Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘’Course I have.’

  ‘I haven’t told you their names yet.’

  ‘I know everyone.’

  ‘Who are you anyway?’

  ‘And I know everywhere, keep you coming.’

  ‘Was it you, were you the one that called me? Back then, years ago. I seem to remember it now, were you the one? I was playing truant from school. Was it you? I think it was. I think it was you. You gave me the boiled sweet, was it you who took me away?’

  ‘Come along a me, up these stairs now, nearly there.’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t, wasn’t it? Why did you do that to me? Why did you?’

  ‘Just a couple more, up you go.’

  ‘Why did you do it, oh why did you?’

  ‘Through this door then, good my lad, good boy.’

  ‘Please, you’re not to do it again, do you hear?’

  ‘Let me show you the way.’

  ‘You shan’t do it again, shall you?’

  ‘Let me tell you your way; I know the very route.’

  What a greenhorn!

  I’ve seen it all: Foulsham love stories in dark corners, rubbish moving when it shouldn’t, a whole sweatshop catch the disease of a moment, all two hundred come tumbling down. I’ve even seen the Tailor’s long length running through the shadows. Nearly had him. I’ll have him next time. I’m getting closer. I knows my way about. I’m sitting next to you. I’m everywhere all about. You’ll never know me. I’m everyone.

  Only thing that may signal me out, only way you might know me, the one part of my guise that is always the same and cannot alter. I always carry with me my umbrella. My birth object it is; can’t go anywhere without it.

  I forgot to mention, the boy, the soft-edged boy, crumbs down his side. I took him in, gave him shelter. He’s safe now. Very.

  Otta

  My bro, my big bro. He’s a lovedove; he’s special. Though it may take me a minute to recognise him, my own flesh, still I’m the one that will know him, only me, just me. Guaranteed. Poor Mother, poor Father, what a shock we must have been to them. The noseless, earless bald boy and his sister, the little Thing. Father, Ulung Iremonger and Mother, Moyball Iremonger, worked and met and loved one another out in Security, in the Policing Station. They were ever such clever ones for detecting things. They were ever such sharp ones for sticking their hands down throats and getting the words to come out of people. It was even there, in the hard Station, that Unry was born and then later, to their shock and worry, me, Unryotta, though I’m generally known as Otta, merely Otta. In part I think on ’cause of my having quite sharp teeth, which as a child – and if I be honest even as a grown one – I find do snap on things from time to time. They’ve a grip, my crushing gnashers.

  I came out of Mother in the form of a shapeless hunk of flesh, but they found a mouth on me, screaming. Later I was a bottle, a cup, a pan, a chair, a pole, a box, a book, a pig, a rat, a cat, a gull, a dog, a pump, a pillow, a pot, a doorstop, a bell pull, a floorboard, a sack, a hat, a pen, a brush, a wig, and, on occasions, when I must, oh they said I must at times, a little girl. They never knew where I was; they never knew what I was. That’s what comes with working with such filth, says Mama, hard to wash off after. Oh, the terror when they thought they’d thrown me out with the rubbish. How I loved to play hide and seek with them! How it made them tug their own hair out in distress. To see Mother taking hold of a kettle and saying, ‘Otta! Otta, stop that this instant. You’re not a baby. You’re not a kettle. You’re six years old now, and should know better. One day the wind will change and you’ll be stuck a kettle!’ Oh, the games, Unry pretending he was any number of people (‘Who are you there?’ says Mama. ‘Ulung, there’s a strange man in the Station, come quick!’ Or this classic, ‘Owner Umbitt, how good of you to call! Excuse me, sir, but you seem just a little shrunk.’) and me being any number of things. They were better days they were, before we were of use out of doors, before we were put out in Foulsham, learning the place, noticing, shifting, finding out all sorts. But we must never declare ourselves, for if we did, they’d know us ever afterwards.

  We’re secret people, Unry and I. Sssh.

  He’s all of twenty now.

  And I eighteen am.

  When I’m myself, I mean really myself, which is not usual, on occasion only when I get together with Unry at the Station for a bit of a flop, or when I need to report, or when I’m called in (a certain whistle is blown) such as today. Then I’m a young woman, big of bust. I have nice legs, tall too. Maybe one day I shall find me someone to take up shop with, maybe I’ll retire out in Heap House. I’d like that I think.

