"I don't know what your little game is," Mr Goldsmith was trying hard not to appear afraid, "but if you're not out of here in two minutes flat, I'll have the law around. Do you hear me?"
The stranger had forgotten to close his mouth. The lower jaw hung down like a lid with a broken hinge. His threadbare, black overcoat was held in place by a solitary, chipped button. A frayed, filthy red scarf was wound tightly round his scrawny neck. He presented a horrible, loathsome appearance. He also smelt.
***
The head came round slowly and Mr Goldsmith saw the eyes were now watery, almost as if they were about to spill over the puffy lids and go streaming down the green-tinted cheeks.
"Oosed o love hore."
The voice was a gurgle that began somewhere deep down in the constricted throat and the words seemed to bubble like stew seething in a saucepan.
"What? What are you talking about?"
The head twisted from side to side. The loose skin round the neck concertinaed and the hands beat a tattoo on the chair arms.
"O-o-sed t-o-o l-o-v-e h-o-r-e."
"Used to live here!" A blast of understanding lit Mr Goldsmith's brain and he felt quite pleased with his interpretative powers. "Well, you don't live here now, so you'll oblige me by getting out."
The stranger stirred. The legs, clad in a pair of decrepit corduroy trousers, moved back. The hands pressed down on the chair arms, and the tall form rose. He shuffled towards Mr Goldsmith and the stomach-heaving stench came with him. Mr Goldsmith was too petrified to move and could only stare at the approaching horror with fear glazed eyes.
"Keep away," he whispered. "Touch me and… I'll shout…"
The face was only a few inches from his own. The hands came up and gripped the lapels of his jacket and with surprising strength, he was gently rocked back and forth. He heard the gurgling rumble; it gradually emerged into speech.
"Oi… um… dud… Oi… um… dud…"
Mr Goldsmith stared into the watery eyes and had there been a third person present he might have supposed they were exchanging some mutual confidence.
"You're… what?"
The bubbling words came again.
"Oi… um… dud."
"You're bloody mad," Mr Goldsmith whispered.
"Oi… um… dud."
Mr Goldsmith yelped like a startled puppy and pulling himself free, ran for the front door. He leapt down the stairs, his legs operating by reflex, for there was no room for thought in his fear misted brain.
Shop fronts slid by; paving stones loomed up, their rectangular shapes painted yellow by lamplight; startled faces drifted into his blurred vision, then disappeared and all the while the bubbling, ill-formed words echoed along the dark corridors of his brain.
"Oi… urn… dud."
"Just a moment, sir."
A powerful hand gripped his arm and he swung round as the impetus of his flight was checked. A burly policeman stared down at him, suspicion peeping out of the small, blue eyes.
"Now, what's all this, sir. You'll do yourself an injury, running like that."
Mr Goldsmith fought to regain his breath, eager to impart the vital knowledge. To share the burden.
"He's… he's dead."
The grip on his arm tightened.
"Now, calm yourself. Start from the beginning. Who's dead?"
"He…" Mr Goldsmith gasped… "he rang the bell, wouldn't take his finger off the button… used to live there… then he sat in my chair… then got up… and told me… he was dead…"
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the purr of a passing car. The driver cast an interested glance at the spectacle of a little man being held firmly by a large policeman. The arm of the law finally gave utterance.
"He told you he was dead?"
"Yes." Mr Goldsmith nodded, relieved to have shared his terrible information with an agent of authority. "He pronounced it dud."
"A northern corpse, no doubt," the policeman remarked with heavy irony.
"I don't think so," Mr Goldsmith shook his head. "No, I think his vocal cords are decomposing. He sort of bubbles his words. They… well, ooze out."
"Ooze out," the constable repeated drily.
"Yes." Mr Goldsmith remembered another important point.
"And he smells."
"Booze?" enquired the policeman.
"No, a sort of sweet, sour smell. Rather like bad milk and dead roses."
The second silence lasted a little longer than the first, then the constable sighed deeply:
"I guess we'd better go along to your place of residence and investigate."
"Must we?" Mr Goldsmith shuddered and the officer nodded.
"Yes, we must."
