Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  A bell sounded somewhere.

  ‘Five of the clock, says Saint Mary’s Paddington,’ said Arnold.

  I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think what to do, how to get beyond into the square, how to find Clod.

  People passed me by, rushing along, all those busy London lives. Go ahead then, be busy, I don’t care, I can’t stop you. They busied hard into me and in the crowding crossing of those two great streets I was pushed about and got caught fast in a river of people and couldn’t fight against them but must give over to their will. I tried to push back, to get to the side where Arnold was, but I was shoved on, and rudely too.

  ‘Arnold, Arnold!’

  Arnold further and further away from me, and beside me and about me a whole great crowding of people. I did not know it then, but I know it now: you mustn’t stand in a busy street at five of the clock in London, you’ll get as good as trampled if you do. Then people are to cram out of buildings all at the same time and run in a foul mood in the same streets, and cross great distances to finally find a small square of distant ground that is less populated and where they might sit at last and catch their breath and be, until the next day, unmolested.

  Here was London living then, here was the machine of The Empire, and I could smell it and it smelt of cramped human and coffee and tobacco, wine, gin and ink and soot, and sweat too. I hurried along with the stampede, couldn’t stop myself. I was tossed on their wave like a piece of flotsam on top of the rubbish heaps.

  A woman behind me smacked right into me, shocking me into life.

  ‘Watch out!’ I cried.

  But she just went on barging into the next person in a panic, like someone was chasing her. I saw her head in all the heads beyond mine, and then, just once, she turned back to glance at her pursuer. Just once. Only the once. Then she turned around again and rushed on. Once was enough.

  She was an Iremonger I saw!

  She was an Iremonger called Pinalippy, she that was to be married to Clod. She who’d been up on the roof with him. Oh I didn’t care about that kiss, I just wanted him to be safe. She’d know, she’d know how he was.

  I looked behind me quickly too, to see what she was running from, and as I turned round I was slammed into again by some strange squat creature, hardly human I thought at first, but thick with muscle, and he heaved along after Pinalippy.

  That got me alive and awake, that stirred me up. Whatever was going on here?

  I followed along after them both. He was gaining on her sure enough, well then and I was gaining on them both. They were running along the Edgware Road, Pinalippy kept looking back, such a terror in her face, but the little man he kept coming on, barrelling forward, nothing should stop him. Pinalippy took one look back and then plunged into the traffic, scream of horses, curses from their drivers, but she darted across to get over to the park side. The ugly fellow stopped then, and me just behind him; he looked through the traffic, tried to find a spot, looking for a break, was about to leap, to make a run for it when he suddenly smashed down into the dirt and was on his face sprawling. Course he did: I tripped him. And screaming as I did it, I lurched across the Edgware Road myself and was on the park side too and following Pinalippy again.

  There she was, five people ahead, no, three; no, two. There she was just there, right in front of me, not running now, just walking as fast as the pedestrian traffic. I kept up, I kept right up. I could see the back of her bonnet, see her dress and coat, all black they were.

  Then she turned round again to see if the strange fellow was following, and she smacked right into me and we both fell. And were staring straight at each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Should look where you’re going,’ I replied.

  She was fumbling on the ground. Old tin there, broken open, that she’d lost hold of.

  ‘Dropped something, have you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, on the ground here somewhere. It must be!’

  I helped her a bit, she didn’t know me – why on earth should she – people banged past us as we scrabbled in the dirt.

  ‘It must be here!’ she screamed.

  My hand came upon something, something round with a chain to it. I pulled it up.

  ‘Is this it?’ I asked. ‘Can’t be, it’s only … a plug! A bloody bathplug!’

  ‘Give it, please. It’s mine.’

  ‘What are you doing with a plug?’

  ‘It’s mine, give it me! It can’t mean anything to you.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s just a common plug.’

  ‘Thing is, I don’t think it is yours.’

  ‘Give it!’

  ‘I think it’s Clod’s.’

  ‘What! Clod, you say? Who are you?’

  I lifted Alfred’s cap a little.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You’re not dead!’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘The red bitch!’

