Bruno Vincent was a book seller and book editor before he was an author.He hasco-written several bestselling humour titles for grownups, and Grisly Tales from Tumblewater is his first book for children. His favourite horror stories are The Signalman, At the Moun tains of Madness and The Sandman: A Game of You. Bruno grew up in the countryside and now lives in a rainy city, where he hugs the shadows.
First published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-330-47954-7 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-47952-3 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-51981-6 in Mobipocket format
Text copyright © Bruno Vincent 2010
Illustrations copyright © Jo Coates 2010
The right of Bruno Vincent and Jo Coates to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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CONTENTS
The Orphan
The Man Who Taught English Literature
The Foundling
The Boy Who Picked His Nose
The Tongue
The Girl Who Listened To A Raven
The Merry Bakers
The Masterpiece
For Mum and Dad
The crossroads, with its ceaseless traffic, was where Tumblewater began. Crowds of people and horses and carriages poured themselves towards one another at a reckless rate, and rushed into the middle. Sometimes they would clog up in a jam, dozens of carriages knocking against each other like logs in a river, and men would lean from carriage windows and bellow at their drivers, who in turn would shout at their horses, or each other. The rest of the time everyone plunged forward in a headlong dash and, mixed up in a great heaving mass, somehow found their way through to the other side, and continued on their journey.
On the side of the street boys swarmed, men and women walked, signs swung and singing (of a very unmelodic sort) drifted out from tavern doors. Blind beggars cried out for money and counted coins with their thumbs ungratefully, street sellers hollered their sales pitches, there was the creak and trot of wheels and feet and the jingle of every kind of conversation.
A baker carried an enormous unbaked pie on a plate on his head towards a house where a lady would pretend she had made it herself. A butcher passed, pushing a pig ahead of him and saying patiently, ‘Come on, Clarence. Come on, lad,’ and as he went by the fat glint of a blade showed from his back pocket.
And lastly there was the rain. Right now it drifted as softly as snow. Later on it would be hammering hard, and after that drizzling gently, but it would always come. The road was mud and the roofs were damp and mossy and the sewers ran full almost to the brim, and the gutters wept and drains chuckled all day and night. As they always had, and always would.
Much of this was visible to (although not all of it was noticed by) the man who had just stepped down from the coach, which presently clattered away. He was clean and well dressed, and he looked sprightly and energetic, all of which marked him out from the crowd, who were as a rule shabby and grey in appearance, and watchful and suspicious in attitude. His name was Finbarr Va ne, and it was his first time in the city for more than twenty years, since he was a boy.
He took a few steps along the street in either direction, enjoying the spectacle and the excitement of being in the crowd, then stopped and looked at his pocket watch. He was early to meet a friend, and thought he might take a look at this part of the city while he was here. As he tried to decide which way to go, he saw a young boy standing quite alone on the corner. The traffic passed a few feet in front of him, pedestrians passed a few feet behind, and no one seemed to take the slightest notice of him.
The boy looked lost and forlorn. He was quite short and skinny, and more than a little pale. He stared into the distance in an absent sort of way, his shoulders slightly hunched.
The man watched carefully for a few seconds, until he was quite sure that the boy was alone. Then, becoming worried, he came forward, leaned down to him and said: ‘Excuse me, little chap. Are you lost?’
The boy turned and the man was quite startled by the intensity of the grey eyes that looked up at him. They were clear and piercing, and although the boy had no expression at all, the man found them terribly sad. ‘Is your mother nearby?’ Finbarr asked, concerned.
The boy shook his head so slowly that it made the man ask, ‘You have no mother?’
The boy shook his head again.
‘Your father then. Might he be near?’ Once again in the same slow way, no.
The man gasped, and crouched down. ‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘An orphan! I’m so sorry for you. Now, my name’s Finbarr, and I shall take you home. You do know the way?’
The boy nodded more confidently. ‘Good,’ said Finbarr. ‘Lead on and I’ll make sure you get there all right.’
Directing him away from the crossroads, the boy pointed down a busy side street and, when they reached the end, led them down a narrow lane. The buildings were tall down here, and had once been warehouses or factories, but some of their insides had burned down or collapsed from old age, because looking in through the windows Finbarr could see sky where the roof should be.
The poor boy, he thought to himself. If he lives here, the family must be penniless. I expect he’s a drain on his aunt and uncle, or on his grandparents.
‘You’re quite sure this is the street you live on?’ he asked. The boy nodded eagerly, and led him towards the end of the lane, where a square doorway loomed like an open mouth.
Finbarr hesitated just slightly as he stepped inside, and found the boy’s hand in his. Although there was no lamp, some light filtered down from above, and he could see all of the doors were shut. None of them had a number, or a name plate, and they didn’t exactly look like they led to apartments, but the orphan led him on until they reached the stairs and so they went up together.
