Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  ‘Thank you, Idwid, please be gentle.’

  ‘Oy! I say! Whatever are you doing here?’

  ‘I live here,’ says the old man.

  ‘No you don’t, no one lives here, it’s a museum.’

  ‘Oh you dear fool, there are a thousand and more souls resting here day and night. Come, Idwid, and proceed.’

  ‘Now listen here …’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says the blind man, pushing his way past me, still holding the casket.

  ‘Oy! Oy! I’m talking to you. Yes, you! Thief!’ I’m shouting as hard as I may.

  At my calling ‘thief’ there comes a dozen and more answers.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘However many of you are there?’

  ‘Almost all that is left,’ says the old man.

  ‘Whatever is your game?’

  ‘Theft, as you say, theft.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Oh but I can.’

  ‘These all belong to the nation.’

  ‘So kind, so kind.’

  ‘I’m dreaming. I must be bloody dreaming!’

  ‘No, no,’ says the old man, ‘it is all just how you see it, I do assure you.’

  ‘However did you get in here?’

  ‘The usual way, through the entrance. But we stayed on, after closing, here amongst the objects.’

  ‘But I never saw you, not until now.’

  ‘Because we didn’t want you to see us, not until now.’

  ‘But I looked, I searched everywhere, all there ever was, was rats.’

  ‘Rats, eh?’

  ‘Yes, lots of them. Maybe a hundred I’ve seen.’

  ‘Yes, as you say, rats.’

  ‘I found a whole room of them.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Some tried to bite me.’

  ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘“We?”

  ‘We have been rats in our time, we Iremongers.’

  ‘Rats in my museum, they were you? Wait a minute, “Iremonger” did you say? The filthy people! In my museum!’

  ‘The museum is not yours, it belongs to the nation. And the nation owes us and so we took accommodation amongst all these priceless things.’

  ‘How ever could you be a rat?’

  ‘Aliver?’

  ‘Yes, Umbitt Owner.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course sir.’

  I see the man, ordinary enough looking fellow, he gets down on all fours. And the old man flicks his bloody hands at him and he shrinks and grows hairs and a long pink tail.

  ‘Well done, Aliver. You see we’ve been practising.’

  I should never have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it.

  ‘It is nearly time,’ the old man says.

  ‘Time for what?’

  ‘It’s time for war.’

  ‘WAR?’

  Coming into the gallery now is another nightwatchman, can’t tell who it is at first, his cap is pulled down over his face.

  ‘Hallo!’ I cry. ‘Hallo! Look what’s happening! Thieves, hundreds of them!’

  He comes forward, the nightwatchman.

  ‘Hullo,’ I say. ‘Answer me. What’s your name?’

  ‘Harry Stokes.’

  ‘No, no, that’s my name!’ I shout.

  The guard he lifts his head up and takes his cap off, and oh the horror, he don’t have a nose nor ears on his face. But there is a mouth there and it is smiling at me.

  ‘A dream!’ I cry. ‘A terrible dream!’

  Now before my very eyes this horror-guard, he takes out of his pocket some … things, and he places these … things upon his face. Now he has a nose, now he has ears. And then, last of all, he takes out some hair and puts it on his face, a false beard. Then he puts the cap back. Now he has a full face, now he does and don’t I know it because it’s my face, just like mine, like I’m looking at my own self! What a turn it gives me!

  ‘Harry Stokes,’ he says again.

  ‘Time to get going,’ says the old man.

  ‘You cannot just do this,’ I cry. ‘Thieves gone stole my own face!’

  ‘Now, Mr Stokes, your keys please.’

  ‘I’ll never give them up,’ I say.

  ‘That is your decision. In any case, it is time for us to part company. Goodbye, Stokes.’

  He flicks his bloody fingers at me and I find I am tumbling terribly to the ground. And I stop. I’m very small. I’ve gone and shrunk. Hands pick me up, put me in a glass case, lock the case shut. There’s a little sign right before me, it says:

  A COMMON RIVET

  But that’s not true. That’s not what I am. I am Harry Stokes, I know I am. They’ve put me in a glass case. Here I am. Let me out. Let me out.

