Forever Shores (24 page)

The old woman halts, slumps over the handles of the trolley and gasps for breath. Finally she speaks.

‘I don't know about any dolls. But I do know they dug up every inch of the land there, and they found nothin'. Like she said: “You won't catch me”. And they didn't.'

‘Who said “You won't catch me”?' Apart from
you
, she thinks.

‘Old Ma Wynne. Most famous person we ever had from round here. No footie player, no crook ever got her headlines. One of those series killers, they call them now. But they never found the bodies, and there must have been dozens of them.'

Widow Wynne locked her front door and strode down the street, carpet bag in her hand, the cherries in her bonnet nodding with her passage, her long coat flapping in the cool breeze. The coat was black for widowhood, the cherries red, for merriment. Little enough of that around here, though. Three doors down, bailiffs at the door, loading furniture into the van. Empty house beside that, the tenants did a scarper, the rent well in arrears. Three children, their clothes clean even if they are coming out of their boots, dog her footsteps, keeping a safe distance. They're getting thinner, she thinks, their eyes hollow, their fingers like chicken bones in the old German story
Hansel and Gretel
. Weren't those children abandoned in the forest by parents who couldn't feed them? Must have been a depression, whenever it was, just like now.

‘Witch, witch,' she hears behind her, a child's jeering whisper. She whirls round, clawing her hands, and they take to their heels. When she turns, back is the respectable widow and small businesswoman. Things get much worse around here, she thought, your mama and dadda, they'll abandon you …

At the train station she buys a return fare to the city, third class, and also a copy of the evening paper. In the classified ads there are her advertisements, each with a post office box number. Business is booming, about the only business that is, it seems. She glances through the rest of the news. ‘Legislature Debates Foundling Hospital Bill' is the headline. She skims the article quickly, pursing her lips at its conclusion: the bill was defeated ‘lest it encourage immorality'. And whose immorality might that be, honourable sirs? Yours and the housemaid? You're not the one who'll be sacked without references when you start to show. On the same page is the result of an inquest into a case of overlaying—a mother rolling on her baby when asleep, and smothering it. Third case this week. Drunk, was she? Husband out of work? How many children did she have? Not guilty … just like Hansel and Gretel's parents. At least they only abandoned their babes in the wood.

She folds the paper and devotes the rest of the ride to eyeing the scenery. The train passes through rows of mean little suburbs, their back lanes full of washing and brats. The pleasures of the poor, she thinks. Not a penny in the house but rich in children. We got steam trains, we got telegraph, but you'd think some know-it-all would come up with some way of giving the womenfolk a rest … And put me out of business, she thinks.

Several stops before the city, she alights, checking the address on an envelope before striding through side streets. She moves quickly, for this is slumland, dangerous for anyone who has the faintest whiff of prosperity. The single-fronted little terrace might have housed a small family once, but now it has been let, and sub-let, to boarders. At the end of the passage is a room, and her client. Irish accent, hurt, bewildered eyes, pretty enough, if you liked carrot-tops.

She wastes no time. ‘You've got the money?'

The girl laboriously counts it out, as if expressing drops of her own blood, or milk.

‘All ready, then?'

The girl nods, her eyes filling. All in one movement she turns and bends, lifting from the mean little iron bed a limp bundle, in baby clothes. Mrs Wynne bends over it, seeing the infant is clean, wrapped in a shawl, and on its lips the unmistakable smell, opiates and alcohol, laudanum, the mother's friend.

‘Dear little thing,' she says.

In a moment the transaction is over. Mrs Wynne walks out the front door, leaving behind her weeping client, in her carpet bag the sleeping, drugged, baby.

She doesn't look like a monster …

‘She doesn't look like a monster,' he says. They have spent all morning in the archival section of the library, reels of microfilm beside them, ancient newspaper history scrolling before their eyes. Now they sit at a communal table, in front of them a microfilm photocopy. It shows an evening paper of a century ago, a line engraving of their house, circa 1890s, the front yard full of policemen, digging. On the same page is another engraving, a middle-aged woman, on her black bonnet a nodding spray of cherries.

