‘You can tell the time from this?’ he asked, turning again so the old man could read his lips.
‘Perfectly,’ said the man. ‘It’s five to nine. When my great-grandmother was a child, she told time from that clock. And her great-grandmother, who lived to three hundred and two, had always told the time from the same clock; it had just kept going for as long as she could remember. There is no telling how ancient it is, yet it still tells perfect time.’
‘Five to nine?’ said Bartle, realizing what the man had just said. ‘I must get home at once!’
‘If you leave now,’ said the little man, ‘you won’t never know the secret of the perfect clock.’
‘Well, tell me, then,’ said Bartle. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ said the man patiently, ‘so long as you’ll make me one single promise.’
‘Of course!’ said Bartle, almost shouting.
‘Promise me,’ said the man, ‘that you’ll come back here.’
Bartle was confused. ‘All right,’ he said, taking the little man’s hand in his. ‘I promise.’ It seemed a ridiculous promise to make – he almost laughed at how little the man demanded. Now he looked expectantly at the old man’s face. ‘So?’
The tiny old man turned his eyes down, and spoke softly. ‘The thing which keeps a clock perfect, so it never goes wrong,’ he said, ‘can only be found in the human body. It is very expensive and difficult to find, but I know a man who will find it for you. His name is Mr Grum.’
Bartle stared at him. ‘That’s it?’
‘Go to Grum,’ said the man, still solemn, and looking down at the floor. Then he closed his eyes. ‘You must go now,’ he said. ‘I have to sleep. I am, after all, very, very old.’
When he tried to get out of his chair, Bartle banged his head on the ceiling and knocked against the furniture, making himself dizzy, and once he had staggered into the street and got his bearings he could no longer see the old man’s door, which must have shut behind him.
How can I return if I don’t even know his name? mused Bartle, as he rushed along the streets, looking for a way home.
Bartle was going to build a single clock that would be timeless, still telling people the time in a thousand – or a million – years’ time. It might even outlive humans themselves, into some far future when giant beetles walked the earth and the ageing sun burned like a huge red ball in the sky . These ideas entertained him as he began to fight through the rain, and found himself going from cobbled streets to muddy ones.
There was no use going further, he eventually realized. He was hopelessly lost, and only asking for directions would get him back to safety. The rain, which he was dimly aware always fell on this part of the town, was particularly heavy. He rested beneath the eaves of a shop and found himself standing next to another sheltering man.
‘Where am I?’ cried Bartle through the clattering of the rain.
The other man lifted his face briefly to look at him, as though Bartle must be joking. ‘You’re in Tumblewater Hill, chief,’ said the man ruefully. ‘And best of luck to you.’
‘Tell me,’ said Bartle, ‘do you know where I might find a man who lives around here, who goes by the name of Grum?’
The stranger’s face, dark as it was, grew darker. ‘You have business with Mr Grum?’ he asked. ‘Then you have my deepest sympathy.’
‘Never mind that!’ Mr Bartle had to shout to overcome the racket of water hitting the pavement, which was as loud as the clapping of a full theatre. ‘Can you direct me to him?’
The stranger nodded sadly. ‘You know St Hildred’s Church?’
Of course Mr Bartle knew it. It was the blackest and most forbidding building for miles around. ‘Well,’ said the stranger, ‘you’ll find Grum there behind it, in the graveyard. He’s the gravedigger. If you go now, you’ll find him – he works by night. A very strange man.’
‘Thank you!’ Bartle called, and set off at once into the downpour, much faster now and almost in a good mood. Before long he knew where he was, and found himself in the huge shadow of St Hildred’s. The rain, if anything, was now worse, and water gushed at the roadside like an angry river. Bartle didn’t notice that he was wet to the knees as he strode along the damp path by the side of the church. When he reached the graveyard at the back, he found it totally flooded. All he could see was the tips of a hundred tombstones sticking out of the water like decayed teeth, and the hunched figure of a man, patiently ladling mud with a bent shovel.
