Jamrach's Menagerie (37 page)

‘Are you al right?’ she asked.

I kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’ve not been standing there al day, have you?’

‘’Course not, you sil y creature,’ she said. ‘I’ve been in and out.’

We stood back. I was grinning rather foolishly, I thought.

Her eyes were pained.

‘Are you al right?’ she asked again, looking closely at me.

‘I’m not so bad.’

‘I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘Wel , there you go.’ I laughed, a pointless snigger.

‘Come on.’ She took my arm and led me into a court with a long flagged drain down the middle and a blacksmith’s shop at the far end. The sound of metal hammering rang from the eaves, and a tal black horse stood tethered at the gate, head in its nosebag. Their house was on the left, a half door, a bucket of suds, a deep windowsil on which shel s were distributed, a large scal op and a few scotch bonnets. It was bigger and cleaner than their old place, and smel ed of laundry and fish and Ma’s old broth that I used to dream about on the boat. Charley Grant stood straddle-legged with his back to a blazing fire, above which a kettle on a hook vibrated and hummed quietly. His face was pink as a ham and he’d fattened up since I last saw him.

‘Jaf,’ he said, coming forward and gripping my shoulder warmly but awkwardly, ‘very, very good to see you home.’

‘It’s good to
be
home.’

A lad of about eighteen months sat in a high chair at the table, a wooden spoon clasped in one porridgy fist.

‘Looks nice, don’t he, Charl?’ Ma said proudly, prodding me into a chair opposite the child.

‘That he does.’

‘Who do you think this is, eh Jaf?’

The child had a snub, broad face and a surprisingly luxuriant growth of brown curls right on top of his head. He looked at me appraisingly, and I winked at him.

‘That’s your little brother, Jaf,’ Ma said briskly. ‘His name’s David.’

‘What!’

‘There’s a surprise for you! David! Say hel o to your big brother, Jaffy.’

David and I regarded each other with interested suspicion.

Of course, it wasn’t that surprising. She wasn’t so old.

Looked it though. Ma had aged. Not yet forty, I supposed.

She was young when she had me. Strange it was, al this. I felt very far away. After al my time at sea, this steamy room, the child, the smiling man with his ham face and braces, the heat, the bowl of broth she placed before me, the hunk of bread, the unmistakeable air of the river beyond these wal s

– everything a fancy in my head, something flashing in front of my eyes at the moment of faint.

The broth was food for gods.

I found myself crying.

‘There now, it’s al over,’ Ma said, bending and putting her arms round me, swamping me with her old familiar smel .

‘Everything’s going to be al right from now on.’

‘I know, I know.’

She showed me my room. It was tiny, but the window looked out over rooftops towards the river, where the masts of tal ships traced the sky. A lovely bed she’d made up for me, with a silky counterpane patterned with red flowers, and beside it, on a squat four-legged stool, a spray of honesty in that old green jug we used to have on the mantelpiece in Watney Street. My bed. Al I wanted to do was get into it and sleep and sleep. But when my head touched the pil ow and Ma drew the curtains and kissed me goodnight and went out closing the door softly, my mind ploughed uneasy bil ows in the darkness. Al the things I had to do: go see Ishbel and her mother. Get that over with. Sleep. A lot. Everyone said I needed it, the doctor on the ship, the doctor in Valparaiso.

What else? Get myself back, my mind, that is – reel it in from these far chasms and boiling seas, think about the future that might never have been. What to do now? Go out and meet the eyes. Everyone knows. Nothing was hidden. These people of the docks have lived so long with the sea and heard so many mariners’ tales, nothing surprises them. They won’t look askance at me. Stil , there’l be something in their eyes, a knowing.

I slept at last, but sleep was not restful and tossed like the sea. This was when I started to fathom these deepest deeps, and conclude nothing.

Mr Jamrach came to see me next morning. I heard his voice, he was talking to Ma, saying he’d had a long talk with Dan Rymer, and that Dan had said he would not ever go back to sea. Ma said, wel , it was about time he settled down, wasn’t it? A man his age with such a young family. ‘He wants to stay at home now and enjoy what he’s got,’ she said. I could hear David chuckling in the background. He was like that. He’d sit and play with his fingers and chuckle and chatter to himself, quite wrapped up in some happy world of his own for ages.