  Someone has to stop them. Someone should.

  I’ve been switched! I been robbed.

  Stop thief!

  26

  THE VERY LATEST PIECE OF LONDON STATUARY

  Narrative of Arnold Pettifer, Holborn Link, all alone in Hyde Park

  She doesn’t say anything. She hardly even breathes. She lays still and won’t be woken. And yet I do not see any marking, any damage, no cause that I might name. All of a sudden she came over all stiff and strange. Like she was thinking of becoming a statue and hadn’t quite made it.

  Found her that way. I keep thinking she’ll be an object surely any moment, but hasn’t got there quite. In some place in between. Such a sorry sight. Saw her fighting with someone in the mud, but I couldn’t get across then, not with the traffic. And then, right before my own eyes, I saw some poor woman in a black bonnet that had suddenly burst into flames. Lord knows how that happened. People ran to help her, and I crossed then. Just as soon as I could. There she was, Lucy Pennant. She seemed very happy at first. She was very excited, she had a bath plug in her hand. I think it must have belonged to someone very close to her, she kept saying, ‘It’s his plug. His very plug!’ And who was I to argue with that.

  She wasn’t wearing her hat and all that red hair all over, magnificent it was, I couldn’t help noting. But dangerous for her to do that. Couldn’t see the cap anywhere, she’d gone and lost my cap.

  But then the stiffness comes over her.

  She didn’t scream or nothing, just started crying, tears coming down her cheeks and then she toppled down into the dirt and didn’t get up no matter how I encouraged her.

  So I hauled her then, so stiff she was. Her skin, hard as stone, I carried her as well as I could into the park, onto a park bench, and she lay there, so cold and taut. I put the plug in her hand, she seemed so keen on it. I knew then she must be dying. I didn’t want to be just on my own with the dying girl, I wanted some help. I wanted someone to help her, if she could be helped.

  Someone must help! HELP!

  I made my pigeon whistle. I blew and blew and stopped a moment and I heard it then picking up other places. Like all the pigeons all over London were calling out. Must’ve quite shocked all the wildlife, must have been many a hunting thing in the streets thinking that there was pigeon to be had all over. Cos as I stood there blowing and blowing out my whistle, that great fat fox appeared out of the darkness, that horrible beast I saw earlier, howling at Lucy it was then, like it picked her out special. Hugest fox I ever knew, and whilst I was whistling it came right up to Lucy on the bench, sniffing at her face. It was only when I saw it and shouted at it that it turned and looked at me for what seemed an age, let out a haunting vixen scream – very human it was – and then sprinted off into the dark.

  I was frightened then, in the dark a bit, didn’t like it, that fox was what had done it.

  Come on then, come on, help, oh help her!

  Then they started coming, all them lanterns, coming over to me.

  27

  THE BOY WHO TALKED TO OBJECTS

  Continuing the narrative of Clod Iremonger

  The House is Breathing

 
; I had gone back up to the roof several times to see if I could see anything.

  Houses were on fire nearby, the fire getting closer and closer. Shall we burn up, like Foulsham did before? We should go on, we should flee while we were still able, but then Pinalippy wouldn’t know where to find us.

  And still she had not come back.

  Something smashed in the streets below, it was probably glass detonating in all the heat, but it sounded to my ears very like gunshot.

  A gunshot.

  Suddenly I seemed to know it.

  I clambered back downstairs.

  ‘I think they’ve shot Pinalippy,’ I said. ‘I do think they have.’

  Irene was still by the bathroom door, and Binadit still within, she had her mouth to the keyhole, whispering.

  ‘Where’s Eleanor?’ I asked.

  ‘In the sitting room below, I think, with all her writing,’ said Irene.

  ‘Clod. Clod?’ called Binadit. ‘Is fearful hot.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s a fire, Binadit, quite close by. It may be Rippit, I cannot say exactly. But it is so dangerous to go out – there is a Gathering.

  ‘Eleanor!’ I called, going downstairs. ‘Eleanor!’

  In the hallway there was a coat on the ground, and a bonnet, like the clothes had half got it in mind that they wanted to go for a walk.

