When he was satisfied with the arrangement, he put on his coat again and set off to find the police station.
As a law-abiding citizen who kept himself to himself, and had been lucky enough never to be the victim of a serious crime, it was only when he reached the end of his street that Mr Welling realized he had no idea where the police station was. He had to ask directions three times, feeling more guilty and suspicious-looking with each request. He found it, eventually: a small building between a tailor’s shop and a derelict butcher’s. A blue lamp hung above the door and there were bars over the windows, rather making it seem as though the policemen were themselves locked in or the rest of the world locked out. Mr Welling wondered briefly to himself whether a district with such a terrible reputation for crime deserved a larger police house.
He squeezed in through the tiny door, closing his umbrella and sending water cascading on to the floor, only to find it seemed even smaller inside than out. The interior was brightly lit and whitewashed so starkly that everything in the room seemed to be shining white, except for the single policeman who looked up at him with an impatient and suspicious expression.
‘My friend!’ said Mr Welling breathlessly. ‘Something terrible has happened. I have discovered a lost baby on my doorstep. No doubt you already know of this? It must be returned to its parents as soon as possible to spare them any further worry.’
To Mr Welling’s astonishment, the policeman did not move, or speak, or do any thing at all. In the small space between the counter and the wall behind him, he grew a little uncomfortable.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I have discovered an infant. Lost and alone. He must be reunited with his parents!’
The policeman remained perfectly still, as though he had not heard a sound, for several seconds. In disbelief, Mr Welling looked around for someone else to help him, but the room was so small there was nothing else to see. At last, the officer spoke.
‘Bring him here,’ he said with a cool voice. ‘We know what to do.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Welling. ‘There has been a report of a missing child, has there not?’
The policeman looked at Mr Welling in sour disbelief, and spoke confidentially. ‘Listen, mister. Y o u seem like a regular sort. I wouldn’t go getting mixed up in all this – we get eight or ten of these a year, little abandoned ones whose mothers don’t want ’em. Just bring it along and leave it with me. The workhouse will take care of it well enough.’
Mr Welling stood back, appalled, and bumped into the wall. ‘Whose mothers don’t want them?’ he fairly shouted. The thought made his stomach turn over. ‘In this day and age?’
The policeman sighed and looked away, running his hand through his hair, as though he was trying to explain something very simple and obvious, and it made him inexpressibly tired.
‘Sir –’ he said, but Mr Welling would not hear another word. He was out of the door and almost running home, all of a sudden worried about the candle he had left burning so close to the crib.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he thought to himself. ‘The workhouse. I have heard such terrible things about the workhouse. No, I cannot allow it. That policeman did not know my name and did not follow me home and, if they do find me somehow, I shall fight them for it!’ His mind was quite made up. In his quiet and lonely little world he had forgotten years ago that life could be so cruel, and that the people supposed to protect us – be they mothers or the police – could be so indifferent. He would bring up the baby himself, and nothing could change his mind.
With this new responsibility, and the thoughts of what changes this would bring to his life, Mr Welling could not sleep a wink. Which is just as well, because the baby boy woke up crying at roughly one-hourly intervals throughout the night.
By dawn, when the child woke for the seventh time, Mr Welling realized that it must be hungry, and that he had no idea how to feed it. He rooted around in the rackety kitchen drawers for a long while before he came up with a system that he was rather pleased with. He found an old copper funnel which he scrubbed until it shone, and into this he forced a clean cloth, which he pressed down with a pencil until a tip of it stuck out of its end. Then he poured small amounts of warmed milk down the funnel so that the baby could suck at the protruding tip, just as it would if it was being fed by its mother.
Arriving at work, though, he found things more difficult than he had hoped. The baby cried periodically throughout the day, and each time he had to stop his work and calm it or feed it milk, while ignoring the incredulous looks of the younger clerks. He allowed them to think what they liked, and hoped they assumed he was looking after a niece or a nephew they had never heard of.
