"I think it's quite safe for you to come in," he remarked caustically. "There's no one here - living or dead."
Mr Goldsmith reoccupied his domain, much like an exiled king remounting his shaky throne.
"Now," the policeman produced a notebook and ball-point pen, "let's have a description."
"Pardon?"
"What did the fellow look like?" the officer asked with heavy patience.
"Oh. Tall, thin - very thin, his eyes were sort of runny, looked as if they might melt at any time, his hair was black and matted and he was dressed in an overcoat with one button…"
"Hold on," the officer admonished. "You're going too fast. Button…"
"It was chipped," Mr Goldsmith added importantly. "And he wore an awful pair of corduroy trousers. And he looked dead. Now I come to think of it, I can't remember him breathing. Yes, I'm certain, he didn't breathe."
The constable put his notebook away, and took up a stance on the hearthrug.
"Now, look, Mr…"
"Goldsmith. Edward. J. Goldsmith."
"Well, Mr Goldsmith…"
"The J is for Jeremiah but I never use it."
"As I was about to say, Mr Goldsmith," the constable wore the expression of a man who was labouring under great strain, "I've seen a fair number of stiffs - I should say, dead bodies -in my time, and not one of them has ever talked. In fact, I'd say you can almost bank on it. They can burp, jerk, sit up, flop, bare their teeth, glare, even clutch when rigor mortis sets in, but never talk."
"But he said he was." Mr Goldsmith was distressed that this nice, helpful policeman seemed unable to grasp the essential fact. "He said he was dud, and he looked and smelt dead."
"Ah, well now, that's another matter entirely." The constable looked like Sherlock Holmes, about to astound a dim-witted Watson. "This character you've described sounds to me like old Charlie. A proper old lay-about, sleeps rough and cadges what he can get from hotel kitchens and suchlike. A meths drinker no doubt and long ago lost whatever wits he ever had. I think he came up here for a hand-out. Probably stewed to the gills and lumbered by you when the door was open, intending to doss down in your living room. I'll report this to the station sergeant and we'll get him picked up. No visible means of subsistence, you understand."
"Thank you." Mr Goldsmith tried to feel relieved. "But…"
"Don't you worry anymore." The constable moved towards the door. "He won't bother you again. If you are all that worried, I'd have a chain put on your front door, then you can see who's there before you let them in."
Mr Goldsmith said, "Yes", and it was with a somewhat lighter heart that he accompanied the policeman to the front-door and politely handed him his helmet.
"A talking dead man!" The constable shook his head and let out a series of explosive chuckles. "Strewth!"
Mr Goldsmith shut the door with a little bang and stood with his back leaning against its mauve panels. By a very small circle of friends he was considered to be wildly artistic.
"He was." He spoke aloud. "He was dead. I know it."
He reheated the baked beans, prepared toast under the grill and opened a tin of mushrooms, then dined in the kitchen.
The evening passed. The television glared and told him things he did not wish to know; the newspaper shocked him and the gas fire went out. There were no more five penny pieces so he had no option but to go to bed.
The bed was warm; it was safe, it was soft. If anything dreadful happened he could always hide under the sheets. His book was comforting. It told a story of a beautiful young girl who could have been a famous film star if only she would sleep with a nasty, fat producer, but instead she cut the aspiring mogul down to size, and married her childhood sweetheart who earned twenty pounds a week in the local bank. Mr Goldsmith derived much satisfaction from this happy state of affairs and, placing the book under his pillow, turned out the light and prepared to enter the land of dreams.
He almost got there.
His heart slowed down its heat. His brain flashed messages along the intricate network of nerves and contented itself all was well, although the stomach put in a formal complaint regarding the baked beans. It then began to shut off his five senses, before opening the strong-room where the fantasy treasures were stored. Then his ears detected a sound and his brain instantly ordered all senses on the alert.
Mr Goldsmith sat up and vainly fumbled for the light switch, while a series of futile denials tripped off his tongue.
