Foulsham

by Edward Carey

  ‘Welcome, welcome, Lucy, I so hoped you’d come!’ she looked most particularly at Benedict, not trusting him at all. ‘Tell me again, Lucy, what is that with you there?’

  ‘Mr Tipp, Mrs Whiting. Mr Tipp, you see.’

  ‘Well, if you insist, though he shouldn’t be my choice of a husband.’

  ‘We are not married, Mrs Whiting. He is a friend.’

  ‘Oh, my dear! I am much relieved. Your dear parents should never have allowed it, and now they are gone, and you are back, I see that I shall have to be your parenting figure. I feel I must collect you, Lucy, though I am not sure about Mr Tipp, indeed I am not. Mr Tipp, do you like things?’

  ‘Do yes,’ he managed.

  ‘How very sensible, may I show you some of my things, may I?’

  ‘Do yes,’ he repeated.

  ‘You are good. Well then we’re quite coming along, aren’t we? Perhaps there’s more to you than first I thought … what a man you are! What muscles! Come, come, sit down, I’ll bring them to you.’

  I had suspected that this might happen, and was in fact hoping for it, so that as Mrs Whiting introduced so many of her things to Benedict, I might, in helping pass this or that to her, I might find some papers of former tenants and keep them for us.

  ‘Please to pass me that vase over there, shall you, Lucy dear?’

  I obliged.

  ‘Most kind,’ she said. ‘Mr Tipp, this vase is my late husband, Arthur Giddings. Arthur was such a sweet man, very gentle with me, but quite weak of chest. He inhaled a child’s milk tooth while sorting out in the heaps one day, he came back most wiggy and within a week was a vase as you see before you. Lucy, Mr Shanks, if you would be so kind.’

  The old lady was growing quite tearful with her reminiscing and was now full tilt at it. I handed as requested the heavy-cast iron paper slicer from the dresser.

  ‘Here is Mr Shanks, Mr Tipp, a very sharp one was Mr Shanks, not always gentlemanly, and very heavy when on top of one. Mr Shanks proved to have a most provoking temper under his great oiled moustache. He had hopes to be rather more than he was and when melancholy with gin he should become most foul of mouth and should set me screaming as he went about all my things, all my people here, all my dear dead departed friends and tenants, and, do you know, Mr Tipp, he even trampled upon a couple? Of course I called murder and some of my better tenants came rushing to my aid. I have been aided a great deal in my life, I am not ashamed to admit it. I like to be propped up, I do. You, Mr Tipp, have muscles, don’t you? Well then, I was talking of Mr Shanks, he made great dents in my mattress – a dear mattress, formerly my great aunt Grace, a most commodious lady in her day – and then one morning, just a night after one of his awful seizures, I wake and there beside me, was that heavy thing! Mr Shanks turned paper slicer. He’s dreadful sharp, careful how you handle him!’

  Without invitation I next brought to the gabbing old dear Mr Whiting, her pride and joy.

  ‘But Mr Whiting – quite right, Lucy, how I’ve missed you – was a very different sort of case indeed. I cannot help but grow melancholy when I think of him. Despite all my friends so thick about me, I have felt loneliness since Mr Whiting became a handbell. He was the gentlest of men, not talkative, perhaps. But so few words that are spoken are actually worth the effort, don’t you find? Whiting, dear Whiting, he was a whisperer. He used to be one of my tenants, as did Giddings and Shanks before him. He would come and whisper at my door there, and he should slip little things under, so that I should come to wait for them, little missives, a fried plant of some kind, bits of his own dear hair, anything. He knew how I loved it all, his nail clippings, the sweet fellow, and of course I should collect them up. I have a huge collection of all the old bits of Mr Whiting, I may show you if you like. There was much to Mr Whiting until, one day, I could not find him anywhere, nowhere, not throughout my house, for days and weeks I went looking for him. I listened out for his quiet whispering but he was not to be heard. Oh, dear, where could he be and then, there he was, behind the door where I had not thought to look. There! A handbell! A handbell that I had never seen in my life and yet I knew instantly and intimately. Poor, poor Mr Whiting. First Giddings, then Shanks, finally Whiting. What a luckless lady I am.’

