The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (12 page)

‘Who are you
really
? And if you hid something as serious as that from me, what else will I find out about?’

Her eyes are dilated with anger, but even more unbearable is the genuine sadness that frames them.

‘How could you have hidden something so monstrous from me?’ she says again and again.

That bastard Joe has just lit the darkest fuse by digging up my past. I don’t want to lie to my little singer. But I don’t want to tell her everything either, which I guess amounts to a half-lie.

‘All right, so I poked one of his eyes out. Of course I’d much rather it’d never come to that, but what he didn’t tell you was how
he
made my life miserable for years; and, more importantly,
why
 . . . Thanks to Joe, I experienced the blackest hours of my life. At school, I was his favourite victim. Picture it. A new boy, a pipsqueak, whose heart makes strange noises . . . Joe spent his time humiliating me, making me feel how different I was from everyone else. I was a toy for him. One day he smashed an egg on my head, the next day he dented my clock, every day something new, and always in public.’

‘I know he likes to brag. He craves attention. But he’s never really cruel. I’m sure he didn’t give you any reason to behave like a criminal.’

‘I didn’t poke his eye out because he was bragging. The problem goes back much further than that.’

My memories come through in waves and my words are having a hard time riding them. I’m ashamed and saddened. I do my best to express myself calmly.

‘It all started the day before my tenth birthday. It was my first time in town, I can remember it like it was yesterday. I heard you singing, then I saw you. My clock hands pointed towards you, as if attracted to a magnetic field. My cuckoo started singing. Madeleine was restraining me. I escaped her grip to go and stand right in front of you. The way I sang the response, you’d think we were in some outlandish musical comedy. You sang, I answered, we were communicating in a language I didn’t know, but we understood each other perfectly. You danced and I danced with you, even though I had no idea how to dance. Anything felt possible.’

‘I remember, right from the very beginning I remembered. The moment I found you in my dressing room, I knew it was you.’ The sadness doesn’t leave her voice. ‘That strange little boy from when I was ten years old, the one who slumbered at the back of my memories. I was sure it was you . . .’

‘You remember . . . D’you remember what a bubble we were in? It took Madeleine’s fist to burst it.’

‘I stepped on my glasses and when I put them on my nose, they were all bent.’

‘Yes! Glasses with a bandage on the right lens. Madeleine said it was to make the weak eye work harder.’

‘She was right . . .’

‘From that day on, I never stopped dreaming of finding you again. When I discovered where you went to school, I begged Madeleine to let me enrol. I waited for so long, but instead of you I got Joe. Joe and his stooges. On my first day at school, I had the misfortune to ask if anybody knew
the beautiful little singer who’s always bumping into things
. Joe couldn’t bear the fact that you were no longer by his side, so he took all his frustration out on me. He could tell how crazy I was about you, which made him even more jealous. Every morning I walked through the school gates with a knot of panic that stayed in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the day. I endured his attacks at school for three years. Until the day he decided to tear off my shirt, so I was bare-chested in front of the whole school. He wanted to open up my clock and humiliate me even more, but I’d had enough of being pushed around. We got into a fight and it ended badly, very badly, as you know. So I left Edinburgh in the middle of the night, headed for Andalusia. I crossed half of Europe in search of you. It wasn’t always easy. I missed Madeleine, Arthur, Anna and Luna, I still miss them . . . But my greatest dream was to see you again. And now, Joe is back to snatch that dream. He’ll do everything in his power to turn you away from me. He’s already begun, can’t you see?’

‘Do you really think I’d get back together with him?’

‘Look, I don’t doubt you, but what if he destroys the trust we’ve built up piece by piece? I hardly recognise you since he turned up. He’s taken my place on the Ghost Train, he sleeps in our bed, which used to be the only place where we were safe from the outside world. As soon as I turn my back, he spreads gossip about my past . . . I feel as if I’ve been stripped of everything.’

‘But you . . .’

‘Listen to me. One day, he looked me straight in the eye and warned me:
I’ll smash that wooden heart on your head, I’ll smash it so hard you’ll never be able to love again.
He knows where to aim.’

‘You too, or so it would seem.’

