Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  ‘Oh dear,’ I whispered.

  ‘He calls me “dear”!’

  ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘“Dear”, he says, “Dear”!’

  And she was gone. And I was alone again. I looked at the doilies a little while and then put them away in the blackened chest of drawers. I wasn’t very sure about them at all.

  Around the House, Up and Down the Stairs

  I was left alone with Rippit again, because Rippit reappeared soon enough. Looking at me with great suspicion, he sat in his chair, stroking James Henry, or at least pretending to, such a timid noise did my dear plug make, such a faint whisper of, ‘James Henry Hayward.’

  Poor, poor plug of mine.

  Rippit took out a daguerreotype of James Henry. It must have been taken when poor James Henry was living at Bayleaf House.

  ‘May I see that?’ I asked. ‘I should like to keep it if I may.’

  Rippit, croaking and rippiting, made a noise deep down in his throat and then let out a pungent belch and with that sulphurous explosion came a small greeny-blue flame. Rippit burped flame onto the daguerreotype and burnt a hole where James Henry’s face had been so that all that was left of him was a black stain, and James Henry’s shoulders supported nothing but a dark cloud, as if Rippit had set fire to the poor fellow there and then, with his stinking breath.

  ‘Rippit!’ he squealed with delight.

  That fellow should very happily blot out anything I loved.

  Mrs Piggott came in, she handed me undergarments, a shirt, a pair of smart pressed trousers, a bow tie, a black waistcoat, and a pair of black socks.

  ‘You’re to have these, Master Clodius,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Your grandmother’s orders.’

  ‘No shoes, Piggott?’ I asked.

  ‘No shoes, Master Clodius.’

  ‘I can’t go outside yet?’

  ‘No, Master Clodius, but you are given the freedom of the house.’

  ‘Well that’s something, isn’t it Piggott?’

  Only then did I see that Piggott’s eyes were very red, I do believe she had been crying. That was most unlike her; I’d never seen Piggott cry before. I didn’t know that she could.

  ‘I say, Piggott,’ I asked, ‘is everything all right?’

  ‘It isn’t right, Master Clodius, it isn’t right at all.’

  ‘What isn’t, Piggott?’

  ‘I musn’t say.’

  She seemed to gather herself up a little then, took in a breath, then turning about she said, ‘Don’t mind me, Master Clodius, I’m just a little short staffed, increasingly short staffed, that’s all.’ And she left.

  I dressed myself.

  I went downstairs soon enough, my relations on the stairs all getting out of my way as if I had the pox. Perhaps I did after all.

  Some cousins had found a rat and had cornered it in the hallway and were waving cutlery at it. Butler Sturridge came running, his footsteps pounding down the hall.

  ‘Give that to me, gentlemen!’ he bellowed.

  ‘It is a rat, Sturridge,’ said Bornobby.

  ‘I’ll have that rat, I thank you.’

  ‘Whyever?’

  ‘Because your grandfather wishes it.’

  ‘Oh well, right you are then.’

  Taking it by the tail, Sturridge retreated with the rodent.

  ‘Come along then, Briggs,’ the butler said. ‘Do stop your squealing.’

  ‘Excuse me, Sturridge.’

  ‘Yes, Master Clodius?’

  ‘Did you just call the rat Briggs?’

  ‘Did I? Who can tell?’ he said, pushing past.

  ‘Where is Briggs?’

  ‘I am very busy, Master Clodius, please to excuse.’

  ‘Why ever would he call a rat Briggs?’ I asked my cousins.

  But my cousins, seeing me, found themselves different locations.

  It was a large house by some standards I suppose but very small compared to Heap House where you might easily wander the inside lanes and stairs and ever find new places to visit. Besides which, from Heap House you might watch the heaps moving in the sunlight, it could be very beautiful admiring the rising and falling of so much rubbish, like the breathing of some great slumbering giant. I so missed the place, to think of Tummis flapping his arms out in the heaps, calling to the gulls. But there was no light here, no light outside, all was darkness day and night, since Foulsham was broken and the Iremongers came to London Town. To live. In secret. Amongst you.

