Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     I was clearly aware of the fact that I had no appointment. I was simply following the whims of an eccentric old lady. Not even that. I was following my own whims really, as the old lady had given me to understand, repeatedly, that it would be pointless to go to the house in Adelaide Road.

     But the house intrigued me. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see where Mrs. Friedmann, her son Alexander and the girl Julia Maples had been living. I wanted to see whether George Sacks, the painter and the ‘messer-abouter’, as Mrs. Friedmann had described him, was still in the top flat. And if he wasn’t, where he’d moved to.

     I hadn’t been to Adelaide Road for many years. When I was living there, during the early years of the war, I used to take the tube from Chalk Farm to Moorgate every morning. From there I had five minutes walk to the factory where I worked as a machinist. Making underpants for the Navy. My contribution to the war effort. The hardest bit about these underpants was inserting the round piece of material to cover the rough seams between the legs. No one, as far as I know, has ever worked out the implication which the proper placing of this piece of cloth, about 3 1/2 inches in diameter, could have had on the general welfare and performance of the sailor in action; could have on the outcome of the war. For, in the end, it is the accumulation of small, apparently insignificant items like these which can have the most far-reaching effects.

     This brings me to the tiger: Supposing Mrs. Friedl Friedmann’s grandfather had not gone to Vienna on his honeymoon, had not taken a certain turning in a certain district, had not noticed a certain shop window, had not noticed the metal tiger, had not had the psychological need to acquire and possess this metal sculpture, this paperweight, this commodity. Supposing his young wife had pulled him past this shop window and directed his attention elsewhere, to a pretty bonnet or a necklace or a picture or a book . . . . . She might have had an aversion to tigers, to her husband cluttering up his desk with paperweights that would need dusting, that might be knocked down, cause injury or breakage. But none of this happened. Mrs. Friedmann’s grandfather, a certain Gedalja Rabinowitz, did buy the tiger.

     Perhaps in Vienna, perhaps elsewhere. Perhaps from a shop, perhaps from a private collector. Possibly on his honeymoon or on some other occasion when travelling in Austria, Hungary or Germany. Such details are hardly ever passed on in families to the third or fourth generation. It might have been different if the tiger had been of some real outstanding value which, as far as I can judge at present, seems hardly to have been the case. All I know is that Mrs. Friedmann’s grandfather passed on the tiger to his son, when his son set up house for himself, so that, as far as Mrs. Friedmann can remember, the tiger always stood on her father’s desk. And since Harry Rabinowitz was not blessed with any sons, the tiger was eventually transferred to the desk of his eldest daughter’s husband, Max Friedmann, father of Alexander John Freeman, alias Hans Alexander Friedmann.

     At Finchley Road Underground Station I just missed the connection to Swiss Cottage, so I decided to walk. When I passed the windows at John Barnes Department Store I almost forgot the purpose of my excursion. I began to speculate whether the new display of ‘mix and match’ could be an answer to my search for a suitable new winter outfit. I liked the colours but wasn’t sure about the cuts of the jackets. I would have to try them on of course. I decided not to bother. Outside W. H. Smith, a few yards away, I remembered that it would soon be time to send off my yearly Christmas book to the children of my friends in Johannesburg, if I wanted it to reach them in time. What should I choose? My glance fell on a copy of Kipling’s Jungle Book, with the tiger on the cover suddenly glaring at me reproachfully. Yes, I’d taken on a task.

     Adelaide Road has changed greatly since I lived there. Many of the old houses have gone and have been replaced by blocks of flats. Others are due for demolition. Soon the whole street will have completely changed its character. The house in which I had occupied a tiny furnished room at 10/6 per week has been pulled down long ago. It had suffered war damage and was, in any case, hardly a monument worth preserving, in spite of the fact that Bob and I had met there for the first time.

     I found Alexander Freeman’s house on the right-hand side, almost half-way down Chalk Farm. Only the top floor window were curtained. The front garden was looking reasonably tidy. No board was up saying that it was due for demolition or that some agent or other was offering the sale of the remaining lease, as I had noticed on a number of other buildings nearby.