At the landing there was an open door ahead of them and Finbarr asked, ‘Is that it?’ but the orphan shook his head and walked on. Finbarr looked in through the doorway as he passed, and saw the shape of a man stretched out on the floor in the shadows. Frowning, he moved on and followed the orphan up a second staircase. The boy pointed at a door halfway along the wall.
‘Here?’ Finbarr asked. The boy nodded. Finbarr thought he seemed happier, and pleased to be home at last (although the truth was the boy’s expression had not changed one bit).
Finbarr knocked on the door. It gave a curiously hollow sound. He knocked harder, and called out, ‘Hello!’ No response. Perhaps they thought he was the police or the bailiff, here to evict them.
‘I’ve brought the little lad ba
ck for you!’ he called through the door. ‘The one who doesn’t speak!’
He locked eyes with the boy and again felt the impact of those colourless little buttons, which seemed to penetrate so sharply – he was still not sure why . The boy made a pushing motion.
‘Ah,’ said Finbarr. Perhaps there was a deaf grandparent inside or an invalid unable to rise and answer the door. Or perhaps it was just very stiff? He stood back and bumped the door quite hard with his shoulder. He bounced clean off it – it seemed as hard as stone, and left a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looked back at the boy whose eyes seemed to say, ‘That’s it – just a bit harder!’
Suddenly feeling a bit ridiculous to be standing in a strange corridor like this, he stood further back and launched himself at the door with more streng th than was needed.
It gave way with a dry snapping sound and light flooded all around.
Finbarr Vane had a moment to realize that he had jumped clean out into mid-air, and the ground was far below and rushing up to meet him at a terrific speed. He let out a cry of fright that lasted less than a second.
The orphan stood in the doorway, looking down, as Finbarr crashed into the rubble below and his cries gave way to silence. The watery eyes did not change, and whether they showed shock, or terror, or sadness, or no understanding of what had happened, neither you nor I could have said.
After a while, the boy turned and walked carefully down the stairs, out on to the lane and back to the busy street. There he vanished among the shouting, running, rattling madness of the crowd. Until he emerged again, moving slowly and cautiously, to take his place again on the corner of the street.
Minutes and hours passed. If you came across him now, you wouldn’t know he’d been there for so long, because, apart from the slight hunch in his shoulders, he didn’t slouch with tiredness, and his eyes didn’t frown or develop bags from fatig ue or distress. He simply stayed there, staring slightly upward, with an expression so blank passers-by thought, ‘My, that boy is deeply contented’ (if they themselves were deeply contented) or, ‘Gosh, he seems very unhappy’ (if they were very unhappy) or – in one case – ‘My God, he’s got bad toothache’ (from a man on the way to the dentist).
A woman with neatly tied-back hair, wearing a cheap but clean blue dress, hardly noticed him as she passed, but stopped when she had gone on a few yards, and something made her turn back.
She knelt to look in the orphan’s quiet eyes and said, ‘You seem lost,’ in a voice gentle but cheerful, as though they were old friends.
He nodded.
‘Do you know where home is?’ she asked. He nodded again and glanced over his shoulder in the direction he’d taken Mr Vane. Then he pointed the other way, over the crossroads and down the hill, towards the river.
The lady was called Miss Fort and she was a governess to three small children in a house a few miles north of Tumblewater. She led the orphan away through the confusing jumble of streets towards the dock, and perhaps the ghost of a smile tilted the orphan’s lips for these few minutes as they held each other’s hands, or perhaps it did not, but at last they turned along a wooden jetty by the water’s edge.
They walked beneath the blackened masts of twenty or more river boats that leaned over them. All sorts of slippery characters wearing very thick clothes and oil-smeared faces stared out from the decks of their boats where they were eating meals out of tin pots, or dividing up their pay, or playing games of cards on the tops of boxes. They turned to look at the orphan and Miss Fort as they passed, showing faces as crinkled as rotting wood, but they had no curiosity in a woman and a little boy, and turned back to their pursuits.
‘What fun,’ said Miss Fort encouragingly as they walked over the planks, ‘to live on a boat.’
The light was dingy in this little boatyard overhung by warehouses and cranes, and beyond the last lantern hanging on the jetty Miss Fort struggled to see for a second. Then she was shocked as she caught sight of the shoddy, forgotten boat that the boy was leading her towards. It was small, its mast was peeling and had no sail, and there was nothing on the deck – not one discarded match – to suggest that anyone ever lived or came here. It looked quite desolate as it rocked gently in the gloom.
