‘Now, Clod,’ said Idwid to me in the morning room; I had been most specifically summoned by the grieving uncle, ‘we are to change our dwelling.’
He was all dressed up in strange red clothes, some sort of military uniform.
‘I,’ said Idwid, ‘am a Chelsea Pensioner. This is what an ancient soldier looks like when he’s a charity case. Quite smart aren’t I!’
‘Yes Uncle, you are indeed.’
‘And, Clod, we have clothes for you – you shall be quite the gentleman. You may put these on when the time is come, and it is coming, it is fast coming.’
He handed me a large fine overcoat with a fur collar and a very tall top hat. It took me a moment to understand that we were alone in the room for all the others were leather people quietly sitting or standing here and there.
‘Now, Clodling, you are to be a young gentleman in mourning, that’s your cover. Here now is a black armband. That you must wear on your left arm. And you see, you do see where I feel, this particular wide band around your hat, that is what they do in mourning in this Lungdonland, for they are all in mourning you see, all in a grief for Victoria’s Albert, him that’s been rotting now for all of fifteen years, still, still they do blub so! You being such a sorrowful fellow we thought the outfit should fit you perfect.’
‘I am sorry about Uncle Timfy,’ I said. ‘I am sorry for your loss, Uncle.’
‘You’re sorry!’ spat Idwid, of a sudden flipped into a fury. ‘What am I to do with your “sorry”, wet little creature that it is? I couldn’t give a premature rat for your sorry, I don’t give a fly’s poo for your sorry. I shouldn’t give a flea’s tit for it. What am I to do with such a thing? I’ve a good mind to take Geraldine here,’ he said, but then he stopped, ‘but I don’t have her right now. Such days! People not to be trusted. My Geraldine!’
Indeed I noticed then that I had not heard her in the room.
‘If I had her,’ he said sadly, ‘I might bury her deep in your head. What do you say to that?’
‘On the whole, Uncle, I should rather you didn’t.’
‘Well then, have a care. I miss her so.’
Silence then, but for the gentle breathing of various leather people sat about us. The morning room must have been the only peaceful room in the house; elsewhere all was in a panic, but here all was quiet and docile amongst the leathers, who would of an occasion look up to one or the other of us and smile vaguely before their false faces lost the smile again and resumed their terrible and habitual blankness.
‘We will not die,’ said Idwid. ‘Not this family.’
I said nothing.
His moon head tilted in its particular way, a long grin came to the white face. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘since we are to move on, the groundwork must be laid, before we are able to come together again, after two nights of hiding. Before we all gather upon Westminster Bridge.’
‘And what then, Uncle?’
‘Oh fireworks, I should think. And celebrations!’
‘What ever shall we do, Uncle?’
‘First all things must be readied for the trip. Now then, Clod, I don’t know why I do it, for I’m certain you don’t deserve it, but I mean to introduce you to someone. Someone I’m particular to, someone most particular to me, can you guess who it is?’
‘No, indeed, sir.’
‘Well heavens, man, who do you think?’
‘I cannot guess, Uncle, I do not know.’
‘Why my wife, man! My own Ifful woman.’
‘I never knew that there was such a person.’
‘Not everyone does so advertise his love and moan and groan, and whimper it from every door; not every person I say ruins the furniture on account of a little lost love! As if his heart has more feeling than any other!’
‘Please, Uncle, I did not ask for this.’
‘Well, duck, tuck in, for there’s more coming. I mean to bash your head about until you come out Iremonger at last.’
‘I’ll bootstrap you back to life and sense!’
‘You’ll be hurt in the process I dare say, I will no longer be bent over anyone’s knee. I am quite done with that. I’ve grown talents of my own.’
‘Well well, enough then, Clod. Perhaps I am a little strong of mind, I’m in a passion I do admit: I’ve lost a brother and given Geraldine over for safe keeping and grief must have its privilege.’
‘Yes, sir, as I said, I am sorry.’
Uncle Idwid looked furious for a moment but seemed then to swallow down his mood and to come up smiling, for his head tilted again and his horrible grin returned.
‘Well, Clod, we were talking of love.’
‘You were, Uncle. It was your subject.’
‘Well then, I have loved too! There: how’s that for a statement?’
‘It is indeed news to me.’
‘I am married, hooked, lined and sinkered, I’ve a ball and chain all of my own. A census concerning my bed: there’s two in it!’
‘I never even knew that I had such an aunt.’