‘Mr Grum!’ called Bartle, but under the din of the rain the man could not hear him. ‘MISTER GRUM!’ he shouted. Slowly, the gravedigger turned round until he could see who had called his name. He beckoned Mr Bartle forward without budging from his spot and carried on digging his grave. Hesitantly, Bartle stepped from the path into the dark water, and shuddered as he found it came up to his knees. He waded until he was near enough to Mr Grum, and saw that he was a slump-shouldered old man, whose face looked as if it had never known how to smile.
‘Good day to you,’ said Bartle. Grum looked up at the sky, letting raindrops splash against his face for a second, then looked back at Mr Bartle.
‘All right, it’s not a particularly good day,’ admitted Bartle. ‘But I have some business to talk to you about.’
‘Someone dead, is it?’ asked Grum. His voice was surprisingly smooth and quiet. ‘Want a grave dug, do you? How big was they?’
‘No, no. Nobody’s dead. But I am seeking a very special item, which I think only you can give me.’ He then explained, as best he could in the noise of the rain, his whole story, and how the little man had pointed him towards Grum.
Mr Grum listened, then raised his eyebrows.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘You can help me?’
‘Course I can. But it’ll cost you.’
‘Anything, Mr Grum. I can pay you anything – I am a very rich man.’
‘All right, then. I want a thousand sovereigns.’
‘A thousand?’ asked Bartle, incredulous. ‘No, I’ll pay it, I’ll pay it,’ he said as Mr Grum began to turn away.
‘Follow me,’ said Grum. ‘And mind the grave.’
‘What g—’ said Mr Bartle as he stepped clean into the hole and vanished beneath the water.
He soon came spluttering back out, and Grum said, ‘Stop fooling around, and follow me. I’m a busy man. Three graves to do tonight.’
Nervously, Mr Bartle tried to think of something to say as they waded towards the back of the graveyard, which was even darker than the rest of it, overhung by tall trees, which loomed like giants in the darkness.
‘Three graves?’ he asked, eager for conversation to dispel the creepiness. ‘Is there some sort of epidemic in town?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Grum.
‘Tell me, Mr Grum. Does your work ever . . . frighten you at all?’
‘Yes,’ said Grum. ‘I suppose it does. Here we are.’
In front of them stone steps rose out of the water to the door of a grand mausoleum, with huge grinning gargoyles sticking out from every corner. Grum ascended the steps and then reached so deep into his trouser pocket that he looked as though he was scratching his knee. At last he pulled from it a great string of keys, all jangling against each other and dripping with moisture, and held them up to squint at them.
‘This is the one,’ he said to himself, taking hold of a thin spindle of metal, and turning it in the lock. The door swung inwards with a dreadful grinding noise. ‘Come on,’ said Grum impatiently, and led Bartle in.
It was more spacious than it had looked from outside, and a slender candle burned on one wall. Around them were stacked coffins on shelves rising high above their heads. ‘I come in here for me little flask of tea each night,’ Grum explained, kneeling down next to the lowest and newest coffin, and working at the lid with his shovel.
‘’Ere we go,’ he said at last as the lid came free, and he threw it aside. Laid out within the coffin was the most beautiful young g
irl Bartle had ever seen. She could not have been more than sixteen years old, but in her cheekbones and fair skin one could discern the gentle lines of what would have been an extraordinarily beautiful woman. The sight of such a solemn prettiness took Mr Bartle’s breath away and left a terrible sadness in him.
‘Right,’ said Grum, and, lifting the shovel high above his head, he brought it down with all his force on to her forehead, splitting the top of her head off.
Mr Bartle cried out in shock. ‘What are you doing, man?’ he shouted.
‘What you asked,’ said Grum, stamping his foot on the spade to make sure it had gone all the way through, and then leaning on the handle for a second to get his breath back. Speechless with horror, Bartle watched as the gravedigger discarded his spade, reached down into the girl’s severed skull, rooted around in the mushy matter of her brain and then plucked a little object from it, which came free with a gentle pop. He offered it up and Bartle took it in his handkerchief, examining it closely.
The size of a small pebble, it was rubbery, as though made from hard-set jelly, and soft to the touch.
