Goldsmiths - University of London

They pressed to the front of the crowd, and there he was: an old man with a bird tied to his teeth.

The sparrow-mumbler.

He surveyed the audience, a short thickset figure in a worn frockcoat and shabby top-hat – the bird writhing in his eyes, a black star glittering in those dull mirrors; then cocked his head and opened his mouth. Tom squeezed Audrey's arm and glanced about him, recognising many faces in the throng, amongst them Ralph Pike, Charlie Skinner and Liz Chorley, all come to watch the booby and the mumbling of the sparrow, there on the bare patch of ground behind the stable of bears. Poor bird! The mumbler snapped his teeth and the sparrow fled to the end of the line and fluttered there, the string taut at its heel; and the audience gasped in horror.

It swooped down to the man's shoulder, leapt off and then vanished! Where had it gone to? And the sparrow-mumbler stared at them defiantly – the bird rattling in his mouth.

"Oh, he ate it!" cried a small boy.

But he hadn't: only held the wild frenetic morsel in his mouth, his lips pursed, his cheeks hollow, bulging now on the one side now on the other with the tiny head of the hidden bird. He continued to stare at them, a ragged scarecrow with his long straggly brown hair and ancient clothing, his skin covered in scratches, marks where the beaks of sparrows had chipped at his face. For how many had he killed, ripped apart in his jaws? Over how many years at how many fair-grounds? He gasped and out shot the bird, small and damp and drunk with terror, and wheeled about his head, eyes glinting, wings purring in the air. Around and around, it turned, watched by the mumbler, his eyes twitching this way and that, mouth opening and closing. Like a cat waiting to spring, waiting for his moment. He lunged forward, gnashing his teeth, and the sparrow veered out of the way. Again he tried and again the bird alluded him and got momentarily entangled in his hair. It flashed and flickered, then, confused, dived back towards the man's face. So the mumbler seized it. The audience groaned to see the sparrow's wing caught in his mouth, the tiny brown fan drawn open and the minuscule lump of a bird bouncing on the chin. "Oooohhhh!" cried the crowd, the bears growled in their stable, and all the trees of Rainbow Wood shivered behind the fair, as if in consternation. He worked on it, his teeth turning red, and the bird jumped and jerked in his mouth, irretrievably caught.

A boy began pacing the edge of the field, holding out a cap for pennies – the son of the sparrow-mumbler. Tom knew him, for they were the same age and attended the same school. He was a strange quiet boy who barely spoke a word. A man beside Tom dropped a penny in the cap, then the boy paused before Tom and Audrey, gazing a moment at Audrey before moving on. Meanwhile, the mumbler went on with his work, eyes blinking, lips munching; the insane bird scratching at his teeth, pecking at his mouth. Then the head went in. Poor Phillyp Sparowe, thoughtlessly murdered, as by Gilbert the cat in the house of the black nuns. Fa, re, my, my . . . so Jane Scrope mourned him, dead and pale, her face as blue as lead, with a corner of the Crede, that tiny bird who used to take her by the lip and nuzzle his velvet cap between her breasts. Phyp! Phyp! The children pressed forward, appalled yet fascinated, and watched the old man mumble the sparrow to death. Why did they stay? They might have slipped off to the Museum of Prodigies, to the chairoplanes or Botton Brothers' Gallopers, or Shufflebottom's Colorado Show – The Most Thrilling and Daring Acts at Each Performance! Yet they stayed to watch the mumbler nip off the sparrow's head and leer at them with the bird's blood all over his chin and its feathers stuck between his teeth. More blood seeped from tiny cuts under his eyes where the sparrow's neb had clipped him. Someone laughed. Someone began to cry. A dark wind ruffled the sides of Rainbow Wood. Then, horribly, the sparrow-mumbler bowed. He bent low and afterwards grinned and licked his lips – his mouth dark, his tongue painted with the bird's blood.

"Oh, poor thing!" cried Elizabeth Chorley.

