The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

the race, reality is finally taking over. I feel dizzy, like a fledgeling bird on the day it first takes flight. The cosy nest of my imagination is receding; it’s time to jump.

The paper roses stitched on to the little singer’s dress trace the treasure map that is her body. The tip of my tongue tastes electric. I’m a bomb ready to explode – a terrified bomb, but a bomb all the same.

We head towards the stage, and take our seats. The stage is a simple platform set up under a trailer awning. To think that in a few moments I’m about to see her . . . How many millions of seconds have been and gone since my tenth birthday? How many millions of times have I dreamt of this moment? The euphoria is so intense I’m finding it hard to stay still. Meanwhile, inside my chest, the proud windmill has reverted to a tiny Swiss cuckoo.

The spectators in the front row turn towards me, annoyed by the increasingly audible racket my clock is making. Melies responds with his cat-like smile. Three girls burst out laughing and say something in Spanish, presumably along the lines of: ‘those two just escaped from the freakshow’. It’s true our clothes could do with a good ironing.

The little singer walks on stage, clicking her yellow high heels along the platform. She launches into her bird dance and my clock hands become windmill blades once again: I’m flying! Her voice echoes like a slender nightingale, sounding even more beautiful than in my dreams. I want to take the time to watch her calmly, to adjust my heart to her presence.

Miss Acacia arches the small of her back and her lips part a little, as if being kissed by a ghost. She closes her large eyes as she claps her raised hands like castanets.

During a particularly intimate song, my cuckoo whirrs into action. I’m more embarrassed than ever. The twinkle in Melies’ eyes helps to calm me down.

We’re in such a rundown place, yet the little singer transcends our surroundings. You’d think she was lighting her own Olympic flame in a plastic model stadium.

At the end of the show, she’s mobbed by all sorts of people wanting to exchange a word or get her autograph. I have to queue like everybody else, even though I’m not asking for an autograph, just the moon. The two of us curled up in its crescent. Melies tips me off:

‘Her dressing-room door is open and there’s nobody inside!’

I slip in like a burglar.

Closing the door of the tiny dressing room behind me, I take a moment to study her make-up, her sequined ankle boots and her wardrobe – Tinkerbell would have approved. I’m embarrassed to be looking at her personal belongings, but it’s delicious to be this close to her. As I perch on her chaise-longue, her delicate perfume intoxicates me. I wait.

The door bursts open and the little singer enters like a hurricane in a skirt. Her yellow shoes go flying. Hairpins rain down. She sits in front of her dressing table. I am more silent than the deadest of corpses.

She starts taking off her make-up, as delicately as a pink snake might shed its skin, and then puts on a pair of glasses. She sees my reflection in the mirror.

‘What are you doing in here?’ she demands.

Please forgive this intrusion. Ever since I heard you singing some years ago, my only dream has been to find you again. I’ve crossed half of Europe to get here. I’ve had eggs smashed on my head. And I’ve nearly had my guts ripped out by a man who only fell in love with dead women. There’s no doubt about it, I’m handicapped by my great love. My makeshift heart isn’t strong enough to resist the emotional earthquake I feel when I see you, but here it is, bursting for you. That’s what I’m desperate to say. Instead I’m silent as an orchestra of tombstones.

‘How did you manage to get in?’

She’s furious, but shock seems to dilute her anger. She discreetly removes her glasses and I can tell she’s curious now.

‘Be careful,’ Melies had warned me. ‘She’s a singer, she’s pretty, you won’t be the first to feel this way about her . . . The master-stroke of your seduction must be to create the illusion that you’re not trying to seduce her.’

I’m flustered. I don’t know what to say. ‘I leaned against your door and it wasn’t closed properly, so I landed on your dressing-room sofa,’ I finally tell her, realising how ridiculous it sounds.

‘Do you make a habit of landing in the dressing rooms of girls who need to get changed?’

‘No, no, not often.’

Each word I say is monumentally important, emerging with difficulty, syllable by syllable; I can feel the full weight of the dream I’m carrying.

‘Where do you normally show up? In the bed or the bath?’

‘I don’t normally show up anywhere.’

I try to remember the lesson in rose-tinted magic that Melies taught me, for romance: Show her who you really are, make her laugh or cry, but pretend you want to be her friend. Be interested in her, not just her derriere. We don’t hold a candle to someone for as long when we’re only after their derriere, do we?

Which is true, but now that I’ve seen how her derriere moves, I rather fancy it, which complicates matters.

‘Weren’t you the one who made that devil of a racket with your tick-tock during the concert? In fact, don’t I recognise you . . .’

‘Recognise me?’

‘Look, what do you want from me?’