The Palace of Curiosities. Rosie Garland

I quivered under its chilly stroke, stranger than the licking of a cat. The blade came away loaded with scum, and more. With each scrape the water grew dirtier, clogged with brown silky threads which collected in thick clots. I grew cold. When she finished, she kissed me and tickled my hairless chin.

      ‘Now you’re my pretty girl, my real girl, the girl I should have got, the one who loves her mama and will never leave her side.’

      That night, Donkey-Skin visited me as I undressed for sleep.

      ‘Mama’s made me pretty,’ I sang, spinning in a circle to show off my new nakedness.

      Pretty? she snorted. She’s made you ordinary.

      ‘Mama told me I am a real girl now. It must be true.’

       You look like all the rest of them: simpering, feeble, wet-wristed, snickery-whickery, snappy-snippy little girls made of milk and money.

      ‘Then what is a real girl, Donkey-Skin?’

       It’s a long story. I have plenty of answers. We have time.

      Every week Mama shaved me. When I was old enough, I said no. She did it anyway. I grew and still she shaved me naked, until I was tall enough to smack the razor from her hand.

      ‘You’ll look like an animal,’ she wept. ‘Is that what you want?’

      I stood in front of the looking-glass and admired myself. My moustache wormed across my lip, the tips lost in the crease behind my ears. My eyebrows met over the bridge of my nose and spread like wings up the side of my forehead. My chin sprouted a beard the colour of combed flax, reaching to my little breasts.

      You are my very own princess stuck in the tower, whispered Donkey-Skin.

      I laughed. ‘A very small tower!’

      Donkey-Skin tugged my moustache.

       I will spin you into gold. Weave a happy ending with a handsome prince …

      ‘I will weave my own story,’ I replied, and she smiled.

      ‘Listen to you talking to yourself!’ cried Mama. She wiped her nose. ‘Look at you,’ she sneered. ‘You’re not even human.’

      I stuck out my chin and my beard swung backwards and forwards.

      ‘I know that I am different. How could I not? If God intended me to be this hairy, I shall find out the reason, however long it takes me.’

      ‘Do you think this is a game? You’re only safe out there on the streets because I make you look like a real girl.’

      I crossed my arms.

      ‘People know who I am. Whatever I look like, they’ll say, There goes Eve, Maggie’s daughter.’

      ‘You are stupider than you look. And you look particularly stupid. Can’t you see my way is better?’

      ‘I shall prove you wrong,’ I said. ‘Today, I shall take the air.’

      I opened the door and stepped into fog as thick as oatmeal. Dim hulks of buildings swam towards me as I strolled along the pavement. No one pointed at me. Shadows tiptoed past, hands on the wall like blind beggars, and at first I was comforted by the thought that I was walking unseen, and therefore in safety. This soon changed to frustration: I would have no proof that our neighbours did not care what I looked like. I wanted to show Mama that I could be seen and accepted.

      I kept walking, picking my way carefully, and did not realise how far I had come until the gate of the Zoological Gardens gaped before me. I strode past the ticket office, and smiled at saving sixpence. The mist had cleared a little and I found myself in front of the lion’s cage. The great cat lolled within. A raven pecked at its beard.

      The dark form of a man appeared next to me. He lifted his arm and threw a stone at the lion. It bounced off the animal’s head.

      ‘Oh, Harold, don’t carry on so,’ said a woman’s voice.

      His answer was to throw another.

      ‘Oh, Harold,’ she simpered.

      A small crowd began to gather. More stones were thrown, until the lion was surrounded by a ring of pebbles. It continued to ignore us. Then a boy spotted me.

      ‘Hey, look!’ he squealed. ‘Look at that, will you!’

      Every nose swivelled to follow the compass point of his finger. There was a pause. I smiled. What better place to prove I was no animal than here, where the dividing line was drawn so clearly? They were in cages, and I was not. The mist grew thinner. I held my breath as it peeled away.

      ‘Oh, Lord, will you look at that,’ said the first of them.

      ‘That’s not right.’

      ‘It’s not decent.’

      ‘If that were mine I’d never let it out.’

      ‘If that were mine, I’ve never of had it, if you get my meaning.’

      Their eyes poked knitting needles at me. I took a step backwards and felt the bars of the cage.

      ‘Shouldn’t be allowed out. Should hide itself away from decent folk.’

      ‘Mind you,’ chirped one wag, ‘right place for it, ain’t it? You know, the zoo, like,’ he said, in case they missed the joke.

      They did not. There was a rattling of unpleasant laughter.

      ‘Here, monkey. You a monkey or what?’

      ‘Even a monkey ain’t that hairy.’

      ‘It’s a dog.’

      ‘Nah. Dog is man’s best friend. It ain’t no friend of mine.’

      ‘Perhaps it’s an exhibit got out of its cage.’

      ‘Can’t see no park-keepers,’ one growled.

      There was another pause as they ran out of amusing things to say. A boy bent down, picked up a stone and let it fly in my direction. It was weakly thrown and wide of the mark, in that way of first stones. I waited to see if anyone would tell him off. No-one spoke. In their eyes I read drowned cats, kicked dogs, rabbits skinned alive. I saw my own pelt stripped off and spread like a rug before the kitchen fire.

      There was no point in searching for escape. The moment I looked away I would be piled up with rocks high as a hill. The cage pressed its bars into my back, too narrow to slip through. Then I felt the sweltering breath of the lion on my neck. I waited for its claws to rake me open, but instead my skin was sandpapered with a tongue the size of my foot.

      ‘Look! Even the bloody lion thinks it’s a cub!’

      ‘Freak!’

      The stones had started as a drizzle, but now turned to rain, bouncing off the bars. One hit the lion on the face, and its roar boomed like thunder over the heads of the mob, which turned and ran. I reached into its prison and scratched the top of its head. A purr rumbled in its throat. A man in a peaked cap came running up to the enclosure.

      ‘You bothering my lion?’ he panted; then he saw my face and stepped away. ‘Oh. Sorry, miss.’

      ‘I won’t bite you,’ I said, but he muttered an excuse and left.

      I did not cry. I would not shed tears. I took myself back home bent double with my shawl tied round my head. Mama did not say a word, but she smiled for the first time in many months.

      Donkey-Skin was my only comfort. She called me all the names they shouted; all the cruelties made of words. Hours and hours we played the game; for days, for weeks, for years; until the words were mine again, and I was not just bitch, but the queen of all the bitches: not just freak, but empress of all the freakish, with a dazzling crown.

      She told me new stories: of a prince clever enough to spot a princess