The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart Read online

  Anna is a tall faded rose with a rainbow gaze; her left pupil is a quartz stone, inserted by Madeleine to replace the eye that was gouged out by a customer who didn’t want to pay, and it changes colour with the weather. She speaks quickly, like she’s scared of silence. When I ask her about the little singer, she tells me she’s never heard of her. But her words come out even faster than usual. I can tell she’s dying to let me into a great secret so I decide to ask her a question or two about love; but in hushed tones, because I don’t really want Madeleine meddling.

  ‘I’ve been working at love for a long time, you know. I haven’t always been on the receiving end of a great deal of it, but sometimes just the simple act of giving makes me happy. I’m no good as a professional. I fall in love as soon as someone’s a regular customer; then I start refusing their money. For a while they come every day, and even bring me presents. But their enthusiasm wears off eventually. I know I’m not supposed to fall for them, I just can’t help it. It’s ridiculous, but I enjoy believing in the impossible.’

  ‘The impossible?’

  ‘It’s not easy being simple-hearted when you’re in my profession.’

  ‘I think I understand.’

  And then there’s Luna, a shimmering blonde, a forerunner of the famous Egyptian singer Dalida, with her slow gestures and broken smile, a tightrope walker on the most spindly stilettos. Part of her right leg froze on the coldest day on earth. Madeleine replaced it with a walnut wood prosthesis complete with its own pokerwork suspender. She reminds me of the little singing girl – they share the same nightingale accent, the same spontaneity.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to know a little singer who talks just like you and who’s always bumping into things?’ I ask her every now and then.

  She pretends not to hear me and changes the subject. I suppose Madeleine’s made them promise not to let on about the little singer.

  One fine day, bored with ignoring my litany of questions, she replies:

  ‘I don’t know anything about the little Andalusian . . .’

  ‘What’s an Andalusian?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything, nothing at all! Why don’t you ask Anna?’

  ‘Anna doesn’t know anything either . . .’

  I try the old trick of sad boy, head down, eyes half closed.

  ‘From what I can see, you’ve already learned the basics of seduction,’ Anna continues. ‘Do you promise not to tell anee-bodd-ee?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  She starts whispering, and her words are barely audible:

  ‘Your little singer comes from Granada, in Andalusia, which is far away from here. It’s been a long time since I heard her singing in town . . . Perhaps she’s gone back to the country where she was born, to live with her grandparents . . .’

  ‘Unless she’s just at school,’ adds Anna, her voice like a 33 r.p.m. record being played at 45 r.p.m.

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Ssssh . . . ¡calla té!’ snaps Luna, who only breaks into her native tongue when she’s annoyed.

  My blood’s fizzing, I can’t believe my luck. A surge of pure joy. My dream puffs up like a pastry in the oven. I think it’s ready to make the journey into reality now. Tomorrow, I’ll harness my energy at the top of the hill, unfurl my mainsail, and head for the school!

  Except that first, I’ll have to convince Madeleine.

  ‘Go to school? But you’ll get bored! You’ll be forced to read books you don’t like, when here you can choose whatever takes your fancy. You’ll have to sit for hours on end and you won’t be allowed to talk, or make a noise. You’ll be made to wait until break-time just to daydream. I know what you’re like – how much you’ll hate it.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I’m curious to find out what people learn at school.’

  ‘You want to study?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I want to study. And I can’t do it all on my own here.’

  We’re trying to outmanoeuvre each another with our lies. I’m caught between wanting to laugh and flying into a rage.

  ‘To start with, you’d be better off revising what’s written on your slate. It seems to me you’re forgetting it rather too quickly. I worry about what might happen to you down there.’

  ‘Everybody goes to school. When you’re at work, I feel all alone on top of this mountain, and I’d like to meet some children my own age. It’s time for me to find out about the world, don’t you see?’

  ‘Finding out about the world at school . . .’ (A long sigh.) ‘All right. If you want to go to school, I won’t stand in your way,’ Madeleine eventually concedes, sounding as if a small part of her has died.

