Secret Heart (14 page)

“There you are!”

She came quickly across the floor and hugged him. She grinned.

“Hello, Corinna, pet. He's behaved himself?”

“Yes,” said Corinna.

“Good lad.”

“This is Hackenschmidt,” said Corinna. “He's the owner of the circus. This is Nanty Solo. This is Wilfred. This is Charley Caruso. This is Joe's mum.”

She beamed at them all and hugged Joe again.

“It is a delight to meet you, madam,” said Wilfred. “You are indeed blessed to have such a son.”

“There's many that'd doubt that, Wilfred, but aye, it's the truth. Look at the skill of that dog! You had breakfast, Joseph?”

Joe's stomach growled. He shook his head.

“I'm f—”

“Famished, eh? Come on, then. Let's get something on the table.”

“I want to bring my fr-friends.”

“That's great. If you'd like to, that is…It's a little house, Mr. Hackenschmidt. We might have to spill out into the garden.”

Hackenschmidt grinned.

“It will be a pleasure, Mrs. Maloney.”

She looked around herself before she led them out.

“Oh, isn't it so beautiful in here?” she said.

And she stood lost in that beauty and the silence of it for a moment, before she led the way out.

This motley crew came from the blue tent onto the rough wasteland of Helmouth. They moved slowly, contentedly, beneath the high slow sun. The pig snuffled in the undergrowth. The dogs danced. Nanty Solo held the arm of Hackenschmidt and told tales of long ago. Good Wilfred walked daintily with his head high, whistling and calling to his dogs, and whispering gentle guidance into Charley Caruso's ear.
Joe and Corinna in their satins strolled on either side of Joe's mum.

“Come on, then. What did you get up to?” she said.

“Went on the tr-trapeze.”

“The trapeze! And no broken bones!”

“And played in the tent,” said Corinna. “And played with the dogs and…”

“And the tigers didn't eat you up?”

Joe smiled.

“There's n-no tigers,” he said.

“No tigers! So what was them things jumping and growling in my head all night? Like a blinking zoo, my bedroom was.”

“Just dreams,” he said.

“Mebbe,” she said.

“Aye. Mebbe.”

He looked at her and smiled. She hugged him. He leaned into her, toward the great spaces where her larks flew and her wild beasts prowled.

“It's lovely to have you back. You know, Corinna, that's the first full night we've ever spent apart.”

He grinned as she kissed him.

“You're growing up, Joseph Maloney. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Seems no time since you were crawling round me feet, and look at you now. And you, Corinna. You must've been a lovely lively bairn, eh? Dancing and jumping and swinging everywhere, I'll bet.”

“That's right, Mrs. Maloney.”

“Oh, just look at these louts!”

Kids clustered around the entrance to the Cut, cigarettes cupped in their fists, grins on their faces, hell in their eyes.

“Come on,” Joe's mum said. “Clear the way, will you?”

“Yes, Missus Maloney. Of course, Missus Maloney. Only Maloney, lalalalaaaaaaa!”

“Here comes the beast!”

“Watch out! Wild dogs!”

“Run! It's the Pig of Death!”

“Keep out, scum!”

“Keep out, scum! Keep out, scum!”

They beckoned to Hackenschmidt, they spat at Corinna, they snarled at Nanty, they sneered at Charley and Wilfred.

“Look at them. Turn the place into a bloody loony bin.”

“A freak show!”

“Tarts and witches and poofs and pigs.”

“Fat and blind and doo-lally!”

But they kept their distance. Wonder and fear were in their eyes as well as scorn. They parted slowly as the group passed through.

“Poor souls,” whispered Nanty into Joe's ear. “Poor troubled souls.”

“Get lost, scum!”

“Keep out, scum!”

“Get back to where you come from!”

“Only Maloney, lalalalaaaaaa!”

Beyond them, younger children waited on the sidewalk. They caught at each other's hands as they saw the group approach. Their eyes were wide, fascinated. They whispered Joe Maloney's name. They gasped at the bulk of famous Hackenschmidt. They giggled at the dancing dogs. They cooed at the sweet slow pig. They trembled as they reached out to touch these folk. And there were faces at the windows, suspicious faces, faces filled with hate, but also faces shining with delight.

