Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  And he slammed the door and left us locked in with the leathers.

  Pinalippy was shaking me. ‘Do something!’

  ‘Yes of course,’ I said. ‘I think we had better move, Pinalippy, come on now, on we go.’

  ‘But the leathers, Clod, they shan’t let us pass.’

  ‘Won’t they?’

  ‘They have strict orders. Were you not listening to anything?’

  ‘Oh you mean the foul gas from Moorcus? No need to worry over that,’ I said. ‘No need at all. So much windbreaking that is.’

  There was a loud whistling then beyond the house, somewhere nearby, followed by other answering whistles.

  ‘The constabulary,’ called Pinalippy, ‘oh they’re coming to us! Come on Clod, show some spirit.’

  ‘Dear Leatherpeople, excuse me,’ I said, clearing my voice. ‘I am Clod Iremonger.’

  They all turned to look at me.

  ‘Clod?’

  ‘Clod?’

  ‘Clod. We don’t care who you are, Clod. We’ve no use for your name.’

  ‘You’re not to leave the house,’ one leather commanded.

  ‘Not to.’

  ‘Not to.’

  ‘I don’t wish to hurt you,’ I said. ‘On the whole I’d rather not.’

  ‘You don’t frighten us – look at you.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘Small fellow with a big hat. Shut up, Clod.’

  They laughed then, sending their black gas thick about them.

  ‘Or we’ll hurt you. Clod.’

  ‘Hurt.’

  ‘Oh hurt.’

  ‘Step any closer, and we’ll have to hurt you, Clod.’

  ‘Do you see the hatstand here by the door,’ I said, ‘and this barometer?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘What’s that to do with anything?’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘This about them. Watch them please – a swift exhibit, if I may.’

  I closed my eyes and broke the barometer, I burst it and had it blackened up and shrivelled in a moment. I sent the hatstand up onto the ceiling and had it crawling and spread out there like ivy.

  ‘There then,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘That Clod.’

  ‘Clod cloven foot.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘Clod.’

  ‘Now listen,’ I said, just as stern as ever I could, ‘what I did to the barometer, to the hatstand, I can do to you in a little moment. Now, dear new people, please don’t be frightened, I want you to go out into the street, out into London, for it is not safe here. I want you to be very brave. Where you hear the whistle, run towards it.’

  ‘Whistle.’

  ‘The whistle.’

  ‘Run to.’

  ‘Run whistle.’

  ‘But the door,’ one leather cried, ‘the door is so locked.’

  ‘No,’ I said, breaking the lock very swiftly with a flick of my fingers just like I’d seen Grandfather do. There was a brief clack as the lock fell upon the hallway floor. ‘No, you see, now it isn’t. Not at all. I’ve bust it. Out you go then, and do hurry over it because I shall have someone up the stairs in just a minute and the mere proximity of him and you shall cause you all to burst into … well into however many pieces you are made up of, quite a few I shouldn’t wonder. So, on the whole, I think you should run for it.’

  Well then, being sensible leathers, they did.

  ‘Oh, Clod!’ called Pinalippy. ‘You’re marvellous!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘not at all, my pleasure and all that.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Pinalippy, ‘we must get out.’

  And there to punctuate Pinalippy’s last comment came the sounding of police whistles.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘we should indeed, but not without Binadit.’

  ‘Binadit?’ said Pinalippy. ‘That lump, he’ll give us all away in an instant.’

  ‘I’m not going without Binadit,’ I said. ‘I thought I could do it. But I can’t. I find I can’t. He’s one of us after all. He’s a person too.’

  ‘You’ll murder me!’ she cried.

  ‘Not without Binadit. Can’t say I know him, can’t say I like him entirely, but you know, on balance, it is the right thing to do.’

  ‘All right then!’ cried Pinalippy. ‘Bring him up but be quick about it!’

  I went down the stairs again, feeling my way in the dark.

  ‘Binadit!’ I called. ‘Binadit!’

  Nothing, just darkness. I was in the kitchen then knocking into pans and the like: ‘Binadit! Binadit!’ Rats on the floor, scampering around my feet, pulling at my shoelaces, and looking up at me as if they had something they wished to say.