‘
“A kind face, seemed very fond of children”, that's what Witness A said, after handing over her baby and paying money to Mrs Wynne's adoption agency. Which consisted of various post office boxes and one woman with a carpet bag.'

‘A mass murderer. “Massacre of the innocents” and “Out-Heroding Herod”,' he says, reading from the screen in front of them. ‘And I thought media frenzy was a modern thing.'

‘If she
was
a mass murderer. Remember, she was acquitted for lack of evidence.'

‘Then what did she do with the babies?'

The question hangs in the air. In front of them is a line drawing, showing a witch-like crone, cherries in her hat, throwing an infant in the harbour, a cartoonist's response from a century ago.

‘Look at these papers,' she says. ‘Birth notices, welcoming fifth, sixth children. Overlaying, whatever that was. Babies found on church doorsteps. The past is a different country.'

‘I wouldn't like to have lived there,' he says.

‘Even though we could have adopted twelve kids or more if we wanted? Nobody wanted illegitimate babies, especially with the over-supply.'

‘Let's go,' he said. ‘I'm not sure I can take much more of this.'

Back at the house, she wanders through the 1890s rooms, trying to imagine a black coat, a hat with cherries. Finally she crawls under the house again, unearthing more dolls. He trundles in the wheelbarrow, and they fill it with the finds. When the barrow is laden, he takes it out to the yard. It seems a sacrilege, after what they know, to just dump the dolls on the brick or concrete, so he lines the claw-footed bath with an old blanket, and carefully lays the dolls on top. Then he returns to help her with the dig.

Hours later, utterly exhausted and filthy, they sit on the back doorstep, sharing sips from the bottle of brandy. Moonlight shines down on them, and on the bath, filled with little white forms, the heads turned towards them, the little dark painted eyes watchful. It is very still, hardly any traffic, but the empty air in front of them teems with movement, as if filled with moths glimpsed only from the corner of the eye, that slip out of sight if you try and look at them directly.

‘Do you see?' she whispers.

‘Not—see,' he whispers back.

The contents of the bath seethe, sending dolls falling out onto the concrete. They break, a plaintive plink like drops of rain, then a shower, as they continue to tumble. The remaining dolls in the bath have transmogrified into chubby toddlers, who totter on the rim of the bath, fall to join their fellows. Child-dolls, taller and thinner, play in the bath, tussle, fight, and also topple. A group of boy dolls play soldiers, marching over their fellows, growing taller and thinner, into grown doll-men, short back and sides, painted moustaches. They form a battalion, then, as if to a ‘Hup, one, two, three!' march in formation over the side of the bath, crashing and breaking. A pause, then two doll nurses appear over the side of the bath, carrying a stretcher, with a sick doll, its arms flopping helplessly. They toss it over the side, return to the writhing pile for another patient, then a third. Other nurses appear to help in the grisly task, with their own stretchers and sick. They finish, then throw themselves after their patients. A pause, then a doll dressed flapper-style appears over the side of the bath, sexily posing as she walks. Another doll approaches, pushes her off …

She closes her eyes, hides her head in his shoulder, unable to watch anymore. She hears, though, the continual crash of breaking china.

Finally the painful noise stops. Around them it is still now, utterly quiet, even in the centre of the city. She opens her eyes. Around the bath is a mass of broken china. They approach, stare into the depths, to see movement.

He gets the torch from the kitchen. They see one doll left, an old woman—except that nobody has ever made an old woman doll. She claws at the side of the bath, the wool of the blanket, trying to get out. Finally she collapses in a heap, stills. Before their eyes the doll breaks into pieces as if ground under a heel.

He turns off the torch. She reaches out to the pile of broken dolls, feels the china faintly warm and gritty under her fingers. Some of the dolls have been reduced to powder, their constituting earth.

‘
“Dead and turned to clay”,' he says. ‘That's a line from somewhere.'

‘And I also remember now something about bone china—it's china with bone ash mixed in with it.' She shivers.

He says: ‘I think we just witnessed the lives they would have led. Infant mortality was high at the time—that was the first wave. The childhood diseases, diphtheria, whooping cough, typhoid did the rest. Then we got to 1914, the first world war, followed by the influenza epidemic … and so on and so on. One made it to old age, it looks like.'