Joe's mum led them on.

“It's that house,” she said, and pondered. “It's nothing, look. Little, just ordinary. But there's the garden, too, to sit in. And there's tea and coffee and bread to fill us all, and marmalade. And jam. Oh, and some lovely sausages, and an egg or two. A bunch of bananas. That pint of raspberries. A feast! And there's surely scraps for the dogs, and what does the pig eat, Mr. Hackenschmidt? Come on. Come on in.”

In they went through the low garden gate, past the little wilderness of weeds and wildflowers where Joe once played. She led them to the back of the house, to the little back garden, fumbled in her pocket for her keys.

“Anybody need the loo?” she said softly. “Top of the stairs, straight left.” She chewed her lips, her eyes
shone: such strange animals, such strange sweet people here in her garden. “Ee, Joseph, it's just like those tales you used to jabber come to life. Now, who's for coffee, who's for tea? Joe, get those thirsting dogs a dish of water, son.”

They sat at ease in the garden, on the rugs and blankets that Joe's mum brought out of the house. They ate pieces of sausage, fruit and toast. They praised the deliciousness of the food, the beauty of the garden, the kindness of Mrs. Maloney. They murmured softly to each other, they hummed songs, they sighed, they smiled. Helmouth's children peered from the front gate. Neighbors leaned out from the windows. The sun poured down through the skylarks' endless song.

Corinna left the ground and skipped in a circle, then turned cartwheels, and everybody clapped. She stared upward, as if searching for a trapeze and a net. She closed her eyes and allowed the heat and brightness to bathe her; then she spun again and dropped to the earth again.

And they rested, as afternoon came on, all of them exhausted by their sleepless night. They drifted
and dozed. Joe rested his head in his mum's lap. She ran her fingers through his hair. Joe dipped his hands into long grass and smiled at the spiders and beetles that ran on his skin, and he closed his eyes.

A couple of children, a boy and a girl, dared to come closer. They sidled down the path at the side of the house. They sat on their haunches and whispered and watched. The girl held out her hand, rubbed her fingers together to catch the attention of the dogs. And one skipped to her and licked her and she laughed.

Mrs. Maloney opened her eyes.

“Come in, pets,” she said. “Come on. Look, there's some bits of toast here.”

And they came shyly into the garden and Nanty Solo smiled behind her milky eyes and Corinna stood up and spun again around the circle of grass that was clear at the center of the garden.

“That was lovely,” said the girl.

More children came, to play with the dogs and the pig, to watch Corinna.

“I brought this,” said a green-eyed girl with eagles on her T-shirt. She held out a long linked string of elastic bands. “Show us what to do again.”

They stretched the elastic right across the garden from fence to fence. Corinna showed them how to leap with ease and grace. She raised the elastic higher. She showed them how to leap as if they believed they might leap as high as the sun.

“Jump!” said Hackenschmidt. “Jump. Don't just jump with your bodies. Jump with your minds.”

“Jump through the sunlight,” said Nanty Solo. “Close your eyes and jump into the dark.”

“J-jump,” said Joe Maloney. “D-dare to fling yourself into the empty air.”

His mum smiled.

“Joe Maloney,” she whispered, “look at you now. Listen to you now.”

And the children in the garden jumped and fell and tried again and jumped again and Corinna jumped with them, time and again.

Nanty whispered, “On the last day, on the last of all days…”

She turned her head as if she looked around her. She smiled to herself.

“The last of all days is mebbe when we find the first of all days. Jump, children, jump!”

Cats came, looking out from beneath the hedges. Birds gathered on rooftops and gutters. Bees droned from flower head to flower head. A tiny mouse peeped out from a clump of buttercups.

Joe's mum held him tight.

Soon Stanny Mole came down the path beside the house. He shuffled into the garden. He squatted near to Joe and trembled.

“He's not come out yet,” he whispered.

Joe closed his eyes and saw through the tiger's eyes
and saw Joff stumbling through trees, all lost and tormented.

“They'll k-kill him,” said Stanny. “Those… things we saw.”

“No. He'll c-come back,” said Joe. He touched his friend's arm. He wondered what changes would be wrought in Joff by his struggle in the forest.

