when Jamrach was there he was always around, cheerfully toiling, whistling, pushing a wheelbarrow. He’d been Jamrach’s lad since he was a tot, he told me. ‘Can’t do without me,’ he said. He had a way of putting himself in front of me, talking over me, jostling me back with his shoulder. I never said anything. How could I? He was gold and tall and marvellous, and I was a little, shitty, bedraggled creature from the other shore. Rock this wonderful boat which had hauled me over the side? Never. Not when he broke an egg in my pocket. Not even when he fed me a mealworm sandwich. He taught me how to hold a monkey, how to keep frogs damp and crickets dry, where to stand so as not to get kicked by an emu, how to tickle a bear, how to breed locusts and behead mealworms. Mostly though it was mucking out and swilling down, slopping out, mashing feed, changing water. Only Cobbe and Jamrach were allowed to go in with the fierce apes or feed the big cats. I could have gone in with old Smokey though. He was gentle. But he was gone on the third day, taken out in a cart, sitting looking out of the back of the box as patiently as he’d sat in his pen. None of them stayed long, apart from the parrot in the hall and Charlie the toucan, and a particular pig from Japan that Jamrach took a fancy to and made a pet of, letting it wander freely around the yard and deposit its sticky, black droppings all over wherever I’d just swept.
Trade was brisk.
My own tiger went to Constantinople to live in the garden of the Sultan. I imagined it: a hot, green jungle of flowers and shimmering ponds, where my tiger stalked for ever. I imagined the Sultan going out for a walk in his garden and meeting him, face to face.
Friday, nearly a week after I started, he sent me and Tim over to the shop after it was shut, to muck out the birds and feed the fish and clean up a new batch of oil lamps that had come in filthy on a ship from the Indies.
Jamrach’s shop was on the Highway, two big windows and the name up twice: Jamrach’s Jamrach’s, it said. It was a late, dark afternoon, and I was weary in those first days, all of a dream with the days and nights, biffing and banging about between the yard and Spoony’s and home, and hardly ever seeing Ma because she was on funny shifts in the sugar factory. The shop was a dusty rambleaway sort of place, and it seemed unearthly as we roamed around it with a lantern casting lurching shadows, thick with presence. Every inch was crammed. The walls came in on you. In the centre by the stairs stood a mannequin, a naked woman, black hair piled on top of her head. She gave me the creeps. Japanese, Tim said. ‘Look, you can move her arms and legs.’ And he twisted her into such a horrible pose she looked like a demon in the jumping light.
Inwards was a warren of small rooms and steps and narrow passages, the walls crammed full of pictures: idols, devils, dragons, flowers with curious fevered lips. Mountains and fountains, palaces and pearls. All came to me dreamlike. A green god watched me from a throne. There was a room full of suits of armour, a giant gong, knives, daggers, Japanese silk slippers, a blood-red shining harp with the fierce head of a dragon with eyes that bulged. Tim showed me around with such pride you’d have thought he’d personally found and conducted home each treasure from its far-flung source. ‘Stuff from all four corners!’ He threw out his arms. ‘Know what we had once? Shrunken heads! Human! Looked like monkeys. That’s what they do in them places, cut off your head and wear you round their waist like a … like a … looka this. That’s a demon’s tongue from Mongolia, that is. And see that over there on the wall? That’s a death mask. From Tibet. Bet you wouldn’t dare put it on, would you?’
‘No, I bloody wouldn’t,’ I said.
‘Dare you.’
‘No.’
‘Go on. Double dare.’
‘You put it on,’ I said.
‘I already have. I went out in it once. This old lady nearly dropped down dead on the corner of Baroda Place.’
Liar. I didn’t say anything.
The birds and fish were at the back. Fish from China, orange and white and black, fat, mouthy creatures with big round eyes that stuck out like milky warts on either side of their heads. White cockatoos, cramped and patient, reasonable, amiable birds that watched with every appearance of deep interest as we went about our work. They’d been moved to new quarters and we were scouring down their old. Deeply mucky they were too, the ground caked thick with hard white droppings that had to be scraped off with a chisel. It was getting on for half past five by the time we’d finished the cages, and we still had the fish to feed and the box to unpack.
‘You hungry?’ Tim asked. ‘Why don’t I pop out and get us a couple of saveloys?’
‘You ain’t gonna be long, Tim?’ I said.
‘Two ticks,’ he said, and off he went, leaving me alone there, locking me in ‘for safety’, he said.
It didn’t take long to feed the fish. I was done with that and halfway through polishing the lamps, wondering with each one whether a genie would appear and offer me three wishes, when I felt the first creepings of fear. The lantern stood on the counter, casting a sombre glow that called up flickering shadows from all nooks and corners. Each lamp as I cleaned it joined its fellows in a small neat community on the floor. I was sitting cross-legged with my duster beside the box, reaching in for the next lamp and thinking bad thoughts about Tim Linver. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck came very slowly and coldly to attention, a sensation not unlike a thin finger drawing itself from the centre of my skull down to the top of my spine. It surprised me. I had not been feeling particularly afraid. The shutters were pulled down over the front windows and I could hear the ordinary early evening sounds of the Highway going on outside. I looked around. Only the softly pulsing shadows. What had I expected? Nothing. Nothing I had ever experienced in life up to this point had led me to believe in ghosts. I never thought of them. Even now I don’t think Jamrach’s shop was haunted, but something happened to me there that night.
The first thing was that time stopped. I remember looking across and seeing that woman with black hair at the foot of the stairs, stark naked with her arms going backwards and one leg dislocated at the knee and pointing upwards in a horrible way, and realising suddenly that I had no idea how long Tim had been gone and no idea of what the time might be. The street was quiet, a strange thing in itself, and yet I had a queer sense of having just been woken up by a loud noise, even though I hadn’t been aware of sleep. And indeed, how could I have slept? Unless I slept sitting upright, cross-legged. Where the hell was Tim? The woman’s eyes were dark, merry slits in a white face, her mouth the merest dot. The lantern made movements pass over her face. I saw that the Eastern lamps were all cleaned and arranged in two straight rows along the counter, though I couldn’t remember having put them there. The box was set down at the side of the counter behind a great creel of fantastical shells, all spikes and whorls and smooth, pearly, opening mouths. I thought the light was going down. So the darker edges grew darker still, blacker and thicker, furry, and the shells appeared to writhe so gently it made a small pulse throb in the vein inside my left elbow. I stood up and looked stupidly at the lantern. We had lamps from all over the world, but there wasn’t one of them I could have kept alight.
Where was he? Surely he would not leave me here alone all night? I wondered if I’d lose my job at Spoony’s. Surely I should have been there ages ago? I liked Spoony’s. I was the best pot boy they’d had in ages, Bob Barry said. They were good to me there. Better than here, I thought. He’s done it on purpose, gone off and locked me in to frighten me. Why was the street so quiet?
A lump was growing in my throat.
I don’t know why I didn’t get up there and then to go and bang on the front door as loud as I could, and shout through the letter box at the top of my voice for someone to come and get me out. But I didn’t seem able to move. My mouth was dry and when I tried to lick my lips, my
