Shamanka

by Jeanne Willis

  The bulb flickers and glows. Sam wants to try. With a faint smirk, Mrs Reafy hands over the bulb – nothing will happen. Sam grasps it by the neck. There’s a bright flash and it shatters. For a moment they stare in shock at the jagged shards, then Mrs Reafy breaks the silence.

  “You squeezed it, silly girl!”

  Sam knew she hadn’t. Maybe the bulb was old and would have blown anyway. She offers to clear away the glass but Mrs Reafy has already grabbed a dustpan and is sweeping the floor furiously. The friction of her tights and the nylon brush against the synthetic carpet causes a streak of lightning to shoot through her armpit hair; she drops the dustpan and groans.

  “You should stick to fairy lights.”

  The fact that Mrs Reafy is highly electric still doesn’t fully explain the mysteries of the pendulum though.

  When she finally stops sparking, Sam asks again, “But why does the pendulum swing?”

  “None of your business. It works like dowsing except that pendulums are vertical instruments.”

  Sam had heard of dowsing. As you may know, it’s a method of finding water using a stick called a divining rod. Mrs Reafy has one hanging on the wall made from a willow crotch. She takes it down from its hook and gives it to Sam.

  “Test it out in the garden. See if you can locate the sewers while I try to find your ape.”

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. You are putting me off.”

  Mrs Reafy’s garden is completely overgrown. The branches on the right have joined hands with the branches on the left, forming an arched roof. It is festooned with creepers, which droop like post-Christmas paper chains. The sky is only visible through a few open chinks.

  Half-heartedly, Sam holds the divining rod in front of her and walks forward, stepping over twisted roots thicker than her arms. It’s drizzling and, because it’s a warm day, the foliage sweats and the perfume of rank blossom struggles to escape through the tree canopy above.

  There is something so familiar about that smell; and the drip, drip, drip of the rolling rain splashing against the leaves is like the noise of oars cutting through the slow waters of the Sepik River. Now she hears the ark, ark, ark of the Torresian crow. But there is no crow; it’s Mrs Reafy calling, “Arkley!”

  Lola is in Arkley.

  HOW TO B A VENTRILOQUIST

  While it’s possible to say most of the alphabet without moving your lips, to be a good ventriloquist, you need to master the letter B. Here’s how:

  1. Relax your mouth.

  2. Pronounce the sound DER but only use the tip of your tongue, as in LER. Only allow brief contact with the tip of your tongue behind your teeth.

  3. Think B, not D.

  4. Whisper it.

  MR FRAYE

  Lola is in danger. According to Mrs Reafy’s pendulum, she’s being held captive at a laboratory called the Grimm Experimental Centre. Sam must go to Arkley immediately. But not alone – what chance would a young girl have of persuading the scientists to release an orang-utan they’d paid good money for? None at all. This is why Mrs Reafy offers to drive Sam to meet her brother, Mr Fraye. He has a certain talent that might come in useful.

  Sam rides in the front seat, toying with the divining rod, a gift from Mrs Reafy who still felt very guilty about misjudging John Tabuh. If she’d helped him to find Sam, he’d never have left the country. The rod may seem like no compensation for all Sam’s suffering, but maybe Mrs Reafy knows it will save her life one day.

  Sam is greeted by Mr Fraye’s wife, who invites her to wait for him in the garden. He won’t be a moment.

  It has stopped raining. Sam waits alone in the garden. Unlike Mrs Reafy’s jungle, it’s beautifully kept. The flowers are arranged in order of height. The stripes on the lawn are mathematically precise. The path twists and turns like a lazy anaconda sunning itself on the grass.

  Three arches divide the garden into sections; who knows what lies beyond? It’s a large plot but not as large as it seems: mirrors have been strategically placed in niches in the walls. At first, Sam doesn’t realize. As she wanders down the path with the divining rod held out in front of her, she comes face to face with her twin sister. But it’s just her reflection.

  She walks on past wigwams of runner beans but as she turns left by the potting shed, she feels a tug on the end of the rod; it’s trembling. She holds out her hand to make sure the movement isn’t being caused by her own tremors; no, steady as a rock. She hears a sweet, warbling voice coming from under the willow.

  “Damper … getting damper.”

  The divining rod is drawn to the voice. Like a dog after a rabbit, it drags her straight through the dripping curtains of the willow branches.