  The thing about hiding is that once you’re beyond the excitement of being hidden somewhere and away from all else, the minutes pass but slowly, ticking and tocking, each click of the clock, each little knock of time, slow, slow, slow time, ebbing away and no one coming to the door to say – ‘There you are!’

  I moved about my family members, I nosed about their business. After a half-hour Briggs came up the service stairs, his shiny hair most awry, his tortoiseshell shoehorn trembling in his hands.

  ‘Did you call for me, Master Clod?’

  ‘I didn’t actually, Briggs, but now you’re here, do you have any notion why Sturridge should call a rat after you?’

  ‘I do not attempt to fathom the depths of Mr Sturridge, that is not in my remit.’

  ‘I quite see that. But why should he name a rat after you?’

  ‘I cannot conceive, Master Clod. Perhaps he has his own reasons. Or perhaps you misheard.’

  ‘No, he certainly said “Briggs”.’

  ‘Not figs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor pigs?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Short ribs?’

  ‘No indeed. “Briggs”.’

  ‘Well, Master Clod, it must remain a mystery. For the now. Is there anything else, Master Clod?’

  ‘No thank you, Briggs, very good of you to inquire.’

  ‘Thank you, Master Clod,’ he said and returned downstairs but as he went he made a sudden, I should say involuntary squeal, rather rattish, I thought.

  ‘I say, Briggs?’

  ‘I thank you, Master Clod,’ he said and was gone.

  I pursued him down the stairs to the serving rooms. It was very quiet and very dark down below, noises of whispering, some further squeaking of rats.

  I turned the corner at the bottom, there was more light there, a few servants holding candles. They were lining up outside a door, some of them were weeping. I was on the point of turning back, for this was a servant business and it was not right for the family to be involved, when I saw something in one of the waiting parlour maids, something poking out beneath her white bonnet. It was red hair. Such red hair! That red hair! It stopped me as quick as anything, as if the whole world had suddenly given up the idea of rotating. I couldn’t breathe a moment, I gasped, I cried.

  ‘Lucy, Lucy Pennant, there you are all along!’

  And then the servant turned to face me.

  Such a pinched face, such a young cruel face, not Lucy, not Lucy at all. I stepped back in shock.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, ‘I thought for a moment … but no.’

  ‘My name is Iremonger,’ said she. She was holding a wooden toothpick, her birth object certainly, I could hear its name very clearly, ‘Phidias Collins.’ The poor toothpick, how sorry I felt for it then, for I had suddenly remembered who she was.

  ‘You were the bully in the orphanage,’ I said. ‘You tried to hurt Lucy. Your name is Mary Staggs.’

  ‘My name, sir, is Iremonger.’

  ‘Staggs the bully!’

  ‘Forgive me for observing, sir, but she was not family, that other girl you mentioned, not blood like us, like you and I are.’

  ‘Oh you horrible, horrible girl.’

  ‘You must be the lover then, aren’t you,’ she said, a sour look on her face, her nostrils flaring. ‘Nothing much to look on if you ask me. Red hair, is that it? Red hair, is that what you like?’ she added, flashing her eyes at me and, pulling out some strands of her greasy hair, she said, ‘Fancy some of this?�
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  I backed away, I cried out I think. The horror of it, as if all the beauty had been stolen from me, tainted and tinctured and spat at with flames like Rippit’s belch.

  Back up the stairs I went, moaning loudly. I heard Mary Staggs laughing below as I ran, and all I thought of was poor Phidias Collins. How I would do anything to liberate him from such terrible company.

  I’d stay upstairs now, I told myself, I shouldn’t go down again. There were cries coming from down there now, servants shouting. I closed the green baize door, let them cry for all I cared. There was a seat in the hall and I panted a while upon it.

  Grandfather’s Clock

  Calming down, I heard voices coming from one of the larger downstairs rooms. Grandfather was inside, I could hear his cuspidor Jack Pike through the closed door, but Jack Pike was screaming. Idwid was there and he was doing something with his nose tongs (Geraldine Whitehead).

  ‘It does hurt so, Idwid!’ called Grandfather, who never before had I heard admitting to any pain.

  ‘I am sorry, Umbitt Owner, I am as gentle as I can be.’