‘Well, of course you didn’t, my lad, my chick. But indeed, I am most wedded!
‘My wifey. My Ifful, offal of joy! If you’d only behaved yourself, Clod, and come to work in Foulsham when you’d first been trousered, then you should have lived alongside us, as a lodger in our apartments in Bayleaf House. And now those fair rooms, our home, our piece of the world, are burst asunder, such warm rooms as they were, being directly connected to one of the great smoke stacks. Come now, Ifful my only, come down will you and meet young Clod. For she’s been here about us all along, but does come over shy so often! Come Ifful, come down I say! Cooo-eeeee!’
There was a shifting then, I could not comprehend where precisely at first, but then in a great gush of soot a figure stood in the fireplace, actually in the hearth, a person descended from the chimney flue. When the black had cleared a little I saw a person, a small, very dark person, most begrimed and sooted.
‘Hullo, Idwid.’
‘Hullo to you, Ifful.’
They bowed to one another and grinned widely. And some of the leathers likewise bowed too.
‘This is Clod, dear.’
‘So this is Clod, is it?’
She was a small, sooty woman, smaller yet than Idwid, but with a very wide mouth, a huger grin than ever his was, which I had not before that moment conceived entirely probable. She wore the sooting and chimney dusting about her like a thick layer of cloth, like a veil upon her face and body which only her whiter teeth and eyes managed to penetrate.
‘I say, hullo Aunt,’ I ventured. ‘I am right glad to meet you.’
‘Even this is Clod?’ she said again.
‘It is, my dearest, my darkness, my depth.’
‘He doesn’t look very much.’
‘No, no I suppose he don’t. But he is very much nevertheless.’
‘Are you the one to save us?’
‘Now, Ifful, he’s not been …’
‘Save you? Save you?’ I asked. ‘What ever can you mean?’
‘He’s but a thin fog,’ said Aunt Ifful. ‘What can he do?’
‘Much,’ said Idwid.
‘I can hear,’ I said, for I was not without pride in my small doings and I did not like the tone from this newly declared aunt who lived up chimneys, listening to people’s conversations. ‘I can hear, I can hear better than Uncle Idwid, I can move things, any things, and I can break things, I blister wallpaper, and foul windows, I char rooms, I can do much and more by the day, I’ll pick up London and turn it upside down I shouldn’t be much surprised, and you, you, you little woman, what are you to me? I’m the Ire of Iremonger!’
They both tilted their heads towards me then, in very similar ways.
‘Thinks a lot of himself, don’t he?’ said Ifful.
‘Does rather, on the whole,’ said Idwid.
‘Should be taught some manners, if only there were time.’
‘Yes indeed, my love, my lovely lungs, he should be upturned and dunked in brackish water, for long minutes at a time.’
‘I should say.’
‘And yet there is not, as you say, time.’
‘The new generation: they do not know their place, no table manners, elbows in the way, spots and grease. No class.’
‘And you, and you!’ I said for I was done with my family’s endless correcting. ‘What is it that you can do that makes you so bold with Clod, Clod the furniture mover!’
‘Why then, dear Ifful,’ said Idwid, bristling, ‘ever my comfort, my night blanket, my blackness, my darker than death, give a little exhibition, shan’t you?’
‘Blot him out, dear!’
Then my Aunt Ifful, grinning as wide as my Uncle Idwid, suddenly grinned wider and wider yet: I have never seen such an enormous mouth, such a gob that might eat any size of things, it stretched and stretched and did verily meet from ear to ear. Then Ifful, with her hugest cake hole, put back her head and her whole jaw seemed to snap back, like I’ve heard that certain snakes are able when they wish to consume something large. I saw my little aunt dislocate her own jaw, and then – she being smaller than me – I looked over her and could see the awful sinkhole of her throat, I could look from the rampart walls of her wide-open teeth, deep down into the view of the dark depths of Idwid’s Ifful, and it was a terrible thing. I feared I may even tumble in myself. But that’s nothing yet because then from Ifful’s very open maw, from somewhere deep beneath her innards came up something black, like some small toad escaping but then it grew and grew, it curled and shifted around until it was bigger than her hole, bigger than her wide open mouth, bigger yet than her head, more than her body soon: a blackness, a great ever-swelling blackness, blacker than black, darker than darkest carbon or ebony or even licorice, darker than the most lightless of places, and this deep black of her she spread out from her mouth further and further by horrible flicks of her dark tongue. Thick, thick clouds, coming closer and closer to me, hemming me in, snuffing me out. Like something bad, terrible bad, coming over you, filling up all the room, till it covered all, and feeling it now reach my skin, it was like something black and wet creeping over me, and then it was all about me, over my face and every part of me and I could see nothing. No hint of light, no different shades of darkness, just black, black blackness everywhere, like all light and all colour, like all life had been drowned out for evermore.
