‘These sweeties aren’t too bad,’ said Norman. ‘They taste almost meaty.

‘Shut up!’ said the Doveston, elbowing Norman. ‘Please continue, uncle.’

‘Thank you, Berty. As I say, we search and search, but mostly in vain. And maybe that is for the best. Maybe it is better to search than actually to find.’

‘How can that be?’ the Doveston asked. ‘If you want something, it’s better to get it than to not get it.’

‘You may be right, but I have not found this to be the case. Quite the’ reverse, in fact. You see, I found what I was looking for and I wish that I never had.’

The old showman paused, drew out his snuffbox and favoured his nostrils with Crawford’s Imperial. ‘I travelled with the carnival in India,’ he continued, ‘where I hoped to encounter a fakir who had mastered the now legendary rope trick. But I found something more wonderful than this. Something that I wanted, wanted more than I have ever wanted anything. Something, did I say? Someone. She was a temple dancer, so beautiful and perfect as to overwhelm the heart. She moved with such grace that it made you weep to watch her and when she sang it was with the tongue of an angel.

‘I knew at once that if I could persuade this beautiful creature to travel with me and perform around the world, my fortune would be made. The men of the West would fall at her feet. There would be fame and there would be fortune.’

‘And was there?’ asked Norman.

‘I’ll thump you,’ said the Doveston.

‘Fame?’ said the professor. ‘Infamy, more like. I sought out the guardians of this girl. The villagers were not eager to tell me, but I bribed a few with strong liquor and the hut was pointed out to me.

A rude dwelling it was, nothing more than mud and reeds, filthy and wretched. I knocked and entered and there found an ancient fellow sucking upon a narghile. This old body spoke no English and so I conversed with him in his own tongue. I speak more than forty languages and I was able to make myself understood.

‘I informed him that I was an emissary sent by Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, who wished to honour the beautiful dancer of whom she had heard so much.’

‘You lied to him,’ said Norman.

‘Yes, Norman, I lied. I said that the Queen of England wished to meet her in person. I was greedy for this girl. I would have said anything. The old man wept greatly. He said that the girl was his granddaughter and that she was one favoured by the Gods. I agreed that she was very beautiful, but he said that this was not what he meant. She had been chosen by the Gods. He said that, as a girl, she had been sleeping beneath a sacred bodhi tree and she had been bitten by a king cobra.’

‘I hate snakes,’ said Norman. ‘There was this boy in Hanwell who slept in the park with his mouth open and—’

Smack went the Doveston’s hand.

‘Ouch, you bastard,’ went Norman.

‘The bite of the king cobra is fatal,’ said the professor. ‘But the girl did not die. The people of the village took this to be a sign that she was one blessed of the Gods. Possibly even a Goddess herself. Naturally, as a civilized Englishman, I scorned such nonsense, but I told the old man that Queen Victoria too was a Goddess and that she wished to meet one of her own. The old man could not bear to see the girl go, he pleaded and pleaded and I lied and lied. The girl would soon return, I said, with great riches, bestowed upon her by the Goddess Queen. He did perk up a bit at this. But he said that the girl must be returned to him before six months were up, because she was to sing at some religious festival or another. I readily agreed.

‘And so I took the girl from him. Her name was Naja and I determined that I would make that name world famous. We toured up through Persia to Asia, from Greece into Europe, and everywhere she sang and danced the crowds went wild. We played before crowned heads and were entertained in palaces and by the time we reached the shores of England I had no doubt at all that she would actually meet with Queen Victoria.’

‘And did she?’ Norman asked.

‘No, Norman, she did not. Five months had passed and Naja wanted to return home. I told her that she should soon meet the great Queen and that then I would take her back to her people. But of course I had no intention of doing that. You see, I had fallen hopelessly in love with her. I desired her. I wanted to possess her totally. Naja began to pine. She grew pale and drawn and would not eat. She would lock herself in her caravan and refuse to come out and she grew sicker with each passing day. I tended to her as best I could, but I watched with growing horror as her beautiful face drained of its beauty, as lines formed about her wonderful eyes and the voice that had been so, so sweet became a cracked whisper.

‘I called for physicians to aid her back to health, but these learned men examined her and shook their heads. There was nothing that could be done.’

‘So, she snuffed it, did she?’ said Norman.

‘No, Norman, she did not snuff it. She went home.’

‘That’s a pretty crappy story,’ said Norman. ‘And a pretty cop-out ending.’

‘Oh, it’s not the end.’ Professor Merlin shook his ancient head. ‘It’s not the end at all. I sat beside her bed and watched helplessly as she slipped away from me. I watched as that faultless skin began to wrinkle up and lose its colour and those eyes grow dim. She begged me to leave her alone, but I refused. I realized what I had done; how, in my greed, I had brought her to this. And then one night it happened.’

‘She did die,’ Norman said.

‘She screamed!’ cried the professor, making Norman all but wet himself. ‘She screamed and she began to writhe about on the bed. She tore the covers from her and she tore away her nightdress. I tried to hold her down, but as I did so she fought free of my grip and it happened. Her skin began to come apart; right before my eyes, it fell away. She rose up before me on the bed and shed her skin. It fell in a crumpled heap and she stepped from it, beautiful, renewed and naked. I staggered from the shock and fainted dead away and when I awoke the next morning she was gone. She had left a note for me and when I read it I truly realized the evil thing that I had done in taking her away from her village.

‘You see, she was sworn to the Gods. When as a child she had been bitten by the king cobra her mother had prayed to Shiva, offering her own life in exchange for that of her daughter. The Most High must have heard her prayers and taken pity upon her. The mother died, but the child survived. But the child was now the property of the Gods and from that day on she never aged. Each year she shed her skin and emerged new born. The old man in the village was not her grandfather, he was her younger brother.

‘She had taken all the money I had made from displaying her and bought a passage back to India. I made no attempt to follow her. For all I know, she is probably to this day still in her village. Still as beautiful and young as ever. I will never return there and I pray that no other Westerner will.’

We lads had finished our cigarettes and sat there struck dumb by this incredible tale.

Norman, however, was not struck dumb for long. ‘That’s quite a story,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity you can’t prove any of it.’

‘But you have your proof,’ said the professor.

‘What? That the story is true because you say it is?’

‘What more proof should you need?’

‘You could show us the skin.’

‘But I have.’

‘No you haven’t,’ said Norman.

‘Oh indeed, my boy, I have. I had the skin tanned and made into a box. The one you’ve been eating the sweeties from.’

I had never seen projectile vomiting before and I do have to tell you that I was impressed. Norman staggered grey-faced from the caravan and fled across the fairground.