The Madness of Grief Read online

The routine was far from risk-free. On the stage of an old Victorian theatre in some godforsaken town, and before the blades were fitted for the terrifying number’s premiere performance, I had spent several excruciating hours accustoming my body movements to the tempo of Sweeney Todd’s. The way my heart was beating was telling me something was wrong.

  My father squatted beside me, which he almost didn’t have to (he really was very short), tugging playfully at my pigtails.

  ‘There’s really nothing to it,’ he told me. If only he could hear how fast my heart was beating… ‘It’s all about getting your timing right. You know, like when you’re skipping. And you’re good at skipping, aren’t you?’

  I was good at skipping, but this wasn’t like skipping at all. Slipping through a pair of moving blades was not the same as hop-hop-hopping on the spot over a harmless piece of rope.

  ‘But I hate it, do I really have to?’

  From behind my father’s back, one of the stagehands cleared his throat, and when he caught my eye he shook his head with an extraordinary violence, as if to say in no uncertain terms that NO, I didn’t really have to.

  ‘If you want to be a star, yes, you do really have to,’ my father told me sternly. But then returning quickly to his honey-coated tone, still tugging at my pigtails, ‘And what little girl in the world wouldn’t want to be a star?’

  ‘Did mummy want to be a star?’

  ‘Of course mummy wanted to be a star. And she was, she was the biggest, brightest star there ever was.’

  When I looked again at the stagehand, two other stagehands had joined him. All their eyes were wide as though filled with my own fear, and with that same extraordinary violence now all three of them shook their heads. I turned around to look at Sweeney Todd, whose metallic clinking and clanking was terrifying even when he wasn’t wearing blades. Then I snatched back my pigtails and lashed out at my father with both fists.

  ‘And now she’s dead,’ I snivelled as I tried to catch my breath. ‘I don’t want to be a star, I don’t want to be dead!’

  How he managed to persuade me, I wouldn’t have been able to say, but he did. Fear and practice made of me a piece of elastic, and for one entire season Little Magik Matchstick, clutching a theatrical bouquet of plastic daisies, wriggled to the tempo of the sliding double-sided guillotine, acrobatically defying the swinging blades of Sweeney Todd.

  But this never-ending season was it, I wasn’t going to do it ever again, no way, and before our final performance at the Magic Palladium in Croydon, I already had a plan. Starting from tomorrow I would stuff myself with sweets – cream cakes, ginger biscuits, chocolates and custard puddings, anything and everything that I could lay my hands on... If I put enough weight on, Little Magik Matchstick would hardly be Matchstick, and by no amount of bending would fit through any acceptable gap. At the thought of all those cakes that lay in store, my mouth was watering already.

  After his signature rabbit trick, Mr Magikoo was taking a bow in his top hat and cape, and when the enthusiastic applause had subsided - the auditorium was bursting at the seams – he rose up to the full height of his shortness and extended his arms as though offering himself to be crucified.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please hold your breath, for you are now about to witness an extraordinary feat. In the face of THIS!’ At which point Sweeney Todd made its entrance from the wings and was pushed into place, slightly further back from the middle of the stage. ‘Yes indeed, Ladies and Gentlemen, your eyes are not deceiving you, it is verily as hideous and deadly a contraption as it looks.’ With a swing of his cape he had gathered his hands into fists, then with an almighty jolt he threw them both open towards Sweeney Todd. On cue the machine was switched on, and slowly gathered speed. ‘It is in fact even more hideous and deadly than it looks, as hideous and deadly as the hideous and deadly Sweeney Todd after whom it is named. And in the face of THIS, the hideous and deadly Sweeney Todd, I present to you the brave, the heroic, the incomparable Little Magik Matchstick!’

