In Search of the Blue Tiger (17 page)

I am nearly asleep. A time when memory creeps in. I hear the night-wind rattle the glass in the window. I feel the cold draught on my cheek. Am I asleep?

I see Mother in a fur coat. Where has that come from? Both the coat and the memory. And the ruby-red lipstick. The way she flirts with the young fishmonger. The looks passing between them. And the smell and sheen of the fish. Samson, I call him, the fishmonger, because of his strong arms, sleeves rolled up past the elbow, exposing biceps. Mother has taken to wearing the fur coat. She seems wilder, wanton, and she cries in the afternoon. Her hair is very black, hung loose around her face and neck. Tresses of thick black hair.

We are in our parlour. I'll pretend to be a tiger and you pretend to be scared, I say to the Mother, to frighten Father when he comes home from work. So we set up the charade, Mother and me. She wishing, me wishing. The overturned chair, a scene of carnage.

When the key sounds in the front door, I throw the fur coat over myself, growl and snarl. A sense of power and victory overcomes me. All because of the magic of the fur coat. The Father expresses horror and surprise. We tussle for a second or two (we are almost a family; it is almost a family scene), but he shifts and tires, becomes angry at the child in me. The game has to come to an end. The fantasy of the tiger from the forest gives way to the early evening.

In my dream, or in my awaking, I cry when it can no longer be real. That I can no longer be the tiger. I cry from the frustration of not knowing the meaning of the fur coat. I cry because I am disturbed by the way the fishmonger stares at Mother and the smiles she returns. My tears are anger because the fur coat will not give me the strength and claws and teeth of a real tiger. The weapons I need to ambush the Father, to protect the Mother. To tear the boxer fists from his arms, to rip the face from his head. But most of all, I cry because the spell has been broken, the game is up and everyone is who they are. The Mother by the stove. The Father at the table. If it is Friday there might be fish for dinner. Not because we are Catholics (which we are of a kind), but because the Mother has taken to wearing a fur coat and the fishmonger has forearms like the legs of a racehorse.

‘My mind misgives, some consequences yet hanging in the stars.' Shakespeare

It was shortly after dreaming deeply of him, about a week after the Dilip incident and the sighting at the window, that I first saw Blue Monkey outdoors. Initially, it was more of an impression than anything else, a feeling that someone was watching. The copper-beech hedge fluttered in the wind, its leaves seemed to be tinged with an edge of deep sea blue. It was as if the world had stopped to announce a special event. The way a silent heaviness tells us snow is on the way. And then nothing. All returned to normal. I carried on the game I was playing with Stigir.

I was in the garden, counting up to twenty-five while Stigir hid. I was watching a battle between red ants and black ants on a patch of earth under the cherry blossom tree. One red ant, I called him Goliath, was a real champion. Black ants swarmed over him, but he tore them limb from limb. Even when he lost a leg or two he kept fighting. I hummed a tune from school to accompany the battle scene.

‘He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster,
let him in constancy follow the master.
No foe shall stay his might, thou he with giants fight,
he will make good his right to be a pilgrim.'

Again, I had a sense of someone nearby. I trailed off my singing and looked up from the carnage. And there he stood, relaxed and grand under the old chestnut tree on the fringes of the orchard. At first it was hard to make him out, the dappled sunlight shone from behind him, the silver-topped cane he held in one hand catching the light. But Blue Monkey cut an exquisite figure, every inch the gentleman. He clearly came from somewhere else, though he never spoke a word to me. Not once.

Often after that I felt his presence. A blue shadow, just out of sight; the reflection in a stream as I leant over to drink; a figure on the edge of a copse as darkness fell. He never spoke, but his being there was enough. Even on that first sultry afternoon, when he stood but ten yards from me, the battle of the ants raging at my feet, the strains of a hymn in the air, the ghost of the cherry blossom hanging in the trees, I knew that would always be enough. That somehow he would be around forever to protect me. To help me. A guardian.

Things people do with tigers:

In Tibet, rugs were believed to protect people from dangerous creatures such as scorpions, snakes and insects. The tiger rug was placed on luggage for protection when travelling. Judges sat on tiger rugs when giving verdicts or deciding punishment. Rulers always had tiger rugs on their thrones to show how important they were. Mnong people used the teeth and claws of a dead tiger to ward off evil. Powdered teeth were used to cure dog bite. The nerves of the tiger were mixed with alcohol to give long life.

The rain has been falling in torrents. All the dips and hollows in the school playground are filled to brimming. It is lunch-break and everyone is confined to their classrooms to play boardgames, do jigsaw puzzles, or else huddle in groups to chat away the weather.

