Читать книгу Mr Thundermug - Cornelius Medvei - Страница 7

NOBODY ever established where it was that the baboon came from, or what had brought him to this unnatural habitat. The basic facts are confusing – clearly, baboons are not native to this region; but, on the other hand, Mr Thundermug spoke our language perfectly, with no trace of an accent, and there is no evidence that he knew any foreign languages.

There were in fact numerous theories as to the baboon's origins, but it was impossible to know which, if any, was true; all they had in common was their lack of supporting evidence. This in itself was not surprising, as our city excels in the manufacture of rumours. Nevertheless, the theories I heard were so often attributed, at various removes, to Mr Thundermug himself, that I began to think the baboon must have taken a perverse delight in providing contradictory accounts of his origins – tailored perhaps to his mood and the company.

There was, for example, the romantic account, in which he and his wife, after a night of love in the open air, had crept away to sleep in a basket which they stumbled on among the dry grasses: it was the basket of a weather balloon that was to be launched the following morning. Their presence went unnoticed at the launch, but once in the air the extra weight of the two baboons drove it off course and instead of going into orbit, as it should have done, the balloon drifted among the clouds until it came to rest somewhere in the vicinity of our city. Then there was the scientific account, according to which the baboon had been created in a laboratory by a renegade professor who stole stuffed animals from museums and brought them to life with a combination of injections and electric shocks.

Perhaps there was a germ of truth in one of these stories, but if so it was well concealed, and so Mr Thundermug's origins remain a mystery. No one ever mentioned the most obvious explanation, that the baboon and his family had simply escaped from a nearby zoo; in any case, it must be ruled out, since most of the zoos in the district had no baboons in their monkey houses, and the two that did never reported any animals missing.

The house occupied by the family was much like the others in the street: it had a roof of black tiles, overhanging eaves, shuttered windows and a balcony. An untidy assortment of potted plants softened the lines of the front step. The woodwork needed painting; the place had been empty until the baboons arrived.

The house was known as Crofty Creek, a name that seemed so odd to me, when I first came across it in a newspaper report, that I was sure it must be a misprint. When I visited the house, though, I saw to the right of the front door a tarnished brass plate bearing the name in capital letters, exactly as spelt in the newspaper. This was odd enough, but I discovered later that the house appears in the records of the City Council only under its number in the street – there is no mention of a name. Perhaps ‘Crofty Creek’ was a name of Mr Thundermug's own invention.

Of course, there are many empty houses in our city, but I like to think that the baboon chose Crofty Creek out of all the others because of its proximity to a row of banana trees, which grew outside a police station near the east gate of the city. They had been planted on the order of the chief of police, so that on wet days incarcerated criminals could meditate on the sound made by the water battering the huge leaves.

I imagine the baboons' arrival during one of those violent cloudbursts which are so common here during the summer months: they would have picked their way through the suddenly deserted streets, dismayed by the chilly gusts of spray and the water running round their ankles, until they passed under the banana trees, and the raindrops rattled on the leaves with such a dreadful noise that they were moved to look for shelter. They did not go into the police station itself, which was full of policemen, but into the empty house a little way down the street: this was Crofty Creek.

As it happens, the house was not only empty but condemned, due to an infestation of cockroaches which nobody had been able to eradicate. But this would not have deterred the baboons: on the contrary, it was a convenient supply of nourishment. As the rain poured down outside there was a terrible noise of stamping and clattering, and the rustling of alarmed cockroaches. Scrambling up the creaking stairs, over the dusty floorboards, the baboons hunted the little insects all over the house, and soon they had collected enough for a substantial meal. They ate squatting on the kitchen table. Then, tired from their journey, their stomachs laden with cockroaches, they crept upstairs and fell asleep in the bath.