That made thirteen: thirteen victims over half a century, beginning that night in the autumn of 1936 when, sometime after the fair, Elizabeth Chorley was attacked and murdered on her way home. Cold-Water Jack, himself a close somewhat suspicious fellow, found her body the following morning, dumped in Spider Lane, near Tomb Farm.

A bird was discovered in her mouth.

Heu, heu, me . . . Jane Scrope prayed for him and for the souls of all sparrows abandoned by the angel Tubiel – without the wisdom of Socrates or Xenophon. Lesbia loved him more than her own eyes, that honeyed bird lost to the evil shadows, remembered by all the Cupids and the Venuses . . .

"I am called Widow Sparrowtail,

Oft for loss of my good looks I'd weep and wail;

But thought it was of no avail . . ."

So Mrs Mary Plucker Sparrowtail, beautiful forever, sang the praises of Madame Rachel. Phyp!

Pla ce bo

Who was there, who?

Di le xi

She came with her father to visit his father in the pierrot room at the end of the pier: that windy white room full of gowns and mirrors, where his father and the other 'merry folk' spent half the summer: and he showed her the various props and costumes his father used in his show. Had she ever seen it? They were one of the best troupes in the country and his father had worked with all the big names, with Will Caitley's Fol-de-rols, Smith's Lavender Follies, and Billie Manders and his Quaintesques. His father laughed inside his mirror – the biggest mirror there, taking up half one wall – dressed in his ruff and pom-poms, ready for the evening show.

It had rained all afternoon but now the sun shone and a strange light lit up the sky: a double rainbow, blown down over the sea, shed a peculiar luminosity over the waves and the pier and on the warm floor of the mirror, where his father posed in his radiant costume. Tom and Audrey examined the white cupboard full of gowns, running their hands over the various fabrics, even as the fresh wind of the evening fell through the windows, breathed through their fingers, and stirred the gowns under their hands. Those outfits felt cold with the wind; those coloured costumes smelled of the wind. They used to work on the beach, his father was telling Audrey's father, in the old days, four shows a day: a morning show on the sand, two afternoon shows on the promenade, and an evening show back on the sand, what they used to call 'in and out the tides'. And he started to sing The Sun Has Got His Hat On, dancing on the floor in the big mirror while the wind blew and the windy orange sunlight billowed on the white walls and over the white cupboard. Tom finished his examination and closed the long doors, shutting the blue wind in the cupboard.

"Do you want a soda?" he asked the girl.

"Oh yes, let's get one!"

So they left the pierrot room and walked back along the deck of the pier, past the outdoor dance area – Open Air Dancing for Healthy Happiness! – and the arcade, which had once housed the old Joy Wheel, at one time The MOST REMARKABLE DEVICE AT THE BRUSSELS EXHIBITION! and on top of which sat the dome of the Camera Obscura, to the American Soda Fountain. They slipped up onto the high stools before the counter and waited for the 'soda jerk' to serve them.

"Hi Bill!" said Tom.

"Evening Tom. How's your dad?"

"Fine, fine. Getting ready for the evening show. This is Audrey. She's just moved here. Billy's the 'soda jerk'. That what they call them, isn't it?"

What would she have? Cherry Coke or Root Beer? Orange Crush or Grape Julep? The syrup first, squirted into the long glass from the silver tap, then fizzy water, and perhaps even a scoop or two of ice cream. Fans whirred overhead. No one else there; and so quiet along the pier and in Seahaven at that moment they could hear one lone bell-buoy ringing out in the ocean, beyond the end of the pier: ting-ting, ting-ting! The clouds had departed, the double rainbow crumpled away – along with the dark unlit band between, hung in memory of Alexander of Aphrodisias – and the sky turned a perfect blue in the Soda Fountain windows. Tom looked at the girl, at the red hair curled behind her ears and the gold freckles dotted over the bridge of her nose, stirring the long handled spoon in the bottom of the deep glass, and suddenly felt glad it was summer. He felt glad she had come to Seahaven. Another soda? She nodded and he called over William Light the 'soda jerk'. Ting-ting, ting-ting! rang the bell out in the summer waves, like the blue sky chiming in the windows. Arthur Glanville, the Pier Master, passed through and wished them a good evening. Then an old friend of Tom's stopped by: Professor Narrowback, the high diver, one of several 'Aquatic Entertainers' on Seahaven Pier. Tom introduced the girl and the Professor took her hand and kissed it. Ever the gentleman, was Professor Narrowback: a tall bronzed figure with cropped blond hair and eyes the colour of the sea and the sky where they mingled at the horizon on hazy summer days. Tom had been visiting him in his shed at the very end of the pier for as long as he could remember.

