Ever Dundas - Goblin

Colin had been an animal trainer during the circus days, working mainly with elephants, horses and camels, and he travelled round that lord’s estates when he could, making sure all was well. Colin was a different person with the animals; awkward with humans, but at ease around any other creature. He took me to one of the estates to see Mitzi the elephant. We stayed for a couple of weeks and worked with the keepers, helping them look after her. I’d seen elephants before when Pigeon took me to the circus but I’d never seen them close-up. The enclosure smelled of shit and that warm musty animal smell, just like at Pigeon’s.

‘Hey girl, hey girl,’ Colin said, stroking Mitzi. She knew him, it was obvious. Her ears flapped and her trunk knocked into him, nudging him, almost pushing him over before wrapping around him and pulling him close to her.

‘Mitzi, this is Goblin. Goblin, this is Mitzi, one of our superstars. Eh, old girl?’

I looked up into her eyes and I stroked her. I loved the feel of her body. I ran my hand over the skin, feeling the tiny hairs and the busy lines. I tried to follow their trail with my finger and got lost in a myriad of folds.

‘They skinned them,’ I said to Colin.

‘What? What did you say?’

‘The demigods, the lizards down below, they skinned the elephants and scrunched up their skin like paper, then they clothed them again, and now they feel like this.’

He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

I helped Colin and the keepers muck out and feed Mitzi. Colin wasn’t much for talking so I talked on and on until I ran out of things to say. We worked in silence until Colin said, ‘When the war ends, we’ll bring the circus together again.’

I nodded, pleased he was talking to me. I decided to be quiet and maybe he’d talk some more but he was silent after that and I was bursting with things to say so I said, ‘When the war ends I’m going to be a clown and I’ll travel with you and all my new family, and I’ll find my brother and he’ll travel with us too, telling tales of pirates and mermaids. That’s what’ll happen when the war ends, everything will be right.’

London, 8 May 1945 (VE Day) – 2 September 1945 (VJ Day)

I made a crown like for a king but cardboard with trailing ribbons from old-ma’s old clothes and I dressed like a clown, painted my face white with a big red smile and black round my eyes with a tear at the side, just one tear for the lost the dead the forgotten, floating in the past in the ether down below. I fall into victory above, a tea party where the wine flows, I wear my crown like for a king but cardboard with trailing ribbons and I clutch my flag arm in arm with new-mum new-dad. Swept up in a Trafalgar Square ocean of people swaying back and forth and buffeted here and there, surging and waving, waiting for Churchill chanting and waiting for him to appear and tell us what we wanted to hear. We’d dip down sullen and silent just waiting with clutched white knuckles, flags drooping crumpled, my smile false and tired, drowning in the crowd, pulled out by mum and dad following a surge moving with the flow pushed up up up climbing Eros encased in concrete up up up perching waiting above the sea above the swarm and Churchill is there – victory in Europe! ‘Londoners, I love you all!’ and the ocean explodes a deafening thunderous stamping roar an explosion of flags and hats, a tide of V’s. Drinking late into the night on our street jam jars lit up shimmering flames flittering flies wine and rivers of V’s and hugs and kisses floating away from sadness, entranced by the fire in the street the piano in the street singing and dancing with the flames, fireworks in the sky, wine in my belly, the glow of the fire on my skin, drunken soldier kisses and laughter closed eyes closed eyes sway and listen and feel until dawn a flickering path of jam jar flies leading us home through the twilight, in bed with Adam curled close, Groo licking my hair. I rub my tear, smearing it gone, no more war, the certainty of bombs stripped away. I fell into sleep and woke above to liberated Nazi camps, the emaciated diseased. The Lizard King says, no love lost for jews, gypsies, commies, homos, but those Nazis are inhuman. Animals, those Nazi bastards, he says, animals. Corpses piled on corpses, buried in liberty, V for victory.

I fell into sleep and woke above to 6 and 9 sixandnineoftheeighth Hiroshima nine Nagasaki six atom bomb six and nine and gone. I woke above to VJ Day and I was glad. V for victory and the end of an era.

I dug out Monsta from under my bed. Dead things can’t die but Monsta was inert; bits of old worms, worn bear body, plastic doll foot, dried up crow foot, stiff pigeon wings and a shrew head with eyes closed to me. I’d stopped feeding Monsta, stopped needing Monsta. Now Monsta was gone.

I made my way through the city, through the pockets of VJ Day celebrations. I went to Kensal Green Cemetery and dug a small hole above where Devil lay. I wrapped Monsta in a blanket, said a lizard prayer – Holy, Holy, Holy – and down Monsta went with Devil and the camera.

I was fifteen years old when Monsta was buried and I was glad. It was the end of a childhood born blue.

London, 13 October 2011

Detective Curtis has everything spread out on the table. Evidence tags hang from each item. I pick up the camera and examine it.

‘It still works,’ he says.

I lay it down and lift Monsta’s shrew head.

‘What is all this?’ he asks, gesturing to Monsta’s remains. ‘Voodoo?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Tell me.’

‘He was my friend, after Devil died.’

‘Voodoo and devils, huh?’

‘He was my dog.’

‘Devil?’

‘It’s from the comic strip, The Phantom . My aunt would send them to my brother and I read them all.’

‘What happened to your dog?’

‘He died.’

‘Did he end up here?’

He brings out the photo.

‘No. He was shot. I buried him in Kensal Green. These are his bones.’

‘Who shot him?’

I pick up a photo of Devil. Detective Curtis leans back in his chair, considering me. I know what he’s thinking; is it too soon to bring out the photograph? He makes a huffing noise as he pulls it out and places it in front of me. It’s the first time I’ve seen it.

‘Is this anything to do with your devil dog and the voodoo?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not really.’

‘Either it is or it isn’t.’

‘Have you ever been to the sea, Detective?’

He sighs. I stare down at the photograph.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Before we go any further, I have to warn you that there’s going to be some press interest in this. For now, if they approach you, the only thing you can talk about is the dead pets. Okay? That’s all. If I was you, I’d avoid the tabloids completely and don’t say a word about devil dogs or voodoo.’

‘My lips are sealed, Detective. As they have been for seventy-two years.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Who lives in the past, Detective?’

‘Did you take these photographs?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you buried the camera. Why did you do that?’

‘Who wouldn’t?’

‘How old were you when you took this?’

‘Nine.’

We both look at the photograph.

‘It turned out well. The light was fading.’

He nods.

‘You’re a storyteller, aren’t you, Goblin?’

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to tell me the story of this photograph. Of all of these photographs.’

He spreads them out across the table, but he keeps the focus on the one in front of me.

‘Let’s start with names. Who are they?’

‘I don’t know, Detective.’

‘Who is this?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know who any of them are.’