The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise (13 page)

The Rack & Ruin had been her only home since the day she emerged from her mother, slipped through her father’s tremulous fingers, and slithered headfirst onto the kitchen linoleum in the family’s quarters upstairs. The night Ruby Dore was due to make her entrance into the world, the Tower doctor was in the bar below, having long given in to the addiction that was to be his life’s torment. When he was politely informed that the landlord’s wife’s contractions had started, he waved away the messenger. “She’s got plenty of time,” he insisted. He then turned back to the game of Monopoly he was playing with a Beefeater that had already lasted more than two hours. The man was the only Tower resident whom the doctor hadn’t beaten, simply because the pair had never previously played together.

The doctor’s reign was absolute. While Beefeater after Beefeater languished in jail, the general practitioner would rampage across the board, buying up property in a monstrous display of avarice. Once he had acquired all the title deeds of a colour group, he would double the rent and, without so much as a blush, hold out his palm for payment when his opponent landed on his holdings. It was a strategy that many claimed to be illegal. The rules were searched for but declared lost, and a number accused the doctor of having hidden them. Tempers flared in the fortress to such an extent that arbitration had to be sought from the board game’s manufacturer. It sent back a closely typed letter stating that the doctor’s methods did not contravene the holy regulations.

The general practitioner, who would secure the Strand, Fleet Street, and Trafalgar Square as the epicenter of his colossal hotel empire, put his supremacy down to the fact that he always played with the boot. He was offered all manner of bribes to swap it for the hat with its alluring brim, the motorcar with its tiny wheels, or even the Scottie dog with its cute shaggy coat. But nothing could persuade him to surrender the boot.

When a much more urgent whisper sounded in his ear about the alarming frequency of the contractions, the doctor turned to the messenger and snapped: “I’ll be up in a minute.” But when he looked back at the board, the boot had vanished. He immediately blamed the Beefeater, who vehemently denied the accusation of theft. The game was stopped for thirty-nine minutes while the corpulent doctor stuffed his stash of pink £500 notes into his breast pocket and hunted between the chair legs for the sacred object. When he returned to his seat, red-faced and empty-handed, he insisted that his opponent turn out his pockets. The Beefeater obliged, and then offered the doctor the iron with a limp smile. Just as the medic was about to declare a suspension of play, the Beefeater started to choke. Instantly suspecting what he had done, the doctor stood him up, turned him around, and proceeded to perform the Heimlich maneuver. And, as Ruby Dore skidded onto the kitchen floor, the disputed boot sailed from the Beefeater’s mouth and landed on the board, scattering a row of tiny red hotels.

Once she had finished the dusting, the landlady returned to her stool behind the beer taps. She rested her feet on an empty bottle crate and reached for her knitting, a diversion started to relieve the desire for a cigarette but which had since
become an even more compulsive habit. Before long, her mind drifted to the test she had done in the bathroom that morning, and she thought again how the result didn’t make sense. Unable to stand the uncertainty any longer, she stood up. Sidestepping the creeping pool of water on the worn flagstones, she grabbed her coat, opened the door, and pulled it shut behind her.

Lowering her chin to her chest to keep the rain out of her eyes, she ran past the Tower Café, where some of the tourists had taken shelter, much to their regret after sampling its fare. Turning the corner at the White Tower, she continued past Waterloo Barracks, and when she reached the row of houses with blue doors overlooking Tower Green, a now sodden ponytail swung heavily behind her.

After a vigorous knock, Dr. Evangeline Moore eventually appeared and stepped back to let the landlady in out of the rain. Apologising for her wet feet, Ruby Dore walked down the hall to the surgery. She sat in front of the desk, in a chair with a cracked leather seat, and waited until the Tower doctor had taken her place opposite her. It was only then that she announced: “Sorry to barge in, but I think I might be pregnant.”

SEVERAL HOURS LATER,
when darkness had crept over the parapet, Balthazar Jones hesitated outside the Rack & Ruin waiting for the courage to enter. He hadn’t bothered changing out of his uniform since coming off duty, as he had been too preoccupied about the meeting he had called to inform the Tower residents of the new menagerie. Numerous rumours
had swept round the fortress, the most alarming of which involved tigers being able to roam freely once the visitors had been locked out for the day. Suddenly the sign above the door depicting a Beefeater operating the rack let out a screech in the wind. He went in and saw that his colleagues, who hadn’t changed either, were already sitting at the tables, each armed with a pint and a wife.

Knowing there would be considerable opposition to the project, as nothing unsettled Beefeaters more than a change to their routine, Balthazar Jones headed straight for the bar. Ruby Dore, who still hadn’t forgiven him for provoking her canary’s fainting fit, eventually served him a pint of Scavenger’s Daughter, ordered not out of admiration but as a gesture of atonement. The only ale brewed on the premises, it was, according to some of the Tower residents, even more gruesome than the method of torture after which it had been named. Balthazar Jones had managed only three reluctant sips when the Chief Yeoman Warder stood up, called for silence, and invited him to explain to everyone the catastrophe that he was about to inflict on the Tower.

Placing his pint on the bar, he turned towards his colleagues, whose hair, still bearing the imprint of their hats, spanned a dozen hues of grey. He felt for the security of his beard as he suddenly forgot the words he had carefully rehearsed. He then caught sight of the chaplain, sitting at the back next to Dr. Evangeline Moore. The clergyman smiled and raised both his thumbs in a gesture of encouragement.