  “Getting damper … wet … wet … soaking!”

  As Sam battles her way out, the rod pulls her towards an ornamental pond and there, perched on a bridge, is a plump, collared dove. It bobs up and down and speaks in that same, soft voice, “Hello. My name is Freya.”

  A parrot can mimic and so can a jackdaw but can a dove? Why would it say its name is Freya? Do all birds have names or is this dove the embodiment of the spirit guide who announced herself under Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life?

  “Pleased to meet you, Sam!” A be-whiskered gentleman has appeared at her side from behind a statue. He holds out his hand and beams broadly. He smells nicely musty, a mixture of peat, pipe smoke and lawn clippings. “I’m Mr Fraye … so very pleased to meet you.”

  He pronounces his name as if it has an r on the end, so it sounds like “Freya”.

  Sam is disappointed; she wanted the dove to be her spiritual guardian. She’s struggling to believe in spirits, but for a moment the dove seemed to be living, talking proof that there was another dimension beyond this world. It flies off.

  “Charming,” mutters Sam. “It might have said goodbye.”

  “Goodbyeeeeeeee, Sam Tabuh.” replies a wispy voice, high in the sky.

  Sam is amazed. “How does it do that?”

  Mr Fraye chuckles to himself. “It doesn’t – I do.”

  He’s a ventriloquist. He’d been throwing his voice to make it sound as if the dove could speak. He hopes he hadn’t startled her; he was only seeking to amuse. “I’ve heard about your missing ape,” he adds. “I have a plan.”

  “What kind of plan, Mr Fraye?”

  The ventriloquist’s pet terrier, which is bumbling around beside him, replies in a thick Cornish accent. “To rescue Lola, of course!”

  Mr Fraye pulls a briar pipe out of his pocket and puffs on it. Aware that Sam is staring at him, he bangs the tobacco out on the heel of his slipper.

  “You’re quite right – filthy habit. Mrs Fraye doesn’t like it either.”

  “It’s not that,” she insists. “I was just wondering if your pipe has a history. Only Mrs Reafy says that her wooden spoon is full of bird sorrow.”

  “My sister is a crackpot,” Mr Fraye confides. “You mustn’t set too much store by what she says. Psychometry, pendulums and such like? Hmm … not convinced.”

  “Oh,” says Sam, flatly. Maybe her father had been right. Maybe Mrs Reafy was a fraud.

  Seeing her disappointment, Mr Fraye pipes up. “Hmm … I shouldn’t speak ill of my sister. All I’m suggesting is that she might have used something a little more … conventional … to find your missing friend. Did she ask you to leave the room at any point?”

  Yes, twice. Sam had been sent to clean up jam and told to go into the garden.

  “Does she have a computer?”

  Well, yes. Mrs Reafy had said her PC was holy because the oil used to make it had come from the grave of the whale that swallowed Jonah. Mr Fraye rolls his eyes.

  “Dear oh dear. She does have a vivid imagination. But … hmm … a quick look on the Internet could have revealed the addresses of several possible laboratories, could it not? Which my sister might have phoned, making certain enquiries about orang-utans, and what with orang-utans being extremely rare, it wouldn’t
be too difficult to find yours, would it?”

  Yet Sam couldn’t dismiss Mrs Reafy’s paranormal abilities entirely. The night she stayed at Ruth’s, she’d cuddled Lola’s toy monkey and dreamt of a bleak building – a laboratory perhaps – which lay beyond a cornfield in which there stood a scarecrow dressed in yellow. She doesn’t mention this to Mr Fraye in case he thinks she’s a crackpot like his sister. Instead, she asks about his rescue plan; will it involve ventriloquism?

  “Ooh-arrgh!” agrees the terrier, whirling its tail like a propeller. “That it will!”

  “Could you teach me to throw my voice?” asks Sam, laughing. “Is it difficult?”

  Mr Fraye shakes his head. “Not once you’ve mastered B and P. It’s all to do with tongue position and breathing.”

  “How did you make that dove speak from up in the sky?”

  My Fraye strokes his Adam’s apple. “By controlling certain muscles. You must … hmm … close the throat so that the air you need to make the voice is pinched.” He gives her another demonstration and suggests an exercise to help her locate the right muscles. “Imagine you’re lifting a heavy weight. As you strain to lift it, you say ‘Ahhhh’. Making a sound when you are straining makes it go higher.”