And yet I breathed still.
And yet I was still there, still even in that room, though crowded so with blackest night. I put my hands out to try and hold onto something in all that blackness and my hand found a head and a face.
‘Is that you, Uncle?’ I asked. ‘Is that your face I’m touching?’
‘No, Clod, no, my face is quite unmolested. It must be the face of someone other.’
‘A leather!’ I cried and sprung back.
‘Don’t get them excited, Clod, they’re so hard to calm once they’re excited.’
‘Gone dark,’ mumbled a leather.
‘Dark.’
‘Dark.’
‘Dark.’
‘Oh Uncle,’ I gasped, ‘what is this sudden and descending night?’
‘Why, lad so bold, it’s only Ifful, my lady life, little Ifful all on her own.’
‘Whatever did she do, and may she please kindly undo it right soon?’
‘Oh in good time, Clod. Now you see what I see always, this no-ness, how do you find it?’
‘Most uncomfortable, most uncomfitting.’
‘May light come back? Why does she blacken so?’
‘Oh, for myself, I do love it, to get a little washed in the breath of Ifful. ’Tis such a treat for me, ’tis loving fair enough; great blanketing night, with a little touch of gingivitis. Why, Clod, it’s what she does, and does so well. She is my deadly nightshade, she is my Ifful lovelungs. It is her that keeps the day out of the day, that lengthens the night, ’tis her, ’tis only her with a little help from the still-smouldering fire of Foulsham and from the dirty dark breath of Lungdon itself.’
‘She makes the night?’
‘That’s it! She’s getting us ready to escape so that none may see us out on Lungdon streets. That’s why she’s been up the chimney. That’s my Ifful, she was born with three lungs: two to be a person; one, much larger, to blacken and soot with. She hates the day, and keeps all night. Oh she does loathe the sun so, and so she puts it out! And I, being blind, am most indifferent to it myself.’
‘Truly, Uncle, it is quite a thing to do, to kill the sun.’
‘Well, we are talented, we Iremongers! We are such a people!’
‘Yes, yes! I do think we are.’
‘Now he comes home! We are Iremongers, Clod!’
‘Yes,’ I whispered, ‘yes there’s no doubting of that.’
‘It was my Ifful that was the inspiration for the leather populace.’
‘It was Ifful that did it, back in Bayleaf House?’
‘She was the inspiration with her dark, dark air.’
‘Oh she was the one, she did it!’
‘There never was such a talented people, Clod, as we Iremongers. Never such ones for doing things. How would it be then, Clod, if we were to be extinguished, if this little blackness conjured by my little woman were to be descended upon us for always and that thereafter there never should be Iremonger no more?’
‘It would, Uncle,’ I said, so lost in that darkness absolute, darkness like deep burial, buried deep and yet still alive, ‘it would be most terrible.’
‘Good, my lad! You are coming to see a little clearer now!’
‘Uncle, I am fearful.’
‘You should be, Clod, they’ll murder us if we’re not smart. They’re already at it. And not all of us are like to survive this next removal; they are upon us, and will take us down bit by bit. Which Iremonger shall die this night?’
‘Will we die, even tonight?’
‘Some of us shall, they are that set upon it!’
‘They are so cruel!’
‘Yes! Oh yes, you must strike at them, Clod, and kill them here and there. You’ll not let them murder us, shall you?’
‘No, well, no, Uncle, I should not want them to.’
‘And there’s music to my all-hearing ears! So get you ready, Clodius Iremonger. Two nights is all you have! Now, Ifful, business done, pack away the night a little won’t you, love? So that the boy may dress himself for to step upon Lungdon and so feel it under his heels.’
Aunt Ifful seemed to breathe in then, and to put the night back up deep inside her, and soon it was dark but a much lighter darkness, and Ifful lit a gas lamp. There she was in the centre of the room, there was Uncle by her side. The leathers were all in their former places but were moving their heads a little from side to side, as if they were looking for something.
‘Well done, my bucket of blackness, ta and ta and ta again!’
