Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘If you could find friends, if you could get help, that should be best I think.’

  ‘Do you? Should it?’

  ‘Lucy, I think if I can get to Grandfather, if I can get hold of his personal cuspidor, Jack Pike is its name, that’s what I hear it saying, if I could only get hold of Jack Pike, and steal it from him. Or if only I could make Grandfather stop it all, oh perhaps, perhaps I may have to kill him. Perhaps I may call upon all the objects in there, if I could summon them, perhaps they’d come to me, perhaps they might … well, there’s no good just talking about it, we must get on.’

  ‘Clod? Clod, would you do such a thing?’

  ‘I could get close, you see. I’m an Iremonger. They’d let me through I think. It does make sense. They don’t know that I can ask the things to move, they don’t know that yet. So perhaps I may do something with that after all. And it’s best not to think of it, overly much, but to rush along, right now. Show me down, Lucy. Get me out of this place. Deliver me to the gates, and then get your friends.’

  I didn’t say anything to that. If I spoke I knew I’d start weeping. And I mustn’t do that. Not a baby am I, after all. Time enough for weeping, Clod, when you’re out of my sight.

  There wasn’t anyone on the landing, not straight off. Most of them had gone across the way into Bayleaf. We’d heard the train arriving, the old woman, that dreadful old woman. Made me sick just to think of her. She’ll have come now, must have, the train had made its great shriek.

  Looking through a downstairs window there was much running about outside the house. There were crates laid out before the place, all busy, them Iremonger ants, all such a rush on.

  We’d made it down one floor, two more to go. There was the old crib on the landing now, beside it the wicker chair. And we were making our steady progress, and couldn’t hear anyone nearby, even Clod couldn’t hear anyone and that was the best proof of all, wasn’t it, because there was never a one for lugs than Clod with all his hidden voices, quite mental when you think about, so on we were creeping in our little way when there came a mighty noise, didn’t there. It was a long, wailing, trumpeting sound. I knew that, didn’t I? Well enough to make me stop dead in my tracks. I’d heard it before, way back in my childhood when a heapgate came crashing down and fifty people were crushed or drowned.

  Should never like to hear that noise, even when it was only sounded for practise, to make sure the great horns were still working. It was the flood horn, one of the great flood horns of the Heap Wall. Where that horn stood there was danger and all must flee from that part, but then there came another horn and another yet, and another, yet another, all joining up, all calling out, all of them, all across the wall. All the horns were sounding, I reckoned, from all over the wall.

  ‘What is it, Lucy, why do you look like that?’

  ‘The walls, Clod. It’s the siren for the walls, never heard that many going off at once before. I think the wall may come down, and not just in one place but all over. Oh, I think Benedict is still out then, they have not put him back.’

  ‘And what should happen then, Lucy, if the wall comes down?’

  ‘Then it shall flood, shan’t it, you dunce, what d’you think? It’ll flood the whole place, it’ll all come down. And hundreds, hundreds will be drowned!’

  ‘Is there nowhere safe?’

  ‘This is the high ground here. This is where they’ll come. Safer here, but not safe, there’s nowhere that’s safe if the wall comes down.’

  ‘Everyone will come? All here?’

  ‘Yes, Clod, and soon, any moment, I reckon, all will bubble up around us.’

  ‘I shan’t hear, Lucy, I shall not be able to hear anything. I’ll be so deaf, it’ll be worse than the storming in Heap House, a thousand times worse than that. I shan’t be able to hear the objects’ names, and without hearing their names I never shall be able to command them.’

  ‘Well then, you’d better keep close, hadn’t you?’

  ‘But I think perhaps, it may be, in some small way, perhaps it is good news, Lucy. I think it might be.’

  ‘What’s good about it?’

  ‘That’s when I’ll go in and find Grandfather, in all the chaos.’

  ‘Oh, Clod, are you dumb enough?’

  ‘I think I am.’

  There was silence then, a strange long silence between the warning horns and all that followed, like grabbing a little bit of air before plunging deep under the waves. Like the intake of breath before screaming. Small silence, but what a pregnant silence, shouldn’t last, shouldn’t last.

