The Lion Tamer’s Daughter (19 page)

“No, that's my mum. Janice has got dark hair and she's not so tall. She's not really fat, but she's a bit that way. She's sort of tidy. Nice clothes, but a bit boring, suits and things—but that's for her job. I don't remember I've ever seen her in jeans.”

“That's my ma! I thought she was some kind of aunt. Go on, everything you can remember.”

“You didn't even know her name, then?”

“Papa gets mad if I ask. Real mad … you know …”

I could guess. Well, I settled down and started telling her everything I could remember about Janice, which was quite a bit. Thinking about it, I wasn't surprised, if Melanie'd only seen them in these sort of dreams, that she might have thought my mum was really her mum. Mum's a feeling person. If someone's in trouble, she's right there with them in their trouble. Janice is more of a thinking person. If someone's in trouble she'll look things up in books and ring round and find what's the best way to get them out of their trouble, and then she'll put it onto her PC and print it all out for them with numbers at the start of each bit. They'd have made a great troubleshooting team, together.

I took a while telling her. Then she borrowed some money off me and went to buy herself more fags. Yeah, she was two years under age, if she was Melly's twin, but she knew her way round. While she was gone I checked the time and it was getting on half past twelve, when I'd told Mum I'd be back at the theater, so I was up at the bar paying the bill when Melanie came tearing back and shoved what I'd lent her into my hand.

“I've got to go,” she said. “I'm in dead trouble already. How do I get to talk to you again?”

“I'm coming with you,” I said. “What's up?”

“I work in the restaurant Saturdays, and I'm on at twelve. He'll beat the eff out of me. Got enough for a cab? Pay you back—honest.”

She was panting it out as we raced up the steps, and there was a taxi just finished being paid off. I jumped out and stopped him driving away. (It made me feel good, valiant-knight-to-the-rescue stuff. Silly, sure, but it happens.) She gave the address to the driver as we got in.

“We've got to sort out about meeting up,” I said. “What's this about the restaurant? Can't I just come there—”

“Chrissake, no. I told you about Papa.”

“The one who's going to take it out on you for being late?”

“Right. Mind you, he won't let anyone else lay a finger on me.”

“But Melly says her dad's a lion tamer.”

“He used to be, but something happened at the circus—I dinna ken what, he wouldn't say—and he packed it in. Sold his lions and came to Edinburgh and got a job at Annie's doing the bar. He married her after a bit. I do waitress when I'm not in school.… Do something for me?”

“Sure.”

And I meant it. No messing around whether it would get me in trouble or clean me out. I'd have done what she wanted as if she'd been Melly.

“You'll have to act up a bit,” she said, and leaned forward and asked the driver to stop. She got out and scuffed around in the gutter for a handful of dirt and rubbed it into the side of her face, using the wing mirror to see what she was doing. Then she dirtied her forearm and knee and took off her jacket and scuffed it along in the gutter and put it on and got back in. While she was doing this I found a scrap of paper and copied down our hotel number, which Mum had given me, and our number and address in Bearsden. She glanced at them and tucked them into the pocket of her jacket.

“Ta,” she said. “Right. I've been knocked down by a bike and you've been looking after me. You're new in Edinburgh? OK, there's this steep little street, cobbles, in behind the station. Doesn't have a pavement. You're coming up and I'm coming down—it's a way I could've been taking back to Annie's—and there's this van just come up past you and a bike coming down, and the stupid sod on the bike thinks he can get between me and the van, and he can't. Got it? So you've picked me up and got a cab and brought me home because you're a good guy, right? Don't overdo that, mind. You better pay the cab off in case Papa comes rushing out to grill him about where he picked us up, but then you look like you were hoping to get your money back. Do that for me, Keith?”

“I'll give it a go, sure.”

It wasn't that far. We stopped in another touristy kind of street, only this one was all gift shops and Scottish woolens in genuine little old houses. Melanie stayed in the cab while I paid the driver.