     I decided to examine the house first from the outside. Walking through the front garden towards a narrow side gate, which I found half open, made me feel a little uncomfortable. I was trespassing. But I wasn’t doing any harm. If anyone questioned me, I would say I’d come to look at George Sacks’ pictures. A respectable prospective buyer. I pulled my shoulders back and held my head high, at least for a short time.

     The gate squeaked awkwardly when I pushed it sufficiently ajar to pass through. The back garden looked a shambles. Leaning against the side-wall of the house was a large noticeboard belonging to Goldsmith & Howard, offering a two years’ lease of this desirable property. But from the back of the board a white mask on a dark red background was grinning at me. In the right-hand corner, four tiny letters in black: gift. Since the mask resembled a skull. I wondered whether this was meant to be the German word gift, meaning poison. Unless it was intended as a gift for the agent? Whichever it was, I strongly suspected that it was George Sacks’ idea of a joke. George is frightfully talented, I heard myself say and I laughed.

     I disturbed a number of birds pecking at half a loaf of stale white bread. But they soon settled down again. The bread didn’t look mouldy, so I concluded that it had been thrown there quite recently. A pile of crates with empty milk bottles stood neatly arranged by the French Window belonging to the garden flat. The bottles spotless, with the remains of a few soap-bubbles reflecting the light. Very different from the dozens of wine bottles lying against the wooden fence, half overgrown by nettles and deadly nightshade.

     I bent over the bottles looking for the labels. Most of them were missing or tattered and faded beyond recognition and felty with dust. Bodies without faces. I didn’t like to touch them. But I did shift one or two using the tips of my fingers. All those underneath were bare too. Naked bottles. They might have belonged to a collector of labels who had painstakingly immersed each bottle in a bath of water until the label was floating freely on the surface, fished it out, blotted it, pasted it into an album, listing underneath the various relevant or irrelevant details, including possible inspiration received before, during or after the consumption of the contents. An idea at any rate. Less unusual than collecting locks of pubic hair from one’s sex partners . . . . .

     I turned to the tea-chest crammed with old newspapers. Filthy papers with bits of hair and fur stuck to dust and grime. From cats, mice, rats. The date? The headlines? ‘Woman stabbed to death by . . . . .’ ‘. . . . . Family of Five trapped in blazing . . . . .’ I shrugged my shoulders. I hadn’t even read today’s paper. What worthwhile clues could this offer? Even if it had Julia Maples’ fingerprints all over it.

     Suddenly a man’s deep voice immediately behind me: ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’

     I took a deep breath, forcing myself to turn around slowly: ‘Yes’.

     The man, standing not nearly as close to me as I’d imagined, was also much smaller than I’d deduced from his voice. I managed to smile, partly with relief. ‘Do you live here?’

     ‘No’. He looked me curiously up and down. ‘I only collect the milk bottles. And I bring her fresh ones. I’ve still got them on the cart. She washes them, see?’

     ‘Washes them?’

     ‘That’s right’, He picked up one of the crates. ‘Makes a good job of it too, don’t you think?’ He didn’t wait for my reply. ‘I’ll be right back with a. new lot’. He heaved the crate with the clean bottles on his shoulders and hastened through the side gate. I could hear the clatter from bottles being shifted. A moment later he reappeared, now carrying a crate filled with bottles covered with thick dust and cobwebs. ‘See the difference?’

     ‘Yes, indeed’.

     He brought in two more crates and, after he’d straightened himself up, slapped his flat hand against the glass pane of the French window three times sharply, Calling out: ‘Come and get them!’ Then turning to me with a slight bow and a smile: ‘It keeps her sane. A small enough service, don’t you think?’

     I nodded.

     He studied me for a moment with narrowed eyes: ‘You aren’t the new social worker, are you?’

     ‘The new social worker. No . . . . . no. I was looking for George Sacks, the artist’.

