The Palace Of Curiosities Part 10

He continues to grin. 'So what brings you to this place?'

'Work,' I say, more confidently. 'I am a slaughter-man. I was a slaughter-man,' I correct myself.

'Ah, indeed?' he says, smiling. 'We are men of the world, are we not? You need say no more. These are troublesome times.'

I nod again, not understanding what is so troublesome.

'I can mend watches,' I offer, hoping to steer the conversation to an easier place.

'A clock-mender! Of course, that is why you were in Nijmegen. You are a clever man, then!'

'Such is luck and life,' I say, the queer words coming easily to my mouth.

He pauses a little, as though to grasp what I am saying; then he laughs again, very loudly.

'You are cheerful,' I remark. 'Every word I say, you laugh.'

'My friend, please do not be offended. I mean no harm. It is a pleasure to speak with you. Truly, truly. It is just that you speak a little oddly.'

'How so?'

He fights his smile. 'I did not think Nijmegen so backward. No, I mean no insult. It is amusing, simply.'

'In what way?'

'The way you speak. It is so formal, so old-fas.h.i.+oned: many of your words have fallen out of use. I can understand you, but it is like listening to my grandfather. Did the Kabouters carry you away to their kingdom under the hill for a night that lasted a hundred years?'

'Perhaps,' I say, not having a better answer.

Alfred returns with the beer and a parcel under his arm. He stands to one side and clears his throat. The Dutchman looks at Alfred; Alfred looks at the Dutchman; and after a while the latter bids me a farewell, and stands.

'I am going to have a pipe of tobacco. You are welcome to join me.'

'I shall,' I say. 'In a little while.'

Alfred sits down.

'Look. Take them,' he says softly, pus.h.i.+ng the bundle at me.

I open the sack to find a pair of boots.

'They will fit. I took your old ones for size.'

They are dark brown, with new laces. The heels have been mended; the leather gleams with careful oiling.

'Do you like them?'

'They are very good.'

'Look,' he says. 'They've been broken in. All the hard work's been done for you. They'll not pinch. The perfect boot.'

'The perfect boot,' I agree, and turn them round the better to inspect them.

'And the heels.'

'Yes, the heels. I believe the heels are the best part.'

His teeth s.h.i.+ne in the lamplight. 'Try them on,' he gasps; then he adds, in a sterner voice, 'To see what they are like.'

They fit well, and I say as much. Alfred rubs his hands together.

'Oh,' I say. 'I am very stupid. I owe you money.'

'No, you don't. You gave it me to save up, don't you recall?'

'But these boots are very good. I did not give you this much.'

'I got a good bargain on the old pair, once I'd polished them up a bit.'

'Oh.' I twist my feet around, enjoying the feel of these fine new boots. 'But these are-'

'I did not steal them, if that is what you mean.'

'I did not mean that at all.'

His forehead is deeply creased. 'Very well,' he mumbles. 'I put in some of my own money.'

'Why would you want to do that?' I ask.

'Why? Is generosity against your sodding ideals, Mr High and Mighty?'

'Shut up, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' comes a shout from a few yards away.

Alfred peers into my face, sucking on his bottom lip. 'I'm sorry,' he says.

I do not understand what he is sorry for, but I know it would be a bad idea to ask. Then the right words come to me.

'Thank you.'

He grunts, but will not look at me.

'You are my friend,' I add, laying my hand on his.

'Not here,' he growls.

I wonder where would be better. Again, I do not ask.

'Anyhow,' he says. 'What was all that about before? What were you saying to that fellow? I didn't understand a word of it.'

'We were talking about Nijmegen.'

'What?'

'It is a town, in Holland. I lived there.' The words become truth the moment I speak them. 'That's where I learned how to mend clocks.'

'You never told me that. Why did you not tell me?'

'I did not remember until today.'

'But I've heard you speak Italian all the men here have.'

'They have.'

'So, which is it? Dutch or Italian?'

'Both?'

It seems true. He looks at me awhile.

'I do not understand you, Abel. Sometimes I do not think I know you at all.'

He drinks the beer and we do not speak again that evening.

I lie awake, staring into the darkness, listening to the snorts and grunts of my fellows, breathing out heavy night's-breath. They have no trouble remembering who they are and where they are, for they never stop talking of wives, lovers, wh.o.r.es, children, themselves as children, their homes. But my mouth struggles to shape the words. It is as though I have never had to use them.

I consider the discoveries I am making about myself. I drowned in a river and lived against all the odds. I cut myself open and healed straight away indeed, it seems that however mortally I injure myself, I heal. Now I seem to have found recollections of a life as a clock-mender in Holland. I have no idea how I came from that country to this, but I reason that because a sea divides one from the other, then I must have travelled by boat.

I push and the memory pushes back, forcing me away. I feel a stirring of fear that there is more to be uncovered: I know not what. I am swelling up with secrets and wonder how much more I can be filled before I burst. I wish Alfred would listen to me.

At last my eyes close and I am carried beneath the arch of the sky to a narrow flight of stone steps, my feet pounding up a staircase of stone, one of those tight spirals that wind up the corner of a tall narrow tower; I am climbing ever higher, higher, with an intensity of purpose I do not recognise, panting for breath, hand clapped over my heart, for it seems it might beat its way out of my chest. I am a mild man, yet in this dream I am in a torrent of desire. I wonder what this longing might be: is there a woman at the top of the staircase and I am late to meet her?

