Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  The lions’ place in the Circus performance has been filled by Miss Mabel Stark, performing with her troupe of tigers. Miss Stark has previously been romantically linked with Monsieur Maccomo.

  Reports that creatures which may have been the lions were spotted during last week’s Alpine blizzard, in which the Orient Express was stranded for several days with the King of Bulgaria aboard, have been dismissed by the Alpine Transport Police.

  Charlie slowly put the paper down. He wasn’t surprised.

  ‘His Majesty won’t be very happy about this,’ said Edward. ‘He doesn’t like his name appearing in the news. And it’s curious that they seem to think there are only six – newspapers always get things wrong.’ He said this with the air of satisfaction of someone who is certain that he is always right. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘none of that is the point. The point is, things will take a little longer than we might have hoped. They can stay here for the time being, as planned, until we find a safe way of shipping them back to Africa. It will be fine, but it means you’d better stay in as well, to be on the safe side. With a reward offered, it’s only sensible.’

  Charlie was about to dispute this. It were as if a net was falling over him and one by one his intentions and plans and needs and desires were being trapped in it. But Edward leaned back again and changed the subject.

  ‘And we have another problem. I have received information on your parents’ whereabouts.’

  Charlie’s hands seemed cold suddenly.

  ‘I’m afraid they’re not here. Your information was wrong.’

  Very cold.

  ‘They have not been in Venice,’ continued Edward. ‘I’m making inquiries and hope to be able to locate them in due course. But you will not find them here.’

  Charlie stared at Edward and the words rang in his head.

  ‘My view is that you should remain here, quietly, until further information comes through,’ said Edward. ‘All ears are open. We’ll hear something else soon.’

  This was not Charlie’s view at all. His view was that he should immediately go to … somewhere … and … do something.

  Edward smiled at Charlie encouragingly. Charlie felt as if his stomach had dropped sixteen floors in a lift without him. He was still staring at Edward. A large and frightening question was forming in his mind.

  Was Edward lying? And if he was lying, was all he was saying lies? Or was some of it the truth?

  The newspaper was true – he could see it with his own eyes.

  Why weren’t they here? Sergei had told the Lions Venice!

  Sergei couldn’t have lied – he wouldn’t have. Surely he wouldn’t have.

  So, was it a mistake?

  Bother this game of Chinese whispers!

  What did Edward want anyway? What was he up to?

  Rats rats rats rats rats. And he didn’t want Edward to see how upset he was.

  He took a couple of breaths. Then: ‘Edward,’ said Charlie politely.

  ‘Yes?’ said Edward, just as politely.

  ‘Why am I not allowed to see the Lions?’

  ‘Not allowed?’ said Edward. ‘Dear boy, of course you’re allowed. Who’s stopping you?’

  ‘Yesterday I was prevented from visiting them,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Well, what nonsense,’ said Edward. ‘In fact I want you to go and see them now. Been thinking about ways of getting the animals out, you know, need to know their size and weight. Need you to measure them.’

  Charlie was stopped in his tracks. Measure the Lions? Why?

  It must have shown on his face.

  ‘For transportation,’ said Edward. ‘So they don’t sink the boat. Come on, there’s a good boy.’

  Good boy. Suddenly Charlie thought of Rafi back in London saying, ‘Be a good boy.’ He thought of how he and his mum had used ‘be a good boy’ as code in the letters the cats had carried between them. He felt sick with anger. He hadn’t asked to be helped, and now look: they were all locked up in a palace, the Lions were caged, King Boris was miles away, the paper was full of stories about them, and Edward was telling him to be a good boy. Sink the boat indeed. They hadn’t sunk the gondola, had they?

  Edward was lying to him.

  Well, he wasn’t going to be lazy and unfocused any more, and he wasn’t going to rely on anybody else for help. For a start, if he were to measure the Lions he could be with them for a bit and perhaps talk to them …

  ‘OK.’ He shrugged. He’d play the trick he played on Rafi: let Edward think he was stupid, to put him off his guard.

