‘I wouldn’t start on this,’ said Adam, who wasn’t asleep after all. He sat up, Groo tumbling onto the floor, and he cocked his head towards Matt. I didn’t know what any of this had to do with Matt. I wondered if he was a conchie.
‘Aye, well,’ said LK. ‘Jus’ sayin’, eh? Jus’ sayin’.’
‘My brother’s a conchie,’ I said. ‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes a pacifist is a good thing. He’s a good person. Sometimes that’s just how it is.’
Old Louise, delight in her eyes, turned on me.
‘You a pacifist?’ old Louise said. ‘You a coward?’
‘No, ma’am! I’d shoot any Nazi who set foot on our shore.’
I meant it. I wanted to protect our British way of life, like all the papers said. I wanted to protect our existence in the flat with James and Mad and LK and the artists, the performers, and the writers who came and went.
‘I’d shoot them dead,’ I said. ‘I’d shoot those Nazis dead.’
Old Louise laughed.
‘I bet you would,’ she said. ‘But you won’t have to. Our troops are leading us to victory, you mark my words.’
‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ said Adam.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He in the army?’
‘No, he went to the sea.’
‘What sea?’
‘The sea.’
‘He a sailor?’
‘He joined the pirates. He fights krakens. He married a mermaid.’
‘How,’ said LK, ‘can he be a conchie bastard if he’s a pirate and fights krakens?’
‘He doesn’t kill humans. Just krakens.’
‘See what I mean,’ said LK, gesturing with his cigarette, ‘a weecunt.’
‘And you’re just a boring old fart,’ I said.
LK doubled over coughing, spewing out smoke. There were snorts of laughter, some cheers and claps, and a chorus of ‘Weecunt! Old fart! I’ll drink to that,’ and they did. They drank to anything. I looked round, embarrassed, not realising so many people had been listening. Adam winked at me and I blushed some more. The excitement died down, with only a few mumbles here and there as LK heaved in air.
I saw something was going on at the other side of the room; a raised voice and a knocked over chair. Fights were always breaking out, so I wasn’t much surprised. I saw it was Matt causing the fuss. He was crying. James took a hold of him, almost forcing him into an embrace and that just made him shake and cry all the harder. I’d never seen a man cry before.
‘What’s up with Matt?’ I asked.
‘His friend,’ said Adam. ‘His friend was taken to an internment camp.’
‘Ha! His friend. That’s a way of putting it,’ said LK.
‘Why’s he in a camp?’
‘He’s German,’ said Adam.
‘If ye ask me, all fruits should be locked up.’
‘What’s a fruit?’
LK was about to reply but Adam said, ‘A German. That’s all. He was German.’
‘Good riddance to Germans,’ I said. ‘He’s probably a Nazi spy, that’ll be why he’s locked up.’
‘He killed himself,’ said Adam, looking over at Matt.
‘Who did?’
‘The fruit,’ said LK. ‘Those perverts are better off dead if ye ask me.’
‘Nobody asked you,’ said Adam. ‘No one fucking asked you.’
A hush fell over our small group and LK looked down at his hands, mumbling, glancing up at Adam who’d gone over to Matt, taking him out of James’ embrace and leading him out of the room. I watched them walk off, worried I’d said the wrong thing and Adam would hate me for it.
‘Dinnae ken what’s wrong with ’im. There wis no need… No need. Only saying what should be plain to all, that’s what. Only speaking ma mind.’
‘I’m with you, old man,’ said Potato Pete, raising a glass to him. ‘Don’t you worry.’
The music stopped and the lights went off. I thought there’d been a power cut but then I saw Mad standing in the doorway with a cake, the candlelight shimmering across her face. She sang happy birthday and the rest joined in, quietly at first as if they didn’t want to drown out her beautiful voice, then they got louder. Arms fell across my shoulders, hands patted my back and ruffled my hair.
I didn’t know this party was for me. I thought it was just another party, like all the others. No one had ever made me cake before and it must have taken a lot to pull together all those rations. I felt sick and pleased all at once.
Everyone cheered and Mad told me to make a wish, and I couldn’t decide. I had a million wishes to make.
‘World peace!’ someone yelled, and it echoed through the room before LK damned them all with, ‘Now who’s a boring fart, eh? All of ye. World peace ferfecksake, we all know she’s gonna wish to be a pirate or some such nonsense, eh ye weecunt?’ They all laughed and yelled ‘Pirate! Pirate!’ as I wished for David back. I figured it was the same difference as wishing to be a pirate because David for certain was a pirate by now and he would make me a pirate and we’d sail the seas together and we’d find treasure and I’d marry a mermaid too. I pictured him in my head but he was fuzzy and black and white, smudged at the edges like the faded photograph I carried. I decided it didn’t matter. He was a pirate now and he’d look different; swarthy and all muscle, wielding a sword. There he was, on his ship, in glorious technicolour.
I blew out the candles and Potato Pete stood up and fell on his face.
London, 1944 – 1945
People always came to the flat, hanging around, drinking, staying the night. I called them the Army Rejects because most of them were from the Freaks and Wonders troupe in the circus days and most of them had deformities. There was old Louise and her dwarf brass band; Betsy, Frank, Holly and Lester. Old Louise’s singing was really something but their musical abilities were what old Louise described as ‘Avant-garde, dahling,’ and everyone else described as a godawful racket.
Then there was Lenny the Giant but I called him Lenny the Spider because his limbs were so long he looked like a spider, especially when he was sat down and he was all legs and arms. And there was Adeline and Ariadne, the beautiful conjoined twins. There was also Maisie. She had growths coming out either side of her neck. Adeline told me that they found Maisie in the street and she would charge people who wanted to touch her growths but when I flipped her a shilling and went and felt them she pushed me off and slapped me. The growths felt all rubbery and she was a snooty bitch so I told everyone she was a faker and that they were just glued on to make herself seem more interesting.
Then there was Adam. We hung around together and I eventually asked him out. He was telling me that when he was in the circus he wrapped his fingers up to make his hands more like flippers and he’d hide his legs and paint his whole body a silvery grey and during his act he would make seal noises and balance a ball on his nose. When he told me about painting his body I thought of him with nothing on but the paint and I went to my room and played with myself as I thought of painting him, stroking him slowly all over. It was after that I asked him if he would go with me, though it was a while before I saw him with nothing on. He was a good kisser and he taught me to play poker. He didn’t have any parents either; they’d sold him to a sideshow in Brighton. The sideshow owners kept him locked in a cage until James rescued him. I heard the story from James, from Mad, from Adam and from anyone else who would tell it. Each time it was different.
‘James broke in at night,’ said old Louise, ‘he was attacked by a monkey and poisoned by a snake but still he saved Flipper Boy, even while he fought off a ten foot giant.’
‘It’s true what old Louise said,’ said Adam. ‘I watched from my cage as he wrestled with that snake. He didn’t have to fight off the giant, though. Lenny was a right softie, he only roared and beat his chest for the show. James had him in the palm of his hand the moment he walked in.’