In Search of the Blue Tiger (31 page)

The Judge ponders a moment, pinches the end of his nose, then raises an index finger to denote a semblance of understanding.

JUDGE OMEGA: Then if I interpret you right, the question is, will Mr Fishcutter be resurrected?

BROTHER PEARSON: He has died before Armageddon. The scriptures tell us he will be resurrected.

PERCH and CARP together: He will. He will.

JUDGE OMEGA: So is this why he was killed? Is this why you killed your father?

PERCH: In the sure hope of the resurrection.

CARP: Once the stepmother perishes in the pure flames of the Battle.

PERCH: And we will all be reunited as a true family.

CARP: When the lion lies down with the lamb.

OSCAR THINKS: When the boy lies down with the tiger (and the plum-coloured dog and Blue Monkey).

PERCH: And the sword is molded into a plowshare.

JUDGE OMEGA: So Oscar Flowers, why did you participate in this atrocity?

OSCAR: I played my part in the story. I was the father and he was the son. God told me what to do.

JUDGE OMEGA: I've heard you all speak of the play. The account of Abraham and Isaac. But in the story God spared Isaac and told Abraham to sacrifice a ram.

OSCAR: God told me to save the children and the animals and sacrifice Isaac, the father.

JUDGE OMEGA: But Abraham was the father.

OSCAR: So was Isaac.

JUDGE OMEGA: You mean Mr Fishcutter?

OSCAR: Yes, the father. I was holding the candle. Not the flame of God, that was Perch. But I made a choice how it should be. Like that night at my house when I chose to be the sacrifice. To be the blood between the Mother and the Father. For me to be the sacrifice. But Mrs April told me Jesus wanted it to happen because he loved everyone. But God didn't tell Abraham to do it. He told him not to. But I didn't want Stigir to be burnt. Not like the Great Aunt Margaret's baby, or the tiger and the farmer with all the wisdom that humans hide away. So I chose who should be sacrificed. That Mr Fishcutter should be sacrificed, so that he can come back again. But I think I thought it should be fathers who should make sacrifices for their children.

JUDGE OMEGA (makes some notes, scratches them out, scratches his head, sighs and turns to the Twins): Is it true that Oscar Flowers committed the sacrificial slaughter of Mr Fishcutter? Think carefully before you answer.

The Twins look at each other and then face the Judge.

PERCH: Our father.

CARP: He was our father to sacrifice.

PERCH: I with my heart. I killed Father.

CARP: I with my own heart. I killed Father.

PERCH and CARP together: We killed our father, with the sharpest of knives. Our sacrifice for our father. Sacrifice to give him life.

JUDGE OMEGA: Think very carefully as to what you say. This is important. Are you telling me that you killed your father with a knife?

Perch looks at Carp and vice-versa.

CARP: Both of us, with the knife we took from the wooden block.

PERCH: For filleting fish.

CARP: To help him die.

PERCH: To die to live.

Judge Omega makes scribbled notes.

JUDGE OMEGA: And Oscar?

PERCH: He had faith.

CARP: To do the deed.

JUDGE OMEGA: Who lit the fire?

Perch looks at Carp. Carp looks at Perch. Perch and Carp look at Oscar.

OSCAR: I with my flame. I lit the fire.

JUDGE OMEGA: And was there anyone else present in the hall?

OSCAR: Stigir, my dog. In the play Stigir was the ram in the bush.

JUDGE OMEGA: And did the dog perish in the fire?

Oscar looks at Mrs April. She smiles back.

MRS APRIL: I am looking after the dog. Oscar has asked me to take care of him for the time being. For as long as I have to.

The Judge takes more notes, then momentarily looks over to the clerk to see if he is recording all this. The clack of typewriter keys, tired of the words ‘murder' and ‘sacrifice', make sure nothing is missed.

JUDGE OMEGA: And Mrs April, may I inquire as to why, given the circumstances, you are being so attentive to the needs of Oscar Flowers? Many might think this a trifle odd.

Mrs April thinks hard. Then a smile spreads across her face. She is laughing to herself.

MRS APRIL: With all this talk of the Bible, maybe I can indulge myself by answering with a parable that has always amused me. You may have heard this story before.

JUDGE OMEGA: Go ahead. Please tell us a tale. There is precious little to amuse in this solemn case.

MRS APRIL: There was a frog sitting quietly on a riverbank. Along comes a scorpion who asks the frog to carry him across the deep river. ‘But you might sting and kill me,' says the frog. ‘But that would be foolish, as the water is deep and I cannot swim. If I sting and kill you then I too will die by drowning,' replies the scorpion. So the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the fast-flowing river. The scorpion jumps on to the back of the frog and off they go. When the frog has swum halfway across, to the deepest part of the river, he feels a searing pain in his shoulder. He realises he has been stung by the scorpion. The frog is dying and they both sink deeper in the water. With his dying words he asks the scorpion why he stung him, when he knew the consequence would be them both drowning. ‘I stung you,'says the scorpion, ‘because it is in my nature.' You ask why I do what I do for Oscar. I do it because it is in my nature. I can think of no better reason, or no fairer answer to your question.

The Judge surveys the courtroom, rubs his hand on his forehead and closes his eyes in quiet contemplation.

JUDGE OMEGA: You are a strange and motley crew. I will now dismiss this session and summon you to reconvene tomorrow morning. Good day to you all.

CLERK OF THE COURT: All rise.

Exeunt the Judge.

