The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise (21 page)

He used the stamps he had bought for letters to the tiny creature he had met in the corner shop. But his writing on the envelopes was always so confused by love that they took several weeks to arrive at the correct address. Kept awake by terrible snores coming from the bunk above him, he was in such distress over the time it took to receive a reply that he wrote more and more frequently, presuming that his letters were going astray. Two years later, when he proposed, it was to the great relief of the postman, whose back had long ago given way.

BALTHAZAR JONES IGNORED THE KNOCKING
on the Salt Tower door. He remained in the same position on the bed, clutching the letter as the wind blew through the tiny gaps in the lattice windows. But the banging continued, and mounted with such urgency that the Beefeater, fearing the commotion
would attract further attention, got up to answer it. He staggered down the stairs in his bare feet, heaved open the door, and shielded his eyes against the glare of the marble sky. Standing in front of him was Dr. Evangeline Moore carrying a black bag. “I understand you’re not feeling well,” she said.

Too troubled to think of a credible reason not to let her in, he stepped aside and followed her back up the stairs, feeling their chill on his soles, blackened from his nocturnal foray on the battlements. Once they had reached the living room, the Beefeater suddenly felt embarrassed at being caught in his nightclothes by the young woman. Taking refuge on the sofa, he warned: “Mind where you’re treading.” The doctor, whose copper ringlets glowed whenever caught by a freak ray of sunshine, promptly sidestepped Mrs. Cook. She unbuttoned the jacket of her neat brown trouser suit and sat down on the armchair that failed to match the settee.

Taking out a folder from her black bag, she opened it on her knees and ran a finger down a page. She frowned, looked up, and said: “According to the Yeoman Gaoler, you’ve had a surfeit of lampreys.”

Balthazar Jones gazed at the floor and started digging at a threadbare patch of the emaciated carpet with a grimy toe. The only sound was a tiny creak as Mrs. Cook stood up and started her day’s journey across the floor. The Tower doctor looked at the tortoise while the Beefeater continued to look at the floor. She turned her eyes back to her patient, who had bored such a big hole that half his toe had disappeared.

“It’s not that uncommon,” she suddenly declared. “You’d be surprised. How many are we talking about? Half a dozen maybe? Well, however many it was, I’m sure it’s nothing serious.
Just take it easy for the rest of the day,” she concluded with a smile that he took to signify an end to the matter.

But just as Balthazar Jones thought that the doctor was about to leave, she suggested a quick examination. Too defeated to refuse, he stood up, and the doctor proceeded to poke and hammer at him with a variety of implements that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Wakefield Tower’s instruments of torture exhibition. When it was finally over, he retreated to the sofa and immediately felt for the comfort of his beard as he watched the weapons being returned to the black bag.

“Everything seems to be fine. I’ll let myself out,” announced the general practitioner, stepping over Mrs. Cook and heading for the door. As she reached for the latch, she suddenly turned round and said: “I’m sorry to hear about your wife.”

The silence that followed was eventually broken by the sound of heels descending the stone stairs. The Beefeater, not in the least surprised that word had already gotten out, remained slumped on the sofa. Unable to bear the thoughts that threatened to engulf him, he stood up and made his way to the bedroom. Preferring to report for duty rather than endure his own rumination, he slowly put on his uniform, wobbling as he clambered into his Victorian trousers.

HIDDEN FROM VIEW,
the Ravenmaster knelt down next to the bridge over the moat and took out his nail scissors. Carefully he snipped at the grass that grew around the tiny crosses marking the graves of long-departed ravens, a number of which had
literally dropped off their perches. Despite the stories peddled to the tourists, the legend that the kingdom would fall should the ravens leave the Tower was utter poppycock. The kingdom had not so much as trembled when the birds were put into cages just before the start of the Second World War and driven away at nightfall. Their unexpected holiday had been organised at the highest level to prevent them from receiving a direct hit, which would threaten the nation’s morale. The same day, the Crown Jewels had also been secretly removed, transported in coffins by armed guards dressed as undertakers, and hidden in Westwood Quarry, in Wiltshire. The caged ravens were taken by ambulance to the terrace house of a Beefeater’s aunt who lived in Wales and smuggled inside. The pebbledash home in Swansea remained in permanent blackout, and the aunt was forbidden from opening her door to visitors lest word get out that the ravens had left the Tower. Not only was the woman paid to look after the birds, but she was also granted a stipend for the rest of her life to keep silent about their temporary removal.

When the war was finally over, it was not certain who had driven the other more mad. The wild-eyed aunt, desperate for human conversation, told anyone who would listen (as well as those who wouldn’t) about her top-secret mission during the war. But even the local paper refused to believe her. And the generation of wartime ravens, a species noted for its talent at mimicry, never lost their Welsh accents during the remainder of their days at the fortress.

