‘Gloria Emma Utting.’
I heard the doily before I saw its keeper. Pinalippy, my apparently still betrothed, my still obstinately betrothed, Pinalippy, pincher of nipples, taller than me still (though I think in all my adventures I have managed to grow a bit), with her faint moustache and strong arms.
‘Well, and aren’t you going to say hello or something?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘hullo, Pinalippy.’
‘You know how to make a female feel wanted I must say.’
‘I thought I should be punctured with pins, I thought I should be drilled into and spiked, I thought I may be thoroughly pierced.’
‘Well as you see, it is merely me.’
‘Do you have any pins about you?’
‘Only the pin in my name, is that sharp enough for you? Do you need bleeding then, Clod?’
‘I need to be left alone.’
‘There’s affection, right there.’
‘I’ve no need for company. Now or ever.’
Pinalippy didn’t respond to that, she merely came further in.
‘What a mess you’ve made of your room, Clod.’
‘It’s not mine, it’s stolen from someone.’
‘Our home was stolen from us.’
She moved around regarding this and that, I stared at the floor and did my absolute best not to engage her.
‘Cousin Rippit?’ she spoke to the squashed relative.
‘Rippit.’
‘Cousin Rippit, I should be most grateful if you’d leave us alone.’
‘Rippit?’
‘I am to be married to Clod, you know, I trust you will not be present on our first night together. It would hardly be encouraging.’
‘Rippit?’
‘So now off you toddle, I mean to talk with my man here, and I don’t need you rippiting throughout our intimate whispering.’
‘Rippit.’
‘Yes, exactly, just like that.’
‘Rippit.’
‘Go rippit elsewhere will you?’
‘Rippit?’
‘Goodbye, cousin, so touching to be in your company, but goodbye it must be.’
She marshalled Rippit to the door, and closed it firmly the moment he was outside. I couldn’t help smiling at how she had managed that. But then we were in the room together, just Pinalippy and me. No one else. And that was a shock. Looking very directly at the carpet and not daring to observe anything other, I stayed very still and heard the eighteen-year-old coming closer. Closer. I could smell her then. She smelt of slightly burnt treacle. It was an Iremonger custom for Iremonger women to daub themselves with lightly torched treacle on special occasions to make them the more attractive to the male sex. The scent was known to drive some Iremonger men into palpitations. It did very little, I must confess, to stimulate me.
Pinalippy was so very close now, she was almost on top of me, and then she did something very terrible. Pinalippy sat down, she sat down next to me on my bed. She sat down so close that her dress was touching my nightshirt.
‘Well then, Clod, here I am.’
‘Yes, Pinalippy, indeed you are here.’
‘This is your bed.’
‘It is, Pinalippy, I do admit it.’
‘This is where you sleep.’
‘It is a common enough function of a bed.’
‘You lie yourself down just here,’ she said, stroking the bed cover, ‘and stretch out, you are quiet yourself here, under the covers in your nightwear.’
I leapt up then and marched with all distress towards the window.
‘I am very miserable!’ I sputtered out.
‘Yes, don’t I know it, the whole house knows it.’
‘I love someone else,’ I whispered.
‘I know you do, Clod, the skinny thing with all the moles and the uncombed russet hair. I’m most sensible of it. But, forgive me, dear, she’s dead, your someone, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I must say yes.’
‘You know you must, we are the only survivors of Foulsham.’
‘Yes.’
‘And we are hunted. They want to kill us, Clod.’
‘Yes, Pinalippy, I know.’
‘They’ll hunt us down, every last one of us, and they’ll murder us, Clod, murder us.’
‘So everyone says, and I cannot help that. I do not like being alive.’
‘Well I do. I like it very much. And I’ll tell you something else, Clod Iremonger, I mean to keep on living if I can. Now you, Clod, you can do things, move things. Things listen to you. You’ve only to think it and something goes flying, or shrivels up.’
‘I cannot help it.’
‘What a thing you did with Timfy’s whistle.’
‘I could help that. And perhaps now I regret it. A very little.’
‘If you could do that to an Iremonger birth object, think what you might do upon Lungdon people.’
‘I hardly know, do I? They don’t let me out.’
‘I am proud of you, Clod.’
‘Are you, Pinalippy? Why on earth?’
‘Well yes, Clod, what a fuss all the aunts and uncles make over you, how Grandfather even talks of you.’
‘I meant to steal his Jack Pike, his cuspidor, and destroy it.’
‘You see, right there, that’s what I like about you: you’ve gumption. Who else would have dreamt of such a thing? You’re an original.’