  Edward immediately whipped out a measuring tape from his pocket. Charlie recognized it. It was what the crumply man last night had been showing to Edward, and waving about.

  So the crumply man was connected with the measuring.

  How interesting.

  ‘There’s one thing,’ said Edward, on their way down to the cortile. ‘For their own protection, the Lions have been given a security screen – we don’t want anything to look unusual, you know, or to alarm the servants. Much better to have everything look normal …’

  A security screen for their own protection, thought Charlie. Edward, you are a very sneaky sneak. He wondered again if King Boris had any idea how sneaky Edward really was. Could he get in touch with King Boris? He was pretty sure that he wouldn’t approve of what was going on.

  It was lucky Charlie had seen the bars before, because otherwise Edward would certainly have noticed his anger. As it was, Charlie was calm while Edward opened the gate in the bars and locked it again once Charlie was inside. Standing at a safe distance, Edward instructed Charlie in which bits to measure, and wrote down the results. He seemed to have forgotten about the weighing. What Edward wanted to know was the Lions’ chest measurements, heights and the lengths of their backs. Charlie chatted quietly with the Lions as he worked.

  ‘No news yet,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know what this is about, do you?’

  ‘I think the measuring is what Edward wanted that man last night to do, but he was too scared,’ said the Young Lion.

  ‘But what for?’ asked Elsina.

  None of them knew.

  They couldn’t talk much. They didn’t want Edward finding out, like Maccomo had.

  In the Wellness Unit, Magdalen lay sleeping on a fake-wood bed under fake-cotton sheets. A blind with a computerized picture of a garden on it covered the window, which did not open. Air-conditioning pumped slightly sweet, too-cold air through the Unit. At the door of Magdalen’s room a nurse sat on a fake-wood chair.

  Outside in the grounds of the Community – well, in the air-conditioned fake garden that counted as the grounds – Aneba was walking about, breathing what passed for fresh air. He had long ago forgotten that this air was not fresh, that something was pumped through all the air in this building, something calming and stupid-making – or rather, something that stole independence and free thinking. A lot of the people here were very clever – like Magdalen and Aneba. And their cleverness was valuable. It was their independence that had to go.

  Aneba walked as far as he could. After half an hour, he came to a high concrete wall. He didn’t think about how odd that was. He just turned round and walked back. After an hour, another high concrete wall. He did this every day. ‘Exercise is good!’ crooned the voice – was it in his head now? Or was it coming from a loudspeaker somewhere in among the top-quality, almost realistic plastic trees? ‘It’s good to look after your body! Pamper yourself! Love yourself! You deserve it! The Corporacy wants you healthy and well!’

  Sometimes the voice addressed him by name: congratulated him on looking after his body. Once, after he’d bought three chocolate bars at the Treats Unit, the voice had asked him if he was all right, and warned him against the dangers of too much sugar, and later that day the Dental Section of the Wellness Unit had called him in for a check-up. (No one seemed to notice the contradiction between the Social Club wanting them to drink booze and eat crisps, and the Wellness Unit bossing them about their health �
�� the reason for this was that most people paid for everything they used, and as long as they kept paying – for wine, for healthcare, for use of the gym – then the Corporacy was happy. They liked to get back all the money they paid their workers, and they didn’t really mind how. As soon as Aneba and Magdalen were ‘well’ enough to work, they would be paying too.)

  Aneba turned and walked back. He was just going to walk to and fro across this huge fake garden until he dropped dead. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. Except that the voice would talk to him, telling him to go to the next class or workshop or therapy group or social club night. And they’d taken Magdalen away again. A tiny part of him knew that he had to fight, but he couldn’t remember how to fight, or what he was fighting …

  He reached a high wall again.

  For a change, he walked along beside it.

  Walk walk walk.

  He stared in a blank way at his feet.

  Walk walk walk.

  Suddenly, something scratchy and furry and chaotic landed on his smooth shaven head.

