Goblin

by Ever Dundas

  I found Corporal Pig in the hallway, fast asleep, making huffy noises. I looked down at all my postcards and letters piled behind the door. I got down on my knees and searched for something from Angel – it was a postcard with a picture of a beach and she’d drawn me, her, and CP basking in the sun. I turned it over and read her words aloud: ‘My handsome Goblin, I miss you. I didn’t eat for two days but Ann and Bill were worried and made me. Your pretend parents told everyone your ma and da had wanted you back so you’d gone. The Idiot was being a shit and saying things about you at school so I punched his face. He’s got a broken nose and I was kept in for two weeks but I didn’t care becos I don’t go out anymore anyway. Write and tell me London stories, your Angel forever xxxx.’

  I sat for a few minutes reading it over and over again, looking at where the ink was smudged by her hand, before turning it over and staring at the drawing of us on the beach. I put it in my pocket. I shooed the chickens out into the back garden so they could eat insects and have dust baths. I dragged my bag and a half-asleep CP up the stairs into mine and David’s room, and there was Groo curled up asleep on my bed. Without even realising, I was crying. I was smiling and laughing and crying and I called her name and she meowed at me, little plaintive confused sounds I’d never heard her make before. I gathered her up, hugging her and staining her with tears. She struggled and I let her go, dropping her back on the bed. She meowed and meowed and meowed.

  ‘I missed you, you strange wee terror,’ I said, hiccupping through the tears. ‘There’s no Devil-dog to groom, you skinny wee thing. No Devil dogs at all.’

  I hoisted CP onto my bed and Groo looked startled, backing away, her fur standing on end.

  ‘It’s just CP, Groo. Just good old CP, trusty weary walker. We’re a fine scrawny bunch,’ I said, petting her and feeling her ribs. ‘You two wait here and I’ll get you some food. Don’t you touch CP, mind.’

  When I returned, CP was snoring and Groo was keeping her distance, sat on my pillow, pressed up against the wall.

  ‘You’ll make friends soon enough.’

  I gave her food and she was so excited about it she got most of it on her face and my bed. I looked around the room. Some of the Dietrich pictures had fallen off, so I pressed them back onto the wall. The note I’d left for David was still on his desk. I traced my finger across it: ‘I’m going on an adventure. Love, Goblin.’

  It felt like so long ago I’d written it. And he hadn’t read it. He hadn’t read any of my postcards or letters. I scrunched up my note and threw it on the floor. I crushed it under my foot. I crawled into David’s bed, pressing my face into the pillow. I could still smell him. Monsta climbed from my bag and lay on my shoulder, tentacle-worms stroking my head. Groo hopped up and sniffed at Monsta, sneezed, then licked my hair.

  ‘I sure missed you,’ I said, falling asleep to the sound of her rough tongue on my hair and skin.

  *

  I slept through the week, only getting out of bed to feed Groo, Corporal Pig and the chickens. I’d let CP out to rummage for insects in the garden, then I’d climb right back into bed and disappear into darkness, ignoring the air raids.

  When I emerged at the end of the week I bathed myself and bathed CP and I ate a feast and was almost sick. I played David’s records and I tidied our room, scooping out the shits CP had done on my bed and the floor, scrubbing everything clean.

  ‘CP, I’ll need to make you a home outside. You’ll be happier in the garden and I won’t have to smell your stink anymore.’

  I sent a postcard to Angel – it was a picture of Trafalgar Square and I’d drawn CP, Angel and I swimming in one of the fountains.

  ‘My beautiful Angel,’ I wrote, ‘I made it home, CP and I all skinny from weary walking. We have a cat called Groo, and chickens – Billy Bones and Dr Kemp. They were our neighbour’s family, but he’s been bombed out so I took them in. How are things? I hope you’re happy and the Idiot isn’t being a shit. I’m glad you broke his nose. I miss you and I miss swimming in the sea. Love forever, your Goblin xxxx.’