  Then there was a sort of mild buzzing sound in the distance like that of an insect humming about, except the insect wasn’t rushing about rooms in the still winter cold, bouncing into windowpanes, no, it was outside, and the buzzing didn’t stay on a note, that deep humming grew louder and got greater until you could tell what it was. It was the noise of people all together, not knowing what to do other than scream, and all screaming, all roaring together in a panic, all of one mind. It was a great collection it was. I’d heard of all those other collections before, a parliament of rooks, a squabble of seagulls, a mischief of rats, an itch of Iremongers, well here was another one to add to it, a new collective: a panic of people.

  ‘Everyone’s coming?’ Clod said.

  ‘A whole army,’ I said.

  ‘But you can’t control them, can you? They’re all in a chaos.’

  ‘Might,’ I said, ‘might just.’

  ‘Who’s there?’

  People up the stairs then, coming towards us, three of them, big fellows in leathers, all leathers, hood and all, the works. I looked at Clod.

  ‘Lucy,’ he whispered, ‘I can’t hear anything, except for a button. It’s quiet enough now. They’re Rawling’s sort.’

  ‘What you doing here? This place is requisitioned!’

  ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘Well no one told us.’

  ‘You’re not to be here!’

  ‘Why, who says so?’ I asked.

  ‘Umbitt, owner.’

  ‘This is my home. I was born here.’

  ‘Taken over, requisitioned.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Most certainly!’ the leatherman said.

  ‘Do you hear that noise?’ I asked. ‘That rising rumbling?’

  ‘We hear it,’ they said.

  ‘Know what it is?’ I asked.

  ‘Heaps,’ they said. ‘Heaps is upset.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not the heaps. It’s not the heaps at all. It’s Foulsham that noise is, all the people of Foulsham, and do you know what they’re doing? They’re coming up this way, and I think they’re unhappy and, you know what, I think they’d all like to come inside, come and live in this high-ground home. They’ll break the door down, I reckon.’

  Well it wasn’t brilliant but it was a start. It was practise, wasn’t it, the leathers, dumb creatures, looked at one another and in a mumble hurried away down the stairs in a rush, gone to see for themselves.

  Shouldn’t be long now, certainly shouldn’t, that great noise was smashing around the old buildings of Filching, strange noise to my ears, bouncing off here and there, ugly, distorted, misshapen, that’s what it was to my ears, Lord knows what it was to Clod’s. We went down after the leathers.

  ‘Where are you going?’ they said.

  ‘Out,’ I said. ‘You told us we weren’t to stay here.’

  ‘That’s right. Very good. Sling your hook.’

  ‘Good luck,’ I said, ‘for you shall surely need it.’

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter with him? He looks quite turned he does.’

  Poor Clod was very white and trembled all over, there must have been that roaring in his head, like all the people of the world at his earholes and shouting in them, not just the voices of them screaming, but the voices in them, all a tumble. Couldn’t listen to that very long, I supposed, not for long before you’d go mad with all the noise. I had to get him in, into Bayleaf House before all that racket made
his brain turn porridge.

  ‘He’s all right,’ I said to the leathers, ‘just sensitive, he’s made of silk he is, unlike you lot.’

  ‘Hop it,’ said a leatherman, what a look on his face, panic it was. Couldn’t blame him really. You could see the crowds now, rushing up the hill, they’d be here any moment. Don’t want to get between them and those leathers, shouldn’t give them the pleasure.

  On, Clod, on we go.

  He looked at me, pointed to his ears, shook his head.

  I nodded back at him.

  All right then, no more talking, this is it, this is. There it stood, Bayleaf House, its chimneys still spewing, greyer than any grave, hard and cold and unlovely, well then, onwards. Better hurry. That noise behind us was coming on fast.

  I tugged us over, up the hill and to the very gate.

  22

  AT THE GATES

  Lucy Pennant’s narrative continued

  The sentry was closing the factory gate up, locking it.

  ‘Let us in,’ I said. ‘You must let us in.’

  ‘No entry!’ said the sentry. ‘Strict orders.’

  ‘Did you not hear the horns sounding?’

  ‘That I did.’

  ‘Know what that means?’