‘That, nephew,’ she said, the thick blackness all swallowed away, with a little burp in conclusion like a sudden gust of fog, ‘that is what I do. I done it to you once before now too – I was the black smoke that led you down and down in Bayleaf House, the thick black smoke that saved you and guided you to the train.’
‘I am impressed, Aunt, that was … very something!’
‘Yes, I do do the night well, though it can leave one a little out of breath. I must call on the city Lungdon now after my lungs have dunged on it.’
‘We shall be sending you out very soon, Ifful.’
‘Yes, to darken the path further. So that we may walk unseen. Is all ready?’
‘Let us hope, Clod, that we are not too diminished with this outing.’
A knocking on the drawing-room door.
‘Come then Clod, put on hat and coat, come now tread on, be my eyes a little, lead me, child.’
We went then into the hall, where my family were ready; so many of us, all lined up the stairway, all ready, family and servants, all nervous and whispering: soon, soon, it must be soon. So many of us holding cardboard parcels, suitcases, satchels, small trunks. But none holding their birth objects, no sounds from them, no names. How underdressed they all seemed. Aunt Rosamud, no doorhandle in hand, came blurting forward.
‘Oh Idwid, there you are, dear fellow,’ she wept. ‘You’ll let me keep him, won’t you? You won’t have Binadit left here all alone?’
‘Should never have brought him here,’ some aunt called from further back.
‘Not safe to move him now.’
‘He’ll have us drowned dead.’
‘He’s my son, my own son!’ called Rosamud.
‘You threw him out – best thing you ever did!’
‘Leave him behind!’
‘Lose him.’
‘He’s nothing to us.’
‘You monsters!’ cried Rosamud, striking around willy-nilly. ‘You’ll murder me first! Cowards! Cripples!’
She swung out and in response many of the Iremonger aunts hit back at her, kicked her and cursed and caused a general horrible wailing of womankind.
‘Ordure! Ordure! I will have ordure!’ came the very special Iremonger cry, delivered only on most particular occasions, and this being heard and coming from Idwid, caused a general quietening up and down the lines. ‘Hush, hush, my lovelies, we are a family, are we not, we are a people, a fine people, we are not animals. Let us remember ourselves.’
A general calming among the frocks.
‘Now, now, ladies, most beloved sex, come, there is no need for this. All will be well, all of us, every last Iremonger shall be counted out and looked after, there’s no need to fear, all is safe as louses. Now, concerning young master Binadit …’
‘My son, he is my son!’
‘Yes, yes, so he is. Congratulations once again! But your loving son does so pull all with him, so very popular he is with all the bits, such a cumbersome fellow, all in all, it must be said though. Best we leave him here for now.’
‘NO! NO!’
‘Rosamud, I will not have you shrieking!’ snapped Idwid. ‘Listen, and be sensible. If he comes along with us now then he’ll give us all away. Let us leave him here …’
‘MY BIN!’
‘Just for a little. Then when all is safe we shall come and find him again.’
‘You’re leaving him to be murdered!’
‘No, no, Muddy lady, listen to me. He’s safer here than ever he’ll be out on the streets. Let us keep him here a while where he is safest, he shall drown out there, the poor lad. Consider, they may never find this house, and even if they do, there’s every chance they’ll not look down there for him in the deepest cellar, besides which he is most able to disguise himself. He’s a very capable young man, your own son is, remember how he survived on his own for years? He was safer that way and shall be again. It is his family who endangers him; let him alone a little, just a little.’
‘It’s all because of your brother Timfy,’ wept Rosamud.
‘Tattletale Timfy telling on us,’ took up another aunt.
‘Betraying us all,’ came one more.
‘Now, now, ladies, we do not know that Timfy has told.’
A general muttering of misery from the aunts and cousins, even uncles, spitting out Timfy’s name.
‘Now, let us speak quietly,’ cooed Idwid. ‘Do attend and wait your turn. Umbitt and Omaball Oliff are already gone and with them the senior servants and governors and Iremongers of great import and all our birth objects in safety. Now that some decent time has passed between their leaving, now, I say, now it is time for others of us to be off and safe. It is all just a precaution, my dear ones, just in case.’
‘In case your brother squeals, you mean.’
‘Indeed, yes, just in case.’
‘Let us on then!’
