Jamrach's Menagerie (5 page)

‘and al the darnings were made by her. See. She is a genius, my wife.’

He gave me coffee.

‘Soon as you get home, you wash them feet,’ he said.

Of course, they were much too big, but I wore them like sacks and they had the heat of his feet on them.

I loved working at Jamrach’s. I was looking after the animals.

Mr Jamrach bought me boots. We swept the yard, cleaned cages and pens, changed straw and water and feed. Big Cobbe did the heavy stuff. Bulter kept the books mostly, but slouched about in the yard when he was needed, handling the beasts with practised aplomb. Too easy, his manner said. Too easy for me, al these lions and crocodiles and bears and man-engorging snakes.

Tim wrote up stock. I counted and he wrote down. Thus: One Chinese al igator. The al igator stretched smiling beside us on the other side of iron bars, half in, half out of his water.

Four Japanese pigs.

Fourteen Barbary apes.

Twelve cobras.

Eight wolves.

One gazel e.

Sixty-four tortoises. A guess. You never could tel with the tortoises; they moved around too much.

Tim and I got along fine as long as I deferred to him in every way. He was a great one for wandering off in the middle of a job and leaving me with the worst bit to do. ‘Off to the jakes,’ he’d say and that would be it for half an hour.

And yet when Jamrach was there he was always around, cheerful y toiling, whistling, pushing a wheelbarrow. He’d been Jamrach’s lad since he was a tot, he told me. ‘Can’t do without me,’ he said. He had a way of putting himself in front of me, talking over me, jostling me back with his shoulder. I never said anything. How could I? He was gold and tal and marvel ous, and I was a little, shitty, bedraggled creature from the other shore. Rock this wonderful boat which had hauled me over the side? Never. Not when he broke an egg in my pocket. Not even when he fed me a mealworm sandwich. He taught me how to hold a monkey, how to keep frogs damp and crickets dry, where to stand so as not to get kicked by an emu, how to tickle a bear, how to breed locusts and behead mealworms. Mostly though it was mucking out and swil ing down, slopping out, mashing feed, changing water. Only Cobbe and Jamrach were al owed to go in with the fierce apes or feed the big cats. I
could
have gone in with old Smokey though.
He
was gentle. But he was gone on the third day, taken out in a cart, sitting looking out of the back of the box as patiently as he’d sat in his pen. None of them stayed long, apart from the parrot in the hal and Charlie the toucan, and a particular pig from Japan that Jamrach took a fancy to and made a pet of, letting it wander freely around the yard and deposit its sticky, black droppings al over wherever I’d just swept.

Trade was brisk.

My own tiger went to Constantinople to live in the garden of the Sultan. I imagined it: a hot, green jungle of flowers and shimmering ponds, where my tiger stalked for ever. I imagined the Sultan going out for a walk in his garden and meeting him, face to face.

Friday, nearly a week after I started, he sent me and Tim over to the shop after it was shut, to muck out the birds and feed the fish and clean up a new batch of oil lamps that had come in filthy on a ship from the Indies.

Jamrach’s shop was on the Highway, two big windows and the name up twice: Jamrach’s Jamrach’s, it said. It was a late, dark afternoon, and I was weary in those first days, al of a dream with the days and nights, biffing and banging about between the yard and Spoony’s and home, and hardly ever seeing Ma because she was on funny shifts in the sugar factory. The shop was a dusty rambleaway sort of place, and it seemed unearthly as we roamed around it with a lantern casting lurching shadows, thick with presence. Every inch was crammed. The wal s came in on you. In the centre by the stairs stood a mannequin, a naked woman, black hair piled on top of her head. She gave me the creeps. Japanese, Tim said. ‘Look, you can move her arms and legs.’ And he twisted her into such a horrible pose she looked like a demon in the jumping light.

