Mister Creecher (23 page)

‘Bradbury?’ said Billy, wondering how the dour tattooed man could change anyone’s life.

‘I rescued him from a spot of bother in Venice,’ said Browning. ‘He was accused of murder, but I had been a witness. Bradbury had certainly killed the man, but it was self-defence.

‘I managed to save him from the hangman’s noose and paid his fine. I asked him where he was staying, assuming, from his American accent and tattoos, he was a sailor. But I was surprised to learn that, although he had been a sailor, a series of misfortunes had led to him being part of a freak show.

‘The owner of that freak show was a vile character,’ Browning continued. ‘He treated those poor creatures as though he were running a menagerie. And even then – no keeper of animals would have been so cruel.

‘I resolved there and then to create my own freak show, but one in which those whose gifts were being exhibited were shown respect and humanity.

‘I had found my vocation. I bought the freak show from him and it came to form the core of this great enterprise. We few travelled through Europe, through the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and India, collecting companions as we went. The results, you see around –’

Browning’s long speech was cut short by a bout of coughing. He pulled a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his mouth. Billy saw the flecks of blood on it as he wiped his lips and put it back in his pocket.

‘This northern air doesn’t agree with me,’ Browning said, with another cough. ‘You must excuse me.’

CHAPTER XXXII.

It took another couple of hours for the carnival to ready itself for paying visitors. The tents had yet to be decorated and hung with signs and images that hinted at the treasures within, without telling too much.

A great deal of effort was put into deciding how to present Creecher to best effect. Browning and Bradbury were in discussion for some time before they hit upon the idea of having a circular tent, devoid of all imagery, with only the words
The French Ogre
emblazoned across it.

‘The visitors will do a much better job of telling their friends what he looks like than we could ever do in a painting,’ Browning reasoned.

Inside the tent would be a large, round cage that appeared to be substantial but was, in actual fact, mainly constructed of painted wood. Creecher would sit inside the cage in chains.

After his experience in Oxford, the giant took a lot of persuasion to agree to this staging. Browning said that the chains were vital to the effect, that no one was going to believe that he was dangerous unless he was chained.

He showed Creecher again and again that the chains were not real and that he could open the manacles himself should he so wish. In the end, the giant consented, though with little enthusiasm.

While Creecher’s cage was being constructed, the other exhibits had to be brought out and arranged in the various tents. The carnival performers were getting into their costumes and taking up their positions. Slowly but surely, the whole place was being transformed.

It was twilight now. Browning had explained to Billy that the carnival was ‘a dream’ – ‘a fever dream’, Bradbury had interjected – and night was needed as a backdrop. Even though Billy had seen the performers all day and had grown used to them – or, at least, had been able to stop himself staring – it all seemed very different now that torchlight was taking over from daylight.

‘Have a look round before the crowds arrive,’ said Browning, with evident pride. ‘If there is a greater show on earth, I’d like to see it!’

So Billy wandered around, from stall to stall, tent to tent. There was Chaney, ‘The Wolf Man’, and Kafka, ‘The Human Beetle’. A large tank of water decorated with sea shells and corals contained Agnes, ‘The Mermaid’ – a woman who appeared to have a long fish’s tail instead of legs. Her flesh looked soft and pale and she floated in the cloudy liquid like a drowned body, her long red hair draped like seaweed over her naked torso. Billy started, dry-mouthed.

Lily and Milly, the conjoined twins, walked by.

‘Good evening, Billy,’ they said together.

‘Evening, ladies,’ said Billy with a nod. ‘You’re looking very fine.’

Lily and Milly looked at each other, a hand clasped to each mouth, then they blushed and hurried away, giggling.

Billy entered a large tent with a banner over the entrance saying
Browning’s World of Wonders
, which Browning had already told him contained some of the curios he had collected at great expense during the course of his travels.

One large glass tank held a two-headed sheep, both faces carrying the same forlorn expression. A three-headed dog stared ferociously from another large tank.

There was one jar in particular that caught Billy’s attention, containing a strange figure. It had the proportions of a small child, but with strangely adult features. Besides which, it was too small even for a child, being only about a foot tall. The label read:
Homunculus
.

Billy remembered Creecher saying that word.
Homunculus
. It was what alchemists were trying to make.

There did not seem to be much connection between this sad, little pickled figure and Creecher’s giant form. Billy leaned in for a closer look and the eyes of the homunculus opened. He stepped back, startled. Looking again, the eyes were shut once more, but there was something about that thing that made Billy’s fresh creep. He left the tent without turning back.

He immediately walked into a tall, beautiful woman dressed in a tightly-waisted red silk dress. Coiled around her long neck and narrow shoulders was a very large snake.

‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ purred the woman.

‘No,’ said Billy, his gaze shifting between the woman and the snake.

‘My name is Lamia,’ she said, with a crooked smile.

‘Oh.’

The woman smiled, and a tongue flicked out between her lips – the same kind of darting, forked tongue that flicked out of the snake’s mouth. Lamia grinned, revealing a sharp pair of fangs, before walking away towards her tent.

‘Stay away from her if you’ve any sense,’ said Bradbury, who was standing nearby. ‘She’s Eve and the serpent combined.’

