In Search of the Blue Tiger (8 page)

There is a scraping of a chair in the kitchen. Peering through a crack in the floorboards I make out the heavy material of the Great Aunt's house coat. She fills the big copper kettle with water and hauls it onto the stove to boil. Then she sits back on her chair and waits.

Opening the folder I find another sheet of paper, with the same crest and same signature. Instead of blue, the ink is black.

The patient was accompanied to my rooms by her husband
,
Reginald Hayes Esq. He recounted two further episodes of mania and melancholia since Mrs Hayes' last residency here. She has been in a state of extreme euphoria for more than a calendar month. She presented today in brightly coloured clothes and a sequined turban. Notably, she was bare-footed. Mr Hayes described incidents of incessant singing (day and night): often bawdy Vaudeville songs that are most out of character with her sensibilities. He also spoke of her wandering semi-naked in the countryside around and about and of her delusions of being a great dancer. Over the last three weeks she has been repeating a single verse whenever Mr Hayes asks his wife if she is in need of anything. Neither he (nor I for that matter) have been able to source the quotation. I record it here, verbatim, in the hope of future resolution: ‘Yet, since love's argument was first on foot, let not the clouds of sorrow jostle it from what it purposed. Since, to wail friends lost is not by much so wholesome profitable as to rejoice at friends but newly found.' We agreed, at the sum of eighteen sovereigns per quarter year, that Mrs Hayes be admitted and remain under my care until further notice. Upon admission the patient is to be confined to bed rest, restrained as necessary, in a darkened room. She is to be fed double rations at all meal times, with two quarts of cow's milk three times per day. On day five: extract four molar teeth at both upper and lower jaws.

Running my tongue along my teeth I wonder how it would be to have all those teeth taken out at once. I'm used to a tooth being pushed out to make way for a new one, but eight at once! Maybe it was to help the milk flow more freely. Closing my eyes I think about being in the dark for so long. I rummage around in the trunk to see if the sequined turban is there. At the very bottom, under my grandfather's dinner jacket, is a fine silk scarf. I open it wide and feel the soft material cling to my fingers. It is decorated with a flowery pattern of delicate petals weaving between a colourful peacock.

Wrapping it around my neck I sing under my breath, so that the Great Aunt won't hear me, ‘Lala … la … tra la la Tralee …' Swirling and turning, the scarf tightens about my throat. ‘Toora la toora la toora li lai … oh father dear father I think you did me wrong … trala … for to go and get me married to one who is so young … tralee…for he is only seventeen and I am twenty-one…oh the bonny boy is young but he's growing … Tra la tra la la tra la la la la le … '

I unwind the scarf, listening to the sound of my voice trailing off and then to my breathing. I put the papers and photo back in the folder and tuck them safely away under my grandfather's shirts. I cover my face with the scarf, breathing in and out, sucking the material in to my mouth, feeling the texture on my teeth.

With care, I place the scarf in the trunk where it belongs and close the lid. Then I remember the piece of cold bacon in my pocket that I'd taken from the pantry. Sitting on top of the trunk, I munch into the fatty meat and think about the next chapter of the story I'm reading. I'll finish chewing before I dive back into my book. Am I right? Is it a red herring like Dr Watson says, or will Sherlock Holmes fall for the trap and put himself in mortal danger?

There are many stories of villages and communities of were-tigers. These villagers are easy to spot. In their human form they all lack the groove in the upper lip. These were-tigers live in houses, acting just like ordinary human beings. But if you look closer you can see the rafters are made from human bones and human skin is used for the walls. Several of these villages exist in the Malay Peninsula, the chief of which is Gunung Ledang. Similarly, in Sumatra, Pasummah is the ‘capital' of the were-tiger villages.

As well as were-tigers, people can become were-elephants, were-horses and many other animals. The
leyaks
in Bali were people who could change themselves into animals to cause trouble for others. In West Java, especially around the town of Kuningan, there are lots of reports of people changing into pigs. Through the process of
babi ngepet
or
babi jadi-jadian,
someone could sell their soul, or the soul of one of their children, in order to become a were-pig. This would enable them to go into the homes of other villagers, stealing from them without being recognised.

In Borneo, accounts of were-crocodiles are common. One famously describes a Dayak chief who suffered from a rare skin disease. Each day he would bathe in the river to gain some relief. Some villagers noted their chief talking with a large crocodile that had joined him for his bath. Then they noticed the chief's skin changed to crocodile scales. One day, the chief disappeared after bathing. He had become a were-crocodile.

The moon is full. There's a crow on the branch of a leafless tree. Given the time of night, it should be an owl. But this is no ordinary scene.

The sharp eye of the crow spies the two figures below. They are placing twigs, dry grass and pinecones around a neat pile of coloured paper. Each sheet has a carefully scripted symbol drawn in thick black ink. There are crescents and stars, mystical serpents and maze-like knots.