  ‘There’s a greeting.’

  ‘Leave us be, we hate you!’

  ‘Where is Clod? Is he safe?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see you. We’re happy, can’t you tell? We’re a family, he calls me “Pin”, he kissed me. He doesn’t want to know you.’

  ‘Well, if that’s so, he can tell me himself.’

  ‘Give me that back!’

  ‘Not likely.’

  ‘It’s not yours!’

  ‘Not yours either.’

  ‘I have to have it!’

  ‘I’ve known this plug before, I’ve held it.’

  ‘So have I! GIVE!’ she screamed and so thumped my hand that the plug went flying and we both smashed into the oncoming people in search of it. Our hands scrabbling in the dirt, being trodden on, being smashed into, then the sounding of a police whistle not far away. Someone cried out then, somewhere behind me.

  ‘My hair!’ the person cried.

  ‘Fire!’ someone else called.

  Pinalippy looked up in panic and she screamed then like some wounded rat limping along the heaps, with seagulls in pursuit of it, and she scrabbled up and was running alongside the railing in a panic until she came to a gate and rushed in and was lost inside Hyde Park.

  I felt through all the mud, again and again I searched for it. It was just here. It must be here. Can’t lose that. Mustn’t lose that. The police whistle again. I couldn’t help that, I must find the plug.

  There!

  There it was!

  Clod’s plug, his very plug!

  24

  HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT

  Pinalippy Iremonger’s last narrative

  The bitch, the bloody, bloody trollip. The stinking wretch, so common, so vulgar, filth from Foulsham, how dare she! To my blood! Why did she have to come and ruin everything! To me, a full Iremonger. To accost me in the street. If we were back in Foulsham now I’d have her turned just like that, she’d be nothing but a button and how I’d like to hold that button in my own hands, the horrid clay disk, how I’d like to do that. No, no, I’d crush it under my boots, I’d smash it to powder with my hard heels, I’d dance on its dust. No, no, I wouldn’t, for that wouldn’t be enough at all, would it now. I’d put it in my mouth, that’s what I’d do, I’d feel it on my tongue, I’d get a taste of it, and then, then I’d bite it! I’d crack it to bits with my canines, and then I’d grind it with my molars till it was nothing and mixed with my spit, I’d swallow the dirty dust down deep through me. Into the lovely land of Pinalippy! It’d be bullied and blotted out and quite thoroughly extinguished by all the insides of Pinalippy Lurliorna Iremonger. Yes! Yes, I say! That’s how I would do it! I would, I swear it by Umbitt Iremonger himself, I’d so do it! But … but … but I can’t, because there is no Foulsham left, it’s all gone upside down. What sense can you ever make of the world if a common servling, a rag picker, a mere dirt-child bred for the heaps, can so stop me in the street? The world’s been pulled inside out, and all must do as best as they can. Where have all the
rules gone? Oh I so miss the rules!

  ‘I am an Iremonger!’

  Perhaps I said that too loud. Perhaps I did. Can’t hear anyone coming though. Oh it’s so dark in this park, so deep and dark, so all-encompassing dark that I can’t even tell if I’m heading the right way. I must go on through Hyde Park, that’s what Otta said, and then when I come out the other side I am to look for a large statue of the Queen’s dead consort, the Albert Memorial, then I should nearly be there. Oh, but it’s so dark.

  What was that? I thought I heard something, something rushing along in the dark. Stop. Be quiet, very quiet. Hear anything? Nothing, nothing. It’s just you’re upset, Pinalippy, you’re upset a little, that’s all it is, nothing more than that, you must get on, run along now, there’s nothing there, keep going, perhaps, after all, a little quicker. You’re just a little upset. Of course I’m upset. She’s gone and taken the plug from me.

  The bloody plug!

  Oh!

  Oh!

  How could you have let her! Clod’s plug! Oh! Clod’s own plug. Should’ve given it to him, shouldn’t you. Whilst you still had the chance. Thought about it. Yes I did. He heard it this morning.

