The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart Read online

  An old metal clock with a thousand pretentious gold-plate flourishes dominates the entrance to the shop. It resembles its owner, in the same way that certain dogs resemble their masters. Just as I’m walking past the door, I give it a good kick, professional footballer style. The clock teeters, its pendulum slamming violently against its sides. As I bolt along the Boulevard Saint-Germain, I hear the tinkle of broken glass behind me. It’s amazing how much that sound relaxes me.

  The second clockmaker, a fat balding chap in his fifties, seems more sympathetic.

  ‘You should pay a visit to Monsieur Méliès. He’s a most inventive illusionist. I’m sure he’ll be better placed than I am to sort out your problem, little one.’

  ‘I need a clockmaker, not a magician!’

  ‘Some clockmakers have a whiff of the magician about them, but this particular magician has something of the clockmaker about him. He’s like the famous Robert-Houdin – whose theatre he’s just bought,’ he adds, cheekily. ‘Pay him a visit and say I sent you. I’m sure he’ll fix you up properly!’

  I don’t understand why this nice gentleman won’t mend me himself, but his easy acceptance of my problem is comforting. And I’m keen to meet a magician who’s actually a magician-clockmaker. He’ll probably look like Madeleine; he might even come from the same family.

  I cross the Seine. My eyes nearly pop out at the elegance of the giant cathedral, not to mention the parade of derrières and chignons. This city is a cobblestone wedding cake with a Sacred Heart on top. Finally, I reach the Boulevard des Italiens, where the famous theatre is situated. A young man with lively eyes opens the door.

  ‘Does the magician live here?’

  ‘Which one?’ he replies, talking in riddles.

  ‘A man called Georges Méliès.’

  ‘That’s me!’

  He walks like an automaton, jerky and elegant at the same time. He speaks quickly, his hands punctuating his words like living exclamation marks. But when I tell him my story, he listens very carefully. Above all, it’s the conclusion that interests him:

  ‘Even if this clock functions as my heart, the mainten ance work I’m asking of you is straightforward for a clockmaker.’

  As the clockmaker-conjurer opens my dial, he listens to my chest with a stethoscope that allows him to hear the minuscule elements. His attitude softens, as if his childhood is flashing before his eyes. He activates the system, setting off the clockwork cuckoo, then promptly expresses his admiration for Madeleine’s work.

  ‘How did you manage to bend the hour hand?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m in love but I don’t know anything about love. So I get angry, I get into fights, and sometimes I even try to speed time up or else to slow it down. Is it badly damaged?’

  He laughs like a child, except he’s got a moustache.

  ‘No, everything’s working very nicely. What exactly did you want to know?’

  ‘Well, Dr Madeleine, who fitted me with this clock, says that my makeshift heart isn’t suitable for falling in love. She’s convinced it wouldn’t survive such an emotional shock.’

  ‘Really? I see . . .’

  He screws up his eyes and strokes his chin.

  ‘That might be her opinion . . . but you don’t have to share it, do you?’

  ‘I don’t agree with her, you’re right. But when I saw the little singer for the first time, I felt as if an earthquake was going on underneath my clock. The gears grated, my tick-tock sped up. I started suffocating, getting myself all tangled up, everything was topsy-turvy.’

  ‘Did you like that?’

  ‘I loved it.’

  ‘Ah! So what was the problem?’

  ‘Well, I was terrified Madeleine might be right.’

  Georges Méliès shakes his head and strokes his moustache. He’s searching for the right words, the way a surgeon might choose his instruments.

  ‘If you’re frightened of damaging yourself, you increase the risk of doing just that. Consider the tightrope walker. Do you think he spares any thought for falling while he’s walking the rope? No, he accepts the risk, and enjoys the thrill of braving the danger. If you spend your whole life being careful not to break anything, you’ll get terribly bored, you know . . . I can’t think of anything more fun than being impulsive. Just look at you! I only have to say the word “impulsive” and your eyes light up. Aha! When a person aged fourteen decides to cross Europe to track down a girl, that means that they’ve got rather a taste for impulsiveness, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes . . . But have you got something that would make my heart a bit more robust?’