Perch strikes a match and it lights up the grin on Carp's face. For a moment she holds it in front of her mouth, almost kissing the flame with her moistened lips. The sisters gaze at each other and laugh, setting the flame abobbing to and fro.

Then Perch throws the match on the bonfire and the flames leap into life.

Carp reaches into the pocket of her coat and from her clenched fist casts a handful of powder into the fire. Blues and greens shoot up from its midst as the sheets of paper twist and curl, sending thick scraps of ash dancing upwards, spiralling and coiling into the cold and dark beyond.

Perch takes two worn library tickets from her pocket. They belonged to their dearly departed Mother and have her name neatly written in the tell-tale hand of Mrs April, the librarian. Perch licks her thumb and scratches and smears the ink to a smudge. Then each sister spits on the cards and Perch crumples them into a mulch. When tossed on the fire they sizzle and coil, and the sisters throw back their heads, raising their arms to the blackened sky.

In the branch above, the crow shudders and shakes his feathers, surprising himself with an action normally reserved for the dawn.

The sisters join hands. In perfect unison (their exquisite and special skill) they bend and swirl in a dance with the flames.

‘Pain and suffering to the Jezebel, the Harlot, the Tidetown whore,' chants Perch.

‘Until we meet again, Mother dearest,' howls Carp.

‘After the fearful and mighty Day of Judgement,' shrieks Perch.

Then, in harmony, they sing the song of the psalmist:

‘
O wherefore the flames,
On who the wrath of Jehovah will fall.
O wherefore the flames,
Beware the flames of Hades, all.'

Across town, Mrs April turns awkwardly in her sleep as a sharp pain stabs her spine. She groans and stretches, finding herself more awake than she expects to be. She opens her eyes wide to let in the dark. The shapes and shadows dance about the room and she fancies she hears the paws of a cat in the corridor.

‘Silly, old bat,' she says to herself, to break the mood, reminding herself that the stray cat who once scratched the furniture in the hallway had long since disappeared down the lane.

She fumbles to reach for her glasses, gasping as the pain shoots up her back, and squints at the clock. Noting it is far too early, she pulls the blanket up to her chin, breathing deeply to keep the pain at bay.

‘I must be careful humping all those books to the top shelf,' she thinks to herself, rubbing the small of her back with her fist.

Outside, she hears the whistle of the wind in the trees; inside, she hears her mind wandering down the avenues of her past.

First comes Mr Preachwell, the vicar, who comforted her in the months after her young husband's tragic death, and then, a week after Easter, took her by the hand and led her gently to the bedroom in the attic of the vicarage. She remembers well the sweet smell of the clematis that climbed to the open window (to peek in on the lovers?). And remembers (was it a year later?) when he came to her in the library (she was atop the step-ladder, then, shelving books: how ironic) to tell her he was off to Kenya to spread the word of the Gospel. He smiled up at her; she smiled back, knowing his ambition was to be fulfilled. But hers? She was a young woman, still open to hope and adventure, but her mother was ill and needed her only daughter.

One by one, her mind resurrects the lovers who shared her bed in the years since her husband drowned. The trace of a smile, an old photograph on the pier, ice cream and candy floss, tender words, a gentle touch on her tear-filled cheek, footsteps turning a corner, a branch scratching on a frosty windowpane. And then her current paramour. Strong sensations of those early passionate days and weeks: fiery and breathless, hungry and heady. Immediate. She tastes his skin, feels his strength, recalls the sweet exhaustion. And then more recently a cooling off, a reticence. A foreboding.

The dawn is threatening to dispel the gloom, but her back still aches and she feels an uncertainty and uneasiness that is unfamiliar.

Outside, passing by her window, she hears the wings of a bird and then the distinct and harsh caw of a crow.

‘Look how he laughs and stretches out his arms, And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine.' Byron

There is a rhythm to the town, like the tide in its name. In the early morning the people of Tidetown pop from their houses. They ebb and flow through the streets, sucked into fisheries and factories, offices and boat yards. There they stay, the roads and byways largely empty, dry and still, bereft of movement, save for the trickle of mothers and children. Come evening, the streets swell again and the townsfolk merge and meander back to their homes, once again safe and secure for the night. Out on the headland the lighthouse scours the coastline, picking out any who have strayed too close to shore, illuminating them for all to see.

A man sat next to me in the park this morning. He stroked Stigir and said my little dog looked liked Victoria Plum jam and could he spread him on buttered toast and have him for breakfast.

He laughed, so I laughed.

Then he went quiet and said something Mother said was strange when I told her later. And she said I should always get up and go if anyone says things like that again and she said he was a beast and I should find a policeman and tell them. But I liked what he said and it is not anywhere near as strange as the things I hear in this house.