Is

by Joan Aiken

  Dr Lemman soon reappeared.

  ‘Hysterical fits are very common here,’ he explained, taking the reins. ‘I fancy it is the result of living entirely in artificial light.’

  ‘What did you do for her?’

  ‘Dashed her with cold water, then gave her a soothing draught. She’ll sleep for hours.’

  ‘Don’t folk want to go outside sometimes?’ pondered Is. ‘For a bit of air and sun?’

  ‘Why would they want to? Out there is nothing but snow and ruins. All the shops and entertainments are in here. You’ll see.’

  She did see. They drove out of the huge main square (Twite Square) and into Twite Avenue, a glossy, well-paved street of stores, galleries and amusement arcades. Everything was new, smart, and sizzling with colour. Small electric tramcars ran slowly on rails up and down the middle of the thoroughfare; passengers could climb in and out of them at any point. Here there were quite a few people to be seen, strolling and gazing into opulent shop windows. No children, though.

  ‘Don’t they have no kids – these rich folk?’ Is asked, studying a woman wrapped in white fur, sparkling with diamonds, who was absorbed in study of some porcelain in a shop window.

  ‘If they do, they send the children away to be brought up elsewhere. The risks here are too high. Any unattended child over five will be arrested. Many people choose to remain childless. Humberland is a place where – ’ Lemman hunted for words, at last said bluntly, ‘where children are not in favour.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well – I believe many adults naturally dislike children. Don’t you agree? Because children have so much energy – imagination – hope – enjoyment. Their life lies all ahead of them. An untapped reservoir. Envy fills some people with hate – don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Is. It had never occurred to her to envy another person.

  He said, ‘I fear you are not likely to find the boys you are after among my well-to-do patients. But later, perhaps, among the others . . .’

  For a couple of hours he drove to and fro along the streets of new Blastburn, or Holdernesse town, and Is, though disappointed at not seeing a single child whom she might interrogate, was nevertheless much interested by this queer underground city.

  But I couldn’t never live in it, she thought. No, never.

  The barn on Blackheath Edge seemed a haven in comparison with this rich, gaudy, silent, unnatural metropolis. It ain’t a proper town at all, Is thought; proper towns grow up over hundreds of years, and have crumby little old parts with junk-shops and cobblers and tenements and bits of waste ground. Proper towns have street markets and kids riding hobby-horses and sweeping crossings and bowling hoops and dropping cherry-stones. And the goods in the shop windows here are by far too fancy – the kind o’ stuff a body would buy only if they had got everything else already, and had no way to pass the time but only to buy more things. Gilt dishes! Marble apples! Pink sofies! Who wants ’em? thought Is scornfully. This is a nothing place.

  Dr Lemman took considerable trouble, as he drove her on his rounds, to describe the symptoms of the people he treated, and explain what he had done for them. It was real obliging of him to take such pains, thought Is; she did her best to repay him by giving her full attention to all he said, and asking questions when she did not understand. Besides, it was interesting, what he told her; quite a lot of it seemed to connect with what she had memorised in The Horse Doctor’s Handbook. I guess folk ain’t so very different from horses, when you get down to it, thought Is.

  ‘I daresay you will feel that most of these people’s troubles are very trifling – headaches, palpitations, back-ache, bad dreams – and that I am making money from them for very slight services,’ Lemman remarked after a while.

  ‘None o’ my business,’ said Is, who had thought this.

  He glanced at her with respect.

  ‘I try to strike a balance, you see. Now we have finished with the paying patients, and go to the Infirmary. Nobody pays there. And there you may find a few children, though not many. It is not thought worth while – ’ He broke off, and guided the mare carefully over a set of criss-crossing tramlines.

  The streets hereabouts were darker and narrower. At one point the pony-trap traversed another large square with an equestrian statue in the middle. One side of this space was dark – simply a wall of cliff, divided in the centre by a massive pair of iron gates reaching halfway up to the cave roof. Sentry-boxes guarded the gates, and half a dozen men in uniform marched back and forth in front of them. Great beams of white light played down upon them from the roof.

  ‘What’s those gates?’ asked Is.

  ‘The main entrance to the mine. We are very close to the shore-line here. The mines extend under the sea, you know that? For more than five miles. Your aunt is grieved that she is not allowed in with her comforts for the children – but it would be much too far for her to walk, in any case. The gates are kept locked, as you see; only mine officials may go through them. And, of course, the wagons full of workers when they first arrive off the train.’

  ‘Ain’t there no other way in?’

  ‘Well – ’ Dr Lemman began, then checked himself. He said, ‘Certainly none that your aunt could use. Though she does not let her lameness deter her from visiting the foundries and the potteries. And she has a – ’ He broke off again and said, ‘Now, this is the Strand Gate,’ as they passed under an arch into daylight, of a sort.

  Holdernesse town, it seemed, was scooped out of a bulging hillside, rather as the pith is scooped out of a Hallowe’en pumpkin; it had several different exits to the outside world. The one through which they had just come led to the docks, and not far from it stood the Infirmary, which took care of injured sailors, besides accident cases from the nearby iron foundries.

  ‘It’s the best place for the foundries, for coal comes straight from the mine and the iron ore is fetched by boat,’ Lemman explained, ‘either by sea or by canal.’

  The Infirmary was a gaunt old building, left over from the days before Blastburn’s transformation. The wards were cavernous and dark, each one holding about fifty beds. The nurses were weathered, elderly women who took no nonsense from anybody, neither patients nor doctors, though they seemed kindly enough disposed to Dr Lemman, who addressed them all as dearie. Is, whom he introduced as ‘my new helper’, they regarded with scorn.

  ‘Is Twite? Mind she don’t faint on you, that’s all. Not exactly what she’s used to, I’ll be bound.’

  Afterwards, Is rather wondered at herself, that she had not fainted. Some of the sights there were so awful that she had to drive her fingernails into the palms of her hands before she could bear to stand looking at them and pay attention to what Dr Lemman was saying.

  But if they can put up with what’s happened to ’em, then I’d better be able to, she told herself fiercely, over and over.

  Strangely enough, as she stood at one terrible bedside, dizzy and nauseated, listening to Dr Lemman’s quiet explanation, she felt again what she now described to herself as ‘the Touch’: the powerful, alien jolt, coming from who knew where, grazing the exact centre of her mind – and this time it came as a welcome relief.

  ‘Yes! I can hear you!’ she found herself able to call back. ‘I hear you! I need help just as badly as you! Can you help me? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’ came the strong answer.

  ‘Who are you?’

  There followed a pause of a second or two, for consideration, it seemed. Then the reply came like a waterfall: ‘TomJimNanMarySuePhilPatEllenDickCharlie – ’

  On, on and on.

  ‘But who are you? What does that mean?’

  Another pause. Then: ‘We are the Bottom Layer. That’s who we are!’

  Suddenly the connection failed. It broke. Is found herself alone – terribly alone, sick and hollow – by the bedside of a man who had had both his legs cut off. Although the ward was full of noise – clangs and rattles, groans and shouts – she felt, for a moment,
as if she were deaf.

  Dr Lemman gave her an encouraging nod, and they moved on to the next bed . . .

  The patients in this place were all adults, she noticed. There was not a single child in the Infirmary.

  But still I gotta learn, she thought. It’s the least I can do. Clenching her fists, she set herself to pay attention to what Lemman was telling her. Sometimes, when treating an accident or burn victim, the first part of his method was all talk. Is found this very puzzling.

  ‘Listen to me; look at this,’ he would say, holding up a candle or his little silver pencil. ‘Imagine that you are not here in the hospital; think that you are walking down a grassy path to a cool, fast-flowing river. Now you are in the river – in the cool water. You feel very cool and light, your pain has all drifted away . . .’

  A few of the patients looked at him blankly, without comprehension, and seemed unable to imagine themselves anywhere else, but they were not the worst sufferers. Many of these appeared to obtain great relief, right away, from being told that they were in a cool, swift-running river. Often they would fall asleep, which made it easier for Lemman to do what was needed for them. And when they woke later, Lemman told Is, they were often a good deal better than might have been expected.

  After he had finished his rounds in the Infirmary – which took a long time, several hours – and they were outside again in the fresh air, Lemman said to Is:

  ‘You did well, dearie. To tell the truth, I was surprised at how well you did.’