  ‘Of course I have. Listen to me carefully. Are you ready? Listen to me very carefully: the only thing, as you say, that will allow you to seduce the woman of your dreams, is your heart. Not the clockwork version that was grafted on to you at birth. I’m talking about the real one, the one that’s underneath, made of flesh and blood, pulsing. That’s the one you’ve got to work with. Forget about your clockwork problems and they’ll seem less important. Be impulsive and above all give, give without counting the cost.’

  Méliès is very expressive. All his features are active when he speaks. Cat-like, his moustache follows his smile.

  ‘It doesn’t work every time. I’m not guaranteeing anything. Take me, for example: I’ve just failed with the woman I thought was the love of my life. There simply is no trick that works every time.’

  I’ve been given a lesson in love by a conjurer (some might call him a genius) who’s just confessed that his most recent potion blew up in his face. But I have to concede that his words are doing me as much good as his adjustments to my gears. He’s gentle and he knows how to listen. You can tell he understands the way that humans work. Perhaps he’s succeeded in penetrating the secrets of man’s psychological machinery. In just a few hours, we’ve struck up a friendly alliance.

  ‘I could write a book about your story. I know it as well as if it was my own now,’ he tells me.

  ‘So write it. If I have children one day, they’ll be able to read it. But if you want to find out what happens next, you’ll have to come with me to Andalusia.’

  ‘Surely you don’t want a depressed conjurer accompany ing you on your pilgrimage of love?’

  ‘Actually yes, I’d like that a lot.’

  ‘You know I might mess up a miracle?’

  ‘Of course you won’t.’

  ‘Give me the night to mull it over, will you?’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  As the first rays of sunshine begin to sneak through the shutters of Georges Méliès’ workshop, I hear shouting:

  ‘Andalusia! Anda! Andalusia! Anda! AndaaaAAAH!’

  A madman in pyjamas appears, straight out of an opera.

  ‘All right, young man. I could do with “travelling” in every sense of the word, I’m not going to let myself be crushed by my misery for ever. A great blast of fresh air, that’s what we’re both going to enjoy! If you still want me as a companion, that is.’

  ‘Of course! When are we leaving?’

  ‘Straight away, after breakfast!’ he answers, pointing to his travel bag.

  We sit down at a rickety table to drink scalding hot chocolate and eat jam on toast that’s too soft. It’s not as tasty as one of Madeleine’s breakfasts, but it’s fun to be eating in the midst of paper cut-out extra-terrestrials.

  ‘You know, when I was in love, I was always inventing things. A whole array of tricks, illusions and optical effects to amuse my lady friend. I think she’d had enough of my inventions by the end,’ he says, his moustache at half-mast. ‘I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I should have given her was a real journey on earth. I should have asked for her hand in marriage, found us a house that was easier to live in than my old workshop, and I don’t know what else . . .’ he sighs. ‘One day, I sawed two planks from the shelves and attached wheels rescued from a hospital trolley, so that the two of us could glide in the moonlight. I called them “roller-board
s”. But she never wanted to climb on to them. And I had to repair the shelves too. Love isn’t easy every day, my boy,’ he repeats, dreamily. ‘But you and I, we’ll climb on to those boards! We’ll speed across half of Europe on our roller-boards!’

  ‘Can we catch trains as well? Because I’m a bit pressed for time . . .’

  ‘Oppressed by time?’

  ‘That too.’

  To think that my clock is a magnet for broken hearts: Madeleine, Arthur, Anna, Luna, even Joe; and now Méliès. I get the impression their hearts need the care of a good clockmaker even more than mine does.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wind-battered moustaches, empty claws and a fiery flamenco sauce

  Southwards! Here we are, setting off along the roads of France, pilgrims on wheels chasing an impossible dream. What a pair we make: one of us tall and gangly with a moustache like a cat’s whiskers, the other a short redhead with a wooden heart. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, we lay siege to the spaghetti western landscape of Andalusia. Luna used to describe the south of Spain as an unpredictable place where dreams and nightmares co-exist, like cowboys and Indians in the American Wild West. ¡Qué será será!

