Jamrach's Menagerie (6 page)

Did
I sleep? It was more of a floating in and out of the real; a pitching, drifting, endlessly renewing progress through a night with no limits and no friendly striking hours. And at some point, some sudden peak of wakefulness, my mind cleared miraculously and stood watching and waiting at ful attention. Then something lay down next to me and put its arms round me from behind. True and solid, it cleaved to the length of me and hugged hard.

It was as real as anything I ever felt, but then again, since that night I know that I have taken for true things that were not.

Of course, it could not have been human, because it would have had to put its arm through the floor in order to hold me.

The feeling I had was beyond fear. It was a giving in, a swift plummet, a death.

I don’t remember anything else.

The morning assistant woke me up, the turn of his key in the lock. The light found me lying by a sack of shel s that jingle-jangled as I sat up, squinting at the glare.

‘What the devil are you doing here?’ the man said rudely.

‘You the new boy? You been here al night?’

I tried to tel him what had happened, but he couldn’t be bothered to listen and shooed me out. The sun was above the house tops and I was late for work. I’d missed Spoony’s.

I ran straight to the yard. Cobbe was hauling hay. ‘Gor, what you done to your noddle?’ he said. Tim was on the ramp, but he jumped off the side and ran straight up to me.

‘Sorry, Jaf,’ he said, smiling as if it was nothing. ‘Couldn’t help it, could I?’

‘I’ve lost my job!’

My skin crawled with weariness.

‘Wel , it wasn’t your fault, was it? They can’t sack you for something that wasn’t your fault, can they?’

‘How do you know? You did it on purpose.’

My eyes burned. I ached al over. I hit him in the chest.

‘Oy!’ he cried, backing off with a hurt look in his eyes.

‘What’s up with
you
? Wasn’t my fault.’

‘You locked me in!’

‘I know. Only twigged when I seen you come in the gate just now. And there were the keys in my pocket.’

‘You knew!’

‘I didn’t. I met a couple of friends, you know what it’s like. I thought you’d finish up and go home. What you done to your head?’ He reached out but I jerked away.

‘I fel over,’ I said. My voice caught and my eyes overflowed. ‘The lamp went out.’

‘Baby,’ he said, smiling, ‘don’t cry.’

My nose ran.

He had the cheek to try and sling an arm round me. I hit him again and we scuffled futilely, fal ing under the ramp.

Cobbe barked a warning from the end of the yard.

‘I hate you!’ I screamed.

Tim held my wrists and I kicked out at his knees.

‘Look, Jaf,’ he said in an infuriating, reasonable voice,

‘you won’t tel Jamrach, wil you?’

‘I wil ! I’l tel him!’

I looked around for the big German but there was no sign of him. ‘Fucking hate you, Tim Linver,’ I said, and kicked and pul ed free and ran towards the door to see if Jamrach was in the office.

‘No!’ Tim ran after and grabbed my shoulder. He was pleading suddenly, real y scared. ‘Don’t tel him, Jaffy. If you tel him he’l get rid of me.’

‘Serve you right.’

But Jamrach wasn’t in yet. Only Bulter, his feet on the desk, picking his teeth with a long fingernail.

‘Here, you two, out of here,’ he said.

Tim dragged me out into the lobby. He had tears in his eyes. Good. We ran through the silent bird room. ‘It was a joke,’ he said desperately. We were out in the yard again. I picked up my broom and ran at him like a jouster, chased him right up against the al igator pen.

‘You’re mad!’ he yel ed.

I bashed him with it, hard as I could, over and over.

‘Stoppit! Ow!’

‘Pack it in, you two,’ growled Cobbe, ‘he’s here, I heard the carriage.’

I dropped the broom and ran for the door. Tim ran after, grabbing my arm. ‘Jaffy!’ His face was white. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t tel . I’l give you my telescope. I promise, I’l give you my telescope if you don’t tel him.’

And there was the front door and the voice of Mr Jamrach cheerful y greeting Bulter.

‘Please!’

I wanted that telescope. Dan Rymer’s telescope had been al around the world twice and he had given it to Tim. Dan Rymer had first seen the great Patagonian condor soaring high above the blue sierras through that telescope, Tim said.

Once, once only, I had been al owed to look through it, and only for a few seconds. I saw the world anew. I saw the querulous shadow in the eye of a starling.