Day Five: SUMMING UP & SENTENCING

Judge Omega concluded the trial with a summing up that kept the public gallery enthralled in suspense. In short, he said children should not kill their parents, religious fanaticism must be purged, fornication and adultery were all too common (if he had his way Mrs April would be sentenced too). He went on to say the world today was a different place from the one he was brought up in, and, finally, we could all do a lot worse than to re-establish the old standards of morality and true Christian values. The Twins, he concluded, were collectively and individually guilty of conspiring to murder and to murder in the first degree. Oscar Flowers was a gullible younger child, easily influenced by the older girls, but nevertheless confessed to his part in the wanton murder of Mr Fishcutter and honestly acquitted himself as the key witness. According to our laws, the judge summarised, he is too young to be held responsible for his actions and can be neither sentenced nor penalised.

JUDGEMENTS

Perch and Carp Fishcutter found guilty of conspiracy and first-degree murder, accomplices to arson and criminal damage. Sentenced to indefinite incarceration (to be reviewed after twenty years by the Minister for Judicial and Penal Affairs), initially in a female juvenile detention centre, and then in a high security women's prison.

Oscar Flowers, due to his tender age and the ancient law on non-culpability (last invoked when the Mayor's demented elder son ran riot at the Maypole dance), the boy is to be set free, but by agreement with his parents he will be placed in the care of the monastic order on the Island of Goodhope, where he will grow to learn and learn to grow. The trial ended at 11.39 a.m.

The Twins were taken away to begin their sentences.

Oscar Flowers was taken back to his room to sleep and to await Brother Saviour who would meet him at the courtroom gates the following morning and take him to the monastery on the Island of Goodhope. The Judge announced this was to be his final case. He was retiring from the judiciary to take up a new and challenging post as Inspector of Schools for the Northern Provinces.

‘The end crowns all; And that old common arbitrator – Time, Will one day end it.' Shakespeare

Sitting up front of the open-top carriage with Brother Saviour, I watch the muscles of the nut-brown horse shift and pump as the mare pulls us along the road leading out of town. I can hear my small suitcase bumping along in the back. The unfamiliarity of it all awakens a sense of freedom and excitement. I look over my shoulder as we ascend a hill and there is Tidetown, receding towards the sea. Something is shifting in me as we leave the town behind, a sense of moving forwards, as the old wheels creak and crush the gravel under our weight. I look up at Brother Saviour, who holds the reigns lightly in his hands. He smiles at me, winks, and then clicks his tongue.

‘Giddy up,' he says to me and the horse, as we judder and clatter along.

Above us is a goshawk, hanging in the air, as if by a thread from the sun. It ignores our rattle and shift, intent on a movement in the heather below. Then it swoops to the ground, and in the same movement arches away, a tiny tail dangling from its claws.

Sometimes it would be nice to have a brother or a sister to share all this with. To tap them on the shoulder, put my finger to my lips and say ‘Shhh' and then point out the interesting thing I've spotted. The hawk, a shape in a cloud, the look on Brother Saviour's face. So for a while, between now and the next hill, I imagine I have a sister sitting next to me. Her name is Poppy. She passes me a piece of chocolate she has been saving for the journey. We giggle about things and pull funny faces at each other. Brother Saviour smiles, because he knows about children. Poppy is two years older than me, so she gives me a comforting look to let me know that everything will be okay and that all we have gone through is over and now we will have a chance to be happy. She is my big sister and she puts her arm around me in case I need it. We look each other in the eye. Our lives together hold us in the moment and give us strength. I can smell the freshness of her auburn-coloured hair and feel her breath on my neck.

Then we lurch up and over the hill and I'm on my own again. No Poppy, no gentle caress. I look around me. The purple-and yellow-tinged heather is replaced by gorse bushes and the sky is bigger at the crest of the hill. Something of me is alone. But I know how to do this, and when I think of what has gone before it's probably for the best. To be just as it is.

The Balinese goddess Pulaki is often pictured with three tigers who are able to possess men. Barong, a mythological beast in Balinese folklore, can take the form of a tiger. The Barong is often seen with a scarlet-striped cloak, like the markings of a tiger.

Journeys are for thinking. For drifting in and out of. Where the light on a leaf, the sound of a bird, switches on a memory. Being neither here nor there, but somewhere in between. I let my mind wander with the turn and trot of the horse and cart.

I am lying in my pram in the bright sunshine in the garden. There is a bumblebee buzzing around my head. Then a huge black cat appears at the end of the pram. And Mother, running from the kitchen, waving a broom above her head, screaming at the cat, it hissing and then leaping down, the sound of its claws rasping on the canopy, then flopping off the end, sleeking away under the tiny gap in the fence. Mother picking me up and holding me tight, protecting her babe from the dangers of the wild.

A ballerina turns atop a jewellery box, reflected in the mirror of a dressing table. I am wearing a hat with feathers and a bright pink boa tickles my neck. The doorknob turns against the lock. I gasp silently as the ballerina slows and stops. I hold my breath as the footsteps recede down the stairs. I look at myself in the mirror, as I wind up the key on the side of the jewellery box. The music commences as, once more, the ballerina takes up her graceful dance.

Bright red poppies line the roadway, dancing and bobbing with the breeze as if practising for the moment they sprout legs and sprint up the hill: ‘Race you to the top!' Towering above them are rank after rank of silver birch trees, an army frozen in time, uniforms ragged and threadbare.