Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  * * *

  ‘Rippit,’ I said, ‘come here then and don’t be shy.’

  There was Rippit in the corridor, all dressed up, in overalls and big cap, big clothes to disguise the odd shape of the fellow beneath.

  ‘Rippit, I say!’

  ‘Rippit,’ he said. Course he did. Never anything else, the poor lamb, he can’t.

  ‘Come on, come sit by me, come close, closer now.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Don’t be shy.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Don’t whisper.’

  I pinched him them, good and hard about his breast, took a good quick grab of flesh just where it hurts, couldn’t stop myself.

  ‘Rippit!’

  ‘Don’t shout either. That was just a little pinch for familiarity. Come now. Sit tight. I want you to tell me all about you.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘I think you like me.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘I remember, years ago, before you went missing, you used to come to spy on us in the girls’ wing, you used to pry and sniff about.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Oh, do stop being so shy, Cousin Rippit, sweet Cousin Rippy. It’s perfectly natural.’

  ‘Rippit!’

  ‘Ripper!’

  I pinched him again, feeling about his odd person, searching for a shape.

  ‘Oh come, it was only a little pinch for friendship. What a fuss you make.’

  ‘Rippit!’

  ‘Now, now, I shan’t do it again I do promise you.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Oh Rippit, you’re all of a fluster. I do believe you’re sweating a little.’

  ‘Rippit. Rippit.’

  ‘Now, Rippit, with all the worry about us and all the sadness over Timfy, it is nice to have a quiet moment before whatever is coming to us comes. Is it not, Rippit?’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Quite right, here we are then. I do promise I shan’t do it again. Now then tell me a story, shan’t you? Make a girl happy.’

  ‘Rippit?’

  ‘Don’t be an old mophead, darling Rip-rip. Come now. How you tremble! Come on, a little story to take our minds off. Please begin.’

  ‘Rippit?’

  ‘I shan’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘Rippit. Rippit.’ He actually started to try to tell a story, what a sorry old sight. ‘Rippit, rrrripppit, rippit-rippit-rrippit. Rip. Pit. Rippit, rippit, rippit.’

  ‘How splendid!’

  ‘Rippit! Rippit, rippit, rippit, rippit, rippit!’

  ‘How glorious, and then what happened?’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Rippit, rippit. Rippit? Rippit!’

  ‘Keep going, dear Rippity-rippity, what a sport you are.’

  ‘Rippit,’ he whispered. ‘Rippitrippitrippitrippitrippit, rippit, rippit. Rippit? Rippit … rippit … rippit!’

  ‘A happy ending!’

  Then I pinched him such a pinch, I quite terrified the soul of him.

  ‘RIPPIT! RIPPIT!’

  ‘What a fuss you do make! Just a pinch wasn’t it, for felicity – no need to let the world know.’

  ‘RIPPIT!’

  ‘I do pinch, Rippit, I do like to, to have some flesh between my fingers.’

  ‘Rippit! Rippit!’

  ‘Off already? Are you, Rippit? Oh well then, please yourself.’

  I have it!

  I have the plug in my pocket, I switched it. Clod’s own little plug, I’ll keep it safe and sound. Well done, Pinny, you’re the girl. And I have something else too. He was keeping them together, snug in the same deep pocket as if they had business with one another.

  A box of matches wrapped in a cloth.

  Can’t be a coincidence, can it? It must be her box of matches. Why would he keep hold of such a thing? Maybe she is still alive then, maybe she is. I’ll keep these matches too for now, but I shan’t have them anywhere near the plug. The matches and the plug are to be kept lonely. I’ll keep them all nice and sealed up. I’ll have metal tins to put them in, tobacco tins, to quite deaden the noise so Clod can’t be hearing them. So whilst no one else has their objects any more, I have two of them: a lovers’ pair.

  Well then, I have my instructions. Clod and I, we’ll walk out together into Lungdon, and Moorcus can keep an eye on us and report back as instructed.

  Yes, yes, that was very well done.

  Smart as. You are. Smart as.

  The pin!