‘If they'd lived they'd all be dead by now.'

‘To this end we must all come, love, though we try and hide from it, by perpetuating ourselves, busying ourselves with projects.'

‘Hush,' she says. Hand in hand they stand before the mass of china and clay dust, pondering their lives and those of these poor broken others, pondering the what-might-have-beens.

A Gorilla Becomes a Jeep
Edward Burger

My intention initially was to relate the gorilla to a car, rather than a jeep. But to be more specific, what I really had in mind was a four-wheel-drive sedan. I was loath to say ‘car' because the word is too readily associated with vehicles that (in appearance) correspond to the current popular car model, which has been prevalent for so many years and is so common and dull that the image of such gives me nausea. But nor would I liken it to a Landrover, firstly for the same reason as above, and secondly because it does not match the body-shape I had in mind. What I do envisage is a car of sedan-shape (with a roof), which is robust, as if armoured, and is certainly not like today's cars, which are shiny, rounded and bend like aluminium. Yet even the term ‘jeep' is inadequate for it can suggest something that is roofless, zippy, and anything but heavy and solid. The biggest army jeeps certainly are heavy and solid, yet teeny lightweight beach-buggies can also be called jeeps. For the sake of convenience, I will call this vehicle a ‘car', bearing in mind that it is not rounded and plastic but possesses those qualities mentioned above.

A heavy, robust car is a heavy, robust car (with a roof and boot). A gorilla has black skin and is covered with hair. The robust car need not necessarily have four-wheel-drive (though gorilla/robust-car-like-vehicles do possess four-wheel-drive), but I suggested that it did possess such early in the dialogue, purely as an attempt to describe the genre of car/vehicle, and not necessarily its shape—though the external appearance of this car/vehicle is most important, more so than its performance or comfort. I am at present concerned with presenting a visual interpretation of the transformation that took place. So I should specify that this gorilla was an adult
male
gorilla since this is relevant to acquiring a clear (or, at least, clearer) picture of the metamorphosis. I will not endeavour to distinguish this adult male gorilla from other adult male gorillas, but the considerable difference between adult
male
gorillas and adult
female
gorillas is the more relevant distinction to make because their differences are very marked. But that's not to say that female gorillas don't also become robust car-like machines—they frequently do, and far more frequently than male gorillas, but I need to specify ‘male' in this instance so as to convey the clearest picture possible of one specific transformatory case. (As to why I chose to use a male gorilla [as the vehicle for this example of vehicular transformation] over a female gorilla in the first place, is a subject of greater delicacy.) An adult male gorilla is much larger than an adult female gorilla, and is hence more formidable, yet also its shape is markedly different to a female's, especially if—by comparison—one compares the difference in shape between—for instance—an adult female chimpanzee and an adult male chimpanzee, or an adult female gorilla and any adult chimpanzee, or an adult female gorilla and any human. None the less, a gorilla is a gorilla, and in this instance it was a formidable male gorilla. The gorilla was a formidable vehicle, and the vehicle was a formidable gorilla.

The transformation went thus: The gorilla raised its chin till the bottom surface of its jaw was in line with its neck and the rest of its body. The gorilla's hands and feet began to swell, which were to become the wheels of the vehicle—I have chosen to call this vehicle a ‘
vehicle
' for it is not car-like, nor is it rounded and plastic but possesses those qualities mentioned previously. A ‘
gorilla
' is a gorilla that does not yet have wheels. The top of the gorilla's head became flat, like the bonnet of a heavy robust vehicle, its back stretched and flattened to become the roof, its bottom became the boot, and its arms and legs became the sides and floor of this robust sedan-like vehicle.