‘First shall be all the adults remaining and the youngest in their care, and with them their servants, and then, a little after, it is time for the oldest children Iremonger, those who are our swiftest and sharpest. Unry and Otta are abroad and they do watch this street with great caution. When the word is given, then we shall be from here and walk like we are true Lungdoners out into the night. So now come forward my officers from Foulsham, then behind them be ready the House Aunts and Uncles, then all other Iremongers in trousers and dresses, then the children at the back, all the pretty children, all those rosy cheeks. Now, now, darlings one and all, my little blood dumplings, we must wait a little, and in good cheer. Wait, only wait for the word. If we all rush out together we shall make a great spectacle of it. Safer to trickle, a swift trickle, bit by bit by bit all in different ways. Scattershot us Iremongers, hither and thither and in between.’
So did we wait all close and clammy and clammed in, cousins with cousins, aunts breathing uncles and uncles aunts, all so thick and huddled together listening to the drum-drum-drumitty-drum of our fearing hearts, breathing, breathing in the dark.
‘How much longer?’
‘Hush now.’
‘We’re rats in a trap.’
‘Hushabye.’
‘We shall all suffocate in one another.’
‘Twinkle, twinkle, my fat hen,’ whispered Idwid, an old Iremonger nursery rhyme.
‘We’ll drown here amongst ourselves.’
‘Stayed nice and cosy in his pen.’
‘They’ll set fire to the building and all shall perish!’
‘When the fox came for to eat.’
‘We are done for.’
‘Our hen ate fox from head to feet.’
‘I need to get out.’
‘Need to breathe!’
At last there came a faint scratching from the door. It was opened a crack and a huge fat rat tumbled in, a brass ring around its neck. The rat, coughing, tugged the ring free and then, spinning, tossing and looking like it was in horrible pain, the creature shifted and tumbled, grew and lurched itself upwards and came out at last my shifting Cousin Otta.
‘Well girl, keen blood, what’s the news?’ spilled Idwid.
‘Time to get us gone, swift as cholera. They’re coming, they’re coming for us. I found two leathermen gutted down the road. They’re coming, coming ever closer, time to shift!’
What screams followed the news.
‘Ordure! Ordure!’
‘Where’s Unry?’
‘Keep down your spleens!’ called Aliver.
‘He’s about three streets away, he’s watching the coppers. There’s more and more of them coming in, trying to surround us we reckon, not sure where they’re all coming from. Some in uniforms, some in plain clothes. I think they’ve smelt us. Coming together, getting closer, ever closer I say! You must get out!’ cried Otta.
‘All right, Otta, for this many thanks, get you gone.’
All panic then, all screams, and calling back for order and order, each to their places.
‘Let us get at the run!’ said Idwid. ‘We meet again two mornings’ time. On the eighth of February 1876 that is, on Westminster Bridge. Gather there all of you that may, that is our grouping come together then. Repeat it. When do we meet?’
‘Two mornings’ time.’
‘Eighth of February.’
‘1876.’
‘But where, where my pasties?’
‘Westminster Bridge.’
‘Yes, yes, yes again. At eight of the clock.’
‘But what shall we do now?’
‘Where shall we go?’
‘Help! Help us!’
‘No time! No time, my lovelies, my sweet jellies!’ yelled Idwid. ‘No time for that now. You’re Iremongers, you are to a man, so act Iremonger, be strong and be brave. Be of Lungdon hue, fit in, sink in, grow into Lungdon people, be invisible. Use your cleverness, use your dirty magic, destroy them, bring them down, make them cry out. For two more nights, two nights alone, we go our separate ways and then, when all is done and ready, we come back together in a rash of great blackness. Filled with a blossoming of blood, we collect, we Iremongers, we collect our dues, our debts, our deaths on Westminster Bridge. There to Iremonger itch and irritate, there to bite and burst. Go then, my blessings on you. All be safe, my children! Come, Gorrild underling, get me moving; come Ifful. Pinalippy, are you all primed?’
‘Yes, Uncle!’ called Pinalippy.
‘You know your place I believe?’
‘Yes, Uncle, surely!’
‘Then good luck to you. Moorcus, you are in charge now, you and your prefects … I do mean officers. And when you have dispersed all, look to your duties and to Clod and Pinalippy.’
‘We are most ready and eager!’ answered Moorcus, dressed for the occasion in the uniform of a London firefighter.
Such a rushing of Iremonger officers, all dressed like Idwid, all gathering around him.
‘Be good, my boy,’ Idwid said to me. ‘You’re an Iremonger, you are.’ He slapped me hard around the face. ‘Use your ears! Keep Pinalippy close by! Look after each other.’
And Ifful on her way out stamped hard upon my feet. ‘Earn your blood!’