I helped her out of the cab and she put her arm around my shoulder and I put mine round her waist and she hobbled along beside me into an alley and there was the restaurant, Annie's Genuine French Bistro, next to a haggis bar. It didn't look too bad. I'd hardly got the door open when a square, tough-looking woman looked up and came striding toward us, but before she reached us a man came rushing out from behind the bar, shouting at Melanie in French. They both stopped when they saw the state Melanie had got herself in, and I started explaining to the woman about the accident I was supposed to have seen, while Melanie mumbled away to the man in French. The woman calmed down at once, but the man stayed very het up, but not in your standard comic-Frenchman way. He was short and skinny, but his head didn't look like a small man's head. I don't mean it was too big for his body, but it had this heavy, hungry look, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. I could see he was still furious, but in a frustrated kind of way, because the people he wanted to take it out on, the cyclist and the van driver, weren't there for him to get at.

“I don't think she's really hurt,” I told the woman, because I knew Melanie wouldn't have any bruises to show. “She's just pretty shaken up. She wasn't making any sense at all at first, and then it took us a while to get to where we'd find a taxi …”

“The taxi's waiting to be paid, is he?”

“He's gone. I've paid him. It was three pounds fifty with the tip. I hope that's all right.”

“Course it is,” she said, and went off to the till.

I looked to see how Melanie was making out. The man had grabbed a chair and sat her down, but as soon as he saw me turn he drew himself up with his head held back like a soldier on parade.

“I give you most profound gratitude,” he said.

He had a very strong foreign accent, but he spoke slowly and solemnly, so that I could pick up what he was saying.

“That's all right,” I said, and took the chance to tell him too about Melanie not being hurt, just pretty shook up.

He nodded.

“You will accept luncheon?” he said. “On the house, naturally.”

“I can't, I'm afraid,” I said. “I'm supposed to be meeting my mother. I'm late already.”

“Very good. In that event you will bring your mother to dinner this evening. I would wish to express my thanks to her also. Excuse me.”

A customer was getting impatient at the bar. He strode off. The woman who'd gone for the cab fare was dealing with two new customers, so I'd a few seconds to talk to Melanie alone. I wanted to see her again, but I didn't want any dealings with her dad, if he was the sort to beat her up, and certainly not to take free meals off him. But when I told her she grinned Melly's quick wicked grin.

“That's worked out terrific,” she said. “You've got to bring your mum round so I can see her. The food's pretty good, tell her.”

“I don't think she can. There's two shows Saturday, and she'll be on for both of them. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“Mass, first off, and then nothing. But I've got to be back here twelve.”

“Mass” shook me. Melly didn't go to church at all, and nor did we.

“Meet you for another Coke, then?” I said. “Same place, ten?”

“Great,” she said. “If you get to bring your ma along here, tell her to keep her mouth shut, whatever.”

She'd glanced past me, then muttered this last bit. Now the woman came back with the cab fare and I explained about having to go now, and how Melanie's dad had asked me to bring Mum that evening, but I wasn't sure if she could because of her job, and would she tell him. She was really nice about it and got me a card and told me to ring if we were coming and made me feel she really wanted us to. Then she took Melanie off and I went back to the theater.

I was over an hour late, but Mum isn't good at time and she hadn't missed me. In fact I found the opera crisis was still full on and she was kneeling by this woman with her mouth full of pins, fitting her dress, while the woman was belting out practice notes in a voice you could have heard up at the castle and not paying any attention to Mum at all. It was only half an hour to curtain up and there was still another costume to go, so I went off and got myself a sandwich and brooded about what had happened and got nowhere except that it was weird but it was terrific having Melly around.

OK, that sounds stupid. She wasn't Melly, she was Melanie, and it wasn't just smoking and swearing and going to Mass and talking French and stuff. She was someone else. Her whole life was different. There was no way she'd fit in with my life, the way Melly had, any more than I'd fit in with hers. She'd have been bored stiff and I'd probably have been scared stiff. But it wasn't any good telling myself that. Melly was who she was—a new, exciting sort of Melly.

Second time I got back to the theater the opera had begun and Mum and another woman were stitching away like fury getting the costumes sewn for the other two acts.

“I'm really sorry about this, darling,” Mum said. “Especially when you've come all this way to see me. But it'll be done in a couple of hours and Alicia here is going to be a saint and take over for the evening, so you and I can go out and do something together.”

