The Palace Of Curiosities Part 33

'What is this?' I hissed.

'It is a good show,' said my husband, hitching up his trousers by the waistband. 'Observe.'

'No.'

'Ah, is the famous prima donna piqued that no-one watches her today?' he sneered.

'What sport is there in watching two unfortunate Negroes? There is more interest by far in our entertainments.' I laboured to make my voice light. 'We are staring at them as though this were the zoological gardens. Look at them. The poor souls.'

He tossed back his head. 'Souls? They have none. All men know they thrive on witchcraft. Savages.'

I gave no answer; I shuddered behind my curtain, where he could not see. My stomach turned.

'And besides,' he continued. 'This is not the show. That is about to commence.'

His words heralded the truth of it, for at that moment a man in a lemon-yellow waistcoat stepped out of the wall of bodies and held up his hand, hooking the other thumb into the pocket of his vest. It was so quiet I could hear the rattling gasp of the chained men, and wished I could not.

'Gentlemen!' he proclaimed. 'You have heard the word put about. You have gathered for this choice exhibition, for you are men of special discernment and particular bent. Have I ever disappointed you?'

The audience shouted its approval of this fellow, who made his pitch as well as my husband.

'So, sirs, be seemly, and place your bets in the usual fashion.' He waved his hand and cried, 'Ladies!'

Three women appeared from the masculine throng, squatted on the cobbles and spread out their ap.r.o.ns. An overture of coins struck up, clattering out of pockets and into the skirts, to an accompaniment of pointing and the shouting out of numbers and words so fast I could not follow it. My husband let go of my shoulder.

'I am going to place a bet,' he remarked casually. I took a step away, thinking to make my escape whilst he was gone, but he extended his arm and pointed the stub of his index finger at the ground. 'Stay,' he said.

With that single word, he melted into the crowd. My head swam. I wondered if they wagered on which of the Moors would faint the first, for each of them seemed close to it. More and more money found its way into the women's ap.r.o.ns, and when it seemed there was no more to be had, the mob settled into a greasy calm, like the slick around the hull of a steamer. My husband's breath warmed my ear.

'Do not worry, little wife. I have placed a clever bet. I am sure I will go home with a heavy wallet.'

Then the dogs were brought out: two of them. The first was a brindled cur the colour of stewed tea with a neck as broad as its shoulders, its eyes glittering in the long night of its head. Its companion was a pasty grey and, if anything, its shoulders were even broader. They waddled forward, a pair of bow-legged gentlemen of the canine world, neither panting nor whimpering, but patient at the end of their ropes. I barely marked the men who held them, and wish I had examined them, to see if they were any different to my husband. Afterwards it was too late.

'Shall we not get started?' my husband hissed impatiently to low growls from our neighbours. 'How dare they hush me,' he murmured into my ear. 'Do they know to whom they speak?'

The women folded up the bags of their skirts and jingled through a doorway I had not noted before.

'What is going on?' I asked, not wanting the answer.

A weight descended on to my shoulder. I looked, and there was Mr Arroner's hand. So innocent, so protective it appeared: the pale white skin, the dimples on his fat knuckles, the neatly pared fingernails and the wedding ring glinting in the beams of the low sun. I was held there as surely as the two men in the arena before me. A small grunt of revolt escaped my lips and his fingers slid down and resumed their unyielding grip around my arm.

'Quiet,' he said gently.

My flesh was gripped silent, and before I could cringe with the sudden stab of pain, everything changed. A breath was taken in by the whole company and held tight. All I could hear was the m.u.f.fled moaning of the Negroes and the scalding wheeze of the dogs. Then the handlers untied them and coiled up the leashes.

The brindled dog took a small step forward, but froze at one word from his master. I did not hear the command that released them, but command there was and it made the dogs ball up tight and then hurl themselves forward. The brindle went for the man in the tattered shirt; the grey took the naked Moor, jaws locking round his throat.

'Like a rat,' breathed my husband.

He might hold me at his side, but he could not make me watch this horror. I turned my head and concentrated all my attention on the sleeve of the stranger to my right. I was sure that if I peered very hard through my veil, I could count every thread in the coa.r.s.e weave. My arm was released and I felt sensation return to the muscle. That, at least, was an infinitesimal blessing. My stomach tilted at the idea that I could even think of blessings at an event such as this and I bit my lip with shame. Almost at once I felt a warm sensation at the back of my head as my husband grasped the scruff of my neck and slowly twisted my head so that I faced forwards.

