Mathias Ardizzone - The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

‘Yes, yes . . . But have you got something that would make my heart a bit more robust?’

‘Of course I have. Listen to me carefully. Are you ready? Listen to me very carefully: the only thing, as you say, that will allow you to seduce the woman of your dreams, is your heart. Not the clockwork version that was grafted on to you at birth. I’m talking about the real one, the one that’s underneath, made of flesh and blood, pulsing. That’s the one you’ve got to work with. Forget about your clockwork problems and they’ll seem less important. Be impulsive and above all give, give without counting the cost.’

Méliès is very expressive. All his features are active when he speaks. Cat-like, his moustache follows his smile.

‘It doesn’t work every time. I’m not guaranteeing anything. Take me, for example: I’ve just failed with the woman I thought was the love of my life. There simply is no trick that works every time.’

I’ve been given a lesson in love by a conjurer (some might call him a genius) who’s just confessed that his most recent potion blew up in his face. But I have to concede that his words are doing me as much good as his adjustments to my gears. He’s gentle and he knows how to listen. You can tell he understands the way that humans work. Perhaps he’s succeeded in penetrating the secrets of man’s psychological machinery. In just a few hours, we’ve struck up a friendly alliance.

‘I could write a book about your story. I know it as well as if it was my own now,’ he tells me.

‘So write it. If I have children one day, they’ll be able to read it. But if you want to find out what happens next, you’ll have to come with me to Andalusia.’

‘Surely you don’t want a depressed conjurer accompany ing you on your pilgrimage of love?’

‘Actually yes, I’d like that a lot.’

‘You know I might mess up a miracle?’

‘Of course you won’t.’

‘Give me the night to mull it over, will you?’

‘It’s a deal.’

As the first rays of sunshine begin to sneak through the shutters of Georges Méliès’ workshop, I hear shouting:

‘ Andalusia! Anda! Andalusia! Anda! AndaaaAAAH!’

A madman in pyjamas appears, straight out of an opera.

‘All right, young man. I could do with “travelling” in every sense of the word, I’m not going to let myself be crushed by my misery for ever. A great blast of fresh air, that’s what we’re both going to enjoy! If you still want me as a companion, that is.’

‘Of course! When are we leaving?’

‘Straight away, after breakfast!’ he answers, pointing to his travel bag.

We sit down at a rickety table to drink scalding hot chocolate and eat jam on toast that’s too soft. It’s not as tasty as one of Madeleine’s breakfasts, but it’s fun to be eating in the midst of paper cut-out extra-terrestrials.

‘You know, when I was in love, I was always inventing things. A whole array of tricks, illusions and optical effects to amuse my lady friend. I think she’d had enough of my inventions by the end,’ he says, his moustache at half-mast. ‘I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I should have given her was a real journey on earth. I should have asked for her hand in marriage, found us a house that was easier to live in than my old workshop, and I don’t know what else . . .’ he sighs. ‘One day, I sawed two planks from the shelves and attached wheels rescued from a hospital trolley, so that the two of us could glide in the moonlight. I called them “roller-boards”. But she never wanted to climb on to them. And I had to repair the shelves too. Love isn’t easy every day, my boy,’ he repeats, dreamily. ‘But you and I, we’ll climb on to those boards! We’ll speed across half of Europe on our roller-boards!’

‘Can we catch trains as well? Because I’m a bit pressed for time . . .’

‘Oppressed by time?’

‘That too.’

To think that my clock is a magnet for broken hearts: Madeleine, Arthur, Anna, Luna, even Joe; and now Méliès. I get the impression their hearts need the care of a good clockmaker even more than mine does.

CHAPTER SIX

Wind-battered moustaches, empty claws and a fiery flamenco sauce

Southwards! Here we are, setting off along the roads of France, pilgrims on wheels chasing an impossible dream. What a pair we make: one of us tall and gangly with a moustache like a cat’s whiskers, the other a short redhead with a wooden heart. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, we lay siege to the spaghetti western landscape of Andalusia. Luna used to describe the south of Spain as an unpredictable place where dreams and nightmares co-exist, like cowboys and Indians in the American Wild West. ¡Qué será será!

Along the way, we talk a great deal. In some ways Méliès has become my Dr Love, playing the opposite role to Madeleine; and yet, they remind me of each other. I try to encourage him to win back his sweetheart.

‘She might still be in love with you, wherever she is. And she’d still enjoy a voyage to the moon, wouldn’t she, even if it was in a cardboard rocket?’

‘I’m afraid not. She says I’m pathetic, the way I’m always tinkering with things. She’s bound to fall in love with a scientist or a soldier, given how it all ended.’

My conjurer-clockmaker has a wry outlook even when he’s drowning in sorrow. His wonky, wind-battered moustache could tell you that.

I’ve never laughed as much as I do in the course of this fabulous ride. We travel like stowaways on freight trains, sleep very little and eat whatever we can get our hands on. I may have a clock for a heart, but I’ve given up keeping an eye on the time. We are rained on so often that I can’t believe we haven’t shrunk. But nothing can stop us. We feel more alive than ever.

When we reach Lyon, we cross the Pont de la Guillotière on our roller-boards, holding on to the back of a carriage, and passers-by cheer us as if we were the peloton in the Tour de France.

In Valence, after a night spent roaming the streets, an old lady treats us like her grandsons and cooks up the most delicious poulet-frites in the world. We’re also allowed a soapy bath that works wonders, and a glass of still lemonade. The high life.

Feeling clean and perky, we set off to attack the Gates of the South. The city of Orange and its railway police who don’t want to let us sleep in the livestock vans; Perpignan with its early smells of Spain. Kilometre by kilometre, my dream grows thick with possibilities. Miss Acacia, I’m coming!

I feel invincible travelling alongside Captain Méliès. Buttressed against our roller-boards we cross the Spanish border, and a warm wind rushes inside me, transforming my clock hands into windmill blades. They’ll grind the seeds of my dreams and turn them into reality. Miss Acacia, I’m coming!

An army of olive trees ushers us through, followed by orange trees nestling their fruit in the sky. Tireless, we press on. The red mountains of Andalusia slice through our horizon.

A cumulus cloud ruptures on those mountain peaks, spitting its nervous lightning a few hundred metres away from us. Méliès signals that I should tuck my scrap metal away. Now is not the moment to conduct lightning.

A bird approaches, hovering like a vulture. The circle of rocks surrounding us gives him a sinister air. But it’s just Luna’s old carrier pigeon, bringing me news from Edinburgh. I’m so relieved to see him back at last. Despite my simmering dreams of Miss Acacia, I haven’t forgotten about Dr Madeleine for a moment.

The pigeon lands in a tiny cloud of dust. My heart races, I’m impatient to read the letter. But I can’t catch the wretched bird. My mustachioed Red Indian friend tries to tame him by cooing away, and eventually I grab hold of his feathery body.