  Oh how could you have lost the plug? How could you have done such a thing? I’ll tell no one that I ever had it, no one at all, and then they shan’t know. But they do know already! Rippit knows you stole it! He was trying to get it from you. Oh Rippit, the murderer. He would have murdered the Pin just now, given half a chance. But Umbitt will understand, when I tell, when I tell him all about the Gatherings, he’ll be very pleased with me then, he’ll be so pleased. He’ll get me married, Westminster Abbey I shouldn’t wonder, with all pomp and ceremony, with all fanfare and gloriousness, Clod and I in high splendour. I’ll be head of the family one day, course I shall, it’ll be me choosing the birth objects for people, handing them out. Yes it will. Well done, Pinalippy!

  What was that?

  Oh that was certainly something!

  ‘Is it you, Rippit? Is it you? We are blood, I beg you to remember that. Rippit? Rippit?’

  No one there.

  Are you sure, are you really sure?

  No, couldn’t say for sure.

  Wind?

  Yes, maybe just the wind, the wind in the trees. Oh, when will this park ever end? Once I find the statue then I’m nearly there. I feel so turned around, I feel like I’ll never get out of here. No! Don’t you dare think like that.

  I lost the plug!

  Bitch took it from me.

  You took it from Rippit.

  Rippit was given it by Umbitt.

  Umbitt was delivered it from Unry.

  Unry found it and brought it back to us.

  It escaped from Bayleaf House in human form.

  In human form it came with Umbitt to Foulsham on the train.

  As plug, Umbitt took it from Clod, turned Clod coin and plug human.

  Clod had it, first of all, before any of this, baby Clod was given it by Ommaball Owneress.

  Oh what a history of a plug. It’s a veritable nuisance, that plug is. Shouldn’t be put up with, should learn to keep still. Should be given a good beating. No it shouldn’t. How I miss that plug. I so liked to have it with me, it made up for my doily.

  But now she has it, and if she’ll get it to him then he’ll love her for it all over again. He must never see her, he must never know that she’s alive but how, oh how to stop that flameheaded wretch? How to snuff her out permanently?

  It’s so dark. If only there was a little light.

  What I’d give for a lantern, for a box of matches even.

  Wait!

  Stop right there!

  Not another step, Pinalippy.

  Oh Pinalippy, brave girl. Smart as a Pin! You have it, you’ve had it all along. The matches, her matches. Matches that were once a bleak school teacher named Ada Cruickshanks. Oh! Oh! The answer to both my worries.

  Question: How to light my way a little in this dark park?

  Answer: Strike a match.

  Question: How to dispose of Lucy Pennant, the flaming thief, permanently?

  Answer: Why, I refer you to my former answer – strike a match. And another. And another. Then she’ll turn like any Lungdoner.

  I take the matchbox out, how it rattles. Something in there.

  Take out a match. Strike it! How it flames, Lucy lucifer coming to life, look how the little light dances in my hands, a little warmth it gives, even. How it does cheer me in so many ways! Ha! Ha!

  But perhaps, if there’s anyone here, then they shall see you by her little light in the darkness. Well, they may I suppose, but I’m not stopping, I’m not stopping till I’ve lit them all and let them burn all the way down to nothing. I’m turning her to ash as I do it, I’m writing her off. Goodbye, Lucy Pennant, I’m striking you out.

  Two matches gone, well then have another, do, and light our progress through this dark path.

  Yes, there we are, that little light of Lucy, coming to life and coming to death all of a moment. Strike! Strike! Strike another. Oh Clod Iremonger, you shall never see her again. Strike, strike all away!

  He loves me, I say as the flame burns down. (Not that I care, in truth.)

  He loves me not. Not this time, do try another.

  He loves me!

  He loves me not.

  He loves me! I’m skipping along now, this park will be over very soon.

  He loves me not.

  And last one!

  He loves me! He loves me!

  Out goes the little light, that’s it. All matches gone. How the dark comes on! Yet he loves me! He loves me, of course he does, what’s not to love? Give it a shake, make sure that’s it. Oh, hang on, there’s another match, it’s stuck to the side. Pull it free, and strike home!

