In Search of the Blue Tiger (13 page)

‘Good, God-fearing people,' Mother said once, ‘even though they come from who knows where. Never forget, Oscar,' she said, as if good advice flowed freely in the House of the Doomed and Damned, ‘we're all the same under the skin in the eyes of God.'

I kind of knew what she meant, but wondered why God couldn't be happy with us, skin and all? Still, I was pleased with any guidance I could get.

And so there I was, walking along the alleyway between the rows of terraced houses, one step behind Dilip and the lady in the long sari. I am trying my best to pretend I have nothing to do with them. That we are strangers and I just happen to be walking in the same direction. Occasionally, Dilip's grandmother turns and smiles at me. She holds Dilip by the hand. Her other hand I had declined in the playground, eyes down, tracing the yellow lines of the football pitch beneath my feet. They are linked as they walk along the cobbled lane. But not me. I stay alone. I growl and snap in a tiger sort of way and stalk them from afar.

Their house is on the corner. I follow them through the gate. Inside, the smells are strange, the colours and shimmer of the materials are foreign to me. There are cushions with little mirrors sewn into them; statues with elephant heads and octopus arms. There are bright-coloured paper flowers. The pictures on the wall are of old men in headscarves. Of course, I always guessed that other boys' houses were not like the House of the Doomed and the Damned, but now I knew. Peace and quiet, a nice smell, and colourful pictures everywhere. Dilip is standing at the bottom of the stairs. He beckons me and I follow. He has a thin line of black hair above his lip and thick milk-bottle-bottom glasses. Some boys in the playground shout after him, ‘Dilip the Dyed lip', but he never takes any notice.

We sit on his bed, a large wooden crucifix above our heads. Dilip hands me a book. He watches me as I flick through the pages. He holds back a page, pointing to a picture of a knight in shining armour sitting atop a huge white stallion. Then he leans back on his pillow and opens up his own book. The knight has a crested shield in one hand and a lance in the other. He is clearly heading to battle, to right wrongs and ensure justice is done. Over the page is a huge giant. In his left hand is a club the size of a redwood tree; in his right, a struggling child. The giant has a beard, like a caveman, or Rasputin – the Mad Monk, but not like Jesus.

Dilip gives me a nudge and smiles, the baby moustache curling with the line of his mouth. I can barely see his eyes behind the thickened glass, but I smile back, just to be on the safe side.

‘Caring little for what we may do, we are on fire for what is forbidden.' Ovid

‘It is more shameful to be distrustful of our friends than to be deceived by them.' La Rochefoucauld

Welcoming is not a word that springs to mind when you think of Tidetown. Its buildings are carved from dark grey stone, more often than not darkened further by drizzle and sea spray. There is a wind from the coast that forces even the hardiest of townsfolk to pull down the brim of their hat and bow their head so that any stranger arriving in the market square, down by the courthouse or at the Grand Hotel, would be met by a figure bent over and faceless. Even if it were not for the inclement weather, those new to town receive a frosty reception. There are ways and whyfors held dear by the people of Tidetown. Customs and rituals; shared histories of family triumphs and devastating shipwrecks. These are the very fabric, the cobblestones and roof-tiles of the town, never to be owned by an Outsider.

The Twins have a stepmother. Mrs Fishcutter (the second) lived up to her name. Or so the women of the town all said, normally behind her back in the market square or while collecting water from the town pump.

‘A cut above the rest of us, that's how she sees herself,' scowled Mrs Butcherhook to the assembled crowd of women, scarves tied tightly under their chins, heads bowed close together like so many vultures at the kill.

‘With her airs,' spat Mrs Butcherhook.

‘And graces,' added another of the women, the water spurting from the pump, clattering against the shiny steel of the empty bucket.

‘She comes here like lady muck herself, with her Outsider ways,' conspired Mrs Ironspark. ‘With her sickly smile and upturned nose. Her fancy coats and hats.'

‘And her pagan views. No blood. No sex.'

‘And no Christmas or birthdays for those poor girls. Foisting heresy on that lovely husband of hers.'

‘The poor suffering man.'

‘Job himself.'

‘Such a lovely family.'

‘Old-man Fishcutter must be turning in his watery grave.'

‘Not to mention the first Mrs Fishcutter.'

‘God bless the Christian woman that she was.'

‘Nigh on a saint, if ever there was one.'

‘Exactly.'

‘Wouldn't go near the fish shop if it wasn't in memory of her.'

‘And of the old grandfather.'

‘Salt of the earth.'

Then there would be a hush as Mrs Fishcutter (the second) appeared around the corner, the tell-tale clanking of an empty pail heralding her arrival. Standing aside, waiting her turn at the pump, all backs turned to her.

There had been a time when she had tried to be sociable, to strike up a conversation, to make friends in her new home. But the Methodist Minister was on a personal spiritual pilgrimage against all things Pagan and word had spread of the infidel about to enter their midst. The simple fact was that the Very Reverend Mumblesuch belonged to a Masonic lodge where lists were kept of the whereabouts and movements of undesirables. So after Mr Fishcutter had fallen head-over-heels in love (at Appleby Fair, looking for grain and a new horse), news that the widower's new bride was a Jehovah's Witness soon made stop-press in the unofficial parish magazine.