I cannot stop climbing, cannot stop putting one foot in front of the other, staggering towards something I know awaits me, and for all that I wish to stop, I cannot, my breath ragged, lungs shrieking for rest; and then suddenly there are no more steps to climb. I cling to the wall, wind tugging at my hair, and then I step out on to a walkway circling great bells hanging down from ma.s.sive beams. I do not pause to admire them, but pace up and down, wringing my hands together, wiping sweat from my top lip. There is no lady here: I am alone, and in a torment, my breath hammering in my ears.

I jump up on to the ledge, and suddenly realise what this is: what I am doing. My heart catches both here, now, on my pallet in the cellar; and there, then, on the highest part of this tower. I stretch out my hand to pull myself back, comfort myself with words of love, save myself from the horror I know awaits me. I fail.

I jump; I fall, see the ground rush up to meet me, feel the agony of bones breaking, my heart bursting with the hope of dying; gasping, 'Yes, yes.' Straight away I am surrounded by the thump of men's feet, quick hands that lift and carry me, voices that whisper of miracles. Let me die, I pray. But my body does not listen. The blood in my gorge shrinks back; my ribs withdraw their spears from my insides; my lungs start to sew up their spongy bags.

An uneasy truth scratches at the door of my mind: This is no dream.

I wake to find Alfred seated cross-legged on his pallet, smiling at the little machine in his hands, holding it to his ear to capture the gentle ticking. He looks at me, but I am still gripped by the terror of jumping from a tower and healing, even from such a fall.

'Are you all right, Abel? You were crying out.'

'I was?'

'Yes. Bad dream?' he asks.

I shudder. 'I fell.'

'Must be dreaming of when you fell into the river. Told you it'd come back, didn't I?'

'I fell off a tower.'

'No towers by the river.' He smiles. 'You're panting like a Derby runner.'

'Oh.'

'I hope you won!' he chuckles.

'Won?'

'The race!' He waves his watch at me. 'It's still working,' he says. 'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry?'

'I was in a poor temper last night, my clever pal.'

Then I remember myself the previous night: picking open the case, dismantling and removing the parts and replacing them, each in its rightful place. Alfred was angry, yes, but it is difficult to recall exactly why. I try to remember the whole of yesterday, and slowly it returns. I mended watches, I spoke to a Dutchman, I ate, I drank. But each meal is so much the same it is as though I have only ever eaten one meal and drunk one gla.s.s of beer.

The memories stumble back: the town I lived in; the Dutch tongue I can speak; the clock-mender's work; my work as a slaughter-man, before I lost my job. Before I discovered my frightful talent for healing. One night's sleep and it seems I am in danger of losing everything without Alfred at my side to remind me. I wonder what else I forget after a night's sleep.

Alfred alone has prevented me from losing this completely. I wonder what it would be like if I were to wake one day and find him gone. How I would find myself? Who would I be? The thought is terrifying: more terrible even than the memory of my arm cut open. I need a place to keep this new knowledge, a way of keeping it beside me always.

'Is it time for you to go to work?' I ask.

'No. Not for a while.'

'Will you show me the way to a stationer's?'

'Going into the scribbling trade now?' He laughs, but takes me anyway and pays for a sheet of cheap paper, pen, nib and watery ink.

'You'll pay me back soon enough, now you're a clock-mender,' he says, grinning, pointing me back to our lodgings.

I do not know if I can write, for I cannot remember ever doing so, but the moment I dip the pen and set it to the page it forms words well enough. I am a slaughter-man. I correct myself: I was a slaughter-man. My friend is Alfred. I pause, and wonder what to write next. It seeps into my remembering.

Before I came to London, I was a clock-mender in Holland, I write. In Nijmegen. I have a wonderful facility for mending timepieces. I pause. I can speak Dutch, I continue. I can speak Italian. I ran up a tower. I wanted to jump. Then I write, When I cut, I heal. I do not wish to record this, but it is true. I think of that other thing that happens when I cut myself, but it is too shameful to put into words. Finally, I write the date at the top of the sheet: 14th May 1857. It seems very important. Written by my own hand, Abel. I fold the paper and tuck it inside my s.h.i.+rt. The day pa.s.ses.

The next morning I wake early and lie a moment, gazing upwards and waiting for my eyes to bring the room into focus. Something scratches at my left armpit. I draw a piece of paper out of my s.h.i.+rt, and as I hold it I remember that I placed it there. I unfold it. Only a few lines, at the top of the page, in writing that I know is my own, though I cannot swear that I recognise it. I am intrigued. What message have I left myself?

I note the date first, and of a sudden know it for yesterday. Then I read my words, and with the reading, remember. In a few lines of ink I make my history mine once more. I am filled with terrible relief, and clutch the paper to my heart. I know who I am. However strange, I have not lost myself overnight.

Alfred continues to be happy. I bury myself in the busyness of repairing watches. Men bring them broken; I send them away restored; they pay me. I give Alfred the money I owe him for lodging and food, and he tries to refuse, but in the end accepts the money, somewhat ill-humouredly.

Customers come in greater and greater numbers as word of my skill gets about. One regular visitor brings a small bag each time, four or five of them. I say how fortunate he is to own such a quant.i.ty of timepieces, and wonder why he has need of so many.

'I am a lucky man.' He laughs in a way that is difficult for me to copy, and pays me fourpence for each one I mend.

Alfred suggests we look for better lodgings, but when I ask why, he claps my shoulder and calls me his dear innocent friend.