  Governor Idwid Iremonger in Disguise

  Ifful Iremonger, of Black Breath

  10

  AN AUNT CALLED NIGHT

  Continuing the narrative of Clod Iremonger

  Before the Move

  ‘Now, Clod,’ said Idwid to me in the morning room; I had been most specifically summoned by the grieving uncle, ‘we are to change our dwelling.’

  He was all dressed up in strange red clothes, some sort of military uniform.

  ‘I,’ said Idwid, ‘am a Chelsea Pensioner. This is what an ancient soldier looks like when he’s a charity case. Quite smart aren’t I!’

  ‘Yes Uncle, you are indeed.’

  ‘And, Clod, we have clothes for you – you shall be quite the gentleman. You may put these on when the time is come, and it is coming, it is fast coming.’

  He handed me a large fine overcoat with a fur collar and a very tall top hat. It took me a moment to understand that we were alone in the room for all the others were leather people quietly sitting or standing here and there.

  ‘Now, Clodling, you are to be a young gentleman in mourning, that’s your cover. Here now is a black armband. That you must wear on your left arm. And you see, you do see where I feel, this particular wide band around your hat, that is what they do in mourning in this Lungdonland, for they are all in mourning you see, all in a grief for Victoria’s Albert, him that’s been rotting now for all of fifteen years, still, still they do blub so! You being such a sorrowful fellow we thought the outfit should fit you perfect.’

  ‘I am sorry about Uncle Timfy,’ I said. ‘I am sorry for your loss, Uncle.’

  ‘You’re sorry!’ spat Idwid, of a sudden flipped into a fury. ‘What am I to do with your “sorry”, wet little creature that it is? I couldn’t give a premature rat for your sorry, I don’t give a fly’s poo for your sorry. I shouldn’t give a flea’s tit for it. What am I to do with such a thing? I’ve a good mind to take Geraldine here,’ he said, but then he stopped, ‘but I don’t have her right now. Such days! People not to be trusted. My Geraldine!’

  Indeed I noticed then that I had not heard her in the room.

  ‘If I had her,’ he said sadly, ‘I might bury her deep in your head. What do you say to that?’

  ‘On the whole, Uncle, I should rather you didn’t.’

  ‘Well then, have a care. I miss her so.’

  Silence then, but for the gentle breathing of various leather people sat about us. The morning room must have been the only peaceful room in the house; elsewhere all was in a panic, but here all was quiet and docile amongst the leathers, who would of an occasion look up to one or the other of us and smile vaguely before their false faces lost the smile again and resumed their terrible and habitual blankness.

  ‘We will not die,’ said Idwid. ‘Not this family.’

  I said nothing.

  His moon head tilted in its particular way, a long grin came to the white face. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘since we are to move on, the groundwork must be laid, before we are able to come together again, after two nights of hiding. Before we all gather upon Westminster Bridge.’

  ‘And what then, Uncle?’

  ‘Oh fireworks, I should think. And celebrations!’

  ‘What ever shall we do, Uncle?’

  ‘First all things must be readied for the trip. Now then, Clod, I don’t know why I do it, for I’m certain you don’t deserve it, but I mean to introduce you to someone. Someone I’m particular to, someone most particular to
me, can you guess who it is?’

  ‘No, indeed, sir.’

  ‘Well heavens, man, who do you think?’

  ‘I cannot guess, Uncle, I do not know.’

  ‘Why my wife, man! My own Ifful woman.’

  ‘I never knew that there was such a person.’

  ‘Not everyone does so advertise his love and moan and groan, and whimper it from every door; not every person I say ruins the furniture on account of a little lost love! As if his heart has more feeling than any other!’

  ‘Please, Uncle, I did not ask for this.’

  ‘Well, duck, tuck in, for there’s more coming. I mean to bash your head about until you come out Iremonger at last.’

  ‘I warn you not to, Uncle.’

  ‘I’ll bootstrap you back to life and sense!’

  ‘You’ll be hurt in the process I dare say, I will no longer be bent over anyone’s knee. I am quite done with that. I’ve grown talents of my own.’

  ‘Well well, enough then, Clod. Perhaps I am a little strong of mind, I’m in a passion I do admit: I’ve lost a brother and given Geraldine over for safe keeping and grief must have its privilege.’

  ‘Yes, sir, as I said, I am sorry.’

