Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘They’d shoot you for that now.’

  ‘And that’s the truth. There are soldiers the other side of the London wall, and if you so much as put your head over, then they pop you off. Only last week someone was shot trying. Only the carts of rubbish can come in and out, and how they’re searched when they leave empty. No, there’s no use in trying, can’t get over.

  ‘I was but ten years old when the London constabulary returned me to Foulsham,’ concluded the coin. ‘Some Iremonger, he took charge and pennied me. Not so much to worry over is there now. I’d rather be a penny. I been about now well enough! I’ve been beyond!’

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ I cried. ‘What you have known and felt!’

  ‘Don’t pity us, do you?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘He pities us!’

  ‘Who’s he to pity?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘I’m just … I’m just so new to this. You know so much and, in truth, I so very little. I should very much like to learn. Are we lost then, quite lost?’

  ‘What a baby you are! Fresh minted I’d say. You don’t know nothing of anything, do you?’

  ‘Not much I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve seen the Tailor, the Tailor himself! I was in his pocket awhile.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘Oh, but I do say!’

  ‘The Tailor?’ I asked. ‘Who is the Tailor, if you please?’

  All gasped at me as if I’d said something quite unfathomable. Something of quite considerable ignorance.

  ‘You are dumb, ain’t you? Been sitting in silk pockets I shouldn’t wonder. You spent so long amongst worsted and tweed that you don’t know nothing of the real world, you’re that cushioned. Well, buck up, lad! You’re in Foulsham now, prepare to get dirty. I don’t know how you made it here, but now you’re here amongst us you’ll get good and scratched.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall,’ I said, ‘and I’m glad of your teaching. Who, please to tell, is the Tailor?’

  ‘WANTED FOR MURDER. That’s who. Him who the posters are all about, all of them with his name on it. He’s the spanner in the machine. He goes to a person with sharp scissors and he cuts at them and they all spill out. He’s here in Filching. Around us e’en now. Thick among us. He’s in every corner, and yet no one ever catches him.’

  ‘Is he really true, this Tailor?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly! Who asked you anyway, you great shiny bit? Who’s talking to you? Who are you to interrupt our meeting?’

  ‘How you do talk on so,’ I said. ‘I’ve never heard such talking from objects before.’

  ‘Money’s always talking, you yella lump. We’re always moving here and there, ever being spent, going from hand to hand, from place to place. We know more than anyone, we do. We see far more. We get about, we rootless ones. Everyone needs us, everyone wants us. But how comes you don’t know that? What were you anyway before you spruced up a sovereign?’

  ‘Yes, come on. We’ll have your story. What were you?’

  ‘Just a moment ago,’ I said, ‘I began to understand that I was in James Henry Hayward’s pocket. He was supposed to look after me. I’ve always been with James Henry, all my life, but now, it seems, we have become separated.’

  ‘You’ve been spent,’ some coin said.

  ‘I’ve been spent?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, you’ve been spent, you have.’

  ‘But why? Whatever for?’

  ‘For buns, I shouldn’t wonder, and for pies.’

  ‘He’s spent me for a bun, for a pie?’ I asked. ‘Why would he do such a thing?’

  ‘You’re worth many pies and buns you are. You’re all of a feast you are, with trimmings on the side. Because of you we lost half the drawer in change. There was a shilling giving us an excellent story before he was pulled out on a cause a you. So then, make up for it why don’t you. What’s your name? We like a story we do; we’ll spread it yonder all about here and there, sow it we shall. Come on then, give over. Your tale, your bit of property.’

  ‘Before I was a sovereign?’ I asked.

  ‘A half sovereign!’ called a penny. ‘Don’t get above yourself.’

  ‘Yes, quite right thank you. Before I was a half sovereign I was called Clod.’

  ‘Clod? What sort of a name is that. Clod? That don’t have the making of a half sovereign if you ask me.’

  ‘I lived in a big house with my family. I could see Filching.’

  ‘Foulsham we call it now, Foulsham since all the stinking black smoke came to us. Falling over the town.’