I didn’t want to go down. I wouldn’t. No one could make me. Not yet. It was al too much for me at the moment, I’d just stay in bed for as long as I possibly could. Days even, if they’d let me. While I worked out what to do next. Sleep. That was the thing. Life now would be simple: fish, soup, warmth, sleep, baccy, beer. My head was spinning: al the sounds, the smel s, the endless proliferation. Yet so many gone. So when she came in and said Mr Jamrach’s come to see you, I said I was feeling too tired to get up, and he cal ed out not to worry, another time would do, and I turned over and tried to get back to sleep, tried hard, hard, with the light seeping in the window.

Next day though she made me get up and she shooed me out of the house. First I went to the barber’s then to see Mr Jamrach. Cobbe was stil in the yard, looking just the same as ever only balder, which gave him the look of a convict. He put down his bucket and came over and embraced me gruffly, a thing I never could have imagined in a mil ion years.

‘Hel o, Cobbe,’ I said.

He grunted and walked away.

Something in the yard was changed but I couldn’t work out what it was. Jamrach’s fat Japanese pig was eating cabbage down the far end. Mr Jamrach saw me through the window and came out to greet me. He’d thickened and widened and reddened since I last saw him. ‘At last!’ he cried, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Jaffy boy! Feeling better?’

‘Very much better,’ I replied, feeling nothing of the sort. I had no idea why I was out of my bed and couldn’t wait to get back to it.

He clapped me on the shoulder, man to man. ‘This business, Jaf,’ he said, looking me in the eye, ‘a terrible thing.’

‘Yes.’

‘Terrible.’

I nodded.

‘Come into the office.’

There was a new boy in an alcove al of his own, scrabbling about with a pile of paperwork and whistling cheerful y. Not as messy as the old days when Bulter lol ed about behind the desk. Charlie the toucan was stil going strong, but the old parrot Flo had fal en prey to tuberculosis and departed this life. Mr Jamrach sent the boy away and poured coffee from a pot on the stove. It was cold outside and cosy in here, smoky as ever. Charlie sat in my arms and nibbled my ear.

I asked how things were going.

‘Not bad, not bad,’ he said, putting back his head and blowing smoke towards the ceiling. Then he told me he’d got his son Albert in with him now and was training him up to run the business. Only Albert was at home today with a bad cold.

‘Shame,’ I said.

Mr Jamrach offered me a pipe, relit his own and sat back.

It was an awkward meeting. For a while we sat and smoked, saying nothing.

‘Coffee al right?’ he asked. ‘Not too strong?’

‘No, just right.’

‘That’s the ticket.’

‘You know, Jaf,’ he said, leaning forward, his sad old eyes blinking, ‘I can’t begin to find the words—’

‘It’s al right, Mr Jamrach.’ I disengaged Charlie’s claws from my jacket. ‘I know it’s awkward.’

‘No, I mean to say …’ He gestured with one hand. ‘I mean to say … what you suffered is beyond my imagination. I want you to know that …’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘… anything at al that I can do …’

‘Of course.’

‘You know Dan’s retired?’

‘I know. He told me in Valparaiso.’

Such a curious feeling. As if Tim was standing in the room with us.

‘You’re stil very young, Jaf,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t let this blight your life.’

‘I know.’

‘There’s not a spot of blame on you.’

‘I know.’

‘People understand.’

‘I know.’

I could have sworn I’d see him if I looked around.

‘Of course, no one expects you to do anything yet, but you know there’s always a job here if you …’

‘I know.’

But he and I both knew there was no hurry. Mr Fledge had proved generous to me and Dan. Anyway, I don’t know where he thought he could fit me in. Clearly I could no longer be a yard boy, and a desk job would never do for me. I had no idea what I was going to do, to tel the truth. Stil had a swirling sea in my head.

‘I real y don’t suppose I’l come back here,’ I said.

‘No.’ He nodded thoughtful y. ‘I can see why.’

‘Anyway,’ I said, looking around, ‘it’s nice to see the old place again.’

‘Not so much changed, eh?’

‘A little.’

‘It’s a bit neater the way it’s laid out now. That’s Albert,’ he said.

We sat for a while longer, then he said, ‘Wel , when you decide what it is you want to do with yourself, come to me, won’t you, Jaf? Because whatever it is, you know that …’

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ I said.

I had to go. We stood up. Charlie flew onto Jamrach’s shoulder. The lobby was ful of finches waiting to be moved into one of the bird rooms. Newly come from the docks, the birds hunched neckless in their tiny boxes, sul en with the change. A wave of nausea weakened me but I don’t think he saw it.

