Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  ‘I have learned this in those past hours on the roof with your friends, who are so like me and so unlike me. Your friend –’ here the creature gestured with his eyes to the Oldest Lion, who bore an expression of deep concern on his grizzled face – ‘has told me this. I am glad to know the name of my family. I am Smilodon fatalis as you are human. But no mother gave me a name of my own.

  ‘But you see me before you. I exist, I breathe, I speak. You ask yourself, how can he be dead? I ask myself a similar question – how can I be alive? And I answer myself. I do not know.

  ‘I opened my eyes in a bright hard room. I lived behind a hard, invisible wall. I was fed by distant hands. No one spoke to me. No one touched me. I had little space. I was warm, my food was sufficient. I grew. I had a … a memory of something else. Of a larger, open place. I had an idea that things could be different from this hard place. Many things were done to me: humans came, all the time, not many but very frequent, and they put things in me and took things out of me. They stuck me with needles, and they wrote down everything I did. They never spoke to me. There was no one else like me. I don’t know how I can talk. I feel blessed to talk now, like water after a long thirst.

  ‘Everything was wrong. I was wrong. It seemed to me I could be right if I were somewhere else. I left: I flew through the invisible wall, it shattered before my hard head; it hurt me but I hurt it more. I ran through where the humans came in and out, and I burst through again. I felt no pain. I climbed stairs and I came to a chamber filled with bones, many many bones, clean and arranged, stood up as if they were alive, the shapes of animals, all motionless, in rows, just the bones. There were Lionbones there. There were invisible walls with dead creatures behind them: some just as if they were alive, some in liquid, taken to bits, half an animal, an animal opened up, grey, floating … it was a terrible place. I ran through. I hid. I burst through invisible walls again. I hurt my hard head and could no longer think, so I lay beneath a tree under the big sky and, though I was hurt, I felt more right. The big sky and the tree felt right.’

  Charlie knew where this was. It must be the Natural History Museum, just by where they had first encountered the creature.

  The Silvery Lioness had lain herself down close to him. Her eyes were narrow, but her presence seemed to warm him.

  ‘I hid, and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Beyond the trees lights raced through the darkness and there was a dreadful noise, rushing and coming and going like many great creatures racing and droning. I lay under the tree. I would have wept …’

  But Lions don’t weep.

  ‘And while I was there I smelt … among the minerals and dirt and little creature smells … I smelt something, something like me. It was these – my –’ and again he hesitated – ‘my cousins. I roared and howled. I knew no better. Their smell was the first thing I found that I had known. When they came, they fought me, then they chased me – you know what happened. I saw you. You let me join you.’

  He dropped his huge head.

  ‘I am grateful,’ he said. Then: ‘Your friend knows the history of Lions, of the days when Lions lived all over the planet, different Lions in different places, with our different sizes and colours and teeth. He recognizes me, and he tells me that all my people have been dead for long long years. Lions used to be wild here in Europe – no longer. And me? I am American – Lions no longer live where we lived.’

  There was a moment of silence in the steamy cabin.

  ‘I am extinct,’ said the Smilodon, and his curved teeth gleamed. ‘I became extinct on the other side of the world, in the dawn of mankind, which was my people’s dusk. Why am I here? I am extinct.’

  Charlie could not say a word. He was shocked. The Lionesses were looking down and away; they could not bear to see the Smilodon’s sadness. Only Elsina looked at him, and her large eyes were even larger. The Young Lion sat fidgeting nervously behind Charlie. The Oldest Lion seemed to send out waves of pride and warmth to the Smilodon.

  The Smilodon was their ancestor. He was an ancient, extinct, prehistoric creature. Charlie remembered sabre-toothed tigers from his lessons. And here was a sabre-toothed, ancient Lion, standing before him. A huge tenderness rose up in Charlie’s heart for this terrifying, terrified creature, who had been so brave and gentle helping to bring the cold, suffering Lions down from the roof of the train during the snowstorm. He wanted to comfort him. He wanted to help him.