     He laughed. ‘The nut, you mean. He isn’t in. He’s looking for his model’.

     ‘A girl?’

     ‘No, a fish’.

     ‘You wouldn’t know her name by any chance?’

     ‘Never remember names. There’s no point in it, is there?’

     ‘Perhaps you remember faces. D’you remember who lived here before? Last year?’

     He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I might and I might not, if I saw them’.

     ‘Were they young or old, would you say?’

     ‘No good asking me, Miss. I’m not like other people. I see them young when they’re old and old when they’re young. So they tell me’.

     ‘Well, thank you very much. But George Sacks is still living here, as far as you know?’

     ‘He was yesterday. I saw him chucking out some more of his rubbish from his top window and I told him to jolly well mind them bottles’.

     ‘I see’.

     ‘Well, I must take them away and look for more. She expects me every day. It’s not easy to get them together in time, you know.’

     ‘Of course not’.

     He slammed the side gate shut behind him.

     I continued to look around, feeling more and more uncomfortable. Several large trees at the back of the garden and a number of bushes on either side of the wooden fences screened off the area from the neighbours’ view almost completely. I noticed a sour smell, possibly from the dirty milk bottles, or from a pile of rotting clothing. I skimmed over old tattered umbrellas and papers behind a broken bird-bath, rusty pots of oil paint, half covered by a heap of freshly chopped kindling wood. I had no desire to explore the various collections of rubbish any further. Even if I could have been sure that Mrs. Friedmann’s lost tiger was amongst the junk, I don’t think I would have stayed on. This may not make sense, since the purpose of my excursion was supposed to be the search for the tiger. But things aren’t as straightforward as that. It is true, I readily agreed to offer my help in this matter, but following what I’ve come to consider an almost incomprehensible impulse which doesn’t seem to operate on logical lines. It was the same impulse which now drove me away.

     I tip-toed to the kitchen window of the ground-floor flat and tried to peer inside between the drawn curtains. The place seemed deserted with a few pieces of half-broken furniture covered in cobwebs and dust.

     It took me quite a time to wrench open the side-gate which the bottle exchanger had closed so firmly behind him. The prospect of possibly spending part of the day shut away on this rubbish dump had filled me with panic and I breathed deeply with relief when I once more stood in front of the house.

     But my curiousity had remained undiminished and I decided to walk up the steps to the front door and try whether anyone would answer the bell or knocker. I first looked through the letter-box. There were a number of letters and papers on the doormat. I unsuccessfully craned my neck to decipher to whom they were addressed. In the background, autumn branches in a large vase, some with red berries still quite fresh. Behind the branches a big wall mirror, blind with dust. I wanted to wipe off the dust, imagining that the glass could magically reveal the secret of the inhabitants of this house, past and present.

     There was no answer to the bell which, anyway, I suspected was broken, or to my repeated banging with the heavy door-knocker. I took one of my visiting cards from my bag and wrote on the back: ‘Dear Mr. Sacks, would you please contact me in connection with . . . . .’ But it suddenly seemed to me unwise to reveal the purpose of my visit openly and I tore up the card and wrote on another one instead: ‘Dear Mr. Sacks, I should be grateful if you would kingly contact me as soon as possible in an urgent matter. Sincerely, Clara Wood’.

     When the ‘phone rang last night I had one of my ‘premonitions’ that this would be George Sacks. I lifted the receiver and answered in my ‘official’ voice, a voice with no, or practically no, German accent. A very dignified voice, I imagine, or should like to think. It usually baffles my relations and friends who can’t identify it as my voice and frequently suspect they have the wrong number. It certainly baffled Bella who made me repeat the number, which I did without batting an eyelid, although I had long recognised hers. She sounded quite worried when she finally asked: ‘Is Mrs. Wood at home?’

     ‘You’re speaking to her’, I said laughing.

     She relaxed straightaway into her native German, inquiring suspiciously whose call I’d been expecting.

     ‘Well, since I’ve undertaken this search for your Mrs. Friedmann, a number of people might contact me of course’.