  I had found them! Pages of them in a drawer, the papers of her expired tenants, many of whom I used to know, the names were all crossed out in pencil, and written in Mrs Whiting’s own spidery hand were the things the poor people had fallen into. I put a couple into my pocket and, returning to the overcrowded sitting room, I heard Mrs Whiting addressing Benedict.

  ‘Dear man,’ she said, in conspiratorial tones. ‘I know when it is coming. I have never yet been wrong in that. Over years I have watched the faces of my husbands, of my tenants, and I can see the very first play of the disease upon a face. I know when it is near. Let me tell you, Mr Tipp, let me favour you this, it is coming for Lucy, I see it already about her face. She shall turn. I know she shall. I am sorry for it, most sorry. But tell me, Mr Tipp, may we make a deal, when she turns, as surely she must, when she turns, might I have her please?’

  Benedict looked at her, uncomprehending.

  ‘You see, if I could have her,’ she continued, ‘if I could keep her for myself, I mean to look after her. I even – I knew the moment I saw her – I have the perfect place for her, may I tell you?’

  Benedict leant forward.

  ‘When she goes, I shall put her over there, between the soup pot and the candle scissors. That’s where she’ll go. And may I tell you why? Because those two over there are all that remains of her parents.’

  Was that them? Was she telling the truth? Was that poor Mother and Father there? I thought that it might be just as she said. I thought they might very well be them. Oh my mother, oh my father. There was something then, after all, something that belonged to me in the world. There they were. Father. Mother. A soup pot. A pair of candle scissors. They belonged to me.

  ‘If you should let me have Lucy when she was turned then I should have, so to speak, the full set. Indeed, those two look very melancholy without her, don’t you think? Let me keep Lucy, and understand I’d polish her nicely, she’d never know dust.’

  I’d take them, I’d take them now, yet if I did the old woman would surely call for Rawlings and we should be done with instantly. I could not take them, not yet. I shall come back for you, Mother, Father, I promised myself.

  ‘I hope she shan’t be very big,’ the old woman was saying. ‘Lucy is such a slight thing, but you never can tell, can you? There was a child, a baby, barely a few days old, and she suddenly turned. Now you’d think a baby should be something small and delicate, something very tiny and precious, but no, when this baby turned it turned into that great cooking range over there. It is the very devil of a thing, but still I should never part with it, not for anything. I wonder what she shall be when she turns. In truth, I do not think the wait shall be very long at all.’

  ‘Be a botton,’ said Benedict.

  ‘Think so?’ she said. ‘Who can tell? Now, Mr Tipp, here’s what I say, I am not a fool, and know when I may crush a person or not, I have not survived this long time without my clevernesses. Now, my dear man – such muscles – if you do not give me Lucy when she’s turned then I shall tell Rawlings of your presence here and Rawlings, you know, he shall do for you.’

  ‘Do for me?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, you see, he doesn’t like strange people in the house, he won’t have them. He knows all the faces of the house, and yours is not one of them. He had a neighbour arrested just for stepping over the threshold last week. She’s been taken in, to the station, no one has seen her since, no one’s heard a word. There is to be no rule breaking, you understand, Mr Tipp, none whatsoever, but perhaps I’ll take a chance with you, and have Lucy on account. Besides, muscles! And yet … and yet … I seem to recall something suddenly, Mr Tipp, have we met before?’

  ‘No, mum, no, not.’

  ‘Are you certain? I do feel I know y
ou, I feel I’ve seen you. Your face is not unknown to me, and yet where can it have been? I seem to remember seeing your face everywhere. On a wall! Yes, that’s it, a bill poster! Oh, heavens, oh heapness, oh my things! It cannot be!’

  ‘Whatever is it, Mrs Whiting?’ I said, stepping forward.

  ‘You’ve gone and done it, Lucy, haven’t you, you’ve gone and done it!’

  ‘Done what, Mrs Whiting? Please be calm.’

  ‘You’ve took him from the heaps, haven’t you?’