  With my bouquet of plastic daisies, I made my way to the side of Sweeney Todd and took a hesitant bow. The applause made my heart beat even faster.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, before your unbelieving eyes Little Magik Matchstick will cross in one piece, unscratched and completely unscathed, from this to the other side of Sweeney Todd through the horrifying Scylla and Charybdis of its overlapping blades, begging your indulgence, if I may, for my modest mythological flourish. Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now give you a small illustration of the truly mortal danger to which Little Magik Matchstick will shortly be subjecting herself. Voluntarily, I can assure you. Happily, even…’ Here he paused for a moment while he dug into the inside of his cape. ‘As you can see, I’m holding in my hand an ordinary cucumber fresh from the market. I am holding it in front of me, and I’m approaching Sweeney Todd. Now I’m poking it like so at the innards of this vicious machine, and I’m holding in my hand… half an ordinary cucumber, fresh from the market… Please, Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado put your hands together for Little Magik Matchstick!’

  ‘STOP! Turn off that horrible abomination right now, or so help me, George, I’m going to the police.’

  ‘Auntie Ada!’ I mumbled to myself in astonishment.

  ‘This isn’t entertainment, this is cruelty and abuse,’ auntie Ada continued to boom, zooming down the central aisle to the foot of the stage.

  ‘Hear, hear!’ someone yelled.

  ‘Off, off, off!’ shouted another, and now everyone was shouting it: ‘OFF, OFF, OFF!’ Shouting it and stamping their feet…

  A stagehand pulled the plug on Sweeney Todd, and its clinking and clanking screeched to a halt. At last it was OFF, and I let my posy drop to the floor.

  Quick as always to think on his feet, Mr Magikoo was already by my side, and enveloping me with his cape, he filled the stage with fits of fake laughter. ‘Please, Ladies and Gentlemen, a warm round of applause for Little Magik Matchstick, our young practical joker who had you all fooled!’

  That was my final performance, and the last time I toured with my bedroom and Mr Magikoo. When my father was away, auntie Ada was glad to stay over – the portable bed in our pocket-sized storeroom upstairs suited her seasoned English hardiness just fine. She didn’t live far – she had a small one-bedroom flat in Tufnell Park - and had few other commitments as far as I knew, other than her reasonably flexible job at the library in Kentish Town.

  I was happy that the Sweeney Todd nightmare was finally behind me. But perhaps for some extra insurance, I decided all the same to go through with my original plan, and starting with a chocolate éclair and some Garibaldi biscuits the day after Croydon, I embarked on a lifetime of gorging on sweets. The effect would not be catastrophic. Yes, Little Magik Matchstick would soon be a thing of the past, but my fortunate metabolism meant that I would stabilise at just short of “plump”. And indeed it would be a just-short-of-plumpness, firm and well defined, that in later life would stand me in good stead: it gave me extra curve and made me a voluptuous woman.

  As well as cleanliness and French cuisine, Mia-Mia’s arrival on the scene brought about a host of other changes. In the first place she forbade any more tours. After just a cursory inspection of my father’s books, she informed him bluntly one evening that the tours were a drain on his finances that he could no longer afford. If he concentrated all his efforts on Mr Magikoo’s Magik Shoppe, they might just about manage to save it. It had a steady stream of customers and quite a reputation, but suffered from inadequate accounting and shrinking profit margins.

  ‘You’ve had your fun with the tours, now it’s time for Mr Magikoo to call it a day, give or take the odd guest appearance. And what’s this about taking your daughter’s room away with you every time you’ve been on tour? That would never have happened if I’d been around, and I’m putting a stop to it right now. Why she’s put up with it for so many years is beyond me. I hope you’ve not been bullying the girl.’

  ‘Of course not.�
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  ‘It can’t have been easy, raising her alone, but she’s a teenager now. Fourteen is a difficult age.’

  ‘Ada’s been helping. Jane’s more fond of her than she’s of me.’

  ‘Well I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  Obviously at that stage Mia-Mia didn’t know what had happened either to my mother or to Little Magik Matchstick. Had she known, I imagined that she would have been even less surprised.

  ‘And all those filthy animals you keep in her room, dead or alive they’ve got to go, and they’ve got to go first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘But Jane might not want them to go. She’s especially fond of the rabbits.’