‘Why do you think he decided to tell you his version of the story about his poked-out eye?’

She shrugs, like a sad bird.

‘Joe knows how uncompromising you are. He knows how to set fire to the strands of your hair, which connect to your heart grenade. You do a very good impression of a bomb, but he also knows how vulnerable you are underneath. He knows that if he introduces an element of doubt, you might implode. Joe is trying to wear us down so that he can win you back. If you’d only realise that, you could help me stop him.’

She turns towards me, slowly raising her parasol-eyelids. Two fat tears trickle down her magnificent face. Her make-up runs over her crumpled eyelashes. She has a strange talent for looking as captivating in suffering as in joy.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

I kiss her tear-filled mouth. She tastes of overripe fruit. Then Miss Acacia walks away. I watch the forest wrap itself around her, as the shadowy branches gobble her up.

In a few steps she’s vanished. Oh Madeleine, this tempo of shattering dreams makes my gears get noisier, and more painful too. I’ve got this horrible feeling Miss Acacia and I will never see each other again.

C
HAPTER ELEVEN

On the way to Méliès’ workshop, my clock rattles alarmingly. The Alhambra’s bewitching alcoves echo back.

When I get there, nobody’s in. I sit down in the middle of all those cardboard cut-outs. Lost among so many inventions, I become one of them. I’m a human gimmick, who wishes he could ditch the special effects. At my age, the only ‘effect’ I’d like to have on people is being thought of as a proper grown-up man. But have I got the talent to show Miss Acacia what I’m made of, and how much I burn for her? Can she believe in me, or will she always think I’m playing some sort of trick on her?

My dreams stretch to the top of Arthur’s Seat. I’d like to teleport that mountain here, in front of the Alhambra. To find out what’s happened to my makeshift family. I’d give anything for them to appear here, right now. I miss them so badly . . .

Madeleine and Méliès would talk about psychology and ‘tinkering with things’, over a delicious meal cooked from one of my midwife-mother’s secret recipes. She and Miss Acacia would spark each other off on the subject of love; they’d probably tear each other’s hair out too. But all hostilities would cease with the
apéritif
. They’d tease each other, acerbic one moment, kind the next, until they were in cahoots at last. And then Anna, Luna and Arthur would join us, peppering the discussion with tales by turns tragic and outlandish.

‘What’s with the sad face . . . ?’ enquires Méliès, pushing open the door.

‘Come on, little one, let me show you my
belles
!’

The pretty girls keeping him company are a tall giggly blonde, and a plump brunette who drags on her cigarette holder like it’s an oxygen bottle.

‘Ladies, this is my travelling companion,’ Méliès introduces me, ‘my most loyal ally, and the friend who saved me from a broken heart.’

I’m touched. The girls applaud as they bat their tantalising eyelashes.

‘Sorry,’ Méliès adds for my benefit, ‘but I have to retire to my bedchamber for a restorative siesta that may last a few centuries.’

‘And your voyage to the moon?’

‘Everything in its own time, don’t you think? We have to learn to “unwind” every so often. Lying low is all part of the creative process!’

I’d like to talk to him about Joe, to have him look at the state of my gears, to ask him more questions about living with a shooting star, but it’s clearly not the right moment. His birds are already clucking in boiling water, shrouded in cigarette smoke. I’d better leave him to enjoy his sensual bath.

‘Miss Acacia might come by to see me tonight, if that’s all right with you . . .’

‘Of course it is, this is your home too.’

I return to the Ghost Train to pick up the rest of my belongings. The thought of leaving this place for good is another blow to my clock. The Ghost Train is haunted by wonderful memories of Miss Acacia. I was even starting to enjoy the way people found my performances funny.

A large poster featuring Joe has been stuck up over mine. The bedroom is locked. The belongings I couldn’t squeeze into my suitcase are waiting for me in the corridor, piled up on my roller-board. I’ve turned into a bloody ghost! I’m still useless at frightening anyone, nobody laughs when I pass by, nobody sees me. I’m invisible, even to Brigitte Heim’s pragmatic gaze. It’s as if I no longer exist.

A boy calls out from the queue.

