Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘That’s quite enough, little miss,’ he said. ‘We’ve had just about enough.’

  ‘Look! Look!’ Jenny called. ‘Look what they’re doing to her!’

  Clod was about, quickly enough, and while the sentry had hold of me, he pulled at the sentry’s uniform, he ripped it open, brass buttons flying (I thought how Benedict would like them, where was he, where was he now?). Clod’s hands scrabbled about, Clod’s eyes wide with panic, as he sought to tear the man open, then I had breath again, the sentry staggered back, a hole in him, he stood back.

  ‘Soldiers, help that man!’ called Moorcus, and many ran over to him. ‘You were warned. And now it is too late. This mob has wounded one of my men. This shall not be tolerated.’

  The people of Foulsham were silent then, all mumbling and of a panic. But the soldiers gathered around the sentry stood back now, stood away from him in horror.

  ‘Look! Look!’ I tried to call out, but my throat was so hoarse, but they had seen right enough. They had noticed.

  The sentry had his hand at his opened gut , which was was leaking sand, it gushed out of him, and he wailed at the sight of it, his mouth wide open but no sound coming out, as sand gushed and gushed from him. And all saw.

  ‘Not real! Not real!’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He’s made of sand.’

  ‘A man can’t be made of sand.’

  ‘Not a man, that wasn’t a man.’

  ‘If not a man then what?’

  But other soldiers had come then and were now running in formation before the gate and the railings, all with rifles. All at aim.

  ‘People of Foulsham, this is your last chance,’ shrieked Moorcus, his voice so high and panicked. ‘You must disperse. Go to your homes. Go now and there shall be no further trouble.’

  What a sight, all them guns pointing at us. They wouldn’t would they, shoot a fellow? Oh they would, they’d gun us all down. We meant as nothing to them. They’d kill us, kill us at the gate. They’d murder in plain sight, in cold blood.

  ‘Aim!’ called Moorcus.

  At least twenty of the guns aimed particularly at us, at the gate. Oh, Clod, oh Clod, it was a small stand, ours was, it didn’t amount to much. People were screaming down the hill, but others were shouting at the soldiers, screaming at them, and the sky was turning black.

  Black?

  Black already?

  A boom then, a great explosion.

  That’s when I saw, that’s when I understood the new screaming. We’d all been looking at the soldiers in front of Bayleaf, or over towards the Heap Wall waiting for it to tumble. We’d none of us been looking towards London, in the other direction, none of us had, but now we could see it.

  The blackness. The blackness. It wasn’t night. It wasn’t night at all, it was fire. Fire! Foulsham was on fire. Whole streets of it must have gone up by then, great gusts of black smoke, not from the chimneys of Bayleaf but from the fire spreading all around us.

  ‘Let us in, oh let us in!’ people cried.

  ‘We shall be burnt, burnt to death!’

  ‘Help us! Oh help!’

  The soldiers weren’t aiming any longer, their guns were pointing down now. They were all staring at the great flames.

  Half of Foulsham must be gone, and in such speed. Buildings were falling. People were dying now, the heat was spreading up the hill, smoke was coming and suddenly the rats were with us.

  Rats!

  Rats everywhere!

  Rats, thick about our heels, rats screaming and screeching. They were through the gates in a moment, all screaming, such a carpet of them, whole black fields.

  ‘Get inside!’ cried Moorcus to his soldiers. ‘Run for cover!’

  They went, all those uniformed Iremongers all sprinting inwards, some tripping over the rats, falling to the ground and the rats pouring over them. What a thing, what a thing to be drowned in rat, a hand rising briefly among the horrible moving ground, but then back down again. But the gates, the hot gates, had not been unlocked.

  They pushed then the people did, they pushed and crushed and heaved against the railings, threw themselves at them, and all behind likewise, pushing for all their worth as the flames climbed higher from Foulsham. How many people were trampled to death that horror evening, the pushing and coughing, the smoke, the darkness, we shall be trampled on, we shall go under. People climbed over people in their panic, regardless of what was beneath them and what harm it did, the flames coming closer encouraged them so.

