They Do the Same Things Different There (11 page)

Eventually she rolled off. He thought he should hug her. He put his arms around her, felt how strong she was. He felt like crying again. He supposed that would be a bad idea.

“I love you,” she said. “I am very patient. I have learned to love you.”

She fetched a hairbrush. She played at his hair. “My sweetheart,” she said, “my angel cake.” She turned him over, spanked his bottom hard with the brush until the cheeks were red as rouge. “My big baby doll.”

And this time he
did
cry—it was as if she’d given him permission. And it felt so good.

He looked across at the doll, still smiling at him, and he hated her, and he wanted to hurt her, he wanted to take his gun and shove the barrel right inside her mouth and blast a hole through the back of her head. He wanted to take his gun and bludgeon her with it, blow after blow, and he knew how good that would feel, the skull smashing, the wetness. And this time he wouldn’t cry. He would be a real man.

“I love you,” she said again. “With all my heart.”

She pulled back from him, and looked him in the face, sizing him up, as she had that first time they’d met. She gave him a salute.

He giggled at that, he tried to raise his own arm to salute back, but it wouldn’t do it, he was so very silly.

There was a blur of something brown at the foot of the bed; something just out of the corner of his eye, and the blur seemed to still, and the brown looked like a jacket maybe, trousers, a uniform. He tried to cry out—in fear, or at least in surprise?—but there was no air left in him. There was the smell of mud, so much mud. Who’d known mud could smell? And a voice to the blur, a voice in spite of all. “Is it time?”

He didn’t see his wife’s reaction, nor hear her reply. His head jerked, and he was looking at the doll again, and she was the queen doll, the best doll, so pretty in her wedding dress. She was his queen. And he thought she was smiling even wider, and that she was pleased he was offering her such sweet tribute.

For his birthday, David Allan was going to get a cake, a big one with chocolate sponge and nuts and fondant icing, and a tongue with which to taste it; he was going to have candles on his cake, one for each year he’d lived, and a tongue that could curl into a little tube through which he could blow air and puff the candles out; he was going to get presents, and a tongue with which he’d say thank you. So many different tonguey tasks! And David might have thought all that required three different tongues, but he was assured that a single tongue could do the lot of them—it was a very versatile piece of flesh. Indeed, it could do all that and more besides, it could do rather adult things. He was too young to be told what they were yet, but he’d find out for himself soon. Very soon now, this year. This year was his time, they were certain.

David was so excited he could barely sleep the night before. Or was he nervous? No, excited, what did he have to be nervous about? He lay in the dark for hours staring upwards at the bedroom ceiling, and he’d put his fingers into his mouth, and feel about inside—and it seemed like such a very small space, what with all the teeth hanging down like stalactites from above and thrusting up like stalagmites from below. He wasn’t sure how anything else could be expected to fit in there. He mouthed the words “stalactite and “stalagmite,” and tried to visualize how the tongue would help pronounce them just like Mrs. Dempsey had taught him. Mrs. Dempsey had been teaching him lots of long words recently; they wouldn’t be easy to say out loud, granted, but this year he really ought to aim to impress. “Throw in a few extra syllables,” she’d told him, “and you’re going to knock this one right out of the park.” Mrs. Dempsey knew what she was doing, she’d helped hundreds of kids get their tongues. David had a crush on Mrs. Dempsey. Sometimes he imagined he would tell Mrs. Dempsey he loved her. Sometimes he imagined this would be the first thing he’d say when he could speak for himself.

He must have fallen asleep eventually, because his mother and father were shaking him awake, and were standing right over him, and their smiles were so wide and hopeful. “Happy birthday, champ!” said Daddy; “happy birthday, darling!” said Mummy. They enunciated their happy birthday wishes so clearly and precisely, David could see their tongues flicking about with such practised ease. They had presents for him to unwrap. He was given a tongue straightener, and a tongue brush in David’s favourite colour (green), and a little box in which David could keep his tongue brush. Mummy laughed; “I know it’s a bit premature, but I just know you’re going to nail it this year!”—and Daddy laughed; “He certainly is, this is going to be his best birthday ever!” Their tongues wagging away all the while, as if urging David on.