‘Excuse me, Señor, but aren’t you the clock-man?’

‘Who, me?’

‘Yes, you! I recognise that noise your heart makes. So . . . are you coming back to the Ghost Train?’

‘No, I’m just leaving, as it happens.’

‘But you’ve got to come back, Señor! It’s not the same without you . . .’

I wasn’t expecting this; something starts vibrating under my gears.

‘I kissed a girl for the first time on this Ghost Train, you see. But she won’t set foot here any more, now we’ve got Big Joe. She’s scared. Don’t leave us to Big Joe, sir!’

‘Yes, we used to have fun here!’ calls out a second kid.

‘Come back,’ another follows up.

While I’m greeting this small gathering and thanking them for their warm words, my cuckoo starts up. Three of the boys clap and a few adults join in timidly.

I climb on to my roller-board and head down the main avenue that flanks the Alhambra, cheered on by a section of the crowd:

‘Come back! Come back!’

All of a sudden, a deep gravelly voice booms: ‘Go away!’

I turn around. Behind me, Joe flashes his winner’s smile. If a Tyrannosaurus could produce a grin, it would look like Joe’s. Rare and terrifying.

‘I’m just leaving, but I’m warning you, I’ll be back. You’ve won the battle for the Ghost Train, but I’m king of the heart that belongs to
you-know-who
.’

The crowd starts to egg us on, like at a cockfight.

‘So, you haven’t noticed anything?’

‘What?’

‘You don’t think Miss Acacia’s behaviour has changed towards you?’

‘Let’s settle this matter in private, Joe. Don’t mention names in public.’

‘You’re the ones I heard arguing in the bathroom last night . . .’

‘Because you’re trying to make her believe terrible things about me.’

‘I simply told her you punched my eye out for no reason. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’

One part of the queue is leaning towards Joe; the other, in the minority, is on my side.

‘You said an old fashioned contest, good and clean. Liar!’

‘What about you? You’re dreaming your life away, trying to turn everything into a special effect, and those romantic inventions of yours are just bullshit. Your style may be different, but it all comes down to the same thing in the end . . . So anyway, have you seen her today?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘I’ve taken your job, I’ve taken your bedroom, and you’ve lost everything. Admit it, Little Jack, you’ve lost her. Yesterday, after your fight, she came knocking on my bedroom door. She wanted to be comforted, because of that jealous fit you’d had . . . I didn’t talk to her about your ridiculous clock business. I talked to her about the real things that matter to everybody. Was she planning to settle down in the area, what sort of house would she like to live in, did she want children, that kind of thing, do you see?’

A shot of doubt. My spine is shaking like a bell. I can hear everything shuddering inside me.

‘And we recalled the day she nearly got trapped in the frozen lake. She buried herself in my arms at that point. Just like before, exactly like before.’

‘I’ll punch your other eye out, you scumbag!’

‘And we kissed. Just like before, exactly like before.’

My head is spinning, I’m losing my grip. Far away, I can hear Brigitte Heim starting to harangue the crowd. The train ride is about to begin. My heart is choking me. I must look as ugly as a condemned man smoking his last cigar.

Before heading off for his performance, Joe taunts me one last time:

‘You didn’t even notice you were losing everything. I thought I’d be dealing with a tougher opponent. You really don’t deserve her.’

I charge at him, my clock hands sticking out. I feel like a miniature bull with plastic horns, and Joe’s the smiling matador preparing to deal the death blow. Effortlessly, he grabs me by the collar with his right hand and sends me sprawling in the dust.

Then he disappears inside the Ghost Train, followed by the crowd. I stay there for what seems an eternity, my left arm propped against my roller-board, unable to react.

I make it back to Méliès’ workshop in the end. But it takes for ever. Each time my minute hand jerks, a knife is being thrust deeper between my bones.

It’s midnight by my heart’s clock. While I’m waiting for Miss Acacia, I stare at the cardboard moon my romantic conjurer has made for his sweetheart. Ten past midnight, twenty-five past, twenty to one. Nobody. My clockwork heart is heating up, there’s trouble brewing. That hedgehog soup is getting fierier, even though I’ve tried not to season it with too many doubts.