‘I am?’
‘You are, now come and sit by me.’
‘Must I?’
‘Oh do come along, Clod.’
Reluctantly I sat back on the bed, a good distance from Pinalippy. She looked at me.
‘Closer,’ she said.
I moved a very little closer.
‘Closer,’ she said.
A little closer yet.
‘Closer.’
‘Is this not close enough, Cousin?’
‘Not by half.’
I moved until I was beside her.
‘There then,’ she said.
And we sat together in somebody’s stolen bedroom, on somebody’s stolen bed.
‘This is comfortable,’ she said after a while.
I said nothing.
‘Isn’t it, Clod, comfortable?’
I was shaking slightly, it may have been the treacle smell.
‘I do think we are making progress. I may visit you, Clod, mayn’t I?’
‘Yes?’
‘It is nearly time for my morning walk.’
‘You go out?’
‘Yes, of course I do. I go about here and there. I walk Lungdon a little, so that I may learn it. I watch the constables and make them nervous, they grow conjunctivitis just by looking at me. Truly, it is amazing how we Iremongers do stir the people of Lungdon.’
‘Do you, Pinalippy, do you perhaps exaggerate a little?’
‘Perhaps, but Clod, out in Lungdon, I do buy anything.’
‘Oh, Pinalippy, to walk in London!’
‘Lungdon we call it, Clod, do catch on. And yes, it is a thrill! But I must be careful. It is highly dangerous. And only for the bravest of the family. Do you know what I did when first I found myself out in that Lungdon?’
‘No, Pinalippy, I surely do not.’
‘You are so dull. Well, I shall tell you.’
‘I had a feeling you might.’
‘Move up, I mean to sit right next to you. Closer yet.’
She pushed herself a little against me.
‘I have been shopping, Clod. I have been to a hardware store.’
‘Have you, Pinalippy, have you?’
‘Oh yes, I have, Clod, and I have purchased at the hardware store with ready money.’
‘Well, Pinalippy, you are coming along!’
‘Almost a Lungdoner!’
‘And what, Pinalippy, did you buy?’
‘Can you not guess?’
‘No, not in the slightest.’
‘Why, plugs, Clod, plugs.’
‘You purchase plugs?’
‘Yes, Clod. Can’t you believe it. If I’m to live with a plug, I may as well get used to it. So I did; I have bought any number of plugs, small and large, brass, tin, India rubber. I’m getting used to them. I lay them out on my bed, Clod. I touch them, I hold them to me.’
‘Heavens, do you truly, Pinalippy?’
‘Oh yes, Clod, I do. I like the feel of them on my skin. Sometimes I lie down and I lay them on top of me.’
‘Golly.’
‘I might love you, Clod Iremonger, I might very well love you, I have not yet decided.’
‘Oh, well, ah, thanks awfully, Pinalippy.’
‘Sometimes when I have a bath I put all the plugs in with me.’
‘Do you, Pinalippy?’
‘Can you picture that?’
‘Well …’ I said, in a panic, ‘well!’
‘Do you like women?’
‘Yes, yes of course.’
‘Well, there’s a relief, I was beginning to think you didn’t.’
‘I did love Lucy terribly.’
‘Think of me,’ she said quite sternly. ‘Think of me and all my plugs! In the water!’
‘I don’t see my plug any more. I am not allowed to keep it, my poor dear James Henry Hayward. I saw his family once, Pinalippy, back in Foulsham, they were rat catchers, good, honest people. Hold on to your Gloria Emma, Pinalippy, there’s a person there, hoping to get out.’
‘Poor old Clod.’
‘And now Rippit keeps my plug and he won’t let me have it.’
‘Really, Clod, Rippit’s got it? Rippit’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘I find him terrifying,’ I admitted.
‘I don’t. Not for a moment. You see, the thing about Rippit is he’s terrified of us. Of women. How awkward and strange he is when we come near. He becomes so agitated, his hair grows more greasy. “Rippit! Rippit!” I pinched his breast two days ago and how he bellowed at that! Clod Iremonger, how should it be if I got your plug back for you, and gave him one of my own in return?’
‘A switch?’
‘What would you say to that?’
‘I should, well I should be most grateful. Indeed I would!’
‘You might also be more forthcoming?’
‘Oh.’
‘You might, in some small way, show your feelings for me?’
‘Oh.’
‘For the plug.’
‘Oh.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, for the plug, Pinalippy, I suppose … I suppose I should.’
‘Very good then, Clod, this has been fun! And we must do it again very soon,’ she said, bouncing a little upon the bed and then jumping up.
‘Well I must be off now.’
‘Into London?’
‘Yes, indeed! Into Lungdon!’
‘Well goodbye, Pinalippy, thank you.’
‘We’ll do such things, Clod! I know we shall. Oh, just a moment. I nearly forgot. These are for you.’
She handed me various circles of white material. They all had holes in them.
‘They are doilies, Clod.’
‘So they are,’ I said.
‘For familiarity, Clod. For remembrance, Clod. For you. Clod.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Righto.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Thanks?’
‘Well done, Clod, we’re quite coming along, you and I.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Aren’t we?’
‘Er, yes?’ I whispered.
‘I think that went very well, don’t you?’
‘Oh dear,’ I whispered.
‘He calls me “dear”!’
‘I didn’t …’
‘“Dear”, he says, “Dear”!’
And she was gone. And I was alone again. I looked at the doilies a little while and then put them away in the blackened chest of drawers. I wasn’t very sure about them at all.
I was left alone with Rippit again, because Rippit reappeared soon enough. Looking at me with great suspicion, he sat in his chair, stroking James Henry, or at least pretending to, such a timid noise did my dear plug make, such a faint whisper of, ‘James Henry Hayward.’
Rippit took out a daguerreotype of James Henry. It must have been taken when poor James Henry was living at Bayleaf House.
‘May I see that?’ I asked. ‘I should like to keep it if I may.’
Rippit, croaking and rippiting, made a noise deep down in his throat and then let out a pungent belch and with that sulphurous explosion came a small greeny-blue flame. Rippit burped flame onto the daguerreotype and burnt a hole where James Henry’s face had been so that all that was left of him was a black stain, and James Henry’s shoulders supported nothing but a dark cloud, as if Rippit had set fire to the poor fellow there and then, with his stinking breath.
‘Rippit!’ he squealed with delight.
That fellow should very happily blot out anything I loved.
Mrs Piggott came in, she handed me undergarments, a shirt, a pair of smart pressed trousers, a bow tie, a black waistcoat, and a pair of black socks.
‘You’re to have these, Master Clodius,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Your grandmother’s orders.’
‘No shoes, Piggott?’ I asked.
‘No shoes, Master Clodius.’
‘I can’t go outside yet?’
‘No, Master Clodius, but you are given the freedom of the house.’
‘Well that’s something, isn’t it Piggott?’
Only then did I see that Piggott’s eyes were very red, I do believe she had been crying. That was most unlike her; I’d never seen Piggott cry before. I didn’t know that she could.
‘I say, Piggott,’ I asked, ‘is everything all right?’
‘It isn’t right, Master Clodius, it isn’t right at all.’
‘What isn’t, Piggott?’
‘I musn’t say.’
She seemed to gather herself up a little then, took in a breath, then turning about she said, ‘Don’t mind me, Master Clodius, I’m just a little short staffed, increasingly short staffed, that’s all.’ And she left.
I dressed myself.
I went downstairs soon enough, my relations on the stairs all getting out of my way as if I had the pox. Perhaps I did after all.
Some cousins had found a rat and had cornered it in the hallway and were waving cutlery at it. Butler Sturridge came running, his footsteps pounding down the hall.
‘Give that to me, gentlemen!’ he bellowed.
‘It is a rat, Sturridge,’ said Bornobby.
‘I’ll have that rat, I thank you.’
‘Whyever?’
‘Because your grandfather wishes it.’
‘Oh well, right you are then.’
Taking it by the tail, Sturridge retreated with the rodent.
‘Come along then, Briggs,’ the butler said. ‘Do stop your squealing.’
‘Excuse me, Sturridge.’
‘Yes, Master Clodius?’
‘Did you just call the rat Briggs?’
‘Did I? Who can tell?’ he said, pushing past.
‘Where is Briggs?’
‘I am very busy, Master Clodius, please to excuse.’
‘Why ever would he call a rat Briggs?’ I asked my cousins.
But my cousins, seeing me, found themselves different locations.
It was a large house by some standards I suppose but very small compared to Heap House where you might easily wander the inside lanes and stairs and ever find new places to visit. Besides which, from Heap House you might watch the heaps moving in the sunlight, it could be very beautiful admiring the rising and falling of so much rubbish, like the breathing of some great slumbering giant. I so missed the place, to think of Tummis flapping his arms out in the heaps, calling to the gulls. But there was no light here, no light outside, all was darkness day and night, since Foulsham was broken and the Iremongers came to London Town. To live. In secret. Amongst you.
The thing about hiding is that once you’re beyond the excitement of being hidden somewhere and away from all else, the minutes pass but slowly, ticking and tocking, each click of the clock, each little knock of time, slow, slow, slow time, ebbing away and no one coming to the door to say – ‘There you are!’
I moved about my family members, I nosed about their business. After a half-hour Briggs came up the service stairs, his shiny hair most awry, his tortoiseshell shoehorn trembling in his hands.
‘Did you call for me, Master Clod?’
‘I didn’t actually, Briggs, but now you’re here, do you have any notion why Sturridge should call a rat after you?’
‘I do not attempt to fathom the depths of Mr Sturridge, that is not in my remit.’
‘I quite see that. But why should he name a rat after you?’
‘I cannot conceive, Master Clod. Perhaps he has his own reasons. Or perhaps you misheard.’
‘No, he certainly said “Briggs”.’
‘Not figs?’
‘No.’
‘Nor pigs?’
‘No, no.’
‘Short ribs?’
‘No indeed. “Briggs”.’
‘Well, Master Clod, it must remain a mystery. For the now. Is there anything else, Master Clod?’
‘No thank you, Briggs, very good of you to inquire.’
‘Thank you, Master Clod,’ he said and returned downstairs but as he went he made a sudden, I should say involuntary squeal, rather rattish, I thought.
‘I say, Briggs?’
‘I thank you, Master Clod,’ he said and was gone.
I pursued him down the stairs to the serving rooms. It was very quiet and very dark down below, noises of whispering, some further squeaking of rats.
I turned the corner at the bottom, there was more light there, a few servants holding candles. They were lining up outside a door, some of them were weeping. I was on the point of turning back, for this was a servant business and it was not right for the family to be involved, when I saw something in one of the waiting parlour maids, something poking out beneath her white bonnet. It was red hair. Such red hair! That red hair! It stopped me as quick as anything, as if the whole world had suddenly given up the idea of rotating. I couldn’t breathe a moment, I gasped, I cried.
‘Lucy, Lucy Pennant, there you are all along!’
And then the servant turned to face me.
Such a pinched face, such a young cruel face, not Lucy, not Lucy at all. I stepped back in shock.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, ‘I thought for a moment … but no.’
‘My name is Iremonger,’ said she. She was holding a wooden toothpick, her birth object certainly, I could hear its name very clearly, ‘Phidias Collins.’ The poor toothpick, how sorry I felt for it then, for I had suddenly remembered who she was.
‘You were the bully in the orphanage,’ I said. ‘You tried to hurt Lucy. Your name is Mary Staggs.’
‘My name, sir, is Iremonger.’
‘Staggs the bully!’
‘Forgive me for observing, sir, but she was not family, that other girl you mentioned, not blood like us, like you and I are.’
‘Oh you horrible, horrible girl.’
‘You must be the lover then, aren’t you,’ she said, a sour look on her face, her nostrils flaring. ‘Nothing much to look on if you ask me. Red hair, is that it? Red hair, is that what you like?’ she added, flashing her eyes at me and, pulling out some strands of her greasy hair, she said, ‘Fancy some of this?’
I backed away, I cried out I think. The horror of it, as if all the beauty had been stolen from me, tainted and tinctured and spat at with flames like Rippit’s belch.
Back up the stairs I went, moaning loudly. I heard Mary Staggs laughing below as I ran, and all I thought of was poor Phidias Collins. How I would do anything to liberate him from such terrible company.
I’d stay upstairs now, I told myself, I shouldn’t go down again. There were cries coming from down there now, servants shouting. I closed the green baize door, let them cry for all I cared. There was a seat in the hall and I panted a while upon it.
Calming down, I heard voices coming from one of the larger downstairs rooms. Grandfather was inside, I could hear his cuspidor Jack Pike through the closed door, but Jack Pike was screaming. Idwid was there and he was doing something with his nose tongs (Geraldine Whitehead).
‘It does hurt so, Idwid!’ called Grandfather, who never before had I heard admitting to any pain.
‘I am sorry, Umbitt Owner, I am as gentle as I can be.’
‘Try again once more, but go carefully.’
‘Yes, sir, certainly, sir.’ Idwid cleared his throat. ‘Now, Jack, listen up good and proper.’
‘Jack Pike! Jack Pike!’
‘Know your place, Jack. No hopping about the room unbidden.’
‘Jack Pike!’
‘You’re a naughty little thing, to try and get lost so.’
‘Jack Pike! Jack Pike!’
‘And I must scratch you a little here so that you remember your business.’
‘JACK PIKE!’