  ‘I could see Foulsham as you call it,’ I resumed, ‘in the distance, though I’d never been there, not actually. I wanted to … ’

  ‘Well you’re here now, ain’t you, chicken.’

  ‘In the thick of it, ain’t you.’

  ‘Clod? That’s not a name. What was your real name?’

  ‘Clodius,’ I said. ‘Clodius Iremonger.’

  That stopped them. They all suddenly clammed up. Not another murmur from any of them. Silent coins, as if that’s all they were, just coins, nothing more than coins, not coins made of turned people.

  ‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Hallo, talk with me won’t you? I knew someone from Filching. She was called Lucy Pennant. Have any of you heard of her? Come along, please. I do implore you. Lucy Pennant. She has red hair and is freckled all over. Do you know her? Might you help me? Please talk to me, please don’t shut up so.’

  But they never made another sound.

  The drawer was opened now and then and light was amongst us a moment, but I was not taken out. Other coins were and different ones plopped down in their place, and whenever a new one arrived, there was a quick warning call from the coins,

  ‘Iremonger! Among us!’

  And then afterwards only silence.

  I don’t know how long I was in the drawer but at last dark fingers plucked me out. I was rubbed on an apron and taken away.

  The Thief

  I was shoved in a pocket and taken from what I understood was a pieshop, out I supposed into Forlichingham, or Foulsham as they seemed to call it now.

  I was happy to be away from all those grim coins, though I supposed it must mean I was further away from James Henry. How far away from each other must we be before we both begin to suffer? I remembered then – everything rushing back to me – the poor wretch Alice Higgs, and Aunt Rosamud’s agony at losing her. There must be so many people lost from each other all over London, all those broken people, half people, missing their object, or lonely people not knowing why they feel so incomplete. And then, on top, all those people not people any more, all those people tumbling into things, and then no one to love them any more, no one to know who they are.

  There were such noises, such noises on the way! I heard them all, louder, ever louder: the cries of all the objects. Such calling from the things of Foulsham.

  ‘I was Georgie Brown afore now, here I am a boot scraper.’

  ‘Can you hear me? I’m a wicker basket!’

  ‘Me, me, I’m a flat cap.’

  ‘On the ground, over yonder, you hear me, I am a milk churn. Was Eve Bullen before time.’

  ‘Wheelbarrow, wheelbarrow, I was Edvard Pedersen.’

  ‘Am a sandwich board. I boast ALLBRIGHT’S ARTIFICIAL TEETH but before I was known Archie Stannard.’

  ‘I am a tooth! Am a false tooth what once was Annie Pugh.’

  ‘Oh, I’m a shoe now!’

  ‘A belt! A belt!’

  ‘Here I am Hamilton Foote but you shall not recognise me, I’m string only.’

  ‘I hear you!’ I cried. ‘I hear you all, poor devils that you are!’

  ‘He hears us!’

  ‘He hears us!’

  In a moment there were less voices, we’d moved somewhere more remote. I was suddenly out in the open again – the bakery girl, she can’t have been more than fifteen, her black fingers were holding me up to someone else. Such light, I could see, I could see o
ut and see clear. But now I was out and seeing and remembering more it seemed to me I heard in some new and strange way that I hadn’t before. Was it, perhaps, being an object that made me hear all the greater? There was a noise of something wailing somewhere, not words, just sounds, sounds like a new language, like something I’d never heard before. A naked strange sound, coming, I thought, from the girl, from deep within. How to explain it? There was a sound inside her wailing, so I understood it, that made the noise, ‘Thimble.’

  This girl was showing me to some shaven headed man in thick dirty leathers, he had that other sound about him too, but deeper and quieter. I heard it though, it said, ‘Steaming iron.’

  ‘I brought it,’ she said.

  ‘Give it up then,’ said the brute.

  ‘First you must give me back the candlestick you stole, the one that I think my mother became. You said you should, for a half sovereign, well I have it now. But I want the candlestick. You must return it, it’s my ma I think.’

  ‘I see the coin, but I don’t feel it. Hand over.’

  ‘The candlestick, I’ll have the candlestick first.’

  ‘The half sov.’

