The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise (22 page)

W
HEN HEBE JONES TRIED TO LEAVE
the fortress in the early hours with her suitcase, the Beefeater on duty refused to unlock the small door inside the Middle Tower’s vast oak gate. “It’s against regulations,” he replied when she protested. She sat on top of her case, coated in three years of dust, glancing at her watch with the impatience of a prisoner about to be set free. When six o’clock eventually came and the ancient lock was finally turned, she got up and walked stiffly out with the intention of going to work. But as she stood in the crowded Tube carriage, subjected to more intimacy with strangers than she experienced with her husband, she soon realised that a day of attempting to reunite abandoned property with its absentminded owners was beyond her. She climbed the steps to the exit and left a message on the office answering machine informing Valerie Jennings that she was unwell, and started walking the streets. After a while, she found herself by the entrance to Green Park and slipped in to escape the relentless commuters marching to work, knocking her case against her shins as they passed. She spent much of
the day on a bench, being pummelled by the wind as she wondered whether she was still a mother even though her son was dead.

When darkness started to descend around her, fear forced her to her feet. She returned to the warmth of the Underground and rode the network wondering where women usually went when they left their husbands. Eventually, she made her way to Baker Street and arrived at the Hotel Splendid, the only hotel she knew, as she took Valerie Jennings there for lunch each year on her birthday. When the receptionist asked whether she required a single or double room, her eyes fell to the desk. “I’m alone,” she replied, wondering whether the woman could tell that her marriage had just ended.

After being shown to her room by a Polish bellboy who insisted on carrying her case, she sat on the bed and her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She ordered a ham and mustard sandwich and ate it at the dressing table, still wearing her coat. Opening her case, she discovered that she had forgotten her nightdress, and she thought of it lying on the bed in the Salt Tower. Her mind turned once more to her husband, and she wondered whether there was anything in the fridge for his supper. Reluctant to sleep naked in such unfamiliar surroundings, she hung up her coat and skirt in the empty wardrobe and got into bed in her blouse and tights. She looked around at the cream swag curtains, the luxurious white bathrobes, and the vase of pink roses on the desk, and imagined the young honeymoon couples who had sealed their marriage in the room. And she wondered how many of them were still together.

Between scraps of sleep, she spent the night listening to
doors banging as guests returned, and the intermittent shrieks of laughter coming from the room above. The following morning, despite the grandeur of the dining room with its white linen napkins, polished silverware, and uniformed waiters, Hebe Jones skipped breakfast, preferring the familiarity of people’s lost possessions. After sliding her suitcase underneath her desk, she went to the original Victorian counter and opened one of the ledgers to the previous day. As her eyes fell down the entries, she saw that Samuel Crapper had been in to collect the same tomato plant that he had lost earlier in the month, a hand-written musical score had been discovered on the Hammersmith & City line, and a new wedding dress had been found on a bench at Tottenham Court Road station.

She sat at her desk, and was still looking at the phone directory in defeat when Valerie Jennings arrived and stood next to the inflatable doll, unbuttoning her navy coat. “Feeling better?” she asked Hebe Jones.

“Yes, thanks,” she replied, immediately noticing something different about her colleague. Mascara had brought out her eyes from behind her glasses, an embellishment normally reserved for her birthday lunch at the Hotel Splendid. Instead of her usual flat, black shoes, her wide feet were wedged inside a pair of high heels. And instead of holding a white cardboard box from the high street bakery containing a little something for elevenses, Valerie Jennings was carrying a brown paper bag containing what looked suspiciously like fresh fruit.

“When are you seeing Arthur Catnip again?” Hebe Jones asked.

Valerie Jennings immediately looked away. “I don’t know,” she replied, hanging up her coat. “I haven’t heard from him.”
She then unfolded her newspaper and handed it to Hebe Jones. “Remember that man I told you about who came into the tea hut and asked whether we’d seen a bearded pig?” she asked. “Apparently it escaped from London Zoo and it’s still on the loose.”

Hebe Jones looked at the front-page photograph taken of the creature while still in its enclosure, its resplendent snout whiskers stretching across several columns. She handed it back to her colleague with a shudder, and returned to the directory. She peered at where she had left off, picked up the phone, and dialled the number.

“Is that Mrs. Perkins?” she asked when it was finally answered.

“Yes.”

“This is Mrs. Jones from London Underground Lost Property Office. Something has been handed in to us that relates to a Clementine Perkins who died last year. I was wondering whether you happen to have known her.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“You’ve found it?” came the eventual reply. “We haven’t been able to rest since it went missing. My husband will be so pleased. I’m not sure how to get to you though. I’m not too good on my legs and my husband doesn’t go uptown anymore. He says there are so many people he just ends up walking on the spot, and then it’s time to come home again.”

“Would you like me to bring it round? It’s not something I want to put in the post.”

“That would be very kind of you.”