  I didn’t bother telling Angel about da being dead, and David being missing and ma being ma. I only wanted to write about happy things so she wouldn’t worry about me. And mostly things were happy anyway, especially when ma wasn’t around and she hardly ever was – she worked at the factory and went out at night, drinking. She’d come home and sob and fall asleep on the floor. I’d wake her up with tea and a cigarette and she’d sit up, her make-up all run down her cheeks, snot all crusted on her lips, and she’d drink her tea and smoke her cigarettes and I’d watch her wash off all the grime and put a new face on.

  ‘Ma,’ I said, ‘Where’s David?’

  ‘I told you. He’s gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s your da’s fault.’

  ‘Da? Did he make him go to war?’

  She shook her head. ‘He pushed David too hard and now he’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where, ma?’

  ‘Just gone.’

  I went through some family photos and found one of David, taken almost three years before when ma and da took us to get proper photographs of us all. There was one of the family together, one of me and David and photos of each of us on our own. I took out the one of me and David and put it on our bedroom wall. I shoved the one of him in my pocket. Everywhere I went I brought it out, ‘Have you seen this boy? I think he went to the sea, but maybe he’s still here. Have you seen him? He’ll be older now, older than this, but he’ll look much the same. Have you seen this boy?’

  I got a reply from Angel saying she was glad I had a family of animals and even though she’s sad I left she’s glad for the family I’m looking after. She said she’s doing fine, that Ann and Bill are good new parents and they took her to the beach for a picnic at the weekend which was nice but she felt a bit sad because she missed me.

  I wrote back and said maybe her and Bill and Ann could come to London for a holiday one day and she wrote that Bill and Ann said they’d come visit after the war so I prayed like mad to the lizards below that the war would end that very day but it didn’t.

  I settled into a routine at home. Ma didn’t bother me. I was free to do as I pleased and she didn’t even notice CP snuffling in the garden, she didn’t even notice the brand new palace I made him out of scraps of wood I’d found. She didn’t notice anything. Until one day she did, and I came home from scootering around the city with Monsta and found her slitting Corporal Pig’s throat, but the knife was blunt and she was drunk and CP was too strong. She only managed a few small cuts, but from then on I made sure CP was with me when I knew she’d be home. I would stay in and keep an eye on them both, or I’d put a lead on him and keep him close, growling at anyone who came near.

  Ma worked all hours at the factory and had no time to queue for food, so I took the ration books and spent hours getting food in. I didn’t mind so much. I had Corporal Pig and I’d put together a show. Some people even gave us money, but you had to watch out for people who wanted to steal CP for their stew, so when I was sure ma wasn’t home I’d leave him behind where he’d be safe.

  I had to drag ma into the Andersen shelter when the siren went. She’d yell at me, but usually she’d come. There were nights she didn’t, when she’d just sit and rock and sob, and she wouldn’t come at all, so I left her. I left her to get bombed, but she never did.

  Then one day she never came home. Sometimes she came home late in the night, but this night she didn’t come. I waited, but she didn’t return, not for days or weeks. I asked some of the neighbours, but they hadn’t seen her and I soon stopped asking when they started snooping on me – ‘You on your own, Goblin?’ I lied and said David had come back. I said everything was fine.

  I thought she might have died in a bombing. Or maybe she’d found a brand new family and gone to live with them because she had nothing here. I didn’t care much at all, except I was worried about the rent. I went to old Martha to pay her what I could out of the tin in the kitch
en where ma and da kept money for food, but old Martha and her house were gone.

  ‘Bombed,’ said her neighbour. ‘A few weeks ago.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Up there, boy. Or more likely down there, to be truthful.’

  ‘She died?’

  He nodded. ‘Remains sent down south to her son. He got special leave on account of her death. I suppose he’ll be up to deal with her affairs at some point. What you want her for anyhow?’

  ‘Nuthin’,’ I said, ‘She was just a friend of my ma.’

  ‘Well, if you ask me, it’s no big loss,’ he said, staring at the rubble. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Condolences to your ma, though.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’

  There was a spring in my step as I headed back home, feeling as rich as can be with all the tin money in my pocket, and pleased that old Martha was dead and gone. I just had to hope her son was too busy being a soldier to bother with Martha’s affairs as I had to keep a roof over the head of my ever-growing family.

