“Every now and then it’s good to experience uncomfortable things.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted the green man leave a set of traffic lights to rescue a broken beam of light landed outside a betting shop. A frail woman stood beside the cinema handing leaflets to people. I tried to recall the last time someone disguised as somebody ordinary handed me a leaflet.
Finally we entered the large grounds of the Horniman Museum. A concrete path snaked its way through the middle, separating spotless areas of grass that bore a wet sheen. Wooden benches were sparsely dotted around. The gardens had been sectioned off due to renovations. Threading our way through mothers pushing prams, lovers casually meandering and the odd group of school children bunking off, we eyed the distant, sprawling green longingly. The air was cool and crisp. A white Victorian cast iron conservatory perched resplendently, accustomed to the gasps of appreciation coating its windows. Magical, it looked, as if a breath over the blueprint had instantly brought it to life. At the main entrance a rush of heat hit us, sweeping our grateful bodies. A flash of white wall greeted us inside as other bodies dripped back and forth to the reception area, where a woman in her late twenties took enquiries. The wooden floors gleamed so brilliantly you could pet reflections in them. In my mind’s eye I saw a scrawny immigrant woman flitting about efficiently at the crack of dawn, only to be rendered invisible by the time the harsh glare of the morning light had arrived.
Mrs Harris unzipped her raincoat, slung it over her left arm and blew a breath out slowly. “Do you want to ask for your acquaintance now?”
“Naw,” I answered, rocking restlessly from one foot to the other and swallowing a feeling of anxiety, a stone in my throat. “Let’s take a look around first.”
I’d been carrying the brass head around a lot, torn between wanting the option of getting rid of it at a moment’s notice and a fear that doing so would mean some terrible thing would happen.
We headed downstairs and wandered through rooms with subdued lighting housing different exhibitions. One held odd, foreign instruments made out of things like a can, strings and part of a saddle, as well as ancient harps, flutes, and guitars. Another was a photographic exhibition on birth and death. Images of new born babies held up to the camera’s eye and those of the sick who were fading, the tired lines on their faces plotting to sink into the taut skin of other bodies. In one I saw my own mother holding me up as a baby in one frame. Her Afro hair dented unevenly from leaning back against a pillow. I had barely any hair and my eyes were unfocused as though trying to adapt to seeing.
I edged forward hypnotised, tugged Mrs Harris along.
“Did you see that?” I asked, pointing at the black-framed picture on the wall.
“No. What am I supposed to have seen?” She answered, curiosity etched on her features.
Up close, the picture had changed. Another mother and daughter were now depicted holding each other with their faces pressed together laughing. They looked so happy, so assured of their time together. I felt foolish, cheated and sad all at once. A pain tore through my chest, a sneaky stroke from someone using a heated, metal spoke to poke from the inside.
“Nothing.” I muttered, silently admonishing myself. “I thought I saw my mother and I keep seeing things…”
Tears sprang. I blinked them away. I envisioned the exhibitions in their well-kept prisons breaking free one day, wandering the floors uninhibited, marching to a melancholy tune the instruments played that nobody knew the lyrics to. Mrs Harris ushered me away, threw an arm around my back offhandedly in a way that gave the impression she’d been doing it for years. “Don’t worry.” She said reassuringly. “I think this is part of the process, being confronted by memories when you least expect it.”
“It’s impossible for anybody to remember that far back.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you’re a rare case. It could be an old photo your mum had resurfacing. The mind can distort things when we experience extremes of emotion.”
“Could be,” I replied, mulling over the idea. “Only I don’t remember seeing a picture like that.” As we moved away, I peered back suspiciously at the framed offender taunting me. Now my mother had a large opening in her chest. In the top right corner of the frame, a bloody heart floated down slowly until it obscured most of my baby face.
Beneath the painted deception were lights acting as third eyes. Behind panels of glass tall, dark wooden cabinets housed all sorts of oddities: a large jar of tightly packed moles, feet curled against each other and eyes squeezed shut. Then an ostrich’s heart that was formed like a white baby octopus, glimmered, catching fractions of light. Varying sizes of monkey brains floated ominously in off-yellow liquid, threatening to enter our heads. In one corner on its own, was an elephant’s heart, bulbous and thick, bearing veins that shot around stunted rivers of dismay. A skeleton of a flying bat was still in its stripped beauty. A copper toned infant aardvark lay curled in its glass womb. Mrs Harris splayed her hand emanating warmth against the glass, leaving a wet impression from her blue sweatshirt sleeve. I thought I saw the baby aardvark uncurl and suckle on the watermark as we passed.
We roamed, blowing onto glass surfaces grey tunnels of breath that quickly evaporated. We stitched a strange tapestry of fingerprints, ums and ahs, hurried, excited sentences that ran into each other until one started and another finished the observation. We spotted the butterflies just as broken laughter filtered through, an indoor sun in disguise. There were thousands displayed in glass cabinets. Tiny slithers given fallen bits of rainbows as wings. Their names made me think of exotic places; Sapho Longwing, Banded Peacock, Orchard Swallowtail, Banded Orange Heliconia, Question Mark, Juonia Coenia, Spicebush Swallowtail, Battis Polydamas Antiqus, White Admiral and Silver Washed Fritillary amongst many others. I couldn’t decide which one I was but they made me think of things in flight and how devastating it was to fly with one broken wing. I sensed Mrs Harris at my shoulder. “Ahh,” she said with a smile in her voice. “You’re a butterfly, I thought so.”
I bent down for a closer view. “Magical things aren’t they?”
“That they are, creatures of wonder. Do you know about the cycles of a butterfly?” She asked, wiping away the damp map that was receding into her raincoat.
“No.” I answered, feeling slightly ignorant. The butterflies, swirls of colour, began to flutter their wings in the whites of my eyes.
“There are four stages.” Mrs Harris continued. “The egg, caterpillar, pupa or chrysalis and finally the adult stage. You my dear are in the pupa stage.”
“What happens in that stage?” I enquired.
“This is the thing!” She waved her finger animatedly as her voice rose. “It feels as though nothing’s taking place because you feel suspended, but major things are happening internally and externally. Things buried inside you forming eyes and wings.”
I nodded, drawn in by the sudden intensity emanating from her spritely, small body.
“It’s a shame though,” I retorted. “They have such a short life span.”
She pulled me closer secretively. White tendrils of hair had escaped the loose bun she’d curbed her mane into. There was a hole at the front of her sweatshirt you could poke a finger in. “Flawed, mad butterflies grow extra wings,” she said. “Even after they die, they come back reborn.” A weird expression clouded her face and there was a wild gleam in her eyes as she straightened her body. For a moment she appeared wizard-like, dancing on some detached edge, dressed in pauper clothing to accompany a friend on a museum trip.
By the time we’d gone round twice I was still paranoid. I stood in a corner next to a baby Quagg skeleton I knew was breathing echoes down into my eardrums. I flickered like a light bulb low on wattage, suspicious of more sinister hallucinations winging their way towards me, flanked by bits of night in jarring shapes. A film of sweat lined my upper lip. I eyed things warily; a trouser pocket of a passerby, a museum brochure in the large hands of an imposing security guard, dusty windowpanes, velvet curtains hiding shadows, a woman’s exposed collarbone. Mrs Harris appeared oblivious to this, steering a running commentary on everything. In a way it helped.