Inwards was a warren of smal rooms and steps and narrow passages, the wal s crammed ful of pictures: idols, devils, dragons, flowers with curious fevered lips. Mountains and fountains, palaces and pearls. Al came to me dreamlike. A green god watched me from a throne. There was a room ful of suits of armour, a giant gong, knives, daggers, Japanese silk slippers, a blood-red shining harp with the fierce head of a dragon with eyes that bulged. Tim showed me around with such pride you’d have thought he’d personal y found and conducted home each treasure from its far-flung source. ‘Stuff from al four corners!’ He threw out his arms. ‘Know what we had once? Shrunken heads! Human!

Looked like monkeys. That’s what they do in them places, cut off your head and wear you round their waist like a … like a … looka this. That’s a demon’s tongue from Mongolia, that is. And see that over there on the wal ? That’s a death mask.

From Tibet. Bet you wouldn’t dare put it on, would you?’

‘No, I bloody wouldn’t,’ I said.

‘Dare you.’

‘No.’

‘Go on. Double dare.’

‘You put it on,’ I said.

‘I already have. I went out in it once. This old lady nearly dropped down dead on the corner of Baroda Place.’

Liar. I didn’t say anything.

The birds and fish were at the back. Fish from China, orange and white and black, fat, mouthy creatures with big round eyes that stuck out like milky warts on either side of their heads. White cockatoos, cramped and patient, reasonable, amiable birds that watched with every appearance of deep interest as we went about our work.

They’d been moved to new quarters and we were scouring down their old. Deeply mucky they were too, the ground caked thick with hard white droppings that had to be scraped off with a chisel. It was getting on for half past five by the time we’d finished the cages, and we stil had the fish to feed and the box to unpack.

‘You hungry?’ Tim asked. ‘Why don’t I pop out and get us a couple of saveloys?’

‘You ain’t gonna be long, Tim?’ I said.

‘Two ticks,’ he said, and off he went, leaving me alone there, locking me in ‘for safety’, he said.

It didn’t take long to feed the fish. I was done with that and halfway through polishing the lamps, wondering with each one whether a genie would appear and offer me three wishes, when I felt the first creepings of fear. The lantern stood on the counter, casting a sombre glow that cal ed up flickering shadows from al nooks and corners. Each lamp as I cleaned it joined its fel ows in a smal neat community on the floor. I was sitting cross-legged with my duster beside the box, reaching in for the next lamp and thinking bad thoughts about Tim Linver. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck came very slowly and coldly to attention, a sensation not unlike a thin finger drawing itself from the centre of my skul down to the top of my spine. It surprised me. I had not been feeling particularly afraid. The shutters were pul ed down over the front windows and I could hear the ordinary early evening sounds of the Highway going on outside. I looked around. Only the softly pulsing shadows.

What had I expected? Nothing. Nothing I had ever experienced in life up to this point had led me to believe in ghosts. I never thought of them. Even now I don’t think Jamrach’s shop was haunted, but something happened to me there that night.

The first thing was that time stopped. I remember looking across and seeing that woman with black hair at the foot of the stairs, stark naked with her arms going backwards and one leg dislocated at the knee and pointing upwards in a horrible way, and realising suddenly that I had no idea how long Tim had been gone and no idea of what the time might be. The street was quiet, a strange thing in itself, and yet I had a queer sense of having just been woken up by a loud noise, even though I hadn’t been aware of sleep. And indeed, how could I have slept? Unless I slept sitting upright, cross-legged. Where the hel was Tim? The woman’s eyes were dark, merry slits in a white face, her mouth the merest dot. The lantern made movements pass over her face. I saw that the Eastern lamps were al cleaned and arranged in two straight rows along the counter, though I couldn’t remember having put them there. The box was set down at the side of the counter behind a great creel of fantastical shel s, al spikes and whorls and smooth, pearly, opening mouths. I thought the light was going down. So the darker edges grew darker stil , blacker and thicker, furry, and the shel s appeared to writhe so gently it made a smal pulse throb in the vein inside my left elbow. I stood up and looked stupidly at the lantern. We had lamps from al over the world, but there wasn’t one of them I could have kept alight.

