The Children's Book

by A. S. Byatt

  “Oh!” said Pig. “How I wish I could come in.”

  There was a shrill chattering sound, like a flock of disturbed starlings, and all the brown and gold and silver faces were turned up to him, and everyone froze motionless.

  Then a slender man, one of the gold people, with a gold jerkin, and pointed gold shoes, came to the foot of the tunnel, down which Pig was peering. He wore a most lovely cloak, made of the soft blue and soot-black and lemon-yellow feathers of blue-tits and great-tits, and a kind of high-crowned hat, with a feather in its ribbon.

  “You can come in,” he said. “You are welcome.”

  “I am too big,” said Pig, who had always been too small for anything he tried to do.

  “You must eat fernseed,” said the little man. “Do you know where it is to be found?”

  “Underneath the leaves’ fingers,” said Pig, who was observant. He looked about him, and there were pale ferns, glimmering in the shadow of the thornbush. He was an impulsive child. He did not think, is this safe? Or, how will I get back if this works? He picked a fernleaf, and scratched the seeds from underneath the fronds, and put two or three on his tongue, and swallowed them. Then he turned back to the tunnel under the roots and picked up his stone and looked through.

  It is very difficult to describe his sensations during the next few moments. He was, at exactly the same time, looking at a small mousehole, or wormhole, into which two of his plump fingers might have fitted with difficulty, and balancing himself on a kind of ledge above a broad, deep, rough stairway with huge steps cut in mud and leading steeply down. Worse, his lovely stone was at the same time fitted as it always was into his little fist, and become as heavy as a tombstone.

  “Courage, Pucan,” said the voice of the little man, whom he could not see, for the tunnel had grown very long and was full of a kind of mist.

  “My name is Perkin,” said Pig.

  “Amongst us, it will be Pucan. Everything is different here.”

  There was a moment when Pig, or Pucan, thought of drawing back.

  But his body felt full of the mist which was in the earthy hole, and he could hear the little voices calling through the mist, and the fair folk leaping and singing, like tiny musical hammers on glass. So he lifted a foot, which was at the same time as heavy as lead and as light as a feather, and dragged it over the rim of the hole. And when that was done, there he was, a tiny manikin, lithe and wiry, running easily down and down into the hall. And when he made his way into it, there was the golden man, now taller than Pucan was, and a silver lady, and they welcomed him ceremoniously and with laughter. They said they were the king and queen of the Portunes, Huron and Ailsa, and he was welcome to their midst. And everyone joined in a circular, mazy dance, capering and pointing their toes, and Pig found that he knew the step as well as the next dancer, and that he could sing the tunes with the best of them.

  In the world outside it was getting dark, and Mother Goose had tidied her kitchen, put away the marbles and put the pie in the oven, where it was giving out a tasty smell. She had washed and dressed her wound and brushed and knotted her hair. And for a time she had enjoyed the silence. It was quiet and orderly. And then, because she was a mother, she had begun to wonder what had happened to Pig. So she went to the door and called him, softly, in the evening air, and then louder, with a note of irritation and alarm in her voice. But everywhere was silent. There were none of the usual noises, no owl screeching, no wing flapping on its way to a roost. The air felt thick, like jelly setting. She thought Pig must be hiding to annoy her, but she wasn’t sure she believed herself. She caught up her shawl and went out to look for him. By then, all the other children were back in the kitchen, so she told them to look after each other, and to look out for Pig, and shout to her, if he came back.

  And then she walked, in the dusk, hurrying and calling, like a hen whose chicks had wandered away. She walked faster and faster, in wider and wider circles, and the silence thickened round her voice. At first she called, Pig, Piggy, and then, to make it more enticing, Little Pig, and finally, because Pig sounded suddenly bad in her ears, in the dark, she called Perkin, Perkin. But there was no answer and darkness fell, and the giant silver-gold moon rose over the shrubbery, shining blindly, making different shadows. And she had to go in again, for she had many many children to feed and put to bed, and it was late, and Perkin-Pig did not answer.