  And at last I heard, ‘Am here. Here am!’

  They’d blocked him in, piled stuff in the way. I thought it free, smashed all about me, sent all spinning. Then there was a door, a solid metal door, I twisted the handle. There he sat, the huge piece of furniture, the largest piece of Iremonger humanity: Binadit the mountain.

  Fifty and more small objects pelted towards Binadit and stuck there fast.

  ‘Ullo. Bits,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Binadit, you must come out now and be quick about it.’

  ‘Missus?’

  ‘Come on, there’s little enough time; up and out we go!’

  ‘Missus! Missus!’ Binadit was crying.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ said Pinalippy from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Where the Missus woman?’

  ‘I think he means Aunt Rosamud, his mother.’

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Pinalippy flatly. ‘They’ve all gone. We’re the last.’

  ‘But she asked us to take care of you,’ I said, thinking quickly. ‘She was very insistent on that.’

  ‘Family!’ boasted Binadit.

  ‘Come on, or we shall all be dead family!’ came Pinalippy, dragging us towards the door.

  And then we were out. Out on the street. Out in London.

  ‘Oh London,’ I said.

  ‘Where do we go, Clod?’ asked Pinalippy.

  ‘Lundin,’ said Binadit.

  ‘Lungdon,’ corrected Pinalippy.

  There was a sudden bang. That was the noise of a gun, letting off its voice, barking with its sudden anger, finding some leather no doubt. Well Clod, well, well, enough’s enough, move, shall you?

  ‘I know where we’re going,’ I said, for it was suddenly clear to me. ‘I know someone London.’

  ‘Do you, Clod?’ asked Pinalippy. ‘Truly?’

  ‘Clod? Clod! Your name Clod?’ said Binadit, pointing to me, as rags and newspaper and dirt down the street started tumbling towards him.

  ‘Yes, I’m Clod,’ I said. ‘Come, Binadit, before we can’t fit you anywhere.’ For the rubbish was all galloping towards him in a storm.

  ‘Clod! Clod boy. That Lucy said? Lucy?’

  ‘Yes, Binadit,’ I said, ‘whom Lucy talked of.’

  ‘Botton!’

  ‘Yes, she was. Yes, she was.’

  ‘Clod? Clod?’

  ‘Yes, I am Clod.’

  ‘Lo, Clod.’

  ‘Hullo, Binadit.’

  ‘Lucy? Lucy?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, Binadit.’

  ‘Lucy, Lucy?’

  ‘Yes, old fellow, I’m very much afraid so.’

  ‘LUCY! LUCY!’ he wailed.

  ‘Oh someone shut that lump up!’

  ‘LUCY! LUCY!’

  ‘Where to? Clod? Come on, we must hurry!’ cried Pinalippy. There was another shot gone off, very close too.

  ‘LUCY!’

  ‘Please, Binadit, please, please will you be quiet.’

  ‘Not far, not far at all.’

  We were on the other side of the street by then, just in front of the house opposite us. The door was open. We went in. Closed it q
uietly afterwards.

  ‘LUCY!’

  ‘Sssh, please Binadit,’ I begged. ‘Please, you’ll have us all killed. And please, please stand still, we must pull some of this rubbish from you.’

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘That’s better. Well done.’

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘That’s it, my dear chap, we’ll Lucy together, you and I.’

  ‘Lucy. Benedict.’

  ‘Hullo,’ I whispered up the stairway. ‘Are you there, young girl? Can you help us?’

  ‘Lucy. Lucy.’

  And from upstairs came a distant child’s call: ‘Help! Help me!’

  Rippit Iremonger Under a Cap

  11

  IN THE DARK

  The noise heard on the Edgware Road, half a minute’s walk from Connaught Place, home of Eleanor Cranwell

  Rippit.

  Part Three

  Inside Out

  Lucy Pennant

  12

  WATER

  How it was that Lucy Pennant came to London Town from Beneath the Crumbling Factory of Foulsham. Beginning the narrative of Lucy Pennant, vagrant

  ‘Clod? Clod! CLOD!’