  There was CP, and Mr Fenwick’s Groo, and his chickens, Billy Bones and Dr Kemp (I asked around the neighbourhood about Mr Fenwick, but no one knew where he’d gone). I sometimes looked after Betty, an old dog belonging to my neighbour, Miss Campbell. She asked me to take her out for walks, as she was working long hours, doing her bit for the war effort, and poor Betty was lonely. I wasn’t too happy about it at first because I thought she’d remind me of Devil and I didn’t want to think of Devil anymore, but I felt bad for Betty and she wasn’t like Devil at all and I was glad for that. She was old and slow and liked to sleep a lot. She got on well with CP, but she didn’t like the chickens. She didn’t much like Captain Flint either. I found Captain Flint, a baby raven, after a bombing. I’d taken him to the vet who said Flint was just stunned and the vet gave me advice on how to feed him until he was old enough to make his own way. I’d collected them all and taken them in and it was so much trouble to get them in the shelter when the siren went that I eventually stopped going. We all stayed. ‘If you lot die,’ I said, ‘I may as well too.’

  They mostly didn’t bother at the sound of the siren or the sound of bombs exploding nearby, but Captain Flint would sometimes get all het up and flap about making a hideous noise, which made Groo shake with nerves and caused Billy Bones to join in with the flapping and skittering. CP would just sit and snore, adjusting to the war noise better than any of the city animals.

  I wrote to Angel and told her about Captain Flint and Miss Campbell’s Betty, but I didn’t tell her I didn’t go to the shelter anymore – I pretended they were good and obedient. She replied saying she looked forward to meeting them one day and told me she was happy because Ann and Bill were going to adopt her. That made me feel sad, even though I should have been happy for her, so I didn’t write to her for a few days.

  I just got on with looking after my family. Groo became attached to CP. She’d groom him like she used to do with Devil, except CP didn’t mind at all. She’d follow him around and soon she was riding on his back, lying stretched out, like she was trying to get her legs all the way round him in a big hug. I saw her riding backwards once; she watched CP’s curly tail jiggling and swiped at it.

  ‘Claws in!’ I warned her, but I didn’t need to. If she hurt CP at all, he’d snort and roll over and she’d leap off before he crushed her. She’d meow at me, all put out, when it was her own stupid fault.

  Sometimes the chickens ran through the house, shitting everywhere, and I’d chase after them and curse them and tell them, ‘Do your pooping outside, ya vagrants! This is a respectable household! Here I am looking after the house all alone, and there you are pooping on the upholstery.’ That’s what I said to those chickens, and I’d chase them and they’d flap and cluck and not give a care. Groo would ignore the chickens, turn her back on them like they weren’t even there, like they were beneath her. She only had eyes for CP.

  Then CP went and vanished. Now ma was gone I thought it was safe to leave CP in the garden, snuffling and rolling in the mud, but he went and vanished. My comrade, my friend for life, he was gone, throat slit for sure, bubbling away in someone’s stew, in someone’s bloated belly.

  ‘I tried to look after him, mister,’ I said, thinking of our kindly stranger who liked pigs. ‘I tried. But there’s a war on, and people get nasty in a war, mister. They steal your best friend and boil them in a pot. That’s the war for you, mister sir. That’s the bleedin’ war for you.’

  We held a ceremony in memory of Corporal Pig, Comrade in Weary Walking, Friend for Life. Queen Isabella, Amelia and Scholler came along, and I could tell they could tell I was really grieving for that old CP so they didn’t give me any trouble. Queen Isabella said, ‘We’re sorry about your hideous beast,’ and I know she was trying her best so I just nodded and let them stay. I gave a speech and put a stake in the ground, tying a plaque to it that read ‘Here does not lieth Comrade in Weary Walking, Corporal Pig, Friend in the Highest Esteem, for he lieth in the belly of a bloated son of a whore. A salute to Corporal Pig, the finest friend for life, may the lizards below keep thee and curse the bloated belly of the murderous bastard. Salute!’

  Groo wailed and wailed after CP vanished, and I cried with her and I said, ‘I’m sorry, Groo, I’m sorry I didn’t look after your comrade. And I’m sorry I let Devil die. I’m sorry,’ and she wailed and wailed and started chewing on my hair again.