  ‘Please, Mrs Whiting, you are loud.’

  ‘You’ve gone and done it!’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Gone and done it.’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘It, that’s what. It!’

  ‘It?’

  ‘That, that thing, the It!’

  ‘His name is Tipp, Benedict Tipp.’

  ‘Binadit! You let him out!’

  ‘Please now.’

  ‘Let him out and brought him here!’

  ‘You must quieten, Mrs Whiting.’

  ‘To my house, little bitch, my house!’

  ‘You’ll bring the police in.’

  ‘How could you, how could you?’

  ‘He’s a nice man, Mrs W.,’ I said. ‘Very wronged.’ And as I said that I felt Benedict standing next to me, I felt his great hand reaching out for mine. I held it, that big old hand, I’d not let it go, not for anything.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ the widow shrieked.

  ‘He’s done no harm.’

  ‘He was banished … thrown out … cast away.’

  ‘And there was no right to do it!’

  ‘Idiot child, foolish, foolish girl. He was thrown out, why was he, why was he, tell me that?’

  ‘I cannot say, for some dumb reason.’

  ‘He was born out there. No one knows who his mother was, no one knows where he came from, not from us I think, but they took him in, here to the town, they should never have done that. Children died, all over, but not him, never him, he gets fatter and fatter. My own child died! My own daughter taken from me! There she is on my mantel, that soap dish was once my child, Nicolette Rose! But he goes on, that pig thing, and eats, they give him foul food not fit for rats and still he eats, he eats and thrives. He’s not proper, there’s nothing proper about him!’

  ‘He is proper,’ I cried. ‘He’s as proper as any of us!’

  ‘No! No, he’s not! The filth always stayed over the wall till he came, but after he came, it got out! It fell over, it lurched like it was an ocean. It came after him, wherever he was put the filth followed him. It would fill houses, the stuff that came after him, one old man drowned on it. So they brought him to Town Square, didn’t they, they set him down in the centre and stood back, and in a half hour there blew in a mountain of heap, all after him. So that was that then, they threw him over the wall where he belonged where he should ever have stayed! He was ten years of age then, that should make all of about twenty now. And look at that, that thing may as well be twenty as any age! He’ll drown us, don’t you see? He’ll drown us all! He must go back before all Foulsham is drowned!’ She began screaming then. ‘Get him out! Get him out! Get him out of my home!’

  There was noise below, a bell ringing, someone had entered the front door.

  ‘That shall be Rawling,’ the old woman said in her panic, ‘come home at last. He must not see you, he must not find the It here. What shall happen if he finds the It here, what will they do to me? Hide, hide, both of you! And the moment, the moment it’s safe, I want you out! Both!’

  The stairs were creaking as heavy feet came up, and a loud, grating voice sung out,

  ‘I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!

  Over in the rubbish ground,

  I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!

  Come and see what I have found!

  ‘I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!

  I have found there much for thee,

  I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!

  Let me in now, come and see!’

  ‘Rawling is coming, coming fast,’ cried the old woman. ‘We shall all be arrested!’

  ‘Mrs Whiting, please listen,’ I said, ‘where can we hide?’

  ‘Into the hulk cooking range with you both, and close the door hard and fast, you in one door Lucy, hurry yourself, and that It thing into the other, larger one, hurry now, hurry, he’ll be here in a moment.’

  It was a very large cooker and even Benedict, bent over and squeezed, could fit inside it. He looked very desperate, and I could just about feel him trembling in the other oven beside of me. There was a tiny hatch in the door where a cook may look in and see how his business was proceeding. I could see through it, I could look out.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in, Rawling,’ said Mrs Whiting, ‘where ever have you been?’

  Mr Rawling was a white faced, balding man, his head slightly misshapen as if he may have been in an accident at some time, he was dressed in a dark grey boilersuit, the lower half of the legs were covered in dirt.

  ‘What’s been doing here?’

  ‘What muscles you have, Mr Rawling, what muscles.’

  ‘There’s a deal of filth around the house.’

  ‘Indeed your feet are most uncomfortable,’ she said.