  The next day, he had not come back, and she resumed her search. She searched, and kept the house distractedly, and searched again, day after day, her voice more and more weary and forlorn. She ranged widely, in lanes and fields where Pig had never been. She went through and through the shrubbery, which had resumed its usual life and noises, birds, mice, snail-shells under her feet. And one day—after a long time—she noticed little Pig’s self-bored stone, shining whitely, half-buried under a root. And she picked it up and began to cry, and put the stone’s opening to her weeping eye.

  She was simply looking around, not searching for anything, when she saw the opening of the hole, or tunnel. And for some reason she felt she must look into the hole through the stone—reminding herself as she did so of Pig’s irritating little ways, which seemed more charming with hindsight. And she saw the warm brown hall, and the gold, silver and brown people, all at their work, weaving and stitching, polishing and broiling, and a gathering sitting at table, amongst whom she saw Pig-Perkin, comfortably clothed in a nut-coloured jerkin and leggings.

  She tried to speak but could only make little wailing sounds.

  Pig looked up. What he saw was a huge single eye, veined with red, brimming with salt water, surrounded by long wet hairs, blocking the way out through the tunnel. He dropped the gold beaker he was drinking from. Then she heard her voice, as she found it, and said “Pig, little Pig, where are you?”

  “You can see,” he said. “I’m on a visit. To my friends the Portunes. I have a new name. I have work to do, down here, and I shall go out and look after growing things, with the others—”

  He was swimming around in front of her tear-filled eyes. She thought he seemed to have become ageless, neither boy nor man. She said

  “Come home.”

  He replied that she had told him not to. “You know I didn’t mean it,” she said.

  “Words have their own life,” said King Huron, coming to the foot of the tunnel. “Go home, woman. Pucan is in a good place here.”

  She said something about getting a spade, about digging them out, like ants.

  There was a terrible buzzing in the hall, then, more like angry hornets. The King said

  “You will do no good. He will not come back, and you will bring down ill luck on yourself and all your family.”

  She was afraid. She sat like clay, staring through the hole in the stone.

  “Go home,” said Pucan. “I’m around and about. I’ll come to see you, one of these days, quite soon.”

  “Promise?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, and took up his beaker, and drank whatever was in it.

  She put the self-bored stone carefully in her apron pocket, so as no longer to hear the buzzing and the laughter. He had said he would come, quite soon.

  As she hurried out of the shrubbery, and saw the sunlit windows of the house, and her eldest daughter with the smallest child, looking out of the door for her return, she remembered the tales of those who visited the friendly folk, and for whom seven years passed like a day and a night.

  8

  The Fludds drove slowly along the North Downs, and then south-east towards Rye and the Romney Marsh. Seraphita and her children sat in their shabby carriage, and were alternately followed and preceded by Arthur Dobbin, with Philip, in the pony-trap. They came across the Low Weald, skirting the eastern arm of the Downs, through Biddenden and Tenterden, across the Shirley Moor and onto the road that divided the Romney Marsh from the Walland Marsh, heading towards Lydd and Dungeness. The first part of the journey was over rich country, fields full of cows and festooned with hops, along lanes that
wound under thick green branches, and along banks of gnarled roots, clutching. Dobbin tried to talk to Philip, and Philip stared around him, distracted. Once they came to the marshes the air changed—it was cooler, and salty, Philip thought, and less still. There were all sorts of small canals and cuts and runnels to be crossed. There were trees that had been shaped by steady blasts of wind, stunted and reaching sideways. Philip wanted to draw them. They were a stationary form of violent movement. Things croaked and whistled and wailed. There was no soot.

  They drove south through Brenzett and Brookland. Dobbin, who might have been expected to point out landmarks, became silent and brooding. He fidgeted the pony’s mouth, and it shook itself crossly. They went along a lane with high hedges and a green, murky ditch, and turned through a gate, into a driveway. There was a house, behind beech trees, with Elizabethan chimneys. They drove in through a gateway, into a yard full of outbuildings, stables, a midden. Philip smelt burning. It extinguished the smells of salt water and blown grasses. It was woodsmoke. It hung heavy in the air.

  Dobbin told Philip to hold the pony, and went in, through a latched door, to what looked like a dairy, or a milking-shed. Philip stood with the pony. Someone came out of a door on the other side of the yard, a short, heavy man, moving fast, shaking his head, waving his arms and shouting.

  “I told you expressly never to come back. Get out of here. Go away.” Philip stood. Benedict Fludd took in the fact that Philip was not Dobbin.