  Liar! Mia-Mia was right, I had put up with it for far too long, and I was glad that I had found a second ally. Had it not been for auntie Ada, who knows what hideous fate had been in store for Little Magik Matchstick! But that was the only time my father had deferred to his sister on anything related to his magic. He must have known he was breaking the law, and when auntie Ada threatened him with the police, he didn’t have much choice but to give in. With Mia-Mia it was different. She had Mr Magikoo under her spell, and this was my chance to make the most of it.

  ‘No I’m not fond of the rabbits at all,’ I said, emerging from the darkness of the kitchen, where furtively I had delighted in my father’s dressing down. ‘You’ve only just met Mia-Mia and you’re already telling her lies. You’re asking her to let me keep the rabbits because you want to butcher them, not because I like them.’

  ‘You butcher rabbits? What kind of magic is that?’

  ‘It’s just a trick I used to do,’ my father answered sheepishly. ‘It was very popular, and there was very little pain involved, I promise.’

  ‘Oh yes, very little,’ I said, ‘only the pain of being cut into two.’

  ‘But it was very quick. It had to be, or the trick wouldn’t have worked.’

  ‘What was the trick?’ asked Mia-Mia.

  ‘Pulling a rabbit out of two different hats,’ my father explained.

  ‘Stop! If I hear any more I’ll be sick.’ Mia-Mia had her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Can we at least keep the budgerigars?’

  ‘Not in my room,’ I said.

  The next day, when I came back from school all the animals were gone and the torture wall was bare. I celebrated in the kitchen with a slice of treacle tart and a piece of Rhubarb pie with ice cream.

  Mia-Mia had been firm and decisive – manly, even. I had found her indomitable spirit inspiring. But soon she had reverted to being my father’s kitten. As for auntie Ada, my father told her he had made a financial decision to give up the tours, and all the animals had been donated to a charity pet shop. I thought it strange that she listened without asking any questions. Perhaps she had guessed Mia-Mia’s part in these momentous decisions, and had judged it an unflattering reflection on herself.

  5

  Men on the Moon

  Six words that had turned my whole world upside down: ‘Let’s go upstairs to my room.’ If they hadn’t been said, my reaction to my father’s crude insinuations would have been to shrug them off. But they had been said, and the evening at Karl’s had not ended there.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs to my room.’ Looking at me over his shoulder, he had bent his body forward and was leaning on his knees with his hands, ready to spring up onto his feet. Clearly I had heard him correctly. Any doubt had been dispelled.

  Instead of answering I looked at my watch, as though I couldn’t have envisaged any other impediment than time. I was petrified. Was it possible… no it wasn’t… was it? Well, why not? Why shouldn’t Karl be interested in me, even if I wasn’t quite as godlike as he was? My looks were not unpleasant, my body had shape, and Karl and I stood perfectly erect at about the same height. Hadn’t stranger things actually happened?

  ‘And even if I did believe in the Bible…’ The pitch of my voice on the edge of a shriek, I shrank back into silence, still embracing the cushion I had pressed against my breast after telling him his music was uplifting.

  Karl narrowed his eyes. ‘The Bible?’

  ‘My father,’ I managed to stutter. ‘If I believed in the Bible, probably I’d hate him even more. I’d choose an eye for an eye over turning the other cheek.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the Bible any more than you do,’ said Karl, snatching the cushion away from me and hurling it over to one of the armchairs – apart from the sofa (dark grey, speckled with burgundy), the living room in Cross Street was furnished with two matching armchairs, arranged around an oblong wooden table precisely at the centre of an oblong woollen rug (ultramarine, decorated geometrically in black). ‘Frau Angela doesn’t either but she likes going to church. Even if there isn’t a God, she thinks that religion is useful.’

  ‘I think religion is harmful.’

  ‘I think what Frau Angela means is that it’s good for business,’ said Karl, and it was probably the first time I had seen him roll his eyes. But then his face was placid again, and it edged towards mine as he turned his body round until our knees almost touched. ‘Forget the Bible. It just isn’t fair, hating your father for something that wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘It was his fault.’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘He wired my mother up in an electric chair, and then he pressed a button and he electrocuted her.’

  ‘It was part of their act, you said they’d done it dozens of times.’ His gaze had become too intense; I could feel the heat of his breath; something was touching my knee.

