The Palace Of Curiosities Part 19

I close up my knife and gaze at my arm. My skin is beginning its graceful reconnection; my head swims with the fleeting delight I have experienced. It takes only a moment, and my body has sewn itself back together.

'Christ,' breathes the man.

'Now do you believe me? Have you ever seen the like?'

'George, you are right. A marvel. A true marvel.' He rubs his palms up and down the front of his waistcoat.

'How about a finder's fee then, Mr Arroner?'

'How about I kick you in the b.a.l.l.s, George?'

'How about I take him away again, and myself too? I could start my own company with someone as extraordinary as him.'

I let them argue, drowsing in the comfortable numbness of myself knitted up, of their exclamations of approval rather than rejection; revelling in the momentary respite it brings me. I pull down my cuff and feel the crackle of my doc.u.ment in my armpit. All is well.

'Well, Abel, if that is the name you wish me to call you by ...?' The gaffer winks at me.

'It is my name,' I say.

'Ha! Good man, good man.'

He slaps my shoulder, with a little stretching on to the tips of his toes.

'So, tell me about yourself, Mr Anatomy.' He squeezes his chin between thumb and forefinger. 'No, that is not right. There is no poetry to it. Tell me, sir, would you like better lodgings?'

I think of the cellar, the warm press of bodies. 'I am happy enough,' I say.

'Ha ha! You are a clever man.'

'I do not think myself overly clever, Mr Arroner. Though I can mend watches.'

'Can you indeed? Well, well. I can offer you food, sir. You eat food, do you not?'

'Yes, Mr Arroner.'

'Like beef, do you?'

'I do, sir. I can cut it, too.'

He does not seem very interested in my skills, and dashes on.

'Then beef you shall eat, if you work for me. Beef and bread and beer, every day, till you beg me to stop.'

'Why should I wish you to stop?' I ask, and George nudges me in the ribs again.

'Fine lodgings. Good company. And money, too. Do you wish to make your fortune, see your name painted in letters two feet tall? I can do that for you. You shall want for nothing. Just like George here. Don't you agree, George?'

'Indeed, Mr Arroner.' My new companion coughs. 'We eat well, and live well. Though it would be a benefit to see more money, Mr Arroner, sir.'

The short man laughs. 'Then we must attract Abel into our circle, must we not? Is he not prodigious?'

'He is.'

'Is he not new? Never seen before?'

'He is.'

'Then consider that, George, and think how the money will come.'

'I do, Mr Arroner. I do think of that.'

George scratches at the fruit inked on to his arm. Our conversation seems to have put the oily man into a very cheerful humour.

'How fortunate I am!' he cries. 'How blessed you are also, to meet me at this juncture when I have need of men with talents such as yours.'

He takes a step back and regards the whole of me, sliding his eyes from my toes to the crown of my head.

'Yes, this is an auspicious day for you, my friend.'

'Mr Lazarus, you should call him,' says George.

'Oh no, George. I fancy something far more refined. Rhetorical.' He sweeps his hand across the air as though wiping dampness from a window-pane. 'I see it now. I shall call him the Marsyas of Modern Times.'

'Ma.s.sy what?'

'Marsyas, my oafish friend. Flayed alive by the G.o.d Apollo for ...' He pauses. 'For stealing a golden apple,' he continues quickly. 'Now. To business, my fascinating new employee. A new suit of clothes. At my expense I insist.'

George winks at me over the short man's shoulder.

'Very generous, Mr Arroner.'

'I know, George. I am a fool to myself.' He wags his forefinger at my feet. 'But those boots will not do. They will not do at all.'

'But they are good,' I say.

'Good? Bless you. Hear that, George?'

'I do, Mr Arroner.'

'The poor wretch, that he considers such battered specimens to be worthy of the epithet "good". See, the soles are nearly come away; the leather is almost worn through at the toe.'

'New boots would be just the thing.' George grins. 'What luck, eh, Abel?' He turns up his thumbs. 'Told you he was a good gaffer, didn't I?'

'Kind words, George, kind words. I am most affected. Well, Abel, you must stay with us, I declare.'

'I cannot,' I begin. 'I have another-'

I want to say, I have another job, but I know it is not true.

'Of course, another job,' says the short man, waving his hand. 'Besides, from one look at you I should imagine you lodge in a most foul and disgusting cave.'

'It is a cellar,' I say, to correct his mistake.

He continues as though I have not spoken a word.