  “Get along with you. Put the pony in his stall, and scarper. Where did he go?”

  Philip had no idea where the pony’s stall was. He stood mute. Fludd cursed him in mediaeval English and strode in through the door through which Dobbin had gone. The carriage rolled into the yard. Geraint climbed down and started to see to the horses. There seemed to be no servants to help him. Fludd came out of the dairy building, more or less dragging Dobbin, and still swearing. He had a thick, upright head of dark hair, a heavy, curling black beard and muscular arms and shoulders. He wore a workman’s smock, heavy cotton trousers and fisherman’s boots. “Get out,” he said, repeatedly, to Dobbin. Geraint led the carriage horse into the stables, and came back for the pony, without speaking to his father or to Philip.

  Imogen said to her father

  “Don’t be angry. We’re back in time to help with the firing. We can all help.”

  “No you can’t. We fired it, Wally and I fired it, while you were gallivanting. Total disaster. Total.”

  “Why didn’t you wait?” asked Imogen. Her father said curtly that he’d wanted to control his own firing whilst the disastrous Dobbin was absent, and couldn’t muck it up. But Wally had dozed off in the night, and the fire hadn’t been fed right, and not only the firing but the kiln itself was in rack and ruin. And the carter had come with the clay and had had to be paid.

  Seraphita stood in the yard, stately and gloomy, and asked whether there was any food in the house. Fludd said no, there wasn’t, he had had neither time nor inclination to go into Lydd, and Wally had been needed in the pottery, and the money had been needed for the new clay, and he had not had the slightest idea when they might condescend to come back, had he? She should have thought of that, shouldn’t she?

  The three Fludd women stood like calm statues, and looked at each other and Dobbin, for help. Dobbin said nervously that he could ride over to the farm and get bread and milk, and something for supper, cheese or bacon, and some vegetables. If that seemed a good idea. But he would need money. Seraphita peered into her handbag, and found a few coins, which she handed over to Dobbin. Geraint came out of the stable and said the horse had had enough for one day, and the provisions must be got on foot. Dobbin asked Philip if he would like the walk to the farm. Philip said maybe he could make himself useful with the kiln. Fludd glowered at him.

  “Who’s he?” he asked Seraphita.

  “Arthur thinks he may be able to help you in the workshop.”

  “One clumsy oaf is enough.”

  “He’s not clumsy,” said Dobbin. “I grant I am—” Benedict Fludd growled—“I grant I am, but he’s not. He comes from the Potteries. He’s worked in kilns. He wants to work with you.”

  Seraphita said, staring into the distance, that if no one could be got to help with the work, no work would be done. Fludd said it might all just as well go to rack and ruin. Philip said

  “I saw your pot, at that house, at Todefright. I do want to work for you. I do know my way round.”

  He began to walk into the pottery, which had been the dairy. He knew enough about the evil-tempered to know that you had to walk away from them, or they couldn’t give up their wrath, even if they needed to.

  The pottery was in chaos. There was a small kiln, at one end, its doors hanging open, revealing slumped shelves, and a mess of ash and shards of exploded vessels. There were pots drying on shelves along one wall, and floating ash and grit was settling on them in an undesirable way. There were bins of water, and bins of slurry, not properly covered. There were all sorts of dishes of glaze and brushes, not neatly ranged, but dangerously slopping into each other. In the middle of the floor was a heap of broken biscuitware that looked as though someone had been jumping on it. Philip thought carefully. Don’t touch a man’s tools, unless you have permission. Don’t empty his kiln, he needs to note what went wrong where. Inside the door he found a broom, with which he began to clear the surface of the tiled floor. He saw a tin bath in which some of the broken pieces had been put to make grog, and added a few, as he worked, the clean ones. Benedict Fludd followed him in. He stood gloomily in the doorway, and watched him sweep. Finally he said

  “You can help me get all this stuff out of the kiln. It’s got to be done. I need to find my test pieces.”

