Ark Baby

by Liz Jensen

  ‘Stay right here by this pillar,’ ordered Scrapie again, more bluntly this time. ‘Don’t move a bloody inch.’

  So I stood there obediently, thinking of my sudden ‘specimen-hood’, and my imminent meeting with Mr Darwin, the man whom Parson Phelps blamed for the decline of Christianity itself. In short, the man responsible for a multiplicity of woes.

  I very much hoped he would not expect my gratitude for the fine mess he had landed me in, I thought, as the band struck up a waltz.

  * * *

  The speakers in the community centre were blaring out some dated old techno rubbish. The place was teeming with people. The Cleggs, the Peat-Hoves, the Mulveys, the Tobashes. Harcourt, his grumpy Filipina swaying on his arm, grabbed me by the arm and thrust a foaming beer at me.

  ‘Get that down you,’ he said. There were plastic tables along each wall, with a mass of paper plates and decorated serviettes, bearing sausages on sticks, various dips, blobs of cheese, and an array of pizzas. Some meringue pavlovas were de-frosting at the back. I swigged my beer, my eyes still scanning the room for Gawvey. I’d had the foresight to stop off at the cashpoint in the high street on my way, and I had a hundred yos in my pocket to buy the monkey back. I’d offer him more, though, if he wanted it. I could get an overdraft, if the need arose. I reckoned it was worth going up to a thousand, without arousing his suspicions. After all, it was a family heirloom.

  The music had changed to the Hokey Cokey, and a great human caterpillar was forming. I barged past.

  ‘Where’s Gawvey?’ I shouted. ‘I’ve got to find him!’

  ‘Outside,’ said Boggs. ‘Easy does it, mate. He’s doing the bonfire.’

  Just then a tinkling burst of music cascaded down from a shiny orchestra perched on a balcony, and couples began to glide to the dance-floor. Soon the whole space was packed. As the dancers whizzed about me in a human hurricane of sequins and perfume and chinking medallions, my eyes scoured the ballroom once again for Miss Scrapie. But there was no sign of her in the crowd. Had I lost her for the whole evening? Perhaps for ever? Pondering this ghastly thought, a sadness and fear overwhelmed me. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets, and invoked Betty Botter, until a sudden instinct told me to ignore my promise to Dr Scrapie, and seek shelter from the crowd. To this end I found myself shuffling, half-tripping on my over-long trousers, and with some difficulty arriving at a small table beside a huge marble fountain. And here I sat, fingering my crucifix, doing my best to become invisible, and attempting, with the help of a glass of port proffered me by a waiter, to pick up my flagging spirits, and to ignore the distinct feeling of unease emanating from my lower spine.

  Then the quadrille came to a sudden halt and the clocks chimed eight. A hush fell, and a tail-coated Master of Royal Ceremonies struck a huge gong with a padded stick, signalling to the assembled ladies and gentlemen that it was time for the celebrations to begin in earnest.

  ‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen! Please raise your glasses to Her Majesty the Queen!’

  The Monarch smooths her black skirts and purses her lips as we raise our glasses and ask God to bless her. The gong sounds again, and the Master of Royal Ceremonies gives further utterance.

  ‘And to Mr Charles Darwin!’

  The small bearded man next to Queen Victoria performs a neat little bow, as we salute him. ‘To Mr Charles Darwin!’ When he unbends himself, I notice that he has a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Now stand back, please, Ladies and Gentlemen, for the revelation of our gastronomic centrepiece this evening, the Evolutionary Time-Bomb, a masterpiece of cuisine designed and constructed by Her Majesty’s head chef, Monsieur Jacques-Yves Cabillaud!’

  There is a rustling of gowns and a clapping of hands as the crowd pulls back from a central area hitherto hidden from view by dancing bodies, hanging curtains and swathes of flowers. At first, the area is so huge and so grey it has the appearance of a wall – but suddenly, the eye adjusts and a new perspective is revealed: the thing we see before us, seated within an enormous clam shell, is nothing more and nothing less than an entire roast elephant!

  ‘Good grief!’ mutters a brigadier, an expression of surprise which is echoed, in various forms, throughout the hall, in a sudden windy rustle of words.

  ‘Her name was Mona,’ whispers a man who has appeared at my side out of the blue. ‘She’s from the Zoological Gardens. They slit her throat last Thursday, and it took a week for her to die. Have you heard the rumour that Monsieur Cabillaud used to be her keeper at the Zoo?’