  Today I’m told there’s a half sovereign gone missing, only it’s not just a half sovereign. It’s an Iremonger called Clod, a very gifted Iremonger but one with a flare for disobedience, and I’m to find him, and I’m to bring him in. ‘Can he shift?’ I ask. ‘No,’ they says, ‘not yet. He hasn’t learnt but he has great natural knowledge of things. He must be caught.’

  Well then, off I scuttle.

  A door is opened, a rat runs out the door down the steps of the Station. Notice that rat, it runs faster than all the others. Notice that rat, it has round its neck or its hips, or caught up in its tail depending, a ring, a curtain ring. Know that curtain ring, that brass curtain ring, it’s always upon me. I never lose it. I fix it to myself, here or there, so that it doesn’t fall off. I have it somewhere about. Off I go, rat and ring. See it there! Into and under and deep within. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been everything.

  There runs a rat, over your feet maybe.

  That was me.

  That was I.

  Otta.

  Gone a-hunting.

  6

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

  Continuing the narrative of Clod Iremonger

  Notice, Missing Boy

  They sat about me, waiting and waiting. In the background the father, Herbert Arthur, was stoking up the fire. The son, William Henry, had got out the crucible and was heating it up. The room was terribly hot. The people were sweating so. All the objects all about were quieter now, whispering to each other. I did not like that, it seemed to bode no good.

  ‘Soon,’ the father said, ‘soon it shall be hot enough.’

  ‘Don’t touch the coin,’ said the old grandmother, ‘it shouldn’t do to touch. Wear thick gloves when you drop it in the pan, Bertle, don’t let anyone else. It’s dirty, that thing is. It’s filth.’

  ‘It doesn’t look dirty,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘It looks golden and pretty, I like it. I cannot help it, I like it. I feel a fondness for it.’

  ‘Don’t look into it, Sarah Jane. It isn’t safe,’ said the mother.

  ‘I cannot help it, Ma. It is such an object. It would be a pity to harm it, I feel that in my heart. I feel I’ve dreamt of this coin before, as if I somehow know it.’

  ‘It’s calling her,’ the grandmother cried. ‘It will get to a young ’un easy, the disease, those of weak constitution, the over-innocent, the stupid. It’ll bring them down. Bertle, will you hurry now!’

  The fire grew hotter and the pan on top of it shifted from black to red. The family sweated over me. I tried calling out to them, but no matter how I cried, they could not hear. Only Sarah Jane seemed to want to keep me. These were superstitious people, poor people, living on the edge. I looked about their small room where they all crammed in everything that was theirs, where they worked and where they slept in rickety bunks leant against the walls. There were no pictures on the walls such as there had been back at home in Heap House. There was a single, framed bit of needlepoint, such as probably Sarah Jane had made at school, in neat, sewed lettering with flowers surrounding it, the needlework said:

  TAKE THE BABY FROM THE HEAPS

  AND THE WALL SHALL FALL

  The only other decoration in the whole place were bill posters pasted on here and there, I supposed, to stop up cracks. Old tattered advertisements for theatre acts:

  COME FEED THE IT OF THE HEAPS!
<
br />   BRING ANYTHING, HE EATS ANYTHING:

  GLASS, METAL, CHINA, WOOD

  MR EAT-ALL! FEED HIM YOURSELF – 2D A SPOONFULL

  But most of the bill posters were all the same, the same one over and over:

  NOTICE, LOST PROPERTY: MISSING BOY

  LAST SEEN NEAR HEAPWALL MAY 14TH 1860, 5 FEET 2 INCHES, BROWN HAIR, BROWN EYES. ANSWERS TO THE NAME

  JAMES HENRY HAYWARD

  JAMES HENRY, IF YOU READ THIS PLEASE COME HOME.

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? Please contact Herbert Arthur Hayward,

  HOUSE OF RATS, Old Salvage Street, Forlichingham

  James Henry! James Henry! My James Henry! My plug, oh my plug James Henry Hayward! This, this was where he came from, this, even this, was his home! I was in James Henry’s home! Here were his beloved people! Hallo, hallo, to you! I know James Henry, I’ve been with him all this time! Sixteen years ago he was lost to these people, sixteen years since I’ve been born and he’s been with me. Sixteen years! Sixteen years has James Henry been stalled, sixteen years asleep as a plug, his sister and brother were just small children then. Now quite grown up. But James Henry’s still alive, I called out to them. He’s not dead, though missing these long sixteen years. Help, oh help!