'Dirty work. A dirtier life, wouldn't you say so, George?'

'Oh yes, Mr Arroner. All that dirt.'

'Think of it, Abel. You would never have to labour so again. You would sleep on clean sheets.'

'It is not so bad.'

'Pah! I won't hear of it. You shall lodge with us.'

'But Mr Arroner, sir-'

'Ah. I see it now. You have debts and obligations which worry you.'

'No, that is not it.'

'Some dear lady to whom you must bid a tearful adieu?' George snorts and the short man shows his teeth. 'You see it too, George, do you not? A string of disconsolate females, weeping into their handkerchiefs!'

They laugh very loudly and I know this is one of those occasions when it is wise for me to laugh also. The short man wipes his eyes.

'Enough. Well, Abel, there is no looking back. George has told me of your previous employment. There is no need for shame. I am an honest man and you will find me a fair one.'

I look at George, astounded that he should remember my old job, when I do not. I take out my doc.u.ment. I am a slaughter-man. The word has been crossed out and corrected to I was a slaughter-man.

'What's this?'

The gaffer waggles his finger at my paper.

'It is mine, sir,' I say, and push it back into my shirt.

'Ah! A love letter, no doubt. I'll not take that from you. Just your old boots.'

'Sir.'

'George! Take him downstairs this very instant. He looks set to faint away from hunger. I'll wager you need a good dinner inside you, eh?'

He smiles, and once again it is my turn to smile back. George pats me on the back and takes me below stairs to the kitchen, a room far cleaner than the one I was in this morning. A vast cooking-range spreads its bulk from one wall to the other. On it is a black kettle, exhaling long puffs of steam. Two women and a lad sit around the table, hovering over plates piled with food. My mouth waters.

'Look what I've brought home. Let me introduce you to Abel. A new friend for us to play with.'

His words are light, but the women do not smile. The woman-mountain for such is the abundant hill of flesh she bears upon her bones folds her arms and winches up an eyebrow.

'Have a care, George. If he's one like us, mind your tongue.'

'Oh, I'll mind it well enough,' he coos.

He raises his hand as if to cup her prodigious cheek, but something in her eyes arrests the motion partway: his fingers curl and he withdraws. He contents himself with running his tongue backwards and forwards over his lips.

'He's a succulent little morsel. Don't you think so, Lizzie?'

'Not to my taste. I only like them willing,' rumbles the big woman.

George fixes his eye upon the younger female, a creature covered entirely in long golden hair. The girl from the handbill. She seems smaller than I imagined she would be.

'Oh, I don't know,' he continues. 'I like my ladies to struggle a bit. Lets me know what I've got in my hands is flesh and not wood. Not that I've any problem with wood. You got a problem with wood, Eve, my kitten?'

The hairy girl crimsons through her fur. The skinny boy giggles.

'That's quite sufficient, George,' growls the one they call Lizzie.

'Yes, yes. We must maintain a polite and orderly house to impress this gentleman, must we not?' He leans close and snaps his fingers before my eyes. 'So, my fine friend. What does it take to rouse you from the dead, eh?'

'I am not dead,' I say. 'Quite the opposite.'

The two women laugh.

'He's got the measure of you!' cheers Lizzie.

George scowls. 'Has he indeed?'

'Don't mind him,' says Lizzie to me. 'Don't mind him at all. You'll do all right, Abel.'

She pushes a plate of sausages and bread into my hands and bids me sit. They fall on to their food, and I join them. I do not know where I began this morning. I grow less sure with each forkful of food I put in my belly; with each glance of these new folk and their puzzling conversations; with the deep thrumming of shared strangeness I feel each time I look at the hairy girl. My eyes are tugged sideways, and it seems each time they alight upon her I meet her gaze.

I feel myself sliding away from all I knew. I understood things about myself, but what they were has slipped away. If I am lost, perhaps it is easier to be so. I shall stay here. There is no better place to go, and no worse. Indeed, there is no other place at all.

EVE.

London, October 1857 'Step up, step up, I say!'

My husband stepped forward with a lantern in his hand.

'All alive!' he cried. 'The most astonishing aggregation of human curiosities gathered together in one place! Are these creatures animal or human? Historical or mythical? Mineral, vegetable or fantastical? Discover the truth for yourself here, tonight, and for a limited engagement only!'

He swept off his hat, a black silk chimney-pot of a thing, and tipped it to the men seated on the front row.