  ‘It is a strange, strange thing,’ said the Oldest Lion. ‘The Smilodons lived many thousands of years ago. My grandfather in Africa used to tell us tales of the tales he had heard, long ago, of the old Lions, the Lions of Alaska and China, of Italy and Spain, the British Lions, the Arabian Lions, the Lions of the Americas. Many families remain but many more have died away. Smilodon populator from Argentina was the biggest, twice my size and strong, huge, they were the best runners … The Tasmanian Tiger left us only a couple of hundred years ago, a funny little creature but our cousin all the same. The Snow Leopards from the Himalayas had beautiful thick coats, and fur between the pads of their feet to protect them from the cold and prevent them falling through the snow, and they never roared … Far back in time, known only by faded story, were Homotherium, Barbourofelis, Thylacosmilus. Now there remain very few. We are all Felids. We have been Felids for thirty-six million years. The Smilodon is our brother from the past. He is our father. Though we cannot explain his presence, we are honoured by it.’

  Charlie could see that the Oldest Lion did indeed feel honoured, but he himself could feel only the sadness that came rolling in waves off the prehistoric beast. He looked so strong, yet there was a deep weakness in him. Even his teeth, so huge that he could not really close his mouth, were like a symbol of his wrongness.

  Charlie determined to help him. However the Smilodon’s existence had come about, Charlie would help to put it right.

  He didn’t stop to think about how something whose very existence is wrong could be put right. If he had, he might not have been so determined. But he was thinking about something else. At Brother Jerome’s one time, a boy had come for lessons. He had turned up lost at one of the Railstations, a refugee or an orphan or both, frightened and speaking poor English and not knowing where he was from or what had happened to him. The monks had taken him in and looked after him and had given him a name: Ralph. He had refused to answer to the name and grown angry. In the end Brother Jerome, who spoke so many languages, was able to find out from him that his name was Justice, and that Justice was all he would answer to.

  Charlie remembered the difference it had made to this boy to have his own name used; and he remembered Brother Jerome saying that the boy’s parents must have been good people to call their son Justice. Brother Jerome had laughed sadly to think that Justice – the thing Justice, as much as the boy Justice – was lost and wandering, unable to speak, and alone in the world.

  ‘What kind of names did the Smilodons give themselves?’ Charlie asked, of the Oldest Lion and the Smilodon equally.

  The Smilodon did not know. The Oldest Lion said, ‘That detail of knowledge did not survive – do you know what the ancient men, the Neanderthals, called each other?’

  Stig, thought Charlie, remembering a brilliant book he had read about a caveman who lived in a dump, and a boy called Barney made friends with him.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But I was thinking …’ Here he turned to the Smilodon. ‘I was thinking, if you had your own name, it might make you feel better.’ He wanted to call him Sir. Something to show him some respect.

  The Smilodon narrowed his eyes and blinked very slowly. ‘Thank you, Lionboy,’ he said. ‘A name would be … welcome. My cousin shall name me.’ And he looked to the Oldest Lion.

  The Oldest Lion gazed at him with his big lustrous eyes.

  ‘An honour,’ he said. ‘I name you Primo. It means First.’

  ‘I was not the first,’ said the Smilodon in his low rough voice. ‘But now that I am here I might as well be. T
hank you. Now I should sleep.’ He turned round in the small crowded bathroom and lay on the floor again, even his huge shoulders tired.

  Maccomo stood, suit a little crumpled by the train journey but still the picture of a respectable man, on the deck of the little ferry from Spain to Morocco. The channel of the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, was not wide, but it was home to an extraordinary feat of engineering.

  The sea here did not just lie in its bed. It had been divided up into channels like lanes of a motorway. Some lanes were at sea level, but many of them were raised above like flyovers on tall legs, forming a huge, impossible-looking spaghetti junction of aqueducts and high canals. Along these channels passed all the ships, moving in different directions through the narrow waters between Europe and Africa, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Ships heading for Portugal sailed on a bridge high above other ships heading towards the north coast of Morocco; still others passed between them going towards the Balearic Islands. You had to get in the right lane or you could be sent to completely the wrong place, and there was no turning back at this most complicated of junctions. There was order to it, but it looked a lot like chaos, and it was always very busy, because it was also a security boundary, with Europe on one side and the Poor World on the other. Refugees and other people from the Poor World often used the crowds and confusion of this area to try to break in to Europe – the Rich World – where they believed life would be better for them. Though he was African, Maccomo had European papers, so he was not worried about Immigrationguys. He could go where he liked.

