Jamrach's Menagerie (42 page)

Understanding doesn’t matter, it’s the constancy that counts, so: I must go back to sea, she won’t let me go back to sea.

We argue about that.

‘You’d manage.’ I say. ‘It wouldn’t be for long. David could help out.’ But she won’t hear of it.

‘Sorry, Jaf,’ she says, ‘me and Ma can’t take it no more.’

So I go out in the garden. I’l never go back to sea. My eyes are closed. The children have been in bed for ages. I take from my pocket a piece of scrimshaw with the likeness of a parrot carved on it, turn it over and over between my fingers. Walrus. Dan too had his solitudes, these unaccompanied places. What I’ve seen and done and weathered is eternal, as much a part of me as my blood and bones. I saw skies of angels, heard laughter from the deep.

The nightingale sobs. I rub the place on my arm where Tim used to hold onto me on the boat. Stil aches. He comes to me sometimes. How could he not? He isn’t angry. He’s my friend. We are stil in this together.

I open my eyes and see upon the violet-blue sky, moonbow, peerless, singing in the east. Very far away stil on my journey, very far away and more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

Acknowledgements

This is a work of fiction that borrows from history. The only character in the book who actual y existed is Jamrach himself, al the rest are made up.

There are two true stories:

Firstly, a Bengal tiger escaped while being delivered to Jamrach’s menagerie near Ratcliffe Highway. An eight-year-old boy who walked up and patted it on the nose was knocked down and carried away in its mouth, but escaped unhurt after Jamrach jumped on the tiger’s back.

Secondly, after the sinking of the whaleship
Essex
in the early nineteenth century, a sixteen-year-old boy cal ed Charles Ramsdel shot his childhood friend, Owen Coffin, after the drawing of lots. Owen Coffin insisted on the lot being honoured. Charles Ramsdel survived, went back to sea and lived to a ripe old age.

There are several survivor accounts of the
Essex
voyage, al of which can be found in
The Loss of the Ship
Essex
,
Sunk by a Whale
by Thomas Nickerson, Owen Chase and others. The classic book on the
E s s e x
is Nathaniel Philbrick’s
In the Heart of the Sea
.

Many thanks to the Civitel a Ranieri Foundation who gave me six wonderful writing weeks in Umbria, also to The Authors’ Foundation for their generosity in awarding me a grant. Thanks to Nina and Dave Bleasdale and to Frances and Tim Whittaker, who gave me quiet places to work.

Thanks to Richard Butler for his invaluable technical help, and also to Martin and Joe, Emily Atherton, Mic Cheetham, Simon Kavanagh, Francis Bickmore and al at Canongate who have given their help and support.

Also by Carol Birch

Scapegallows

The Naming of Eliza Quinn

Turn Again Home

Come Back Paddy Riley

Little Sister

Songs of the West

Life in the Palace

Copyright

This digital edition first published by Canongate Books in 2011

Copyright © Carol Birch, 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14

High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

www.meetatthegate.com

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 85786 041 5

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire