by Edward Carey
‘Matchbox, Lucy!’ cried Clod. ‘Find the matchbox!’
I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t there.
A thumping behind me then, and I was slammed to the ground, someone was rushing by. It was the great lockwoman, Mrs Smith, agony on her flat mug, smashing through those things, crushing whatever was underfoot, fumbling with all her keys. But which keys now? Which to use? How to keep all those locks closed, locks that were bending, snapping, breaking? Her world, just like Piggott’s, was coming unfastened, was getting out.
Smith soon gave up with the keys and, turning around, flattened her great back against the drawers, so doing covering a good portion of the back wall, she was herself a lock. She grinned then, a great happy, simple grin, full of triumph. But it didn’t linger long. Smith looked up, she saw it before I did. The great tall safe of Piggott’s sitting room was wobbling, it was wobbling and also it was leaning forward, tilting itself forward. Now Smith, grinless, looked up at it, and that great lead thing looked down upon Smith, it looked down and down upon her like its own metal child. There was a screech of metal, Smith’s face very white now, and then Smith’s face was not there at all, nor the rest of her neither, the great safe had fallen upon her and taken her quite out. The lock of Heap House was no more and, as if in answer, as if in glorious salute, the remaining drawers smashed open and all the disobedient objects hurried out. Piggott, in her loud misery, snatched at the air, trying to grasp them back, she had hold of a wax crayon for a little moment, but it soon slipped her grasp. Then I was being pulled at. There was Clod, tugging at me, smiling and holding something in his hand: a box of matches.
‘I have it! I have it!’ he cried.
‘My matchbox!’
His ear was bent over it, he called out, ‘It has a name, I can just hear it if I’m so close. I think it says it is Ada Cruickshanks. Yes! Ada Cruickshanks she’s called, Lucy! Your own Ada Cruickshanks!’
But as he showed me, holding his hand out, it leapt from his hand and, rolling itself with great speed, rushed from the room. Clod and I looked at each other for the tiniest of moments and fled after it.
All those escaped objects were rushing pell-mell in the same direction. They were skittering, thumping, crashing along the cellar walls, all speeding the same way. All hurrying to the same meeting. To the Gathering itself. But some of them did not make it, some of them tumbling forward suddenly grew larger, changed shape. A kettle skittering along, rolling, rolling, stopped being a kettle at each turn and grew bigger and greyer and became all of a sudden an old woman in a filthy floral print dress, thick legs, she sat there upon the ground and screamed and screamed.
‘Mary Staggs! Mary Staggs!’
Mr Briggs was at her in a moment, he had a swinging bucket and a spoon and he rushed to put the spoon to the poor old woman’s mouth, he shoved it in her and she stopped her screaming. Further along a bicycle wheel circled into a young boy with missing teeth, looking about him most peculiarly and wobbling upon his legs, very unsteady as if he’d quite forgotten how to walk, and he, coming to himself, hollered out, ‘Willy Willis! I’m Willy Willis! Mammy, Mammy! My mammy!’
The boot scraper waddled no further but suddenly stopped in a heap and was a fat man in a dented straw hat, mutton chops, looking most confused, and weeping, ‘Brian Pettifer, sea captain. Baltic. Kattegat. Gulf of Riga.’
Mr Groom was upon him and giving him grim physic as fast as he might.
All was confusion down there, a battle scene, objects rushing into people, and also serving Iremongers, upright and hollering and falling into objects. I saw a parlour maid fall to the ground and in an instant become a creamer jug. A leather Iremonger, a heap worker, leant against the wall and was very sudden a ladder. A body Iremonger, tall with shining hair parted exactly in the middle, was in a moment reduced to a leather satchel.
People dropping down around us, people pulling up.
And still rushing past all these people turning into objects and objects turning into people were so many other things, mostly sprung from Piggott’s room, all hurtling forward, towards, towards . . . I saw it then. Clod did too.
‘Lucy! Look, Lucy!’
Huge it was.
That Gathering.
Bigger than rooms, howling and smashing, many mouths, a thousand thousand things all got together. It was all of the servants’ dining room, the kitchen, the polish room, the cold room, all of those places. A great creature taking over so much space. Hungry for more. So hungry, so hungry. So many mouths, so many dark deep holes in it, eating up. It’ll never have enough. And so sorrowful, so needing, so hurt and wronged, and mad with it all.
Serving Iremongers were about it, prodding it, poking this and that into it, some of them falling into objects even as they laboured, others maybe cutting a few things from it, but only ever angering it more. Wrong to do that, surely, I thought, to upset it so. Iremongers in brass firemen’s helmets with poles and hoses, with ladders trying to climb up it, into what exactly, and losing their grips, falling in, crushed by it. And the noise of creaking and snapping, of the house itself crying for mercy, cracking and breaking under the size of the great creature. The ceiling was breaking, great rents appearing, it will bring the whole house down.
As we came closer, close to that terrible end, we passed the butler’s Sitting Room. Sturridge was in there, he was just standing there. What’s he doing there, just standing like that, great bulk like his, why doesn’t he lend a hand? Then I saw that he was, he was doing his bit. Sturridge was holding up the ceiling, sweating so. Or was he weeping? Couldn’t tell. He had the weight of the house upon him, and was just, just, just keeping it up, what a pillar, what a column!
‘Clod! Clod! Look at me, can you hear me?’ I held his face to me. ‘Listen to me, Clod, if we get separated, if anything should happen, I will find you. Wait for me. I shall find you.’
‘Filth! Gut it out!’
Mrs Groom had seen me now down the cellarway and, raising her great cleaver in one hand, her jelly mould swinging from her belt, rushed at me.
‘Cut you! Cut you!’ she wailed, but then quieter, ‘Cut you?’ as she suddenly flipped over, swung a somersault, and tumbled exactly at my feet, a mere cheese grater, so many sharp holes in it, the cleaver useless beside it. The grater lay over a shoe of mine, I hurriedly kicked it off. Beside her, where her jelly mould might have been, was a fat baby, quiet and naked.
‘Ada Cruickshanks!’ cried Clod. ‘There she goes!’
The matchbox was ahead of us, rushing forward. I tried to catch after it but then suddenly came a terrible sound and I thought the whole house was smashing down.
Screeeeeeeeeech! Screeceeeechh! Scraaaaaaaaaaatch!
What was that? What was that? Even Clod heard that, even Clod turned to that. What was that? What was that?
‘Lucy,’ he cried. ‘Oh no, Lucy, no!’
Then the shouts, the great calling from the Iremongers. Agony? Are they in pain? No, no, not pain. They were cheering. Why? What for?
‘What is it? What is it, Clod?’
‘Grandfather, Lucy, Grandfather is coming!’
The train.
The train had made it back. Smashed its way through the tunnel.
‘Hold on! Hold on!’ called the butler. ‘He’s coming! He’s coming now!’
‘Here! Here! To us! To us!’ yelled the Iremongers.
The great Gathering seemed to be understanding something too, for it moved and scraped with greater agitation. And then there he was. The old man. The old man but rushing now, a swift walk, ploughing through the rubble. The old man, big old man in his top hat and a great coat. Rushing down the cellar passage, coming forward, and the Gathering made a huge mouth and it spat at him – a great wall of things flew out from the Gathering, nails and glass shards, broken bits, sharp pelting – but he kept on marching towards it, the old man kept on. He walked right on. He walked right into it, throwing bits and pieces of it behind him as he entered. He just walked through it, and anything in his
way, he tossed it out. He made a great path through the creature. We could see him, we all just stood there watching. His great old hands were out then, feeling inside the gathering, his whole arms went deep inside it, and the creature seemed to groan and screech in pain, it swung around him, trying to drown him, all its mouths snapping around him, but the old man only carried on searching through all the things, like he had an ash pan, sifting through it, looking for something specific, something he’d lost and needed back. Old man in the thick of that, what have you lost, what are you looking for? Go on, creature, drown him, drown him, bite him! The old man, big old man, ugly old man, his hands scrabbled about under the surface, searching around, feeling through all the objects. It was up to his neck by then, it’ll drown him, it’ll surely drown him. Good then, let him drown. But then the Gathering stopped still, it seized, it shuddered, it didn’t move any more, it stayed so still. Horrible still. So still we could see at last all what it was made of, see all those things that it was, just things, this and that, everyday things, just things, nothing special. It stayed like that a moment and then, and then, all dropped. All found gravity again, all smashed to the ground, a sudden raining of all those things, down upon the flagstones. All dead once more. Just things again. Only one thing upright, just one from all those thousand thousand things. Only one. Him. The old man, big old man, ugly old man, standing, vertical. Holding something. Holding in his hands just one thing, a thing, a teacup it was, with an extra lip, a moustache cup. Florence Balcombe.
With that cup in his hands, my Florence Balcombe, he, like all those other things just a short while before it, he let it drop, it fell to the ground. It didn’t smash. Amazing that it didn’t. It landed upright, Florence did, like a cat might. Well done, Florence. It rolled around a little, Florence did, but just a very little. And then the old man, crazy old man, ugly old man, lifted up one of his great black boots and he brought it down hard upon Florence Balcombe and he smashed her, he smashed her, she was broken now, she was in pieces, and he lifted up his boot and he brought it down again.
‘Florence!’ I screamed.
‘Lucy!’ Clod screamed. ‘Lucy, don’t!’
I ran at him.
He looked up then, he saw me coming, cold, cold those eyes.
And I –
23
A Clay Button
Concluding the narrative of Clod Iremonger
How It Ended
I could hear more, after the falling of the Gathering I could hear a bit. I could hear. Hear Lucy calling out, ‘Florence!’
I called after her.
And then her falling. Lucy fell. She was running towards Grandfather, and then she just stopped, she tumbled to the ground, rolled on the ground, and as she fell, as she rolled, she got smaller and smaller, until she was nothing more, I couldn’t see her.
‘Lucy! Lucy!’ I screamed.
‘Lucy Pennant.’
‘I hear you! I hear you! But I can’t see you. Where are you?’
‘Lucy Pennant.’
‘Lucy! Lucy!’
‘Lucy Pennant.’
On the ground, where she fell, where she stopped falling. There she was, there she was, a button. Nothing more than a button. A clay moulded button.
‘Lucy, my Lucy Pennant! I’ve got you.’
‘To me,’ said Grandfather, and she flipped up into the air, as if I’d tossed her, flicked her, like a coin, only I had not. She was in Grandfather’s great hands.
‘Please, please,’ I cried, ‘let me have her.’
‘This, Clod, even this is the cause of our recent misery, the reason the heaps had grown so disturbed, this guilty button, this Un-Iremonger, this wrong of blood. Objects were ill at ease even before it came, but when it came it did by its arrival so upset everything, so spread disease, so excited that cup, that it, turning cup-like, called all the other things to it. This thing is going back, back out now, into the deep of it, let it feel lost there and abandoned, missing without hope, let it suffer so. You – are you there, prefect, Moorcus? Strong of blood!’
There was Moorcus, a little bruised and creased, but there with his medal shining.
‘Here, sir, here, Grandfather.’
‘Take this thing, this button, and run you as fast as you can into the heaps.’
‘Out there, sir?’
‘It is quite becalmed now, the storm has blown itself out, do it, take it quick, throw it, throw it far out, lose it.’
‘Grandfather, no!’ I cried. ‘Grandfather! Moorcus, stop! Grandfather, please!’
‘You, Clod! Be still!’
‘No!’
And I –
24
A Half Sovereign
Beginning the narrative of ticket no. 45247, property of Bay Leaf House, Forlichingham, London
My name is James Henry. My name is James Henry Hayward. I’m on a train. There’s an old man beside me. A nice, grand old man. He holds my hand. We’re on a train. Going to London.
I can’t see much of anything through the windows, it’s all very dark out there. I don’t know if I should be worried or not. I look at the old man and I think, not. It is light here in the carriage. The old man is good to me. I don’t know if we’re going to see my family, I think I should like to see them. The old man says that he shall do his best to find them. I wonder where they can have got to. I cannot remember them very well. I wonder how I lost them. Or how they lost me. I do feel a bit worried. It worries me that I don’t remember them. I look up at the old man, he smiles down at me. That feels better. It is a kind old face. There is a woman sitting a little further away from us, she keeps to herself, she sits bolt upright. She has a large black bonnet with a veil over it, I cannot see her face properly. I hear her coughing, a horrible dry cough that gets inside my head. I far prefer the old man. I do prefer the old man but I shall be seeing a deal of the strict woman, for she is to be my companion for a while, the old man has told me, I am to live with that dry cough. I cannot say I like her. I have heard the old man calling her by name, Ada Cruickshanks.
James Henry Hayward. My name.
I’m in a new suit and cap. New shoes, new everything. I feel very smart. Quite grown up. I wonder if I am rich. The old man is very rich, I think. He must be. He owns the huge faraway house we’ve just left. He shall look after me. It is a nice story in the end, having a guardian like him. I think he shall adopt me. I hope he shall. Yes, I feel better now, despite the strict woman Ada Cruickshanks, I didn’t earlier, but I can’t remember that so well.
I slip my hand in my pocket. There’s something there. It’s a half sovereign. My own. A golden half sovereign. All ten shillings worth of it. My own. The old man gave it to me. But I am not to spend it, he tells me. If it is mine, I wonder, then why can I not spend it? I should like to spend it. I should be able to buy such things with it. But the old man is very strict about this, it is the only thing that stops him smiling.
The old man has told me I must look after my half sovereign particularly. He has asked me several times whether I still have it. He asks me to bring it out into the light and show it to him. I do. And each time he says, ‘Very good. Well done, James Henry.’ I like it when he says that. I feel the coin around my hand, warm it up a bit.
I hear a sharp loud whistle now calling out, gave me quite the shock. The train is slowing down. We’re coming into a station.
‘We’re here, James Henry,’ says the old man.
I smile back and ask, ‘London?’
‘London,’ he says, ‘Filching.’
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Sara O’Connor, wonderful editor, and everyone at Hot Key for all their enthusiasm and help, for being who they are – they are an extraordinary team. Very many thanks are due to my long-suffering agent Isobel Dixon, whose faith never wavers, and who keeps me buoyant. To Elisabetta Sgarbi at Bompiani for always being there. To the marvellous Christopher Merrill who sent me to China and to a museum of rescued objects that gave me the first inspiration for
this book. To Elizabeth Butler Cullingford and James Magnuson for letting me teach fairy tales and creative writing, and providing me with wonderful students, and for all their support. To my mother for so very much (and with apologies for stealing family names). And most of all to my wife Elizabeth and my children Gus and Matilda for everything.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hot Key Books
Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT
Text and illustrations copyright © Edward Carey 2013
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4714-0158-9
1
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