But love, and good-quality wet fish, conquered all in those days. Mr and Mrs Fishcutter carved a way of life for themselves. The new bride learned to gut sea-trout like the best of them. In spite of the Very Reverend's vitriol from the pulpit, the womenfolk still patronised the shop, though any socialising or fraternising was out of the question. The only other fish shop round and abouts was run by the town drunk, who sold sorry-looking dried-out fish as wet, and seafood which had sent one too many townsfolk scurrying to the infirmary.

Even though it was never said, for fear of heresy, most visitors to the Fishcutter's shop secretly noted how a woman's touch had made an impact. Standards had certainly slipped since the long illness and untimely death of the first Mrs Fishcutter. Now the displays looked fresher, the white aprons brighter. For a Pagan, she had a welcoming smile, and the fish, if anything, were under-weighed. But none of this was enough. An Outsider she was and an Outsider she would stay. And things only got worse when it became apparent she had converted her husband and stepdaughters to the so-called Truth of Jehovah.

‘Did you know,' spat Mrs Hoopshaper to Miss Spinster one day, as they stood in the queue for the Friday night beetle-drive, ‘that Fishcutter woman has turned them all against God. Old Mr Greenhouse saw them up the lane, heading for the Kingdom Hall.'

‘The which Hall?' asked Miss Spinster.

‘Well, you might ask,' replied her friend. ‘Heaven only knows what goes on up there. The Kingdom Hall they call it. Of Jehovah's Witnesses.'

Miss Spinster looked none the wiser, but she was famously slow on the uptake. Mrs Hoopshaper sighed and continued, more in need of an audience than conversation.

‘And then, you'll hardly believe this,' she said, surprising the other woman, frail as she was, with a dig in the ribs with her elbow. ‘One Saturday morning, bold as brass, there was a knock on my door and there they were. The whole family. Mr and Mrs. And the Twins standing back at the gate. They were calling on neighbours, they said, to witness the good news of Jehovah's kingdom.'

Her wide-eyed expression seemed to shock Miss Spinster more than her words.

‘I knew your father, I said to him. Old Mr Fishcutter would turn in his grave, he'd spin if he could see you now, I said. A good Methodist spouting witchcraft. He just smiled back at me and so did she. As if I'd missed something. And he asked me if I wanted a copy of the
Watchtower
magazine.'

That's how things were for the Fishcutters in those early days. Mr Fishcutter found the love he was looking for, the faith he was seeking. He had long tired of the mundane Methodist way and warmed to the directness, the freshness of the Jehovah's Witness brand of Christian fundamentalism. His daughters were still stunned by the death of their mother, but did what was expected of them, retreating even further into their own secret world. They embraced the quirkiness of the new family religion, happy to be set even further apart from the children at school.

At the meetings at the Kingdom Hall, Perch and Carp would sing along to the jaunty tunes and answer the quiz questions from the articles on the Bible in the
Watchtower
and
Awake
magazines. But they did not mingle with the other children in the congregation. They needed none other than their own company, though this caused disquiet. When picnics were held on sunny Sundays after the service, the Twins would wander away from the children and their games. They would sit under the branches of a huge weeping willow as it stroked and calmed the surface of the river with its soft slender fingertips.

It was not only other children who looked on at them from a distance. The new Mrs Fishcutter, who was so eager to love, would sigh into the space between her and her stepdaughters. But her husband told her not to fret, that that was the way the Twins were and they were happy enough. And so was the Fishcutter family: happy. The love of the congregation and the certainty of the coming thousand-year reign of Jesus far outweighed the hostility of the townspeople. At night-time, when Mrs Fishcutter confided to her husband her sadness at not being accepted in his hometown, he held her close. He said the two of them, the children, the brothers and sisters of the congregation, the Truth and Jehovah's love, that was all they needed. He would press his body close to hers, and sometimes, for this was an activity she could never quite get used to, prise open her barely parted legs.

All in all, they were contented with their lives. The long hours in the fishmonger shop, the cold mornings down by the quayside waiting for the trawlers to come in, the quirkiness of the Twins and the frostiness of the Butcherhooks, the Hoopshapers, the Fruitpickers and other families of the town. All was held in sway and balance by simplicity and certainty, quiet nights around the fire and the sound of the waves counting out time.

But all this would change when, two years into their marriage, old Mr Ledger died and Mr Fishcutter decided to balance his own credits and debits and to keep his own books. Who was to know that as he headed towards the library with A for Accounts in his mind, he would return full of A for April and L for Lust lurking close behind?

There are lots of stories of were-tigers in Malaysia. In one village people noticed a traveller who became ill and was vomiting chicken feathers. The villagers were not surprised by this. During the previous night a tiger had entered the village, killing and eating many chickens. Men were often caught in tiger traps when only tiger pawprints were seen on the ground. Malays believe whole villages exist deep in the jungle with tigers living in communities like humans. The walls of their houses are made from human skin and the roofs from human hair. The Korinchi people of the Malay Sumatra peninsular also lived in tiger villages, turning themselves into tigers at dusk and then back into men and women just as the dawn rose. Amongst the Jempul people are families related to tigers. These people always turn into tigers when they die. This is why tigers come close by the houses of the Jempul at times of illness, in order to protect their livestock and paddy-fields.