Late in the afternoon, during which he had found it almost impossible to concentrate on work and had got quite behind with his accounts, he took his customary brief walk on to the floor of the mill to see how the men were getting on. They were always pleased to see him, and always happy to get away for a moment from their grinding hard work. Today some of them were converting a stack of huge timbers into a giant new vat for the flour. As two of the workmen came over for a chat, Mr Welling placed the basket down on a shelf by his side and felt it whizz out of his hand. With a high-pitched scream he realized that what he’d taken for a shelf was in fact a moving belt that drew wood towards a giant saw, the kind which could cut through planks as thick as railway sleepers. The man who operated the machine was at Mr Welling’s elbow, and had not noticed anything was wrong so with three giant bounds Mr Welling plunged forward in a desperate leap, his hand plucking the basket from the belt just as the whirring blades nibbled at its side.
He held it tightly, taking deep breaths, as the workmen gathered round him and stared down at the screaming child.
The following evening Mr Welling carried the basket with him to the market. He moved between the covered stalls with care, picking out the few fruits and meats he could afford each week, and checking the prices between different stalls so he could save himself a few pennies, as he always did.
Wa lking home, he was pleased with his haul. He had six apples, four pears, three lamb chops, a lemon, a pound of potatoes, half a pound of carrots and – his treat – a few ounces of raspberries. He felt so hungry he couldn’t recall the last time he had looked forward to dinner so much.
And then –
‘My God!’ he said, and set off running back towards the market. Where was the baby? He asked at every stall. Fat, indifferent women stared back at him as though he was stupid. So he asked again, all the louder. Other stallholders, grimy men with beards and cheap clay pipes, ignored his questions and instead offered him plums or gooseberries ‘at the best price on the market’. Still Mr Welling asked louder, grabbing other shoppers by their elbows, asking everyone who went by, until finally a little grey-haired lady pointed across the way . He saw it, his old picnic basket with its beloved cargo, hanging over the edge of a travelling butcher’s stall he had briefly stopped at earlier, unnoticed by the arrogant owner as he showed off to the crowd.
‘Now I ain’t offerin’ you four sausages for sixpence, ladies and gentlemen,’ the man was shouting, ‘I ain’t even offerin’ you six sausages for sixpence . . .’
The same second that he saw it he watched, open-mouthed, as the basket tilted forward and teetered on the edge for a second so that Mr Welling caught sight of the carefully wrapped bundle inside. He cried out to try and catch the butcher’s attention and dashed forward as he saw the basket fall. A heavy cart drawn by four horses was passing close in front of the butcher’s stall. With all his breath he shouted, ‘HALT THERE, HALT!’ and threw himself bodily beneath the horses. In the terror and excitement of seeing the basket fall and the wheels slipping in the mud, and the frightened neighing of the horses, and the thundering of their hoofs all around him, he lost consciousness.
When he came round, a couple of friendly stallholders were wiping the worst of the mud from Mr Welling’s suit and trying to help him to his feet. A few less friendly people, including the
angry owner of the cart, stood around talking loudly about his lunatic actions.
‘What’s a madman like you doing free on the streets?’ shouted the nearest. ‘Get on out of here, mate – before you get yourself hurt.’
‘And not by a cart,’ said another.
But once he knew where he was he had other worries. ‘My child!’ he said, and darted back beneath the cart to see if the baby was any where to be seen.
First he saw the basket on its side in the mud, empty . Then he saw the child, which had come to rest within a few inches of a muddy wooden wheel. He looked down and felt a happiness that was piercingly sad, or a sadness that was piercingly happy, as he saw the baby’s mouth wide open and trembling. He realized that the sound he could hear was not the ringing in his ears from knocking his head but the high-pitched wail of the poor little creature.
He picked up the bundle and hugged it to his shoulder right there, with his head pressed against the underneath of the carriage. ‘Dearest child,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll look after you better from now on.’
