fingers scoop up Miss Acacia. I got carried away with my dream of saving her. He covers her bird’s body. My clock screeches like a thousand chalks across a board. He lifts up Miss Acacia like a newlywed. She looks so beautiful, even in his arms. They disappear into the dressing room. I try not to shout, I tremble instead. Help, Madeleine! Send me an army of steely hearts.
I’ve got to break this door down. I smash my head against it. The door doesn’t budge. I pick up my body and some of my mind from the floor. I notice my reflection in the pane. A bluish bump has sprung up on my left temple.
After several attempts the door opens, to reveal Miss Acacia lying in Joe’s arms. Her red dress, gently pulled up, matches the drops of blood forming on her calves. You’d think he’d just taken a bite out of her and was getting ready to eat her alive.
‘Whatever happened to you?’ she asks, reaching out to stroke the bump on my head.
I dodge her.
My heart detects the affection in her movement, but can’t process it yet. My anger is still raging. Miss Acacia’s eyes harden. Joe holds her little bird’s body tight to his powerful chest, protecting her from me. Oh Madeleine, your slate must be trembling above my bed. The clock is pounding under my tongue.
Miss Acacia asks Joe to go outside. He does so with the old-fashioned politeness of a judo master. But before exiting, he gently puts Miss Acacia down on a chair; he’s clearly frightened she might break. His solicitous gestures are unbearable.
‘Did you kiss Joe?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You did!’
I’ve set off an avalanche.
‘How could you even think such a thing? He just helped me free my leg from that rotten plank. You saw what happened, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but yesterday, he . . .’
‘Do you honestly believe I want to get back together with him? Do you really think I could do that to you? You don’t understand anything!’
Fear of losing her and a raging headache come together in an electric storm; I’m out of control. I’m about to vomit glowing embers. I can feel them rising up in my throat, invading my brain. My head is short-circuiting. I say dreadful things, sentences I’ll never be able to retract.
I wish I could roll those words back up with my tongue, but the venom is already taking effect. The bonds between us are snapping, one by one. I’m sinking our boat, smashing it with cruel accusations. I have to stop this machine that spits resentment before it’s too late, but I can’t.
Joe opens the door quietly. He doesn’t say a word, just sticks his head round, to show Miss Acacia he’s keeping an eye on her.
‘Everything’s fine, Joe. Don’t worry.’
Her pupils glow with infinite sadness, but her pretty mouth betrays anger and disdain. I used to watch those eyelashes blossoming: now they give off blind fog.
The only advantage of this coldest of showers is to put me back in touch with reality. I’m destroying everything, I can see it in the shattered mirror of her gaze; I’ve got to turn the clock back, and fast.
I give everything I’ve got, opening the floodgates wide on to what I’ve always hidden from her. I should have started with this, I know, I’m doing it all the wrong way round, but I’m still trying to change tack, even now.
‘I love you crookedly because my heart’s been unhinged from birth. The doctors gave me strict instructions not to fall in love: my fragile clockwork heart would never survive. But when you gave me a dose of love so powerful – far beyond my wildest dreams – that I felt able to confront anything for you, I decided to put my life in your hands.’
No sign of a dimple on her cheeks.
‘I’m doing everything back to front today because I don’t know how to stop losing you and it’s making me sick. I love yo—’
‘The worst is you actually believe your lies!’ she cuts me off. ‘It’s pathetic. There’s no way you’d be behaving like this if there was a grain of truth in what you’re saying . . . No way. Get out, get out, please!’
The short-circuiting intensifies, spreading to my clock which glows red. Mournful screeching as the gears crash against each other. My brain is on fire, and my heart is rising up into my head. Surely the person with the controls can see this, by looking into my eyes.
‘So I’m a fraud, am I? A con artist? Well, let’s see about that, shall we, why waste any time?’
I wrench my clock hands as hard as I can. It’s horrifically painful. I grab hold of the dial with both hands and, like a person deranged, try ripping out the clock. I want her to see me banishing this millstone and throwing it in the bin, so she understands. The pain is intolerable. First jolt. Nothing happens. Second, still nothing. The third, more violent, feels like knife blows raining down on me. Far away, I can hear her voice calling out:
Some people claim to see intense light as death approaches. I only saw shadows. Giant shadows as far as the horizon. And a storm of black snowflakes; black snow progressively covering my hands, then my outstretched arms. The dressing table is so drenched in blood that red roses appear to be growing out of it. Then the roses vanish, and my body with them. I’m relaxed and anxious at the same time, as if getting ready for a long-haul flight.
A last spray of sparks flashes up on the screen of my eyelids: Miss Acacia dancing, poised on those stilettos spindly as clock hands, Dr Madeleine leaning over me, winding up my clockwork heart, Arthur roaring his swing to the beat of ‘Oh When the Saints,’ Miss Acacia dancing on clock hands, Miss Acacia dancing on clock hands, Miss Acacia