  I was passed over to thick crude hands, fingers sausage thick, and scarred and scuffed.

  ‘Now the candlestick,’ she said. ‘I must have it.’

  ‘Where’d you come by this anyhow, so great a sum? Did you steal it?’

  ‘It’s from a customer.’

  ‘Likely story. Who’ve you been entertaining in your slophouse?’

  ‘Please, please, the candlestick.’

  ‘Thimble,’ came the noise from within her again, though louder this time.

  ‘Who did you steal this from? You’ve lifted it from the till, I reckon. But hold on a minute now, hold back. Something is coming to me, yes it is. It looks familiar it does, now it seems I recollect it, I reckon it was mine all along and you filched it from me.’

  ‘Please, no, please, give me that candlestick, it’s all I want.’

  ‘You little thief.’

  ‘I did not steal it! Please, I’m begging you.’

  ‘Don’t you touch me, you cutpurse. I’ll call an Iremonger on you, just you see if I don’t.’

  ‘Where’s the candlestick? WHERE?’

  ‘Oh, let off! It’s gone, hasn’t it! Such a fuss over a candlestick. I sold it on a week ago. Now get off me or I swear I’ll hit you so hard you won’t wake till next week.’

  ‘Who did you sell it to? Where?’

  ‘I’m bored on this now, get lost.’

  ‘Thimble,’ came the under voice.

  ‘Ma! Ma! My own ma!’

  ‘Shut it, or I’ll strike.’

  ‘Give me my money back.’

  ‘Money, what money are you talking about? Never was none that I recall.’

  ‘My half sov!’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Please! Don’t do this! Please!’

  ‘Thimble.’

  ‘Help! Help me!’

  ‘Thimble!’

  ‘I’m not touching you.’

  ‘Help, oh help me!’

  ‘I tell you I’m not touching you!’

  It took but a moment and on the ground just where the girl had been standing before was a mere thimble. The poor little object let off a little steam on the ground, as if it were quite hot. Then I heard it whisper,

  ‘Annie, I’m Annie Nelson. Help me. Please help me.’

  ‘God ’ave mercy,’ the thief said, shaking himself as if he had a sudden ague, he ground the thimble in the mud with his boot, pushed me deep down into his leather pocket and rushed off.

  The Chemist

  The next I knew, I was being taken out again, out into the light and passed on to another hand. I was in a different shop. There were jars of strange things all around and, hanging from hooks in the ceiling, many dried herbs. There were new voices from objects calling out, they seemed to start shouting from every corner.

  ‘Chas Butler.’

  ‘Josef Singer.’

  ‘Anushka Dugal.’

  ‘Olive English.’

  ‘Francis Sullivan.’

  ‘Help me, I’m a bell jar!’

  ‘Over here! I’m Patrick Leary the tongue compressor. Help us, you can help us!’

  ‘Please! Please help! I’m a bleeding pan!’

  Those unhappy sounds were drowned by the thief addressing the chemist, ‘I need me some grinding for my pipe. I’ve ever such a headache.’

  The thief seemed very distracted and the noise inside him, ‘Steaming iron’, that much more confident.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the man behind the dusty counter. ‘Seven and six, or ha’p’orth.’

  ‘Ha’p’orth.’

  ‘I’ll make the measure.’

  ‘Don’t you fix it mind. I know your scales. Be generous, will you?’

  ‘Steaming iron.’

  ‘I shall be exact, sir. Your money first.’

  ‘Here.’

  I was upon the counter.

  ‘So much?’

  ‘Come on. I’ve paid you ain’t I?’

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘What’s that to you?’

  ‘Steaming iron, steaming iron.’

  ‘A little moment, sir.’

  The chemist picked me up then, looked at me hard, and next I know I am between his yellow teeth and he is biting me for proof that I’m real.

  ‘It’s proper,’ the thief said.

  ‘Yes, it does seem so. Only thing is it isn’t legal.’

  ‘Not legal, what are you saying? You’re trying to thieve me.’

  ‘No, indeed sir, you may see the posters all about the streets, fresh glued it’s true, but all stating that half sovereigns are no longer legal tender in Filching.’

