brightly.
At first, I didn’t understand what was going on. I was too young. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become frustrated with my role as the mongrel of the kennel. How can a simple clock put people off me so badly? It’s only wood, after all.
Today, after I’ve failed to be adopted for the umpteenth time, one of the doctor’s regular patients approaches me. Arthur is an ex-police officer turned alcoholic tramp. Everything about him is crumpled, from his overcoat to his eyelids. He’s quite tall. He’d be even taller if he stood up straight. He doesn’t usually speak to me. And curious as it may sound, I enjoy our habit of not talking. There’s something reassuring about the way he limps across the kitchen, half smiling and waving his hand.
While Madeleine is looking after the young, well-dressed couples in the adjacent room, Arthur waddles around. His spine creaks like a prison gate. Finally, he says:
‘Och, dinnae worry, pet. Nothing lasts for ever. We always get better in the end, even if it takes a wee bit o’ time. I lost my job a few weeks before the coldest day on earth, and my wifey kicked me oot. To think I agreed to join the police just for her. I used to dream about becoming a musician, but we were skint.’
‘What happened to make the police want to get rid of you?’
‘A leopard dinnae change his spots! I used to sing the witness statements instead o’ reading them aloud, and I spent more time on my harmonium than the police station typewriter. Plus I drank the odd drop o’ whisky, just enough to give us a husky voice . . . Och, but what dae they ken? They asked me to leave in the end. That was when I had to explain to my wifey . . . So I spent my wee bit o’money on whisky. And that’s what saved my life, ye ken what I mean?’
I love his habit of saying ‘ye ken what I mean?’ Solemnly, he explains to me how whisky ‘saved his life’.
‘On 16 April 1874, the cold cracked my spine: the only thing to stop me freezing through was the warmth from the alcohol I’d forced down, after those dark events. I’m the only tramp who survived. All my cronies froze to death.’
He takes off his coat and asks me to take a look at his back. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t say no.
‘To mend the broken section, Dr Madeleine grafted on a wee bit o’ musical spine and tuned its bones. So I can play different tunes if I tap my back with a hammer. It sounds nice, but I walk sideways like a crab. Go on, play something if ye like,’ he says holding out his little hammer.
‘I don’t know how to play anything!’
‘Dinnae worry, pet, we’ll sing together, ye’ll see.’
He starts singing ‘Oh When the Saints,’ accompanying himself with his bone-o-phone. His voice is as comforting as a crackling fire in the hearth on a winter’s evening.
When he leaves he opens up his pouch, which is full of hen’s eggs.
‘What are you carrying all those eggs around for?’
‘Because they’re full o’ memories . . . My wifey used to cook them wonderfully. When I cook them just for me, I feel like I’m back wi’ her again.’
‘Can you cook them as well as she did?’
‘Nae, they always turn out mingin’, but at least it’s easier to keep our memories alive. Take one, pet, if ye like.’
‘I don’t want you to be missing a memory.’
‘Och, dinnae worry, pet, I’ve got plenty. Ye won’t ken what I mean yet, but one day ye’ll be content to open yer bag and find a memory from when ye were a bairn.’
For the time being, as soon as the minor chords of ‘Oh When the Saints’ start to play, my worries fade away for a few hours.
After my fifth birthday, the doctor stops showing me to her customers, the prospective parents. There are more and more questions in my head, and every day the need for answers grows stronger.
My desire to discover the ‘ground floor of the mountain’ becomes an obsession. I notice a mysterious rumbling when I climb up on to the roof, alone with the night. The moonlight tinges the streets of the town centre with a sugary halo, which I dream of tasting.
Madeleine keeps on reminding me that there will be time to confront the reality of the city soon enough.
‘Each beat of