  From then on I looked at my neighbours with suspicion, checking their bellies, looking to see if they’d gotten suddenly fatter. ‘Good morning, Goblin!’ they’d say. ‘What’s good about it?’ I’d say and walk on, eyeing their bellies.

  From then on the chickens were only allowed out when I was there. All the animals lived in the house with me and they pooped wherever they pleased.

  I wanted to ask Angel to come, but I didn’t. I wanted to tell her about CP, but I didn’t because she’d only worry, so I wrote to her and said everyone was happy and everything was fine.

  London, April 1941

  Trundling and bumping and falling at times, Monsta and I.

  I’d made a scooter from wood, scraps here and there, and it was rickety and squint. Still early, still quiet, people stooped and tired, bending to the rubble, searching and searching and finding crushed food and clothes and toys and photos and bodies and parts of bodies and burnt up bodies that didn’t look like anything at all. We flew through the streets, turning and feinting, once here, once there, avoiding rubble and people and holes but a brick we hit and over we go, Monsta and I, head over heels in the air. Oi kid! Stop messing and help, don’t you know there’s a war on? Let the kid play leave him be, it’s good to see them play. Bleedin’ kids think it’s all a game, eh?

  I lay in the rubble and stared and blinked. There was a hand on the ground; roughly severed, bone protruding, two fingers broken, twisted back.

  I pulled myself from the rubble, hunkered down and inspected it. I placed my hand on the ground next to it and saw how small my hand was. I crawled my hand over the rubble and onto the hand and I felt it. It was cold and hard, like plastic. I turned it over. The palm was blackened. The fingertips were torn. I pulled off a dangling shred of skin. I took the hand. I locked my fingers between its fingers and I took it, I picked it up and shoved it in my waistband, tying my string belt tight so it stayed put so it was hidden so the man couldn’t see I had treasure. The treasure was mine. Cold and plastic, it’s mine.

  I picked up my scooter. It was still working, but scratched and squint, so I had to work out all over again how to ride and not fall head over heels, and off I went home with Monsta and treasure. On our way I saw a bunch of kids crowded round a water tank.

  ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ I said, pushing my way in. ‘What’s all the fuss?’

  This little runt of a kid, even runtier than me, he said, ‘There’s a body in the tank.’

  I looked down at the kid, all aloof, rolling my eyes, and I said, ‘Kid, there’s dead bodies everywhere.’


  I pushed in further to have a look, just to see the kid wasn’t lying, and there it was – the truth of it – a girl, a dirty white dress face down just floating, a tiny thing, her dirty blond hair all raggedy and tangled floating out like a messed up halo, a dirty little holy girl with no shoes and sores on her feet and bruises on her legs and a homemade boat bobbing through her tangled hair. I stepped away and said, ‘What’s all the fuss? Dead bodies everywhere.’

  I pulled the severed hand out from my waistband and said to the crowd of kids, ‘But this, this is special.’

  They gathered round me, forgetting the girl in the tank as I held the hand aloft and said it would cost them if they wanted to feel it and hold it.

  ‘This is the hand of a monster. Look at the black skin, black as night, and there’s flaps of skin hanging off the fingertips. When the monster was alive, the skin would open up and it would ooze poison. The monster would grab you and put poison in your body, in your blood, and you’d die and it would eat you but maybe it would eat you even before the poison made you die, it’d eat you alive.’

  Some of the kids made noises of disgust, others pushed in and said, ‘Let’s see it then, let’s see the monster hand.’

  ‘You can touch it, you can feel it,’ I said, ‘and I’ll tell you the terrible story…’ and I filled my pockets full of coins, buttons, and battered sweets, until along came Doris who clipped me round the ear. Old Doris was so enraged she couldn’t get out any words, her face just puffed up as she hit me round the side of the head, snatching the hand from my hand.

  She held it, her rage turning to disgust and she let out a startled yelp, dropping the hand at her feet. It rocked for a moment, like an upturned crab. The kids all scattered and before I could run off, Doris had me by the arm, pinching, hitting at my head again, my ears ringing.

  Old Doris was a tank. She always could give a good hiding. She’d beat off the Germans single-handed, I thought to myself. She’d beat them off even if she had her hands all cut off. She pinched harder and I squinted at Monsta who lay fallen next to the hand.