“As most people here already know, there was a royal menagerie at the Tower of London from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries,” he began. “At first the animals were
just for the amusement of the monarch, but they became a public attraction during the reign of Elizabeth I. A lion was actually named after her. The health of the monarch and the menagerie’s lion was said to be interlinked, and the creature did in fact die several days before her.”

“Get on with it, man,” called the Chief Yeoman Warder.

“The tradition of giving the monarchy live animals continues to this day, and they are kept at London Zoo,” Balthazar Jones continued. He paused before adding: “The Queen has decided to transfer them to the Tower and reinstate the menagerie. She very much hopes that their presence will attract more visitors. The animals are due to arrive next week, and the menagerie will open to the public once they have settled in.”

There was an instant chorus of protests.

“But we don’t need any more tourists. We’re overrun by the buggers as it is,” called the Ravenmaster.

“One knocked on my door the other day and had the cheek to ask whether he could have a look around,” said one of the Beefeaters’ wives. “I told him to get lost, but he didn’t seem to understand. Then he asked whether I would take some photographs of the inside for him. So I took a picture of the loo, gave him his camera back, and shut the door.”

“Where, precisely, are these animals going to be kept?” demanded one of the Beefeaters. “There’s no room at my place.”

Balthazar Jones cleared his throat. “The construction of a penguin enclosure has already started in the moat, and it will be joined by a number of other pens. There will also be one on the grass outside the White Tower. Some of the disused towers
will be used as well. The birds, for example, will be located in the Brick Tower.”

“What type of penguins are they?” asked the Yeoman Gaoler, whose sprawling beard covered his mountainous chins like grey heather. “They’re not the type that live on the Falkland Islands, are they? They’re more vicious than the Argies. Nip your arse as soon as look at you.”

Balthazar Jones took a sip of his pint. “All I remember is that they’re short-sighted when out of the water and are partial to squid,” he replied.

“Ex-servicemen looking after animals … I’ve never felt so humiliated in all my life,” raged the Chief Yeoman Warder, his embalmer’s fingers even paler than usual as he gripped the handle of his glass. “I hope you prove better at looking after animals than you are at catching pickpockets, Yeoman Warder Jones. Otherwise we’re all doomed.”

A number of Beefeaters got up to go to the bar, while the others continued to protest about the four-legged invasion. Balthazar Jones picked up his glass and walked over to inspect the canary, hoping that he would be forgotten. Bending down, he looked at the thinning bird. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Fig Roll filched from a packet in the office bearing the words “Yeoman Gaoler” in black marker. He broke some off and offered the biscuit crumbs to the mute creature through the bars. Refusing to look him in the eye, it slowly sidestepped along its perch, then took a morsel in its beak with the speed of a pickpocket. The assembled Beefeaters turned in amazement to look at the crazed creature suddenly disgorging a surfeit of notes that had built up in its chest during its
protracted period of silence. But while everyone gazed at the noisy bird, Rev. Septimus Drew turned his dark eyes once more to the heavenly Ruby Dore.

As the Beefeaters struggled to hear themselves above the yellow racket, the Ravenmaster finished his tomato juice. Despite the lure of the well-stocked bar, he avoided the soothing temptation of alcohol, as he needed his wits about him when handling his charges to avoid losing an eye.

“I’m just going to check on the birds,” he said to his wife, patting her on the knee. After blowing her a kiss from the door, which confused the Yeoman Gaoler who happened to be in his eye-line, he put on his hat and stepped outside. One of the few Beefeaters who had resisted growing a beard, he was immediately hit by the bitterness of the evening. Just as he was about to cross Water Lane, he saw Hebe Jones approaching on her way home from work, clouds of breath visible in the darkness as she hurried to escape the sadistic cold.

He paused in the doorway, taking his time to put on his black leather gloves. The pair had barely spoken since one of the odious ravens had relieved Mrs. Cook of her tail. In keeping with the duties of a mother, Hebe Jones had helped Milo in his fruitless search for the severed appendage. The boy was adamant that it could be sewn back on like the finger Thanos Grammatikos, his mother’s cousin, had lost during a misguided return to the dark art of carpentry. The six-year-old spent several hours scouring the Tower grounds, Hebe Jones on all fours next to him. Every now and again he would joyfully hold aloft a bit of twig, only to cast it aside upon closer inspection. Eventually, he came to the reluctant conclusion that it
had been swallowed, one that his parents had reached much earlier, and the hunt was finally called off.

During the ensuing years, Balthazar and Hebe Jones had been obliged to remain civil with the Ravenmaster on account of the friendship that had developed between their two children. It started when Charlotte Broughton, who was eight months older than Milo, appeared at the Salt Tower one morning with what she insisted was a new tail for Mrs. Cook. Hebe Jones immediately invited her inside and followed her up the spiral staircase. The family sat on the sofa and held their breath as the girl slowly unfurled her tiny clenched fist. While his parents instantly recognised what was undeniably the end of a parsnip, Milo was thrilled with the new appendage. The two children immediately went in search of Mrs. Cook, whom they eventually found in the bathroom, and lay down on the floor next to her trying to fathom how to attach it. And, with the help of a piece of green wool, for a whole morning the oldest tortoise in the world dragged behind her the browning tip of a root vegetable, until Balthazar Jones spotted the creature and put a stop to the indignity.