‘I never knew this existed,’ he said wonderingly. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s what you’re paying for,’ said Grum, shrugging. ‘You fix that in where the winding mechanism of your clock normally goes, and it will keep going until doomsday, or so they say. Now not a word of this, you understand? We could end up in prison.’
‘Of course!’ Bartle insisted. Grum led them out, and locked the door. As they stepped back into the freezing water, Bartle said, ‘I’ll have my manservant come over first thing in the morning with your money . What will you do with it, Mr Grum – give up gravedigging?’
‘Oh no,’ said the old man lightly. ‘I quite likes the job. We ll, it’s something to do since Mrs Grum passed on.’
‘But even with a thousand gold pieces?’
‘Well,’ Grum reflected, ‘I suppose I could get this shovel unbent.’
The rain continued to thunder all around them.
The following day, Bartle sprang out of bed earlier than usual, even though he had been so very late to bed.
First of all he directed his valet (which is a posh word for butler, even though having a butler is a posh thing already) to drive direct to his bank, cash a cheque for a thousand sovereigns and deliver the sum to Mr Grum’s address, which was 144 Plimsole Street.
Next he sat down to a hearty breakfast, the like of which he had not enjoyed for years. He had kippers, smoked salmon, poached eggs and kidneys washed down with Egyptian coffee and pomegranate juice, and, to finish, a terrine of pig’s snout on toasted soda bread.
Then he took a shower in his ridiculously extravagant bathroom, where the water splashed in a fountain from a silver lion’s head into a golden oyster shell, and afterwards he rode his favourite horse, Trumpty, around his entire estate twice, leaping over hedges and gardeners as he came upon them.
Finally, utterly refreshed and in love with life again, he went to his workshop to begin his final and most perfect clock. He assembled all the materials he needed and set to work alone, sawing wood, hammering nails, delicately applying paint and varnish, and examining every surface with his tape measure and spirit level.
This went on for weeks, which stretched into months. Bartle would blow the sawdust from a beautifully sanded corner of wood and see cold meals stacked up on trays and a growing pile of letters from the rich and famous, begging him to work for them. But nothing could drag him from his task.
It was sixteen weeks later that he emerged from his workshop, having rubbed the last touch of polish from the edges of the perfected machine. He tore down the black paper he’d plastered over the windows and stood in the sunlight for a moment, a dizzy and shambolic figure coated in paint and dirt, his clothes torn and a grubby beard making him almost unrecognizable. His valet called through the door to say that a flock of newspapermen had gathered outside to interview him about his latest masterpiece, and to enquire as to its new owner.
‘Send them away,’ he shouted back. ‘Tell them there is no new clock, and nor will there ever be. I have retired.’ As the sound of the valet’s footsteps withdrew, Bartle’s eyes did not leave the face of his spotless and magnificent creation. There was only one final addition which remained. Opening his safe, Bartle drew out the small package he had purchased that night at St Hildred’s graveyard, and which had remained carefully folded in his handkerchief ever since. Unwrapping it now, he tenderly took the little bulb in his palm and with his spare hand unlocked the back of the clock’s head. Inside, there was a shallow bronze bowl no larger than the head of a tablespoon, specially designed by Bartle for this purpose, into which the ruby pellet fitted snugly. When he was sure it was fixed, he took two electrodes – thin copper spindles that fed into the clock’s machinery – and touched the mysterious object with them, one at each end.
At once he felt a pulse of energy, heard the low ticking of clockwork and, closing the clock’s door, stood back in wonder.
‘It can’t be true,’ he whispered, walking round to see the clock from the front. But there it was – the slimmer hand switching once, precisely and magically, with every passing second. He fell into a waking dream as he watched the time pass, hardly daring to believe that he had, at last, made his eternal masterpiece.
The following day he was awoken by the clock’s chimes at 8 a.m. Neither too loud nor too soft, they brought him quietly out of his slumbers without startling him. He lay in perfect peace for a few moments in the realization that yesterday he had at last achieved his one true goal, and then got up to look at his clock.