  ‘Likely there’ll be a flooding.’

  ‘And people will drown.’

  ‘I can’t help that.’

  ‘You’ll let people die.’

  ‘I have my orders.’

  ‘Listen, just let us in, before the others come, will you? My friend here, he’s not well as you see.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘can’t be done.’

  ‘I’ve some money,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not talking to you no more. Disperse.’

  ‘Yes you are talking to me, and you’ll keep talking, and you’ll let us in. Listen, he’s an Iremonger, isn’t he. An actual Iremonger. He belongs the other side of the gate.’

  ‘No one’s to come through, no exception.’

  ‘He’s Clod Iremonger.’

  ‘I don’t care who he is.’

  ‘He needs to be let in!’

  ‘No one can pass!’

  He stood silent, as other guards ran to the gate, there were more then, ten, twenty of the Iremonger guards with their Bayleaf collars, all running out, a sergeant among them now, wearing a brass helmet, thinking himself very grand no doubt. Then I saw his medal. Something familiar in that. Then I knew him, Moorcus Iremonger, Clod’s cousin. He that was the cause of Tummis’s drowning. I pushed Clod. What to do? What to do? I saw behind Moorcus then, always nearby, like a dog on a leash, his turned birth object, his Roland Cullis. He’d help if there was ever a chance, surely he would.

  Behind us the first Foulsham people were coming, all in their rags and leathers, holding what things they had, never very much, all that they could carry, maybe all that they owned, children on shoulders and in carts, old people in carts, all the worried, hungry, desperate, all up to the gate of Bayleaf House, with the horns blowing again and all the terror that the Heap Wall was going to give, and all would drown in its bursting.

  I didn’t need to talk then. We stayed at the gate, we’d be the first through I reckoned. Wouldn’t lose our place, not if I could help it. I was pushing them off already. I was standing our ground. Poor Clod looked terrified to his soul. He looked down mostly, wincing all the while, all those people in his head, couldn’t keep them there long, and more people coming on, the gates around Bayleaf House thick with people, so many people, all Foulsham at the gates. Moorcus marched forward, he called out,

  ‘You will disperse, no congregations of people are permitted. This is private property.’

  ‘Don’t you hear the horns?’ someone called.

  ‘There is no danger, there is no cause for alarm. Please disperse now, go back to your homes.’

  ‘But the horns,’ another person shouted, ‘do you not hear them? They’re all sounding!’

  ‘The walls shall hold,’ Moorcus said, and how white he looked. ‘Nothing can break the great Heap Wall. You are all safe. Go home, please, go home. All is well. Grandfather – Umbitt Owner has issued his guarantee. The wall is safe. Go home. Do not be distressed.’

  That stopped many of them, some fell to whispering then, perhaps all was well, perhaps it was safe to go home.

  ‘Move along now,’ said Moorcus, ‘go back to your homes, get back now. You’d do well to go home, see that your homes are safe. There are looters at large, it has been reported, even now your homes are in peril. Why will you not protect your things? What have you left there? It may not be there when you go back, quick now. While you still have time.’

  And that did it for some of them. Those sheep, they trembled and trotted off back down the lane though the horns had sounded. How they cowered. They weren’t people, they were beasts of burden. They’d do anything you ever told them. Believe anything if it was said official enough. They’d all drown, they were going back now, turning around, heading down, down to their drownings. But these were my people, my people that I’d lived with all my life, my people who’d been tugged down so much it hurt to get up, they had to stand up, they had to stand up or they’d have no chance. An army, an army, hold fast together.

  ‘He’s lying!’ I shouted. And some even stopped their plodding right then. ‘He’s lying! He just wants you to get away. He’s sending you away to drown. Do you not hear the horns? Are you deaf? Them horns mean danger, the wall’s going to give!’

  ‘Shut it, miss,’ said the sentry, ‘that’s enough!’

  Clod looked up at me, he couldn’t have heard but he had a pained smile on his face, and that was encouragement enough.

  ‘He’s sending you down to your deaths,’ I called. ‘You want to die, off you go then, trot along. But I’m staying here and if we all stay here, then we’ll get through this gate and be on the high ground. If we all stay they can’t stop us. How many more of us are there than them?’