  The ocean sun was high and hot, and the smell of Africa came through the salt and cool sea smells, in shocks of woodsmoke, dust and spice. Africa. Maccomo smiled.

  Maccomo was not a young man. He was not impatient. Rafi could not have the Lions, so they were either free (though it was unlikely they could remain so for long, on their own) or – more likely – with Charlie. And Maccomo knew where the Lions wanted to go. Lions want to be free, and they want to go home. Those beasts would head for Morocco, for the sparse and scrubby Argan Forests of Essaouira. Sentimental Liontalking Charlie would help them to get there, and Rafi would be after Charlie. Rafi would need to take Charlie to those people who’d hired him to steal the boy’s parents. Plus Charlie had made a fool of Rafi, escaping from him in the first place, and then getting away from him again in Paris.

  Maccomo was not worried. He would go to Essaouira, and he would wait.

  He took out the medicine bottle. Just a drop or two.

  Maccomo knew now that Charlie must have been drugging him. Why else would his body crave these drops?

  Oh, that Charlie. Thinking he could trick him. Trick him out of his Lions, out of his payment from Rafi … Oh, that Charlie.

  Well, he’d stop taking the drops soon. He’d just have a couple now, that’s all. He’d spend a few days in Casablanca, thought Maccomo, then he’d go down to Essaouira, to that pretty town – so pretty that its name in Arabic means ‘The Picture’ – and those lovely forests, where the goats stand in the low trees to eat their shoots, and the white camels from Mali carry you to and fro, and the clever Lions lie in the shade, in the long golden grass … He knew just where the Lions would go, because he’d bought them from the Lioncatcher right by where they’d been caught, not fifteen miles from Essaouira.

  They’d all be along in due course. And Maccomo would be there. Waiting.

  ‘Mabel? Maurice Thibaudet here.’

  ‘Hello, Maurice.’

  ‘Wondering if you’all still don’t have an idea where Maccomo is.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I’m sorry.’ She sounded a little cold, as if Maccomo was humiliating her by being somewhere that she didn’t know about.

  ‘He came back here around one o’clock, and now he’s run away,’ said Major Tib. He paused a moment. ‘Same as his Lions did last night.’

  ‘What?’ Mabel sounded truly shocked

  ‘His Lions weren’t here this morning, Mabel, and once I had explained the situation to Maccomo he seems to have decided to disappear too.’

  ‘You know, Maurice, I know nothing about this,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I saw him last night for the first time in a year. He was relaxed and cheerful. It was nice to see him. I had no idea … I’m sure he had no idea …’

  ‘His Lionboy has disappeared too …’

  ‘Yes – you said. Could – I don’t see how …’

  ‘And that young guy Maccomo was talking to last night – with you, I might add. Rafi Sadler. Good-looking young guy in the leather coat. Sitting beside you for the second half? He’s telling everyone he was savaged by one of the Lions as they ran away.’

  ‘What! But how did they get out? Where are they now? Surely six Lions can’t just disappear …’

  ‘Sadler says they were on the train to Istanbul. As if. And anyway that train has been searched and there’s no sign. They think he might have rabies … Who is Sadler, Mabel?’

  ‘Some guy. I don’t know. He and Maccomo were – oh, I don’t know.’

  Major Tib thought perhaps she did know. He sat silent for a moment. Then he changed tack.

  ‘So I’ve got a big hole in my show, Mabel,’ he said. ‘A big ole hole where your ole boyfriend has let me down. I’ve told everybody they’ll see the best Big Cat act in the world. And all I’ve got is a big ole hole.’

  Mabel smiled. ‘You should never have called Maccomo’s act the best in the world, Maurice. You know my show’s the best in the world.’

