Ark Baby (39 page)

Will I ever have the pleasure, I wondered, of addressing her as Violet?

I gasped at the scene that streaked past me as she dragged me in her wake, thinking: What a fabulous beast is man! Chandeliers probably do not come much more elaborate than this! Curtains probably do not come in much redder a velvet, or
heavier, or more strangulated with gold silken cords than these! Ballgowns surely do not come so ponderous, or so fabulous, or so mesmerising!

‘Look!’ whispers Miss Scrapie in my ear. ‘Over there! The Royal Hippo!’

And there she is, by the potted palm, Queen Victoria herself, a dumpy little madam, no taller than myself, in her widow’s black garb, scowling a petulant fat-faced scowl, and surrounded by fawning courtiers and admirers – Dr Scrapie now suddenly among them, and barging his way to the fore.

‘Old hypocrite,’ murmurs my paramour, watching her father perform an elaborate and dangerously low bow, then unfold himself to kiss the Monarch’s black-gloved hand.

‘And look,’ she says, pointing in the direction of the buffet table. ‘Cabillaud has surpassed himself!’ She says this with pride, but a hint of sadness.

A marvellous, glistening quilt of food is spread before us, on a white-clothed table which runs the whole length of the ballroom; guests, armed with china plates, are tucking in to pale jellied eels, glistening prawns, huge tureens of chilled turtle soup, tubs of pink paste, little pastry cases filled with odd-smelling chopped meats, mounds of Turkish Delight and other exotic
bonbons;
waiters are milling about bearing great platters of oysters with wedges of lemon and lime, huge blancmange desserts and nougat cake heaped with chocolate cream. On a small pedestal stands a great wobbling white jelly topped with a splash of fragrant strawberry sauce, surrounded by tiny dishes of liquorice and sherbet. Beneath it, upon the floor, stands an enamel bathtub containing a fruit salad; a waiter is ladling out raspberries, melon, blackberries and – my mouth waters as I spot the first slice – banana into little dishes, and adorning them with grated chocolate and swirls of cream.

Impressive.

So impressive, indeed, that suddenly Miss Scrapie is deserting me to congratulate the chef.

‘Monsieur Cabillaud!’ she cries, rushing headlong into the outspread arms of a small tubby man in a tall white hat.

‘
Ma petite chérie! Ma petite Violette!
’ he responds, pressing her to his bosom.

Oh, what it must be, to be reunited with a loved one! What would I not give to be so embraced by dear Parson Phelps!

Assaulted by my own sudden feelings of longing, I averted my eyes from the touching scene taking place before me. But it was an error to do so, for when I looked up again, having contemplated my shoes for the space of perhaps one minute, I saw that Miss Scrapie and the chef had vanished in the throng. The sudden loss of Miss Scrapie left me feeling horribly alone and ill-at-ease. I had been obliged to dress for tonight’s occasion in a cast-off old dinner suit of Dr Scrapie’s which was far too big, and which, thanks to the well-intentioned but ultimately unhelpful adjustments made by a certain Mrs Jiggers, hung off me in a way that Miss Scrapie could surely not find attractive.

‘Stay where you are!’ ordered Scrapie, suddenly re-appearing and grabbing my arm with force. ‘Do not move. I’m going to find Mr Darwin, and bring him here, and we will tell him of your origins!’ He was clasping
A New Theory of Evolution
to his breast, and his eyes were darting eagerly about the room in search of the great man. ‘My dear, dear young specimen!’ he choked, still clasping my arm tightly. I winced in pain. ‘I must confess I was growing almost fond of you!’

Specimen? I felt foolish, and uneasy, as though an important fact hung just beyond my grasp.

‘Stay right here by this pillar,’ ordered Scrapie again, more bluntly this time. ‘Don’t move a bloody inch.’

So I stood there obediently, thinking of my sudden ‘specimen-hood’, and my imminent meeting with Mr Darwin, the man whom Parson Phelps blamed for the decline of Christianity itself. In short, the man responsible for a multiplicity of woes.

I very much hoped he would not expect my gratitude for the fine mess he had landed me in, I thought, as the band struck up a waltz.

* * *

The speakers in the community centre were blaring out some dated old techno rubbish. The place was teeming with people. The Cleggs, the Peat-Hoves, the Mulveys, the Tobashes. Harcourt, his grumpy Filipina swaying on his arm, grabbed me by the arm and thrust a foaming beer at me.