‘Please!’ said Tim.

I worked til about ten, then I fainted. Or something. Just fel over.

We’d had in three smal elephants. I suppose they were very young, one of them was no tal er than the big mastiff that used to guard the tannery in Bermondsey. They were not happy. Each had a chain round its foot. Side to side, side to side, trunks curling and unfurling in time, great feet lifting and listlessly kicking, turn by turn they swayed together with no space to turn about, an endless dance. So hypnotic was their movement, so steady and slow, that it got in my head and made me dizzy, and the rake fel from my hands and I fel over. Next thing I knew I was in the office, lying down upon a scratchy coat, and Mr Jamrach was pouring water in my mouth from a jug. Bulter and Cobbe were there, and Tim’s gawky neck was sticking up, an anxious face peering over Jamrach’s shoulder.

‘What’s this? What’s this?’ Jamrach said. ‘Are you il ?’

‘I’m tired,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t had my breakfast.’

‘No breakfast! Why not?’

And then it al came out that I’d been up al night in the shop and missed my shift at Spoony’s.

‘Tim locked me in,’ I said.

‘I was going to go back but I forgot!’

I hated Tim at that moment. ‘He did it on purpose,’ I said.

His face went red. ‘I didn’t.’

‘He did.’

He started to cry.

‘Tim,’ said Jamrach sternly.

‘Please don’t sack me, Mr Jamrach,’ Tim said wretchedly.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘Are you tel ing me,’ said Jamrach, ‘that you locked this boy overnight in the shop?’

‘It was a joke,’ said Tim.

And that was the only time I ever saw Jamrach lose his temper.

His thin lips went hard and quivered. He roared. He cried that Tim was a wicked boy, a vile, cruel boy who’d end up on the gal ows and serve him right! He could get out now! And never come back! ‘Always have to be top dog, don’t you, Tim?’ he said. ‘Wel , I’m finished with you!’ and lifted me up onto his knee.

And now I was sorry for Tim. He begged. He sobbed. His face was a wreck. He said he was sorry, he didn’t realise, he’d never ever do such a terrible thing again, never, never.

‘Go away, Tim.’ Jamrach touched the great lump on my forehead. ‘Where did this come from?’

‘I fel over in the dark,’ I said.

Tim stood by the door, hands hanging helpless, tears pouring down his face. ‘I’l give you my telescope,’ he said in a watery way.

‘Don’t sack him, sir,’ I said.

Jamrach heaved a great sigh. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should I keep him after this?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

The soft snuffling of Tim crying was the only sound for a moment. Jamrach’s eyes were sad.

Bulter put his head round the door. ‘Mr Fledge’s man’s here,’ he said.

They come from al over. Russia, Vienna, Paris. Clever men. Jamrach cursed in German. ‘What’s he want this time?’ he said. ‘A unicorn? A hippogriff?’

Bulter sniggered.

‘Where is he?’

‘In the yard. Looking at the elephants.’

‘Tel him to wait,’ said Jamrach, and sighed again.

When Bulter had gone, Mr Jamrach put me down and stood up. He brushed his knees. ‘Tim,’ he said, ‘wipe your nose and stop whining. Make yourself presentable and go straight over to the Spoony Sailor and tel them there exactly what you did, tel them Master Jaffy is in no way to blame, and he wil be back at work this evening. Tel them I sent you and that I vouch for Jaffy. Then you can get yourself back here as quickly as possible and get back to work.’

Tim ran.

Jamrach took me by the hand and led me out through the yard. ‘A moment!’ he cal ed to a tal thin man standing by the elephants. There was a door at the side which he unlocked, and through this we passed into a narrow al eyway with high brick wal s and weeds growing out of the cobbles. I had never walked like this, hand in hand with a man as I had seen others walk with fathers, and it made me feel peculiar.

My own father’s name I didn’t know for sure. Sometimes Andre, sometimes Theo, you never could tel with Ma. A dark sailor with a glass to his eye. At the turn of the al ey was a little house with an open brown door moulting paint. Jamrach rapped with his knuckles.

‘Mrs Linver!’ he cal ed. ‘Patient for you!’