  Maurice smiled too, thinking about Mabel in her white leather catsuit playing with her tigers. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ he said, laying on the sugar. ‘So what d’ya say? I know you’re free at the moment. Three weeks, the Paris engagement, at least, and more if you want it.’

  ‘Pay me twice what you were paying him,’ she said.

  Major Tib tutted silently. This woman!

  ‘Sure, honey,’ he said. ‘Hundred dirhams a night.’

  ‘That’s half what you were paying him,’ she said. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Three hundred, then,’ he said.

  ‘Four hundred, or I’ll make it five hundred.’

  Major Tib had no choice. He needed a Big Cat act by that night and Mabel was his only option, Normally, he wouldn’t want a woman like her in the show – too beautiful, too bossy – but for now, he had to agree.

  Mabel clicked off her phone, lay back on her white furry chaise longue and wondered.

  Why would Maccomo call her for the first time in a year, then disappear? And as for losing his Lions – that she could hardly believe. Mabel loved her tigers more than anything in the world. She had run away to join the Circus when she was fifteen, specially to be with tigers (and, well, for another reason too, one she never mentioned). She had her marks, the scars from when she’d misjudged a tiger’s mood and been attacked. She’d suffered for them and it made her love them even more. She had been working with this troupe for seven years now and she adored them. She would do anything for them. She had been pleased to see Maccomo again, she wasn’t going to deny that. She – well – she respected him, she told herself, she respected him as a great Liontrainer. That’s why she was so genuinely surprised and disappointed to think he would be so careless with his cats. It didn’t seem right at all.

  Chapter Three

  It was evening when the snowploughs arrived at the Orient Express, too late and cold and frozen for them to plough through anything. Outside the train’s iced-up windows a peculiar warm orange light – very out of place against the greenish snow – glowed where the braziers were burning alongside the line to stop the switchgears from freezing solid. Inside, it grew colder and colder.

  During the day Charlie had played backgammon with the King, with Edward looking on down his long straight nose. During the night Charlie and the Lions slept all together in a pile, like kittens in a basket, and they were snug as could be.

  Then, on the third morning, the sun peeking out through rip
s in the grey sky began to thaw the green layers on the train’s windows, and the world became visible again. It appeared through the drips and rushing wetness of the thaw like islands rising from the sea. Rattling and banging and hissing sounds told of busy activity outside, the solar panels started to recharge the engine, and a boosterwagon arrived bringing extra power. The heating started up again: breakfast would be served, a little late, but hot, with eggs and coffee. The huge sigh of relief that rose off everybody on the train merely hastened the melting.

  By the early afternoon the line was clear. Soon after, the warmed-up train resumed its journey, chugging gently at first and then faster and stronger through the great mountains, visible now in all their high and snowy glory; chuffing across the Alps, through the tunnel at Simplon, and down the wide broad slopes on the other side to Italy and Venice.

  Charlie asked Edward for some bandages: ‘One of the Lions has hurt his jaw. We think it may be broken,’ he lied. For a moment Charlie feared that Edward would say a doctor or a vet should see to it, but he said nothing. This was one very good thing about being the Lionboy – no one else could ever have an opinion on what the Lions should do or have done to them. Only for Charlie were they guaranteed to behave (and maybe not even for him, although no one ever wanted to put it to the test).

  Charlie took the bandages back to the bathroom and wrapped them carefully round Primo’s jaw and head, tucking the ends in. The result looked like a cross between bandages and a turban. It reminded Charlie of pictures from ancient Egypt, of a mummy-headed animal. But at least Primo’s magnificent, terrible teeth were hidden. It would be a to-do unwrapping him when he needed to eat, but it was necessary.

  ‘I just don’t want people having heart attacks at the sight of you,’ Charlie explained. ‘Or getting too excited and wanting to …’

  He didn’t finish. Primo was quite sad enough without being reminded of how interesting he was to human beings who wouldn’t treat him right. He didn’t mind being in disguise, which was just as well. He just held his head patiently while Charlie furled and wrapped and pinned.