‘Ah!’ screamed Umbitt. ‘How it burns!’
‘Jack Pike, Jack Pike,’ Grandfather’s cuspidor was whimpering.
‘Now, now,’ said Idwid, ‘all done, all done.’
‘Am I dying, Idwid?’
‘No, no, never, what a thought! You, die? Hardly, not for many a year yet. You just have, how shall we say it, a little cold.’
‘My own cuspidor leapt away from my own grip.’
‘You are certain you did not drop it, sir?’
‘It leapt, man, leapt.’
‘Well, dear sir, we have just encouraged it, quite successfully, I do think, not to leap again.’
‘I am weakening, I am so tired, always tired.’
‘Now, now, no more of this, sir, it doesn’t suit, sir, does it? What I think, what I suggest most of all, is a little medicine.’
‘You’ll prick me, you’ll bleed me.’
‘I am just going to bolster Jack Pike up a little,’ said Idwid. ‘Here we are then.’
There was the sound of a box of some sort being opened and voices calling out from it.
‘Herbert Arthur Carrington.’
‘Winifred Abigail Carrington, née Leighton.’
‘Virginia Winifred Carrington.’
‘Wilfred Herbert Arthur Carrington.’
‘Here,’ said Idwid, ‘here are the Carrington family who so kindly made their home available to us. Here they are now, well turned. Nice and fresh.’
‘What are they to me?’
‘Well, sir, they are your medicine I should think. You shall keep them about you, such fresh new turnings. I shall need to prick your finger slightly and for to scratch upon them so that a little of our great Umbitt may fall into them and then, well then, they shall get attached to you, shan’t they?’
‘I have my birth object, I have my cuspidor.’
‘That naughty thing, yes, Umbitt Owner, we know it and do feel it fully, but here are some more, just to keep you fresh, to help you along a little. To put a little spring back in your step.’
‘Oh very well then, if you think it shall help. I do feel better now!’
‘A little transfusion, a little iron in your blood so to speak. Now then, hold steady.’
‘Ow!’
‘Well done, sir, that was very well done.’
‘I must not die, Idwid.’
‘No, sir, indeed you must not.’
‘Not before it is done.’
‘Indeed, sir, quite.’
‘But I do feel so cold, always so cold.’
‘Now I shall take up the Carringtons one at a time and you must keep them ever afterwards close about you.’
‘I do indeed feel better with this new company. I thank you, Idwid.’
‘Of course you do, sir, that’s the spirit!’
‘I think I may go about Lungdon and collect me some more souls. I’ve a hunger for it now.’
‘You shall wander about and grow mighty.’
‘Just two more nights, Idwid, and after that we shall reckon with them.’
‘Two more nights indeed.’
‘We shall assemble one and all upon Westminster Bridge, and then we shall give them their shock.’
‘They shall not forget us, shall they, sir?’
‘You think it will work, Idwid?’
‘I do think, sir, all in all, you may find it most efficacious to keep more birth objects about you, a great number of them perhaps.’
‘Really, Idwid, I do feel better now.’
‘That’s the spirit, sir, I think you must gather a little more, fill your pockets, so to speak.’
‘Yes, yes, I see that might help.’
‘There we are then, a collection shall be arranged, shan’t it?’
‘Let me then, Idwid, let me have those shall you?’
‘Geraldine Whitehead.’
‘These? My Geraldine?’
‘Even those? Those scissor things, yes. I shall look after them.’
‘But, sir! But Father!’
‘Don’t you “Father” me, there are many of my children who’ve fallen to dust over such intimacy. Where did your brother Hibbit go all those years ago; where’s Itchard?’
‘Gone, gone these many years.’
‘And all for challenging me. Have a care, Idwid. Know your place.’
‘Yes, sir, yes, Umbitt Owner.’
‘Come then, I’ll take those snippers of yours. My medicine they shall be.’
‘Geraldine Whitehead.’
‘Geraldine! My Geraldine!’ How strange it was now to hear Uncle Idwid’s panicking voice.
‘You’ll find my pockets are most capacious. And more can always be sewn. Prick me, man, do your surgery.’
‘Sir … sir.’
I crept away then, I moved along from Idwid and his vile nursing. What indeed was their plan, what was the business Grandfather was to do upon Westminster Bridge? And to think I heard Grandfather in such distress. Was Grandfather really dying? What a thought. Grandfather dead, whatever should happen then? I skipped a little down the corridor. But in a mere moment regretted it – he was my own grandfather after all, try as I might I could not wholeheartedly wish him wrong, we should be so vulnerable without him. It was time to visit more of the family in their distress.
Sitting in the drawing room was a great clump of senior Iremonger females, a thick congregation, all bombazined and buttoned up, Grandmother and Rosamud amongst them. Grandmother’s great marble fireplace was stuck in the centre of this room and caused some inconvenience. The fire was crackling and smoking, gas lamps were lit, candles were aflame but still the place seemed very dark.
The women were all busy about the same exercise, they had long, sharp needles.
‘If you’re to come in here, Clod,’ said Granny, ‘you’re to behave. I won’t have you shifting things, not in here. You disrupt us and you’ll be confined to your room with Rippit once more.’
‘I shall be good,’ I said glumly.
‘And how did you find Pinalippy?’
‘Quite spirited actually, Granny.’
‘I’m most pleased to hear it. She’s very strong, that child. She may not be an outstanding beauty, but she has a head on her and a strong (if hirsute) body which, if unmolested by the Lungdon constabulary, may bear many children.’
‘She smelt rather of treacle.’
‘Did she, Clod! Did she?’ cried Granny, and many of the women about her smiled and chuckled at this little detail.
Listlessly I watched all the arms of the Iremonger women, all in black, for black are the Iremonger days since our Foulsham was taken from us. We are in mourning, there’ll be no dawn for us, Grandmother had told me, until we find our place again. They worked on, these ladies, deep in concentration, with few words, with occasionally the call for scissors to be passed between them. It was the scissors that jogged my poor head into recollection.
‘What ever are you sewing?’ I cried.
‘Why, Clod, grow up, won’t you, and be observant,’ said Granny. ‘There’s many a lady in Lungdon that spends her days with needle and thread. It is what ladies do, and we must fit in, you see, and so we sew and sew.’
‘But what are you making?’
‘Oh,’ said Granny nonchalantly, ‘people.’
‘What people?’ I asked.
‘Why, leather people of course,’ said Pomular. ‘Don’t be dim.’
They were stitching arms and legs, torsos and heads. One was threading hair into leather heads. In the corner I noticed two maiden aunts filling the leather bodies with stuffing, shovelling dirt and sand and rolled-up paper from great buckets of filth, spooned through the leather dummies’ mouths. I saw now sat amongst them were various finished and dressed leather people, with black smoke coming slightly from between their lips. Sitting very quietly, occasionally one blinked, now and then one wiped a nose, scratched a head a little, but otherwise they sat utterly docile.
One aunt came forward now with a shifting man beside her.
‘Excuse me, Ommaball Owneress, I do believe this fellow is ready.’
‘Is it?’ said Granny. ‘Who are you?’
‘Marcus Pilkington,’ said the leather creature. ‘Member of Parliament for Suffolk.’
‘So you are. Well then, do you know your business?’
‘I am to be at Parliament on the eighth without fail.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘By ten of the clock.’
‘Exactly. Now you are to join the right honourable gentlemen for Inverness-shire, Dumfrieshire and Cornwall and Berkshire. To be housed in secret.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘Not to mention. Cusper shall show you the way.’
The MP bowed at Grandmother, turned and bowed at me.
‘Good morning to you,’ I said.
‘Good morning to you,’ said he, a trace of black smoke coming from out of his mouth and lingering a while after he had left the room.
‘Oh you people!’ I cried, I remembered all now. ‘You dreadful people! You’re making counterfeits!’
‘All must find purpose, all must be kept busy,’ said Grandmother.
‘But these non-people, these un-people … I know how you make them!’
At my exclamation one leather person looked vaguely in my direction, regarded me blankly a moment and then returned once more to its torpidity.
‘Yes, Clod, with leather and stitching and this and that, as you see. Do keep your voice down, or you shall be sent to your room.’
‘You take children, and they breathe into them. How they suffer, the children, because of you!’
‘Now, Clod, are you going to get excited? If you are you must perforce go back to your chamber.’
‘You take the breath from children’s lives!’
‘Why whatever is he talking about?’
‘And ever after leave them empty!’
‘Clod, Clod, what are you saying?’
‘Your tickets, you call them, the children you steal!’
‘Whatever does he mean?’
‘Now, Clod,’ said Granny, looking up and, with an air of irritation, putting her steel needles down, ‘I shall not have you talk of us so. Your own family. Your own people forced into exile. You believe we take children and pull the breath from them and put it in these leather dolls?’
‘Yes, I do. Yes, you do!’ I said.
‘Have you seen it?’ Granny asked.
‘Well.’
‘Well?’
‘Not precisely.’
‘You have not seen it then, you have merely heard about it. Someone told you. Someone’s being telling you tales.’
‘Lucy Pennant told me. And the Tailor, Rippit’s birth object, when he –’
‘Of course he did, the meddling letter opener, and of course she did, she would, that’s very like her isn’t it? I’m not in the least surprised by that. Even from her death, even beyond her grave – though surely there can be no such place for such a vermin – even from such a distance, how she influences you. So she told you this filth and you believed it.’
‘Yes! Yes I do!’
Some small muttering from some aunts then, a sigh or two, a snip of scissors, the small sound of leather being punctured by the needles.
‘What a baby, what a cruel baby you are. You’d believe anyone but your own family.’
‘I honestly don’t know why we bother with the monstrous child,’ some other aunt muttered.
‘Should have left him back there.’
‘Should never have held the train for him.’
‘Be quiet, ladies,’ said Granny. ‘Now Clod, listen up and listen good. I’ll not repeat this, for the accusation cuts into me, cuts sharper and deeper than any needle here. You make my soul cry bitter tears. Those unspeakable things, those dealings with children that you have just mentioned – I shall not repeat the accusations – are all monstrous lies. Cruel untruths told by the ingratitude of Foulsham people. People we saved, for as long as we were able. We took up those children and gave them shelter and food, yes they did work for us, good work for which they were rewarded. We did a better job than their parents. We made them into most useful citizens. Did we harm them? No! We fed them. We saved them. We kept them from the Heap Sickness and we nurtured them. We saved them, Clod, saved them by our own goodness, until Lungdon sought fit to murder them!’
‘But how then did these leathermen come to life if not through the children?’
‘Do you really think, oh Clod great doubter, do you really think that if a child breathes into a leather sack that the sack springs to life? No, of course it does not! What nonsense! What childishness! What viciousness! It is Umbitt – much maligned Umbitt – and all his clever ways that does it. Only he, with all his brilliance, that Atlas of Iremongers, who by his great bravery and strength keeps us alive and safe, as hard as that is. With no asking for any gratitude, with no thought for his own self, that man, my husband and my hero, who through his labours, selflessly sacrifices himself for his own family. No matter the pain the effort causes him. No, Clod, it was not any children, it was Umbitt, only ever Umbitt!’
‘It was Umbitt,’ echoed an aunt.
‘It was Umbitt.’
‘Umbitt.’
‘Umbitt.’
‘And what does he get in return for all his great hard work?’
‘Umbitt.’
‘Umbitt.’
All the echoes of ‘Umbitt’ came from the leather people all about.
‘Rank ingratitude!’
‘Only Umbitt?’ I said. ‘What lies! How can you tell such lies?’
‘Umbitt.’
‘Umbitt.’
‘Only and ever Umbitt. And for that, and for saving children, we are repaid by dirty stories, cruel fairy tales, ugly rumours. Which some of his own flesh, his own grandson, decides to believe!’
‘Shocking.’
‘Distasteful.’
‘Vinegar for blood.’
‘I don’t believe you, Granny, not for a moment. I think you hurt those children.’
‘Upon my own ancient heart,’ said Granny, pressing one of her tiny aged hands to her chest and clinking her pearls in the process. ‘Every word I said is all true. These are but dolls, filled with Lungdon rubbish, animated by the genius of your poor grandfather!’
‘Lucy said – and the Tailor – you took their souls from them …’
‘He does not believe us! Even now!’
‘No, Granny, I cannot believe you, I shall not.’
‘What vile and dirty thoughts must fill your swollen head, child.’
‘Better we had died back there in Foulsham.’
‘What ugliness must dwell inside you.’
‘Burnt for our cruelty.’
‘Twisting you.’
‘Turning you.’
‘Such monsters of people.’
‘Against your own kind, your own blood.’
‘Yes, yes, I do stand against my own blood!’
‘Go then, Clod,’ said Granny, so upset now. ‘Go, I release you, go out into Lungdon, find your own way, I shall hold you back no longer. Live amongst whoever you may, take your own crooked path. I’ve done with you. I cannot have such a Joodis Iremonger around my ailing bosom, near my wilting heart, you’ll quite kill me. No, no, Clod, choose this moment – stay here with those that try, day and night, to love you, or go, be gone, thrust forever from our care and keeping. Piggott!’ she cried, pulling the bell cord. ‘Fetch the wretch some shoes!’ Then turning back to me she spat, ‘Take your carcass away from this,’ she indicated her heart, ‘forever!’