'Look. Learn.'

'No,' I begged.

'Wife. You will not make me look foolish. Understand?'

When I did not respond, he dug his fingers into the bone behind my ear and my moan seemed to provide the answer he sought.

'You will know your place. Do as you are ordered.'

He held me in the prison of his grasp. Concealed beneath my veil, I squeezed my eyes shut. It was the only act of rebellion I could muster. The animals worked in silence; the crowd did not. They grunted, cheered, clapped; the square heaved with the thud of fist into palm, the gagged shrieks of the quarry. I was surrounded by men's bodies surging forward, stretching their necks so as not to miss one moment.

But for all I closed my eyes I could not shut out the sounds and smells: the crunch of gristle; the privy smell of s.h.i.t and p.i.s.sed-out beer. I clenched my teeth and growled, so low a sound that it was lost in the baying of the mob; thus I blotted out as much of the racket as I could. I sensed rather than saw my husband leap up and down with excitement, but not once did he forget himself enough to release the grip on my neck.

At a shout from the dog-wranglers it stopped. The cheering crested and then subsided into a grumbling calm. Cautiously, I opened my eyes and saw that the animals had stopped, turned into statues. The brown licked a dry crust from its muzzle, but when his master grunted the tongue flicked back into its mouth.

'Best dogs in the world,' breathed my master.

His thoughts fluttered into me through the skin of his palm. Against all my will, I was forced to read every thrust of his vile excitement, cramping my belly into a sickening tangle. I pulled away and at last he loosed me.

'Here endeth the lesson,' he said, and patted my shoulder.

I rubbed the back of my neck and felt the bruise flushing through my fur as the blood seeped back. His voice came to me from very far off, as though whistling down a long tube.

'Oh, did I hang on to my pet too hard?' he added. 'A man forgets these things in his exhilaration.'

The dogs stood obediently as they were tied up once more. To the side I noticed a group of lads, making a great show of pointing and crying, 'Ho! Such bowls of blood! Nay! Buckets full!' for each seemed determined to outdo his brother in indecent delight. One youth, seemingly no different, turned his face aside; his shoulders heaved and he raised his hand to press against his mouth to keep back the torrent.

But it was no use: his fellows straight away saw his frailty and goaded him with louder shouts about 'the throat torn out, the crunch of bones', until he voided his stomach on to the cobbles to laughter and accusations that he must be a babe, a tot and, worst, a girl. All of the lads were cowed with shame at his parade of tender feeling, remembering and hating their own tears when they first saw one of G.o.d's creatures killed. Now they were grown, they were determined to show no mercy to any one of their set who might show such weakness.

The women then reappeared; the money was counted out and distributed to its new owners. The pale dog glowed with pride, rubbing against its master's leg, tongue lolling from the side of its mouth like a piece of wet, pink rope. I was surrounded by a chorus of voices describing 'his verve, his bright eye, his s.p.u.n.k'. With a sick realisation, I knew this beast had been declared winner. Winner. I did not want to reflect on how this decision had been reached. The women, skirts empty now, slopped the cobbles up and down with long sticks wadded with rags. The bodies were put into sacks, and weighted down with stones for their short journey to the river.

I felt strangely tall, as though my neck were stretched long as a giraffe's, and I was looking down upon the proceedings from a great height: a distance so immense and comforting I could almost make believe I was not in this ghastly place. But there was no true escape. I was here. I had not screamed out stop. I was as guilty as every man present. The man in the golden waistcoat emerged once again from the wall of onlookers and held up a rectangle of glossy leather. He cleared his throat and all fell quiet.

'Gentlemen!' he boomed. 'Behold this wallet, found on the savage!'

He dipped his hand inside the purse and drew out a white paper of exquisite cleanness.

'See what was within! A five-pound note!'

The crowd exhaled, a wave of air that caused me to stagger.

'To the victor, the spoils!'

He thrust the money at the owner of the winning dog, who was promptly hoisted on to the shoulders of a pack of onlookers and paraded around the square. My mind began to squeal rusty cogs.