  I try my best to contain my joy. It might not be very tactful to dance around with my arms in the air.

  The day I’ve been waiting for has come at last. I’m wearing a black suit that makes me look very grown-up, in spite of my eleven years. Madeleine has instructed me never to take off my jacket, not even in class; that way nobody will find out about my cuckoo clock.

  Before setting off, I’m careful to slip a few pairs of glasses that I’ve collected from her workshop into my satchel. They take up more room than the exercise books. I’ve moved Cunnilingus into my left shirt pocket, just above my clockwork heart. He pokes his head out from time to time, looking thoroughly satisfied.

  ‘Be careful he doesn’t bite anybody!’ joke Anna and Luna, as we start down the hill.

  Limping some way behind us comes Arthur, creaking silently.

  The school is located in the well-heeled area of Calton Hill, just opposite St Giles’ Cathedral. Over by the entrance, it’s a country of fur coats and women cackling loudly as big hens. The way Anna and Luna laugh makes them scowl. They observe Arthur’s limping gait and the bump that makes my left lung swell suspiciously. Their husbands, suited and booted, look like walking coat hangers; they pretend to be shocked by our twisted tribe, but that doesn’t stop them from eyeballing the two girls’ cleavages.

  After a quick goodbye to my makeshift family, I walk through the huge gates – you’d think I’d been enrolled in an institution for giants. The schoolyard looks impossible to cross, even if its football goalposts add a slightly welcoming touch.

  I take my first tentative steps, scrutinising the different faces. The pupils look like miniature versions of their parents. My clock can be heard rather too clearly through their whispering. They’re looking at me as if I’ve got an infectious disease. All of a sudden, a brown-haired girl stands in front of me, stares, and starts saying ‘tick-tock, tick-tock’ and laughing. The whole yard joins in. It feels just the same as when families come to Dr Madeleine’s to choose their children – but worse. Even though I examine every girl’s face, there is no sign of the little singer. What if Luna made a mistake?

  We go into the classroom. Madeleine was right, I’m bored rigid. Bloody school without the little singer . . . and now I’m enrolled for the whole year. How am I going to tell Madeleine I don’t want to ‘study’ now?

  During break I begin my survey by asking if anybody knows the little ‘Andalusia’ singer, the one who’s always bumping into things.

  Nobody answers.

  ‘Doesn’t she go to school here?’

  No answer.

  I wonder if anything serious has happened to her. Did she bump into something hard and hurt herself badly?

  Just then, an odd-looking boy rises up from the ranks. He’s older than the others, and the top of his head is almost higher than the railings. The moment they see him, the rest of the students cower. His jet-black eyes make my blood run cold. He’s skinny as a dead tree, elegant as a scarecrow dressed by a fine tailor, and his spiky hair juts out like birds’ wings.

  ‘Hey you! New boy! What d’you want with the little singer?’

  His voice is deep as a talking tombstone.

  ‘One day, I saw her singing and bumping into things. I’d like to give her a pair of glasses as a present.’

  My voice is quavering. I must look at least a hu
ndred and thirty.

  ‘Nobody’s allowed to talk to me about Miss Acacia and her spectacles! Nobody, you understand, least of all a midget like you. Don’t ever mention her name again. D’you understand, midget?’

  I don’t answer. A murmur rises from the crowd: ‘Joe . . .’ Each second weighs heavily. Suddenly, he cocks his ear in my direction and asks:

  ‘How do you make that strange tick-tock noise?’

  I don’t say anything.

  He heads calmly over to me, stooping his tall carcass to put his ear next to my heart. My clock is palpitating. Time has stopped for me. His boy’s beard stings like barbed wire across my chest. Cunnilingus points his snout and sniffs the top of Joe’s head. If he starts peeing, things could get complicated.

  All of a sudden, Joe tears off my buttons and rips open my jacket to expose the clock hands poking out of my shirt. The crowd of curious onlookers goes ‘Ooooh . . .’ I’m so embarrassed, he might as well have pulled my trousers down. He listens to my heart for a while, then stands up slowly.

