My god it’s true a lizard he’s scarred look he’s scarred from his tears half lizard half human it’s true my god don’t be silly it’s a story he cried for his loved one it’s sad so sad just a story a good story it is poor old lizard man.
People jostled, trying to see.
What happened what really happened that poor man daddy is his skin really green it’s just a story am I a lizard mummy I want to be a lizard.
‘Ladies and gentleman! We are the Lizard King and Goblin of the Realm Below, and we thank you!’ We both bowed, and I took my gas mask through the crowd, seeking pennies, sweets, and cigarettes.
I was proud of our success so I wrote to Angel to tell her all about it. She’d sent a few more postcards asking for news, worried I’d been hurt in the bombs, so I finally told her I was okay, just busy because I’d met the Lizard King and we were professional performers now, doing lots of shows, bringing in the money for my family. I didn’t hear back for a while, then she wrote that she was glad I was happy and she was happy too and she’d been going to the beach with her boyfriend and swimming in the sea with him all summer. I read it over and over before dropping it in the rubbish. I tore up all her other postcards and punched and kicked the wall, frightening Billy Bones who’d been scratching around in the leaves I’d collected for the chickens. He clucked and ran into the hallway and I collapsed into the leaves and stared at my scuffed knuckles. Angel wrote to me twice after that, but I didn’t read her postcards. I never wrote to her again.
The Lizard King and I passed the weeks of the war travelling the Underground, performing, telling stories. I’d tell the tragic story of the Lizard King over and over, changing things here and there, more dramatic, less dramatic, sad, gruesome, even more gruesome until mums complained and clasped their hands over the ears of their children. I told the stories of Queen Isabella (who puffed her bloody chest out with pride), Scholler and Amelia. I told them of the kraken who eats the sun and the Crazy Old Pigeon Woman who kept birds in her hair.
That’s when our lives changed, that’s when my future was written; my future in lights. It was all mapped out. I saw the soldier who’d given me money and made me rich for two weeks, I saw him in the crowd many times until one day he came up to us and said, ‘How would you like to join the circus?’
London, 5 September 2011
Alone in my hotel room, shut in, writing, missing home. I miss Mahler’s smell and his huffy noises as he sleeps, the way he sits by the fire with his paws in the air, his belly exposed.
‘Ben?’
‘Morning, old lady.’
‘I miss you, Ben. And I miss Mahler, the feel of his fur and his smell.’
‘Aye, but I bet ye dinnae miss his farts. They’re lethal.’
I laugh.
‘I even miss that.’
‘Ye all homesick, old lady? Ye got anyone there? Old friends or something?’
I eye Isabella, Amelia, Scholler and spectre-Monsta.
‘I do,’ I say.
But they don’t smell of anything.
‘But it’s not the same.’
‘Ye seen the Detective yet? Once yev seen him ye can come back home, right?’
‘I don’t think it’ll be that simple.’
‘We could come visit.’
‘No. It’s not safe to bring Mahler here.’
‘The riots are over.’
‘I just think he’s better off at home with you. And I’m doing okay. My friends here aren’t so bad.’
Isabella harrumphs.
‘Not so bad? Did you hear that, Amelia?’
‘I did.’
‘Ssh!’ I say, covering the mouthpiece. ‘You know I love you, you uppity queen.’
‘Old lady? You there?’
‘I’m here, sorry.’
‘Still writing?’
‘I am. About my new dad when he rescued me. Him and Mad. They took in me and the Lizard King and—’
‘Lizard people again, eh?’
‘That’s what I called him, that’s all. They took us in, all of us. I was so happy then, Ben. You would have loved them, you really would.’
‘I’m glad, old lady. Your other parents sounded like right cunts.’
‘That’s what the Lizard King used to call me.’
Ben grunts.
‘He was just an old curmudgeon. He was alright. I better go, Ben. You give Mahler a kiss on the head for me.’
‘That’s minging.’
I laugh.
‘A snuffle behind the ear, then.’
‘Yer batshit, old lady. I’ll think on it… I’ve kissed worse. Look after yersel and if ye need us, we’ll come down, drop of a hat.’
Chapter 9
London, 16 March 1943
‘I was down in the tunnels minding my own business, hiding this messed up face from the world, when this weecunt comes down and starts calling me Lizard King and bringing me offerings like I was some sort of god.’
‘Is that right, Goblin?’
I nodded, blushing, letting my hair fall over my face. I’d let it grow out, just that bit longer than a bob. Mad was always getting at me to style it, but it was too much fuss and bother. She got me to wear some of her old dresses, though, as I’d grown out of my clothes. She showed me how to sew so I could take up the hem and take them in a bit. She said I looked pretty, but I thought I looked skinny and awkward, shifting around underneath this new feminine skin, not sure how to hold myself.
I fiddled with the hem of my dress where my sewing hadn’t been so good and the thread was coming loose. The Lizard King pointed his cigarette at me, ash falling all over Adam the Flipper Boy who was sleeping on the floor with Groo on his chest. Adam was called Flipper Boy because he had no arms but he had hands that just kind of jutted out of his shoulders. He was a couple of years older than me and I had a crush on him. Seeing as he was asleep I took the opportunity to stare at him without him noticing and I thought about maybe asking him out.
‘Aye, I feckin hate weeuns, the weecunts that they are.’
‘I’m a grown-up now, LK,’ I said, watching Groo rise and fall with the rhythm of Adam’s breathing, ‘I’m all grown up.’
‘Issatright? Yer still runty ifyeaskme, eh?’
‘I’m with you, Fenwick,’ said Potato Pete. ‘Kids get away with murder these days.’ We called him Potato Pete because he had a face just like the Ministry of Food’s potato propaganda cartoon. I was sick of potatoes and I was sick of Potato Pete. All the while LK went on I manoeuvred myself so that I could tie Potato Pete’s shoelaces together, aware I was confirming their opinion of me as an immature weecunt.
‘So down she comes all the while, however much I tell ’er to feckrightoff, and she brings me ’er rations, eh? So I think I’m onto a good thing, getting free food, so I humour ’er, ken? And she spins this piece of nonsense story about how I got my scars and tells me this money making scheme idea, and like a fool I go along wi’ it.’
Potato Pete tutted and I said, ‘We were a success, LK.’
‘Aye, well, if ye can call it that. It isnae my fault people are easily entertained, eh?’
Potato Pete snorted and I sidled away from him, my work done. Old Louise, who’d been reading a leaflet, said, ‘Bloody conchies.’
‘Eh?’ said LK, ‘What was that?’
‘Bloody conchies and their protests. They handed me this.’
‘What they protesting?’
‘British internment camps.’
‘German lovin’ conchie bastards. Do they wanta be overrun by Nazi scum?’