  Along the way, we talk a great deal. In some ways Méliès has become my Dr Love, playing the opposite role to Madeleine; and yet, they remind me of each other. I try to encourage him to win back his sweetheart.

  ‘She might still be in love with you, wherever she is. And she’d still enjoy a voyage to the moon, wouldn’t she, even if it was in a cardboard rocket?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. She says I’m pathetic, the way I’m always tinkering with things. She’s bound to fall in love with a scientist or a soldier, given how it all ended.’

  My conjurer-clockmaker has a wry outlook even when he’s drowning in sorrow. His wonky, wind-battered moustache could tell you that.

  I’ve never laughed as much as I do in the course of this fabulous ride. We travel like stowaways on freight trains, sleep very little and eat whatever we can get our hands on. I may have a clock for a heart, but I’ve given up keeping an eye on the time. We are rained on so often that I can’t believe we haven’t shrunk. But nothing can stop us. We feel more alive than ever.

  When we reach Lyon, we cross the Pont de la Guillotière on our roller-boards, holding on to the back of a carriage, and passers-by cheer us as if we were the peloton in the Tour de France.

  In Valence, after a night spent roaming the streets, an old lady treats us like her grandsons and cooks up the most delicious poulet-frites in the world. We’re also allowed a soapy bath that works wonders, and a glass of still lemonade. The high life.

  Feeling clean and perky, we set off to attack the Gates of the South. The city of Orange and its railway police who don’t want to let us sleep in the livestock vans; Perpignan with its early smells of Spain. Kilometre by kilometre, my dream grows thick with possibilities. Miss Acacia, I’m coming!

  I feel invincible travelling alongside Captain Méliès. Buttressed against our roller-boards we cross the Spanish border, and a warm wind rushes inside me, transforming my clock hands into windmill blades. They’ll grind the seeds of my dreams and turn them into reality. Miss Acacia, I’m coming!

  An army of olive trees ushers us through, followed by orange trees nestling their fruit in the sky. Tireless, we press on. The red mountains of Andalusia slice through our horizon.

  A cumulus cloud ruptures on those mountain peaks, spitting its nervous lightning a few hundred metres away from us. Méliès signals that I should tuck my scrap metal away. Now is not the moment to conduct lightning.

  A bird approaches, hovering like a vulture. The circle of rocks surrounding us gives him a sinister air. But it’s just Luna’s old carrier pigeon, bringing me news from Edinburgh. I’m so relieved to see him back at last. Despite my simmering dreams of Miss Acacia, I haven’t forgotten about Dr Madeleine for a moment.

  The pigeon lands in a tiny cloud of dust. My heart races, I’m impatient to read the letter. But I can’t catch the wretched bird. My mustachioed Red Indian friend tries to tame him by cooing away, and eventually I grab hold of his feathery body.

  But it’s all a waste of time. The pigeon is travelling empty-clawed, with just a remnant of string on his left leg. And no letter from Madeleine; the wind must have snatched it. Perhaps in the Rhône Valley around Valence, where the gusts rush in before sloping off to die in the sun.

  I feel as disappointed as if I’d just opened a parcel full of ghosts. I perch on my roller-board and hastily scribble a note.

  Dear Madeleine,

  In your next letter, please could you let me know what you said in your first, because this idiot pigeon went and lost it before delivering it to me.

  I’ve found a clockmaker who is taking good care of my clock, and I’m doing well.

  I miss you lots. Anna, Luna and Arthur too.

  With love from

  Jack

  Méliès helps me roll the piece of paper correctly around the bird’s claw.

  ‘If she knew I was at the gates of Andalusia, chasing after my love, she’d be furious.’

  ‘All mothers are afraid for their children and protect them as best they can, but it’s time for you to leave the nest. Look at your heart! It’s midday! We’ve got to push on. Have you seen what’s written on the sign straight ahead? “‘Granada!’ Anda! Anda!” Méliès roars, with an other-wordly glimmer in his eye.