She stood up and pointed dramatically to the door, and as she did so, all the leather people stood up and likewise pointed at the door.
‘Sit down will you!’ she said and all the leathers sat down.
‘Sit.’
‘Sit.’
‘Sit,’ they mumbled.
Piggott entered holding a pair of gentlemen’s black lace-up shoes. She looked even more put out than before. ‘My lady.’
‘What do you want?’ cried Granny.
‘You called me, my lady. Shoes.’
‘Oh yes, so I did; in my fury I forgot.’
‘There is something else, my lady.’
‘What else, Piggott? I am most preoccupied.’
Piggott whispered into my grandmother’s ears.
‘I don’t care to know about any Iremonger called Mary Staggs.’
More whispering.
‘What? How?’
Whispering.
‘Clod?’
Whispering.
‘Phidias Collins?’
Yet more.
‘In the flesh?’
Yet more.
‘Downstairs? What, now?’
Yet more.
‘Get it out!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Into the city!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Lose it fast!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Disgusting!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘And what was the servant’s name, did you say?’
‘Mary Staggs, my lady.’
‘Rat her.’
‘My lady?’
‘Rat her now!’
‘If you’re sure, my lady.’
‘And keep her ratted!’
‘Of course I’m sure!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Do it, Piggott, and get beyond my sighting!’
‘Yes, my lady.’
The unhappy housekeeper had scarce left the room when Granny erupted a single syllable, launched from her in both fury and misery, ‘CLOD!’
‘Clod.’
‘Clod.’
‘Clod,’ the leathers echoed.
But then Granny sat down, panting for breath. It was a terrible sight.
‘Oh Ayris, oh daughter,’ she wailed, real tears coming down her face, ‘better that you died! Better that you left us before ever you could see this canker child!’
‘What have I done now, Granny?’
‘You detest us!’
‘Yes, Granny, I think I do.’
‘You despise us.’
‘Yes I do, Granny, for you have done such terrible things.’
‘On the subject of Foulsham children, Clodius Iremonger, let me promise you with every drop of my still pumping blood: you were misled.’
‘Was I, Granny?’
‘You were!’ she cried and indeed she sounded so miserable.
‘Truly, Granny. How can I believe you?’
‘I do swear it, Clod. On all that I have ever loved. On your own dead mother! Lies and rumours! Horrible whisperings. We are a fine people. We are Iremongers, does that mean nothing to you?’ How she sobbed, my grandmother. It was a terrible sight.
‘Not nothing, Granny, oh Granny … I am sorry … I don’t know what to think … I …’
‘You are sorry?’ she said, sitting up and seizing my words.
‘I am very miserable.’
‘You are sorry!’ she said, almost cheerfully. ‘He is sorry!’ she called to all the ladies thereabouts.
‘That’s nice.’
‘I should think so.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry,’ mumbled the leathers.
‘How right that he’s sorry.’
‘So nicely done.’
‘A good child …’
‘Always comes home in the end.’
‘Always licks his spoon clean.’
‘And is grateful.’
‘He said sorry,’ repeated Granny. ‘Oh Ayris, I can almost see your face upon his. As if she’s back again, beside me. He said sorry!’
The leathers all nodded their heads too.
‘Well Granny, that is, I do not think that Lucy could have told me such lies, there is truth there …’
‘Kiss me child, kiss me and make up.’
Such silence in the room then, all those women looking at me.
‘Kiss me, kiss your granny, and all shall be forgotten.’
I stood there, helpless, I cannot honestly say what I might have done, whether I should have kissed the old lady. She ever had such a hold upon me, and perhaps I had even started to advance a step or two, but then, only then, the front door was opened, and people were running into the drawing room, Moorcus leading them.
‘Timfy!’ he bellowed. ‘Oh, Granny! It’s Timfy! Uncle Timfy!’
‘What,’ said Granny, ‘about Timfy?’
‘He’s been got, Granny. He’s been took. He’s been taken. Oh Granny, the police, they took him down. Oh Granny, they followed him, they caught wind of him and pursued him through the streets, and he tried to call out, he tried to blow on his whistle to get help, but the whistle not working he could not do it. Oh terrible! Terrible, Granny. It is the worst thing.’
‘Timfy, our House Uncle, our blood, our child!’ screamed Granny.
‘Timfy, our brother?’ said Idwid, at the door now.
‘Timfy,’ said Moorcus. ‘Taken away by the police!’
All the dummies stood up.
‘Timfy,’ they mumbled.
‘Timfy.’
‘Timfy.’
‘Oh!’ cried Granny. ‘Then we are discovered!’