  Is said, ‘Axcuse me, Doc – I gotta go off a minute and lob me groats – ’

  She fled away from him, round to the far side of a huge heap of coal dust. When she returned she was pale, damp and shivering, but composed.

  They climbed into the pony-trap and started for home.

  After the doctor had driven a short way, Is asked him:

  ‘Doc, how the blazes do you do it? That game of telling folk they are in a river – what in the name of wonder put such a fix-up into your head?’

  ‘Why, dearie,’ he said, ‘the notion wasn’t mine. A doctor called Braid, in Manchester, he first had the idea, not long ago; I worked with him for a short time and studied his methods. It’s called Braidism or hypnotic suggestion. You’ve seen how it works. If you persuade someone that they aren’t so bad as they think – well, as you see, it often has a good effect. They fall asleep, and when they wake, the symptoms are relieved.’

  ‘Suppose you suggested summat bad – that they might get worse, or die?’

  ‘No doctor would do such a thing!’ he told her severely. ‘A doctor swears an oath, at the start of his training, that he will work only to relieve suffering.’

  Is pondered. After a while she said, ‘Could I do that to folk, d’you think? That Braid job?’

  He took a moment to answer, then said, ‘I think it quite possible that you could. You’re a pretty strong-minded lass, dearie! You might be an ornament to the medical profession – only, of course, women aren’t permitted. You’d not be allowed to qualify. But just you watch what I do, as we go the rounds, and you will soon be a great help to me. Furthermore you’ll find that folk put a lot of trust in you, once you’ve Braided them a few times.’ He whipped up the mare.

  ‘You ever do it to Aunt Ishie? For her lameness?’

  ‘Couldn’t,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Your Aunt Ishie has all her – ’

  ‘Oh, look, Doc! There’s someone a-calling to you.’

  They were crossing the dock and passing a ship, the Dark Diamond, that was being loaded with coal. A bearded man leaning over the rail called, ‘Hey, Doc! Doc Lemman!’

  ‘Captain Podmore! How are you, man?’

  ‘All the better for seeing you, Doc!’

  ‘And the leg?’

  ‘I’m walking on it, bean’t I? Come aboard for a noggin, and I’ll show you – and while you’re here you can look at one of my men who has the Spanish Quinsy.’

  ‘We must not stay above five minutes,’ Lemman said, with a quick look about him. Dusk was thickening, and the dock seemed deserted. The mare once tethered to a bollard, they climbed up the companionway on to a deck that was black and gritty with coal-dust.

  ‘We sail on the night tide,’ explained Captain Podmore. ‘That way it’s easy to run the blockade – bless you, I know all the ways round the sandbanks like the palm of me own hand! Now, just you take a look at this leg, Doc; ain’t that enough to make your heart swell with pride? When you think it was lying separate in the scuppers?’

  He pulled up his bellbottomed trouser leg to exhibit a complete ring of stitches round the knee, then executed a few steps of a hornpipe. ‘He sewed it right back on, missy, like you might sew the leg on a doll,’ he explained to Is, while Doctor Lemman quickly examined the crewman with quinsy, ‘and now I reckon it walks faster than the other!’

  ‘Captain Podmore,’ said Is, who had suddenly been visited by an excellent notion, ‘where do you take your coal?’

  He laid a finger alongside his nose and winked. ‘Ah, now, my lass, mum’s the word on that course! I know Humberland is at war with the south, but there’s folk down to Lunnon town as wants their sea-coal, war or no war! And Isiah Podmore’s not the man to fly in the face of turning a few honest guineas just because of a two-three pesky gunboats – no, stap my vitals, he isn’t!’

  ‘You go to the Port of London? Captain Podmore, did you ever run across a chap called Greenaway – a big, blind cove, lives in a ware-us, Shadwell Dock way?’

  ‘Know him?’ cried Captain Podmore, pouring out a mug of grog for Lemman. ‘Know Sam Greenaway? Why, bless you, him an’ me’s just like that!’ And he set down the bottle in order to slam one fist into the other palm.

  ‘Could you take a letter to him, Captain Podmore?’

  The captain glanced about warily, as Lemman had done, and said to the doctor, who joined them at that moment, ‘Hearken to the lass! She just wants me to lose my ears and my charter, that’s all! But – ’ to Is, as her face fell, ‘I don’t say but what I might manage it, to oblige a friend of the Doc, here. Let’s have it, then.’