  ‘And up the stairs, I see someone’s been in Heighton’s rooms, what’s the cause of that? What’s afoot, you sneaking old pomfrit? What’s going on here while I’m out? There’s villainy here, I know it. And why is all the rubbish all around the entrance of the house? What’s it doing there? And who’s the one to tidy it? It’s me. Me and no one else. No one else to do it. And I don’t like it! Someone shall have to pay for it, it shan’t be me. Why should I?’

  ‘They’ve found me,’ Benedict whispered. ‘Oh, Heaps, Heaps have found me.’

  ‘I had to dig my way in to get here,’ Rawling was saying, ‘and it seems to be collecting up, to be growing around it, as if the heaps themselves were coming here, deliberate like, were forming a place of gathering. And Gatherings, as you know, aren’t legal. I’ll have to chop it up before it gets too sure of itself. If it gets big then it’ll smack at the house and do it great mischief. It’s not allowed. Strictly not. Things and people are not to congregate, the rule is very clear on that. I can’t think why it’s happening when it’s against the law. Speaking of law, now, let’s see your papers.’

  ‘Mr Rawling, do you really think that necessary?’

  ‘Is the law, I am to do it. Come now, how do I know you’re legal? Let’s see. Come, come, old girl, hand over.’

  He walked over to Mrs Whiting to collect the paper but as he did, he stopped short suddenly. ‘Hello now,’ he said, ‘what’s this? What’s going on?’

  Small bits of heap, scraps of paper and little slivers of glass from Mr Rawling’s boots had come free and were slowly twisting their way towards Benedict.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked. And then he hollered, ‘Villainy! Seek it out!’

  16

  IT SHALL NOT HOLD

  Heapwall log

  Entry 26th January 1876

  7 a.m.

  Heaps are up. Level’s rising, has been some spillage over the wall. Not much unusual about that perhaps except that all the storm seems to be against the wall side and the heaps appear to be massing, so that, if this continue, which is very unlike surely, there is certain to be a flooding of this part of Foulsham, the warning horns have not yet been sounded, but it’s wise for us to keep strict notice.

  10 a.m.

  There are cracks on the wall now, undeniable cracks. I do not think it shall fall, surely it shall not, but the cracks are palpable certainly. I could fit my little finger through one. Not good, not good. We take measures with us by the cracks and write with chalk next to them how wide they are and come back every half hour to see if they are widening. They are.

  Heap dangerously high, more has spille
d over the top, but the wall does hold for now. Sky calm, why do the heaps rage so?

  11 a.m.

  I have advised clearing the houses and streets nearest the Heap Wall, but Churls Iremonger, Wall Governor, will not permit it, he says we are to stand our ground whatever else. There’s emptying of the heaps further out, I see it now, in the distance, Heap House looks naked over there, less and less heap around it, as if it were being abandoned.

  I can even see some of the pipes under now, never seen them before, not since I was a child, when they were first laid down, and to do that they had to make special barriers first. I can fit my fist through the deepest cracks.

  The rats, the rats are leaving!

  They’re coming everywhere about us now, squeezing through some of the cracks, or over the top, everywhere you look, never seen the like, never seen anything like it. More and more and more of them. When will they ever stop? From the height of my wall office, I can see down into Foulsham and the street that goes into the town has turned black with rats on the run. It’s been black for more than a half hour now. They’re going, all the rats, they’re on the run.

  Heap level still rising.

  12 p.m.

  One of the men says that Hawkins was measuring a split in the Heap Wall when a section of wall come off on him. He’s dead now, Hawkins is. We’re bracing the wall with everything we can, but I am not certain any more that we can last. I don’t think Octaviam’s wall will see this day out. Governor Churls says that it shall calm down again soon enough, that it shall not breach, but he himself has left now.

  I shall sound the siren, whether I am punished for it or not.

  My men may leave the Heap Wall and go to high ground. There are two parties of sorters still unaccounted for, you cannot see them, the heaps spit so. And far, far out, Heap House in the distance – do I see this? Can it be true? – seems to be splitting up.