  A shudder goes through me as I stare across the room at Cabillaud, who has suddenly materialised next to his gruesome exhibit and is bowing deeply to the assembled throng. Now he takes a huge sword and places it, with an obsequious bow, in the hand of the dumpy little woman Miss Scrapie refers to as the Royal Hippo.

  ‘If it please Your Majesty,’ he says. He’s all red in the face with pride. ‘Would you graciously do us all ze great honour of making ze first incision into ze Time-Bomb?’

  A murmur of appreciation rises from the ladies and gentlemen as the little monarch obliges by taking hold of the scimitar. I stand on tiptoe to watch her; as she takes a grip on the weapon, I see her mouth twisting into what might be a smile, or a pang of indigestion, I cannot be sure which. Then I spot Dr Scrapie stepping forward to help her.

  ‘If I may be of assistance, Your Majesty,’ he murmurs, standing behind her and encircling her with his arms. ‘And if you will excuse the necessary intimacy …’ Delicately, he places his own hands upon hers, and helps her to lift the heavy scimitar.

  A burst of cheering and hand-clapping as Dr Scrapie helps the Queen make a deep cut into the huge creature’s rubbery flesh.

  ‘Raise your glasses again,’ intones the Master of Royal Ceremonies, ‘to Her Majesty the Queen!’

  As we wish the Monarch a long life and good health, and the orchestra strikes up ‘Rule Britannia’, Scrapie and the Monarch are busy cutting a huge slit down the front of the elephant’s chest. The grey flesh divides like a pair of thick felt curtains and –

  Whispers. Genteel murmurings. Hushed gasps.

  Out tumbles a lumpy waterfall of pungent mushrooms and garlic-ball stuffing. A gurgle of steaming liquid and more mushrooms follow, all captured in the huge natural tureen of the giant clam beneath.

  Delighted screams. Whoops. Cat-calls.

  For there, revealed inside the elephant’s cavernous interior – Yes! It’s true! – amid a mass of foliage that resembles parsley, there appears to be an entire zebra!

  A massive cheer erupts spontaneously from the crowd.

  ‘Bravo!’ shrieks a woman next to me, whipping up a strongish wind with the excited flapping of her lace fan. And then a further and even more frenzied cheer emerges as seconds later, Queen Victoria, warming to her task, once again wields the scimitar, with Scrapie’s help, and makes a deft incision in the zebra’s exposed belly to reveal, among the baked apples and glazed onions, its skin criss-crossed with diamonds of cloves and apricots, a gigantic roast hog!

  Astonishing!

  We can hardly believe what we are seeing. But then – No! Surely not!

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaims the fan-flapping woman next to me. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Look!’ yells a military gent, his medals crashing together as he jiggles with excitement. ‘She’s cutting again!

  The Royal Hippo, who has warmed to her task enough to spurn Dr Scrapie’s renewed offer of help, is indeed wielding the scimitar a third time. With a swift and expert lunge, impressive from a woman so small and stiffly padded, she stabs the hog, whose skin splits neatly along a stitched seam to reveal a cavity from which –

  My God! From the heart of the Time-Bomb, a live woman is stepping out!

  A dropped fan. Gasps and applause from the men. Excited screams from the ladies.

  And a groan from me, followed swiftly by a ghastly surge of nausea.

  For this is not just any woman.

  It is a woman in a tutu and lit
tle ballet shoes.

  It is the human herring gull, Contortionist Extraordinaire of the Travelling Fair of Danger and Delight –

  My mother.

  Ding, dong! chimes the Balls’ doorbell.

  The future is calling.

  ‘Damn and blast!’ says Abbie, under her breath. She’s been rushed off her feet all day, and has only just finished her cookery rehearsal – a full ten minutes behind schedule.

  ‘Hold on a second!’ she calls, as she wipes the flour off her hands and glances at the Apfelkuchen. They’re browning nicely in the oven. And the coffee’s just on. She’d been planning to put her feet up.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ says the young leather-jacketed stranger. He has a small gold earring in one ear, and is carrying a clip-board. He’s waving a set of car keys at her apologetically. ‘But my car’s broken down, and my mobile phone’s –’

  ‘On the blink,’ falters Abbie, suddenly feeling rather sick as a feeling of déjà vu engulfs her.

