The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

CHAPTER SEVEN

In which Little Jack spends his first night in the Extraordinarium, and encounters an ostrich in an extremely bad mood

Miss Acacia’s tiny ‘yes’ could have emerged from a fledgeling’s beak, but for me, it’s a surge of heroic energy. The romantic thrills have begun; my tick-tock sounds like the beads of a necklace clinking between her fingers. Nothing can dent my mood.

‘She accepted your bouquet of twisted glasses?’ asks Méliès. ‘So she likes you! She must like you! No one would accept such a pathetic present if they didn’t have feelings for you,’ he beams.

After regaling Méliès with every detail of our first impromptu encounter, and once my euphoria has subsided, I ask him to check on my clock, because I’ve never felt such intense emotions. Madeleine, how furious you’d be . . . Méliès smiles his big mustachioed grin and then gently starts to manipulate my gears.

‘Does it hurt anywhere?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Your gears are rather hot, but not unusually so. Otherwise everything’s in perfect working order. Come on, let’s go. Affairs of the heart are all very well, but we need a good bath and somewhere to sleep!’

After exploring the Extraordinarium, we settle into an abandoned stall for the night. Despite our dilapidated surroundings and our growling stomachs, we sleep like babies.

At dawn, my mind is made up: I’ve got to find a job so that I can stay here.

But all the jobs have been taken at the Extraordinarium. All the jobs except one that is, in the Ghost Train, where they need someone to scare the passengers. Sheer persistence gets me an interview with the manager for the following evening.

Seeing as he’s got nothing better to do, Méliès performs a few old tricks at the entrance with his set of hoax cards. He’s a hit, especially with the ladies. His belles, as he likes to call them, form a huddle around his table and marvel at his every sleight of hand. He tells them that he plans to create a story in motion, a sort of photographic book that will spring to life. He knows how to capture the imagination of his belles.

This morning, I saw him collecting cardboard boxes and cutting rockets out of them. I think he still hopes to win back his fiancée. He’s even started talking about the voyage to the moon again. His dream machine is gently revving into action.

It’s six o’clock when I arrive at the great stone entrance to the Ghost Train. I’m greeted by the manager, a shrivelled old lady who answers to the name of Brigitte Heim.

Her face is so tight that you’d think she was gripping a knife between her teeth. She’s wearing big sad shoes – nun’s sandals – that are ideal for trampling on dreams.

‘So, you want to work on the Ghost Train do you, dwarf?’

Her voice reminds me of an ostrich, an ostrich in an extremely bad mood. She has the knack of inducing a sickening sense of panic the moment you meet her.

Jack the Ripper’s last words echo in my head: ‘You’ll soon learn how to survive by frightening others!’

I unbutton my shirt and turn the key in my lock to make the cuckoo sing. Brigitte Heim watches me with the same disdain as the clockmaker in Paris.

‘You’re not going to earn us a fortune with that! But I haven’t got anybody else, so I’ll take you.’

Desperate for the work, I swallow my pride.

My new boss embarks on a tour of her premises.

‘I have an agreement with the cemetery: I collect the skulls and bones of the dead whose families can no longer pay for their burial plot,’ she says, proudly showing me around. ‘They make rather good decorations for a ghost train, don’t you think? And anyway, if I didn’t collect them, they’d be tossed on to the rubbish heap!’ she declares, in a voice that’s creaky and hysterical.

Skulls and spiders’ webs have been methodically arranged to filter the light from the candelabras. There’s not a speck of dust anywhere else, and nothing out of place. I wonder what extra-terrestrial emptiness makes this woman spend her life cleaning catacombs.

‘Do you have children?’ I ask, turning towards her.

‘What kind of a question is that? No, I have a dog, and I’m very happy with my dog.’

If I end up growing old one day and I’m lucky enough to have children, and why not grandchildren too, I’d like to build houses full of little people chasing each other, laughing and shouting. But if I don’t have offspring, then houses full of nothing won’t be for me.

‘Touching the décor is strictly forbidden,’ she tells me, showing me around. ‘If you walk on a skull and break it, you have to pay!’

Pay, her favourite word.

She wants to know my reason for coming to Granada. I rattle off my story. Or rather I try to, but she keeps cutting me off.