  ‘Eleanor? Eleanor?’

  She wasn’t in the sitting room. I went back to the hall. Underneath the bonnet and coat there was something else, hidden at first. It had a voice, that hidden thing, I could just about hear it. I pulled the things aside to listen better. I did hear it then, very clear.

  ‘Eleanor Cranwell. Eleanor Cranwell.’

  It was very hot.

  ‘Eleanor Cranwell.’

  I picked it up, I didn’t care that it burnt me.

  ‘Oh Eleanor,’ I said, ‘you are a candleholder. I am very sorry.’

  ‘Eleanor Cranwell.’

  ‘Eleanor, why were you putting on hat and coat? Wherever were you going?’ I seemed to be able to answer that question. ‘You were going to warn them, weren’t you? You, you were going to tell tales on the Iremonger family, that’s what. And then you turned, didn’t you, Eleanor Cranwell, before you’d even made it out the door.’

  ‘The fire is outside!’ Irene cried.

  ‘Let me tell you of Eleanor Cranwell, Irene.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s a candleholder.’

  ‘Eleanor Cranwell.’

  ‘She was going to betray us,’ I said. ‘She was, she was going to the police, but she fell before she could manage. Oh there’s no trusting a person, is there. She would have had us all found and shot, she’d have had us all gone, and never any home for Iremongers, she’d blot us out.’

  ‘Eleanor Cranwell.’

  ‘Well, Eleanor Cranwell, you candleholder, I shall keep you about me, you are a most useful object, you remind me very exactly who may be trusted!’

  ‘Eleanor! Eleanor!’

  I was in such a fury, the house getting hotter as I raged.

  ‘Whatever is there to be done?’ I cried. And as I cried the room began to creak and moan.

  ‘And where is Pinalippy, why has she not come back?’

  The house banged all its doors, cupboard drawers began to shake and rattle.

  ‘I think they’ve killed her!’ I cried. ‘I think they’ve gone and killed her, Irene! Just like they killed Lucy, like they pulled down all of Foulsham. Just like they murdered Tummis before. Because he went out into the heaps. And who banished us to the heaps, who said we must stay there thick with dirt and filth? It was them, those people, those bloody Londoners did it. And then when we were growing too powerful they put us out, they murdered us!’

  ‘The wall!’ said Irene. ‘The wall, it’s getting hot. The fire, Mr Clod! The fire!’

  ‘They murdered Lucy and now Pin too. They won’t be happy until we’re all dead. They’ll put us all out, they mean to end us all.’

  ‘Mr Clod, the house, the house!’

  All things from the mantelpiece jumped to the floor and began to run in circles around me. The dolls began to rock backwards and forward in their seats.

  ‘Alive!’ cried Irene.

  ‘I won’t let them kill us, I shan’t let them. We are glorious, we are, what a people it is that can talk to things, that can move things, that can turn to seagull and rat, that can hear all the whispering of objects, that can summon the night and can keep it here. What a rare family we are, what a people! Well now, I see it clear: I am an Iremonger!’

  I said it with such force that all the windows up and down the house shattered then, and all the sharp cutting pieces vomited out into the street.

  ‘Mr Clod! Mr Clod, please!’

  ‘Well well, Irene, I know a thing or two – some of my best friends have been things. I shall have my friends about me, all friends and new acquaintances and everything. Every thing!’

  The house was wild with excitement, everything was lurching about, all the toys jumping up and down, the dolls nodding their heads, their eyes clicking back and forward, the rocking horse sprinting as fast as it might but going almost nowhere. I always wondered what it was that I could do, and now I knew, I knew I can move anything.

  ‘I am going to call them now, I shall go out into the street and call them along. They’ll come to me, yes, yes they will. They shall all come along.’

  ‘Fire, Mr Clod! Fire!’ cried Irene.

  The fire had come into the house, was biting at the curtains, leaping all around the house in its great curiosity.

  ‘Fire!’ cried Bin, howling from the bathroom.

  ‘Fire!’

  ‘Rippit,’ I said. ‘Rippit’s very close now.’