They were outside.
‘All now be safe, my children! Flee! Flee! Flee for your lives!’
Now there was such light gone from the corridor – the more senior uncles and aunts having taken what lights, lanterns, shielded torches they had for themselves – and we were left in a general panic with only a few candles lit betwixt us.
Then Moorcus and his fellow officers, Stunly and Duvit, let all the remaining adults out, some taking the youngest children with them, and among them went Rosamud weeping for her son, but pulled onwards by some fellow aunts. And where was Rippit in all the turmoil? I had not seen him, I supposed he must have gone away with Grandfather, and I was not sorry at that. And so there were only we older children left then. There was Bornobby, there was Foy still holding on to her great ten-pound weight, her birth object, which must have been so heavy it had not been taken away. There were Pool and Theeby, holding hands. There was Ormily, and with her a sorry grouping all huddled around. I knew those ones, those were all lost Tummis’s sibs, there was Gorrild and Monnie, Ugh, Flip and Neg. Like seeing Tummis’s face rearranged on different shoulders, young and older. Dear Tummis’s people.
Bottleneck of the older Iremonger children, not quite adult yet, nor entirely children either, all in a terror.
‘Quiet, you scum!’ shrieked Moorcus. ‘Quiet or I’ll shut you up for good and all.’
He had two pistols out and was waving them around, pointing them at all the children, enjoying himself.
‘May I have my gun back, Moorcus?’ asked Duvit. ‘It was supplied to me.’
‘I shall keep it for you. Be quiet will you!’
‘I should like a gun myself,’ said Stunly.
‘Well you can’t,’ said Moorcus. ‘There’s hardly enough to go around, and I must be properly armed, the better to instruct my family! I could shoot you, I could very well. I’ve half a mind to do it. Just give me a quarter of an excuse and I’ll see your brains on the wallpaper. No one to stop me now, is there? Just me – who’s to tell? So shut right up and listen hard!’
That quietened all. Then Moorcus, pointing one at a time – indicating a person by shaking a pistol in their direction – let the cousins out into the night, one by one. There went Pool and Theeby, off went Ormily and her crew, bye to Foy and to Bornobby, off went Muckliss and Orry and Itchul and Orman and Ayte and Mirk and Oizy and Eeza and Iburta and Spitt, but still Pinalippy and I had not been called. There were ever less and less of us there. When Moorcus’s own younger brothers Doorcus and Floorcus were called out he thumped them hard in the chest before sending them off. It was after they had gone that he whispered something to his fellow officers, Stunly and Duvit.
‘Are you sure, Moorcus?’
‘Do it, Duvit, move yourself.’
‘Really, Moorcus,’ said Stunly, ‘must we?’
‘You must, lily-livered, it’s an order all right, I am the highest ranking officer here, now get to it.’
As more cousins were let out, Stunly and Duvit went into the drawing room. I couldn’t think what they were doing in there until there was a general sound of upheaval and other voices came talking.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘Get up, get going, you horrid sacks, shift yourselves!’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘What?’
Stunly and Duvit were upsetting the remaining leather people, they were waking them, pushing them, herding them. Soon enough the prefects had seven or eight of them out into the hallway.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘What?’ they kept saying.
‘Listen up, you great dolls, listen to me,’ barked Moorcus.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘Be quiet, will you! Cease your whattings. Listen, I’m the boss here, I give the orders. Look at me, look at my uniform, look at my medal.’
‘Medal.’
‘Oh, medal.’
‘Nice medal.’
‘Look at my shiny hat!’
‘Hat.’
‘Hat.’
‘Shiny hat.’
‘Hello, sir, sir with medal, I’m Irene Tintype, how do you do?’ This came from a young girl leather.
‘I’m Arthur Pencase.’
‘I’m Jocelyn Bookplate.’
‘Shut your bloody traps, or I shall shut them for you. Permanently. Now, listen will you, you new people, I don’t care an empty wallet for your names, I’ve no use for them. You’re only half done, aren’t you, in all the rush? Not enough breath put inside you; you’re not quite fully cooked. Still, you must do. Listen now, and listen good, I’m going out now with my friends here, and with this fool I’ll acknowledge mine.’
‘So good of you, what a blessing!’ said with all sourness Rowland Cullis the Toastrack by Moorcus’s side.
‘Silence! Now people, new people, behind you in the hallways are these two cousins left. See them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘There they are now.’
