Chapter FIVE
In which Little Jack tries to find a decent clock-doctor in Paris
As the train pulls out of the station, it snorts loudly making a haunting din. The locomotive’s syncopated rhythms set me on edge and my heart might as well be made of popcorn – I’ll have to learn to travel better. When I panic, my clockwork heart is like a steam engine turning a bend with its wheels coming unstuck. I’m travelling over the rails of my own fear. What am I frightened of? Of you, Madeleine, or rather, of me without you.
The steam and my own clockwork panic seep under the rails. I want to turn back time, put my old rattletrap of a heart in your arms, Madeleine. Our last hug is still warm, but I’m already as frozen as when I first met you on the coldest day on earth. Oh Madeleine, I hadn’t even left the shadows of Edinburgh behind before drinking all your tears. I promise that at the next stop I’ll consult a clockmaker. You’ll see, I’ll come back to you in fine condition, or rather just out of kilter enough for you to exercise your mending talents over me once more.
The more time that goes by, the more this train frightens me, its puffing, rattling heart seems as dilapidated as my own. It must be terrifically in love with its engine. Unless, like me, it’s suffering from the sadness of what it’s left behind.
I feel alone in my compartment. Madeleine’s tears have installed a revolving door inside my head. I’ll be sick if I don’t speak to somebody. I notice a tall man leaning against the window, writing something. From a distance, he looks like Arthur, but that impression disappears the closer I get. Apart from the shadows he casts, there’s nobody near him. Tipsy on loneliness, I launch right in:
‘What are you writing, sir?’
The man gives a start and hides his face under his left arm.
‘Did I frighten you?’
‘You surprised me, it’s not the same.’
He continues writing, concentrating as hard as if he was painting a picture. The turnstile in my brain starts to pick up speed.
‘What do you want, little one?’
‘I want to go and win the heart of a woman in Andalusia, but I don’t know anything about love. The women I knew never wanted to teach me anything on the subject and I’m feeling all alone in this train . . . I thought perhaps you might be able to help me.’
‘You’ve landed on the wrong person, my boy. I’m not very gifted when it comes to love . . . not with living people, at any rate. No, it never really worked out for me with living people.’
I start to shudder. I’m reading over his shoulder, which seems to annoy him.
‘That red ink . . .’
‘It’s blood! Go away now, little one, go away!’
He’s copying out the same phrase, methodically, on several pieces of paper: ‘Your humble servant, Jack the Ripper.’
‘We’ve got the same first name, do you think that’s a good sign?’
He shrugs, vexed I’m not more in awe of him. The engine whistles itself hoarse in the distance, the fog creeps through the windows. I’m shivering.
‘Go away, little one!’
He strikes the floor with his left heel, the way he might scare a cat. Not that I am one, but it does have a certain effect on me. The sound of his boot competes with that of the train. He turns towards me, his features razor sharp.
‘Go away now!’
The fury in his eyes reminds me of Joe. It’s like a remote control that switches my legs to tremble mode. He heads towards me.
‘Come on, you mists,’ he drones. ‘Let the doors of haunted trains slam shut! I’ll give you the ghosts of handsome women to carve up in the mist, a twist of blonde or brunette . . .’
His voice becomes a groan.
‘I can rip them open without even frightening them . . . signing off your humble servant, Jack the Ripper! Don’t be afraid, my boy, you’ll soon learn how to survive by frightening others! Don’t be afraid, my boy, you’ll soon learn how to survive by frightening others . . .’
My heart and body are racing out of control, and this time it’s got nothing to do with love. I tear down the train corridors. Nobody. The Ripper chases after me, smashing all the windows with a dagger. A black swarm of birds dives into the compartment, clustering around him. He’s making faster progress by walking than I am running.