  Uncle Idwid looked furious for a moment but seemed then to swallow down his mood and to come up smiling, for his head tilted again and his horrible grin returned.

  ‘Well, Clod, we were talking of love.’

  ‘You were, Uncle. It was your subject.’

  ‘Well then, I have loved too! There: how’s that for a statement?’

  ‘It is indeed news to me.’

  ‘I am married, hooked, lined and sinkered, I’ve a ball and chain all of my own. A census concerning my bed: there’s two in it!’

  ‘I never even knew that I had such an aunt.’

  ‘Well, of course you didn’t, my lad, my chick. But indeed, I am most wedded!

  ‘My wifey. My Ifful, offal of joy! If you’d only behaved yourself, Clod, and come to work in Foulsham when you’d first been trousered, then you should have lived alongside us, as a lodger in our apartments in Bayleaf House. And now those fair rooms, our home, our piece of the world, are burst asunder, such warm rooms as they were, being directly connected to one of the great smoke stacks. Come now, Ifful my only, come down will you and meet young Clod. For she’s been here about us all along, but does come over shy so often! Come Ifful, come down I say! Cooo-eeeee!’

  There was a shifting then, I could not comprehend where precisely at first, but then in a great gush of soot a figure stood in the fireplace, actually in the hearth, a person descended from the chimney flue. When the black had cleared a little I saw a person, a small, very dark person, most begrimed and sooted.

  ‘Hullo, Idwid.’

  ‘Hullo to you, Ifful.’

  They bowed to one another and grinned widely. And some of the leathers likewise bowed too.

  ‘This is Clod, dear.’

  ‘So this is Clod, is it?’

  She was a small, sooty woman, smaller yet than Idwid, but with a very wide mouth, a huger grin than ever his was, which I had not before that moment conceived entirely probable. She wore the sooting and chimney dusting about her like a thick layer of cloth, like a veil upon her face and body which only her whiter teeth and eyes managed to penetrate.

  ‘I say, hullo Aunt,’ I ventured. ‘I am right glad to meet you.’

  ‘Even this is Clod?’ she said again.

  ‘It is, my dearest, my darkness, my depth.’

  ‘He doesn’t look very much.’

  ‘No, no I suppose he don’t. But he is very much nevertheless.’

  ‘Are you the one to save us?’

  ‘Now, Ifful, he’s not been …’

  ‘Save you? Save you?’ I asked. ‘What ever can you mean?’

  ‘He’s but a thin fog,’ said Aunt Ifful. ‘What can he do?’

  ‘Much,’ said Idwid.

  ‘I can hear,’ I said, for I was not without pride in my small doings and I did not like the tone from this newly declared aunt who lived up chimneys, listening to people’s conversations. ‘I can hear, I can hear better than Uncle Idwid, I can move things, any things, and I can break things, I blister wallpaper, and foul windows, I char rooms, I can do much and more by the day, I’ll pick up London and turn it upside down I shouldn’t be much surprised, and you, you, you little woman, what are you to me? I’m the Ire of Iremonger!’

  They both tilted their heads towards me then, in very similar ways.

  ‘Thinks a lot of himself, don’t he?’ said Ifful.

  ‘Does rather, on the whole,’ said Idwid.

  ‘Should be taught some manners, if only there were time.’

  ‘Yes indeed, my love, my lovely lungs, he should be upturned and dunked in brackish water, for long minutes at a time.’

  ‘I should say.’

  ‘And yet there is not, as you say, time.’

  ‘The new generation: they do not know their place, no table manners, elbows in the way, spots and grease. No class.’

  ‘And you, and you!’ I said for I was done with my family’s endless correcting. ‘What is it that you can do that makes you so bold with Clod, Clod the furniture mover!’

  ‘Why then, dear Ifful,’ said Idwid, bristling, ‘ever my comfort, my night blanket, my blackness, my darker than death, give a little exhibition, shan’t you?’

  ‘Shall I?’

  ‘Blot him out, dear!’