‘I don’t believe in this clockwork heart business, or in your love story full stop. I wonder who made you fall for such nonsense? I suppose you think you’ll work wonders with this trinket? Well, mark my words, you may be short but you’ll fall from a great height! People don’t stray far; they don’t like anything that’s different. And even if they enjoy the show, it’s because of a voyeuristic pleasure. To them, going to see the woman with two heads is the same as witnessing an accident. I’ve known many men applaud, but not one fall in love. It’ll be the same for you. People might be fascinated by your wounded heart, but that won’t make them love you for who you are. Do you really think a pretty young girl like the one you’ve just described to me would want to get involved with a boy who’s got a prosthesis instead of a heart? Personally, I’d have found it a complete turn-off . . . But enough of that: as long as you can frighten my customers, everyone’s happy.’

The ghastly Brigitte Heim rejoins her coven of doom-sayers. But she has no idea what a thick shell of dreams I’ve been building ever since I was small. As I head off into the night to gobble the moon, which looks like a phosphorescent pancake, I’m dreaming of Miss Acacia. Heim can stalk me with her living-dead rictus all she likes, but she’ll never steal anything from me.

Ten o’clock. I turn up for my first evening’s work. The train is half full and I’ve got to be on stage in half an hour. It’s time to try my hand as a Scareperson. The thing is, I’m a bit terrified myself, because I need to hold on to this job if I want to remain the little singer’s official neighbour.

I get my heart ready, transforming it into a terrifying instrument. Up on top of the mountain at Dr Madeleine’s, I used to have fun stuffing all sorts of things inside my clock: pebbles, newspaper, marbles . . . The gears would start screeching, the tick-tock became chaotic and the cuckoo impersonated a miniature bulldozer lumbering around my lungs. It used to horrify Madeleine.

Half-past ten. I’m glued to the wall of the last carriage, like a Red Indian ready to attack a stagecoach. Brigitte Heim watches me out of the corner of her menacing eye. Imagine my surprise when I notice Miss Acacia calmly sitting in one of the Ghost Train carriages. My stage fright intensifies, making my tick-tock sputter.

The train sets off, I leap from carriage to carriage, and there she is – my conquest of the Amorous West. I’ve got to put in a consummate performance. My life is at stake. I hurl myself against the carriage walls, my cuckoo clock rattling inside me like a popcorn machine. I glide my icy hour hand against the customers’ backs, and think of Arthur as I start to sing ‘Oh When the Saints.’ A few people shout: ‘What can you do to scare us?’ I just want to escape my own body and project sunlight on to the walls for her to see, so she warms up and yearns for my arms. But instead, as a kind of finale, I appear in the white light for a few seconds, thrusting out my chest in exaggerated fashion. I open my shirt, so people can see the gears moving beneath my skin with each heartbeat. My performance is greeted by an astonishing goat’s shriek from a lady of mature years, and three rounds of fake applause littered with laughter.

I watch Miss Acacia, hoping that somehow I might have pleased her.

She smiles like a mischievous sweet-snatcher.

‘Is it over? . . . Ah, very good, I didn’t see a thing, but everybody seemed to think it was highly entertaining, congratulations! I didn’t know it was you, but bravo!’

‘Thank you . . . and what about the glasses, have you tried them on?’

‘Yes. But they’re all bent or broken . . .’

‘I chose them like that, so you could wear them without worrying about breaking them!’

‘You think I don’t wear glasses because I’m worried about breaking them?’

‘No . . .’

She has this gentle way of laughing, as light as beads tumbling over a xylophone.

‘Last stop, everybody off!’ screeches the ostrich in charge.

The little singer gets up and waves at me discreetly. Her curly hair ripples over her curvy shadow. I wish I could have scared her just a teeny bit, but I’m relieved she didn’t get to see what my heart looks like. It doesn’t matter that I’m a shining sun when I dream at night, old Brigitte has woken my old demons. The toughest carapace in the world sometimes softens in the grip of insomnia.

In the distance, Miss Acacia’s high heels tinkle rhythmic ally. I relish their sound until I hear my little singer crashing into the exit door. Everybody laughs and nobody helps her. She totters like a well-dressed soak, then disappears.

Meanwhile, Brigitte Heim has launched into a critique of my performance that goes right over my head, but I think at one point she does utter the words ‘pay you’.

I can’t wait to catch up with Méliès and tell him all about it. Thrusting my hand into my pockets as I head off, I discover a scrap of paper rolled up into a ball.

I don’t need glasses to see how accomplished your performance is. Your appointments diary must run to several volumes . . . Will you be able to find the page where you wrote my name?