New compartment. No one around. The racket of his footsteps gets louder. The birds multiply, emerging from his jacket, coming out of his eyes, hurling themselves at me. I jump up on to the seats to put some distance between us; I turn around, and Jack’s eyes light up the whole train. The birds are catching up, the shadow of Jack the Ripper looms and I’m aiming for the driver’s door at the end of the carriage. Jack’s about to rip out my guts. Oh Madeleine! I can’t even hear my own clock ticking any more, though it’s stinging in my chest. The Ripper grabs my shoulder. He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me and I won’t have had time to fall in love.
The train slows down. It’s pulling into the station.
‘Don’t be afraid, my boy. You’ll soon learn how to survive by frightening others!’ Jack the Ripper repeats for a last time, as he stows his weapon away.
I’m trembling with terror. Then he steps off the train and disappears into the crowd of passengers waiting on the platform.
Sitting on a bench at King’s Cross station, I begin to come to. The tick-tock of my heart is slowing down, but my clock’s wooden casing is still scorching hot. Falling in love can’t be as terrifying as finding yourself alone on some ghost train with Jack the Ripper. I thought he was going to kill me. How could a songbird of a girl damage my clock any more than a Ripper? With the tantalising mischief of her eyes? Her army of extra-long eyelashes? The formidable curve of her breasts? Impossible. It can’t be as dangerous as what I’ve just lived through.
A sparrow lands on my minute hand, and I’m startled. Little idiot, he scared me! His feathers gently caress my dial. I’ll just wait for him to fly off, then I’ll set about leaving Great Britain.
The cross-Channel ferry is less full of nasty surprises than the train to London. Apart from a few elderly ladies who look like faded flowers, nobody seems particularly scary. That said, it takes a while for the mists of melancholy to dissolve. I wind up my heart again with the key, and I feel like I’m turning back time. Or at least turning back my memories. It’s the first time in my life I’ve leant on memories in this way. I only left the house yesterday, but I feel as if I’ve been away for ages.
In Paris, I have lunch by the Seine, in a restaurant steaming with the kind of vegetable soups I always love the smell of but hate eating. Plump waitresses smile at me the way people do at babies. Charming old folks chat in hushed voices. I listen to the clatter of saucepan lids and forks. This warm atmosphere reminds me of Dr Madeleine’s old house. I wonder what she’s doing on top of the mountain. I decide to write to her:
Dear Madeleine,
Everything is going well, I’m in Paris at the moment. I hope Joe and the police have left you in peace. Don’t forget to put the flowers on my grave while you’re waiting for me to come back!
I miss you, and the house too.
I’m taking good care of my clock. I’m going to find a clockmaker to help me recover from all these emotions, just as you told me to. Kiss Arthur, Luna and Anna for me.
‘Little Jack’
I keep my letter deliberately short, so Luna’s pigeon can travel light. I’d like to have some news back as quickly as possible. I roll up my words around the bird’s claw and throw him into the Paris sky. He sets off skew-whiff. Luna probably tried to give him an original ‘feather-cut’ for when he was courting. She also shaved the sides of his head and, as a result, he looks like a lavatory brush with wings. Perhaps I should have used the conventional postal system.
Before going any further, I need to find a good clockmaker. Since I left home, my heart has been grating louder than ever. I’d like it to be fixed before I find the little singer again. I owe Madeleine that at least. I ring on the door of a jeweller on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. An old man appears, dressed to the nines; he wants to know the reason for my visit.
‘To repair my clock . . .’
‘Have you brought it with you?’
‘Yes!’
I unbutton my jacket, then my shirt.
‘I’m not a doctor,’ he says drily.
‘Couldn’t you just look at it, to make sure the gears are in the right place?’
‘I’m not a doctor, I told you, I am not a doctor!’
His tone is haughty, but I try to stay calm. The way he looks at my clock you’d think I was showing him something dirty.
‘I know you’re not a doctor! This is a perfectly normal clock, which just needs adjusting from time to time to make sure it functions properly . . .’
‘Clocks are objects intended to measure time, nothing else. Get away from here with that diabolical apparatus of yours. Go away, or I’ll call the police!’