‘Get that down you,’ he said. There were plastic tables along each wall, with a mass of paper plates and decorated serviettes, bearing sausages on sticks, various dips, blobs of cheese, and an array of pizzas. Some meringue pavlovas were de-frosting at the back. I swigged my beer, my eyes still scanning the room for Gawvey. I’d had the foresight to stop off at the cashpoint in the high street on my way, and I had a hundred yos in my pocket to buy the monkey back. I’d offer him more, though, if he wanted it. I could get an overdraft, if the need arose. I reckoned it was worth going up to a thousand, without arousing his suspicions. After all, it was a family heirloom.

The music had changed to the Hokey Cokey, and a great human caterpillar was forming. I barged past.

‘Where’s Gawvey?’ I shouted. ‘I’ve got to find him!’

‘Outside,’ said Boggs. ‘Easy does it, mate. He’s doing the bonfire.’

Just then a tinkling burst of music cascaded down from a shiny orchestra perched on a balcony, and couples began to glide to the dance-floor. Soon the whole space was packed. As the dancers whizzed about me in a human hurricane of sequins and perfume and chinking medallions, my eyes scoured the ballroom once again for Miss Scrapie. But there was no sign of her in the crowd. Had I lost her for the whole evening? Perhaps for ever? Pondering this ghastly thought, a sadness and fear overwhelmed me. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets, and invoked Betty Botter, until a sudden instinct told me to ignore my promise to Dr Scrapie, and seek shelter from the crowd. To this end I found myself shuffling, half-tripping
on my over-long trousers, and with some difficulty arriving at a small table beside a huge marble fountain. And here I sat, fingering my crucifix, doing my best to become invisible, and attempting, with the help of a glass of port proffered me by a waiter, to pick up my flagging spirits, and to ignore the distinct feeling of unease emanating from my lower spine.

Then the quadrille came to a sudden halt and the clocks chimed eight. A hush fell, and a tail-coated Master of Royal Ceremonies struck a huge gong with a padded stick, signalling to the assembled ladies and gentlemen that it was time for the celebrations to begin in earnest.

‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen! Please raise your glasses to Her Majesty the Queen!’

The Monarch smooths her black skirts and purses her lips as we raise our glasses and ask God to bless her. The gong sounds again, and the Master of Royal Ceremonies gives further utterance.

‘And to Mr Charles Darwin!’

The small bearded man next to Queen Victoria performs a neat little bow, as we salute him. ‘To Mr Charles Darwin!’ When he unbends himself, I notice that he has a twinkle in his eye.

‘Now stand back, please, Ladies and Gentlemen, for the revelation of our gastronomic centrepiece this evening, the Evolutionary Time-Bomb, a masterpiece of cuisine designed and constructed by Her Majesty’s head chef, Monsieur Jacques-Yves Cabillaud!’

There is a rustling of gowns and a clapping of hands as the crowd pulls back from a central area hitherto hidden from view by dancing bodies, hanging curtains and swathes of flowers. At first, the area is so huge and so grey it has the appearance of a wall – but suddenly, the eye adjusts and a new perspective is revealed: the thing we see before us, seated within an enormous clam shell, is nothing more and nothing less than an entire roast elephant!

‘Good grief!’ mutters a brigadier, an expression of surprise
which is echoed, in various forms, throughout the hall, in a sudden windy rustle of words.

‘Her name was Mona,’ whispers a man who has appeared at my side out of the blue. ‘She’s from the Zoological Gardens. They slit her throat last Thursday, and it took a week for her to die. Have you heard the rumour that Monsieur Cabillaud used to be her keeper at the Zoo?’

A shudder goes through me as I stare across the room at Cabillaud, who has suddenly materialised next to his gruesome exhibit and is bowing deeply to the assembled throng. Now he takes a huge sword and places it, with an obsequious bow, in the hand of the dumpy little woman Miss Scrapie refers to as the Royal Hippo.

‘If it please Your Majesty,’ he says. He’s all red in the face with pride. ‘Would you graciously do us all ze great honour of making ze first incision into ze Time-Bomb?’

A murmur of appreciation rises from the ladies and gentlemen as the little monarch obliges by taking hold of the scimitar. I stand on tiptoe to watch her; as she takes a grip on the weapon, I see her mouth twisting into what might be a smile, or a pang of indigestion, I cannot be sure which. Then I spot Dr Scrapie stepping forward to help her.

‘If I may be of assistance, Your Majesty,’ he murmurs, standing behind her and encircling her with his arms. ‘And if you will excuse the necessary intimacy …’ Delicately, he places his own hands upon hers, and helps her to lift the heavy scimitar.

A burst of cheering and hand-clapping as Dr Scrapie helps the Queen make a deep cut into the huge creature’s rubbery flesh.