  Ow! He jerked up, staring wildly around.

  The thing slid off: it was in front of him, staring at him, furious, wild and making a horrible noise.

  It was a cat – a mangy, scrawny black cat with half an ear missing, and what looked like some kind of skin-disease round his rear end. It was glaring at him with eyes like dull-blue fire, hackles raised, legs stiff.

  The cat hissed. Aneba held still, watching.

  The cat spat. Aneba felt rooted to the ground.

  The cat jumped on to a fake-rock, then leapt at Aneba’s face and scratched him, hard, cleanly, down his cheek.

  Aneba cried out, and his hand on his face was bloodied. The pain was excruciating. It cut through the fog of confusion that had held him in its thrall since he had arrived at this place. It cut through the cotton wool that had been wrapped round his brain, and the sludge which had bogged down his heart. It cut through the doubts and clouds and uncertainties.

  The cat stared at him, challenge sparking out of his eyes. Then he turned and sauntered away, looking back over his shoulder as he went. At a safe distance, about ten metres, he turned and sat and stared calmly at Aneba. He yawned. The inside of his mouth was extremely pink. His teeth were tiny sharp yellow points.

  Aneba, still gasping at the shock and the pain, looked at his blood on his hand, and looked at the cat.

  ‘Mraaoow,’ said the cat, gently, in a slightly ironic North of England fashion.

  All clouds were gone from Aneba. He shook himself. He remembered everything. Delicately, he licked at his hand. The taste of his blood was sharp and salty and strong. That’s me, he thought. Sharp and strong – me. For god’s sake, man – they stole you for your brain – use the thing!

  The cat seemed to smile at him.

  Aneba thought about his son, Charlie. About how, during their journey here, a cat had brought them a letter from him, and taken a reply back. He smiled back. If Charlie had been there, he would have flung his arms round the cat in delight, crying, ‘You’re back! You’re back! Have you brought a letter?’ But Charlie was not there, and Aneba had no idea who this cat was.

  Even so, when Sergei beckoned with his long scrawny tail, Aneba knew to follow him.

  After talking to the Lions that day, Charlie went up to his room and wrote to the King.

  ‘Dear Your Majesty,’ he started. It looked wrong, so he started again. ‘Your Dear Majesty.’ No. Umm … Your Majesty Dear … No, that made it sound as if Charlie were the King’s grandma …

  In the end he wrote ‘Dear King Boris.’ After that it got even harder. How to explain that he felt he was being betrayed by the King’s head of security? It was a serious accusation. How to phrase it? He wasn’t accusing the King himself – he was certain that King Boris was on the straight … Charlie chewed his pen and fretted.

  In the end, he wrote the letter almost in the same style as he had written to his parents: trusting to the intelligence and honesty of the person reading it to get the message.

  Dear King Boris

  Well here we are in your house which is really nice. Edward says what I came here for is not here after all. Also he is having my friends measured – I don’t know why. What do you think? He says it will be a while before we can move on because the Circus and the police in Paris are angry but I just want to get on and leave and find what I am looking for or at least get my friends on their way. I am getting lots to eat which is good but I am not allowed out much and there is no one to play with. In fact I am just feeling a bit stuck here. This doesn’t mean I am not grateful. I am very grateful especially for the food.

  I hope you are well and that you will come here soon.

  Yours

  Charlie

  He read it over. It looked OK. He hoped King Boris would pick up its real meaning: Edward is trapping us here, come and save us! He hoped that just in case Edward got hold of it, it would look like an innocent note from a kid who has no idea what’s really going on.

  At the same time, Charlie knew that leaving the palazzo now would be extremely dangerous. French police? Maccomo? Rafi? Major Tib? That reward? No, thank you.

  He had a horrible feeling that he was safer being kept prisoner. So, was this feeling more or less horrible than the feeling that the longer he stayed here, the tighter the net would close on him?

  No. That was a useless question about which he could do nothing. The important question was, how was he going to get the letter out? He certainly wasn’t going to give it to Edward to post.