  “Aghhhhh!”

  Mr Fraye grins broadly, but is most encouraging. “Good! Practice, that’s all you need. Now, try and say B without moving your lips. B is a bit of a dastard, I’m afraid.”

  Sam keeps practising. If you want to have a go at mastering ventriloquism for yourself – it may come in useful later – try the exercise at the front of this chapter. Kractice while you are in ged or going about your gusiness, but it is gest not to goo it in puglic in case keokle think you’ve geen grinking; keokle are very quick to judge.

  Let’s stop that now and find out exactly how Mr Fraye hopes to rescue Lola; there isn’t a moment to lose. The plan is simple but cunning. Dressed as an RSPCA inspector, he will gain access to the laboratory and while he keeps the scientists talking, Sam will search for Lola. If she’s there, the ventriloquism will come into play and her captor will be compelled to let her go. All will become clear.

  Sam climbs into Mr Fraye’s old Morris Minor and they drive into the countryside. The car is so sluggish, Sam feels it might be quicker to walk. Half an hour passes and the fields are all starting to look the same.

  “Are we nearly there yet, Mr Fraye?”

  The fields are the same. Mr Fraye is lost. The Grimm Experimental Centre isn’t marked on his map and Mrs Reafy only indicated its whereabouts roughly. They’ve passed plenty of cornfields but none of them have scarecrows; perhaps Sam’s dream was just a dream and not an enlightening piece of psychometric information. The road comes to a dead end. Mr Fraye stops the car, winds down the window and puffs thoughtfully on his pipe.

  “I’m certain it’s round about here … hmm.”

  “What shall we do now, Mr Fraye?”

  Sam says this without moving her lips, and he nods, clearly impressed. “We shall get out and explore.” He puts on his RSPCA hat and locks the car. They climb over a stile and walk along a bridle path beside the corn. There’s a solitary bird piping its heart out hundreds of feet above them.

  “Is that you singing, Mr Fraye?”

  “I thought it was you, Miss Tabuh – having a lark.”

  It’s neither of them; this time, it really is a bird singing – just because it’s happy to be alive. Sam hopes to heaven that Lola’s still alive.

  “We must be positive!” insists Mr Fraye. He strides out with great confidence, which is all a big bluff because he hasn’t a clue where he’s going.

  Sam makes a suggestion. “Maybe we could cut through the corn?”

  It’s a daring thing to do. Farmers don’t take kindly to people trampling their crops and they often carry guns. But it would save time.

  “Good idea,” says Mr Fraye, who’s afraid of no one. He pauses to re-light his pipe then drops down on all fours. “Easier this way,” he says.

  They crawl along in silence. If you were the skylark, all you’d see is a parting in the corn headed by a plume of pipe smoke going round and round in ever-decreasing circles. Mr Fraye is about to admit defeat when Sam whispers excitedly, “There’s a man asleep in the corn!”

  There he is, all dressed in yellow. Not a scarecrow, but a tramp. When they rouse him, he says that he knows of the experimental station – it’s thatta way.

  “Not thissa way?”

  “No, sir,” he points his muddy finger, “behind those trees, sir. Those trees that are playing pass the parcel with the sun, sir.”

  Mr Fraye gives him a coin for his trouble but the man hurls it into the corn. If you ever cross this field on your hands and knees, you will find the coin and know all this to be true.

  “Speech is free, sir,” says the tramp. “The Grimm lies over yonder.”

  With that, he adjusts his bright rags, lies back in the golden corn and becomes invisible.

  The Grimm Experimental Centre sits like a ghastly secret encased in concrete at the bottom of the valley. Mr Fraye straightens his hat and looks Sam in the eye.

  “It is very important … hmm … that you have faith in my Grand Plan. I think it is going to work and if you behave as if it’s going to work, it will.”

  He insists they march down the hill with their shoulders back and their heads held high. By the time they reach the laboratory, any thoughts of failure have gone from Sam’s mind.

  A man in a white, blood-flecked coat opens the door. He is Dr Pringle and he has piggy eyes.

  “Ye–s? What do you want?”

  “RSPCA. I have reason to believe you are in possession of a Great Ape for which you have no licence.”