"No… no… no…"
The wardrobe doors were opening. It was a nice, big wardrobe, fitted with two mirror doors and Mr Goldsmith watched the gleaming surfaces flash as they parted. A dark shape emerged from the bowels of the wardrobe; a tall, lean, slow-moving figure. Mr Goldsmith would have screamed, had such a vocal action been possible, but his throat was dry and constricted and he could only manage a few croaking sounds. The dark figure shuffled towards the bed, poised for a moment like a tree about to fall, then twisted round and sat down. Mr Goldsmith's afflicted throat permitted a whimpering sound as the long shape swung its legs up and lay down beside him. He could not see very well but he could smell and he could also hear. The strangled words bubbled up through the gloom.
"Oo… broot… cupper… Oi… hote… cuppers…"
They lay side by side for a little while, Mr Goldsmith's whimpers merging with the bubbling lament.
"Oo… broot cupper… Oi… um… dud… hote… cuppers… oll… cuppers… stunk…"
Mr Goldsmith dared to toy with the idea of movement. He longed to put distance between himself and whatever lay bubbling on the bed. His hand moved prior to pulling back the bedclothes. Instantly cold fingers gripped his wrist, then slid down to his palm to grasp his hand.
"Oi… um… dud…"
"Not again," Mr Goldsmith pleaded. "Not again."
Minutes passed. Mr Goldsmith tried to disengage his hand from the moist, cold grip, but it only tightened. Eventually, the form stirred and to Mr Goldsmith's horror, sat up and began to grope around with its free hand. The light shattered the gloom, chasing the shadows into obscure corners and Mr Goldsmith found himself looking at that which he did not wish to see.
The face had taken on a deeper tinge of green; the eyes were possibly more watery and seemed on the point of dribbling down the cheeks. The mouth was a gaping hole where the black tongue writhed like a flattened worm. The bubbling sound cascaded up the windpipe with the threatening roar of a worn out geyser.
"G-oot dr-oosed…"
The figure swung its legs off the bed and began to move towards the fireplace, still retaining its icy grip on Mr Goldsmith's hand, and forcing him to wriggle through the bedclothes and go stumbling after it. Over the mantelpiece was an old brass-handled naval cutlass, picked up for thirty shillings, back in the days when Mr Goldsmith had first read The Three Musketeers. This, the creature laboriously removed from its hooks and turning slowly, raised it high above the terrified little man's head. The bubbling sound built up and repeated the earlier order.
"G-oot dr-oosed…"
Mr Goldsmith got dressed.
They walked down the empty street, hand-in-hand, looking at times like a father dragging his reluctant son to school. Mr Goldsmith hungered for the merest glimpse of his friend the policeman, but the creature seemed to know all the back streets and alleys, pulling its victim through gaping holes in fences, taking advantage of every shadow, every dark corner. This, Mr Goldsmith told himself in the brief periods when he was capable of coherent thought, was the instinct of an alley cat, the automatic reflexes of a fox. The creature was making for its hole and taking its prey with it.
They were in the dock area. Black, soot-grimed buildings reached up to a murky sky. Cobbled alleys ran under railway arches, skirted grim-faced warehouses, and terminated in litter-ridden wastelands cleared by Hitler's bombs, thirty years before. Mr Goldsmith stumbled over uneven mounds crowned with sparse, rusty grass. He even fell down a hole, only to be promptly dragged out as the creatures advanced w
ith the ponderous, irresistible momentum of a Sherman tank.
The ground sloped towards a passage running between the remnants of brick walls. Presently there was a ceiling to which morsels of plaster still clung. Then the smell of burning wood -and a strange new stench of corruption.
They were in what had once been the cellar of a large warehouse. The main buildings had been gutted and their skeletons removed, but the roots, too far down to be affected by flame or bomb, still remained. The walls wept rivulets of moisture, the ceiling sagged, the floor was an uneven carpet of cracked cement, but to all intents, the cellar existed. An ancient bath stood on two spaced rows of bricks. Holes had been pierced in its rusty flanks, and it now held a pile of burning wood. Flame tinted smoke made the place look like some forgotten inferno; it drifted up to the ceiling and coiled lazily round the black beams like torpid snakes looking for darkness. A number of hurricane lamps hung from beams and walls, so that once again Mr Goldsmith was forced to look at that which he would rather have not seen.
They were crouched in a large circle round the fire, dressed in an assortment of old clothes, with green tinted faces and watery eyes, gaping mouths and rigid fingers. Mr Goldsmith's companion quelled any lingering doubts he might have had with the simplicity of a sledgehammer cracking a walnut.
