'His name is Jackson,' Charlie said. 'After Gentleman Jackson, the pugilist. I'm sure the bird would be a doughty fighter if he could. But I said Edgar could choose a name for him too, though he is my bird, for there is no reason why a bird should not have two names any more than a person has.'
'Very true,' I said.
'My name for him is Tamerlane.'
'That is a very grand appellation.'
'He is a very grand bird,' Edgar said gravely. 'I am sure he is intelligent. We shall teach him heroic poetry.'
'He already speaks,' Charlie put in. He poked a finger through the bars of the cage and prodded the unfortunate fowl, which scuttled away to the other end of its perch. 'Come, Jackson, talk to us.'
The bird preserved an obstinate silence. Despite the boys' pleading, it stared balefully through the bars and refused to utter a sound.
'I'm so sorry, sir,' Charlie said. 'You would have enjoyed it enormously. He speaks so clearly – it is just as though he were a real person, only one cannot quite make out what he is saying.'
'It is no matter. Tell me, were you able to give my letter to your mother?'
He looked up at me, his eyes apparently guileless, and as so often with children, I wondered how much he noticed, how much he understood. 'Oh yes, sir. Mama sent her compliments, and said there would be no answer.'
I nodded, hoping that my expression somehow implied that this was entirely what I had expected.
'What did that-?' I began, and choked back the rest of the question.
Edgar clapped his hands. 'There! I knew he would. Is it not quite splendid, sir?'
'Yes, indeed.'
'And does he not sound exactly like a person?'
'Oh, identical.'
'Can you make out what he says?' Charlie said.
'I believe I can,' I said, 'though he has not perfectly mastered the consonants. Does he not say 'I hate beer'?'
'Yes, that is undoubtedly it,' I went on. 'Does he abstain from all liquor, or is it only beer that arouses his disgust?'
My feeble attempt at wit struck the boys as exquisitely funny. We talked for a few minutes more until Edgar touched his companion's arm.
'We must walk on, Charlie,' he said. 'Mr Allan will not be happy if his clerk is kept waiting.'
Charlie bent over the cage and carefully restored the blue cover.
Edgar said, his voice so low that only I could hear: 'Mrs Frant goes to the burying ground this afternoon, I believe. I heard her telling Mrs Kerridge. Mr Frant's headstone has now been set up.'
'There,' said Charlie. 'It is night again. I daresay Jackson does not mind the swaying of the cage as we carry him, for quite probably it reminds him of the swaying of the trees in his native jungle.'
'Thank you,' I said to Edgar, and then again, more loudly, 'Thank you so much for showing me Jackson Tamerlane. I am sure you will soon succeed in teaching him entire poems.'
We shook hands and parted. I stood for a moment watching their little procession hurrying along the pavement towards Southampton-row. And then I too began to move slowly in an eastward direction, though bearing towards the north, so that I would not follow in their footsteps.
I blundered along, a man in a trance, sometimes brushing against walls and other pedestrians, sometimes stumbling. Passers-by avoided me, gave me disapproving looks. I felt dazed, as though I had woken from a heavy sleep and found myself in a time and place that were entirely strange to me.
In my head I heard over and over again the sound of Jackson Tamerlane squawking out the only words it knew:
72
From the burying ground of St George's, Bloomsbury, I heard the cries of children at play, shrill and incomprehensible as the language of birds. Directly to the south lay the stately buildings of the Foundling Hospital, flanked by the gardens of the Mecklenburgh and Brunswick-squares.
Sophie was not here. Perhaps she had already left. Perhaps Edgar had been mistaken about the time or even the place. I tried to summon up her face and for once even that comfort was denied me.
I sought solace in activity. The cemetery looked newly polished in the late afternoon sunshine of a spring day. An attendant loitered by the gate. I gave him sixpence to show me the grave I sought. The headstone was small and plain, raw and unweathered. Here were no weeping cherubs or fulsome inscriptions. Incised in the stone were these words and nothing else:
HENRY WILLIAM PARKER FRANT
17th July 1775 – 25th November 1819
With his lean figure, Henry Frant had looked younger. The date of his birth stirred a memory: I recalled that according to the tablet in the church at Flaxern Parva his mother Emily had departed this life in the same year: perhaps she had died in childbirth, or from complications arising from it. I had a sudden vision, at once unexpected, intense and unwelcome, of a small boy alone among the servants in that great house at Monkshill; growing up without a mother, and with a father dedicated to dissolute pursuits that took him far away from his child; and, when Monkshill had to be sold, of a boy removed from the comfort of the familiar and sent to live among strangers in Ireland. Henry Frant was, or had been, a gentleman: but perhaps there had been little to envy in his situation.
I turned aside and paced up and down the gravel walks, the refrain of that unlovely fowl never far from my mind. A funeral procession passed me and automatically I uncovered and stood aside. Oh, the awful panoply of death! The last of the mourners went by. And there, hurrying away along a path at right angles to the procession, was the unmistakable figure of Sophie Frant. She was quite alone.
I walked rapidly in pursuit. Widow's weeds often mask their wearers with a layer of anonymity: even when the face is unveiled, one sees the widow, not the woman. There was no mistaking Sophie, though. I recognised every line of her body; I had traced in fact and in fancy the curve of her neck; I knew her posture and I knew the way she walked, with her eyes turning from side to side; for her mind was always alert, always watchful, always interested.
She heard my footsteps on the gravel behind her and stood aside to let me pass, pretending to study an inscription. I drew level and stopped. Slowly her head turned towards me.
I bowed. Neither of us spoke. There we were, four or five feet apart. I was aware of the cortege winding its way to an open grave within a stone's throw of the place dedicated to the mortal remains of Henry Frant. It was a fine afternoon, and there were others visiting the dead. Here, among the graves, a tide of living humanity ebbed and flowed around us.
She pushed the veil away from her face. It was always her eyes that drew me. I took a step nearer, then