There appeared, wiping her steamed-up eye glasses on her apron, the wild-faced woman who had stood at the front of the crowd when Jamrach rescued me from the tiger. Her bulbous, unseeing eyes wavered over me with a look of startled and overdone emotion, then she put her glasses back on and focused. ‘The little tiger boy!’ she exclaimed, dropping to one knee in front of me and taking me by the shoulders. Mr Jamrach told her al that had happened and said she should give me a good feed and send me home to bed.

‘I’l skin that boy!’ she cried when she heard of Tim’s crimes.

Mr Jamrach took himself briskly away down the forlorn al ey, and she took me by the hand and led me into a room ful of drying laundry that was draped al over everything, chair backs, a table, a massive rack which hung from the ceiling above a blazing fire. A round, pale, hairless man sat in a saggy armchair by the fire, smiling vaguely and whittling away at a stick of wood, and the little girl who’d smiled at me from the crowd was there, standing by the range, turning with a dripping spoon in one hand. She smiled again.

It was not love at first sight, but love at second sight. Her hair was straight and fair, her face bright and innocent, her apron filthy. She had dimples.

‘Ishbel,’ her mother ordered, ‘get him some porridge. Your brother’s a nasty horrible boy,’ scrubbing my face and hands and knees with a hot cloth as she talked, her voice thin and quavery. ‘Wel , you can see why the old man’s taken a shine to this one,’ she said, rinsing out the cloth, ‘just like poor Anton, he is. Bless!’

I saw the gnawed-down nails and bleeding fingers of the fair-haired girl as she cleared a space at the table for me.

She pushed a bowl of porridge under my nose. Her skirt was dark red. I thanked her and she dipped a sarcastic curtsy.

‘Welcome,’ she said, twirling away and sitting down by the man’s feet. He had a look of Tim and of the girl, how it might be if you shaved them and puffed them up like bal oons and took away their wits.

‘Don’t make yourself too comfortable, young lady,’ her mother said, but Ishbel leaned back against his legs, put her arms round her knees and her head on one side and stared at me with open curiosity.

Tim appeared in the open doorway. His mother ran over and screamed in his face. ‘He’l give you the boot! You hateful boy! You! You! He’l give you the boot and no doubt!

You’l ruin everything!’

He blinked hard, walked over to where I was scooping porridge into my mouth and put out his hand.

‘I’m very sorry, Jaffy,’ he said, steadily holding my eyes. ‘I real y am. Truly. It was a mean thing I did. You’ve stil got your job. I’ve been to Spoony’s and I’ve told them.’

I stood up and we shook solemnly.

‘’S’al right,’ I said.

Midday. Ma was asleep when I got home. Mari-Lou and Silky slept too, long dreamy sighs behind the curtain. I got into bed next to Ma, hugging my telescope. Dan Rymer’s telescope that had travel ed the whole world round. She did not wake, but gathered me into the crook of her arm, and a tal ship bore me away through painted waves into a long sweet sleep.

3

Mr Jamrach liked children. Tim and Ishbel had been running in and out of his yard to see the animals since they were little. They were twins and made him laugh, and he gave them pennies for odd jobs. When Tim came to work he’d made him go to school two days a week, and now he did the same with me. By the time I was eleven I could read and write. Mr Jamrach said he needed his boys to be able to write things down and read off lists. I was quick. Ma was impressed. ‘You clever boy, Jaf,’ she said when I read the posters plastered outside the seamen’s bethel.

‘Grand Fair, Thames Tunnel,’
I read smugly,
‘Madame
Zan-Zan Fortune-teller. Crinelli’s Puppets. The Marvellous
Marioletti

Brothers.

Snake-Charming.

Fire-Walking.

Swingboats. Entrance 1d.’

He let us finish early the day of the fair and slipped me and Tim a coin or two each as we pul ed off our working boots outside the shed. We spruced up at the pump and changed our clothes, pushing each other about and shaking water from our hair, poking our ears as we strode down the al ey.

Ishbel had worked the afternoon at the Malt Shovel and drunk some gin. Maybe that’s why she was so sharp. At any rate she started screaming at Tim as soon as we walked in, which wasn’t unusual.

‘You were supposed to fetch the coals before you went out!’ She was ladling soup and had a face ful of steam. ‘You lazy pig!’

‘Shut your trap, woman,’ Tim said loftily. ‘Who are you cal ing a lazy pig? I’ve been shovel ing shit since five o’clock.’