‘Good, very good. It is your job to keep them here. It is your job not to let them out. Whatever they say to you, keep them in this house. I’m going out now with my people, I shall lock the door to keep you safely inside. But don’t whatever you do, don’t let them out. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘We understand.’
‘They shall stay in.’
‘With us.’
‘With us.’
‘With us.’
‘But, Moorcus!’ cried Pinalippy. ‘This was not agreed upon.’
‘Shut up, Pinalippy, or I’ll silence you now! God knows I’d like to.’
‘Yes.’
‘He would.’
‘Like it.’
‘Very much.’
‘It was agreed! You are to shelter us!’ cried Pinalippy.
‘Not any more!’ he spat. ‘Sort yourselves out!’
‘It’s murder!’ cried Pinalippy.
‘Call it any name you like: that’s the plot. Understand, you pillows! Keep this door locked!’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Very good. Goodbye then, one and all. You deserved this, Clod. I’ve been so looking forward to just such a moment. My only regret is I shan’t be here when the constabulary arrives; I’m sad to miss all your weeping. I’ll hear the gunshots most likely though, and I’ll be thinking of you, you can be quite certain of that, as you slump towards the ground, as you become dead matter one and all, heavy filth. So then, come Stunly, come Duvit, come Toastrack even. Farewell, scum! This is your end. How it fits you!’
And he slammed the door and left us locked in with the leathers.
Pinalippy was shaking me. ‘Do something!’
‘Yes of course,’ I said. ‘I think we had better move, Pinalippy, come on now, on we go.’
‘But the leathers, Clod, they shan’t let us pass.’
‘Won’t they?’
‘They have strict orders. Were you not listening to anything?’
‘Oh you mean the foul gas from Moorcus? No need to worry over that,’ I said. ‘No need at all. So much windbreaking that is.’
There was a loud whistling then beyond the house, somewhere nearby, followed by other answering whistles.
‘The constabulary,’ called Pinalippy, ‘oh they’re coming to us! Come on Clod, show some spirit.’
‘Dear Leatherpeople, excuse me,’ I said, clearing my voice. ‘I am Clod Iremonger.’
They all turned to look at me.
‘Clod?’
‘Clod?’
‘Clod. We don’t care who you are, Clod. We’ve no use for your name.’
‘You’re not to leave the house,’ one leather commanded.
‘Not to.’
‘Not to.’
‘I don’t wish to hurt you,’ I said. ‘On the whole I’d rather not.’
‘You don’t frighten us – look at you.’
‘Clod.’
‘Clod.’
‘Small fellow with a big hat. Shut up, Clod.’
They laughed then, sending their black gas thick about them.
‘Or we’ll hurt you. Clod.’
‘Hurt.’
‘Oh hurt.’
‘Step any closer, and we’ll have to hurt you, Clod.’
‘Do you see the hatstand here by the door,’ I said, ‘and this barometer?’
‘What’s that to do with anything?’
‘Clod.’
‘Clod.’
‘This about them. Watch them please – a swift exhibit, if I may.’
I closed my eyes and broke the barometer, I burst it and had it blackened up and shrivelled in a moment. I sent the hatstand up onto the ceiling and had it crawling and spread out there like ivy.
‘There then,’ I said.
‘Oh.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh.’
‘Clod.’
‘That Clod.’
‘Clod cloven foot.’
‘Clod.’
‘Clod.’
‘Now listen,’ I said, just as stern as ever I could, ‘what I did to the barometer, to the hatstand, I can do to you in a little moment. Now, dear new people, please don’t be frightened, I want you to go out into the street, out into London, for it is not safe here. I want you to be very brave. Where you hear the whistle, run towards it.’
‘Whistle.’
‘The whistle.’
‘Run to.’
‘Run whistle.’
‘But the door,’ one leather cried, ‘the door is so locked.’
‘No,’ I said, breaking the lock very swiftly with a flick of my fingers just like I’d seen Grandfather do. There was a brief clack as the lock fell upon the hallway floor. ‘No, you see, now it isn’t. Not at all. I’ve bust it. Out you go then, and do hurry over it because I shall have someone up the stairs in just a minute and the mere proximity of him and you shall cause you all to burst into … well into however many pieces you are made up of, quite a few I shouldn’t wonder. So, on the whole, I think you should run for it.’
Well then, being sensible leathers, they did.
‘Oh, Clod!’ called Pinalippy. ‘You’re marvellous!’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘not at all, my pleasure and all that.’
‘Come on then,’ said Pinalippy, ‘we must get out.’