“That's great,” I said. “I've got us a free meal.”

“That's nice, darling,” she said, and then—oh—a good ten seconds later, “What do you mean, a free meal?”

“I met someone who works in a restaurant and got her out of a jam,” I said. “It's all right, Mum—nothing crook about it. And she says the food's good. It's supposed to be French.”

The woman at the restaurant sounded pleased when I called her, and I got the idea they were going to lay things on a bit for us, so when Mum said, “Is it the sort of place we dress up for?” I thought maybe yes. I hadn't brought much, but I got myself tidy, and Mum can be a very pretty woman when she bothers, which she did. It must have been about the first time since my dad died, and it was nice to be taking her out looking like that.

It wasn't too far from the hotel, so we walked. When we were just about getting there I said, “Now, listen, Mum. You're going to recognize someone. And you're going to work out who someone else is. It's going to be a bit of a shock, but you've got to act normal.”

She stopped and faced me.

“Will you please tell me what this is about?” she said.

I hadn't told her anything, not even the story about the bike and the van, because that would have meant lying, and I wanted her to see Melanie for herself first. Besides, I was having fun. I grinned.

“It's all right,” I said. “Promise. You'll see.”

“Oh, God, you remind me of Mike sometimes,” she said.

(Mike was my dad, of course.)

I was glad we'd dressed up, because they really laid out the red carpet for us. The woman was watching out for us and stopped what she was doing and came straight over. I'd guessed she must be Annie so I introduced her to Mum, and then Melanie's dad showed up and did his soldier trick and gave her a stiff little bow and said, “I am Gustave Perrault, Madame.”

She knew what to do at once. She gave him her hand to kiss and said she was enchanted to meet him and she was Patricia Robinson.

“Madame, I felicitate you upon your son,” he said. “He is an English gentleman.”

I could have sunk through the floor, but Mum smiled and said, “I'm glad you think so,” as if she meant it.

Annie's wasn't much more than a tourist cafe, really, but they showed us to what was obviously their best table, in the window. They'd laid it out with candles and ranks of cutlery and extra glasses, and Melanie's dad—M. Perrault I'm going to start calling him—went to the bar and came back with a bottle of champagne, which he poured into three glasses and then looked at me and offered me some in mine. I looked at Mum and she said, “Well, since it's a special occasion,” and he gave me half a glass.

The four of us were just starting to drink each other's health when Melanie showed up with a plate of little pastry things to nibble. Mum had her glass to her lips, pretty well brim full, but she didn't spill a drop.

Melanie shook Mum's hand and smiled her Melly smile and said, “Keith was really good to me this morning, Mrs. Robinson.” She was so terrifically on her best behavior I wanted to giggle. M. Perrault poured about a thimbleful of champagne for her and we drank the healths and then M. Perrault said, “We have, with regret, the restaurant to conduct this evening, but Melanie will arrange that you have all you require.”

Mum smiled and thanked them and they pushed off. As soon as their backs were turned Melanie let out a long sigh of relief and we both had to bite our lips to stop the giggles.

“Will somebody please tell me what's going on?” said Mum. “It really is the most amazing likeness. And your name's Melanie Perrault? You must be our Melly Perrault's first cousin.”

“For God's sake be careful,” I whispered. “We think they're twins, but she's not allowed to ask anything about her mother. Hold it. He's turning this way.”

Mum didn't blink. She smiled across the room and raised her glass to M. Perrault.

“We better tell her what's supposed to have happened,” said Melanie.

“Only it didn't really,” I said, and we explained about the van and the bike and so on, making it seem as real as we could, and Mum reacted as if she was believing every word. In the middle of this M. Perrault came and said that they had chosen a meal for us, but we could have something else if we wanted, so of course we said we'd be happy with whatever they gave us. He seemed very struck with Mum, which made him even more stiff and gallant and difficult not to laugh at. Mum was wonderful with him, playing along with him and getting it just right, not overdoing it. In fact I thought she was rather enjoying that, but I also got the idea something was bothering her.