The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart Read online

  The sun beats down on the Ghost Train roof. It’s exactly midday, going by the clock in my heart. My fair skin burns gently while I’m waiting for Joe. Three birds of prey circle silently.

  He’s here for vengeance. Stealing Miss Acacia from me would be the perfect payback. The Alhambra’s arches swallow their own shadows. A drop of salty sweat forms on my forehead, trickles into my right eye and sets off a tear.

  Joe appears at the corner of the main avenue that runs through the Extraordinarium. I’m quivering, more with rage than fear. I try to look casual, even though my gears are burning under my skin. My heart’s palpitations are noisier than a gravedigger’s shovel.

  Joe stops ten metres away, standing straight across from me. His shadow licks the dust off his footprints.

  ‘I wanted to see you again, and it’s not just to get my revenge, whatever you might think . . .’

  His voice is still a weapon to be reckoned with. Like Brigitte Heim’s, it has the gift of smashing the windows of my dreams.

  ‘I’m not thinking anything. You humiliated and bullied me for years. One day, all that turned against you. As far as I’m concerned, we’re quits.’

  ‘I admit I hurt you by cutting you off from everyone at school. I only realised how much you’d suffered afterwards, when I was left with one eye. I saw the scared looks. I felt people changing how they behaved towards me. You’d think I was contagious, the way some of them avoided me, and that by talking to me they risked losing their own eyes. Each day, I understood more about how damaged I must have left you feeling . . .’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve crossed half of Europe to say you’re sorry.’

  ‘No, you’re right. We still have a few scores to settle. Didn’t you ever wonder why I gave you such a hard time?’

  ‘Yes, at the beginning . . . I even tried talking to you, but you were a brick wall. I was living in that house, remember, the one belonging to the “witch who delivers children from prostitutes’ bellies”. And, as you never stopped reminding me, I probably “came out of a prostitute’s belly too” . . . I was new, the smallest kid in the class, and my heart made odd noises. It was easy to make fun of me, to tower above me physically. I was your ideal victim. Until that dreadful day when you took it too far.’

  ‘Yes, that’s part of the story. But the main reason I picked on you was that on the first day of school, you asked me if I knew somebody you referred to as ‘the little singer’. As far as I was concerned, you’d just signed your own death warrant. I was head over heels in love. I’d spent the whole school year before you turned up trying to get close to Miss Acacia, without success. But one spring day, while she was skating on the frozen river and practising her singing as she liked to do, the ice cracked under her feet. I managed to rescue her with my long legs and big arms. She could have died. I can still picture her shivering as I held her. We were inseparable from that day on until the beginning of summer. I’d never felt so happy. But on the first day of the autumn term, after dreaming all holidays about being reunited with her, I found out that she’d stayed in Granada, and nobody knew when she’d be back.’

  Coming from Joe’s mouth, the word ‘dreaming’ sounds as incongruous as an Alsatian dog being careful not to get any crumbs on his coat while he eats a croissant.

  ‘And that same day you show up like a leprechaun with a satchel, and tell me you want to meet her so you can give her a pair of spectacles! Missing her was bad enough, but you made me feel even more jealous by revealing the terrible thing we had in common. It’s what still links us today: our boundless love for Miss Acacia. I remember the noise your heart used to make when you were talking about her. I despised you on the spot. That tick-tock measured the time slipping away without her. Your clock was a torture instrument filled with your own dreams of love for my Miss Acacia.’

  ‘That doesn’t justify the way you humiliated me every single day. How could I know what had gone on before?’

  ‘Fine. But just because I humiliated you, it didn’t warrant THIS!’

  He lifts his bandage abruptly. His eye is a sort of egg-white, sullied by blood and worm-eaten with grey-blue varicose veins.

  ‘I told you,’ he goes on, ‘this handicap taught me a great deal about myself and about life in general. As far as you and I are concerned, I agree, we’re quits.’

  He finds it insanely difficult to get this last sentence out. And I find it insanely difficult to listen.

  ‘We were quits,’ I answer. ‘But by coming here, you’re picking on me again.’

  ‘I haven’t come here to get my revenge, I’ve told you that. I’ve come to take Miss Acacia back to Edinburgh. I’ve been chewing this moment over for years. Even while I was kissing other girls. Your bloody tick-tock has been so loud inside my head, you as good as infected me with your disease the day you poked my eye out. If she doesn’t want me, I’ll leave. But if it’s the other way around, you’ll have to disappear. I don’t hold a grudge against you any more, but I’m still in love with her.’

  ‘I’ve still got plenty of grudges against you.’

  ‘Well, get used to it, because I’m worthy of Miss Acacia too. It’ll be an old-fashioned contest, and she’s the only judge. May the best man win, Little Jack.’

  He smiles that smug smile I’m all too familiar with as he extends his long fingers. I hand over my bedroom keys. I have the sickening feeling that I’m offering him the keys to Miss Acacia’s heart. And I realise that the magical entertainment with my bespectacled fire-girl is over.

  What about our dream of a beach-front cabin where we’d be able to walk in peace night and day? Her skin, her smile, her repartee, her sparkling character all made me want to have children with her. But that was yesterday. Now Joe has come to fetch her. I’m foundering in the haze of my oldest demons. My clock arrows shrivel inside their fragile dial. I’m not done yet, but I’m frightened, very frightened.

  Instead of watching Miss Acacia’s belly grow, like a happy gardener taking stock, I have to get the armour out of the wardrobe and face Joe one more time.

  That evening, Miss Acacia shows up at my bedroom door, her eyes flashing angrily. I’m trying to close my messily packed suitcase, and sense that the next few minutes are going to be stormy.

  ‘Watch out, mountain weather ahead!’ I joke, trying to calm things down between us.

  If her balmy sweetness knows no match, this evening my little singer is the opposite. She spits lightning.

  ‘So, just like that, you poke someone’s eye out! Who on earth have I fallen in love with?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘How could you have done anything so hideous? Youpok-ed-his-eye-out!’

  Baptism by fire, a flamenco tornado with gunpowder castanets and stilettos digging into my nerves. I wasn’t expecting this. I’m searching for something to say, but she doesn’t give me time.

  ‘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. Bu
t 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.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In which our hero asks, ‘Oh Madeleine, where are you when I need you most?’

  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 b
loody 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 . . .’