‘You take care of yourself, Jaf,’ he said, ‘and come straight to me, you know, if there’s anything you want.

Promise?’

Suffocation was on the air. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

‘Sure,’ I said.

He shook me firmly by the hand, looking at me hard with pained, watery eyes.

‘You want to get yourself an aviary, Mr Jamrach,’ I said.

He smiled, looking sadly at the birds for a long moment.

‘It’s not ideal,’ he agreed, ‘but, there you are, there isn’t the space.’

He opened the door. Charlie had slid down onto his chest and nestled there like a newborn deer, casting up his round ridiculous eye.

Out in the street I stood for a while breathing the ripe air and considering. Had to go see Tim’s ma. I walked along slowly, dreading, thinking I’d just go home instead. Have to get it over with, though. Ishbel might be there. The thought of it made me hol ow. Tel me, just what do you say? Look at it this way, Mrs Linver. At least
I
came back.

Come on, let’s get it over with.

Not yet.

I slipped into the seamen’s bethel. Nothing changed.

Jephtha and his daughter stil there. Old Job and his boils.

What a homecoming! I went into a kind of dream in there. I had money in my pocket so I just about wiped them out of candles. Now! Here’s fun! Trying not to forget anyone. I decided to start with Ishbel’s brothers, remembering that day when she and I came in here – that day – where had we been? Was it the day she fel out with Tim after we’d been on the swingboats? Anyway, one each for those brothers, tal , upstanding, side by side, for ever faceless. Next, count: Joe Harper making the cage on deck, his sliding toolbox. One and two: Mr Rainey with his sneer. Three: the captain, of course, more like a big schoolboy than the captain of a whale ship. Four: ah now, Martin Hannah, pudding. Abel Roper. And are you? Are you that, Mr Roper? Ha ha ha!

That’s five. Six. Each one a light coming into being, quivering, standing tal and straight in the quiet chapel.

Gabriel. My friend. Yan holding my sick bucket. Bil y Stock, outraged. Where am I? Let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight? Nine: oh, Mr Comeragh, he was a nice man. Poor Mr Comeragh got bitten by the dragon. What a wild, ancient thing that was. Did he get back to his island? Is he walking with weird rounded steps along his sandy beach, flick-a-tongue, low swaying of the head? Nine: Wilson Pride, flat-footed, bloodshot eyes. Ten: Henry Cash, head like a seal, going under. Eleven: Felix Duggan, mouthy, nuisance.

Twelve: Simon, of course, playing his fiddle. We never found out what became of the captain and Simon. And Sam, thirteen. Sam Proffit, whose voice was a silver thread. Dag.

Dag Aarnasson, who hunted the dragon with me. Fourteen.

Fifteen …

I went blank. There was, of course, we last four, me and Dan and Tim and Skip, which stil left two more. It was horrible, not remembering. As if by losing them in my mind I was consigning them to outer darkness for al time.

John Copper! How could I forget?

I’ve missed someone. Or have I miscounted? Start again.

One, two three, four …

In the end I got it. I wouldn’t have left there if anyone was missing. I looked back from the door. My twenty candles burned steadily.

It was Saturday. Mrs Linver lived in Fournier Street now, so I wandered in that direction, hands in pockets, col ar up. I passed by Watney Street and walked past our old house and looked out for a sign of Mr Reuben or Mrs Regan or anyone else, but the door was closed and there was no one sitting on the step. Three times I bumped into people I knew and had to stop and talk, stand and get clapped once more on the shoulder, my face searched nervously, congratulated on my survival. I pushed on through the Saturday Highway of whores and drunken sailors, mulish laughter, shrieking hilarity, screeching fiddles beyond doors. The pot man, a short dirty man smoking a short dirty pipe, leaned in the doorway of Spoony’s. He wasn’t there in my time. I thought about going in and having a drink, in fact getting filthy drunk and fal ing asleep on the floor til some woman came and hauled me off somewhere soft to sleep it off. But this cloud, hovering: go see Tim’s ma. Got to be done. Ishbel might be there. I hear she’s gone into service but stil , she might be there. Her face like his. There’s no forgetting Tim. The taste of a raspberry puff. Push on, Jaf, push through. Go down to the docks and get on the first ship that’l have you.