Satisfied that dignity had been restored, the Ravenmaster put his scissors back in his pocket and stood up. He then made his way to the entrance of the Tower and stood on the bridge
waiting to take the tourists on the last tour of the day. His black-gloved hands clasped in front of him, he watched the visitors who were on their way out, eyeing their rucksacks closely lest one try to leave with a bird buried deep within as the ultimate souvenir. As one of the giraffes in the moat raised its head in search of a leaf, the tourists immediately pointed to it. A man with a video camera attached to his hat approached the Ravenmaster and asked when the menagerie was opening.

“The day after tomorrow, if the Keeper of the Royal Menagerie gets his act together,” came the mustached reply.

“I heard there used to be a menagerie here years ago,” the Australian tourist continued.

“There was until the 1830s when they finally realised it was a bad idea to have wild animals around the place. Still is, as far as I’m concerned,” said the Ravenmaster, turning his gaze back towards the giraffes.

“Was anyone killed?” asked the man, hopefully.

The Ravenmaster then told him the unfortunate tale of Mary Jenkinson, who lived with the lion keeper. “One day in 1686, she was inside the den stroking one of the animal’s paws when it grabbed her arm in its teeth and wouldn’t let go. Her arm was amputated in an attempt to save her life, but she died several hours later.”

The tourist immediately related the tale to his wife, who beamed with equal satisfaction, and immediately asked her husband whether they could come back when the menagerie opened.

The Ravenmaster looked at his watch and called to the visitors waiting for the tour to step closer. He then threw open his arms and announced in his best theatrical tones, employed to
elicit tips from the Americans: “Welcome to Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, the Tower of London! It is my pleasure to be your guide over the next hour as we look back over nine hundred years of history …”

An hour later, he stood at the door of the chapel as the tourists filed out, each pressing a coin into his hand. Once the last had left, he made his way to the ravens’ pens and stood calling the birds’ names one by one. They landed sham-bolically, then swaggered across the grass to their respective wooden homes and flew up inside. Locking the doors to keep them out of the jaws of urban foxes, he looked at his watch and smoothed down his pigeon grey mustache with a leather-gloved hand. High with anticipation, he crossed the fortress to the Brick Tower and, with the furtiveness of a horse thief, glanced behind him. Satisfied that he wasn’t being watched, he unlocked the door. Closing it behind him, he reached in the gloom for the rope handrail, then suddenly remembered that he was still wearing a vest. Recognising instantly that it was not the correct attire for an illicit encounter, he unbuttoned his dark blue tunic, pulled off the undergarment, and left it in a warm bundle on the bottom step to collect on his way out. Once he was dressed again, he continued up the stone steps. Finding the door of the first floor closed, he felt for the handle and pressed down on the latch. The sudden sound startled the birds, which created such an uproar that the Ravenmaster, who had completely forgotten about the new aviary, joined them with a squawk of terror. The birds continued their demented circular flight long after Ambrosine Clarke arrived, dressed in jeans and a sweater, the neckline of which revealed the tormenting depth of her cleavage. The
Ravenmaster reached for her in the darkness, recognising instantly the smell of cooking fat. Once their clothes were shed, they sank to the floorboards, where they were covered in a drizzle of seed husks whipped up by the frantic flapping. The cook’s eventual shriek of ecstasy was drowned out by the profanities of the emerald hanging parrot, which had been rudely woken from its upside-down slumber.

Balthazar Jones had remained on the sofa in the same position since returning from an afternoon of patrolling the fortress. He hadn’t bothered to close the curtains, and sat gazing at the night bulging up against the lattice windows that surrounded him. On the coffee table in front of him was the vest he had discovered on the bottom step of the Brick Tower when he checked on the birds on his way home. He could find nothing to account for the gentleman’s underwear, and when he pushed open the door to the aviary, he saw that its inhabitants, terrorised into a state of exhaustion, were huddled together on their perches to keep warm as they slept, while the parrot hung below them, occasionally swaying while it dreamed. The only bird still awake was the wandering albatross, searching the cage for its companion, which was still at London Zoo as it didn’t belong to the Queen.

It wasn’t until the cold finally drove him to his feet that Balthazar Jones found the courage to go upstairs to the bedroom. He closed the curtains, the rings dragging sorrowfully across the poles, then undressed slowly to further delay the moment. Once in his pajamas, he spent longer than usual in the bathroom, having decided that now was the moment to fix
the tap that had dripped since the family arrived eight years ago. When, eventually, he could find nothing else to occupy him, he came back out and finally looked at the empty bed. Unable to get into it, he pulled on a sweater, turned off the light, and sat in the armchair next to the window. When, several hours later, sleep continued to evade him, he stood up, drew back one of the curtains, and opened the window. Leaning against the sill, he looked out over the fortress, gruesome in the moonlight, and breathed in the dank night. And out of the deathly silence came the mournful wail of the solitary wandering albatross that mated for life.