  ‘I need some grinding; I’ve such an ache for it!’

  ‘I’m sure we can come to some accommodation.’

  ‘I’ve such a pain of a sudden. A gnawing pain.’

  ‘Steaming iron, steaming iron.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course sir. I don’t mean to cast aspersions, but you never can be too sure, can you?’ said the chemist.

  ‘Come now, oh my head, my head!’

  ‘Are you quite well, sir?’ the chemist asked, standing back from the thief.

  ‘Quick with the medicine! I’ve never known such pain.’

  ‘Steaming iron, steaming iron.’

  ‘I must be careful, the right amount,’ said the chemist, looking at the thief most particularly and standing further back.

  ‘Help me now, help me can’t you?’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘STEAMING IRON, STEAMING IRON.’

  ‘Any moment now, I think, sir,’ said the chemist to the thief, ‘and you’ll be off.’

  ‘Any minute what? What are you saying? Off I go where? My head!’

  ‘STEAMINGIRONSTEAMINGIRON!’

  ‘Goodbye, sir, I thank you for your custom,’ said the chemist.

  ‘My h—’ but the thief could not finish his sentence, his face suddenly stiffened and in a terrible instant grew grey and shrivelled up solid and landed with a loud and unsettling clang upon the floor. Thief no more.

  ‘Well, well,’ said the chemist, leaning over his counter. ‘What have we here? Is it of any use?’

  With the aid of a pair of fire tongs from his hearth he lifted this new hot object – formerly a thief – beside me on the counter. It gave off heat and whispered very faintly, ‘Billy Stimpson.’

  ‘Sir,’ said the chemist, ‘you are now a steaming iron. I daresay I may sell you to the Iremonger washers themselves. You’ll be losing the creases off their starched shirts no doubt. A quality item you are, most useful. Most grateful. I may get a bargain for you, and besides, here is this to boot: a half sovereign. Most kind, most generous. Thank you, Mr Iron, you are most excellent for business.’

  I was pushed into the chemist’s pocket. I heard a door open and shut. I was outside again. Objects calling ou
t up and down the street.

  ‘A tin spoon now, was William Wilson.’

  ‘I was Janet Bolton once.’

  ‘Joanna Thompson, I was, I was.’

  A Family by the Fire

  When I was taken out once more, I was in a very different place. There were cages all about, busy people making things. Cages hung from the ceiling, cages all about the floor. And basins and sinks, and troughs. Objects called out again,

  ‘I’m here a cage, I used to be Mabel Taylor.’

  ‘I was Cyril Cronin. I don’t want to be a gluepot. Can anyone help me?’

  I was handed over.

  ‘I can’t take the half sovereign,’ someone was saying. ‘It isn’t safe.’

  ‘You may have it in exchange for a tanner’s worth of rat. Now there’s a deal you don’t see every day.’

  ‘Not such a deal if I’m found with such a coin upon me.’

  ‘Then hide it, keep it safe until the search is over.’

  ‘I’ve a family to think of.’

  ‘You have indeed. When did you last see such money?’

  ‘I cannot deny it has been a while.’

  ‘Hasn’t it! Hasn’t it! Do look at the coin, Herbert Arthur! Look at it shining. Think what you may buy for that.’

  ‘Nothing now, half sovereigns are not allowed in Foulsham. They are to be turned over.’

  ‘Nothing now perhaps, but so much later.’

  ‘Come, come, two pound of rat is all I’m asking.’

  ‘For an illegal coin, it’s not much of a bargain.’

  ‘Oh look, Father,’ said a young woman. ‘A whole half sovereign! May I hold it?’

  ‘No, Sarah Jane, you’re not to touch it. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘Oh look,’ said an older woman. ‘Will you look at that, a half sovereign!’

  ‘Please to look,’ said the chemist. ‘Please to. Have a feel, do.’

  I was then handed around all the people in that small factory. A young man had me, he passed me to the youngest, Sarah Jane, and she in her turn handed me to the wife and thence I was held by a very old woman lacking several of her fingers. And what fingers they all had, these people. They were so gnawn at, so bullied and scarred.