‘Raise your glasses again,’ intones the Master of Royal Ceremonies, ‘to Her Majesty the Queen!’

As we wish the Monarch a long life and good health, and the orchestra strikes up ‘Rule Britannia’, Scrapie and the Monarch are busy cutting a huge slit down the front of the elephant’s chest. The grey flesh divides like a pair of thick felt curtains and –

Whispers. Genteel murmurings. Hushed gasps.

Out tumbles a lumpy waterfall of pungent mushrooms and garlic-ball stuffing. A gurgle of steaming liquid and more mushrooms follow, all captured in the huge natural tureen of the giant clam beneath.

Delighted screams. Whoops. Cat-calls.

For there, revealed inside the elephant’s cavernous interior – Yes! It’s true! – amid a mass of foliage that resembles parsley, there appears to be an entire zebra!

A massive cheer erupts spontaneously from the crowd.

‘Bravo!’ shrieks a woman next to me, whipping up a strongish wind with the excited flapping of her lace fan. And then a further and even more frenzied cheer emerges as seconds later, Queen Victoria, warming to her task, once again wields the scimitar, with Scrapie’s help, and makes a deft incision in the zebra’s exposed belly to reveal, among the baked apples and glazed onions, its skin criss-crossed with diamonds of cloves and apricots, a gigantic roast hog!

Astonishing!

We can hardly believe what we are seeing. But then – No! Surely not!

‘Good Lord!’ exclaims the fan-flapping woman next to me. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Look!’ yells a military gent, his medals crashing together as he jiggles with excitement. ‘She’s cutting again!

The Royal Hippo, who has warmed to her task enough to spurn Dr Scrapie’s renewed offer of help, is indeed wielding the scimitar a third time. With a swift and expert lunge, impressive from a woman so small and stiffly padded, she stabs the hog, whose skin splits neatly along a stitched seam to reveal a cavity from which –

My God! From the heart of the Time-Bomb, a live woman is stepping out!

A dropped fan. Gasps and applause from the men. Excited screams from the ladies.

And a groan from me, followed swiftly by a ghastly surge of nausea.

For this is not just any woman.

It is a woman in a tutu and little ballet shoes.

It is the human herring gull, Contortionist Extraordinaire of the Travelling Fair of Danger and Delight –

My mother.

Ding, dong! chimes the Balls’ doorbell.

The future is calling.

‘Damn and blast!’ says Abbie, under her breath. She’s been rushed off her feet all day, and has only just finished her cookery rehearsal – a full ten minutes behind schedule.

‘Hold on a second!’ she calls, as she wipes the flour off her hands and glances at the Apfelkuchen. They’re browning nicely in the oven. And the coffee’s just on. She’d been planning to put her feet up.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ says the young leather-jacketed stranger. He has a small gold earring in one ear, and is carrying a clip-board. He’s waving a set of car keys at her apologetically. ‘But my car’s broken down, and my mobile phone’s –’

‘On the blink,’ falters Abbie, suddenly feeling rather sick as a feeling of
déjà vu
engulfs her.

‘Yes,’ says the man, flashing her a handsome smile. ‘How did you guess? Look, I’m sorry to ask you this, but –’

‘Of course you can call the AA,’ says Abbie. ‘And perhaps while you’re waiting, I might tempt you with some of my Apfelkuchen and a cup of nice fresh coffee?’

You could say that Abbie Ball has been blessed with a form of second sight, for is this not her dream coming true?

‘May I ask you your name?’ she falters, pouring a china cup of Colombian Special Blend.

‘Of course,’ says the stranger, whipping out a business card. ‘Sorry, I should have – Anyway … Pleased to meet you.’

Abbie takes his business card with a trembling hand and reads.

OSCAR JACK.

ERA PRODUCTIONS.

At last!

The Apfelkuchen are going down a treat.

‘Can I offer you a fifth?’ Abbie asks, five minutes later, after she has completed her tour of the kitchen for Oscar, and he has settled himself on the settee in the living room with the air of a man who is no longer the slightest bit worried about his seized-up car or his broken mobile.

‘Abbie,’ he begins. He has a soft, cultured voice, but there’s excitement in it. Genuine excitement. ‘May I call you Abbie?’ She swallows hard, and nods vigorously.

‘I couldn’t help noticing – well, your extraordinary poise. It struck me immediately – the minute I clapped eyes on you – that you have a certain
je-ne-sais-quoi
, and that – well.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is rare, this is extremely rare, I don’t want you to think that this is the kind of thing that happens every day, in fact, never before in my whole television career –’