  In a treasure hunt, when the glow from the gold coins starts to glimmer through the keyhole in the chest, the seeker is overcome by emotion, barely able to open the lid. Fear of winning.

  As for me, I’ve been nursing this dream for so long. Joe smashed it against my head, and I picked up the pieces. Patiently, I endured the pain, but in my imagination I was already putting the egg back together again, and it was full of pictures of the little singer. Now here she is, about to hatch, and I’m rigid with stage fright. The Alhambra extends its arabesques towards us, outlined against the opal sky. The carriages jolt about. My clock jolts too. The wind picks up, blowing dust all around and lifting up the women’s dresses, turning them into parasols. Will I dare to open you out, Miss Acacia?

  As soon as we arrive in the old city, we set about hunting down its theatres. The light is almost blinding. Méliès asks the same question at every theatre we find along the way:

  ‘Does a little flamenco-singing girl with poor eyesight ring any bells?’

  It’d be easier to spot a snowflake in a snowstorm. Dusk finally calms the city’s orangey-red glow, but still there’s no trace of Miss Acacia.

  ‘There are lots of singing girls like that around here . . .’ replies a skinny man sweeping the square in front of the umpteenth theatre.

  ‘No, no, no, this one is extraordinary. She’s very young, fourteen or fifteen years old, but she sings like a grown woman. Oh, and she’s always bumping into things.’

  ‘If she really is as extraordinary as you say she is, then you should try the Extraordinarium.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An old circus converted into a funfair. They’ve got every kind of show there: caravans of troubadours, prima ballerinas, ghost trains, carousels of wild elephants, singing birds, freak shows of real-life monsters . . . I think they might have a little singing girl. It’s at 7, calle Pablo Jardim, in the Cartuja district, about a quarter of an hour from here.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir.’

  ‘It’s a curious place, but if you like that kind of thing . . . Good luck, anyway!’

  On the road leading to the Extraordinarium, Méliès is full of last-minute recommendations.

  ‘Play it like a poker game. Never reveal your fears or doubts. You’ve got a trump card and it’s called your heart. You may think of it as a weakness, but embrace your vulnerability and your clockwork heart will make you special. It’s precisely your difference that will win her over.’

  ‘My handicap will be a weapon of seduction? Do you really think so?’

  ‘Of course
! Don’t tell me that you weren’t charmed by that singer of yours when she refused to put on her glasses? When she began bumping into things?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that . . .’

  ‘It’s not just that, of course, but her “difference” is all part of her charm. And now is the time to make the most of yours.’

  It’s ten o’clock at night by the time we enter the Extraordinarium. We travel up and down the alleyways as music rings out from every corner, several melodies blending together in a joyful brouhaha. Stalls give off a smell of frying and dust – people must be thirsty all the time here.

  The crackpot collection of fairground attractions looks set to topple at the slightest puff. The House of Singing Birds is just like my heart, only bigger. You have to wait for the hour to strike in order to see those birds popping out from behind the dial; it’s easier to adjust a clock when there’s nothing alive inside.

  After wandering around for some time, I notice a wall with a poster announcing that evening’s shows, complete with photos.

  Miss Acacia, fiery flamenco sauce, 10 p.m., on the Small Stage, opposite the Ghost Train

  I recognise her features instantly. I’ve been searching in my dreams for four years, and now, right at the end of the race, reality is finally taking over. I feel dizzy, like a fledgeling bird on the day it first takes flight. The cosy nest of my imagination is receding; it’s time to jump.

  The paper roses stitched on to the little singer’s dress trace the treasure map that is her body. The tip of my tongue tastes electric. I’m a bomb ready to explode – a terrified bomb, but a bomb all the same.

  We head towards the stage, and take our seats. The stage is a simple platform set up under a trailer awning. To think that in a few moments I’m about to see her . . . How many millions of seconds have been and gone since my tenth birthday? How many millions of times have I dreamt of this moment? The euphoria is so intense I’m finding it hard to stay still. Meanwhile, inside my chest, the proud windmill has reverted to a tiny Swiss cuckoo.