  But that was what gave me the idea, that was what did it, I shoved Clod up then. I was stronger than him. I heaved him high, shunted him up aside the railings. He was screaming at me, no doubt it was not anything pleasant that he was screaming, but I pushed him up, till my hands were on his heels and then his feet and then I shoved him up again and he was at the spikes by then, so I shoved further, and, I admit it, I climbed on someone myself to get him over. How he shook and screamed but so did so many others. Why should his panic be paid any heed?

  Up and up, I had his feet in my hands, pushing him over, couldn’t see him any more. There were so many shoving hard against me that I could see nothing for the squashing of all Foulsham people. Up up and then, then, then his feet weren’t in my hands any longer. I wasn’t holding anything any more. I wasn’t with Clod any longer. He’d gone tumbling over, he’d gone, he’d quite gone and I’d lost him all over again. I couldn’t move for all the people, smashing against me. Did he make it over, wherever was he?

  Go on, Clod man, go on. It hurts to see you go. I hate to see you go.

  I’ll catch you up, you go ahead, my own dear man. This gate cannot hold forever now, can it? That’s logic that is, sure to give.

  How the breath was squeezed out of me, shoved out of me.

  I thought they’d have me through these bars in pieces the rate they were going, for it really did seem the bars were so up to me that they were actually in me. I tried to cover my face over, I hunched, braced myself as much as ever I could, I closed my eyes and waited for it to happen.

  And there she was.

  She’d been waiting.

  The matchstick woman, the me-me-me thing.

  23

  BEYOND THE GATES

  Clod Iremonger’s narrative continued

  Within the grounds

  I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see her at all. There was such a crowding, so many hundreds of people, all the people of Foulsham up against the gates, and the gates leaning in places against the weight of so many, but not giving over. Oh, the people, the trapped people. Where was Lucy? I couldn’t see her in all that great thronging.

  Just me in so much space, on the path up to Bayleaf House, and behind me such a crushing-crowding, such breathlessness, and the noise, the awful noise behind me, noise of objects calling out from inside so many hundreds of people, how should I ever hear a clay button calling in such confusion? I had to get on, I must get on. I’d stop them. I should stop them, such cries behind me. If only a key, if only there was a key to the gates. People get lost in wars, trampled over, I see that, there’s no individuals only masses, masses being crushed. But I should do it, stop it all. I had the strength for it then. I’d end this horror, maybe. I’d call on all the things that had voice, they’d come to me, I’d command them.

  Everything I love I leave behind me this day, the other side of that horror gate, and I shall tumble in, and I mean to do what I can. Behind me the gate was coming down, was leaning over, and more and more people climbing on, other people adding more weight to it, until it bowed ever more, they’d come through, they’d be through in a minute. Quick, Clod, quick, my deafness, before they crush you in their terror and you never find Grandfather.

  ‘Lucy!’ I cried, stuck there in the middle.

  I turned back a moment, towards the gate, and as I did a seagull swooped down, it flew right at me. It clawed at my hair but I ran on towards the gate. The gull swerved round and came in again, clawing at me, snapping with
its beak, screaming at me as if I’d done it some personal wrong. No matter the seagull, it may scream for all it likes. It may snap at me, and bleed me, let it, I’d had worse. I could not see her anywhere, where was she? Quick. Clod, quick, I told myself, get inside or you may never have your chance.

  ‘I am sorry, Lucy. I am sorry. I can think of no other way!’

  One last look back, if only I could see her, I should never hope to see her again after. One last look. The railings of Bayleaf House were bending so, they should not hold, all those hands reaching out through them, such screams, and such blackness too and terrible soot, a screen of black darkness, black and thick, as I rushed on towards Bayleaf House, I could barely see it then for all the smoking.

  The gull was screaming, screaming. Must get away from it.

  The doors were open. The soldiers must have left them like that in their hurrying or couldn’t close them for all the rats. Well then, in, in I went, into it, into the cruel lanes of Bayleaf House along all those pipes and pipes and pipes of it, on to find Grandfather, on to an end.

