters, an educated, knowledgeable man!’
He spread the perfectly blank piece of paper out before him. He dipped the beautifully graceful quill in the ink. He brought it to hover expectantly over the pristine paper.
His wife beamed with pride.
‘Well?’ she said after a moment in which nothing further had happened.
‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking…’
‘The Meaning of Life, Jacob; you said you were going to write down The Meaning of Life.’
‘Yes, yes, I did, didn’t I?’
And so, feeling a fool, mumbling to himself over and over ‘The Meaning of Life is…’, Jacob prepared to write down the first thing that came into his head.
But the beautifully graceful quill produced no beautifully graceful letters.
And the perfectly linen-white sheet remained perfectly linen-white.
Out in the fields, however, Jacob’s ground was left only half tilled. His horse, with nothing better to do, was pondering The Meaning of Life.
Suddenly, the answer that had eluded so many important and learned men struck him.
‘Wow, I’ll have to make sure I never forget that!’ the horse resolutely told himself, slowly turning everything over in his mind. For he had neither pen nor paper, or even fingers to write it down with.
And he smiled with contentment.
*
Chapter 7
Despite the constant rocking of the wagon on the badly rutted road, Carey was busily blending and mixing the paints she would need to replace the posters that had either been damaged or lost to the wind in the last town. The white of eggs, oil, crushed flowers, even seeds and beetles; they all went into her pots.
Open before her, but placed at a distance where it was safe from any splashes, was the Illuminator’s The Porcelain Child. Carey wanted to match his colours, yet, as always, she was finding this impossible, no matter which combination of ingredients she experimented with.
He could perfectly capture the myriad of greens you could find in a blade of glass, the yellows of every minute scale on a butterfly’s wings, the reds of a fiery sunset, the blues of an inquisitive baby’s iris.
How did he achieve such detail?
How long did it take him to paint just one of his pictures?
If anyone ever doubted that the Illuminator’s tales were based on reality rather than mere fairy tales, they soon changed their minds on seeing his pictures. No one, they would agree, would waste time creating such beautifully accurate illustrations for anything as fleetingly unimportant as a simple fairy story.
If anything, Carey took this belief even further; everything in his pictures served a purpose, everything was done for a reason. And if something within those illustrations seemed unusual or puzzled you, then a careful study of the details, in combination with your own logic and reason, would provide you with an answer.
The Porcelain Child had its own particular puzzle, one that caused Durndrin no end of frustration whenever he played the father; for the father was never really portrayed in the illustrations. He only ever appeared as a shadow, an unclear reflection in an eye or a glazed jug, or seen from behind or so low down that we only ever saw his legs and boots.
‘How can I adequately play a fully rounded character, when we know so little of him?’ Durndrin would complain after every show, lamenting his own ‘unprofessional, unsatisfactory performance.’
‘But as you’ve said yourself Durndrin, you’ve put more “meat on his bones” than any other theatre could come up with,’ one of the others would say in an attempt to reassure him, using one of his own favourite phrases.
As she stared at The Porcelain Child’s illustrations, Carey could understand Durndrin’s frustration.
The man�
��s wife was, as you’d expect from the Illuminator, portrayed with a skill that made her leap from the page. You instantly knew the colour and style of her hair, the shape of her face, her nose, the kindness of her eyes. You knew the way she dressed, the graceful way she went about her tasks, the patience and intimacy she displayed when working on the most intricate parts of her creation. Her carefully observed expressions alone allowed you to instinctively sense her complete nature, her probable reaction to almost any event.
Of her husband, however, we have only snippets of information that we can gather from the story itself, and then only in the ways he reacts to his wife.
‘Her husband would tell her to rest, to let him finish her work.’
He loved his wife. He was caring, thoughtful. A potter of some sort in his own way too.
‘“But you, you my dearest, must promise me that you will grant our daughter life.”’
He would do anything to please his wife. He would make a promise, and he would endeavour to fulfil that promise. And, like his wife, he wanted a child, a daughter, to love and cherish.
‘And she smiled, and whispered, “I love you”; for they both believed that the Illuminator could grant their daughter the gift of life.’
He’s a man worthy of even this remarkable woman’s love. And he believes in what some people would only dismiss as impossible miracles.
In this way, Carey had realised long ago, you’re forming an idea of him around her; and you could achieve something similar by painstakingly studying the illustrations. The wife’s deftly portrayed expressions could also be used as clues to her husband’s own character.
The way she literally looks up to him is obviously a sign that he’s taller than her. But look at the sparkle in her eyes, the grateful, upward turn of her mouth; he’s a man to be admired, a man she’s overjoyed to share her life with despite their sadness that they have been unable to have a child.
She reaches out a hand to tenderly caress his cheek, her face brimming with warmth, actions that anyone can read as her care for him. See, though, how her mouth is firmly set, her stare direct and firm as if trying to instil courage in him; he loves her so much that, despite his refusal to tilt his head into her welcoming hand, despite the way he must be fighting the urge to desperately clasp his own hand over hers, he’s suffering beyond all measure. And yet he tries to hide that pain, fearing that she is already suffering too much herself to have to share his own growing agony.