"Oll… dud… oll… dud…"
"What's all this then?"
Two men stood behind Mr Goldsmith and his companion. One was a tall, hulking fellow and the other a little runt of a man with the face of a crafty weasel. It was he who had spoken. He surveyed Mr Goldsmith with a look of profound astonishment, then glared at the creature.
"Where the hell did you find him?"
The bubbling voice tried to explain.
"Ooosed o love thore…"
"You bloody stupid git." The little man began to pummel the creature about the stomach and chest and it retreated, the bubbling voice rising to a scream, like a steam kettle under full pressure.
"Oosed o love thore… broot cupper…"
The little man ceased his punitive operations and turned an anxious face towards his companion.
'"Ere what's all this, then? Did 'e say copper? His Nibs won't like that. Don't get the law worked up, 'e said."
The big man spoke slowly, his sole concern to calm his friend.
"Don't carry on, Maurice. Old Charlie's about 'ad it, ain't 'e? 'E'll be dropping apart soon if they don't get 'im mended and varnished up. The old brainbox must be in an 'ell of a state."
But Maurice would not be comforted. He turned to Mr Goldsmith and gripped his coat front.
"Did you bring the law in? You call a copper?"
"I certainly summoned a police officer, when this," Mr Goldsmith hesitated, "when this… person, refused to leave my flat."
"Cor strike a light." Maurice raised his eyes ceilingward. '"E calls a copper a police officer! Respectable as Sunday dinner. Probably got a trouble and strife who'll scream to 'igh 'eavens when 'er little wandering boy don't come 'ome for his milk and bickies."
"You married?" the big man asked and Mr Goldsmith, inspired by the wish to pacify his captors, shook his head.
"Live alone, aye?" The big man chuckled. "Thought so. Recognize the type. Keep yer 'air on, Maurice, he'll be just another missing person. The DPs will handle it."
"Yeah, Harry." Maurice nodded and released Mr Goldsmith. "You're right. We'd better tie 'im up somewhere until His Nibs gets 'ere. He'll decide what to do with 'im."
Harry produced a length of rope and Mr Goldsmith meekly allowed himself to be tied up, while "Charlie", for such it appeared was the creature's name, kept nudging Maurice's arm.
"Urn… woont… meethy…"
"You don't deserve any methy." Maurice pushed the terrible figure to one side. "Making a bugger-up like this."
"Meethy…" Charlie repeated, "um… woont… meethy…"
"Bit of a waste of the blue stuff," Maurice remarked drily. '"E's coming apart at the seams. Let me bash 'is 'ead in."
"Naw." Maurice shook his head. "'Is Nibs don't like us taking liberties with units. Besides the new repairing and varnishing machine can do wonders with 'em. "E'd better have 'is ration with the rest."
Mr Goldsmith, suitably bound, was dumped into a corner where he soon witnessed a scene that surpassed all the horror that had ridden on his shoulders since Charlie had rung his doorbell.
Harry came out of a cubby hole bearing a large saucepan with no handle. Maurice followed with a chipped mug. At once there was a grotesque stirring round the nightmare circle; legs moved, arms waved, mouths opened in the familiar bubbling speech and raucous cries. Placing the saucepan on a rickety table, Maurice began to call out in a high pitched voice.
"Methy… come on then… methy, methy, methy…"
There was a scrambling and scuffling, a united, bubbling, gurgling, raucous scream, and the entire pack came lumbering forward, pushing the feeble to one side, clawing in their determination to reach the enamel saucepan and the chipped mug. One scarecrow figure, clad in the remnants of an old army overcoat, fell or was pushed and landed with a resounding crash a few yards from Mr Goldsmith. When he tried to rise, his left leg crumbled under him and the horrified spectator saw the jagged end of a thigh bone jutting out from a tear in threadbare trousers. There was no expression of pain on the green-tinted face but whatever spark of intelligence that still flickered in the brain finally prompted the creature to crawl over the uneven ground until it reached the table. Maurice looked down and kicked the writhing figure over on to its back. It lay howling in protest, like an up-turned beetle, legs and arms flailing helplessly.
