Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘I do hear, sir, your unhappy history.’

  ‘There are pipes, pipes all over Bayleaf House. Umbitt suffers the children to come unto him, and the children are instructed to breathe into those pipes, that is all, just to breathe, and as they breathe into those pipes, at the other end is a dummy, a thing of human shape but with no life to it, no life at all, but that child he breathes through the pipe, and the child’s breath is pumped into the dummy and slowly the dummy inflates, with each breath it has more life, and begins after a time to breathe all of its own, and to take the breath out of the child. One child may have breath enough to make several dummies. Until that child, that child at the other end has had the childhood sucked right out of it.’

  ‘He murders them!’

  ‘No, I cannot say that, it should be a kindness to murder them perhaps. He pulls all the youth out of them, he sucks it out and takes it from them so that after they are left older and deader. Good for working perhaps, but of such small intelligence, they are content to be pushed back and forth. Their eyes are grey and their souls broken, they do not complain. They go on and on until they fall down, and never know why. They often fall to the diseases of Foulsham, they do not last so very long. They tumble into objects within months more often than not. And that is the other terrible prospect about the false people, they spread the disease, their breathing spreads it.’

  Very quietly I whispered, ‘My family does this?’ In the darkness of that hovel, the glove, the plank, the nail, the pillow cover crept into the depths.

  ‘In Bayleaf House, they do it,’ said the Tailor. ‘And since the children have breathed into the counterfeit people, the counterfeit people are so much the greater, they are almost impossible to spot. Those strange people are much stronger now. They have leather skin many of them, but I knock them down, I unstitch them. Their breath, when they breathe, comes out a slight smoke, like a small fire. It’s a little dark smoke their breathing is, but often so small as not to be seen. But I find them, I know them well enough. I was a murderer in my day, from Germany, town of Gelnhausen, I slit a man’s throat in an argument grown out of hand, and fleeing to London I stayed awhile, but being traced, I ran to Filching and there I was found by the Iremonger gatherers, and straightway made a letter opener. But, Clod Iremonger, I mean to make amends, and I have done my best, Clod Iremonger, but I am losing this battle. I cannot forever fight that troublesome flask.’

  ‘I shun them, Mr Erkmann, my family. I’ll leave here, I’ll find Lucy, my friend Lucy, I don’t know how. I’ll find her and then we’ll get out of here somehow and then never see them again, never hear of them, we’ll go so far … ’

  ‘You’ll leave them, while they hurt people so?’

  ‘It is terrible. I do see … ’

  ‘Though they stamp upon lives, and build up a great army of unnatural people, though they spread their foulness all about? They shan’t stop, Clod Iremonger, though they are out of your sight. They mean to go on at it, to go on and get strong at it, and then on they’ll move into London with all their soulless tribe and on they’ll go all over the country, all through Europe, and at last, they’ll find you, they’ll come to you sudden!’

  ‘My family.’

  ‘Your family.’

  ‘I think then, I think they must be stopped. You must do it, sir, you’re certainly the fellow.’

  ‘I’ve not the strength any more.’

  ‘Then whoever shall, if not you?’

  ‘Who indeed, Clod Iremonger?’

  ‘Your look,’ I said, feeling a horror mounting inside me, ‘your look seems to say … that I must.’

  ‘Yes, Clod Iremonger, I think you must. You have your Iremonger talents to you, of that there is no doubt. Put them to better use.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’m not your general heroic stuff.’

  ‘No, you are not.’

  ‘I’m not one to wield the scissors.’

  ‘No, you are not.’

  ‘Not fierce, you see.’

  ‘I do see that.’

  ‘Not particular brave.’

  ‘No, not particular.’

  ‘It is terrible what they do … ’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘If it is the absolute truth.’

  ‘It is, and you know it.’

  ‘I suspect it.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I do, I do.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘Well then, well then … ’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Well then, I suppose I must.’

  ‘Then we’re of a mind, you and I.’