It’s just like at school, or with the young couples, all over again. It may be horribly familiar, but I’ll never get used to this feeling of injustice. In fact, the older I get, the more painful it becomes. It’s only a bloody wooden clock after all, nothing but gears that allow my heart to beat.
An old metal clock with a thousand pretentious gold-plate flourishes dominates the entrance to the shop. It resembles its owner, in the same way that certain dogs resemble their masters. Just as I’m walking past the door, I give it a good kick, professional footballer style. The clock teeters, its pendulum slamming violently against its sides. As I bolt along the Boulevard Saint-Germain, I hear the tinkle of broken glass behind me. It’s amazing how much that sound relaxes me.
The second clockmaker, a fat balding chap in his fifties, seems more sympathetic.
‘You should pay a visit to Monsieur Méliès. He’s a most inventive illusionist. I’m sure he’ll be better placed than I am to sort out your problem, little one.’
‘I need a clockmaker, not a magician!’
‘Some clockmakers have a whiff of the magician about them, but this particular magician has something of the clockmaker about him. He’s like the famous Robert-Houdin – whose theatre he’s just bought,’ he adds, cheekily. ‘Pay him a visit and say I sent you. I’m sure he’ll fix you up properly!’
I don’t understand why this nice gentleman won’t mend me himself, but his easy acceptance of my problem is comforting. And I’m keen to meet a magician who’s actually a magician-clockmaker. He’ll probably look like Madeleine; he might even come from the same family.
I cross the Seine. My eyes nearly pop out at the elegance of the giant cathedral, not to mention the parade of derrières and chignons. This city is a cobblestone wedding cake with a Sacred Heart on top. Finally, I reach the Boulevard des Italiens, where the famous theatre is situated. A young man with lively eyes opens the door.
‘Does the magician live here?’
‘Which one?’ he replies, talking in riddles.
‘A man called Georges Méliès.’
‘That’s me!’
He walks like an automaton, jerky and elegant at the same time. He speaks quickly, his hands punctuating his words like living exclamation marks. But when I tell him my story, he listens very carefully. Above all, it’s the conclusion that interests him:
‘Even if this clock functions as my heart, the mainten ance work I’m asking of you is straightforward for a clockmaker.’
As the clockmaker-conjurer opens my dial, he listens to my chest with a stethoscope that allows him to hear the minuscule elements. His attitude softens, as if his childhood is flashing before his eyes. He activates the system, setting off the clockwork cuckoo, then promptly expresses his admiration for Madeleine’s work.
‘How did you manage to bend the hour hand?’ he asks.
‘I’m in love but I don’t know anything about love. So I get angry, I get into fights, and sometimes I even try to speed time up or else to slow it down. Is it badly damaged?’
He laughs like a child, except he’s got a moustache.
‘No, everything’s working very nicely. What exactly did you want to know?’
‘Well, Dr Madeleine, who fitted me with this clock, says that my makeshift heart isn’t suitable for falling in love. She’s convinced it wouldn’t survive such an emotional shock.’
‘Really? I see . . .’
He screws up his eyes and strokes his chin.
‘That might be her opinion . . . but you don’t have to share it, do you?’
‘I don’t agree with her, you’re right. But when I saw the little singer for the first time, I felt as if an earthquake was going on underneath my clock. The gears grated, my tick-tock sped up. I started suffocating, getting myself all tangled up, everything was topsy-turvy.’
‘Did you like that?’
‘I loved it.’
‘Ah! So what was the problem?’
‘Well, I was terrified Madeleine might be right.’
Georges Méliès shakes his head and strokes his moustache. He’s searching for the right words, the way a surgeon might choose his instruments.