The front door was still open. The hall light dared Mr Goldsmith to enter and fear lurked in dark corners.
"Would you," Mr Goldsmith hesitated, for no coward likes to bare his face, "would you go in first?"
"Right." The constable nodded, squared his shoulders, and entered the flat. Mr Goldsmith found enough courage to advance as far as the doormat.
"In the living room," he called out. "I left him in the living room. The door on the left."
The police officer walked ponderously into the room indicated and after a few minutes came out again.
"No one there," he stated simply.
"The bedroom." Mr Goldsmith pointed to another door. "He must have gone in there."
The policeman dutifully inspected the bedroom, the kitchen, then the bathroom before returning to the hall.
"I think it's quite safe for you to come in," he remarked caustically. "There's no one here - living or dead."
Mr Goldsmith reoccupied his domain, much like an exiled king remounting his shaky throne.
"Now," the policeman produced a notebook and ball-point pen, "let's have a description."
"Pardon?"
"What did the fellow look like?" the officer asked with heavy patience.
"Oh. Tall, thin - very thin, his eyes were sort of runny, looked as if they might melt at any time, his hair was black and matted and he was dressed in an overcoat with one button…"
"Hold on," the officer admonished. "You're going too fast. Button…"
"It was chipped," Mr Goldsmith added importantly. "And he wore an awful pair of corduroy trousers. And he looked dead. Now I come to think of it, I can't remember him breathing. Yes, I'm certain, he didn't breathe."
The constable put his notebook away, and took up a stance on the hearthrug.
"Now, look, Mr…"
"Goldsmith. Edward. J. Goldsmith."
"Well, Mr Goldsmith…"
"The J is for Jeremiah but I never use it."
"As I was about to say, Mr Goldsmith," the constable wore the expression of a man who was labouring under great strain, "I've seen a fair number of stiffs - I should say, dead bodies -in my time, and not one of them has ever talked. In fact, I'd say you can almost bank on it. They can burp, jerk, sit up, flop, bare their teeth, glare, even clutch when rigor mortis sets in, but never talk."
"But he said he was." Mr Goldsmith was distressed that this nice, helpful policeman seemed unable to grasp the essential fact. "He said he was dud, and he looked and smelt dead."
"Ah, well now, that's another matter entirely." The constable looked like Sherlock Holmes, about to astound a dim-witted Watson. "This character you've described sounds to me like old Charlie. A proper old lay-about, sleeps rough and cadges what he can get from hotel kitchens and suchlike. A meths drinker no doubt and long ago lost whatever wits he ever had. I think he came up here for a hand-out. Probably stewed to the gills and lumbered by you when the door was open, intending to doss down in your living room. I'll report this to the station sergeant and we'll get him picked up. No visible means of subsistence, you understand."
"Thank you." Mr Goldsmith tried to feel relieved. "But…"
"Don't you worry anymore." The constable moved towards the door. "He won't bother you again. If you are all that worried, I'd have a chain put on
your front door, then you can see who's there before you let them in."
Mr Goldsmith said, "Yes", and it was with a somewhat lighter heart that he accompanied the policeman to the front-door and politely handed him his helmet.
"A talking dead man!" The constable shook his head and let out a series of explosive chuckles. "Strewth!"
Mr Goldsmith shut the door with a little bang and stood with his back leaning against its mauve panels. By a very small circle of friends he was considered to be wildly artistic.
"He was." He spoke aloud. "He was dead. I know it."
He reheated the baked beans, prepared toast under the grill and opened a tin of mushrooms, then dined in the kitchen.
The evening passed. The television glared and told him things he did not wish to know; the newspaper shocked him and the gas fire went out. There were no more five penny pieces so he had no option but to go to bed.
The bed was warm; it was safe, it was soft. If anything dreadful happened he could always hide under the sheets. His book was comforting. It told a story of a beautiful young girl who could have been a famous film star if only she would sleep with a nasty, fat producer, but instead she cut the aspiring mogul down to size, and married her childhood sweetheart who earned twenty pounds a week in the local bank. Mr Goldsmith derived much satisfaction from this happy state of affairs and, placing the book under his pillow, turned out the light and prepared to enter the land of dreams.
He almost got there.