  I looked up at the taut man and thought what strange bedfellows war gives a person. I shook his hand then, long and thin and cold and absolutely upsetting to the touch.

  Well, Clod, here’s a murderer beside you. What a daguerreotype that should be, and what’s at the end of this long trail for you, I wonder, the hangman’s rope?

  Boots in the mud broke up our shaking, men marching by and a young voice calling out.

  The Tailor had one long finger to his lips.

  ‘You cloth soldiers,’ called an officer beyond our hovel. ‘March now, hurry, vermin. How I hate you! That I should have to have you for my companions. Look smart, will you? We’re after a gloomy boy, you maggots, dark hair, we’ve got his plug back at the factory, so he’ll be turning soon enough if he hasn’t already. That and the Tailor, do you hear, he’s here somewhereabouts. Come on, leatherbags, you find him or you’ll answer to me. Spread out, I want every bit of this turd-town searched.’

  My cousin Moorcus, I should know him anywhere.

  ‘I’ve a new gun here,’ Moorcus continued. ‘I’m very fond of this here pistol. It’s so new and I’ve such an itch to use it. I’ll call it my new birth object.’

  ‘But, sir.’

  ‘Shut up, Toastrack, or I’ll brain you! Listen, sackmen, I’m that fond of this pistol. Here, what a thing it is. It’s a Beaumont-Adams it is, smuggled in from London. Give me a chance. Give me a reason to be upset with you, any one of you, and this shall make a nice hole in your face!’

  A brief silence after that.

  ‘You there, what’s your name?’ Moorcus called.

  ‘Giles Clompton, sir.’

  ‘Got your whistle about you?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Search the huts along here, any trouble blow you, call out, man. Go, maggot, slug, earthworm, go on! The rest of you, follow me I say! Come along, Toastrack! Keep close will you?’

  Boots going off, and then one man marching about, swinging the neighbouring doors open, looking inside.

  ‘It’ll be my turn to show you something in just a minute, Clod Iremonger,’ the Tailor whispered. ‘Quiet, quiet.’

  The door of our hut swung open, an Iremonger officer was there with a lantern, shining it about. I heard no sound coming from him, no noise at all. He stepped in, kicked some of the straw on the ground. And the Tailor ventured forward.

  It didn’t take long.

  It was all over in a horrible moment.

  A sudden flashing of something bright and metallic. The scissors snapped hard on the officer, they made a quick puncture through the coat. And the officer, he just stood there, looking so confused, not hurt, only very confused, and a terrible smell came off him, like that of rubbish trapped inside a metal bin for ages and suddenly lifting the lid, the stale air escaping out into the night. From that hole began to pour out bits of old ash and burnt-up wood, much rotten paper and material, some chips of old crockery, all tumbling out on the floor.

  ‘Whatever have you done?’ said the officer, his voice perturbed. ‘I seem to be, how now, I seem to be emptying … ’

  The Tailor stepped up and with one swift and thorough gesture took hold of the cut and made a huge rip of it, now all tumbled out and the officer grew less and less.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh, I seem to be coming undone!’

  The black gas was coming off the fellow, the bad stink. He looked up at the
man who had ripped him.

  ‘You’re, you’re … ’ but his voice was getting weaker, ‘you’re … ’

  ‘Your tailor,’ said the Tailor.

  But as the officer collapsed upon the floor, a wisp of black gas from his nose, like a slug, and it crawled its way rapidly along his collapsed chest, and it found its way into the whistle that hung on a chain around his neck and that gas, it somehow blew upon the whistle, it blew hard, and with that final awful excursion the whole body of the thing slumped down lifeless.

  ‘Come, Clod, they shall be upon us in a moment!’

  13

  BEER AND BED

  Continuing the narrative of Lucy Pennant

  Sawdust thick on the floor, hunched people propped over tin mugs, some red in the face, some yellow, women sweating by their men, a lone child being given sips to keep him quiet. The publican, the same publican I had seen when I lived with my parents, a familiar face amongst all those faces, there he was! A bit older perhaps, a bit larger maybe, a bit more bowed but the same man, and his wife, where was she? I remember her too; a thinner woman, her hair was falling out even then – her face resembled a chamber pot. We used to laugh about it, me and my school friends, I shouldn’t now. I couldn’t see her anywhere. But on the bar rested a large enamel pot.