  On another sheet from Lemman’s precription pad, Is wrote: DERE WAL IM AT GRANPA TWITES IN BLASTBURN. THINGS HERE IS DICEY. HAINT SEEN U NO WHO BUT ERLY DAYS YET. CAN YOU PASS WORD AN LOVE TO PEN. ILL BE HERE LONGER THAN A MUNTH I REKON.

  ‘I’m reel obliged to you, mister,’ said Is, handing him the note, which he slid into his tobacco pouch. (‘That way, no one’s like to come across it.’)

  ‘We’d best be on our way, dearie,’ said Lemman, ‘or your Aunt Ishie will be in a fret.’

  When they were driving home, Lemman asked Is, ‘If you saw a leg like that, one that had been severed, what would you do?’

  She thought. ‘Fust, I’d shove down hard on the spot what stops the blood coming out – here – ’ She demonstrated. ‘then I’d put on a whatyoucallem – the thing where you winds a kerchief round a kindling-stick – don’t tell me the name, don’t – a turney-key. Then I’d sew the leg on again, quick as be-damned.’

  Laughing, he patted her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, I do believe you’ve the makings! Too bad females can’t train.’

  ‘Ho! Can’t they?’ said Is. She stuck out her jaw. ‘Ask me, a whole lot o’ things wants changing.’

  ‘Did you have another of your hearkening experiences back in the hospital?’ he asked. ‘You were pretty quiet, in there.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a person be? – Yes, I did, though,’ she said. ‘And you were right. I found out how to talk back a bit.’

  ‘You did? But, dearie, that’s exciting! Who is he? Who is it?’

  ‘It ain’t a him. It’s a them – a whole lot of ’em. They say they are the Bottom Layer.’

  Journal of Is

  So much as bin goin on I ardly knows were to start. Had luk getn off trane an fund G.P. Twites place more luk. Ant Isshie is Prime. Kids in Play Land is slaves. Lord nos if Ill ever find Am or tother Cove it dont seem likly. But Doc Lems goin to tak me in the m
ines an fundris he sez. Hes Prime too. Sez hell lurn me doctrin. Fancy me a doc. Pennl be rit pleezed. Uncle Roys a nogood. GP Twite a bit Queer. Rit Pen a note wich Capt P sez hell tak thats more luk. Summat reel spooky is makin me here Voicis its scary. I feel reel sad about pore King Dick wot lost is Boy.

  6

  Charley loves good ale and wine

  Charley loves good brandy . . .

  During the next two weeks Is worked exceedingly hard, going out with Dr Lemman on his rounds by day, helping Aunt Ishie make pockets by night. And when she went to bed, sleeping on a little frame-cot which Lemman had rigged up for her, she had terribly strange dreams. She dreamed that she was all alone in a stone forest, in the dark, trying to find her way; sometimes she could hear whispers and murmurs, as if other people were there, but she could never find them. She woke up from these dreams very anxious and perplexed.

  ‘What do you think they mean?’ she asked Aunt Ishie, who said, ‘I think you will find out quite soon. My dreams always come through to me in some real-life happening quite quickly.’

  The pockets they were making, Is learned, were for the children who worked in the mines.

  ‘They have none, otherwise,’ Ishie told Is. ‘The gals wear naught but a short skirt, or breeks like the boys. They have no shirts, for they work mostly on all-fours, hacking the coal or pulling the trucks along, and clothes would only hinder them – some are naked. So they’ve no place to tuck in a handkerchief, or a bit of bread or cold potato. That’s why I make the pockets, you see, with a flap and a button, pockets they can tie round their necks.’

  For once, Is had nothing to say. She just nodded and went on helping.

  ‘I am not permitted to take the pockets to the miners myself,’ Ishie went on. ‘I have asked Roy repeatedly, but he will not allow it. And,’ with a sigh, ‘even if I were allowed through the mine gate, I fear the distance would be too great. Some of the galleries are five miles from the entrance.’

  ‘Five miles under the sea?’

  Aunt Ishie nodded. ‘As I told you, that is why the workers are never allowed out. They live in the mine. Mercifully I am lucky enough to have a – an associate – who undertakes that part of the task, delivering the pockets to the colliers and hurriers – ’