His heart slowed down its heat. His brain flashed messages along the intricate network of nerves and contented itself all was well, although the stomach put in a formal complaint regarding the baked beans. It then began to shut off his five senses, before opening the strong-room where the fantasy treasures were stored. Then his ears detected a sound and his brain instantly ordered all senses on the alert.
Mr Goldsmith sat up and vainly fumbled for the light switch, while a series of futile denials tripped off his tongue.
"No… no… no…"
The wardrobe doors were opening. It was a nice, big wardrobe, fitted with two mirror doors and Mr Goldsmith watched the gleaming surfaces flash as they parted. A dark shape emerged from the bowels of the wardrobe; a tall, lean, slow-moving figure. Mr Goldsmith would have screamed, had such a vocal action been possible, but his throat was dry and constricted and he could only manage a few croaking sounds. The dark figure shuffled towards the bed, poised for a moment like a tree about to fall, then twisted round and sat down. Mr Goldsmith's afflicted throat permitted a whimpering sound as the long shape swung its legs up and lay down beside him. He could not see very well but he could smell and he could also hear. The strangled words bubbled up through the gloom.
"Oo… broot… cupper… Oi… hote… cuppers…"
They lay side by side for a little while, Mr Goldsmith's whimpers merging with the bubbling lament.
"Oo… broot cupper… Oi… um… dud… hote… cuppers… oll… cuppers… stunk…"
Mr Goldsmith dared to toy with the idea of movement. He longed to put distance between himself and whatever lay bubbling on the bed. His hand moved prior to pulling back the bedclothes. Instantly cold fingers gripped his wrist, then slid down to his palm to grasp his hand.
"Oi… um… dud…"
"Not again," Mr Goldsmith pleaded. "Not again."
Minutes passed. Mr Goldsmith tried to disengage his hand from the moist, cold grip, but it only tightened. Eventually, the form stirred and to Mr Goldsmith's horror, sat up and began to grope around with its free hand. The light shattered the gloom, chasing the shadows into obscure corners and Mr Goldsmith found himself looking at that which he did not wish to see.
The face had taken on a deeper tinge of green; the eyes were possibly more watery and seemed on the point of dribbling down the cheeks. The mouth was a gaping hole where the black tongue writhed like a flattened worm. The bubbling sound cascaded up the windpipe with the threatening roar of a worn out geyser.
"G-oot dr-oosed…"
The figure swung its legs off the bed and began to move towards the fireplace, still retaining its icy grip on Mr Goldsmith's hand, and forcing him to wriggle through the bedclothes and go stumbling after it. Over the mantelpiece was an old brass-handled naval cutlass, picked up for thirty shillings, back in the days when Mr Goldsmith had first read The Three Musketeers. This, the creature laboriously removed from its hooks and turning slowly, raised it high above the terrified little man's head. The bubbling sound built up and repeated the earlier order.
"G-oot dr-oosed…"
Mr Goldsmith got dressed.
They walked down the empty street, hand-in-hand, looking at times like a father dragging his reluctant son to school. Mr Goldsmith hungered for the merest glimpse of his friend the policeman, but the creature seemed to know all the back streets and alleys, pulling its victim through gaping holes in fences, taking advantage of every shadow, every dark corner. This, Mr Goldsmith told himself in the brief periods when he was capable of coherent thought, was the instinct of an alley cat, the automatic reflexes of a fox. The creature was making for its hole and taking its prey with it.
They were in the dock area. Black, soot-grimed buildings reached up to a murky sky. Cobbled alleys ran under railway arches, skirted grim-faced warehouses, and terminated in litter-ridden wastelands cleared by Hitler's bombs, thirty years before. Mr Goldsmith stumbled over uneven mounds crowned with sparse, rusty grass. He even fell down a hole, only to be promptly dragged out as the creatures advanced with the ponderous, irresistible momentum of a Sherman tank.
The ground sloped towards a passage running between the remnants of brick walls. Presently there was a ceiling to which morsels of plaster still clung. Then the smell of burning wood -and a strange new stench of corruption.