  ‘Hundreds. Hundreds on us!’ Jenny called from the crowding.

  There she was, there was Bug and all, and the rest of the kids from school, all together: there’s a voice, I reckoned, there’s lungs there. Now’s the time.

  ‘How long will we let them break us?’ I had such a taste for it then. ‘How long must they order and bully? They let us drown out there in the heaps. How many of us have been pulled under? They’ve taken our children from us, how many of our children are in that building now, stolen from us! What have they done with them? Come now, let us see. We will be let in!’

  ‘Let us in!’ called Jenny.

  ‘Let us in!’ echoed her schoolfellows.

  ‘Your children have been ticketed,’ called Moorcus, so white now, Roland in the background behind him, smiling, enjoying Moorcus’s misery. ‘You have been compensated, heavily compensated. Your relations are all well and all cared for.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I cried. ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘We haven’t,’ someone grumbled.

  ‘No, we haven’t,’ called Jenny.

  ‘That’s right,’ from somewhere else, the voices coming from all over now, we’d got them talking.

  ‘Look up, good people of Foulsham,’ I shouted, my face as red as my hair, ‘look up there at that building, our people are in there and beyond this gate is high ground and safe.’ Then I chanted, ‘LET US IN! LET US IN! LET US IN!’

  ‘LET US IN!’ they went.

  ‘LET US IN!’

  ‘LET US IN!’

  What a chorus, what a people, what an army.

  ‘People of Foulsham … ’

  ‘LET US IN!’

  ‘People of Foulsham … ’

  ‘LET US IN!’

  Jenny and her company came around to me then, all that young of Foulsham, such schoolfellows, so strong of voice, all busy about me, all flared up for the fight. Moorcus’s hands were shaking. He held a shining pistol out. He fired it into the air. The people moved back a little, so many hundreds of heads flinching.

/>   ‘People of Foulsham,’ Moorcus cried. ‘People, good people, would you be so foolish as to be taken in by the whining of a child? Do you even know who this girl is? She’s a criminal, a thief, she is wanted by the Iremonger police.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ I cried.

  ‘She has been about your streets, murdering in the night. She’s with the Tailor!’

  ‘Is she? Is she?’ went the rumbling populace.

  ‘No I am not,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you believe him, he’s just trying to let you drown, stand up to him. Do I look like any tailor? You’ve seen the posters, all of you have, a tall man, long and stretched. I am just a girl, that’s all, a girl of Foulsham. He’d have me murdered, this Iremonger, quick as anything. I’m sixteen years old, I’ve lived here all my life. My own parents were turned. He knows nothing of what it is to live and die in Foulsham. How many raids have you seen, how many people disappeared in the night? Why won’t he let you in? Why won’t he let you come through? You’ve heard the horns, that’s what really matters, if the walls come down, you’ll drown. He’ll watch you! Let us in through these gates, Moorcus Iremonger, or you’ll find we’re strong enough to break them down. Let us in! Let us in!’

  ‘LET US IN! LET US IN!’

  ‘You will disperse!’ Moorcus screamed.

  ‘LET US IN! LET US IN!’

  ‘Oh, please let us in!’ an old man wailed.

  ‘You must disperse! You have been warned.’

  ‘Moorcus,’ I screamed. ‘LET US THROUGH!’

  He recognised me then I think, he saw who was with me. Roland Cullis saw us too, Roland was clapping.

  ‘Come again!’ yelled Roland. ‘Get him again, smack him.’

  ‘Shut it, Toastrack,’ yelled Moorcus, and hit at his birth companion with the butt of his pistol, blood coming quickly, before turning again to face us. ‘Clod Iremonger,’ his lips seemed to pronounce, though it was so loud about now you could not hear those sounds, but then it was certain he was saying over and again, ‘Clod, Clod, Clod.’

  He wavered his pistol in our direction, trying to aim it at Clod. He’d shoot I reckoned. Such a look of hate on his face. I tried to push Clod behind me, but in all that struggle at the gates, the sentry had a hold of me through the gate, his hand about my mouth, his arm round my neck, and I could not breathe.