  Listen, Haywards, listen to me!

  I’ve seen him, even today was I with him. He’s alive and well.

  I tried to tell them. I thought as loudly as I could. I screamed in my mind: just a few hours ago! You may find him yet, you may find him before anyone else does. Go, and find him, now, run to him. He’s in the pieshop, at least he was there this day. Run to him quick, for I need to be with him, and he with me.

  But the people couldn’t hear. And those people, those sacred, dear people of James Henry’s, were set upon destroying me, which would harm their missing son. They’d suffer their own boy.

  Help me, oh help me.

  The only person who seemed to understand anything was Sarah Jane, who sat in front of me and began to weep.

  ‘Why ever are you crying, Sarey?’ asked the mother. ‘It’s just a coin.’

  ‘Is it, Ma, is it? How can you be so sure? What should have happened had James Henry been turned into a coin such as this? He may have been for all we know. And now you want to hurt him!’

  ‘One thing I do know, my girl,’ said the father sadly, ‘if our James Henry should have fallen into something, it’s very unlike he’d turn up a sovereign. It’s not like a Hayward to be a sovereign, is it. Look on the mantelpiece at your dear grandfather, look at that beloved rubber glove and tell me that that sovereign is related in any way to that rubber glove.’

  ‘Oh, my George Henry,’ wailed the old woman of a sudden, reflecting no doubt on happier days. ‘Oh my rubbery glove!’

  ‘Oh my old love,’ whispered the glove.

  ‘I know, Father, I know,’ said Sarah Jane in tears – somehow my thoughts were getting to her. They must be. ‘I do know, and yet there’s something in this sovereign here, something more to it. I do know it! Oh, why am I thinking of James Henry so? Why does he flood back to me, it’s as if I see him now in the cupboard there where we used to hide. Why can I not get him from my head?’

  ‘You’re upsetting yourself, Sarah Jane,’ said her brother, ‘and you’re upsetting Mother too. It isn’t right. You oughtn’t to.’

  ‘I cannot let you destroy it!’ cried Sarah Jane.

  ‘Just you try and stop me, my girl!’ said the father, holding long tongs now and coming forward with purpose.

  ‘No, Father, you mustn’t!’ she cried and scooped me up.

  And just at that moment there came a quiet knock at the door.

  For the Heapsick

  The family stopped dead. They looked at one another in a panic, but Sarah Jane held on to me and when the father put out his hand, she shook her head.

  Another quiet knock at the door.

  ‘Sarah Jane,’ whispered the mother, ‘give it over to your father. Now.’

  ‘Hello,’ called Sarah Jane, ‘who is it out there? Who’s at the door?’

  ‘’Tis old Percy Howlett,’ came the voice beyond. ‘May I step in?’

  ‘It’s only Percy,’ said the grandmother. ‘I’ve known him since I was but a girl in new leathers. Let him in, he shan’t do any harm.’

  ‘Sarah Jane,’ said the father in determined whispers, ‘will you give that to me this instant?’

  ‘No, Father, I do not think that I shall,’ said Sarah Jane as she opened the door. ‘Dear Mr Howlett, won’t you come in? So sorry to have kept you.’

  ‘Evening all,’ said an old, thin voice. ‘Not disturbing anything, am I?’

  The Haywards, every one of them, were quick to say not.

  ‘Only,’ said the old man, ‘I heard raised voices. Did I call at the wrong time?’

  ‘No, no, Percy, don’t talk rot,’ said the grandmother. ‘Come now, sit by me.’

  I heard shuffling and wheezing.

  ‘Your cold’s no better then, Percy?’

  ‘No, no, not much it isn’t. My dancing days are spent, I reckon. Hot in here, isn’t it? Hot as hell I reckon!’

  ‘Is it, Percy?’ said the father. ‘Doesn’t feel so hot to me.’

  ‘Nor me, nor me,’ echoed various Haywards.

  ‘That pan’s red hot!’ the old man exclaimed.

  ‘So it is!’ said the mother. ‘I’d quite forgotten it. William Henry, take it off the stove.’

  ‘What’s new, Percy?’

