The Palace Of Curiosities Part 24

'You are quite the dandy.' She laughs again and claps her hands softly. 'I believe you are rather droll, Abel.'

'I believe you may be right.'

We smile at each other, shyly at first, her eyes demurely cast down; then more boldly and freely until she lifts her head, tossing her abundant curls in a swinging cloak about her shoulders. Her eyes shine beacons into mine. Then her head turns quickly, and I hear it too: the clump of a man's feet along the corridor. She starts to her feet and is leaning casually against the door by the time George saunters in. He looks at her and then at me.

'Cosy little chat, eh?' he says, and whistles softly.

'Indeed not, George,' she replies. 'It is almost time for the show.'

'Already?'

'Yes. It seems one of my daily tasks is to rouse you men into activity. At least Abel is present.'

'Always ready and Abel?' he sn.i.g.g.e.rs.

He stretches out and plucks away my doc.u.ment before I can stop him.

'What's all this then? Writing love letters to the lady of the house on the sly?'

'It's his, George. Give it back.'

'What? Not got a tongue in your head?' he taunts, waving the sheet just out of my reach. 'Want this, you meat-head?'

'Yes, I do.'

He squints at the crowd of words. '"I am a-" What's this nonsense?'

'George, do you truly wish to reveal that you can barely read?'

'You b.i.t.c.h,' he growls, crumpling the paper.

'Oh no, George. The Lion-Faced Girl, remember? Most a.s.suredly not a dog.'

'I'll show the two of you!' He scowls, striding out.

I spring to my feet.

'Leave it,' hisses Eve. 'Don't provoke him.'

I ignore her and follow George to the kitchen. He dangles my paper over the range.

'I knew you'd come. You have to see this.'

He drops it into the flames and I am on my knees straight away, hand in the heart of the fire. What I manage to rescue is charred beyond reading. Amongst the scattered words I pick out slaughter, friend, speak, jump.

'f.u.c.k me.' I look up and see George, his features squirming. 'Your bleeding hand.'

The skin is sizzling, peeling into curls. He backs away, tripping over his own feet in his haste to be out of the room. I watch my flesh bubble: it begins as a tickle of warmth, the heat growing and growing until I look about me and discover myself in the heart of a conflagration, thrust into another of my memories. I smell the bitterness of burning hair; the crackling roast of my skin, which crisps without blackening; the fume of green wood stacked round my shins. I am not alone: I am surrounded by other men, bound like myself, and shrieking, for the blaze finds them delicious.

Flames tumble up my arms and I hold them before me, observing their fluttering. 'I am sweet!' I shout, my words parched to nothing in the heat; but the fire will not feast upon me, although I yearn for it to sink its fangs and taste me.

It shrugs me off, hovering but not devouring; making a halo of gold to display my nakedness; consuming my clothes, my hair, all my externals, even the very air, but not my flesh. I touch the ropes binding me and they fall into cinders: I walk free, carrying the furnace from place to place, and am preserved within it.

I wake, the scent of grilled meat hovering in my nostrils, gasping with the shock of what I have seen. A hand alights on my shoulder. I look up into Eve's face.

'Abel, what is happening? Oh, your hand.'

I hide the vile flesh under my armpit. 'You are horrified.'

'No! I am surprised. That is all.'

Her eyes sparkle with friendship. I so wish to place my trust in her. But I have been betrayed, so many times.

'How can you want to draw close to a monster such as myself? You cannot understand. No-one can.'

Her eyes wince, and I cringe with shame at my rudeness: I did not think myself so cruel.

'I am sorry. I spoke harshly. I am not harsh.'

'No. You are not.' She regards me steadily. 'Show me.'

I draw out my hand hesitantly and she seats herself on the floor beside me. We watch my skin rekindle, grow back pink and shining. After the time it would take to eat a bowl of soup, I am whole again.

'Abel, I should count it a singular honour if we could be friends,' she says.

She gets to her feet, patting out the creases in her skirt, reaches out her hand and pulls me to my feet with surprising vigour.

'Eve,' I breathe, and squeeze her hand. 'I should value it above all things.'

'Thank you, Abel,' she says tenderly. 'And, in truth, it is time for the show.'

On the playbill Eve's face is flattened out like a dried splash of tea staining the paper. But when she steps before the lights she comes to thrilling life. The warm air rising from the candles causes her hair to float about her head as though she is being carried on its wings. Abundant tresses ma.s.s round her delightful face, tumbling over her cheeks like a stream over pebbles. She is afire in the candlelight, a tapestry of gold threads mixed with bronze. I did not think myself so rhapsodical. Spun gold and bronze? Perhaps I was a poet once. Not a very good one, if my art bent towards such over-burdened phrases.