"I'll come and see you in the morning, Professor," Tom said. "Early. I'm sleeping on the pier tonight."

"I'll have the kettle on ready," the Professor replied and left the Soda Fountain, heading for his shed above the lagoon at the end of the pier.

Did she want to see his dad's show? It would be starting soon . . .

They found him in his usual spot, between a potted palm and a grand piano, on a platform beside the automatic amusements. A few people had gathered before the stage, amongst them Sniffer Ackland and Liz Chorley from school, and Harry, Tom's best friend in all the world (along with Professor Narrowback).

"This is Harry Snowball," said Tom, suddenly conscious of how tall Harry was.

Like Leslie Howard, the film-star, that's who he looked like.

They sat down on wooden seats before the stage and the show began.

"You heard about the Yorkshireman who went to London and couldn't get some Yorkshire Pudding? He went home and battered himself to death! Now there's a funny thing!"

After a few more gags and a song or two Pierrot began, in his own inimitable way, to recite 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God': "There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu . . ."

And he retold the tale of Mad Carew who fetched for the Colonel's daughter the eye of the golden god. Nothing else would do, she said, and he chanced his life to get the thing, returning with a torn tunic and a gash across his temple: "That's from Mad Carew." But then she didn't want it and that night – the still and tropic night of the birthday ball – she found him stabbed to death in his barracks.

"'Twas the vengeneance of the Little Yellow God."

The audience applauded and Pierrot added, "You don't applaud half enough! Go on, like this!" and applauded himself.

Another song followed, Tom's father accompanied by his fellow 'jolly boys', by Lewis Minty at the piano, Miss Gwennie Lind on the banjo, and Dan Engelhardt on the mandolin; then the show – always an odd mix of gags, music-hall skits, songs, and poetry – was over.

It was so good! His father was so funny, Audrey said. Could they look in the arcade? So Tom and Harry showed her the automatic amusements, by-passing the rifle range, the skee-ball alleys, and the line of mutascopes – live peep-shows with titles such as 'Easy Street', 'Dance of Love', 'Spring Chicken', and 'My Girl Goes West' – to the line of 'Working Models' at the back. First: 'The Pharaoh's Tomb'. Tom slotted in a penny and the doors of an Egyptian tomb clicked open to reveal a sarcophagus within. A second later the lid lifted and a mummy jerked upright in the trough. Another door opened on the left and another mummy peeked out at them. Then the doors closed, the light went out, and they moved on to the next cabinet: 'The Haunted Mansion', which showed a man reading in a library. Nothing seemed to happen at first. They waited and then, there! a hand appeared on the back of the chair! And then a bookcase slipped back to reveal a figure clad in a white gown. Next, Tom's favourite: 'American Execution'. Three men in a dingy little room, one in an electric chair, one kneeling before him, and another at the lever in front of a panel covered in dials and wires. The man in the chair looked strangely serene, his square chipped wooden head turning from side to side as the executioner pulled the lever and the circular plate came down. The light went out and the waves rumbled far below. Again? Audrey slotted in another penny and the three figures went through the routine again. The man's square head clicked from side to side, the plate came down, and then he was still. A seagull cried over the pier. Someone fired into the rifle range. The Laughing Sailor began to laugh and laugh and laugh, rocking jerkily about in his booth, before a painted backdrop of sails, gulls and sea. Two boys squabbled over a mutascope offering a glimpse of 'Nights in the Harem', both wanting to peer in as the cards flicked over and the girl within danced around and around. Was she naked? It was difficult to tell. One more 'Working Model' remained: 'The Iron Maiden', set in the darkest corner of the room. One figure chained to a wall, another suspended from a rope – only their shadow could be seen, painted on the grey brick wall – and a third pushed into some sort of cage. The figure in chains flicked back and forth and the cage door closed on the other prisoner, shutting him inside, so only his eyes peered out . . . Darkness then. The Laughing Sailor stopped laughing and the waves sounded below, raving about the iron stanchions of the pier. You could, if you peered down, glimpse a glint of movement between the planks. Next, a fortune-teller machine. What would the future hold for them? Would they be rich? Were they too trusting? Would they marry soon? Would they travel? Would they be lucky in love? Then the boys tested their strength: TRY TO BEAT THE LAST LIFT! INDICATOR WILL GO TO ZERO THEN PULL HANDLES. Tom first: he reached down and yanked the handles as hard as he could and the dial flipped around past 100, 200, 300, 400 – over an illustration of a strongman flexing his muscles. 500! The dial wavered then dropped back as Tom let go. 500: ONLY THE STRONG DESERVE THE FAIR! Was that good? Better than NOT SO GOOD USE ME MORE and NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH but not as inspiring as IT WON'T BE LONG NOW and best of all, scoring 900, GREAT STUFF BIG BOY! Harry's turn: he bent down and hauled the handles up and up, past 400, 500, 600, up to 700. HOW DO YOU GET THAT WAY? Harry let go and flexed his muscles, mirroring the strongman on the dial.

