Page 59 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
‘Despite the impressive alliteration,’ he says with a laugh that turns serious, ‘I’ve been in my job for twenty years, I’m too old for change now.’
‘You already have changed. You wanted to charge visitors for picking a flower when you first arrived, now you’re voluntarily suggesting that we give away seeds and happily spending your evening building a beanstalk. You’re not the man you were two months ago, Warren Berrington.’
‘Ahh, this is by far the most fun I’ve had in ages.’ His jovial laugh sounds like he’s deliberately avoiding the implications of what I said. ‘The only thing I’m disappointed by is that I can’t actually climb it. Andpleasetell me that you’re going to put up a sign telling people not to do exactly that, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about your visitors, it’s that theywill.’
‘Of course. I’d love you to draw it actually. “Fee-fi-fo-fum, don’t wake the giant by climbing on the beanstalk!”’
He’s blushing again as he agrees, and I want to make the most of his artistic abilities while he’s here, because any signs will never look as good as he can make them once he’s gone.
The thought brings all sorts of other unpleasant thoughts to mind, about how much I’ve enjoyed his company recently and what the end of his tenure here will mean for the museum in a wider sense, as well as how much I’ll miss him. I try not to think about it while he goes back to poking holes through the magic beans to hang them up, and I wrap strips of paper around a pencil to make curly tendrils to pin onto the beanstalk.
Eventually I gather an armful of paper leaves with wire ties to tie them onto the vines, and he drops the beans and rushes over to help me, and I’m quite touched when he insists, even though I tell him that there isn’t much in this museum thathasn’tbeen constructed by me on a ladder with an armful of things.
‘Is there a Disney movie where the prince helps the princess up a ladder and then catches her heroically when she falls off?’ He takes the stack of leaves out of my hand and steadies the ladder while I climb to the top of it usingbothhands.
‘No, but it happens in every rom-com I’ve ever seen, so it counts.’ I get to a step where I can reach the ceiling and hold my hand out for him to give me the leaves back, but he shakes his head.
‘Let me help.’ He insists on standing beside me, holding the ladder so it doesn’t wobble every time I lean over to twist a wire tie around a vine, and passing everything up one by one so my hands are free to hold on, and it feels so nice to have that companionship and to be not-alone here. I know I could have roped Mickey or one of the others into helping me, but something special happens when it’s just me and Warren, alone here after dark.
‘Tell me something about you,’ I say as he hands me up a crepe paper bean flower.
‘I’ve already told you the biggest thing about me that I’ve never told anyone before. What else could you possibly want to know?’
‘I don’t know. Something weird and random that most people wouldn’t be privileged enough to know. Favourite food?’
‘Pizza. Ice cream. That is one after the other,nottogether.’
‘You really are just a kid in an adult-sized body, aren’t you?’
‘There is no age limit on enjoying pizza or ice cream, I’ll have you know.’ He hands me up a curled paper tendril and a pin to attach it with and seems to be thinking about something more revealing to share. ‘I collect Tamagotchis.’
The laugh is so surprising that I stab my own thumb with the pin. I don’t mean to laugh so hard, but I don’t know where he gets this knack for saying the most unexpected sentences at the most inopportune moments. ‘You can’t say things like that to a woman standing at the top of a ladder. YoucollectTamagotchis? The virtual pets? Those little blob things that were popular in the nineties? The things teachers confiscated in school so we had to leave in the care of our parents and beg them to feed our virtual pets while we were out? Do they even still make them?’
‘Yep. A Tamagotchi shop opened in London a couple of years ago. I go in and get another one every time I’m in the city for work.’ He gets his phone out of his pocket and I step down a couple of steps to see as he swipes his fingers across the screen a few times and hands it to me.
On the screen is a photo of a glass-fronted display cabinet, full of shelves filled with the colourful packaging of the flattened egg-shaped plastic toys that I honestly had no idea still existed. I zoom in on the photo and admire the vast selection he’s amassed and impressive colour coordination of the display, and the sheer unexpectedness of something so completely random that I can’t imagine what other surprises might be hiding under his serious façade.
I’m taller than him from my vantage point on the ladder, and his fingers brush against mine and linger as I hand the phone back, and I bite my lip as I look down at him. He’s clearly trying to fight embarrassment and probably wishing he hadn’t said anything.
‘How does a Tamagotchi collection start?’ I ask gently, because there’sgotto be a story there.
‘When I was young, I always wanted a dog. I begged my parents for one, but they would never agree.’ He puts the phone back in his pocket. ‘And then my dad bought me one of these instead, thinking it would shut me up about wanting a real pet. It didn’t work, of course, but he started bringing me one back every time he went away for work, which was often, like he thought that if I hadenoughvirtual pets, I’d eventually stop wanting a real dog. From my dad’s point of view, they served a practical purpose, but to me, it was the only toy I had that actually felt like a toy. After he died, I have an uncle in America who sent me one, a rare one you couldn’t get in this country that apparently my dad had asked him to get for me, and then I saw one the following year and something compelled me to buy it, and it just spiralled from there. It felt like a little nod from my dad every time I saw one. I guess I thought I’d share them with my own kids one day, but that hasn’t happened yet, so now I’m just an adult who collects a children’s toy and doesn’t share that with many people due to fear of ridicule.’
‘Do you play with them?’
‘Noooo. I mean, there are a couple that I’ve opened and started up, but then adult life calls and they die before I have time to look at them again, as is the common problem with being an adult – far too little time to play with toys.’
‘I agree. I think that’s one of the reasons I like working here so much – often it’s part of my job to put together Lego sets or build beanstalks.’ I wave a leaf around, and he reaches up to take it from my hand and leans across to tie it onto a vine at his height. ‘Did you ever get the dog?’
‘No. Another casualty of adult life. Since I’ve been old enough to have one without parental permission, I’m at work all the time and could never leave a dog alone for so many hours a day, so it’s another childhood dream left unfulfilled. Maybe when I retire.’
For someone who’s only forty-one, he spends ahellof a lot of time thinking about retirement. I can honestly say I’ve never even considered putting something off until such a distant time in the future. ‘That is probably the sweetest, most unexpected thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you for sharing that.’ I know I shouldn’t, but I’m at a height where my arms are level with his head and it’s too easy to reach out and run my fingers through his hair, brushing it flat where it got ruffled earlier and he hasn’t bothered to straighten it out, and his head tilts into my touch.
‘Thank you for not laughingtoohard.’ He smiles up at me like he doesn’t mind the hand in his hairat alland his eyes drift shut so I keep letting my fingers glide through the dark strands.
‘I was laughing at the unexpectedness of it, not at your collection. It’s nice to have a sentimental hobby like that. Marnie collects original Ladybird books, and Mickey collects… well, absolutely everything, but she runs a curiosity shop so that’s allowed, and—’ I gasp as an idea hits me out of nowhere. ‘Would you display them? Here?’
His eyes pop open and he remembers that my hands are in his hair and takes such a sharp step backwards that he nearly falls over the beanstalk planter. ‘What?’