Her whole body or, at least, all that we are permitted to observe gleams with smooth fur. I see how modestly she endeavours to veil her downy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, for they are in danger of toppling out of the neckline of her dress. It is cut very low at Mr Arroner's insistence: 'To add a bit of piquancy,' as he puts it.

A man at the front cries, 'Go on love, a bit more leg!'

She smiles at the audience, her teeth clamped together, and declines to accommodate the request. There is a growing chorus of wolfish howls.

'Show us your knees!' says another hopeful, only to be ignored.

Mr Arroner stands to the side, grunting with exasperation at such a missed opportunity. He waves his hands as though pushing up an invisible sash window, gesturing for Eve to lift her skirt. Higher, higher.

She promenades from right to left and back again, singing a pretty ballad about her true love, who is a dear sweet boy and surely will return to her at any moment.

'It's singing!' laughs one wag.

'Miaowing, more like!' pipes up another.

No-one seems particularly interested in her words. It is only when she swirls her petticoats in the chorus that they show any appreciation, and it is of a low sort. For all Mr Arroner's continual reminders of how refined and educational we are, I observe very little refinement or desire for learning in these groundlings. Before me are slack chins and looser minds; prurience that licks its lips and smacks its chops at the sight of her parading before it.

She pauses and stands with her fists on her hips, tapping her foot, as though considering a conundrum. Then she twirls her long moustache and throws the crowd a wink as she starts her second song, a well-known air. When she gets to the chorus, she sings 'I'm your own, your very own puss' instead of 'your very own girl'.

The whistles and catcalls fall silent for a full line of the next verse. She throws in a few more subst.i.tutions of 'cat' and 'puss', with a miaow or two for good measure, tossing her hair and winking at the men who had hooted at her and are now struck dumb. The laughter begins; slow at first but building into a wave that rolls from wall to wall and back again as they celebrate her cleverness in bending the tune to her will.

Mr Arroner is at the side of the stage, arms crossed over the bulge of his stomach. I watch his sour frown smooth into surprise, then astonishment, then avarice. As Eve leaves the stage to a tumult of applause, he leaps on to the vacant stage.

'So modest a maiden!' he carols to the crowd. 'But who knows what tricks she might have for you tomorrow! Who can guess what she might be cajoled into revealing! There's always something new and exciting at Professor Arroner's Unique and Genuine Anatomical Marvels!'

At this suitable gap in the performance, Bill squeezes between the shoulders of the mob, carrying a tray of pork fat cut into little squares that Lizzie fried crisp that afternoon. His cries of 'Fresh crackling, tuppence a twist' can be heard over the low murmuring of the audience. Mr Arroner paces in small circles around Eve, fiddling with the b.u.t.tons on his waistcoat until I am sure the threads will snap under the strain.

'What a revelation, my dear. Indeed, how you take your poor old husband by surprise. But a fine idea.' He preens. 'A capital notion. I believe I shall rewrite more melodies for you.'

On and on he chatters, until I notice how it becomes his own invention and Eve's talent is quite overlooked. She sits, combing out the knots in her beard whilst he enumerates song after song which could be adapted to her needs. At last, he bounds back before the crowd to announce my turn.

'Does it not bother you that he takes all the credit?' I ask.

'When he is happy, he is kinder,' she says. 'And is it not something to see me transformed from a spectacle of ugliness into the creator of mirth?'

With that, it is time for me to take my seat in the wavering light and rancid stink of the candles. I wind a shawl around my hips, to cover the shame of my unfortunate reaction to any deep cutting. My fingers tighten around the handle and lift the knife. What Eve has just said reverberates around my mind. It is true: here, under the eager eyes of the audience, I can act as lord of myself, even if only for a few moments.

I swing the blade in a mesmerising circle, round and round, watching light flash up and down the keen edge. At first, the movement is accompanied by the steady crunch of teeth on roasted pigskin. Gradually, the sound subsides. When I judge that I have their full and breath-held attention, I press the point into my forearm, beginning with feathery cuts which barely penetrate, flickering touches, cat's-tooth sharp. The watchers gasp a little, roll their eyes, but I am just begun.