  I’m wearing grey flannel trousers. What a man, Clod Iremonger; you’re quite coming into yourself. I’ve aged this day. God keep her, little heart, who knows what shall happen. Who is there that ever knows?

  Deaf, so deaf, I couldn’t hear anything but bounded on, some bleeding in my ears, all swollen and numbed, poor things, the sounding in my head like a bell, so loud and plain and on a constant shrill note that it was as if all sounds had been removed from the world, as if there was but one sound so complete and plain that it had drowned all others out. But it began ring-ing-ing again, the further I was away from Foulsham people the more the note broke up, and with that shift came more pain as sound began to return, so that I could distinguish distant voices, so many voices, so many names, calling out in agony. As if each was trying to be heard by me, calling, begging, pleading to be heard.

  Doors all opened, things all spilled out on the floor, the whole place had been turned inside out, panic was here in these rooms, panic everywhere, panic up and down the House, panic had been there but panic seemed to have fled, for there was no one about, no one at all.

  ‘Halloo!’ I cried. ‘Hallo! I’m back! ’Tis Clod, Clod himself, who’s there that knows me? You sought me I know, well here I am, Clod, I say. ’Tis Clod! Clod! Clod himself!’

  That seagull was behind me again, screaming. I ran along, away from it.

  I felt there was someone about me, someone very dark, like a shadow creeping along the wall, tickling the surface, yet when I turned there was no one, just empty passageway, and thick black smoke that crawled its way like a dark vein across the ceiling. Yet I felt someone, I was certain that I had. My ears, my ears would know. Give them time, then they’d hear again. They’d separate those names out, then I’d know. Ever less names calling now, ever less.

  Where was everyone?

  Oh big and abandoned place, where are your people?

  There! I walked straight in to them, a great long line of them, hundreds and more, all shuffling out, all in clothing black and dull, old ones and young ones, his and hers, people, people walking through the smoking house, ordinary looking people, not panicked but calm, out into the borough, they had sticks with them and truncheons, they were all headed out, every one of them, and all of their mouths opened just a little and black smoke coming from them and all were not people, they were all guts of dirt, these ones were, souls of sawdust, some of Grandfather’s great army, out and out into Foulsham, going in to meet the real people who they imitated, Grandfather’s army of defence, into flames and soot. Dummies.

  They blocked so much space, Grandfather’s army did, they quite choked the corridors, but they were all of a mind, and went out to meet the running hordes who must surely have trampled the gates down. I found a way past them and so down I went down, and down away from them, for there was nowhere else to go but down and down. There was that black smoke again, trailing across the ceiling, it was dripping, I noticed. It dripped tar, the smoke did. It seemed poisonous, somehow very deadly, so down, yes down and down I went to get away from that coiling black smoke that seemed to draw itself along with me, an insubstantial worm, snake more like, growing thicker.

  ‘Grandfather! Grandfather!’ I called.

  Down, Clod, down and down, calling out for Grandfather, calling for him to come. And then at last there was someone in the distance, further down the curling iron stairway, someone calling back. Someone calling me, calling my name.

  My Cousin

  I recognised the figure long before I was close. I’d know that figure anywhere, it was part of the heart of me, part of the blood of me, stuff of my bones, was that young man. Back again, come back again to me.

  ‘Tummis! Tummis Iremonger himself!’ I cried, for there, down the stairs at the end of a corridor, wandering in confusion, was my tall and my lanky, wearing some long leather coat, there he was with his faint hair that did not persuade and, true to his very form, a seagull flying nearby.

  ‘Oh Tummis, oh my Tummis!’ I cried, for I had thought the dear sweet fellow dead and dead and lost and gone.

  ‘What ho! Clodius, my plug.’ I could hear him, my ears were coming back. I could hear him. To hear that voice again that I thought had been silenced forevermore. The sheer wonder of it. ‘How do you do these long days of darkness and sooting, and fleeing and flowing, it is ever a pleasure to set eyes on you.’

  ‘Drip! Drip, my drip!’ I cried.

  ‘Old plug!’

  ‘Old drip!’