The chipped mug was dipped into the saucepan, a quarter filled with some blue liquid, then presented to the nearest gaping mouth. A green-tinted, wrinkled neck convulsed, then the mug was snatched away to be filled for the next consumer. Harry pulled the "fed one" to one side, then gave it a shove that sent the bundle of skin-wrapped bones lurching across the floor. Whatever the liquid was that came out of the saucepan, its effect on the receiver was little short of miraculous. All straightened up; some danced in a revolting, flopping, jumping movement. One creature did six knee-bends before its right knee made an ominous cracking sound. Another began clapping its hands and Maurice called out, "Cut that out," but his warning came too late. One hand fell off and landed on the floor with a nasty, soft thud. Mr Goldsmith's stomach was considering violent action when Harry sauntered over and pointed to the offending item.
"Pick that up," he ordered.
The creature, still trying to clap with one hand, gazed at the big man with blank, watery eyes.
"Glop… glop," it bubbled.
"Never mind the glop-glop business. Pick the bloody thing up. I'm not 'aving you leave yer bits and pieces about. I'm telling yer for the last time - pick it up."
He raised a clenched fist and the creature bent down and took hold of its late appendage.
"Now put it in the bin," Harry instructed, pointing to an empty oil drum by the far wall. "You lot might be bone idle, but yer not going to be dead lazy."
Harry then turned to Maurice, who was completing his culinary duties.
"This lot's dead useless, Maurice. They're falling to bits. If this goes on, all we'll 'ave is a load of wriggling torsos. You've put too much EH471 in that stuff."
"Balls." Maurice cuffed a too eager consumer, who promptly retreated with one ear suspended by a strand of skin. "We can do some running repairs, can't we? A bit of tape, a few slats of wood, a few brooms. You carry on like a nun in a brothel."
"Well, so long as you explain the breakages to 'Is Nibs, it's all right with me," Harry stated, kicking a wizened little horror that was trying to turn a somersault on one hand and half an arm. "What's 'e hope to do with this lot?"
"Search me," Maurice shrugged. "Probably carve 'em up. 'E could take a leg from one, an arm from another, swop a few spare parts, and get 'imself a few working models."
Mr Goldsmith had for some time been aware that some of the mor
e antiquated models were displaying an unhealthy interest in his person. One, who appeared to have a faulty leg, shuffled over and examined the little man's lower members with a certain air of deliberation. A rigid forefinger poked his trouser leg, then the creature whose vocal cords seemed to be in better working order than Charlie's, croaked: "Good… good."
"Go away," Mr Goldsmith ordered, wriggling his legs frantically. "Shush, push off."
The creature pulled his trouser leg up and stared at the plump white flesh, like a cannibal viewing the week-end joint. He dribbled.
"Maurice - Harry." A sharp voice rang out. "What is the meaning of this? Get the units lined up at once."
It could have been the voice of a sergeant-major admonishing two slack NCOs; or a managing-director who has walked in on an office love-in. Maurice and Harry began to shout, pulling their charges into a rough file, pushing, swearing, punching, occasionally kicking the fragile units. His own particular tormentor was seized by the scruff of the neck and sent hurling towards the ragged line, that drooped, reeled, gurgled and bubbled in turn.
"Careful, man," the voice barked, "units cost money. Repairs take time."
"Sir." Maurice froze to a momentary attitude of attention, then went on with his marshalling activity with renewed, if somewhat subdued energy.
"Get into line, you dozy lot. Chests out, chins in, those who 'ave 'ands, down to yer flipping sides. Harry, a couple of brooms for that basket, three from the end. If 'e falls down, 'is bleeding 'ead will come off."
For the first time Mr Goldsmith had the opportunity to examine the newcomer. He saw a mild looking, middle-aged man, in a black jacket and pin-striped trousers. Glossy bowler hat, horn-rimmed spectacles and a brief case, completed the cartoonist conception of a civil servant. Maurice marched up to this personage and swung up a rather ragged salute.
"Units lined up and ready for your inspection, sir."
"Very well." His Nibs, for such Mr Goldsmith assumed him to be, handed his brief case to Harry, then began to walk slowly along the file, scrutinizing each unit in turn.
Stephen Jones (ed) Page 8