And so he clambered from beneath the dripping side of the cart in front of the onlooking strangers, who stared at him until they saw the baby clasped to his shoulder. Then they started to mumble to each other and wander away into the rain. He recovered his dropped shopping and umbrella, and walked home fully laden and happy.
It was when he reached the front door, though, that Mr Welling met his next difficulty.
He had five wet bags of shopping in one arm, with which he was also holding the umbrella. And in the other he had the baby . How he was to open the door, he had no idea. So, with the shopping bags fit to fall apart, he lowered the child gently to the top step, so that he could search his pockets for the keys. Once he found the keyring, he held it by the thickest key and let the others fall away, and then unlocked the door.
As he pushed it open, he looked down, and for the third time in two days his heart stopped – he saw his umbrella knock against the baby so that the little parcel slid smoothly from the top step and into the wide rushing stream of rainwater that perpetually gurgled in the gutter below, the very one he had plucked it from in the first place. It bobbed lightly for a second as though deciding where to go, and then dived in a sudden gulp down the wide-mouthed drain.
Mr Welling remained stooped, his mouth open once again in horror, staring at the letter-box-shaped hole down which his single reason for living had just disappeared, as swiftly and silently as a leaf.
This time he did not panic. He placed his bags and umbrella inside the door and went out, shutting it behind him. Then he ran up the street to the nearest manhole, and banged on the door of the man who lived opposite, who was the local gravedigger, and a friend of his.
‘What is it?’ the man said, opening his door suspiciously, a candle beneath his big, drooping nose.
‘Mr Grum, quickly!’ Mr Welling shouted. ‘You must help me open the manhole at once! A disaster! A baby has fallen down!’
‘A live one?’
‘A what?’ asked Welling. ‘Yes, of course, a live one!’
Mr Grum hurried back into his house, his nightcap bobbing behind his head, and a spade was produced. He followed Mr Welling into the street and they both set about loosening the lid as quickly as they could. Finally, Mr Welling heard a growl in the metal below his feet and leaned back on the spade with all his strength to flip the iron lid over. It had seemed so flimsy when he had walked over it a hundred – no, a thousand, ten thousand – times, yet now he saw a whole dark world that had been hidden beneath him, its mouth open at his feet.
‘Go, quickly,’ said Mr Grum. ‘I’ll be here.’ In an instant Mr Welling was climbing down towards the foetid running waters that fairly screeched with smell. He held the gravedigger’s candle above his head, for when he reached it the water came up to his chest. By its light he could see forward through the curtains of rain dripping from the grates above, and his other hand was cupped above the flame to prevent it from going out.
After wading for about a hundred yards, he reached what he thought was roughly the spot beneath the drain where the baby had vanished. He was wet through, to the last hair on his head, and just about as cold as a man could be. Here the tunnel emptied into a larger chamber, with drain holes sending water cascading down from all corners of the ceiling, and six or seven other tunnels shooting off in all different directions, some of them swilling thick water into the room, some of them sending it pouring away into the dark. Mr Welling felt perfectly lost and hopeless for a moment. The baby had been swallowed up and he was sure he would perish down here from cold and fright and confusion.
Then, through the constant dripping, he thought he saw a snatch of white cloth. He fixed his glasses closer against his eyes and looked again. There was something lodged on a shelf on the other side that was a similar size and colour to the baby – and the whining noise he could just hear over the crashing of water was one he knew well.
He found a gap in the wall, where some bricks had fallen away, in which to place his candle. Then he set out, swimming breaststroke across the chamber, the only way to swim that he could remember from his one trip to the seaside fifty years before. In a few minutes, blinking the water from his eyes, he had the baby in his arm. He set out to return, which, swimming one-armed, took a lot longer, because he kept finding himself going round in circles.
Finally, by the light of the flame, he reached the other side of the chamber. With lots of coughing and choking, he tried to push the baby safely on to the ledge and keep his head above water at the same time. Spitting out water as he drew himself up, he collected the nearly burnt-down candle, and began to struggle back through the dark dripping tunnel towards the open manhole, until he found himself staring up at the face of Mr Grum in a tiny circle far above.