But we have found a special place to be alone. Behind a curtain of damp duffel coats and balaclavas, hung steaming from pegs, I sit on a lukewarm radiator, waiting for Perch and Carp to begin. I had found a note in my slipper bag telling me to meet with them. So now, instead of staring up at Mrs April's window, they stare at me. I shift uneasily, uncomfortable in their gaze. They know the thoughts in my head and I want them to tell me. Soon enough they do.

‘We saw you,' begins Carp.

‘On the bridge,' adds Perch.

‘With the dog.'

I focus on the buckle on my sandal. It is worn and chipped.

‘We saw you at our house.'

‘From the window.'

‘You were watching.'

‘Following.'

The rain is beating hard on the window above our heads. I feel I have done wrong, but I don't know what it is I have done. They are pressing down on me, these Twins. I can feel it on the back of my neck, on the weight keeping my head bowed.

‘You know.'

‘About them.'

‘Our father and the Jezebel.'

I look up, confused. Is there another woman?

Perch exchanges glances with Carp.

‘About our father and the librarian,' says one.

‘Animals in consort,' says the other.

I nod my head (though I don't know what ‘consort' means), then stare back down to the floor.

There is a silence. The sound of the other children in nearby classrooms rises to the surface. Children at play. Busying themselves with games and make-believe while we weigh ourselves down with this adult world. A world where men and women glance over each other's shoulder, looking out for the unexpected blow.

‘But the Truth is found in the scriptures,' says Perch, breaking the silence.

‘The answer to all our questions,' adds Carp.

Perch takes a notebook from her bag, opens it up, lays it on her lap, so she and her sister can read from it.

‘You will learn of the Truth through our studying the Bible together,' says Carp.

‘God told Abraham to take his only son,' says Perch.

‘Isaac,' adds Carp.

‘And to go to a mountain in Moriah and offer up his son for burning.'

‘As a sacrifice.'

‘To prove his faith in God.'

In my mind's eye I see Father holding me in front of him as if he had just rescued me from the flames of a ravaged building. Only to place me on an altar and offer me to the fire.

‘Abraham did as he was told. He took Isaac to the mountain in Moriah, built an altar and tied him on top of a stack of wood.'

The coats flutter and flap as some children race through the cloakroom on their way to the toilets. Outside, the day is darkening with rain, which seems to be sucking the light from the sky.

Atop the mountain, Isaac's eyes bulge in shock and disbelief. If he'd been me nothing would surprise him.

‘Abraham had the knife at the ready and was about to slit Isaac's throat,' continues Carp.

‘But God said, “Stop, you have shown your faith.” ‘Then Abraham saw a ram caught in a bush nearby. He took the ram and used it as a sacrifice.'

Perch and Carp turn to each other and then to me, as if expecting applause.

‘Well?' says Carp.

I glance from one to the other. They are unnerving in their unity, in their alikeness. I see an image of them, together as always, standing over the altar, with me tied and bound. A rush of fear, excitement, pleasure runs through me, like the time I stood in Mrs April's bedroom.

‘Well?' says Perch.

‘Would he,' I reply, ‘would Abraham have done it if God had told him to?'

‘We'll see,' says Perch.

‘Jehovah God moves in mysterious ways,' adds Carp.

Chewing on a hazelnut I open my Grandfather's dictionary, searching for the Cs. There's a scuttling sound behind me. It must be a mouse or a rat, not expecting me to be in the cellar so early in the morning. I've been up since dawn as the word has been on my mind all night and I want to understand what the Twins meant and to write it in my scrapbook. Consort, consort. Here it is.

A wife or husband (especially of royalty); a ship sailing with another; keep company; harmonise; associate; sharer; a group or players of instruments, especially playing early music. So if Mrs April and Mr Fishcutter are animals in consort, as one of the Twins said to me (I can't remember which one), then:

• they are not husband and wife

• they are not ships

• they are not part of a musical group.

So they must be: keeping company; harmonising; associating and sharing. And this is what the Twins dislike.

Then I notice something written in the margin on the opposite page of the dictionary. It's in a fine handwritten script in blue ink, with an arrow pointing to the word ‘consentient: agreeing, united in opinion; concurrent; consenting.' I guess the note is from my Grandfather. It reads: ‘Word used in solicitor letter to Dr Edmond Fox, 23 March.' I think it's to do with Grandmother and the hospital and her teeth and everyone agreeing about something.

Proverb for the day: ‘The poor useth intreaties; but the rich answer roughly.'