  ‘Fearful flap about, ain’t there. Looking for sovereigns!’ said the old man, laughing. ‘They can search me right enough, how many sovereigns do I have upon me? Don’t you hear me rattling with sovereigns? Idiots, what idiots! How many of us in Filching should have sovereigns now, I ask you. But I come this eveningtide with a tin, I’m afraid. I’m collecting for the heapsick. There’s awful fever about. I know a family all dependent on their eldest son but he collapsed into a boathook Friday last and now the family sit about the unhappy object, starving. I hate to ask, but do you have anything? Anything at all?’

  ‘Oh, Percy, we’ve not been doing well, you know,’ said the mother.

  ‘We have something surely,’ said the grandmother. ‘A ha’penny bit, surely, for Percy and his heapsick. We can manage that can’t we? I shan’t have it said the Haywards give nothing!’

  ‘Go on then, Sarah Jane,’ said the mother, ‘give over a ha’penny, but don’t call again soon Percy. We’re not Iremongers you know, we’re not made a money.’

  ‘I shan’t, I promise. I hate to do it.’

  Sarah Jane, still holding me, fetched a coin from a cup on a shelf with her other hand and gave it over. The old man quickly clasped his withered hands over Sarah Jane’s and so over me. He held on to her. I could feel Sarah Jane struggling, beginning to panic.

  ‘Bless you child, bless you.’

  ‘Percy, Percy Howlitt,’ exclaimed the grandmother, ‘is that a new umbrella you have there?’

  ‘It is, it is,’ said the old man, ‘to keep the weather and me a distance from each other.’

  ‘How ever did you afford it?’

  ‘It was gifted to me, most generous.’

  I heard the umbrella then, it was whispering, ‘Barnaby Macmillan, a brolley, his brolley, would that I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, dear Haywards,’ said the old man, ‘I must be on now, I’ve my tin to rattle elsewhere alas, and it does feel to me fearsome warm in here.’

  ‘What’s the rush, Percy? Have a bite with us.’

  ‘No, thank you, thank you, I must on, really I must.’

  ‘It’s not like you to turn down a meal. You’re skin and bones, Percy, come now, take a bite. When did you last eat? I won’t have it said the Haywards are a mean people.’

  ‘No, no, honest, I must get on. Please detain me no further.’

  ‘Don’t be rude, Percy, it doesn’t suit.’

  ‘Please stay, Percy, you’ve got to eat.’

  ‘No!’ the old man shrieked. ‘I’ve got to
get on! Urgent!’

  ‘Why, Percy Howlett, what a way to behave, how cruel you are.’

  ‘You’re not yourself, Percy, to snap at us so.’

  The old man was panting and rushing about in the room.

  ‘Well, well,’ the old man gasped at last, ‘the truth is, I can’t keep food in me. It won’t stay down.’

  ‘Oh, Percy, poor dear man, have some grinding will you then, have some physic. Smoke a pipe.’

  ‘Thankee, thankee, dear friends,’ the old man wheezed, ‘but I’ve already had some, thankee kindly. I’ve just been to chemist Griggs and he set me up.’

  ‘What Griggs have you, Percy? When was that?’

  ‘Just five minutes ago.’

  ‘Five minutes ago you were at Griggses?’

  ‘Yes indeed, just a few moments before seeing you, he set me up.’

  ‘Well goodnight then, Percy,’ said the father, ‘mind how you go.’

  ‘Goodnight, all!’

  The door was closed, the family silent a moment and then,

  ‘Why did the old man lie to us, why did he say that?’

  ‘Something’s up, Herbert Arthur,’ said the mother. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘To think I’ve known him since I was a girl,’ said the grandmother, ‘and have trusted him all these years.’

  ‘We must get it out! We must get it out quick. We have to lose it!’

  ‘Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane! Where are you going!’

  ‘Come back! Come back!’

  But Sarah Jane was already out the door, still holding me tight, out the door and running.

  Under the Bridge

  Sarah Jane was running, running, running for all her life.

  ‘Stop! Stop there!’ someone called out.

  But Sarah Jane didn’t stop, she rushed on. There was a whistle blown somewhere behind us. On she ran, on and on. She stopped suddenly, I could just see through her fingers a man before us with a wooden barrel. He had a rag covering over his face. He was pouring whatever was in the barrel down a coal chute, into an old house. He looked about, most perturbed.