"I'd better be getting back," said Audrey.

They found Mr Dean drinking with Tom's father in the pier bar.

"It's getting late," said Henry Dean.

"Yes, the pier will be closing soon," said Pierrot.

Tom and the entertainer walked the girl and her father as far as the tollbooths at the landward end of the pier and wished them goodnight.

"You're really sleeping on the pier?" Audrey asked.

"We often do in the summer," said Pierrot. "I hardly leave the pier at all in the summer. Goodnight!"

Audrey and her father headed off to catch the tram down Beach Road and Harry Snowball went with them; while Tom watched them go, remembering what the test-your-strength machine had told him: ONLY THE STRONG DESERVE THE FAIR! Then father and son returned along the planking, past the pavilion – home to Herr Kändt's German Band since 1929 – and the ballroom, the Soda Fountain and the old Joy Wheel house, to the original Palace Pavilion and the pierrot room on the first floor.

A few stragglers remained in the kiosks and along the deck; but the sun had set, night was falling, and the lights of Seahaven glittered on the downs and along the coast in both directions.

He couldn't sleep. What was it? A ghost? Dick Cordon perhaps or Captain Slingsby, the ventriloquist, come looking for him in the palace at the end of the pier. Creak-creak, creak-creak. Tom tossed and turned, now facing the wall, now his own dark agitated figure reflected in the big mirror opposite, unable to sleep with the waves sploshing beneath his pillow and the lone bell-buoy tolling out in the darkness: ting-ting, ting-ting. Why tonight? Something else disturbed him perhaps, made him hear whispers in the night and footsteps on the old pavilion stairs, resurrecting all the ghosts of medieval Shipley from beneath the waves. For Shipley disappeared beneath the ocean some five hundred years ago, washed away by a storm. But sometimes the drowned returned – they had been seen some nights, ghosts in medieval rags walking on the pier. Creak-creak, creak-creak. Or perhaps it was the Irishman, Dick Cordon, impresario during the pier's hey-day fifty years earlier. He had been seen too, aghast at the changes made during his absence perhaps: gone the great theatre where he had presided for so many years; gone the old library and the gentleman's lounge; and gone too the Hurry Scurry, the Switchback or 'Alpine Railway', the waterchute and the Bioscope Theatre. Old programs and broadsheets on the walls remained as testaments to the glories of the past: Dick Cordon and George Gilbert present their Fourth Annual Pantomime: THE SCARLET GOBLIN. SONG DANCE LAUGHTER ROMANCE. A REAL FAIRY PANTOMIME. And: An Entire Change of Entertainment: The LLOYDS AT HOME! FACTS & FANCIES. Rapid changes of character will be sustained by Mr Lloyd and Mr Fred Lloyd, featuring as Aldolphus Smasher, Lord Fitzyawn, Mr Smuggins and Madame Rouge et Noir. And: SEAHAVEN PIER. Francis Lawe in "Koffo of Bond Street". Supported by full Company of London Artistes.