I make the conjurer who tends to my heart read the message, between two rounds of cards.

‘Hmm, I see . . . your Miss Acacia isn’t like the other singers I’ve known, she’s not self-centred. That means she’s not entirely aware of her seductive powers – which is no doubt part of her charm. Then again, she spotted your act. It’s all or nothing now, you don’t have anything to lose. And remember, she doesn’t realise how desirable she is. Use that to your advantage!’

I head over to her dressing room and slide a note under her door:

On the stroke of midnight behind the Ghost Train, wait for me, and wear your glasses so you don’t bump into the moon. I promise I’ll give you enough time to take them off before I look at you.

‘¡Anda hombre! ¡Anda! It’s time to show her your heart!’ says Méliès again.

‘I’m worried about frightening her with my clock hands. I don’t know what I’ll do if she rejects me. Do you realise how long I’ve been dreaming of this moment?’

‘Remember what I told you, show her your real heart. That’s the only magic you can perform. If she sees your real heart, your clock won’t frighten her, believe me!’

While I’m waiting for midnight like a lover impatient for Christmas, Luna’s battered pigeon lands on my shoulder. This time, the letter hasn’t got lost. I unfold it in great excitement.

My Little Jack,

We trust you’re coping well and taking good care of yourself. You’ll have to wait a while longer before coming back to the house because of the police.

Lovingly,

Dr Madeleine

I’m overjoyed at the arrival of the pigeon, but the contents of the letter he’s carried all this way are ever so frustrating. There’s something odd about that signature: Dr Madeleine. And I’d have expected her to be more chatty. She probably wanted to spare her messenger. Still, I feel a twinge of guilt. If Madeleine knew what I was up to tonight, how furious she’d be . . . I send the bird straight back:

Send me some long letters by normal post, I may stay here for some time. I miss you. I want to read more than a few words attached to a pigeon’s leg. Everything’s going well over here, I’ve got a job and am friends with a clockmaker-conjurer who makes sure my heart is working properly. You can send your letters to his workshop – he always knows where to find me. Are the police leaving you alone? Write back quickly!

With love,

Jack

PS–c/o Monsieur Méliès, The Extraordinarium, 7 calle Pablo Jardim, La Cartuja, Granada

Midnight, I’m waiting like a happy idiot. I’m wearing an electric-blue jumper, a sort of vitamin kick for my green eyes. The Ghost Train is silent.

Twenty-past midnight, nothing. Half-past midnight, still no sign of Miss Acacia. At twenty to one, my heart is growing cold, and the tick-tock is dwindling.

‘Hey!’

‘I’m over here . . .’

She stands poised on the walkway, perfectly balanced on the doormat. Even her shadow against the door is sexy; I’d happily get in some kissing practice with that, for starters . . .

‘I’ve come disguised as you, without even realising it!’ says the real Miss Acacia.

She’s wearing a thick jumper almost identical to mine.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to find a proper outfit for our date, but it looks like you had the same problem!’

I smile, even though I’ve pulled out all the sartorial stops. I can’t help staring at the way her lips move. I sense she picks up on this. As she listens to the noises produced by my clock, the silences between our words grow longer. It’s as if an angel is passing overhead, but then she goes and decapitates it:

‘You’re a hit on the Ghost Train, all the girls came out smiling.’

‘That’s not a good sign, I’m supposed to survive by frightening others . . . I mean, that’s what I’ve got to do if I want to keep my job here.’

‘Does it really matter whether you make them laugh or cry, as long as you’re getting a reaction?’

‘That old bag Brigitte told me it wouldn’t do the Ghost Train’s image any good if people came out giggling. I think I’ll have to learn how to scare people if I want to keep on working there.’

‘Scaring is just another form of seduction . . . and as far as seducing people is concerned, it looks like you’re doing a pretty good job.’

I want to tell her I’ve got a prosthesis instead of a heart and I don’t know anything about love. I want her to understand that I’m feeling these emotions for the first time. Yes, I know I’ve had a few lessons in romantic magic with an illusionist, but that was just to help me find her. I want to seduce her without her mistaking me for a skirt-chaser. It’s a delicate balancing act. So all I say is:

‘I’d like to hold you in my arms.’

Silence, a new sulky doll pout, eyes shut.

‘We could keep talking about it afterwards, but can we hold each other first?’

Miss Acacia lets out an ‘all right’ so tiny it barely escapes her lips. A tender silence falls over our gestures. She teeters towards me. Close up, she’s even more beautiful than her shadow – and more intimidating too. I pray to some unknown deity to keep my clock from chiming.