It was, of course, incredibly beautiful. Two slim gold petals, one larger than the other, formed the minute and hour hands. The hours themselves were denoted by numbers made from inlaid diamonds, and the whole clock face was enclosed within a magnificent ebony-panelled frame. As he stood watching the seconds tick by, he thought he heard a girl’s voice in the next room.
‘Hello?’ it said. ‘Is anybody there?’
Amazed and annoyed that anyone could have gained access to his private rooms, he strode across to the connecting door and threw it open. But the cavernous drawing room was empty . He went to pull on the rope that would ring a bell in another room (about a quarter of a mile away) to call his valet, but stopped. What would he say when the man arrived? There had been no sound of a door opening or closing and this room was definitely empty. He walked around it once, just to be sure, and put it down to his imagination playing tricks on him.
‘That’s what it is,’ he said. ‘I am exhausted. Apart from last night I have not slept properly or eaten well for months. I must rest.’
So instead of calling anyone he ran himself a bath and lay back in the hot water, with his eyes closed, trying to rest his mind and cure the headache that was beginning to set in.
He lost track of time, and drifted in and out of a light sleep, feeling the heat of the water soothe the pain of thousands of hours’ hard work from his muscles. Then, quite distinctly, he heard a girl’s voice say, ‘I don’t know this place.’
Once more the sound came from the next room, which was his bedroom. But it was not its nearness that shocked him and made him jump clean out of the bath and stand dripping and shivering and staring at the door. It was the deep and inconsolable sadness he had heard in those five simple words, the voice of someone utterly lost.
He stared at the door for a long time, but when no sound came, he walked towards it very slowly, trying to make no noise (although he couldn’t have explained why) until he had his hand on the doorknob. When he plucked up the courage to turn it, and heard the click of the catch, he suddenly knew that he would find the room empty . He pulled the door open roughly and let it swing slowly back. No one was there.
This time he rang for his valet, and put on a robe while he waited for the man to appear, tying it tightly because after the heat of the bath, he was now freezing. After five minutes or so (it took this long to walk all the way
from the servants’ quarters) the valet appeared. He was a bald, serious and very neat man who always spoke with the same calm voice, no matter what you said to him.
‘Smuck,’ said Bartle (for that was the valet’s name), ‘has anyone come into the house today?’
‘No, sir,’ said Smuck, ‘besides the baker’s lad, and a couple of poor people begging for money.’
‘How dreadful – you turned them away, I hope?’
‘The beggars I did. The baker’s lad was delivering some crumpets, sir.’
‘Spare me such details as crumpets, Smuck. There was no one else?’
‘Forgive me, sir. No, no one, sir.’
‘And no one could have got into the grounds without your knowing?’
‘No, sir,’ said the man with complete confidence. ‘I always keep watch with binoculars, as per your instructions. No intruders today, sir.’
Now Bartle smiled in what he hoped was a friendly way, but in fact made him seem very strange as he had never smiled at a servant before, and asked: ‘Smuck, tell me. Has anyone seen or heard anything strange in the house or – or in the grounds even, over the last few weeks?
Smuck did not hesitate. ‘No, sir. If they had, I would have told you about it at once. On account of the secrecy of your work, we have all been especially vigilant. May I ask, sir, if anything is wrong?’
Bartle laughed nervously. ‘Why, of course not, dear Smuck! Why ever would you suggest such a thing?’ and he took the valet by the elbow and ushered him to the door. ‘Just wanted to check. Keep up the good work, my man!’ and, patting him on the back, Bartle pushed him out, and shut the door.
Alone, he quickly felt the heavy silence in the room again, interrupted only by his fast breathing. The creeping fear that he would once more hear the voice made up his mind. He dressed as fast as he could, and went outside to walk in the gardens.
He crossed the vast lawn, walked through the rose garden and passed bed after bed of beautiful flowers until he came upon a little sanctuary he had never noticed before, square and surrounded by perfectly trimmed hedgerows. In the centre a fountain trickled quietly and he sat on a stone bench looking at it and feeling calmed by the peace of the garden and the soft breeze which was blowing.
Grisly Tales from Tumblewater Page 17