  It had been a glost firing, with a load of glazed vessels in what Philip could see to be mostly greens and honey colours, all scorched, blistered, scarred and shattered. He helped Benedict Fludd in total silence, putting the pieces in a clothes basket, sweeping up the debris. Everything had collapsed in towards the centre. Right at the top, Philip found an intact small saucer, and then another. They were still warm, about blood-heat. He blew on them softly, to move the ash. One was the same gold and turquoise colour as the Todefright pot, and one was a very striking brilliant red that he thought he’d never seen before, a kind of rich cochineal crimson. Both had been painted with a swirling cloudy grey, a smoky web through which a tiny creature peered up through the veiling. The creatures were little demons, with nasty, snarling expressions, full of life. Philip broke the silence.

  “There’s some little’uns here as aren’t smashed. Glaze has held pretty well.”

  He handed them to their maker, who turned them over, humming tunelessly. Philip ventured to say that he’d never seen that kind of red.

  “We all try to rediscover the sang de boeuf. This was meant to aim at the Iznik red, but it’s nearer sang de boeuf. I hadn’t a lot of hope of it.”

  Philip said that the other glaze—the blue-green-gold one—was like the Todefright pot.

  “That’s another hit-and-miss. More miss than hit. Have you done glazing work?”

  “I worked in th’ kilns. Packing the saggars at the top of the bottles. But me mother is a paintress. She’s sick, with the lead and the dust. They all are. But she knows colours, and I’ve watched her.”

  “Hmm,” said Benedict Fludd. “Hmm.”

  They continued to clear up, in a now reasonably companionable silence.

  Pomona came timidly to the doorway, and said that there was supper, if they wanted it. Fludd said, amiably enough, that he was ravenous, and Philip noted the loosening of Pomona’s muscles, in face and shoulders, where she had braced herself for rage. He noticed the same thing in the rest of the family—even Geraint—who were sitting round the kitchen table, on which were soup bowls, honey-glazed, with burnt umber snakes coiled inside them, a large platter of cheeses, a loaf of bread, and a dish of apples. Fludd sat at the head of the table, and patted the seat next to him
for Philip. He bowed his head, and began to say Grace, rapidly, in Latin. “Gratias tibi agimus, omnipotens Deus, pro his et omnis donis tuis …” The family bowed their heads, and Philip copied them. Then Imogen served steaming vegetable soup from an iron pot, and they ate. Nobody said anything. Everyone watched Philip, who had a confused sense that much depended on him, and that he was perhaps not equal to his task.

  When they had finished, Fludd said he was considering employing Philip in the workshop. Dobbin said “Oh, good” and attracted another series of snarling remarks about his own uselessness. Dobbin said bravely that if only Mr. Fludd had reliable assistance in the workshop, it would be possible to rebuild the big kiln, and…

  “And save ourselves from starvation,” said Fludd. “It’s a long prospect, with little hope.”

  He seemed almost pleased with this prognostic.

  Imogen said her father should see Philip’s drawings, which he had made in the South Kensington Museum. These were fetched out again, with his pad of paper, and everyone admired the lithe dragons and helmeted gnome-men from the Gloucester Candlestick. Philip kept the pad, and his pencil, and began to draw. Fludd watched him. He drew from memory, the underwater forms on the Todefright pot, the way the tadpole creatures floated between the rising strands of weed. He found he remembered remarkably accurately. He knew that for the first time in his life, maybe, he was deliberately showing off his talent. Fludd should know he could see, and keep proportions, and remember. His hand skated over the paper. The fish-forms, the swimming embryos, flickered into life. Benedict Fludd laughed. He said he had forgotten how good that pot was. He was surprised he had parted with it, that charming lady had cajoled it out of him. Dobbin wondered if he had been paid at all for his work, but this niggle—anyway pointless—about past insouciance was swallowed in his relief and delight that the potter was smiling. He had been at Purchase House long enough to know that Fludd’s mood moved in repeated—though unpredictable—cycles, from rage to geniality, from grim, inactive despair to superhuman efforts of work and invention. Between the extremes, things got done, pots got made, even, with luck, sold to keep off starvation. The family sat round in the lamplight, looking like a family, the laughing father, the graciously attentive mother, the two lovely daughters handing out apples, even Geraint admiring the drawings. Geraint was thinking that Philip could be really useful and would be worth cultivating. He needed help, to make it possible for him to get out of this house. He had given up any idea that the ineffective Dobbin might be help. But Philip—possibly—might be.