But he kept leading her forward, past that boat, until she saw there was another beyond it, right at the end of the pier, even smaller and less welcoming than the first. It bobbed low in the water as though unsure whether to sink or float, and its bare deck showed only the snapped remains of a mast and a hatch standing open. From it came little gulping noises of water swilling around inside. In the failing light she saw the boy’s hollow grey eyes staring fixedly at the boat. He pointed at it.
How horrifying, she thought. No wonder he drifts away to stand at the crossroads. She decided to give him a few pennies before she said goodbye.
‘Come on, then,’ she said with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel, and leaning out, pulled the boat towards her until it was close enough for her to get on board. She stepped on and called out, ‘Hello?’ quite loudly. No noise or light came from the hull of the boat, and she looked back at the boy who pointed again at the open hatch. She put her feet on to the ladder awkwardly and began to climb downward, looking a little more doubtful with each step.
Suddenly there was a deep splintering noise, and the ladder shook. She gasped as first it juddered then collapsed altogether, and she fell down into the dark. The boat rocked from side to side, shaking the lid of the hatch so that it shut with a heavy thump.
She screamed and screamed again, but the sound was completely muffled by the tar-lined lid. And in falling down she had broken a hole in the rotten keel of the boat so that the water suddenly rose around her in the darkness, and with her legs trapped in the hole beneath her, it was quickly above her head. As it filled with water the boat began to lean backwards and slide quietly beneath the surface.
The boy watched without moving. Within a few seconds the tiny boat was half sunk and a couple of minutes later it was gone entirely. The boy’s eyes rested on a smooth circle in the water surrounded by gentle ripples. After watching for a while he walked slowly back along the jetty and disappeared into the streets.
It was as the little boy was nearly at the top of the hill again that he crossed a frail wooden bridge over a deep canal. The planks rattled pleasantly under his feet, so he jumped up and down on them for a bit, as if enjoying himself, and dropped a few stones into the water.
On the other side of the bridge, he stopped in front of a sign against the wall. It read:
DANGER
WEAK BRIDGE
CARRIAGES – DO NOT CROSS
His little grey eyes travelled over the words, but he showed no sign of understanding them. His gaze fell instead on the string holding the sign in place, tied in a pretty bow. He went over and pulled at it until it unravelled smoothly, and walked away up the street, making a cat’s cradle with it in his hands. He didn’t notice as the sign toppled over the railing it had been tied to, vanishing from sight.
When he had gone about a quarter of a mile further on, there was a great rattling, shouting, jingling sort of noise, and looking up from his game the boy saw a coach approaching. It was filled with loud, merry-making travellers, several of whom were leaning out of the windows holding bottles, one of them doing this while also being fast asleep.
‘Look!’ shouted a female voice. The orphan glanced up and found that everyone inside the carriage (most of whom up until that point had been singing a very loud and very rude song) was staring down at him. The voice was that of a flushed, well-built lady who seemed in very high spirits, and who now looked down lovingly at the young lad.
‘Dear little boy!’ she cried. ‘Have you lost your daddy and mummy?’
A short conversation followed which involved the orphan saying nothing at all (only nodding and shaking his head) and the travellers saying a great deal, often all at once. Having won the deep and heartfelt sympathy of everyone aboard, the boy was told that he was going t
o be escorted home, and that they refused to hear otherwise (which of course they wouldn’t, as the boy never said anything). The decision was announced by the woman and greeted with a cheer from everyone inside, which was so loud that the sleeping man woke, banged his head on the window frame and dropped the bottle he’d been holding on to the cobbles.
‘Now,’ said the well-built woman, leaning clean out of the window to talk to the boy, ‘you know where it is you live, don’t you?’
He looked up from the broken pieces of the bottle and the red liquid which left dark stains between the cobbles, thought for a moment, and then nodded.
‘Show us, then,’ the woman said with her most ingratiating smile (revealing similar red stains around her teeth). The orphan pointed back down the street towards the bridge he had crossed, and began to trot away in that direction. All the inhabitants of the coach called to him to come up and ride with them, but instead he refused and trotted happily alongside, so they followed, drinking and laughing and chatting to each other.
Now, as the strange little boy and the coachload of drunkards go off down the street together, I’m going to lead you in the opposite direction, a short distance back to the corner of the crossroads. This point was just about the centre of the city, and here was where the four poorest corners of four larger districts met. All around people continued to trudge, carrying suitcases and baskets and the burden of their own stories. They made their way home, or away from it, towards the shop or the graveyard, or the school or the prison, tramping on through the rain to find out what would happen to them next.
It now began to rain a little harder, and the murmur of the crowd became drowned out by the drumming of raindrops on hats and umbrellas. And then, slowly, there began to be heard cries and screams far away in the distance, which came closer as the seconds passed, and were soon among the crowd.
‘A coach has crashed!’ a man shouted. ‘A bridge has fallen in!’ and people stopped in horror, and others paused, wondering if they’d heard him right.
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