I twist the knife upwards and my flesh opens. I plunge inside, hear the breathing of the whole room catch, for now they think the bleeding will begin. Of course, I know the truth. I thrust my fingers into the hole, drag the lips of skin to one side and spread my body wide: red-violet, soft enough to slide inside. To a mounting hiss of disbelief I push the blade in further, ramming it back and forth, groaning with each thrust, and begging the G.o.ds to make this pain so great it may finally carry me over the tantalising threshold to my soul. I strain into this great darkness: sweat-smeared, sticky, slashed, open.

I stick out my arm and display my secret, observing their eyes drinking me up. I reveal the crimson at the core of every man; I make what is hidden visible. Some step back in disgust; some step forward with the hunger of men who starve for strange meat.

'Behold, the Marsyas of the Modern World!' Mr Arroner bellows somewhere off to the side, reminding them of the wonders they are witnessing.

'Go on,' he grunts, urging me to further wounding. 'More!'

My mind sharpens like the knife I hold. I draw it across my stomach, slashing my flesh deeper and deeper, approaching wholeness only when I am cut to ribbons. Perhaps this time I will throw open all my doors and step into the daylight of full self-knowledge, stride through this sleepy world, awake at last. But all I do is stir my private parts into wakefulness, shaming me, grinding my nose in the truth of just how far I am from clean and wholesome manliness.

'Touch me,' I entreat, but they shudder, shrink back.

I lose the fight. The moment I cease my strife, I begin to heal. My eyelids droop and I feel rather than see a pair of strong hands lift me, carry me off-stage, seat me behind the curtain. At last, I feel nothing.

'It took me enough time to find you,' the man says, coming up to greet me after the show. 'It did not help that they're calling you the Man With No Name.'

He smiles, and pushes out his hand; I take it out of politeness and he shakes mine up and down, smiling all the while. I take the opportunity to examine his face, which has the greenish tinge of a man away from the sun overmuch, a thick moustache above a gentle mouth, cheeks thin as a weasel's. There is a smell of dried blood about him. His features shift in the silt of my mind, but I am sure he is not anyone of my acquaintance.

'So, how are you, Abel?' he asks. 'This new life suiting you?'

'Yes. It is good,' I answer, wondering how he knows my name.

'Plenty of excitement? Bit of a step up.'

I wonder what I have stepped up from, but I decide to agree with whatever he says. George has burned my doc.u.ment, and already I am losing the memories of my time before here.

'Yes. A step up.'

He seems so sure of me that I wonder if I do know him. He shifts from foot to foot.

'Still the big talker, eh?' he says, showing all the teeth he possesses in a broad smile. 'That's my Abel. Not changed one bit!'

He sticks his hands back into his pockets. I would do the same, but the britches I wear for the show have none. 'To prevent any accusation of fakery,' Mr Arroner says. I scratch my freshly healed stomach. He eyes the gesture.

'Hmm. You are more peculiar than ever, that's for sure.'

'How goes it with you?' I ask, hoping such a question might help me remember this gentleman. Perhaps he is a friend from before. I concentrate all my faculties and his name poises on the very end of my tongue, eager to be spoken out loud.

'Oh, not so bad.' His eyes slide away from mine. 'The work's much the same. Although the beeves miss your aim. As do we all.'

The memory rushes in. My hand is raised. The hammer falls and a bullock staggers, falls, dies. My knife cuts it open.

'Of course! I am a slaughter-man,' I declare, and know the words as truly as if my paper were returned to me.

'Not any more you aren't! Far too grand for the likes of me now. Ran off, you did.'

He grasps the peak of his hat and pulls it tightly on to the top of his head.

'I ran away? Surely not.'

'Yes, well. It was a while ago. All forgotten.'

His face colours from greyish-green to pink. With a supreme effort I gather up my wits. Yes, I know this man: we lived together, laboured together.

'You are a slaughter-man!' I cry, and loudly, for George and Eve glance up from the table where they are counting out the take.

'That's me. Couldn't be happier.' He nods at my feet. 'Those are fine boots you have on.'

'Yes.'

I look down at the gleaming new leather. He forces his fists deeper into his pockets. I know the gesture so well. He used to do it when he was embarra.s.sed. This is most frustrating.

'No need for my old rubbish, I'll wager. Well, then. I must go. You are a busy man. Far too busy for your old pal.'

'I am not so busy.'

'Of course you are.' He jerks his head sideways to where the others are cl.u.s.tered. 'Off you go. Your new pals.'

With that slight sneer it comes to me, at last.

'Alfred!' I exclaim warmly. 'It is you!'

I take his hand and pump it up and down.

'Now, now,' he says, pulling away. 'That's enough.'