'But if the Moor was carrying a wallet and five pounds, how could he be a savage?' I said to my husband. He ignored me, so I tugged his sleeve. 'Mr Arroner,' I continued; for all that my thoughts were reeling I was determined to be heard, even if only in this small matter. 'Where did his money come from?'

'Whose?'

'The Moor.'

He shrugged. 'He stole it.'

'Maybe it was his own. Why should it not be his own?'

Mr Arroner peered down at me and I squared my shoulders.

'How so?' he said.

'I have sewn enough shirts to know that his was a good one. Before you took me to wife.' I swallowed sourness, but forced myself to speak. 'And he was clean-shaven.'

'So?'

'So maybe he was no thief. No savage.'

He lowered his face and lifted my veil. 'My dear wife.' He looked at me properly for the first time that day that week, that month: too long to reckon. 'He was a savage. Caught red-handed. There's an end to it.'

He dropped the curtain. Still I would not allow it. Some of the company had begun to gather around, listening to our exchange.

'If he was a thief, and this money stolen, then will not its true owner come searching for it?'

'You are too inquisitive.'

He returned his hand to the back of my neck, and squeezed.

'I believe that he was no savage,' I said quietly. 'He was merely different. Like me.'

'Dear wife, have you learned nothing today?' He stared down the curious glances of those around us. 'Yes!' he said boldly. 'Yes, I believe you know me, gentlemen!' He swept off his chimney-pot of a hat and brandished it before him. 'I am indeed Josiah Arroner, the True Originator of Arroner's Anatomical Marvels. One of those marvels accompanies me now. Veiled for her protection or for yours? Who can tell? You may view our unusual entertainments each day at-'

'Yes, yes, give it a rest,' grunted one.

'Nothing we haven't seen before,' said another.

'Off to see the Two-Headed Nightingale, so we are.'

'Surprised you aren't going there yourself,' snickered one fellow, thrusting a playbill at my husband. 'Look.'

My husband's hands trembled as he took the sheet of paper, gave it a cursory glance, and then handed it back.

'No. You keep it, mate. Might help you catch up.'

'Yeah. Lagging behind, as I hear it.'

They turned away, having had enough diversion for one afternoon.

As we made our slow pa.s.sage away from the dreadful place, a slender man approached my husband and touched his arm.

'Mr Arroner, ain't it?'

'It is, sir,' he puffed.

'I believe I have found something for you, sir, knowing as I do your taste for the strange.'

'Indeed?'

He feigned indifference, but I could sense his curiosity was stimulated. The man leaned into his ear.

'I can get you a lady-boy. A real one. It's got a p.r.i.c.k and a f.a.n.n.y; one t.i.t small and one big.' He paused, and flicked his eyes about. 'It's in Birmingham, so the travel will cost you. But you won't regret a penny. It's real. Can dance a polka too.'

My husband drew himself upright, which was barely the height of the pinched man before him, and pushed out his chin.

'Sir,' he growled. 'Mine is a respectable exhibition. Educational.'

'It is educational.' He leered. 'Think of the pamphlets. The ill.u.s.trations.'

'No, I will not have it. It is intolerable.'

'Not to mention the many other ways it can make you money,' he murmured.

'You disgust me.'

'Please yourself.' The man shrugged. 'I hear your shows have a lot of empty seats this season. This could be just the tonic you need.'

'There is nothing wrong with my audiences.'

'Not what I've heard. Come now. Think of the crowds it'll bring in.'

'Never. A thing like that should have its unnecessary parts cut off.'

'And cut off its income? We've all got a right to earn a crust.'

'What do you take me for?'

'A man who shows freaks for a living.'

'I am a married man,' he cried, though no-one was listening save myself. 'A gentleman. I have refinement and taste.'

'Like I said, suit yourself. No skin off my a.r.s.e.' He paused. 'How about a Dog-Boy? I can get you a Dog-Boy.'

My husband sighed, jingling his winnings in the pocket of his breeches. 'I could have used one of those Blacks, you know. The Missing Link. What a wasted opportunity.'

'Oh no, Mr Arroner, not those two,' said the skinny man. 'They wouldn't of done it. Don't you think I tried to find out?'

'Indeed?'

'No. They wouldn't bend, not like Blacks should do. Not that pair. No choice there but dogs.'