  I’d been calling out in my sleep, must have fainted away again. Awake now, awake to find myself so deep underground. Buried alive.

  Nothing to see, all blackness. There had been the screaming of a train’s whistle howling out deep into London, but how long ago now I couldn’t say. And I all bloody on the ground in some kind of airpocket, in the crumbling of Bayleaf House, the noises of cracking and shifting of the building giving up above me, but beside me, in the dirty darkness, we few of Foulsham. Children. Only a handful left from so many. What a murdering there had been: men, women, children, drowned in dirt and flames. My people. So few left. Must keep them. Those that still breathe, must keep them going. Precious, precious few.

  Who were we? Name call, I made them say their names, in the deep dark, again and again, in our small space. Trapped, so few left now, again and again, they must give their names.

  ‘Lucy Pennant,’ I started.

  Silence.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you must do it, we must keep alive. Names please, I’ll have them. Lucy Pennant, then who comes next?’

  ‘Jenny Ryall.’ My old friend from childhood, lived in the same building as me since we were babies.

  ‘Bug Ryall.’ Her brother. Real name was Dick, but everyone knew him as Bug since he made a name for himself racing cockroaches.

  ‘Colin Shanks.’

  ‘Tess Shanks.’

  ‘Arthur Oates.’

  ‘Esther Nelson.’

  ‘Roger Cole.’

  ‘Bartholomew Lewis.’

  The names stopped.

  ‘Anyone else? Any other here?’

  No more.

  ‘No one else? Then there are nine, just nine of us all told.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m here too. Haven’t said my name yet.’

  ‘Then tell us it, and keep sharp.’

  ‘I’m Molly Porter.’

  ‘Well, Molly Porter, call out when you’re asked, will you? We don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘Molly Porter.’

  ‘All right, Mol, we’ve got you now. Anyone else beside you?’

  ‘No, just me. Where is everyone else?’

  ‘Just us I reckon. Just us that we know of. That’s ten of us even. Ten from so many. Let’s keep it ten now, ten of us, let’s not lose any more. Is there any way out? Feel around you. Does anyone have a light?’

  No one, no light.

  We were stuck – didn’t seem like there was any place to move – in some small space, maybe getting smaller all the while. Couldn’t say really which way was up, which down, so turned about, and everything in darkness. Deep, deep under the ground. We’d been following a stairway, trying to get out, trying to get away from all those leathers so thick about us, Umbitt’s dumb army, trying to get away from the flames and the smashing of the heaps, one great burst and the walls broke and all came tumbling in, and we, we only ten of us, were pulled down into the deep darkness, under the ground, and here we lay, in a heap. Just ten. Only ten. No more.

  Above us must have been other people that fell and were crushed. And higher yet were great flames and burning. The whole shanty city of Foulsham brought low. And us in such a small pocket of life. We picked about us, tried to find some way out, but couldn’t, not at first, not for a long time; just called out into the darkness, called to nobody.

  ‘Help! Help! We’re down here! Help!’

  And nobody came.

  But always there were sounds, sounds of things falling, sounds of something heavy above us. Hours down there, hours and hours. Days, even? We slept and awoke screaming, we wept, and picked the broken walls with our fingers. Getting weaker, weaker and weaker all the while.

  In the end I think it was the factory above us shifting that found us some way forward. If it hadn’t moved we’d be locked in that horrid space for ever and never found, or come to, years later, human fossils. The ground around us was ever shifting, it hadn’t finished its falling.

  And then it broke.

  And we all screamed.

  And then other things fell into our space.

  Something of a sudden pushing past me, shoving me out of the way. Some sort of small river of things, but hairy, with mouths and claws. Could it be?

  ‘Rats? Are those rats?’ I called.

  ‘Yes, rats,’ some kid called back. ‘Lots of them!’

  ‘Follow! Follow them!’ I shouted. ‘They’ll find a way out of anything!’

  ‘The rats?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ I cried. ‘Rats! They’ll lead us free. They know the way. Quick, all of you, quick, scramble towards the rats, our lives depend upon it!’

