The Memory of Blood(51)

‘He’s talking about those.’ Bryant pointed to a series of dusty cases on crimson-painted pedestals. ‘Go on, take a look.’

May made his way carefully across the room and wiped the dust from the glass with his sleeve.

‘They were created for Queen Victoria in 1865,’ Salterton told them. ‘The height of the British Empire. They’ve been in our family ever since then. Some shyster from Sotheby’s offered to put them up for auction, but I sent him away with a flea in his ear.’

May found himself looking at a collection of Punch & Judy puppets. The full cast included Punch, Judy, their Baby, the Beadle, Scaramouche, Toby—a real stuffed dog in its ruff collar—Pretty Poll, a pointy-haired Clown, a Courtier with an extending neck, an Archer, the Police Constable, the sinister Doctor, Jim Crow the Black Servant, the Tradesman, the Distinguished Foreigner, the Alligator, the Blind Man, the Ghost, Jack Ketch the Hangman, Mephisto, the Devil and, finally, Death himself.

‘We think it’s probably the most complete collection in the world,’ Salterton said. ‘The puppets got passed down from father to son, and each puppet master took on the royal coat of arms as the Queen’s official Punch and Judy man, hired to perform before the children of nobles and heads of state whenever they came to visit Windsor Castle.’ In the light of the puppet cases, Salterton seemed younger. His enthusiasm regenerated him. ‘Everyone recognises certain iconic figures, whether they’re real or fictional. The devil with red horns and a tail, Napoleon with his hat, Alice in her blue dress, Nelson with his eye patch, the Knave of Hearts and Harlequin—and to those you can add Mr Punch here. It’s the striped peascod doublet he wears that gives him the funny shape. He was once played by a live actor—Italian, of course, Punchinello, related to Don Juan—but he was really born in 1649. Then he became a wooden puppet, dancing about in his tall box opposite the Louvre.’

‘Dudley Salterton has a secret,’ Bryant told May. ‘He’s the world’s leading authority on Punch and Judy.’

‘Mammet,’ said Salterton softly. ‘It was the Elizabethan word for a puppet or idol. From Mahomet.’ He unlocked one of the cases and carefully removed a Mr Punch, lovingly picking off specks of dust and stroking it like a puppy. ‘He’s always dressed in red and yellow, and you always see his legs. Everyone else in the show only appears from the waist up. The sets are here, too. Everything from Hampton Court Palace to the Bay of Naples. And props: Punch’s drum, his beating-stick, his sheep-bell, the string of sausages and the gallows.’

May was beguiled and puzzled in equal measure. ‘I don’t understand Punch and Judy. It just seems to be all yelling and hitting.’

‘The second commandment of the God of the Israelites was levelled against the power of the puppet. The dangerous thing about them, of course, is that they might become human. Many religious figurines were removed in the Reformation, but lived on as gargoyles carved into church walls and on misericords. Punch and Judy is a morality play about the absence of morality,’ Salterton explained. ‘Marionette players were banned by Oliver Cromwell, because many puppets have pagan histories. The Clown was originally Momus, the Harlequin was Mercury. We think Punch got his name from Pulliceno, a turkey-cock—a creature with a resemblance to Punch and his beaked nose. But the French say it comes from Ponche, short for Pontius Pilate, a character represented as a marionette in mystery plays, brought back for Christians to ridicule. Many of the puppets in these cases first appeared in the shows given by Robert Powell, the great Punch exhibitor, outside St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden at fairs and market days. Punch is a clown, too, just as clowns look like puppets.’

‘If we understand Mr Punch, we start to get an insight into the mind of the murderer,’ interjected Bryant.

‘He follows a long line of low tricksters, from Pan to Loki to Puck. But it was when he came to England that Mr Punch showed his real nature—and it was one that reflected the bullish Englishman of the times. The first English shows were called Mr Punch’s Moral Drama, but Punch himself has no moral compass—he is nothing less than the ferocious spirit of England, condensed into a single creature. He’s a man of the world and selfish, as all men are. He’ll remove all obstacles in his way. This is what makes him so unique. He’s not seeking revenge, he’s not righting wrongs—he kills because he can, because others annoy him or block his path, and as he climbs the scale of adversaries, he finds himself unstoppable. He’s a working-class man made good. And he can be whoever you want him to be—a Quaker, a Republican, a Conformist, a Warrior, a Rake, Jupiter, Fate itself. In France he has a cat, in China he has a dragon. Sometimes in England he rode a white horse. But he must always triumph.’