They had him put on his second best suit. They had him wear a tie. No school today, not on his birthday, and maybe never again. Yesterday Mrs. Dempsey had made a special announcement at the end of class, she’d said to everyone that David Allan was turning thirteen tomorrow, and that she had a treat for him. Then she presented him with a good luck card, and she had signed it, and she’d had all the kids sign it too, and inside everyone said that they’d miss him. David was the biggest boy in class by a head, and all the younger children looked up to him. He was going to miss them too. But he thought it’d be embarrassing if he were forced to come back and ever see them again. “Don’t you worry, dear,” said Mrs. Dempsey, “I’ll be there tomorrow night, in the front row, cheering you on!” David rather wished she wouldn’t be in the front row, and would have told her so had he been able.

The government buildings were grey concrete, and didn’t look as if they housed anything magical at all. Maybe that was the point, David didn’t know. The guard at the front desk demanded to see David’s birth certificate, and Mummy and Daddy handed it over, and the guard gave it a cursory inspection. “Happy birthday, lad,” he said. The guard had a dark, commanding sort of voice; David hoped he’d get a voice like that. He told them to take seats and wait to be called. They sat down with other families, lots of birthday children in their second best suits, and mummies and daddies looking flushed with pride. Some of the children could barely sit still for all the excitement, some of them were still very young. David was old enough now that he could sit still and keep his back straight, he could hide his nerves. “Keep your back straight,” Mummy whispered to him, which seemed a little unfair, because it already was.

“David Allan?” And at last there was someone for him, a woman all in black, and wearing small round glasses that made her look like an owl. David thought she might have looked quite friendly if she’d only wanted to try. She asked to look at his birth certificate; it was given another brief inspection. She smiled. “Happy birthday, if you’d like to follow me?” She led the family down some corridors into the very heart of the building. “Is this your first time? If so, there’s nothing to be worried about.” She must know it wasn’t his first time; he was older than all the other kids, perhaps she was being nice. Perhaps it was just something she was paid to say. The narrow corridors opened out into a wide courtyard; the ceiling was a glass dome that let all the light in, and it shone down upon the tongue.

“My, my,” said Daddy. “That’s a big one, isn’t it, champ?”

And so it was. David had never seen a tongue so huge. The one he’d visited on his last birthday must have been half the size, surely? And that one had stood about thirty feet tall, and David had refused to be frightened of it, no matter how much it twisted and coiled, he’d just pretended it was a tree. But this new tongue was more like a thick wall of red meat, David couldn’t even see round the trunk of it, and it stabbed up high into the air, the very tip of it was licking at the ceiling. “Some of them do grow pretty big,” the woman agreed. “In this job I’ve seen some that are even bigger!” Mummy told David to stand a little closer to it, and the woman nodded, and Daddy gave his most encouraging smile. David took a couple of steps forward. And as soon as he did so, the tongue seemed to spasm, it thrashed about wildly from side to side, and David saw saliva spray off it as hot steam. “I think it likes you!” said the woman.

A man came up to them, he was wearing a white laboratory coat and carried a clipboard and looked really very scientific. He asked to see the birth certificate; it was shown one last time. “Happy birthday,” he said to David. “Now, you want to get up real close, you don’t want to be nervous of old Tommy here. Tommy Tongue, do you see, he’s the oldest we’ve got, aren’t you, Tommy?” And he actually patted an overarching stump of tongue, and smiled with what looked like affection. “Truth is, Tommy doesn’t even know we’re here, most like. He can’t see, he can’t hear, can’t smell. As far as we can tell, all he can do is taste. Take a look at him. What a beauty.” And David couldn’t help but look, could he, he was right up next to it, and Daddy was close behind him, he had his hands firmly on his shoulders. David could see now that the tongue wasn’t that red after all—or, if it were red, it was a dead red, there was something lifeless to the hue, something flattened out. But there was blue, there were thin blue veins crisscrossing all over the tongue’s surface, and there were motes of speckled white, there was green. It wasn’t as smooth as David had supposed either; chunks had been torn out of the flesh, and David thought that probably wasn’t natural, that would have been the birthday children who had queued before him. And there was saliva pooling in the holes that had been gouged out, and dripping forth, and down; in fact, now as David watched, he saw that saliva was dripping everywhere.

“You know what to do, right, kid?” And the scientist handed him a knife.

David looked back then, and there was Mummy and Daddy, both looking so proud, and the woman with the owl glasses, she was looking proud too, David couldn’t even guess why.

“Reach up, there’s a nice bit just above your head,” said the scientist. “Yes, reach up,” said Mummy, “up on your tiptoes,” Daddy said. Some people believed that the higher from the tongue you cut, the more intelligent it would be. But Mrs. Dempsey had told David that that was a nonsense, that he mustn’t worry about things like that, it was the man who maketh the tongue and not the other way around. And besides, David had always cut high before, and it had never done him much good.