Extract from an Anthropologist's journal

We met with a most remarkable occurrence today. It was mid morning, and we had traversed several miles on foot along the ‘Dense As All Fuck' trail when we stopped for a cup of tea. But no sooner had our teapots brewed than a whole flock of gorillas came storming along. They came swinging in on vines from all directions, crying out like Tarzan. One of them almost spilt the jug of milk. Our guide saved it in the nick of time. He got his chest trodden on though, poor devil. Well, no sooner had the gorillas arrived than they were gone. Apparently they were just passing through. A rather rude way to behave, I must say. No wonder they are called gorillas. Anyhow, we decided to follow these gorillas and find out what all the fuss was about. We wound up at a clearing just a couple of hundred yards away where dozens of gorillas were making an awful ruckus. There was an odd looking creature that appeared to be a gorilla yet its body was undergoing outlandish contortions, as if it was changing form. These bodily contortions were of the kind one sees when a human transforms into a werewolf. But its shape became so distorted and grotesque it was indefinable. I was rather taken aback by it all. It was not until the transformation was nearly complete that I recognised what it had become. It was a vehicle. It resembled a large, chunky (and hairy) automobile. The next thing to happen was that several of the other gorillas climbed into this gorilla-automobile—perhaps eight in all—as many as could squeeze in—and then it drove off into the jungle. I had never seen anything like it. Neither had the rest of the crew. We considered following this strange gorilla-automobile, but we were not really up to it. We needed to sit down for a spell. What's more, the other chaps had not had their cups of tea yet, and I had spilt mine.

(This extract was the first recorded sighting of a gorilla-vehicular transformation.)

A gorilla is an animal. An armoured vehicular-sedan is a machine. A thing that is half gorilla and half vehicular-machine is an abomination—at least, it is most likely to be considered an abomination if its existence is the product of unnatural agencies. A jeep-like vehicle is not natural but a gorilla is. The particular gorilla/heavy-robust-jeep in question (which I have concluded is more like a jeep than anything else) became a gorilla/heavy-jeep (with a roof) through no apparent human intervention. It or its parents or grandparents might by chance have come into contact with a peculiar form of radiation, a manufactured virus, or some other potent residual agency that ultimately caused the transformation. But this is only conjecture. Perhaps its transformation was natural. Perhaps it even had total control of whether or not it changed, when it changed, and what it changed into. So why did this particular gorilla specifically become a heavy sedan-jeep? It might be just as logical to ask: Why did the heavy jeep-sedan start off as a gorilla? It appears that this gorilla became a weighty roofed-jeep because it had to convey humans through a rugged and unhewn environment. The environment was the gorilla's natural habitat—a jungle. The gorilla was in the proximity of humans when it transformed. The humans were animal liberationists who had to journey through the jungle in order to raid the offices of a twisted and heartless group of humans who ran a disreputable gorilla/big-army-jeep supply company. The gorilla transformed (into a gorilla/army-jeep-with-a-roof) in the proximity of the liberationists who imagined that it had not appeared in their proximity by chance. So they used it.

A vital point that has not been clarified is the fact that the formidable heavy-roofed vehicle in question was not
just
a roofed jeep-like vehicle. It was still half a gorilla. It was a gorilla/vehicle-cross. When the gorilla's hands and feet became wheels, these wheels were still hands and feet, when its anus became an exhaust, the exhaust was still its anus, and when its mouth became a fuel-intake aperture, this aperture was still its mouth, and so on. The humans who were riding in the gorilla were comfortable because it was covered in fur, it was soft and it was warm. And it didn't have to be steered because it steered itself because it had a mind of its own. But humans have to be nice to gorilla/jeep-like-sedans especially when they are travelling in one. Everyone knows how strong a normal gorilla is. A gorilla/jeep-like-sedan (with a roof) is even stronger because it is bigger, heavier and harder. If it wants to hurt its human passengers, it only has to push its walls together and will easily crush them to death.

Extract from an interview with an Administrative Assistant

It's true I was once employed by one of those disreputable car manufacturers, but I didn't know that they were doing such horrible things to all those poor gorillas. I didn't know anything about that side of the operation. I was just an administrative assistant. I thought the business was located in the jungle because metal was cheap. I got such a surprise when we were attacked by that herd of gorillas. I was sitting at my desk at the rear of the front office when two of the big, furry gorilla-cars crashed straight through the front wall. At the same time, another dozen gorilla-cars apparently burst through other parts of the building. The place was suddenly full of gorillas. My fellow office-workers were thrown around the room, bounced against walls, used as punching-bags, run-over and squashed. It was horrible. I managed to survive only because one of the gorillas took a liking to me. She treated me like I was a doll. She carried me around with her as she smashed furniture, broke down doors, and pummelled every person she came across. When there were only a few people left standing, the gorillas started to gang up on people. I remember a scene where four gorillas each grabbed an arm or leg of some poor fellow, picked him up and stretched him, while a fifth one jumped on his belly. It was frightful!