  He loves me not.

  What? But he must, he does, I’m sure he does, he kissed me! There must be another match, there must be! There isn’t. And now it’s so dark.

  Something moving. Over there! I definitely heard that. No doubting this time. What ever is it? There it is again.

  ‘Otta?’ I whisper. ‘Is that you, Otta?’

  I look up, something huge there in front of me, of great size, but human shape. Someone huge! It must be the statue. It must be Prince Albert’s statue! I’ve made it! I’ve come out the other side.

  But the statue, if statue it is, is moving, and statues don’t move, everyone knows that!

  Oh!

  I’ll never tell Umbitt.

  Oh!

  It’s enormous!

  Oh!

  It’s taken the matchbox from me.

  Oh!

  BANG!

  Oh, Pin! Shot! Blood! Blood! How it hurts …

  A Nightwatchman, Taken in One of the Cast Courts

  25

  THE TALE OF A COMMON RIVET

  Statement of a Nightwatchman, South Kensington Museum

  From the top floor of the museum, I can see Hyde Park, and beyond that the light of a fire somewhere the other side of it. Strange sounds again coming from the park. Been the same for nights now. Can’t say rightly what it is, only it doesn’t exactly sound right. I see Albert’s statue shining as I come here for my shift, what a thing it is, that huge man, sitting there in all his gold. I know he’s been dead these fifteen years, but even so, like as life that golden man is, like as life if not actual life.

  Strange noises all over the museum again tonight. Well you’ve got to expect that, these modern buildings. They’re sinking into themselves right enough. The new exhibition of ‘Special Loan Collection of Scientific Instruments’ from all around the globe is in order. So many wonderful things here, so much machinery and apparatus. Though I have seen a rat between a phosophoroscope and some thermometers, and another running along an Arctic map.

  Going through the museum, I see the Cast Courts by my lantern. Must be on edge – for some reason, thought I saw Michelangelo’s big plaster David turn to look at me. That’ll be the day, he’d squash me under foot
without even thinking of it. Suppose he’d done a statue of Goliath to scale with that one, how huge he’d be. What a monster!

  Seen them rats again. Rushing through the galleries. It’s them I think that makes me so ill at ease. Never can seem to stop them; plug up one hole, they find another. New buildings, I say, never are as good as the old ones. I lay down some more traps, but I never catch a single one of them. Seen a whopper last night, massive fellow. Never an end of them, more of them than us I reckon.

  And strangest thing, there is a nose on the floor in the Oriental Courts, and round the corner of it is an ear. Looks like a human ear, and then, in the next room, another ear, all of wax, giving me quite the turn.

  I hear voices, so sure that I did, I run towards them. When I get there, sure enough, there is no one, but one of the glass cases has been smashed, and the piece inside it (catalogue number CXVI DERVISH’S WALLET, watered steel in the shape of half a double cocoa-nut, chased in relief with flowers and inscriptions) is quite gone. I go to call the alarm room, so that the police may be sent for, well then further along the gallery I see another glass case broke and another and another, and then up and down the galleries stuff’s gone everywhere! However did that happen?

  ‘Oh help!’ I cry and ‘Help ho! Thief! Thief!’

  Is all I could think of to say I’m in such a panicking and then around the next corner, as I rush screaming, ‘Thief! Thief!’ there’s a man, a tall man, a gent you’d almost think him, in a top hat and with a great coat, and very fat too, though his face wasn’t fat, like as if he was keeping lots of things under his great overcoat.

  ‘Who the devil are you?’ I shout.

  ‘You might well ask that.’

  ‘Here you are,’ comes another voice, matter-of-fact like.

  I turn around and there’s another one there, a Chelsea pensioner, he turns towards me. Just white in his eyes!

  ‘Oh … my … Lord!’ I says.

  ‘Yes, here’s another,’ says the blind one, passing a casket over to the tall big old fellow, ‘it says its name is Amma Mulekwa, come from Africa of course, stolen you see. Best to add this one, here let me prick thee!’

  ‘Oy!’ I say. ‘Oy!’