  Then my Aunt Ifful, grinning as wide as my Uncle Idwid, suddenly grinned wider and wider yet: I have never seen such an enormous mouth, such a gob that might eat any size of things, it stretched and stretched and did verily meet from ear to ear. Then Ifful, with her hugest cake hole, put back her head and her whole jaw seemed to snap back, like I’ve heard that certain snakes are able when they wish to consume something large. I saw my little aunt dislocate her own jaw, and then – she being smaller than me – I looked over her and could see the awful sinkhole of her throat, I could look from the rampart walls of her wide-open teeth, deep down into the view of the dark depths of Idwid’s Ifful, and it was a terrible thing. I feared I may even tumble in myself. But that’s nothing yet because then from Ifful’s very open maw, from somewhere deep beneath her innards came up something black, like some small toad escaping but then it grew and grew, it curled and shifted around until it was bigger than her hole, bigger than her wide open mouth, bigger yet than her head, more than her body soon: a blackness, a great ever-swelling blackness, blacker than black, darker than darkest carbon or ebony or even licorice, darker than the most lightless of places, and this deep black of her she spread out from her mouth further and further by horrible flicks of her dark tongue. Thick, thick clouds, coming closer and closer to me, hemming me in, snuffing me out. Like something bad, terrible bad, coming over you, filling up all the room, till it covered all, and feeling it now reach my skin, it was like something black and wet creeping over me, and then it was all about me, over my face and every part of me and I could see nothing. No hint of light, no different shades of darkness, just black, black blackness everywhere, like all light and all colour, like all life had been drowned out for evermore.

  And yet I breathed still.

  And yet I was still there, still even in that room, though crowded so with blackest night. I put my hands out to try and hold onto something in all that blackness and my hand found a head and a face.

  ‘Is that you, Uncle?’ I asked. ‘Is that your face I’m touching?’

  ‘No, Clod, no, my face is quite unmolested. It must be the face of someone other.’

  ‘A leather!’ I cried and sprung back.

  ‘Don’t get them excited, Clod, they’re so hard to calm once they’re excited.’

  ‘Gone dark,’ mumbled a leather.

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘Oh Uncle,’ I gasped, ‘what is this sudden and descending night?’

  ‘Why, lad so bold, it’s only Ifful,
my lady life, little Ifful all on her own.’

  ‘Whatever did she do, and may she please kindly undo it right soon?’

  ‘Oh in good time, Clod. Now you see what I see always, this no-ness, how do you find it?’

  ‘Most uncomfortable, most uncomfitting.’

  ‘Very like, very like.’

  ‘May light come back? Why does she blacken so?’

  ‘Oh, for myself, I do love it, to get a little washed in the breath of Ifful. ’Tis such a treat for me, ’tis loving fair enough; great blanketing night, with a little touch of gingivitis. Why, Clod, it’s what she does, and does so well. She is my deadly nightshade, she is my Ifful lovelungs. It is her that keeps the day out of the day, that lengthens the night, ’tis her, ’tis only her with a little help from the still-smouldering fire of Foulsham and from the dirty dark breath of Lungdon itself.’

  ‘She makes the night?’

  ‘That’s it! She’s getting us ready to escape so that none may see us out on Lungdon streets. That’s why she’s been up the chimney. That’s my Ifful, she was born with three lungs: two to be a person; one, much larger, to blacken and soot with. She hates the day, and keeps all night. Oh she does loathe the sun so, and so she puts it out! And I, being blind, am most indifferent to it myself.’

  ‘Truly, Uncle, it is quite a thing to do, to kill the sun.’

  ‘Well, we are talented, we Iremongers! We are such a people!’

  ‘Yes, yes! I do think we are.’

  ‘Now he comes home! We are Iremongers, Clod!’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, ‘yes there’s no doubting of that.’

  ‘It was my Ifful that was the inspiration for the leather populace.’

  ‘It was Ifful that did it, back in Bayleaf House?’

  ‘She was the inspiration with her dark, dark air.’

  ‘Oh she was the one, she did it!’

  ‘There never was such a talented people, Clod, as we Iremongers. Never such ones for doing things. How would it be then, Clod, if we were to be extinguished, if this little blackness conjured by my little woman were to be descended upon us for always and that thereafter there never should be Iremonger no more?’

  ‘It would, Uncle,’ I said, so lost in that darkness absolute, darkness like deep burial, buried deep and yet still alive, ‘it would be most terrible.’