  ‘Is that your heart making all that noise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you?’

  His deep, conceited voice makes all my bones shiver.

  My brain wants to say no, no . . . but my heart has faster access to my lips.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  The students start whispering ‘Ooohh . . .’ The anger blazing at the back of Joe’s eyes is tinged with sadness, which makes him even more terrifying. Just one look from him and the schoolyard falls silent. Even the wind seems to obey him.

  ‘The “little singer,” as you call her, is the love of my life and . . . she’s not here any more. Don’t you ever dare talk to me about her again! I don’t even want to hear you thinking about her, or I’ll smash that wooden clock over your head. I’ll break it, do you hear me? I’ll break it so badly, you’ll NEVER be able to love again!’

  His long fingers quiver with rage, even when he clenches his fist.

  Just a few hours ago, I thought my heart was a ship ready to cut through an ocean of disapproval. I knew it wasn’t the sturdiest heart in the world, but I believed in the strength of my own enthusiasm. I was so fired up by the idea of finding the little singer that nothing could have stopped me. In less than five minutes, Joe has reset my clock to real-time, swapping my colourful galleon for a dilapidated old tub.

  ‘I’ll break it so badly, you’ll NEVER be able to love again!’ he says one more time.

  ‘Cuckoo,’ answers my wooden hull.

  The sound of my own voice is cut short; you’d think I’d just been punched in the gut.

  As I climb back up Arthur’s Seat, I wonder how such a gorgeous bespectacled goldfinch could have fallen into the claws of a vulture like Joe. I try to cheer myself with the thought that perhaps my little singer came to school without her glasses on and that she couldn’t see what she was getting herself into . . . Where could she be now?

  A middle-aged woman interrupts my anxious reverie. She’s holding Joe firmly by the hand – unless it’s the other way round, given the vulture’s size. She looks like him, just a more withered version, and with an elephant’s arse.

  ‘Are you the boy who lives up there with the witch? Did you know she delivers children from prostitutes’ bellies? You probably came out of a prostitute’s belly too, everyone knows the old lady’s been barren for a long time.’

  When adults get involved, a new threshold of ugliness is always crossed.

  Despite my obstinate silence, Joe and his mother carry on insulting me for a good part of the journey. I struggle to reach the top of the hill. The day weighs so heavily on my clock hands that I’m having to drag myself along like a ball and chain. Bloody clock of dreams! I’d happily hurl you down Arthur’s Seat.

  That evening, no matter how much Madeleine sings to help send me off to sleep, it doesn’t work. When I decide to tell her about Joe, she explains that perhaps he treated me like that to look big in other people’s eyes, and that he’s not necessarily all bad. He must be very smitten with the little singer too. The torment of love can transform people into wretched monsters, she tells me. It annoys me that she’s making excuses for him. She kisses me on my clock dial and slows down my cardiac rate by pressing on my gears with her index finger. I close my eyes in the end, but I’m not smiling.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A fistful of emotions, a poked-out eye and a hasty departure from Edinburgh

  A year goes by, with Joe sticking to me as if magnetised by my clock hands; punching my clock in full view of everybody. Sometimes I want to tear out his crow-black shock of hair; I try not to flinch when he humiliates me, but he’s getting me down. My quest to find the little singer is proving fruitless. Nobody dares answer my questions. At school, Joe is the law.

  Today, at break, I take out Arthur’s egg from one of my pullover sleeves. I’m trying to track down Miss Acacia by thinking about her as hard as I can. I forget about Joe, I even forget I’m in this bloody school. As I stroke the egg, a beautiful dream glides across the screen of my eyelids. The eggshell cracks open and the little singer appears, her body covered in red feathers. I hold her between my thumb and index finger, frightened of crushing her but not wanting her to fly away. A tender fire sparks between my fingers and her eyes flicker open, when all of a sudden my skull goes ‘crack!’

