Pumping Up Napoleon (15 page)

‘I don't think so,' says Mort.

‘But your head's almost touching the roof.'

‘Maybe the pressure's gone down. I'll get Piet to take a look.'

‘The amazing invisible Piet,' says Baby Joe. Then he puts up his hand for Mort to pull him to his feet.

Baby Joe stands next to Mort. Mort sags a little at the knees.

‘I think I'd better get the doctor to take a look at you,' says Baby Joe. ‘We don't want you getting too big; it isn't natural.'

It is 3am before Mort is measured.

‘Four-feet-two,' says the doctor, yawning. ‘Unless I'm very much mistaken, which at
this
time of night would be excusable.' She checks again. ‘Nope. Four-feet-two. Have you been taking your pills?'

‘Of course,' says Mort. He glances at Joe, who is sleeping like a big peaceful baby.

‘So how come you're growing?' says the doctor. She was ‘capped' at three-feet-ten-and-a-half inches, to be on the safe side (no sense wasting that expensive education).

Mort shrugs. ‘Maybe my body just really
wants
to grow.'

‘So you need a double-dose? Is that what you're saying?'

‘Err… maybe.'

‘Sure thing,' says the doctor. ‘And if that doesn't work we can use injections or maybe even a slow-release implant. Don't worry; we'll get this thing under control.'

When the doctor has gone, Baby Joe opens his eyes and says: ‘What did she mean about pills?'

‘Vitamins,' says Mort.

‘No,' says Baby Joe. ‘There's something else. Tell me.'

‘I can't,' says Mort. ‘I'm not supposed to tell.'

‘I order you to tell.'

‘But this comes from higher up,' says Mort.

‘There's no one higher up than me,' says Baby Joe.

‘There always something higher up,' says Mort.

‘No, no, no!' shouts Baby Joe and he throws himself on his cushions and bites them, and sheds real tears.

‘You won't like it,' says Mort.

Baby Joe sits up. ‘Tell me anyway.'

Mort folds him arms. ‘I don't think I should.'

‘I'll give you anything you want.'

Mort looks at Baby Joe's purple plush all-in-one, his big soft cushions. ‘Got any chocolate?' says Mort.

‘Can chocolate make you grow?' says Mort. He is sitting out on the quayside, where no boats are, with Piet the security officer. Water sloshes beneath the concrete surface where they sit; like most of the city, the island is built on piles. Across the water are the deserted docklands of Amsterdam, the scrapheaps where gangs of children used to clamber. The bridge to the island was blown up long ago.

Piet is on duty, so he's wearing his dark uniform, but when his shifts are over he becomes the island's unofficial gardener, growing vegetables in the little park – a patch of wood, wild lawn and dark earth that has its incongruous existence in the middle of the concrete island.

Piet is breaking a chocolate bar and counting out the squares. ‘Two for me. One for you.'

Mort gives him a look.

‘What?' says Piet. ‘Come on. I'm twice your size. Though now you come to mention it I think you
are
getting taller.'

With a guilty look, Mort shakes his head.

‘In which case you'd better
not
have too much,' says Piet. ‘Because you know they won't keep you here if you get too big.'

‘How's the little guy?' asks Big Joe. ‘How's my little barrel of organs?' Just lately, he's been thinking a lot about Baby Joe. It's all that gets him to sleep at night, when his heartbeat turns lumpy. He's thinking of getting closer to his clone-son, in case an emergency operation is needed.

His assistant looks at the last page in the leather-bound report and frowns. He reads it to himself again.

‘Actually, it appears he's a little depressed. He's overeating. Got himself a bit of a weight problem.'

‘Overweight? Depressed?' shouts Big Joe, leaping out of his chair. ‘I gave orders he was supposed to be kept happy.'

‘It seems that happiness has involved a few too many doughnuts.'

‘Fire that dietician!' screams Big Joe. ‘Get him on an exercise regime. Do I have to think of everything myself?'

‘If we fire the dietician,' says Mort, ‘what's to stop him going to the papers, or telling his story to some human rights organisation?'

‘You're right,' says Piet.

‘Besides, where will we get another one?'

‘We couldn't get a short person right away,' agreed Piet. ‘But the dietician doesn't necessarily have to speak to Baby Joe. After all, he's never seen me, but that doesn't stop me doing my job.'

‘I think it's best to leave things as they are,' says Mort.

‘What do you mean there's been a fire?!' shouts Big Joe.

His assistant reads out the latest report, in full.

Baby Joe had agreed to give up the doughnuts, if he could have one last feast. But the vat of oil in the catering caravan overheated and burst into flames. Baby Joe's life had been in danger and he had to be evacuated from the igloo. Unfortunately there hadn't been time to cover his eyes, so when he saw giants with fire hoses running towards him, he began, not unnaturally, to scream.

‘What's happening?' says Big Joe. ‘For years it's been quiet and now when I need the little guy to be happy and healthy and look after my organs like he should it's one thing after another.'

His assistant hesitates before reading out the psychoanalyst's report: it seems that Baby Joe is having an existential crisis. His whole perception of reality has been called into doubt.

Big Joe moves to Amsterdam; but he isn't ready to visit the island. ‘We've got to find something to distract him,' he says. ‘All we have to do is keep him happy for a very short time: surely that should be possible.'

Big Joe calls in the circus.

It takes a while. It's not easy to assemble a circus made up only of the very short: children, dwarves and midgets. Then it takes a while for them all to be screened, checked, and tested for infections.

At last the show is ready to go. The centre of the warehouse is transformed into a circus ring and the little Prince is brought out of his igloo for the occasion. He wears a silk mask over nose and mouth, so that only his eyes convey his determination not to be amused.