  ‘Help!’ screamed Irene Tintype, she was back upstairs. ‘Help us! Come out, Benedict, you must come out, open the door! He’ll burn up inside!’

  ‘No, no, do not open that door, Irene!’ I called up. ‘Stand back! Take hold of something solid. The banisters, Irene. Take hold of something attached! We’re moving house!’

  And that was when I did it, that was when I, Clod Iremonger, moved a house.

  I tugged it and it came free. With my eyes tight shut I moved the house on Connaught Square, ripped it away from its neighbours, I walked with it, it came along with me. As I stepped forward in the drawing room downstairs, with each step I moved, the house came with me, so that as I walked I seemed to make no progress because the house was keeping up with me, the faster I walked towards the wall, never reaching it, the faster the house smashed through the square. Out of the broken windows I saw flames going by. On the move, a whole house alive and moving. Oh the great wonder of it!

  Oh what I could do!

  But the house screamed as I moved it, bits fell from it, tumbled down the street, boards snapped, walls cracked, and everywhere was in a tumult, pelting around me, and still I walked on, and still on walked the house. And upstairs screamed Irene and Bin, bellowing and howling, and weeping for mercy.

  Flames gone now, flames behind us. Rippit and all his heat back where this house once was, and I slowed then with all Irene’s screaming, and the house slowed with me, and I stopped. The house stopped and as it stilled it came apart. The roof crashed off in front of it, like a head being suddenly scalped, dust piles everywhere. The walls began buckling. I pulled at the front door and it fell down in the street.

  ‘Quick, Irene!’ I ordered. ‘Get out, run free, for this whole house shall be rubble in a moment! Run, run and be free! If you hear whistles, run from them!’

  ‘But Benedict is upstairs!’

  ‘Go! Go now, I’ll free him, but you must run ahead. And Irene! Irene!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Clod, what Mr Clod?’

  ‘Do not seek him. Do never seek him! Now run for your dear little life.’

  Irene Tintype ran screaming through the street. The house, what was left of it, stood then, lidless in the street, at its new address. They’ll have to chan
ge the number on the door, I thought. I’d manage it better next time.

  ‘Binadit? Binadit? Are you there?’

  ‘Am here.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Am fine! Like being out in the heaps, like being moved by the heaps!’

  ‘Yes! I suppose it was.’

  ‘Loved it!’

  ‘Goodbye then, Binadit.’

  ‘Where going?’

  ‘I’ve an appointment to keep.’

  ‘I come?’

  ‘No, no, you stay, old fellow, you’d drown in London dirt in no time at all. You’d best stay where you are in a new heap all of your own. I’ll go on by myself.’

  ‘Irene Tintype?’

  ‘She’s safe, out in the streets. Don’t seek her. Old Bin, she’s made of rubbish, remember.’

  ‘Like her.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Bye, Clod.’

  ‘Goodbye, Binadit, off I go now.’

  And, grabbing a candle kept by the door, off I went in the London dark with the traitor Eleanor Cranwell still warm in my pocket. On we went, and all shall come along with me.

  28

  A CONFERENCE OF LIGHTS

  Statements of London Link Boys

  From Georgie, Mill Bank Link

  Knew something was up. Two of our shift tumbled into the wax basin and by the time we’d got them out it was too late: a jackplane and a corkscrew. All of us very edgy.

  ‘We should get out,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to linger here, something’s up.’

  And then there was another gone, in the flickering shadows. I almost saw it, Esther that was, one of them from Foulsham. She was sat on the bench one moment and was all of a sudden an hourglass.

  I heard the whistles then, all the cooing, right outside it was, like our links had come to fetch us all. Maybe ten of them sounding. That was the alarm, something big up.

  ‘Come then, I hate you all. Come then and be useful. Stop your bloody snivelling, shan’t help you, shall it? Hardly likely. Come on then, I say. Please to. There, gather these candles up, as many as you can carry, we’re not staying here another moment.

  ‘Get up, come on and help me, we’ll have such lights if we like. Now take as many bundles as you can, with apologies to God but needs must and all that, and move it! Come, we’ll answer the call now: all must hurry. Let’s get out of here, for here’s the truth on it, I don’t like it as much as I did.’