  As Mr Fraye takes Dr Pringle to one side to discuss the matter, Sam nips in unnoticed and tiptoes through a door marked PRIVATE. Beyond it is a peeling corridor which stinks of something nasty; the formaldehyde used to preserve organs in jars. There’s a closed door to her left. It has no window, but, wafting from underneath, she can smell the unmistakable odour of caged animals. She enters cautiously, afraid of what she’ll find. Rack upon rack of rats, jam-packed together; dogs and cats incarcerated in crates and, right at the back, there’s a cage. There sits Lola, cramped in the corner with her face in her hands.

  Lola has a metal collar around her neck. She’s chained like a slave. No amount of orang-utan sleight of hand could help her escape, no matter how opposable her thumbs. She has given up. She can see no way out; her spirit has broken.

  Sam touches her through the bars, but Lola doesn’t look up. She has been drugged to keep her quiet, like a mad woman in an institution. Desperate to make contact, Sam finds the toy monkey and pushes it into the cage. It drops in front of the orang-utan with a soft plop.

  “Lola … it’s Monkey.”

  Lola peers through her leathery fingers at her favourite toy. She bends forward, sniffs it, scoops it up and presses it to her chest. She looks puzzled; maybe apes dream and she thinks Sam is an illusion.

  “Lola, I’m here.”

  The sight of Sam blasts the fog from Lola’s head and she begins to hoot. The hooting turns into the haunting cry of a mother whose heart is tearing in half because she can’t hold her child. The dogs, the cats and the rats join in and the cacophony brings the furious Dr Pringle running into the room with Mr Fraye charging after him.

  “What’s that girl doing here? Get away from the cage!”

  Pringle tries to wrestle Sam away, but she digs her heels in.

  “She’s my orang-utan. Aunt Candy sold her to you without permission!”

  Mr Fraye gets out his pencil and begins to fill out a bogus form. “As Chief Inspector of the RSPCA, I insist that you sign this animal back to its rightful owner or face the consequences.”

  For a few seconds, Pringle looks as though he is going to back down, but he’s suspicious. “If you are from the RSPCA, where’s your van, Inspector Fraye?”

  “None of your business, Dr Pringle
.”

  Pringle strides over to the telephone. “I’ll ring the RSPCA and check your ID. Can’t be too careful, can we, Inspector?”

  If it hadn’t been for the beagle in the cage opposite, who knows what would have happened.

  “Put the phone down,” it growls. “There’s a good man.”

  Dr Pringle swallows hard. He stares at the beagle then he stares at Mr Fraye, who pretends to be as shocked as he is.

  “My word, Pringle. A talking dog!” What kind of experiments are you conducting here?”

  “Terrible things go on,” weeps a white rat. “They say it is for the greater good, but it’s not for the greater good of us rats.”

  “We have feelings,” sings a chorus of cats.

  Dr Pringle’s eyes are bulging like boiled eggs. Lola clears her throat and with great passion, she pleads with him.

  “I know that, deep down, you’re not a bad man, Dr Pringle; you’re a good man. If someone locked your mother in a cage and experimented on her for the greater good it would kill you, wouldn’t it? Sam is my child. You are killing me, Dr Pringle.”

  Pringle is shaking so hard, his trouser bottoms are flapping. Lola puts her hands through the bars and begs. “Let me go, Dr Pringle. If you have a shred of compassion in you, let me go.”

  “Let her go, or you spit on your own mother!” squeaks the rat.

  Dr Pringle – who is a bit of a mummy’s boy – finally crumbles. He scrabbles around for his keys and tries to undo the padlock on Lola’s cage.

  “Allow me,” says Mr Fraye.

  Lola and Sam are reunited. There’s no point describing the scene, because no matter how I arrange the words, it’s impossible to convey the joy they feel, wrapped in each others arms. If you ever lose your orang-utan, you’ll understand.

  Mr Fraye is releasing the rats. Being a sensible man, as well as a compassionate one, he gives them plenty of time to run away before he releases the cats and the dogs and a pair of capuchin monkeys he found cowering in another room.

  By now Dr Pringle has crawled inside a cupboard and closed the door, so, with a broad smile, Mr Fraye locks him in and ushers Sam and Lola back into the fresh air. “Come along, ladies. Mission accomplished.”