Our arms interlace and become one. I’m embarrassed by my clock, and I don’t dare crush my chest against hers. I don’t want to scare her with my bric-à-brac heart. But how can I avoid frightening this little bird of a woman when my sharp clock hands jut out from my lungs? My clockwork panic whirrs into action again.

I’m avoiding her with my left side, as if I had a glass heart. This makes our dance more complicated, especially as she appears to be a tango champion. The volume of my ticktock rises from inside me; Madeleine’s warnings flash through my mind. What if I die before I’ve even kissed Miss Acacia? I feel like I’m jumping into the unknown: joy of flying, fear of going splat.

Her fingers are languid behind my neck and my own are pleasantly lost somewhere beneath her shoulder blades. I try to solder my dreams to reality, but I’m working without a protective mask. Our mouths draw closer. Time slows, until it has almost ground to a halt. Our lips take over, in the softest relay race in the world; they mingle, delicately and intensely. It feels as though her tongue is a sparrow gently landing on mine; curiously, she tastes of strawberries.

I watch as she hides her huge eyes under the parasols of her eyelids. I feel like a weightlifter, with the Himalayas on my left arm and the Rockies on my right; Atlas is a hard-working dwarf by comparison. A giant wave of joy engulfs me. The train’s ghosts echo with each of our gestures. We’re wrapped inside the sound made by her heels tapping against the floor.

‘Silence!’ shrieks a vinegary voice.

Brusquely, we pull apart. It seems we’ve woken the Loch Ness Monster. We don’t dare breathe.

‘Is that you, midget? What are you up to on the premises at this hour?’

‘I’m trying to find new ways of scaring people.’

‘Well, find them in silence. And don’t touch my brand new skulls!’

‘Yes, yes . . .’

Terrified, Miss Acacia buries herself deeper in my arms. Time has come to a standstill and I’ve got no desire for it to pick up its normal pace again. I even forget about keeping my heart at a distance. Laying her head against my chest, she suddenly makes a face.

‘What’s under there? It’s hurting me!’

I don’t answer, I just break out in a cold sweat. She’s found me out. I consider lying, making something up, faking it, but there’s so much sincerity in her question that I can’t bring myself to do that. I open my shirt slowly, button by button. The clock appears, and the tick-tock resounds more loudly. I await my sentencing. She brings her hand near, murmuring:

‘What is it?’

The compassion in her voice is enough to make me want to be an invalid for the rest of my days, just to have her as a nurse by my side. The cuckoo begins to sing. She jumps. Turning the key, I whisper:

‘I’m sorry. It’s my secret. I wanted to tell you about it sooner, but I was scared of frightening you for good.’

I explain to her that this clock has functioned as my heart since the day I was born. I don’t say anything about love – along with anger – being strictly off limits. She asks if my feelings would alter if the clock were changed, or whether this would simply be a mechanical operation. There’s something malicious in her voice; she seems to find it all rather amusing. I explain that my clockwork heart can’t function without emotions, but I don’t venture any further into that slippery terrain.

She smiles, as if I’m explaining the rules of a fabulous game. No cries of horror, no laughter. Until now, Arthur, Anna, Luna and Méliès are the only people who haven’t been shocked by my clockwork heart. I take it as an important love token, the way she seems to be saying: So you’ve got a cuckoo between your bones? AND? Simple, so simple . . .

But I mustn’t get too carried away. Perhaps it’s just that the clock looks less repulsive through her defective eyes.

‘That’s very handy. If you grow weary of love as all men do, I could try replacing your heart before you replace me with another woman.’

‘According to the clock in my heart, we kissed for the first time exactly thirty-seven minutes ago, so I think we’ve still got a bit of time ahead of us before we need to think about that sort of thing.’

Even when she’s telling me that she’s no pushover, there’s something gracious about the way she does it.

I accompany Miss Acacia on tiptoe back home, stealthy as a wolf. I embrace her like a wolf, and like a wolf I disappear into the night.

I’ve just kissed the girl with the voice of a nightingale and nothing will ever be the same again. My clock is pulsing like an impetuous volcano. But nothing hurts. Apart from a stitch in my side which is a small price to pay, though, for being drunk on such joy. Tonight, I’m going to climb to the moon and make myself comfortable in its crescent, as if I were slung in a hammock. And when I dream it won’t be because I’m asleep.