  It was noisy inside in that dim place, else our entrance should perhaps have caused more upset. There was a man singing out one of the heap ballads and all were listening or singing with him.

  Deep in the dirtland, I was a-shifting,

  When in the darkness, I found a-trickling,

  A beautiful maiden, all dressed in white linen,

  She smiles at me lovely and calls me to come in.

  I’ll never go picking, no more, no more.

  I’ll never go picking no more.

  Such people, my people, all huddled together, banging on the table, clinking tankards,

  She walks further out in the darkness and deep.

  She walks on such light skipping feet.

  And I follow her stumbling,

  While the weather is rumbling.

  I’ll never go picking no more, no more.

  I’ll never go picking no more.

  Some people had hung their old hats and coats up by the door, the raining heap weather collected in puddles beneath them, soot, bits of old papers (love letters, newspapers) got up in the heap winds, shards of glass, old rusted nails, bones, scraps of cloth. It was like home. How it warmed me to see such things.

  I took an old cap off a peg. I slapped the hat on Benedict’s head to disguise him a bit, to at least cover up the beetles that still crawled about his face.

  I follow on after each clumsy step,

  And further and further out of my depth.

  She calls me, she calls me, my darling my dear,

  And on do I follow though the heaplands I fear.

  I’ll never go picking, no more, no more.

  I’ll never go picking no more.

  I went in among them and pulled Benedict after, shuffling by, smiling at them and saying ‘How do’ like I’d never been away. All the while the song went on and for the moment the knocking on the door was not heard above it. I tugged Benedict on, he was shivering under the coat, quite in a terror.

  There was a way out the back, I’d used it as a child. I was making my way towards it when the publican called out, ‘Now then, what’s your measure?’

  ‘Two jars,’ said I, turning back.

  He filled the drinks. I looked hard into his face. Recognise me, I thought. Please, please recognise me. But his bloodshot eyes barely seemed to notice anything.

  ‘Thruppence,’ he said.

  ‘Thruppence,’ I repeated to Benedict. ‘You must pay the man.’

  For hours we walked on, through bog and through creek,

  When finally she stopped, we were out there so deep.

  She turned around then, and I saw her so close,

  She was all a skeleton, a dead person, a ghost.

  I’ll never go picking, no more, no more.

  I’ll never go picking no more.

  What a shambles that caused from poor Benedict. His claws dug into the pockets beneath his leathers, pulled out bits of china, a few shining buttons, some earth, a portion of a seagull, a charred puppet’s head.

  She grabbed at me fast, I felt her embrace,

  And I screamed as I stared at her own bony face.

  She took all my breathing, she took all my breath,

  And alone then she left me, alone with my death.

  I’ll never go picking, no more, no more,

  I’ll never go picking no more.

  Then came out Benedict’s money, a torrent of it, clanging upon the table, and then all stopped and then all did watch.

  ‘Only thruppence,’ I said, passing the coins over. ‘The rest may go back in the pocket.’ I shoved the coins away. ‘He’s newly arrived,’ I tried to explain, ‘from Russia originally. Very new to Filching, very new indeed.’

  ‘Filching?’ said the publican. ‘We don’t say that no more. It’s Foulsham called, where’ve you been?’

  ‘Do you know me? I was here with my father.’

  ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Could be yes, could be no. Wait up, wait up a minute, was that a half sovereign I saw in that pile? There’s to be no half sovereigns in this house!’

  At the mention of the coin they all set to murmuring, eyes flashing in the shadows, and then a young spotty man with an umbrella got up from a table and moved hurriedly towards the door.

  Someone called to us, ‘Hey, wait a minute, that’s my hat that is. He’s stole my hat!’