  ‘Yes,’ says the man, flashing her a handsome smile. ‘How did you guess? Look, I’m sorry to ask you this, but –’

  ‘Of course you can call the AA,’ says Abbie. ‘And perhaps while you’re waiting, I might tempt you with some of my Apfelkuchen and a cup of nice fresh coffee?’

  You could say that Abbie Ball has been blessed with a form of second sight, for is this not her dream coming true?

  ‘May I ask you your name?’ she falters, pouring a china cup of Colombian Special Blend.

  ‘Of course,’ says the stranger, whipping out a business card. ‘Sorry, I should have – Anyway … Pleased to meet you.’

  Abbie takes his business card with a trembling hand and reads.

  OSCAR JACK.

  ERA PRODUCTIONS.

  At last!

  The Apfelkuchen are going down a treat.

  ‘Can I offer you a fifth?’ Abbie asks, five minutes later, after she has completed her tour of the kitchen for Oscar, and he has settled himself on the settee in the living room with the air of a man who is no longer the slightest bit worried about his seized-up car or his broken mobile.

  ‘Abbie,’ he begins. He has a soft, cultured voice, but there’s excitement in it. Genuine excitement. ‘May I call you Abbie?’ She swallows hard, and nods vigorously.

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing – well, your extraordinary poise. It struck me immediately – the minute I clapped eyes on you – that you have a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, and that – well.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is rare, this is extremely rare, I don’t want you to think that this is the kind of thing that happens every day, in fact, never before in my whole television career –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Spit it out, then,’ says the Laudanum Empress from Norman’s armchair. She is darning one of her cobwebby old stockings.

  ‘Well, Abbie,’ says Oscar Jack, oblivious to the interruption, ‘some people are simply what we call “television naturals,” and –’

  It always happens, doesn’t it? Something. A crack of thunder. The ping of the microwave. An urgent call of nature.

  Or the ring of the telephone.

  ‘Excuse me, just one moment,’ says Abbie. Her heart is pounding in a way it hasn’t done since she met Norman for the first time twenty years ago, in the park. She’d been sitting by the sandpit babysitting her friend’s little girl, and he’d rammed her in the bum with his nephew’s remotely controlled racing car. ‘It’s probably your AA man.’

  Abbie picks up the phone, and instantly turns as white as self-raising flour.

  ‘Mum, it’s us. You’ve got to come now. Now.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ she whispers shakily.

  ‘We’ve just gone into labour, Mum!’ shrieks a twin. ‘And Buck’s buggered off!’

  ‘Are you sure, Roseblanche?’ asks Abbie nervously, cupping her hand over the receiver so that Oscar Jack can’t hear. ‘I mean there have been an awful lot of false alarms …’ she whispers.

  ‘Please, Mum!’ shriek the voices in unison. ‘You’ve got to believe us!’

  What mother can resist a cry of help from her baby?

  The unfairness of it! Dilemma city. The recipe for disaster, thinks Abbie, drifting into a shocked reverie as Oscar Jack tucks into another Apfelkuchen. Cruel-world stew:

  Take several ounces of extreme bad luck, and spike with a measure of ill-timing. Add a pinch of malevolence and stir up well with the base ingredient of injustice. Throw in some intolerance and bitterness. Pour on heavy dollops of meanness, spite and pessimism, and refrigerate until an uneasy chill is achieved. Dose in individual portions with a dash of bile and garnish with shite. Note: the result is addictive.

  So much blood has drained from Abbie’s face that Oscar Jack is thinking she’ll need a lot of panstick when the time comes.

  ‘Bugger,’ she mutters finally.

  ‘Language!’ trills the Empress gleefully.

  ‘Is there anything I –’ begins Oscar Jack.

  ‘Mum!’ yells Roseblanche down the phone.

  ‘Yes?’ manages Abbie, faintly, her eyes on Oscar Jack’s well-shaven, innocent face. He’s already punched her name and address into his personal organiser. If only –

  ‘I can’t come now! My television producer’s arrived! Just call an ambulance!’ she hisses weakly into the receiver.

  ‘We did!’ shrieks Roseblanche. ‘They don’t believe us! They think it’s a hoax! They say they’re getting three a night like this! We’re nearly ready to push! Mum, help!’

  Abbie groans. ‘I’m on my way,’ she sighs, and slams down the receiver.