Nanty Solo stretched to Stanny, her hand held out, a black fragment in her fingers.

“Eat this, boy-thing,” she said.

Stanny recoiled.

“Eat,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Eat.”

Stanny looked in horror at her milky eyes, her scar.

“Eat,” said Joe. “Just eat.”

Stanny opened his mouth, allowed her to rest the thing on his tongue.

“Eat, Stanny Mole,” said Nanty. “Just eat.”

He swallowed. Nanty put her fingers to her lips.

“Be quiet,” she said. “Be still. And feel the tooth of the unicorn at work inside yourself. For all of us can be transformed.”

And Stanny was quiet and all that was heard was the snuffling of the pig, the hum of the bees, the distant din of the city, the drone of the motorway.

Then Wilfred took his turn and his little dogs
danced for him as he whistled and called. Then Hackenschmidt asked two boys to come to him and he showed them how to be still and show no fear as he lifted them, one in each hand, high above his head. And he laughed and roared and shouted,

“Listen! I am Hackenschmidt. I am the greatest wrestler the world has ever seen. All I say is true! Who dares to challenge me and win a thousand pounds?”

He beat his chest and snarled and laughed as boys ran at him and circled him.

All quietened again and the children looked at each other in fear and wonder and the afternoon wore on. The sun arched downward, filling the garden with light and heat, stunning all who were inside it. The air trembled. Beyond the rooftops, the beautiful blue slope of the tent slanted into the sky.

And the afternoon wore on, and the afternoon wore on, and shadows lengthened.

Mothers started calling, their voices echoing through Helmouth, over the rooftops, through the gardens.

“Dani-eeeeeel!”

“Em-i-leeeeeee!”

“Ma-aaax!”

And children stirred themselves, and rubbed their eyes and stretched themselves and made their way back out of Joe Maloney's garden.

Corinna leaped and spun again for the few children
who were left. Wilfred danced his dogs again. Hackenschmidt murmured,

“I am Hackenschmidt, Lion of Russia, greatest wrestler the world has ever seen.”

He turned to his tent, saw that it had blended with the sky, had almost disappeared in the coming night.

“Hackenschmidt. Come and sit by me,” said Nanty Solo, and he sat by her. “Come and wait for the first day to come again.”

Inside the shadows, there were creatures in the wild long grass. They were shadows, shifting shapes, mice and beetles, and other half-seen things, half-known things. Joe stared and his mum stared and they thought of Joe's pictures in the house, those pictures from so long ago. And Stanny Mole stared too, and crawled across the grass to Joe and sat by his friend.

“And you?” said Nanty Solo, reaching out to Joe. “What will you do, Joe Maloney, here in the garden?”

Joe blushed, looked away, chewed his lips. The children who were left giggled. For they knew Joe. They knew Only Maloney.

“Come on,” said Hackenschmidt. “Come on, Joe Maloney. Bring the last day to an end.”

“Do it, Joe,” whispered Corinna. “Refresh the world.”

Joe lowered his head, so shy again. A pale moon appeared over the Black Bone Crags. First stars were
out. The garden was like the tent. Joe closed his eyes and heard the tiger padding through the forest. It stepped from the forest's edge, as if in answer to his call. It quickened as it crossed the wasteland. He heard the breath, the heart. Joe stood, and he walked with the tiger inside him. He prowled, he clawed the air, he leaped. And the children laughed at this but then they quietened for they began to hear the tiger, here in this Helmouth garden. They heard its footsteps and its breath. They caught the sour scent of it. They felt the disturbance in the air around them. They saw it move across the edges of their vision, and they turned their heads in fear and fascination, trying to follow it, trying to catch sight again of the stripes, the glittering eyes, the curved teeth of the fearful thing that walked before them with Joe Maloney. Then Joe became still. He sat with his mum again.

She started to sing:

She smiled.

“We'll find a lovely life, Joe, you and me, tomorrow when the sun comes back.”

“And all of us,” said Nanty Solo.

Joe nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “All of us.”

He leaned on his mum. He gazed into Corinna's dark eyes. With everyone in the garden, he began to sleep. The world beneath them turned toward the day. The tiger crossed the wasteland. It padded back toward the forest through the night.