  Just then the umbrella man reached the door and took the handle and pulled it open and then what a mound poured in over him.

  There were screams of, ‘A Gathering! A Gathering!’

  ‘Quick! This way!’ I cried, grabbing hold of Benedict and pulling him to the other door, away, away from the heap that was pouring in. Through a side door we ran, certain to shut it firm behind us, and we were in the street, and there at the far end, up the steep hill, was the boarding house. Home! There was the lettering, much patched up, much added to, upon the building,

  MRS WHITING’S CLEAN HOUSE

  ROOMS TO LET

  MOST REASONABLE RATES

  APPLY WITHIN

  PORTER ON DUTY AT ALL TIMES

  CLEAN!

  NO DISEASE

  ONLY THE HEALTHY NEED APPLY

  ‘Come now, Benedict, before those things find us. Onwards!’

  The side door opened behind us.

  ‘Come on! Come on!’ I cried.

  A man stumbled out. ‘My hat!’ he called. ‘You got my hat!’

  ‘Let him have it,’ I said. ‘Give him the sodding hat.

  ‘Our mistake,’ I said. ‘It’s so like his. Beg pardon.’

  I gave it over.

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ he asked. ‘Who’s your fella? I think I know him … there’s something familiar … ’

  ‘Mind your own,’ I said. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Wait up,’ the man said, jogging alongside us. ‘There’s something wrong with him and all. What’s happened to you, mate? What happened?’

  ‘He’s ill, isn’t he. He’s turning you fool,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t come close.’

  Well, that stopped the chap, he even handed the hat back to me – ‘Maybe’s not my hat after all. You’re welcome to it so ever it were mine.’ – and went rushing the other way.

  ‘Here we are then,’ I said. ‘Tug that hat down.’

  I pulled on the bell. Nothing. The wind was picking up all around us, blowing objects about the street, clanging, and clattering against the buildings, just a little way away there came a large crashing of glass. I pulled on the bell. Sheets of newspapers were dancing in the wind, pages were somersaulting down the street, but more and more of them, as if it were snowing. I pulled on the bell again.

  ‘They’re coming, they’re coming!’ cried Benedict. />
  ‘Come on, answer! Why won’t you answer?’

  There was a shadow amassing around the corner, something was coming, something very large.

  ‘Come on, oh come on!’ I cried, pulling on the door.

  The shadow was coming closer, a whole great clot of things gathering up and rushing forwards I pulled on the bell.

  And then at last there was someone the other side, an old voice, ‘Who’s there that’s not weather? What do you want?’

  ‘Is that Mrs Whiting? Is it?’

  ‘Who’s asking? I’ve a great gun in my hands, my husband’s blunderbuss. Be off with you!’

  ‘It’s Lucy Pennant.’

  ‘Lucy Pennant? No, no, she’s dead. Dead and buried and out the game!’

  ‘No, Mrs Whiting, at least not quite yet. Will you open the door please?’

  ‘I’m full up.’

  ‘We have money, Mrs Whiting, lots of money.’

  The door opened and we tumbled in. The old lady shut it behind her, and I helped her to push the bolts true.

  ‘Lucy Pennant! It is Lucy Pennant! Only you’re … well, well … you stink. You’ll smell my house down.’

  There she was. She seemed barely to have aged. The old woman in her finery, quite the best dressed woman in the whole town. Quite the shock to see her, to be recognised again.

  ‘Been travelling, Mrs Whiting, but home now. Need a room.’

  ‘Need a bath,’ she said.

  There was knocking on the door, light this time, like pebbles. Oh, it’s cunning, that heap, I thought. It knows a thing.

  ‘Don’t answer,’ I said. ‘Please don’t.’

  I took some money from Benedict. I counted a deal out, almost half a quid.

  ‘So much currency!’ the old woman muttered.

  ‘There’s more,’ I said, ‘much more.’

  ‘Well, Lucy, well, pet, let’s situate you, shall we?’ she said, shuffling on.