  ‘I got a little lost,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d gone under in the heaps, did for a bit. It went black for a moment, dirt in my mouth. I tasted that dirt, it was the dirt of death I think, but, in truth, old Clod, old man, old mucker, old joker, old thing of things, I didn’t fancy the taste overmuch. I spat it out, and here am I, so to speak, back on dry land, if you’ll have it so, if this be solid which I’m not entirely positive, well then here I am, if you see me so, well then I must be me.’

  It wasn’t a seagull with him, I’d been wrong in that. It was a cat, I saw now, similar colouring to a seagull, but a cat nevertheless. I’d not seen him with a cat before, though he did ever love all animals.

  ‘Come, Clod, my dearest,’ he called. He was still a little distance away. ‘Come, Clod, ever closer, Clod closer closer Clod, let me hold you. Clod, let me touch you. Clod, come on now. Clod, do come, come up, come here. Clod, come to your old drip. Clod, Clod.’

  But that, that was not quite Tummis, was it now, that was not sounding all him, not entirely, not exactly. Something was a little wrong, what was it, what could it be? If I could only hear better. Then I saw it, I saw there was no snot about him, there was no drip from his nose. Perhaps it was just that he’d lost a little of his dripping, that being separated so long from his tap he’d dried up some. And how could he then, I wondered, how could he have survived without his tap, without his Hilary Evelyn? And hadn’t you, Clod, hadn’t you listened to that old tap on the dreadful night hadn’t you heard it, I asked myself. Yes, yes, I certainly had heard it. And what did it say? It said nothing. Dead it was. Dead all over. Oh, come on Clod, don’t be cruel, know a friend, know a love when you see one, don’t abandon after all that he must have been through.

  ‘Tummis,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Here I am!’ he said, his arms opened wide, ready to take me in. ‘Come, why procrastinate, plunge, plug, in.’

  There was a slight panic in his face, but it was not, I think, a Tummis look of panic, and his arms, I thought now, they were not quite the long heron arms of my departed schooldays, they seemed a little shorter to me, and what was that dangling from the end of one? Some sort of huge bat, some great dark thing he’d found fallen from Heap House’s attic, but no, that wasn’t it, it was an umbrella. Just an umbrella. A plain umbrella. What did he want with that?

  ‘Come here, Clod!’ he said. ‘Come along. Hurry up, move now, move.’

  That didn’t sound like Tummis,
not at all Tummis that wasn’t.

  No, Clod. Stop, Clod. I didn’t think it was Tummis, not Tummis after all. It was someone else, wasn’t it? It was someone trying to be Tummis. But only Tummis could be Tummis. There was only ever one Tummis that I ever knew and that Tummis, that poor lost never-to-be-forgotten Tummis was a dead Tummis, was the dead Tummis, and so this one, this other Tummis, this was a counterfeit. What a thing to do, what new cruelty was this, why would they? How could they? Why fake a Tummis? He must have been waiting for me, he must have been put here just to catch me, and when he’d caught me, what then, what should he do with me?

  ‘Come, Clod! Come on! Here!’

  Then I saw I was wrong again, quite wrong, not about Untummis, for certainly it was a very vague Tummis now, Untummis it was for definite. I was wrong about the animal. It wasn’t a cat, wasn’t after all. I hadn’t seen somehow through all that smoke, so much smoke now, thickening the corridor, that black smoke again, that black, black smoke that dripped. Had the fire reached the building then? Was it running inside, up and down corridors, eating its way in and out, growing bigger and braver and blacker and hotter? But that cat, that cat that I thought a cat previously, was a dog now, a great white and grey dog. How had I never noticed that, a great big beautiful thing? What a head it had upon it and what teeth there were to it! How could I have failed to notice such a hound before? Wagging its tail, it was wagging its tail for me. Nice doggy.

  ‘Please come, Clod, old plug, hurry along now, won’t you? Don’t give up on a chum. Don’t throw me over. It’s me, Tummis!’

  Something in the smoky light glinted upon the dog, something small and something metal. I saw it then, all of a sudden, all of a very sudden, suddenly I knew what that was. I had seen it before plain enough. A copper ring it was, I’d known it on a different dark evening. Listen, listen, Clod. I could just hear the copper ring,