Page 1 of The Midnight Carousel

On the outskirts of Paris, where factories and foundries bustle by day, there is silence at night.

From the city’s port to a patch of wild scrubland near the shabbiest slum, fog creeps between deserted industrial buildings.

Tools hang on hooks; looms lie idle. Furnaces and carts, pulleys and cogs, are shrouded by dark and an eerie stillness.

Halfway along a gravel track flanked by large wooden sheds sits the carousel workshop, the single source of light for a quarter-mile around.

Inside, hot air roars like dragon’s breath as Gilbert Cloutier guides the flame of a blow torch.

Metalwork is not his speciality, but soon lengths of hollow pipe are welded into shape.

The burning steel smells; grey smoke fills the air.

Taking an oak-handled engraver, he leans in and begins to etch a pattern of swirls on the cooling surface.

After hours of intense concentration, Gilbert is groggy; his eyes droop.

With a clang, the tool falls to the stone floor, disturbing a party of squeaking rats from behind the drilling machine.

Nausea rises in his stomach as the room spins.

The wood pile blurs into the mahogany filing cabinet. A pile of paint tins judders.

Waiting until the dizziness clears, Gilbert shuffles to the tap.

He splashes his face, rubs trickles through his hair.

Cold, the water wakes him. He would like to unroll his sleeping mat and curl up in the corner, but he needs to push through the exhaustion.

Gilbert made a promise to his son, and he intends to keep it.

With Liliane lying dead in the room next door– thankfully never aware that she had transmitted the influenza to their beloved child– Gilbert had perched on Théo’s bed, silently praying for a miracle.

Despite being pale, drenched in a feverish sweat, the boy was as fascinated as ever by the special carousel his father was building for the Exposition, and he summoned the strength to half open his eyes.

‘Please, Papa,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Please could you name one of the horses after me?’

Such a simple request. Simple, yet Gilbert discovered yesterday morning that time was running out.

Machines were being powered up when he was alerted by shouting to a meeting between his foreman, Antoine, and a handful of the workers. Keeping out of sight, Gilbert had listened in through the open doorway between his office and the main work area.

‘Right, let’s get down to business,’ Antoine announced. ‘Is the platform any nearer to completion, Olivier?’

‘So-so.’ Olivier’s deep voice matches his stature. Well-built and imposing, he heads up the mechanics team. ‘We still have to work out how the pieces slot together. This new design of Monsieur Cloutier’s is more complex than we’re used to.’

‘All I need to know is whether you’ll finish in time.’ Antoine sounded tired. ‘We received a letter from the Director of the Exposition this morning. He says that the carousel is expected there ten days before opening,’ Antoine continued. ‘The morning of April 4th. Will you be ready?’

There was a ripple of concern amongst the men.

When Gilbert initially spoke with the Exposition Committee, he had been told that the exhibits would be installed one week before the inauguration ceremony.

With less than a fortnight to go, segments of the carousel platform still needed to be welded together, the canopy painted and the controls wired.

Moving the schedule forward by three days could lead to the project’s being botched.

‘If the men work longer hours, possibly,’ Olivier responded. ‘But we will expect a fatter wage.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. But we do expect maximum effort to get it done.’ Antoine’s voice was clipped, as though he was trying to stifle his irritation. ‘It’s a matter of professional pride, after all. And don’t forget how important this is to Monsieur Cloutier. Under the circumstances.’

Gilbert was grateful for the foreman’s tactfulness. He did not need to hear the details spoken out loud.

‘We’re doing our best, Antoine, but we’re not miracle workers.’

‘And all we want is your best.’ Antoine’s voice softened. ‘Because your best is nothing short of perfection.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So we’re agreed. The platform is to be completed and at our Trial Ground for testing by April 2nd. Not a day later.’

This means Gilbert’s own deadline is also April 2nd, nine days from now.

Only if it is fully carved and painted will his horse be taken with the other parts, the components for the carousel of all carousels, to the Trial Ground situated at the furthest end of the track.

Tested, faults fixed, triple checked, the carousel will be disassembled, then reassembled at the Grand Palais in Paris, one of the sites of the Exposition.