  Egg yolk is trickling down my cheeks – the tears of my dream draining away. Joe towers over the scene with the remains of eggshell between his fingers. Everybody’s laughing and some people even applaud.

  ‘Next time, I’ll smash your heart against your skull.’

  In class, everyone makes fun of the eggshell pieces stuck in my hair. I’m itching for revenge. The fairies in my dreams vanish. I spend nearly as much time despising Joe as I do loving Miss Acacia. Dreams have a hard time surviving when confronted with reality.

  Joe’s humiliations continue day after day. I’ve become the toy that he uses to calm his nerves and dull his melancholy. No matter how often I water the flowers that are my memories of the little singer, they’re being starved of sunlight.

  Madeleine goes to great lengths to comfort me, but she never wants to hear any tales of the heart. Arthur hardly has any memory eggs left in his pouch, and he sings less and less.

  On my birthday, Anna and Luna come over for the evening – it’s the same ‘surprise’ every year. As usual, they’re having fun putting perfume on Cunnilingus, but this time Luna gets a little over-enthusiastic when she douses him. The hamster stiffens in a spasm and keels over, stone dead. The sight of my faithful companion stretched out in his cage makes me very sad. A long ‘cuckoo’ escapes from my chest.

  As a consolation prize, I get a geography lesson on Andalusia from Luna. Ah, Andalusia . . . If only I could be sure that Miss Acacia was there, I’d leave right away!

  Four years have gone by since my encounter with the little singer, and nearly three years since I started school. I still look for her everywhere, but I can never find her. Little by little, my memories are being crushed under the weight of time.

  On the night before the last day of school, I go to bed with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I don’t get a wink of sleep. I’m too busy thinking about what I want to achieve tomorrow. Because this time I’ve made up my mind, it’s time to conquer the Amorous West. I just need to find out where the little singer is right now. And the only person who can answer that question is Joe. I watch dawn tracing the shadows to the beat of my tick-tock.

  It’s 27 June and we’re in the school playground under a blue sky, so blue you’d think we were anywhere but Edinburgh. The sleepless night has sharpened my nerves.

  I make straight for Joe, with more than purpose in my stride. But before I’ve had a chance to say anything, he grabs my shirt collar and hoicks me off the ground. My heart creaks, my anger overflows, the cuckoo hisses. Joe taunts the crowd around us.

  ‘Take off your shirt and show us what you’ve got on your ch
est. We want to see your thing that goes tick-tock.’

  ‘Yeah!!!’ roars the crowd.

  With a swoop of his arm, he rips off my shirt and jams his nails into my dial.

  ‘How does this open?’

  ‘You need a key.’

  ‘Hand it over.’

  ‘I haven’t got it here, it’s at home, so leave me alone.’

  He picks the lock with his little finger, niggling at it furiously. The dial gives way in the end.

  ‘See, we don’t need a key after all! Who wants to have a grope?’

  One after another, students who’ve never said a word to me take it in turns to tug on my clock hands and activate my gears. They’re hurting me and they’re not even looking at me. The cuckoo can’t stop hiccuping. They clap and laugh. The whole playground joins in: ‘Cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo!‘

  Something flips inside my brain. Dreams anaesthetised for years, pent-up rage, humiliation . . . everything is headed for the floodgates. The barrage is about to give way. I can’t hold back any more.

  ‘Where’s Miss Acacia?’

  ‘I don’t think I heard you properly,’ says Joe, twisting my arm.

  ‘Where is she? Tell me where she is. I’ll find her, whether she’s here or in Andalusia, do you hear me?’

  Joe pins me face down to the ground, so I can’t move. My cuckoo is singing at the top of its voice, I feel like my oesophagus is on fire, something’s changing inside me. Violent spasms shake me every three seconds. Joe turns around triumphantly.

  ‘So, you’re setting off for Andalusia just like that?’ he asks, through gritted teeth.

  ‘Yes, I’m leaving! And I’m leaving today!’

  My eyes are bulging, so is my throat, and my movements too. I’m turning into a pair of shears that will chop up anyone and anything.