It didn’t take Hebe Jones long to find the house, which
stood out from the others in the street due to its overgrown lawn. She pushed open the rotten gate, which felt rough under her fingers on account of the peeling paint. Warmed at the thought of having finally found the urn’s owner, she walked along the concrete path, looked at the “No Hawkers” sign, and rang the bell. When there was no reply, she checked to see that she had the right house number. She rang again, and eventually an elderly woman wearing a pink dressing gown opened the door.

“Mrs. Perkins?”

“Yes,” the woman replied, squinting in the light.

“I’m Mrs. Jones from London Underground Lost Property Office. We spoke on the phone.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” she said, stepping back. “Come in, love. Cup of tea?”

While the woman was in the kitchen, Hebe Jones found somewhere to sit in the chaos of the living room and gazed around at the slumped piles of free newspapers on the floor, the cabinets over-filled with cheap ornaments, and the unwashed dishes balanced on the mantelpiece.

Eventually Mrs. Perkins returned with a tray bearing two cups and saucers and placed it on the coffee table. “Biscuit?” she asked, holding out a plate. When Hebe Jones declined, she helped herself, moved a pile of unopened letters from the armchair, and sat down. “What did you say your name was again?” she asked.

“Hebe.”

“That’s a nice name. I’ve got some in the back garden,” she said, nodding towards the French windows.

Hebe Jones picked up her cup and saucer and rested them on her knees. “I was actually named after the goddess of youth, rather than the plant.”

There was a pause.

“I thought my parents had named me Flora after the goddess of flowers. Turns out I was named after the margarine,” Mrs. Perkins replied, staring in front of her.

Hebe Jones looked down at her tea.

“What did you come about, again?” the old woman asked.

“Clementine.”

“Oh, yes. We loved her so much,” she said, reaching for a tissue in her dressing gown pocket. “She was getting on a bit, and we knew she was going to pass away sooner or later, but it’s always a shock when it happens. Even now I can’t believe she’s gone. I still keep imagining her walking in here through those doors, and sitting where you are now. We buried her in the back garden. It had meant so much to her. She was always out there, pottering amongst the rosebushes.”

“I see,” replied Hebe Jones, still holding her cup.

“My husband reckons it was one of those urban foxes that dug her up again. Attracted to the smell.”

“The smell?”

“Things start to rot, don’t they? I told my husband not to use that cardboard box, but he insisted. I said Clementine deserved better, but he said I was being too sentimental. So I wrote her name on it to make it a bit more special,” said Mrs. Perkins, fiddling with a thread on the end of the armrest.

“When we discovered that she’d been dug up, we were heartbroken. Some people just couldn’t understand. We expected her to turn up in one of the neighbour’s gardens, but
you said she was found on the Tube. That doesn’t seem right to me. I reckon that lot next door had something to do with it. They never did like her. She kept piddling against their new greenhouse. But cats won’t be told,” she added, finally taking a bite of her Custard Cream.

AFTER CHECKING THAT THE WORKMEN
had erected all the signs in readiness for the opening of the royal menagerie that afternoon, Balthazar Jones let himself into the Develin Tower. He caught the bearded pig in a state of unfettered ecstasy, its eyes shut and hairy nose pointed heavenwards as it rubbed its considerable flank against the corner of the stone fireplace. The Beefeater sat down on the straw, resting his back against the circular stone wall, and stretched his legs out in front of him. On seeing its keeper, the animal sent the battered grapefruit flying to the other side of the room and charged after it. Once it had caught up, the pig turned its head towards the man with inferior whiskers. There was no response. Lobbing the fruit again with its snout, it galloped after it, its tasselled tail flying like a flag over its fulsome buttocks. It looked again at the Beefeater staring blindly ahead, but received not the least encouragement. The pig slowly made its way across the straw, and lay down next to him, pressing its back against his thigh.

Oblivious to the damp seeping through his tunic, Balthazar Jones wondered again where his wife had spent the night, and hoped she hadn’t been cold without her nightdress. Suddenly he felt a chill as he imagined her having all the warmth she needed in someone else’s arms. He picked up a piece of straw
and started to fiddle with it, remembering the day, all those years ago, when she had promised to be his forever.

Balthazar Jones invited Hebe Grammatikos to Hampstead Ponds two years after they met with the sole motivation of wanting to see her in her red bikini. When they arrived, she immediately took up a horizontal position on the bank in her new swimwear, her hair forming a black halo on the grass. When he tried to lure her into the water, she insisted that it was too cold. But the country was experiencing a record-breaking heat wave that had led to the dismissal of a weatherman for a prediction of continual clouds. Refusing to accept her argument, Balthazar Jones eventually talked her into the freshwater pond. It was only when the young soldier went to fetch his camera, and turned to look at her from the bank, that it occurred to him she might not be able to swim. He watched as she disappeared without a sound into the dusty water shaded by the overhanging oak trees. Several seconds later, she rose again, her hair floating on the water like an oil slick.