  ‘Try again once more, but go carefully.’

  ‘Yes, sir, certainly, sir.’ Idwid cleared his throat. ‘Now, Jack, listen up good and proper.’

  ‘Jack Pike! Jack Pike!’

  ‘Know your place, Jack. No hopping about the room unbidden.’

  ‘Jack Pike!’

  ‘You’re a naughty little thing, to try and get lost so.’

  ‘Jack Pike! Jack Pike!’

  ‘And I must scratch you a little here so that you remember your business.’

  ‘JACK PIKE!’

  ‘Ah!’ screamed Umbitt. ‘How it burns!’

  ‘Jack Pike, Jack Pike,’ Grandfather’s cuspidor was whimpering.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Idwid, ‘all done, all done.’

  ‘Am I dying, Idwid?’

  ‘No, no, never, what a thought! You, die? Hardly, not for many a year yet. You just have, how shall we say it, a little cold.’

  ‘My own cuspidor leapt away from my own grip.’

  ‘You are certain you did not drop it, sir?’

  ‘It leapt, man, leapt.’

  ‘Well, dear sir, we have just encouraged it, quite successfully, I do think, not to leap again.’

  ‘I am weakening, I am so tired, always tired.’

  ‘Now, now, no more of this, sir, it doesn’t suit, sir, does it? What I think, what I suggest most of all, is a little medicine.’

  ‘You’ll prick me, you’ll bleed me.’

  ‘I am just going to bolster Jack Pike up a little,’ said Idwid. ‘Here we are then.’

  There was the sound of a box of some sort being opened and voices calling out from it.

  ‘Herbert Arthur Carrington.’

  ‘Winifred Abigail Carrington, née Leighton.’

  ‘Virginia Winifred Carrington.’

  ‘Wilfred Herbert Arthur Carrington.’

  ‘Here,’ said Idwid, ‘here are the Carrington family who so kindly made their home available to us. Here they are now, well turned. Nice and fresh.’

  ‘What are they to me?’

  ‘Well, sir, they are your medicine I should think. You shall keep them about you, such fresh new turnings. I shall need to prick your finger slightly and for to scratch upon them so that a little of our great Umbitt may fall into them and then, well then, they shall get attached to you, shan’t they?’

  ‘I have my birth object, I have my cuspidor.’

  ‘That naughty thing, yes, Umbitt Owner, we know it and do feel it fully, but here are some more, just to keep you fresh, to help you along a little. To put a little spring back in your step.’

  ‘Oh very well then, if you think it shall help. I do feel better now!’

  ‘A little transfusion, a little iron in your blood so to speak. Now then, hold steady.’

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Well done, sir, that was very well done.’

  ‘I must not die, Idwid.’

  ‘No, sir, indeed you must not.’

  ‘Not before it is done.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, quite.’

  ‘But I do feel so cold, always so cold.’

  ‘Now I shall take up the Carringtons one at a time and you must keep them ever afterwards close about you.’

  ‘I do indeed feel better with this new company. I thank you, Idwid.’

  ‘Of course you do, sir, that’s the spirit!’

  ‘I think I may go about Lungdon and collect me some more souls. I’ve a hunger for it now.’

  ‘You shall wander about and grow mighty.’

  ‘Just two more nights, Idwid, and after that we shall reckon with them.’

  ‘Two more nights indeed.’

  ‘We shall assemble one and all upon Westminster Bridge, and then we shall give them their shock.’

  ‘They shall not forget us, shall they, sir?’

  ‘You think it will work, Idwid?’

  ‘I do think, sir, all in all, you may find it most efficacious to keep more birth objects about you, a great number of them perhaps.’

  ‘Really, Idwid, I do feel better now.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, sir, I think you must gather a little more, fill your pockets, so to speak.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see that might help.’

  ‘There we are then, a collection shall be arranged, shan’t it?’

  ‘Let me then, Idwid, let me have those shall you?’

  ‘Geraldine Whitehead.’

  ‘These? My Geraldine?’

  ‘Even those? Those scissor things, yes. I shall look after them.’

  ‘But, sir! But Father!’