They had all come to Seahaven in the old days. Lily Langtry, Harry Lauder, Arthur Randal and Mary Roberts, Alfred Graves, the great Lion Comique, and Dan Pellissier's 'Evening Follies', the original and the best!

Creak-creak.

Who was there, who? Dick or Slingsby or all the ghosts of Shipley, come looking for him in the palace at the end of the pier.

But finally, tiredness overcame him, he shut his eyes and fell asleep inside the mirror.

The following morning he awoke early and joined Professor Narrowback in his shed above the lagoon.

"Good morning, Professor!"

"Morning, Tom. Sleep well?"

"No, the ghosts kept me awake."

"Old Cordon, eh?"

The Professor made tea and they sat outside the shed looking out over the lagoon – between the old landing-stages and the main pier – towards the horizon. Tom often joined the Professor. They were old friends. As a boy, he had even considered becoming his apprentice, learning how to dive from the high-board, learning to 'fly the foam', which meant mounting a bicycle, riding down a steep ramp and flying off the end of the pier, or performing the 'wooden soldier' dive and plunging head first into the water with arms clapped tightly to his sides.

A sign above the lagoon read: Here today, Professor Narrowback and Miss April Victoria, The famous diving, swimming, and tank performers. He might have gone to the Olympics in his youth, might have become really famous; but, as it was, he played water-polo for Seahaven and performed in a gala every Monday night in the Knightstone Baths. A photograph on the shed wall showed the deep chamber of the old swimming-baths festooned with bunting and the deep sides packed with people . . .

"That was a nice girl you were with yesterday."

"Yes, she seems nice."

"You might fall in love."

"I don't know. She'll probably like Harry. All the girls like Harry."

"I know the name."

"She was quite a big star in her day. Yes, she lived here for many years."

How many years? Twenty? Thirty? First with Oberon Lightfoot, the film-star, then, after his death, with Jacob Atwill, the director. Here: she stood here at this window looking out over the English Channel, watching the ships pass; and here, she posed here in this long mirror watching the years pass, through all the years he hadn't known her – those years crouched in the back of the mirror, in all the mirrors of that tall house on top the cliffs. Here: she stood here on this balcony looking west towards Seahaven and east towards Roedean and all the lights of Brightstone, hearing the perpetual roar of the waves and the voices and the laughter of people passing along the undercliff far below. Thirty years. And yet she wasn't here today, now he had returned.

And someone else had returned too. He glanced briefly at the newspaper and the headline: "The Sparrow-mumbler returns to Seahaven. Girl 16 found murdered."

"Well, it's a beautiful house, Mr Fear."

"Yes. Yes, it is."

Tom moved in the following week.

He oversaw the bringing in of his moveables and, the first evening, went out along to the end of the road, to a red telephone box. He flicked through the phonebook to S, found the number he wanted, and called:

"Hello?"

"Harry? It's Tom. Tom Fear."

"Oh. Tom."

"I've just moved. I'm not far from Seahaven. A house on Telscombe Cliffs."

"It's been a long time."

"Twenty-five years. I wonder if I might see you. Perhaps we can meet in town."

Voices in the background. A woman's voice, a child's voice; a cartoon on the television – loud strident music, a screech of brakes, a gale of evil-sounding laughter.

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure I want to see you, Tom."

Pause.

"Oh. Well, that's all right. But think about it. I'll call back. I'd really like to see you again, Harry."

He walked back along the road, past the white and blue and cream bungalows – all the houses were bungalows there, except Telscombe House at the end, near the chain-link fence which separated the cul-de-sac from the green cliff-top. A neighbour nodded as he passed and Tom wondered how long he had lived there. Had he known Audrey?