  The Contortionist, having made several curtsies to the crowd, is now scampering balletically atop the elephant’s head and beginning, amid enthusiastic applause, to tie herself into a human knot.

  Meanwhile below, at ground-level, a regiment of sous-chefs are busy attacking the Time-Bomb with carving-knives, cutting slices of elephant, zebra, and hog meat and placing it on the platters held by the sous-sous-chefs, who are in turn handing them to the sous-sous-sous-chefs for the addition of garnish. Minions further down in the kitchen hierarchy mill about, proffering plates of food to guests, who comment delightedly upon the unusual taste and texture of the meats.

  The Time-Bomb, Cabillaud reflects, has certainly been the crowning triumph of his whole glittering career, the pinnacle of his own personal evolution. Even Violet, now a militant vegan, has mustered the politesse to congratulate him on it, despite her opposition to all forms of cruelty.

  ‘May I present you with my book?’ Cabillaud now enquires of Violet, thrusting a first-edition copy of Cuisine Zoologique: une philosophie de la viande into her hand. She is looking quite magnificent, he notes. Extraordinarily well, and happy. There is beauty in ugliness after all. The dress she is wearing suits her. She seems distracted, though. Her eyes keep scanning the room, as though she is looking for someone.

  Which she is. And now, finally, Violet has spotted him. He’s over at the buffet table, where he is serving himself to a generous portion of fruit salad. Tobias’s gaze, she notices, is firmly resting upon the little ballerina-woman who recently emerged from Cabillaud’s Time-Bomb. The woman, having untangled herself from her scorpion position atop the elephant’s head, has now leaped off it and is pirouetting across the room at great speed in the direction of the ladies’ powder room. Violet watches as, just as suddenly, Tobias abandons his fruit salad and strides across to follow the little ballerina.

  ‘Violette?’ Cabillaud is saying. ‘You will accept a copy of my oeuvre!’

  ‘Oh,’ says Violet distractedly. She has lost sight of Tobias and the ballerina (surely he could not have followed her into the ladies’ powder room?), and turns her attention reluctantly back to the chef. ‘Thank you, Monsieur Cabillaud.’ Despite the nature of its contents, she feels the need to accept the book with grace. Such is compromise.

  ‘I am working on a plant version of my own,’ she offers.

  ‘Ze foliage?’

 
‘Yes. I am planning to call it The Fleshless Cook.’ Cabillaud raises an eyebrow.

  ‘One day, my dear, you will learn that ze human being is not designed to eat plant life alone.’

  Violet smiles. ‘I survive very well,’ she tells him.

  ‘May I interrupt?’ asks a small, bearded, twinkle-eyed man who has been hovering at the edge of their conversation.

  Violet and Cabillaud exchange a glance.

  ‘Please do, Mr Darwin,’ says Violet. At last, an expert witness in their ideological dispute! ‘We would be most grateful, Mr Darwin, for your opinion on the matter, wouldn’t we, Monsieur Cabillaud?’

  ‘Of course! And very honoured! Please allow me, Monsieur, to present to you Miss Scrapie.’

  ‘Charmed to meet you, Miss Scrapie,’ begins Mr Darwin. ‘I am acquainted with your father. Now the human body originally evolved, as we know, from the primate. Primates are largely fructivorous, although there are exceptions. However, if we study the evolutionary path of man, we will discover hints that his descendence from several species of ape, descended in turn from a branch of the monkey family, involved an adaptation of the alimentary canal which –’

  ‘Mr Darwin!’ interrupts Dr Ivanhoe Scrapie, yelling from across the room, and fumbling his way through a mêlée of sparkling ballgowns. ‘Mr Darwin! I have finally found you! You must come with me immediately, and see an extraordinary specimen. A walking, talking, human-monkey hybrid, here in this very room!’

  Charles Darwin bursts out laughing. ‘This is indeed an exceptionally entertaining banquet,’ he smiles. And then, lowering his voice, to address Violet, ‘And not at all what one would have expected from Her Majesty.’

  ‘It is true!’ yells Dr Scrapie, his faced flushed. ‘And the creature’s father is in the ladies’ powder room to prove it! The Gentleman Monkey! I stuffed him myself!’

  Violet, feeling something curdle violently within her, and recognising there is a strong risk that she will faint, collapses with a padded thud on a stiff little seat and begins flapping her fan furiously. A human-monkey hybrid? What is her father talking about? He couldn’t possibly be referring to – her breath catches in her throat.