  ‘Don’t you “Father” me, there are many of my children who’ve fallen to dust over such intimacy. Where did your brother Hibbit go all those years ago; where’s Itchard?’

  ‘Gone, gone these many years.’

  ‘And all for challenging me. Have a care, Idwid. Know your place.’

  ‘Yes, sir, yes, Umbitt Owner.’

  ‘Come then, I’ll take those snippers of yours. My medicine they shall be.’

  ‘Geraldine Whitehead.’

  ‘Geraldine! My Geraldine!’ How strange it was now to hear Uncle Idwid’s panicking voice.

  ‘You’ll find my pockets are most capacious. And more can always be sewn. Prick me, man, do your surgery.’

  ‘Sir … sir.’

  I crept away then, I moved along from Idwid and his vile nursing. What indeed was their plan, what was the business Grandfather was to do upon Westminster Bridge? And to think I heard Grandfather in such distress. Was Grandfather really dying? What a thought. Grandfather dead, whatever should happen then? I skipped a little down the corridor. But in a mere moment regretted it – he was my own grandfather after all, try as I might I could not wholeheartedly wish him wrong, we should be so vulnerable without him. It was time to visit more of the family in their distress.

  The Stitching in the Drawing Room

  Sitting in the drawing room was a great clump of senior Iremonger females, a thick congregation, all bombazined and buttoned up, Grandmother and Rosamud amongst them. Grandmother’s great marble fireplace was stuck in the centre of this room and caused some inconvenience. The fire was crackling and smoking, gas lamps were lit, candles were aflame but still the place seemed very dark.

  The women were all busy about the same exercise, they had long, sharp needles.

  ‘If you’re to come in here, Clod,’ said Granny, ‘you’re to behave. I won’t have you shifting things, not in here. You disrupt us and you’ll be confined to your room with Rippit once more.’

  ‘I shall be good,’ I said glumly.

  ‘And how did you find Pinalippy?’

  ‘Quite spirited actually, Granny.’

  ‘I’m most pleased to hear it. She’s very strong, that child. She may not be an outstanding beauty, but she has a head on her and a strong (if hirsute) body which, if unmolested by the Lungdon constabulary, may bear many children.’

 
‘She smelt rather of treacle.’

  ‘Did she, Clod! Did she?’ cried Granny, and many of the women about her smiled and chuckled at this little detail.

  Listlessly I watched all the arms of the Iremonger women, all in black, for black are the Iremonger days since our Foulsham was taken from us. We are in mourning, there’ll be no dawn for us, Grandmother had told me, until we find our place again. They worked on, these ladies, deep in concentration, with few words, with occasionally the call for scissors to be passed between them. It was the scissors that jogged my poor head into recollection.

  ‘What ever are you sewing?’ I cried.

  ‘Why, Clod, grow up, won’t you, and be observant,’ said Granny. ‘There’s many a lady in Lungdon that spends her days with needle and thread. It is what ladies do, and we must fit in, you see, and so we sew and sew.’

  ‘But what are you making?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Granny nonchalantly, ‘people.’

  ‘What people?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, leather people of course,’ said Pomular. ‘Don’t be dim.’

  They were stitching arms and legs, torsos and heads. One was threading hair into leather heads. In the corner I noticed two maiden aunts filling the leather bodies with stuffing, shovelling dirt and sand and rolled-up paper from great buckets of filth, spooned through the leather dummies’ mouths. I saw now sat amongst them were various finished and dressed leather people, with black smoke coming slightly from between their lips. Sitting very quietly, occasionally one blinked, now and then one wiped a nose, scratched a head a little, but otherwise they sat utterly docile.

  One aunt came forward now with a shifting man beside her.

  ‘Excuse me, Ommaball Owneress, I do believe this fellow is ready.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Granny. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Marcus Pilkington,’ said the leather creature. ‘Member of Parliament for Suffolk.’

  ‘So you are. Well then, do you know your business?’

  ‘I am to be at Parliament on the eighth without fail.’

  ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘By ten of the clock.’

  ‘Exactly. Now you are to join the right honourable gentlemen for Inverness-shire, Dumfrieshire and Cornwall and Berkshire. To be housed in secret.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’