Opening to loud applause on April 14th, 1900, delighting crowds for seven months, it will later be returned to the workshop. Or sold off by creditors.

Gilbert is up to his neck in debt. The opportunity to build the finest carousel in the world to outdo his fiercest competition– the Savage factory in England– for a once-in-a-lifetime event had seemed too good to miss.

It was his big chance, his one shot, to prove what the country boy was made of.

What a waste, he now realizes. The money, the stress, those overtime hours lost to the project– all that pushed his wife and son away, and can never be regained.

His fists clench at the thought, squeezing until his nails dig into flesh and relieve the pressure, like air being released from a bicycle tyre.

As the pink salute of dawn crawls through the dusty windows, Gilbert stumbles to his office, hiding away before the workforce arrive.

He nods a greeting to the portrait he painted of his family, hung above his desk, and salutes Théo’s tin soldiers.

Whereas they once pushed forward the glorious red, white and blue of the French Empire by fighting off barbarian hordes on the boy’s bedroom floor, all ninety-nine pieces of moulded metal– eleven for each year of his son’s short life– now stand silent guard over Gilbert’s work.

The scrutiny of their eyes is unwavering, and perhaps explains the unsettling sensation that he is always being observed.

He sits on a stool in front of a piece of woodwork.

As the owner of the enterprise, he long ago rose above the task of carving.

But this creation is a horse for his child.

Eyelids closed, his sensitive fingers explore the velvet folds of an ear, the hollows of nostrils, the curve of a forelock, finding bumps, sanding them down, fine sawdust falling to the ground.

Next, Gilbert unfolds the cloth protecting the chisels.

They stare up, glinting. He selects the quarter-inch blade, perfect for refining details of the eyes and mane.

With tiny, gentle hand movements, he carves grooves around the pupils, creating a small circle less than a hair’s-breadth deep.

It is delicate work but needs only patience and a steady eye, nothing his ailing muscles can’t bear.

Sawdust builds up in crevices and he blows it away, his dry lips cracking and his tongue tasting blood.

But he persists. Each scratch, each scrape, brings Gilbert closer to the final tasks: decorating the horse with paint, marking the individual hairs of the coat, the swirling mane, the vibrant saddle, followed by layers of lacquering.

It brings him closer to the finish line.

Suicide had been his first plan.

It was the priest at both funerals who convinced Gilbert it was not the way.

As he stood by the gravesides watching Théo’s tiny coffin being lowered next to his mother’s, Gilbert had clawed his hands, punched his thighs.

Through sobs that shook his body, he shouted that he was glad Liliane was dead, cold, and could feel none of this.

Concerned, the priest asked Gilbert to stay. They sat in the parlour, the priest letting him weep, uninterrupted. When afternoon turned to twilight, Gilbert was ready. Sugared tea soothed his throat and made him able to ask the question.

The eyes of that priest had been so kind, and now rounded like butter crêpes; then he frowned a frown so intense his eyebrows overhung his eyelids.

There was one answer, as clear-cut as the question: there was no way to end it all by his own hand.

Only natural causes of death would satisfy God.

Any other means and Gilbert would lose his place in Heaven, his only way back to his family.

It meant Gilbert was stuck here, festering, maybe for decades while his wife and only child waited.

Anger boiled inside Gilbert. Thwarted by God, thwarted by the priest as holy messenger, he had roared as he struck teacups, pulled books from the shelf, kicked out at the priest. The commotion caused the housemaid to fetch two burly gendarmes, who hauled him to a night in the cells.

Still fuming after his release the next day, Gilbert had stormed to the factory, dragged a huge lump of timber from the storeroom to his office and slammed the door shut.

When he sat on the stool in front of the hulk of wood one week later, the rough structure of a horse had already been formed.

Over the next few hours, he crafted a raised diamond shape on the forehead, then painted the letters of his son’s name, one along each side.

With his right wrist steadied by his left hand, he stilled the tremble and, holding his breath, marked the accent on the e with the fine hairs of the brush. There: the horse was christened Théo.

It was then that a thought popped up like a jack-in-the-box, both frightening and exhilarating: Gilbert would need another plan.