Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘For Christ’s sake, Rose, you’re gonna have to chuck some of this stuff away.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me. And I’m the landlord.’

She laughed.

At either end of the top shelf, she’d piled books of the same size on top of each other. She laid a plank on top. The stuff underneath was getting kind of squashed, so she’d been moving things up, carefully selecting.

‘Seriously though,’ said Laurie, ‘it’s getting ridiculous. You’re turning weird. It’s not attractive.’

She looked sharply at him. ‘So I’m not attractive,’ she said.

‘You are,’ he said, ‘you’re lovely.’ He was by the door, tying his hair back into a black ponytail that resembled an old frazzled mop. ‘But you must be able to see that this isn’t normal.’

‘What’s normal?’

‘Not this.’

She sat down on the sofa, saying nothing.

‘Now don’t get all funny about it. I’m only trying to help you. I’m beginning to think you’ve got a problem.’

‘Not my problem,’ she said.

Laurie shrugged on a leather jacket that looked a hundred years old. ‘You know you can get treatment for this sort of thing,’ he said.

‘But I want all my things.’

‘Don’t raise your voice.’

‘I will if I want to.’

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s just old crap off the streets. Where does it end? You’ll be bringing home snotty hankies next. Used condoms.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘It’s no different! You bring home bits of paper and empty lighters, it’s just a matter of degree. Haven’t you ever thought there might be something just a tad unhealthy about all this?’

He checked his pockets. When he looked round, he saw that she was crying.

‘What’s the matter?’ She cried too easily and it got on his nerves. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m only saying what any normal person would say.’

But she stopped as quickly as she’d started, got up and went to the window. ‘You get it or you don’t get it,’ she said, looking out into the back garden. ‘And you don’t.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t.’

She rubbed absently at a mark on the glass. ‘Some people just know what I mean,’ she said. ‘Some people think I’m mad. What? You know, just total misunderstanding? The other day I put on an old jacket and I put my hand in the pocket and there was this old earring I hadn’t seen for years. I don’t even know where the other one is. It’s like — like their little family was scattered far and wide, like it says in that old Irish song, you wouldn’t know it. I just feel for it.’

‘An old earring in your pocket,’ he said.

She turned and looked at him. ‘It’s not even a particularly nice one,’ she said.

‘Poor Rose.’ He smiled. ‘It must be awful to be you.’

She laughed and walked towards him, fluffing out her hair with her hands. ‘You haven’t got the faintest idea what I’m going on about, have you?’ she said.

‘None whatsoever.’

She came close and looked unblinking into his eyes. ‘Really?’ she said regretfully, ‘Really? You have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about’

‘None at all.’

Her kind of eyes gave away nothing at all. ‘Does that mean I’m mad?’ she said.

‘Of course, Rose.’

‘Oh well!’ She laughed and moved away. ‘Off you go,’ she said imperiously.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘it would do you a massive amount of good if you could just let all this go.’

‘At least it’s all clean,’ she said.

She made a cup of tea when he’d gone. One of her eyes kept watering and she gave it a rub. She liked her place. Who cares, she thought, stirring the pot with one hand and rubbing and rubbing at one eye with the other. Something had got in it, probably an eyelash. So what? Everything belonged. Above the fireplace, the wall was covered with pictures of the dolls of Doll’s Island. She heard Adam clomping up the stairs and stuck her head out. ‘I’ve just made tea,’ she called.

He looked up. His face was thin-nostrilled and birdlike. ‘Hang on,’ he said.

‘I put a shelf up.’

‘Another?’ He went into his flat and came up a few minutes later. She was looking in the mirror, holding her bloodshot eye open with two fingers. The thin black crescent of an eyelash was stuck tight in one corner, and tears ran down her cheek. ‘I’ve poured you one,’ she said. ‘It’s on the table.’

‘What’s up with your eye?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got an eyelash in it,’ she said, poking about in the inflamed corner.

Adam, sitting down and picking up his mug of tea, snickered down his nose.

‘Brief Encounter ,’ he said.

‘Ah, I’ve got it. Did I ever show you my eyelash collection?’ She turned from the mirror, wiping her face and holding one hand poised as if a butterfly had landed on it.

‘Your what?’

‘My eyelash collection. I’ll show you.’ The black eyelash was balanced on the tip of her finger. Holding it up carefully in front of her, she went into the other room and returned with a small silver pill box in the other hand. ‘There,’ she said, flipping up the lid. An angel was engraved on the inside of it.

‘What the hell,’ he said.

It was a bed of eyelashes.

‘What the hell,’ he said again, putting the tip of his finger in. A smile came onto his face.

‘These,’ she said, ‘are all the eyelashes I’ve ever got out of my eyes or that have fallen out ever in all my whole life.’

He sifted. ‘That’s impressive.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘How come your eyelashes fall out?’ he said. ‘Mine don’t.’

‘They don’t?’

‘No.’

‘I thought everyone’s did.’

‘Well, I suppose I get the odd eyelash in my eye like everybody else,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn’t say they were falling like leaves.’

‘I started collecting them when I was ten,’ she said. ‘I remember the moment. I was in a maths class and it was really boring and I looked down and saw an eyelash on my hand. ‘

‘This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,’ he said.

‘I used to keep them in a matchbox,’ she said, ‘but now I’ve got them in this nice little pillbox.’

‘I wonder how many there are.’

‘Hundreds.’

He laughed. ‘You could get into the Guinness Book of Records with these,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of eyelashes. A great pile of — of — eyelashes! Crazy!’

Eyelashes from when she was 10, when she was 13, 15, 19, 22, 36.

‘In a way,’ she said, ‘this is me.’

She flicked the newest lash into the box with the rest.

‘You get it, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I get it.’

Life ran along to the various rhythms of trains and wagons and carriages. She travelled with a sad contortionist and a fat lady, and the world became a series of windows, with dark streets below where people walked, dime museums, sideshows, the sound of a barker’s spiel descending into nonsense, and sheds thrown up fast, with pock-marked mirrors and jugs of cold water and the lingering smell of pomade. She was getting better, playing all the time, practising in rooms and halls, in warehouses, in backstage lots.

In Cleveland she saw another doctor, who asked about her monthlies. Since she’d been on the road she’d met three very distinguished men, who were all very, very clever, much cleverer than anyone else she’d ever met, but they’d all said different things. One said she was ourang-outang, one that she was neither negro nor human, another that she was her own species, a species of one. She was HYBRID, SEMI-HUMAN, MUJER OSA, TROGLODYTE OF ANCIENT DAYS, UGLIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD. The news ran before, everywhere they went, the papers carried it, the newsboys cried it on the corners. Canada sold out before they reached Cincinnati.