When he had climbed up the ladder and wrapped himself in the blanket his friend had brought along, carefully cradling the baby all the while, he thanked Grum dearly and retreated back to his house. Here, he got the fire going and warmed some milk on it, fighting to keep his eyes open all the while. Then he fed the milk to the baby, and put it down in the cot, keeping watch until the little thing closed its eyes. Finally he got into his own bed and, after replaying the day’s harrowing scenes in his head a dozen times, he fell asleep.
That Friday afternoon, an exhausted Mr Welling sat at his desk, facing the onslaught of rain against the window. He had never really noticed the sound of the rain before. Or, if he had, it had never really got on his nerves.
Now it was another story. Feeding the baby warm milk every few hours (including in the office, where he had to put up with the disdainful looks of Dick and Mr Tuck) had deprived him of any real rest whatsoever. Now, the ceaseless clattering of drops against the pane sounded to him like rats nibbling against the glass for hour after hour.
Half past six finally arrived, though, and he was glad to be taking the baby home. He was so tired he barely knew who he was, but at the same time he was happier than he had ever been in his life. His accounts were in turmoil, his files were scattered over the desk, and rather than accepting his well-meaning advice his colleagues now sniffed with an air of suspicion whenever he ventured to make a suggestion. But none of it mattered. He had another human life in his care, a reason for being, something to give meaning to his years of retirement.
This single happy thought ran through his head during his journey home, and again as he opened his front door, balancing the baby’s basket on one hip, his briefcase dangling by its handle from his little finger. He shuffled inside, set the sleeping baby down on the kitchen table, and beside it placed the small packet of flour that he was given each week for free by the mill’s owners. With it he always made his one loaf of bread, which he would eke out for seven days of frugal lunches and suppers.
As he opened and closed the various kitchen cupboards, another wave of tiredness overcame him and he stopped for a moment, putting his hands over his eyes. A feeling of sympathy and unders
tanding for every young mother in the land filled him. How could they manage it? What would it be like if he had two of these little things to look after? Dizzy with exhaustion, he mixed and kneaded the dough, holding the baby in one arm, knocking things over with the other and generally getting himself into a bother.
When the loaf was ready to bake, he put the baby down, threw the bread into the oven, lit the fire and settled in the armchair for a few moments’ peace.
He awoke suddenly an hour later, in a panic.
The bread would be spoilt, and he would have to waste money buying more! He launched out of his chair and rushed to the kitchen. He took the stick he used to lift open the oven door when it was hot, unlatched it and was about to pull it open when a thought came upon him. He lowered the stick and stared at the oven door for a second, perfectly silent.
The little apartment filled with a silence louder than the roar of water in the cavernous sewer. Mr Welling had not yet known an hour when the baby had not made a noise. He stood slowly and walked back to the drawing room. The fire had died down in the grate and the basket sat on its stool, glowing in the soft orange light.
Very slowly, Mr Welling advanced until he could see into the basket, and all of its contents.
He saw old blankets, folded to make a mattress. And old bedsheets, arranged to make warm and comfortable bedding. And a humble, battered tin, filled to the brim with rising dough.
I saw from the looks of the children that they were just as appalled as I was by the story’s horrible ending (although I suspect it took them a few seconds to grasp its full meaning). There was a sneaky satisfaction to be seen on their faces too, as though (again, just like me) they enjoyed it because it was so awful.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said quietly to Jed. ‘Does everyone in Tumblewater have a story to tell?’
‘Everyone knows a few that they’ve heard,’ he nodded. ‘Look at this.’ He held out his hand for two seconds and it became instantly spattered with rain. ‘How much time do you think we spend indoors? And how many toys do you think I can afford after paying rent on my house and rent on my barrow and buying my fruit? You need to have some way of keeping the children entertained,’ he said. ‘Telling a good story keeps them quiet – and what’s more, it’s free. You can see why we’ve become good at it.’
Grisly Tales from Tumblewater Page 6