‘If you’re frightened of damaging yourself, you increase the risk of doing just that. Consider the tightrope walker. Do you think he spares any thought for falling while he’s walking the rope? No, he accepts the risk, and enjoys the thrill of braving the danger. If you spend your whole life being careful not to break anything, you’ll get terribly bored, you know . . . I can’t think of anything more fun than being impulsive. Just look at you! I only have to say the word “impulsive” and your eyes light up. Aha! When a person aged fourteen decides to cross Europe to track down a girl, that means that they’ve got rather a taste for impulsiveness, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes . . . But have you got something that would make my heart a bit more robust?’
‘Of course I have. Listen to me carefully. Are you ready? Listen to me very carefully: the only thing, as you say, that will allow you to seduce the woman of your dreams, is your heart. Not the clockwork version that was grafted on to you at birth. I’m talking about the real one, the one that’s underneath, made of flesh and blood, pulsing. That’s the one you’ve got to work with. Forget about your clockwork problems and they’ll seem less important. Be impulsive and above all give, give without counting the cost.’
Méliès is very expressive. All his features are active when he speaks. Cat-like, his moustache follows his smile.
‘It doesn’t work every time. I’m not guaranteeing anything. Take me, for example: I’ve just failed with the woman I thought was the love of my life. There simply is no trick that works every time.’
I’ve been given a lesson in love by a conjurer (some might call him a genius) who’s just confessed that his most recent potion blew up in his face. But I have to concede that his words are doing me as much good as his adjustments to my gears. He’s gentle and he knows how to listen. You can tell he understands the way that humans work. Perhaps he’s succeeded in penetrating the secrets of man’s psychological machinery. In just a few hours, we’ve struck up a friendly alliance.
‘I could write a book about your story. I know it as well as if it was my own now,’ he tells me.
‘So write it. If I have children one day, they’ll be able to read it. But if you want to find out what happens next, you’ll have to come with me to Andalusia.’
‘Surely you don’t want a depressed conjurer accompany ing you on your pilgrimage of love?’
‘Actually yes, I’d like that a lot.’
‘You know I might mess up a miracle?’
‘Of course you won’t.’
‘Give me the night to mull it over, will you?’
‘It’s a deal.’
As the first rays of sunshine begin to sneak through the shutters of Georges Méliès’ workshop, I hear shouting:
‘Andalusia! Anda! Andalusia! Anda! AndaaaAAAH!’
A madman in pyjamas appears, straight out of an opera.
‘All right, young man. I could do with “travelling” in every sense of the word, I’m not going to let myself be crushed by my misery for ever. A great blast of fresh air, that’s what we’re both going to enjoy! If you still want me as a companion, that is.’
‘Of course! When are we leaving?’
‘Straight away, after breakfast!’ he answers, pointing to his travel bag.
We sit down at a rickety table to drink scalding hot chocolate and eat jam on toast that’s too soft. It’s not as tasty as one of Madeleine’s breakfasts, but it’s fun to be eating in the midst of paper cut-out extra-terrestrials.
‘You know, when I was in love, I was always inventing things. A whole array of tricks, illusions and optical effects to amuse my lady friend. I think she’d had enough of my inventions by the end,’ he says, his moustache at half-mast. ‘I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I should have given her was a real journey on earth. I should have asked for her hand in marriage, found us a house that was easier to live in than my old workshop, and I don’t know what else . . .’ he sighs. ‘One day, I sawed two planks from the shelves and attached wheels rescued from a hospital trolley, so that the two of us could glide in the moonlight. I called them “roller-boards”. But she never wanted to climb on to them. And I had to repair the shelves too. Love isn’t easy every day, my boy,’ he repeats, dreamily. ‘But you and I, we’ll climb on to those boards! We’ll speed across half of Europe on our roller-boards!’
‘Can we catch trains as well? Because I’m a bit pressed for time . . .’
‘Oppressed by time?’
‘That too.’
To think that my clock is a magnet for broken hearts: Madeleine, Arthur, Anna, Luna, even Joe; and now Méliès. I get the impression their hearts need the care of a good clockmaker even more than mine does.