So this time he bent low, he actually stooped. Daddy protested, but the scientist said, “Each child gets to choose his own tongue. That’s the way it’s always been.” David remembered just the way he’d practised on apples and grapefruit, to make one clean single slice—“You’ll have to dig deep, the dermis is a bit thick down there,” the scientist said—and David stuck the knife in, and felt all the wetness ooze around the incision, and he pulled the blade down, three jerks of the wrist the way he’d been taught—in, down, and out. And there it was, flapping about in his hands like a fish. “Well done,” said the scientist, “well done,” said everybody else, and they clapped the birthday boy, and the scientist took the hunk of meat, gave it a slap, and washed the blood off.

“Now, open wide,” he said, “as wide as you can go!” And David did his best. He drooped his chin toward the ground and aimed his nose toward the sky, and the strain made his jaw hurt. “I’m coming in!” said the man, and he chuckled, and suddenly David’s mouth was full, so full it made his eyes bulge, and there were fingers and there were knuckles and there was tongue and he couldn’t tell which was which. “Steady, it’s a bit stiff,” said the scientist, more sternly now, “it’s always a bit stiff with these older kids,” and so David rooted himself to the spot; the scientist stuck his own tongue out in concentration as he felt for the right slot. “Got it,” he said at last, and there was a snap as the tongue locked into position, and out came the knuckles and out came the fingers. And there was some relief to that, but horror too, because David thought his mouth was still full, the tongue was too big, he’d never be able to breathe, and it was darting about all over the place, dabbing at each of his teeth, dashing at his palate, writhing about and knocking against the small confines of its new prison. And spraying spit everywhere it went. David gagged, he began to choke.

“Looks like we’ve got a lively one!” said the scientist, and he didn’t seem too alarmed, so David tried to force his panic down, maybe he wasn’t going to die after all. And then there was a hypodermic needle in the man’s hands, quick as a flash, and in a moment the fingers were back inside David’s mouth, and other fingers were wrenching the mouth wide, there was no time for niceties now. And they were grasping at the tongue, they’d got it, they’d grabbed hold of the tip, and the back of the tongue lashed about in fury. Something sharp. The smell of something acid. And then the tongue flopped dully down against the jawbone.

“What was that? What the hell was all that?” Mummy was upset, and the woman was doing her best to reassure her, she said she’d seen this happen a hundred times. Mummy said, “You’ve tranquilized his tongue! You do realize it’s got to make a speech tonight?” Of course they realized, everyone knew the importance of it, and Daddy tried to calm her down and put his arms around her. Mummy shook herself free. “Get off me.”

“The tongue is fine,” said the scientist. “Some at the base can get a bit frisky, that’s all. And it’s not knocked out, I’ve just calmed it down a bit, I’ve shown it who’s boss. The boy here can use it right away if he wants to.” And it was true, David could feel the tongue flexing again, the extrinsic and intrinsic muscles starting to pull and stretch. It was a little sulky, maybe, but it was quite definitely awake.

“Go on, son,” said Daddy. “Give it a trial run.”

“Say something,” said Mummy.

“Try saying your name,” said the woman. “Whenever I don’t know what to say, I always give my name a go.”

And so David took a deep breath. If he concentrated he could stop the tongue roaming about of its own free will, he could tell it there was work to do. It stopped, stood still, waited for instructions.

“My name,” he said slowly, “is David Allan.” And he liked the way that felt in his mouth, the parts of the palate the tongue had to tickle to get it sounding right. Every time he had to tell someone who he was, he realized, it would give him a little buzz of pleasure.

The scientist smiled. The woman stepped forward, shook hands with David formally. “We’re very pleased to meet you, David Allan,” she said. “Speak well, and speak wisely.”

Mummy said, “His voice has got lower, did you hear that?” Daddy said, “I suppose that’s because his balls have dropped,” and Mummy said, “David, did your balls drop?” And David took a deep breath, and concentrated hard, and visualized the word, and said with great precision, “Yes.”

He blew out all of his candles, one by one by painstaking one. The tongue took no interest in that, he had to blow them out in the usual way, but David didn’t let on. And he ate his birthday cake. It had chocolate sponge and nuts and icing, all as promised. It also had lemon rind, and raw onion, and David was pretty sure the chewy bits were bacon. The tongue recoiled at the lot of it. “I wanted to give you a taste sensation,” Mummy explained. “Not just sweet, but salty, and sour, and bitter.” David nodded, finished his plate, raised his hand to indicate he really couldn’t manage another slice.