Where was he? Surely he would not leave me here alone al night? I wondered if I’d lose my job at Spoony’s. Surely I should have been there ages ago? I liked Spoony’s. I was the best pot boy they’d had in ages, Bob Barry said. They were good to me there. Better than here, I thought. He’s done it on purpose, gone off and locked me in to frighten me. Why was the street so quiet?

A lump was growing in my throat.

I don’t know why I didn’t get up there and then to go and bang on the front door as loud as I could, and shout through the letter box at the top of my voice for someone to come and get me out. But I didn’t seem able to move. My mouth was dry and when I tried to lick my lips, my tongue was thick and sticky. I wondered if I was getting il . It was quite cold.

Somewhere deeper in the shop, somewhere in one of those crowded little rooms, one of those narrow passages, something fluttered. I felt a feather tickling my throat. A dense bank of darkness concealed the open door that led into the first smal passage, off which was the musical instrument room. I looked into that darkness, and the flutter came again.

Of course. The birds. I longed for others. I thought it would be nice to be in the company at least of those cheerful white birds in the back room. Even the pop-eyed fish would be better than nothing. Surely Tim would be here soon. I took up the lantern very careful y and walked step by step towards the darkness, which retreated graceful y before me. Strange and beautiful, a dragon’s face appeared, a golden throat gleaming for a second. I turned a corner to the right and felt the left-hand turn open a gaping mouth upon my back. Down there were the tal Ali Baba jars, the vases from Nineveh, the fierce curved blades and delicate sets of china with cups with such tiny golden handles you couldn’t imagine anything but a fairy holding one. Before me were demons and idols, carved gods and sacred gongs, bamboo pipes, poisonous darts. My light threw up the tremendous horns of a buck. Left at the top and I’d reach the good old birds, but I must take care as I turned the corner not to look to the right where I knew I would see the suits of armour standing to attention with their visors hiding God knows what.

Just before the turn, I saw a ship. The raised lantern revealed a painting of a curious vessel that reared up tal out of the sea at either end, a high-shouldered, many-turretted, floating castle of a ship, a thing upon which in a dream you might embark and sail away to the ends of the earth.

The light went out.

I did not panic. I stood there holding my darkened lantern in a void so ful it licked me al over like a cat washing a kitten. For a minute or so I just let it.
Then
I panicked. I turned and ran. Al the devils of hel fol owed after, clutching at my back. I crashed into a wal , turned, ran again, stopped, holding onto the wal and gasping. My own scared breath was loud. The wal beneath my hand held steady.

I would feel my way like a blind boy.

I stil ed my breath and set off, feeling my way back in mortal terror every step of the way, til I came to an open doorway, an unseen gaping mouth breathing coldly on me. I couldn’t get past. God knows what lurked silently inside. How long did I stand there? Time froze, I froze, the universe froze.

How long until I felt my soul leave my body like a ribbon of smoke and float loose and free through the air, thick with a mil ion other lost souls al hoping for a landing. I floated past the door and found myself once more on earth in Jamrach’s pitch-black shop in the middle of the night, groping my snail-like way along the wal towards where I knew I must find the right turn into the passage that led to the front.

I found it and hauled myself around it as if reaching the top of a mighty mountain. Something touched my ear, a mere flicker, the breath of a fly or a gnat.

I crossed Sinai, inch by inch, fading in and out of myself, and when there were no more wal s to hold onto, launched out across the void. I walked slowly, arms before me.

Something caught me in the soft part just under my knee, pain pranged through me, sharp and sickening. I went flying and hit my head on something.

I was lying ful stretch against something soft that jingled and jangled softly.

So tired.

I cried. Not a trace of light from the shutters. There was no point in getting up again. When I put up my hand to feel, there was a large lump swel ing hot on my forehead. The rest of me was icy. I cried, drew up my knees and hugged myself.

My brain swirled with al the colours of al the things from every part of the world, al brought here by the sailors and the captains, come to rest at last. As I began the slide down to sleep, there arose before my eyes the tal ship upon the wal , the last thing I’d seen before the light went out.