And there to punctuate Pinalippy’s last comment came the sounding of police whistles.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘we should indeed, but not without Binadit.’
‘Binadit?’ said Pinalippy. ‘That lump, he’ll give us all away in an instant.’
‘I’m not going without Binadit,’ I said. ‘I thought I could do it. But I can’t. I find I can’t. He’s one of us after all. He’s a person too.’
‘You’ll murder me!’ she cried.
‘Not without Binadit. Can’t say I know him, can’t say I like him entirely, but you know, on balance, it is the right thing to do.’
‘All right then!’ cried Pinalippy. ‘Bring him up but be quick about it!’
I went down the stairs again, feeling my way in the dark.
‘Binadit!’ I called. ‘Binadit!’
Nothing, just darkness. I was in the kitchen then knocking into pans and the like: ‘Binadit! Binadit!’ Rats on the floor, scampering around my feet, pulling at my shoelaces, and looking up at me as if they had something they wished to say.
And at last I heard, ‘Am here. Here am!’
They’d blocked him in, piled stuff in the way. I thought it free, smashed all about me, sent all spinning. Then there was a door, a solid metal door, I twisted the handle. There he sat, the huge piece of furniture, the largest piece of Iremonger humanity: Binadit the mountain.
Fifty and more small objects pelted towards Binadit and stuck there fast.
‘Ullo. Bits,’ he said.
‘Come on, Binadit, you must come out now and be quick about it.’
‘Missus?’
‘Come on, there’s little enough time; up and out we go!’
‘Missus! Missus!’ Binadit was crying.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ said Pinalippy from the top of the stairs.
‘Where the Missus woman?’
‘I think he means Aunt Rosamud, his mother.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Pinalippy flatly. ‘They’ve all gone. We’re the last.’
‘But she asked us to take care of you,’ I said, thinking quickly. ‘She was very insistent on that.’
‘Family!’ boasted Binadit.
‘Come on, or we shall all be dead family!’ came Pinalippy, dragging us towards the door.
And then we were out. Out on the street. Out in London.
‘Oh London,’ I said.
‘Where do we go, Clod?’ asked Pinalippy.
‘Lundin,’ said Binadit.
‘Lungdon,’ corrected Pinalippy.
There was a sudden bang. That was the noise of a gun, letting off its voice, barking with its sudden anger, finding some leather no doubt. Well Clod, well, well, enough’s enough, move, shall you?
‘I know where we’re going,’ I said, for it was suddenly clear to me. ‘I know someone London.’
‘Do you, Clod?’ asked Pinalippy. ‘Truly?’
‘Clod? Clod! Your name Clod?’ said Binadit, pointing to me, as rags and newspaper and dirt down the street started tumbling towards him.
‘Yes, I’m Clod,’ I said. ‘Come, Binadit, before we can’t fit you anywhere.’ For the rubbish was all galloping towards him in a storm.
‘Clod! Clod boy. That Lucy said? Lucy?’
‘Yes, Binadit,’ I said, ‘whom Lucy talked of.’
‘Botton!’
‘Yes, she was. Yes, she was.’
‘Clod? Clod?’
‘Yes, I am Clod.’
‘Lo, Clod.’
‘Hullo, Binadit.’
‘Lucy? Lucy?’
‘I’m afraid she’s dead, Binadit.’
‘Lucy, Lucy?’
‘Yes, old fellow, I’m very much afraid so.’
‘LUCY! LUCY!’ he wailed.
‘Oh someone shut that lump up!’
‘LUCY! LUCY!’
‘Where to? Clod? Come on, we must hurry!’ cried Pinalippy. There was another shot gone off, very close too.
‘LUCY!’
‘Please, Binadit, please, please will you be quiet.’
‘Not far, not far at all.’
We were on the other side of the street by then, just in front of the house opposite us. The door was open. We went in. Closed it quietly afterwards.
‘LUCY!’
‘Sssh, please Binadit,’ I begged. ‘Please, you’ll have us all killed. And please, please stand still, we must pull some of this rubbish from you.’
‘Lucy.’
‘That’s better. Well done.’
‘Lucy.’
‘That’s it, my dear chap, we’ll Lucy together, you and I.’
‘Lucy. Benedict.’
‘Hullo,’ I whispered up the stairway. ‘Are you there, young girl? Can you help us?’
‘Lucy. Lucy.’
And from upstairs came a distant child’s call: ‘Help! Help me!’