Billy had no plans to go anywhere near her or her snake if he could possibly help it. He turned to face Bradbury, who was staring at him with his usual look of contempt.

‘You don’t like me much, do you?’ said Billy.

‘No,’ Bradbury replied matter-of-factly. ‘Nor your friend.’

‘Well, Browning seems very keen, so . . .’ Billy left it at that and began to walk away. Bradbury grabbed him by the arm.

‘Things change,’ he growled. ‘I can smell trouble a mile off.’

‘The giant’s all right,’ said Billy.

‘What makes you think I’m talking about him?’

Billy stared into Bradbury’s face, but the swirling patterns of his tattoos seemed to move and he could not hold his gaze. He shrugged Bradbury’s hand away and walked off without looking back.

The carnival had opened its gates to paying customers and the whole area was seething with people, gawking and staring, giggling and squealing.

Billy decided to go and check on Creecher. He nodded to the man on the entrance and walked in. The tent was packed.

It was hard to get a clear view with so many people in front of him, but even from that distance, and with all the obstruction, Billy could see the unmistakeable form of Creecher, sitting inside the cage.

Browning had placed low lanterns around the outside, so that Creecher was lit from below, hurling a giant shadow up on the canvas above. Browning knew his business: even though Billy had travelled with the giant for months, he felt a shudder go through him at the sight.

The crowd was excitable and noisy, perhaps knowing that silence would invest the scene with even greater dread. A man banged the bar of Creecher’s cage until one of Browning’s men came and stopped him. Browning himself stepped forward, carrying a bright lantern.

‘Behold!’ he cried theatrically. ‘The French Ogre!’

He nodded to Creecher, who stood up and walked forward, chains clanking. The whole crowd took several steps back, gasping as the full horror of the giant became apparent in the lantern light.

Creecher let out a low growling moan. Browning had told him that he must not talk, that the horror would be greater if he was a shambling mute. A woman at the front fainted and had to be carried out. The remaining crowd listened in awed silence as Browning recounted the wholly fictitious history of the French Ogre.

Creecher shuffled back into the shadows and the show was over. The crowd left, looking nervously over their shoulders as they did so. Browning clapped his hands and almost danced a jig. Everyone agreed it had been a great success.

But Billy noticed that Creecher himself did not join this celebration. The giant sat sullenly alone for some time after the show was over, brooding darkly in the shadows.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Over the next few weeks, Browning’s Carnival of Freaks made its steady way along the arterial waterways of the Midlands. Town after town came to see ‘The French Ogre’ and went on their way, unnerved and horrified, satisfied that their money had been well spent, eager to tell their workmates and families of the wonders they had seen.

Creecher’s fame spread along the canals, through the mills and mines, factories and foundries, and the expectation of his arrival became ever more heightened as they moved north.

Crowds of people would greet the narrowboats before they had even arrived at the town in question, eager to catch a glimpse of the giant – something Browning was just as eager, now, to avoid, and Creecher was forced to sit under a tarpaulin.

Billy could not tell what the giant made of this attention. Most of the time while they travelled he would sit alone under cover, reading his books, ignoring all around him.

But, at other times, Billy thought he detected a kind of vanity developing in Creecher. There seemed to be a haughtiness in him sometimes – as though he enjoyed his new-found celebrity status. Browning was only too pleased to encourage the giant to think of himself in such terms. He told them several times that, in all his days taking carnivals across Europe, he had never seen the degree of interest and excitement that Creecher had generated.

But Creecher made it very clear that they would not be staying. The carnival was simply a means to an end, and it was that end – the pursuit of Frankenstein – that remained uppermost in his thoughts.

At every mention of the inevitable time of their departure, Browning would become more and more animated on this subject and offer greater rewards to induce them to stay. But the more enthusiastic Browning was, the more sullen and silent Creecher became in response.

Billy had wondered if the giant might be tempted to take him up on the offer. After all, was this not the best chance he had of belonging somewhere? Was not his best chance at normality here among the abnormal?

But Billy realised that, in truth, Creecher did not consider himself a freak – and the other freaks knew it. Their earlier acceptance of the giant had turned to a kind of cold indifference. Increasingly, Billy and the giant found themselves on the outer edges of the camp, neither able to fit in. Then one night, everything changed.

They had arrived at Manchester as dusk fell. Billy had heard of the city but had never really had an image of the place, and he was startled by its sheer scale, its wide, straight streets and alien architecture.

It was a very different crowd than they had experienced thus far, too. Maybe Creecher’s fame was starting to work against him: perhaps the audience now felt that he had to do something more than they had expected. Maybe the giant could not be as astonishing as his publicity.

Whatever the reason, there was a hostility to the crowd. Billy could feel the tension and it made him nervous. He could see that Browning felt it, too.

When it came to showtime, as usual, Browning stepped forward and lit up the giant’s cage with a lantern. And, as usual, the crowd took a step back when they saw the full horror of Creecher – the size of him, the full ghastly look of him.

But when Creecher returned to the back of the cage and the relative gloom, there was a momentary pause before the crowd stepped forward again – though not as close as before.