  Awful crumblings, creaks and squeaks and shrieks of masonry, like the building itself was complaining, like it hurt so and wanted help. Thought we’d come to the end. Not yet. Not now we had company. Rats to find ways that we’d never learn. Must follow, must follow them rats, whatever else.

  Moved hands around sharp things cutting into, bleeding fingers, fingers sticky with blood. Such a little space, so little room to move. I thought we would be crushed any moment.

  ‘Keep with me! Keep up now!’

  Think, think, sensible. Be sensible, Lucy, or this is the very very end of all, you’ll never see Clod again. He’s alive yet, isn’t he, isn’t he? One thing’s for certain, shan’t find out stuck here. I pulled them along with me, dragged them.

  ‘Go on! Go on! Move!’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Yes you bloody can!’

  ‘No, no, leave me!’

  ‘I bloody will not! Move it, or I’ll so punch you!’

  Got to keep living, got to, whatever else.

  There was some crawl space, there were also flattened rats all about us, some writhing in pain. One bit hard at my leg, ow! Well then, I was alive.

  How long did we crawl on, trying to follow the rats, till there was nowhere forward, till we’d come to the end of it and all seemed impossible. We must turn back, just a little bit, back, back we go, back a little to keep going on, and so back we went. We cut ourselves as we crawled in single file, feeling for a different opening, for other spaces somewhere in all that sharpness, something to give us more space, for, in truth, if there was any less of it we’d be goners one and all. Hopeless, so hopeless. We’d lost the rats, they were so much faster. They’d have found their way by now. Not us. So dark, no room, no air, weren’t even sure if we were living still, to tell the truth, animals trapped in the blackness, not a person, not a human, just a few somethings, trying to keep living in the thick, dirty air, lungs for all of dirt and dust. How many had died – don’t think on them, it’s over for them isn’t it, shan’t do any good for them, but for us it’s not over, not yet, not yet, try, try a little.

  Try a little longer.

  Names, names, I call out th
e names.

  Seven of us, eight, nine and ten, all alive yet.

  Have a rest, need a rest. Rest.

  I think we must have slept a little in that thin air, maybe fainted, passed out a time. But suddenly I came to again, and awoke us all, all ten bodies, and dragged us on, though some cried to be let alone. Couldn’t, couldn’t let them. On, on and on, on a little more. Never knowing what might lie ahead.

  We came to some sort of ledge after a bit and lay there panting, just lying, the noises of masonry still shifting, still trying to find its place, still complaining and hurting, and collapsing too. Could hear it going, hear it tumbling down, and all that mess of pipes, twisted and ripped, bent and broke all about us. Didn’t move from life, that thing, only moved because its dead body was falling yet, into the deep dirt, making its roots down in the ground where we were scrabbling, us small sacks of living. And any sounds were the sounds of the dying building, no human sound, ’cept those panting beside me, trying to steal a little air from that place. Something, some pipe above us had burst, there was water, foul water dripping down from it. Dripping on my face, filth water, stinking, leaking, like the building’s own blood, or like the building had wet itself in a panic.

  What a place to die.

  Never no light, no light again.

  Dampness all about us, water rising, so that the place, what little there was of it, was flooding up. Something had burst, some great waterpipe had been severed and now was seeping all over us. And the smell like a weight all on its own, a familiar rude, sweet closeness, such as sinks into you through every bit of skin until it quite takes you over. Well, I knew that, didn’t I?

  I’d done that before.

  ‘Swidge,’ I said, remembering poor Benedict and our journey underground. ‘Sewage pipes, isn’t it!’ I said.

  Sewage! River of filth, our hope, that sea of filth!

  If we could find the sewage pipe, if we could follow it down, swim in that foul river, then we might escape yet. Rats about us again, ones that had been stunned by the crushing but were just coming round and clambering out now.

  Rats, rats, you lovelies, show us the way, won’t you?

  If there was a way, they’d find it.

  ‘Come on again, on we go!’

  ‘No! No!’ some of us cried.