They were in what had once been the cellar of a large warehouse. The main buildings had been gutted and their skeletons removed, but the roots, too far down to be affected by flame or bomb, still remained. The walls wept rivulets of moisture, the ceiling sagged, the floor was an uneven carpet of cracked cement, but to all intents, the cellar existed. An ancient bath stood on two spaced rows of bricks. Holes had been pierced in its rusty flanks, and it now held a pile of burning wood. Flame tinted smoke made the place look like some forgotten inferno; it drifted up to the ceiling and coiled lazily round the black beams like torpid snakes looking for darkness. A number of hurricane lamps hung from beams and walls, so that once again Mr Goldsmith was forced to look at that which he would rather have not seen.
They were crouched in a large circle round the fire, dressed in an assortment of old clothes, with green tinted faces and watery eyes, gaping mouths and rigid fingers. Mr Goldsmith's companion quelled any lingering doubts he might have had with the simplicity of a sledgehammer cracking a walnut.
"Oll… dud… oll… dud…"
"What's all this then?"
Two men stood behind Mr Goldsmith and his companion. One was a tall, hulking fellow and the other a little runt of a man with the face of a crafty weasel. It was he who had spoken. He surveyed Mr Goldsmith with a look of profound astonishment, then glared at the creature.
"Where the hell did you find him?"
The bubbling voice tried to explain.
"Ooosed o love thore…"
"You bloody stupid git." The little man began to pummel the creature about the stomach and chest and it retreated, the bubbling voice rising to a scream, like a steam kettle under full pressure.
"Oosed o love thore… broot cupper…"
The little man ceased his punitive operations and turned an anxious face towards his companion.
'"Ere what's all this, then? Did 'e say copper? His Nibs won't like that. Don't get the law worked up, 'e said."
The big man spoke slowly, his sole concern to calm his friend.
"Don't carry on, Maurice. Old Charlie's about 'ad it, ain't 'e? 'E'll be dropping apart soon if they don't get 'im mended and varnished up. The old brainbox must be in an 'ell of a s
tate."
But Maurice would not be comforted. He turned to Mr Goldsmith and gripped his coat front.
"Did you bring the law in? You call a copper?"
"I certainly summoned a police officer, when this," Mr Goldsmith hesitated, "when this… person, refused to leave my flat."
***
"Cor strike a light." Maurice raised his eyes ceilingward. '"E calls a copper a police officer! Respectable as Sunday dinner. Probably got a trouble and strife who'll scream to 'igh 'eavens when 'er little wandering boy don't come 'ome for his milk and bickies."
"You married?" the big man asked and Mr Goldsmith, inspired by the wish to pacify his captors, shook his head.
"Live alone, aye?" The big man chuckled. "Thought so. Recognize the type. Keep yer 'air on, Maurice, he'll be just another missing person. The DPs will handle it."
"Yeah, Harry." Maurice nodded and released Mr Goldsmith. "You're right. We'd better tie 'im up somewhere until His Nibs gets 'ere. He'll decide what to do with 'im."
Harry produced a length of rope and Mr Goldsmith meekly allowed himself to be tied up, while "Charlie", for such it appeared was the creature's name, kept nudging Maurice's arm.
"Urn… woont… meethy…"
"You don't deserve any methy." Maurice pushed the terrible figure to one side. "Making a bugger-up like this."
"Meethy…" Charlie repeated, "um… woont… meethy…"
"Bit of a waste of the blue stuff," Maurice remarked drily. '"E's coming apart at the seams. Let me bash 'is 'ead in."
"Naw." Maurice shook his head. "'Is Nibs don't like us taking liberties with units. Besides the new repairing and varnishing machine can do wonders with 'em. "E'd better have 'is ration with the rest."
Mr Goldsmith, suitably bound, was dumped into a corner where he soon witnessed a scene that surpassed all the horror that had ridden on his shoulders since Charlie had rung his doorbell.
Harry came out of a cubby hole bearing a large saucepan with no handle. Maurice followed with a chipped mug. At once there was a grotesque stirring round the nightmare circle; legs moved, arms waved, mouths opened in the familiar bubbling speech and raucous cries. Placing the saucepan on a rickety table, Maurice began to call out in a high pitched voice.
Collected Stories (4.1) Page 14