     ‘Did you find out anything, Clara?’ ‘Not yet, but give me time ‘D’you think you’ll find that tiger?’

     ‘I’ve no idea. I’m trying to find the whereabouts of the girl who took it’.

     ‘Fascinating’.

     ‘That’s what you think’.

     ‘Where did you start?’

     ‘I’ve hardly started. I only had one day. I went to the house in Adelaide Road, you know, her late son’s place.’

     ‘And you didn’t come to see me afterwards’. She sounded quite hurt. ‘I want to know all about it’.

     I laughed. ‘Bella’, I said, this time in my official English voice to tease her, ‘I’ve discovered the secret of your long life. It’s curiosity. Your curiosity is insatiable. It’ll make you live for ever’.

     ‘Clara, please be serious. I’m only interested to know what progress you ye made. On Mrs. Friedmann’s behalf . . . . .’

     ‘But I am serious. And Bella, one of your greatest virtues is your honesty. You always show what you feel — even on Mrs. Friedmann’s behalf’.

     ‘Clara, you have no respect for age’.

     ‘That’s true. Only affection’.

     ‘Was there anyone at the house? Mrs. Friedmann thinks it’s unoccupied now’.

     ‘I noticed traces of occupation and left a note to be contacted. Satisfied?’

     ‘I see. — And did you have any news from Bob?’

     ‘Yes. He has found himself a nineteen-year-old girlfriend with bright red hair. He’s madly in love with her and never wants to see me again’.

     ‘No, not really?’

     I laughed again. ‘That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?’

     ‘But Clara, these things are serious. You shouldn’t make these jokes’.

     ‘I didn’t say it was a joke’.

     ‘Well, supposing it came true? The way you talk about it’.

     ‘You’re not becoming superstitious at your age, Bella?’

     ‘I wouldn’t like to see you hurt’.

     ‘I wouldn’t like to be hurt. And if it makes you happy, I’ve agreed to meet Bob in the States’.

     ‘Well, at last. When?’

     ‘Not for a while. I’ll let you know when I order my flight’.

     ‘And did you hear from the girls?’

     ‘No. I only hear from them when they want something. I sent off two parcels to them last week, and I told you about it at the time’.

     ‘Did you? Well, my memory is going. I always tell you so and you never believe me’.

     ‘Really? I don’t remember you ever telling me’.

     ‘Clara, you’re making fun of me again. Remember, I was your teacher’.

     ‘Jawohl, Fraulein Berliner. How could I ever forget that!’

     ‘And what are you going to do tonight?’

     ‘I’m going to wash my hair and I’m going to think’.

     ‘About the tiger?’

     ‘No, about my hair’.

     ‘You’re not going to cut it?’

     ‘No, I’m going to grow it three inches longer in a fortnight. It’ll need a lot of concentration. Then I may dye it green’.

     ‘You’re not going to change your colour, Clara?’

     ‘Why not? If Bob likes these redheads’.

     ‘There you go again. I’m sure Bob loves your long black hair. He wouldn’t like to see you any different’.

     ‘Perhaps Bob does — but will George Sacks?’

     ‘Who?’

     ‘Never mind, Bella. I was only joking. Give my love to Mrs. Friedmann and tell her that I hope to drop in at Jerusalem House later in the week. I’ll ring first though. All right?’

     In my mind’s eye I could see Bella replacing the receiver, shaking her head thoroughly confused. I have enjoyed teasing her ever since I’ve known her, as a girl at school already, though she didn’t always appreciate my sense of humour. It was only years later, when we met again in London by chance, that a friendship developed between us.

     It’s odd, I’m very fond of Bella, but I always have some reservations about our friendship. I’m quite sure that had we both remained in Germany in reasonably normal circumstances, we should have had very little time for each other. We became family substitutes here in response to our mutual needs, to keep alive memories of the country, people and events from the past which we were still able to share. Old roots that couldn’t be abandoned.

     Perhaps it’s like this with Mrs. Friedmann’s tiger.