  ‘Except this time he decided that he wanted bigger fireworks.’

  ‘Mami says that you must let the past go. But first you need to deal with what’s happened. Instead of grieving you’ve been blaming your dad, which is no good for either of you.’

  ‘I tell you things in confidence.’

  ‘I know,’ said Karl. ‘But every time you visit me you bring it up – out of the blue, like tonight. “Play something,” you said. And the next minute we’re at the piano and you’re telling me how much you hate your dad.’

  ‘And you’re always calling yours an arsehole,’ I wanted to say, but that would only have proved Karl was right. Hatred was too strong a word. ‘I blame your mother’s meatballs,’ I said. ‘They gave me indigestion.’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Karl. ‘Now come on, let’s go upstairs.’

  For the second time I looked at my watch. ‘You should turn the TV on, I want to see the men on the moon.’

  ‘I’ve watched the whole thing live,’ said Karl.

  ‘But I haven’t. And you said they’d be showing it now on the news.’

  ‘They’ll be showing it on the news all week. It’ll be like the Kennedy shooting all over again.’

  ‘You watched Bobby Kennedy being shot?’

  ‘That was so unmemorable I’d forgotten all about it. No, I meant the President’s.’

  ‘But that was years ago.’

  ‘1963, November 22.’ The weight of his body was now against mine, and one naked arm had crept its way behind me.

  ‘You had a TV in 1963?’ I shook myself forward, and I turned to look at Karl from the edge of the sofa.

  ‘That same one,’ he said, flexing his head in the TV’s direction. ‘Six years ago and I remember it almost like I’m watching it now. Snap, and Jackie puts her arms around Jack. Then another snap that blows off half his head, and now he’s definitely down and Jackie makes a run for it, climbing on all fours over the back of the open limousine – I mean, where do you think she thought she was going?’

  ‘And they showed all that on TV? But how old were you in 1963, I’m surprised Dr Schmidt let you watch it.’

  ‘Mami’s very progressive when it comes to the news; we often watch horrible things. The news is real, she says, and it’s good if you can see what’s going on, as long as you know that they’re not showing lies. I’m not sure that she’s right, though. When I watch even horrible things on TV, I can’t get it out of my head
that I’m watching a movie, it doesn’t feel like any of it’s actually real.’ And brandishing a finger at the television, ‘There’s something about TV that makes things seem fake, don’t you think?’

  Rapt with admiration, I just shook my head. ‘I’ve only ever watched TV with you. We’ve never had one, dad says he doesn’t approve.’

  ‘Now there’s a good reason to hate him.’ While he stared into the distance, Karl had brought his hands down on his thighs, and the judder of the clap made me jump. ‘Sorry, that was out of order,’ he said, and through the denim of my jeans he was squeezing my knee – was I glad I wasn’t wearing a skirt? Then with his head against the back of the sofa, still stubbornly avoiding my gaze, ‘So, are we going upstairs or not?’

  Just then the front door opened and Frau Angela walked in, practical handbag in one hand and bulging worn-out briefcase in the other. I thought about what Karl had said - that his mother was more brilliant than anyone might guess just by looking at her. Were all men the same, judging even their own mothers by looks?

  Undeniably Frau Angela was not of the swinging ’60s, and it had nothing to do with her age. She was emphatically not psychedelic; it was as if style and colour had eluded her completely, but she looked neither old nor odd in her plainness. Taken one by one her features were not unattractive, but taken as a whole they became incoherent, adding up to a contradictory impression of severity overwhelmed by excessive good health. I hadn’t a clue what a Reichian therapist was, but I suspected Karl’s mother was probably a good one. All the same, without knowing why, I didn’t really like her.

  ‘Another time then.’ And letting go of my knee, Karl got up to greet his Mami with a kiss.

  ‘The TV isn’t on? Good evening, Jane.’

  ‘Good evening, Dr Schmidt.’

  ‘Please, you must call me Angela.’

  ‘You said you’d not be home till late,’ Karl said as he carried her briefcase to the dining room table. ‘Jane’s eaten all the meatballs, by the way. They gave her indigestion.’