  Over the next couple of days Charlie carried the letter in his pocket, and thought intently about how to take control of his situation.

  He acquainted himself fully with the building. He went into every room, climbed every staircase, opened every door, looked out of every window, went through every archway. On all four sides the palazzo was bordered by canals. Across the canal at the back a narrow (and gated) bridge led to a small but handsome piazza. The doors in and out of the palazzo were huge, old, locked and bolted. All the windows on the ground floor were barred.

  Charlie remembered King Boris’s fear of assassins, and his big beefy bodyguards, and he sighed. He went up on the roof: there was a wooden terrace built over the slopes of the red tiles, but although the view was enchanting (as long as you didn’t look to the Giudecca or San Giorgio Maggiore) and the roofs very climbable, they just didn’t lead anywhere else. There was no cellar.

  So he needed an ally. Signora Battistuta was out of the question. He considered making friends with Lavinia, and getting some information out of her. In the end he decided against it. She was just too peculiar. She wasn’t like a child at all and he didn’t know how to trust her or even understand her. He had a feeling that even if he spoke perfect Italian, or if she spoke perfect English, they would still somehow not understand each other.

  For long hours he would stare out the back of the palazzo, across the small canal to the piazza on the other side. There were people there – could he call to them? What would he say?

  And there were cats. He called and called to them, the first time. But he didn’t dare call too loud, and anyway the window was high, and there was the canal, and the wind was in the wrong direction. Either they didn’t hear or they didn’t understand. Whatever the reason, they didn’t respond.

  Charlie stared out at them, willing them to turn, to hear, to come over to him. They didn’t. They weren’t very nice cats – they seemed to spend a lot of time ganging up on each other. And if Edward was telling the truth, and his parents weren’t here, then why would the cats know anything anyway?

  Whether or not they knew, they weren’t answering him. He watched and stared in vain.

  But he had to speak to somebody. His parents always said, ‘If you don’t know what to do, find out more.’ He had to get some information, because otherwise he was just stuck here for as long as Edward chose, in Edward’s power, and it was driving him mad.

  ‘I think it bes
t that you don’t go to see the Lions for a while,’ Edward had said earnestly. ‘It looks peculiar, and we must avoid attracting attention. We don’t want the servants gossiping. It’s hard enough to keep them loyal, with that reward being offered.’

  Seeing that the servants were Signora Battistuta, who seemed to know all Edward’s secrets and anyway had the air of a woman who did exactly what she liked, and little Lavinia, who was about as threatening as a very old J-cloth, Charlie didn’t fall for this. But he didn’t want Edward to know that he mistrusted him, so he carried on pretending to fall for Edward’s tricks. It wasn’t fun.

  Mostly, during those days, Charlie just ate (prawns, fish, fennel, ice cream) and gazed out of the windows, at the canal to the front and the piazza cats to the rear, and schemed. They could ambush a boat, and leap out the window … could they swim? Perhaps they could get away over the roof, the Lions were good leapers … But after Charlie’s first visit, the roof terrace had been locked.

  Edward was a cunning man, a man with spies and power. No half-baked plan would do.

  At night Charlie went secretly to the cortile and lay about with the Lions; in the morning he stared out at the piazza cats; and at noon he laid his telephone on the window ledge in the Chinese room, with his mother’s that he brought with him from home all those weeks ago, and watched them as they charged up under the sun. The phones never rang. There were no messages. He played Snake. On one occasion, angry with frustration, he tried to call Rafi to have a fight, but a computer voice came on, telling him he had no credit. Of course: he had been away too long; he had no vouchers left.

  Quite often he saw the lean shape of Claudio, sunburnt and strong, his back bent over his pole, gliding by almost without a splash, and they would wave to each other. The boatman seemed amused that Charlie would be at a different window each time. Often he was singing, and he would sing to Charlie, larking about. There was one particular tune that he sang which Charlie liked, and would listen out for. Claudio noticed, and made a point of singing it as he approached.