Baby Joe mounts his throne; Mort stands behind him and the show begins. A short dark man is the ringmaster, and there are children and midget acrobats turning cartwheels and building pyramids, followed by dwarves with baggy trousers and red noses, throwing custard; a short muscular man in tights walks the high wire.

Beneath his silk mask, Baby Joe does nothing to stifle a yawn.

Then to a fanfare of trumpets comes the bareback rider. She is a dark-haired girl of perhaps fifteen, in pink spangles, aboard a white pony. The pony's hooves rap out a canter on the hard floor as the girl tumbles about on his back, balancing, bending, and turning as if she weighs no more than a doll. Girl and pony are tiny, but perfectly proportioned; and they look as if they are having fun.

Mort can't take his eyes off her. Neither can Baby Joe.

A week later, Big Joe receives some reassuring news: ‘Your son has upped his exercise regime,' says the assistant, ‘and he's laying off the doughnuts.'

‘Good,' says Big Joe. ‘But let's get one thing straight: he's not my son.'

A week later the circus troupe is still on the island. The boat they came in is untidy with bored performers, longing to get under way. But Baby Joe won't let them leave.

‘This is what it used to sound like,' says Piet, looking blissful as he listens to the slap of ropes in the wind and the complicated lapping of water.

‘Hello, you two,' says Priscilla, the bareback rider.

‘Hello, young lady,' says Piet. ‘How is our little Prince today?'

‘I've been teaching him to do handstands,' says Priscilla. ‘He's asking for you, Mort.'

Mort crawls into the igloo and stands up. His head is pushing against the rubber ceiling now and he doesn't even try to hide it.

‘Priscilla's been telling me the truth,' says Baby Joe. ‘She says she's seen giants too. And there are stories about them eating people and….'

‘The person you saw was Piet,' says Mort. ‘He doesn't eat people. He's here to protect you.'

‘From what?' whispers Baby Joe. ‘From the other giants?'

‘Let's call it Harvest Time,' says Big Joe, when he hears that his old heart and lungs are giving way. His need is greater now than Baby Joe's. No more waiting.

His Chief Physician and Chief Surgeon look at each other. ‘As you know,' says the Chief Surgeon, ‘it was always our intention to replace non-vital organs first. So it will take some time to complete the sequence of transfers. The heart and lungs will have to come last, of course. But they can usefully be removed together. Skin grafts can be done at the very end, together with the hair transplant.'

‘So what comes first?'

‘An eye, a kidney and possibly a lobe of the liver,' says the Chief Physician. ‘That will do to begin with.'

‘All right,' says Big Joe. ‘Let's do it. Make it as soon as possible.' He turns to his assistant. ‘In the meantime give the little guy anything he wants. Just make him happy.'

The ringmaster complains to Mort. ‘How long must we stay here?'

‘As long as it takes,' says Mort. ‘Why? You're being paid aren't you? And looked after.'

‘We want to leave, that's all,' says the ringmaster. ‘And we won't go without Priscilla.'

‘I think we may have to get Priscilla to leave,' says Mort.

‘Are you feeling left out, Mort?' says Piet. ‘Is that it? The little Prince doesn't have much time for you these days, does he?'

Mort shrugs. ‘She's very pretty,' he says. ‘I can understand he'd rather look at her than me.'

‘She's keeping him nice and quiet,' says Piet. ‘That's all I care about.'

But then Priscilla asks Mort and Piet if Baby Joe can leave the igloo.

‘It's about time that boy had some fresh air,' she says. ‘I can't believe you've kept him zipped up in there all these years.'

‘He's not supposed to go out,' says Piet. ‘The risk of infection….'

‘Is the same for everybody...' says Priscilla. ‘Come on; why shouldn't he live a little?'

But Piet says no.

One day, when he is digging a deep trench in the garden, Piet hears laughter among the trees and then from between them sees the white pony carrying Priscilla, and Baby Joe sitting up behind her.

‘Hello, Big Piet!' shouts Baby Joe, waving his hand as Priscilla turns the pony around and gallops away with the little Prince.

‘Mort!' shouts Piet, running after them. Baby Joe looks back, laughing at him.

But he stops laughing when Piet's legs crumple, when his body sags to the earth. ‘Turn around!' he tells Priscilla.

‘What for?' she says.

Baby Joe is frantic: ‘I order you.'

She reins in the pony. ‘You forget yourself,' she says. ‘I'm not your servant.' But then she sees what Baby Joe is looking at: Piet lying prone, his face in the earth. As they reach him, so does Mort.

‘Do something,' says Baby Joe.

‘Help me,' says Mort. Between the three of them they manage to turn Piet over.

‘It's no good,' says Mort, getting up from his knees. ‘He's gone.'

‘Why did it happen?' says Baby Joe.

‘It happens,' says Mort. ‘Nobody lives forever.'

‘What shall we do with him?' says Priscilla. ‘What about his family?'

Mort shakes his head.

The three of them decide to bury Piet's body in the garden. ‘Not here though,' says Mort. ‘We don't want him feeding the runner beans; let's dig a hole for him under a tree.'

It is Mort who digs between the tree roots. At last his spade knocks something hard. ‘Hello,' he says. ‘Are we down to the concrete again?' But here the concrete is not whole. The roots have broken through it. ‘Look,' says Mort. ‘It's the bottom of the island.'

He scrabbles about and there are splashes as lumps of concrete fall into the water. Mort puts his head down between the tree roots. ‘Look at that,' he says. There is the water, four or five feet below. Beneath the surface of the island there is another world, of tangled roots. At first these seem impenetrable, but then he sees chunks of daylight, not so far away.