(This extract refers to one of many alleged raids carried out by gorillas upon illegal gorilla-vehicle operations.)

Gorilla/heavy-jeep-machines are more widespread than most humans realise. Many army vehicles as well as a lot of civilian cars are actually gorilla/heavy-jeeps-with-roofs. They have a metal covering on the inside and out, which the gorilla-vehicle suppliers have added not just for greater durability or to achieve a more desirable show-room finish—the gorilla/big-jeeplike-vehicle suppliers are a twisted and heartless breed of humans who have forced the metal coverings upon the transformed gorillas to imprison them and drive them unwilling into the commercial vehicle trade. These coverings hide the presence of the gorillas, protecting the suppliers from the scrutiny of animal liberationists and the like. Even when panels are taken off these heavy jeep-like vehicles with roofs, revealing the furry body of the gorilla, the fur is generally mistaken for insulation.

An ape-car (which cannot be categorised by any one label) is more reliable than a regular vehicle; parts may last a lifetime. However, when a part does break down, it is harder to replace since the replacement-parts—generally speaking—are not readily available. Parts are fragile and difficult to maintain inbetween bodies during the transferral period, and the fitting can be an intricate and delicate task. Repairs are not guaranteed success despite all efforts. For example: the seizure of an engine might necessitate open-heart surgery or replacement of the heart and other organs. A broken axle or even a flat tyre can be very hard to mend, and near impossible to restore to prior working efficiency. A broken crankshaft is in most cases irreplaceable and can render a vehicle permanently out of action. Yet it could be a mistake to dispose of a car just because it is not working. Even gorilla/robust-weighty-roofed-sedans that have merely become less efficient with age are sometimes dumped, particularly those disguised as normal cars. In fact, those that are disguised as normal cars are prone to break-downs—and not just nervous break-downs; owners who don't know that they should be feeding their car leaves and berries give them petrol and oil instead. Gorilla/armoured-like-weighty-sedan-vehicles cannot subsist on such a diet. What's more, it plays havoc with their bowels. So animal liberationists (as well as gorillas) frequently visit car-wrecking yards, searching for signs of life. They also search rubbish dumps, and are usually mistakenly identified as derelicts or rubbish hoarders.

Gorilla/roofed-weighty-robust-land-rover-like-cars much prefer to transport other gorillas than humans. Most would rather crush humans. When faced with a gorilla, a human's intelligence does not amount to much. A human's protestations are just an irritation, and its struggling is totally ineffectual. A human is like a misbehaving toy.

Extract from a broadcast by a Gorilla-Jeep Guerrilla Leader

We are capable of producing quite a clamour when the situation demands it. That's not to say that we necessarily advocate the use of brawn over brain, but it is nature's will that we replace humans as the dominant species. There is no point in entering into any farcical humanesque-style political debate. Humans only care about themselves. Besides, just as humans tailor their existence to be yielding of fulfilment and pleasure, we gain fulfilment and pleasure in executing nature's will by beating up humans.

We gorillas are more likely to succeed in our endeavours than humans are because of the indefatigable bonds that unite us. Normal gorillas are dependent on gorilla-jeeps for achieving successful surprise attacks, while the gorilla-jeeps are dependent on normal gorillas for chores such as grooming and removing lice. We gorilla-jeeps also occasionally need assistance in removing splinters; with all the inadvertent tree-felling we do to get from place to place (not to mention all the smashing-up we do of timber furnishings and buildings), it is inevitable that we acquire splinters. Another problem is that it is difficult to eat sometimes when no appropriate foodstuffs are within reach. For instance, I can push over bushes and small-to-medium trees in order to bring certain leaves and berries down to my level, but I cannot push over a really thick tree. Several of us together can. We can break through anything. United, we gorillas are a powerful force. More than mere guerrillas, we are an unstoppable army. Viva la revolution!