Is (11 page)

As she stood up, Is felt again that freezing tingle somewhere inside her head, and a voice – not her own, yet present inside her – seemed to call: ‘Listen! Listen!
Can you hear me
?’

What the plague is the matter with me? Is wondered. Am I sick? Or am I going cuckoo?

5

Aunt Ishie proved to be an excellent cook. Over a fire of wood fragments she had prepared a kind of mutton hash, with cut-up potatoes in it.

‘Where do you get your meat and ’taters, Aunt?’ Is wanted to know. ‘There’s no market round here, nor nothing; you must have to go a precious long way.’

Aunt Ishie smiled her gentle inward smile and said, ‘Well, my dear, we have secret neighbours. But I will tell you about the Warren some other time.’

Grandfather Twite was now properly dressed in a black jacket, shiny with age, a waistcoat, open over a workman’s shirt of ample cut and coarse cotton, but perfectly clean, and a woollen cravat round his aged neck. He still wore the red-and-green slippers. Noticing the direction of her gaze, he said to Is:

As Aunt Ishie handed him a plate of hash, he smiled fondly at her; it was plain that the pair were deeply attached.

‘After the meal I will show you my press,’ he told Is.

‘Press, Grandpa?’

‘Your great-grandfather is a printer by profession, my love,’ explained Aunt Ishie. ‘He prints programmes, broadsheets, journals, music, ballads – anything, in fact, that people want printed. Did – can you read books, my child?’

‘Yus,’ said Is. ‘I can read. But we didn’t have much
to
read. When I lived with my sister Penny we had
The Horse Doctor’s Handbook
– that was real interesting, but tough – and
Robinson Crusoe
and
Gulliver’s Travels
and some rhymes we bought off a pedlar. But arter we read them about a hundred times, Penny used to tell me stories.’

‘Indeed?’ said Grandfather Twite. ‘Tales she invented herself? Did you enjoy them?’

‘Yus! They was prime! Penny used to tell ’em while we made the dolls – that’s how she gets a living, you see, she’s in the toy-making line – ’

‘I have sometimes thought,’ murmured Grandfather Twite, ‘that small books of tales – something to engage and occupy their thoughts – might be of solace to the children working in the mines.’

‘But you do not recollect, Papa,’ said Aunt Ishie mournfully, ‘so many of them live and work entirely in the dark.’

‘Ah yes,’ he answered after a moment. ‘Yes, I had forgotten. In the dark. I had not reflected . . .’

‘Aunt Ishie, you said – ’ put in Is, who had been thinking about the miners, ‘you said that they never comes out at
all
?’

‘It would take too long to bring them out, the overseers say. And it is not worth the expense of transporting them to and from their place of labour. And – and – ’ Aunt Ishie’s voice wavered, ‘it would only make them dissatisfied.’

‘But they could have a light at night, when they’re not working, to read by?’

‘Many are working at night – on shifts, you know. And the more lights they have, the more danger of fire. So – except when it is absolutely necessary – they have no light.’

‘Always in the dark –
Jay
!’ said Is, and ate in silence for a while.

After the meal Grandfather Twite showed her his printing press. It was in the cellar, down a flight of stone steps, under the kitchen: a massive piece of machinery on a stone table, with an upright frame like a house over it, and a long iron handle, and a great screw on top.

‘That’s the bar that pulls the press down with the paper in it on to the bed of type. Weighs a hundred and forty pounds, it does,’ said old Mr Twite. ‘Excellent for the muscles!’ And he held out a stringy old arm like a steel cable.

Bales of clean paper lay on the floor; newly-printed sheets hung from clothes-pegs, drying on the walls. Dozens of boxes held little metal letters, all back to front.

‘Grandpa,’ said Is, ‘don’t you ever plan to stop workin’?’

‘Why should I, my duck? If work is what I enjoy?

Guess what I am.’

‘A book,’ said Is, after some thought.

‘Right. You and I’ll get on if you can guess riddles. I’m always putting them to Roy – your uncle – and he can’t guess a riddle to save his life. Makes him mad as a weaver – poor old Gold Kingy.’

Old Mr Twite grinned, pulling down the heavy bar of the press. He was engaged in printing a poster. ‘It’s to pin up on the doors of inns,’ he told Is.

‘WANTED!’ it said in large letters. ‘VOLUNTEERS FOR THE HOLDERNESSE MILITIA! DEFEND YOUR NATIVE LAND! STRONG BRAVE YOUNG MEN REQUIRED. NOW IS THE MOMENT TO APPLY! SIGN UP WITHOUT DELAY! SIGN TODAY!’

And there was a picture of a strong brave young man waving a bayonet.

‘What’s militia?’ asked Is.

‘An armed troop, an army. Your Uncle Roy is afraid that King Richard may send troops from the south to try and recapture the lands up here that have been lost to him. – Indeed it seems quite likely that he may do so.’

‘How did it happen?’ asked Is. ‘
Why
did the country split up?’

‘It all began over football.’

‘
Football?
’

‘There were two Football Unions – one northern, one southern. And they couldn’t agree which should be the superior one.’

‘Did it matter?’

‘To them it did. And your Uncle Roy – who is quite a clever fellow in his way, it must be said – egged them on to dispute because he could see that if the north broke loose, he could assume the leadership in this region. And the north is the richer part of the land – with the coal, and the mills, and the foundries. But now your Uncle Roy wants the south too.’

‘Why? If the north is richer?’

‘He needs more customers to buy his goods. So he is telling everybody that King Richard will invade us, and that we must stop him by invading the south first.’

‘Well, I don’t think he will; that ain’t a bit likely,’ said Is slowly, recalling .the tired, sad-faced man in Mr Greenaway’s warehouse. ‘The poor cove has too many other troubles. His queen died, you know, and there was the Chinese wars – and his boy run off – ’

Then she bit her lip, wondering if it had been unwise to let fall that piece of information. But, after all, Grandfather Twite was a decent, sensible old boy, and kind, too . . .

‘The king’s son ran off? Was that a recent occurrence? How old is the boy?’

‘I dunno. It’s best not to talk about it,’ said Is. ‘Don’t tell anybody, please, Grandpa.’

‘Whom should I tell, my child?’

He flung a scrumpled bundle of ink-smeared sheets into a large waste-hamper that stood by the wall. The unsteady basket fell over on its side, disgorging a whole mass of rubbish and a skinny, moulting, black-and-white cat with battle-scarred ears, who growled loudly at having his rest disturbed and, ignoring Is, went sulkily off upstairs.

‘That’s Montrose,’ said old Mr Twite, packing the rubbish back into the basket. ‘It’s no use, he won’t speak to you. He barely speaks to me. But then, he is almost as old as I am, in cat years.

Not that Montrose
ever
comes when he is called. Where were we, now? Ah yes, you were going to tell me some of your sister Penelope’s tales.’

‘Was I?’

‘Certainly you were.’

And he listened attentively while Is related the one about the queen whose hair screamed at her, and the mystery of the rocking donkey, and the curious affair of the leg full of rubies.

‘Hmnn. I see that my grandson Abednego or Desmond – scoundrel though he undoubtedly was – at least passed on an inventive faculty to his progeny,’ he murmured, as he absently initiated Is into the skill of picking up the back-to-front letters with a pair of tweezers, and packing them into a case that he called a stick. He showed her how to ram the press-handle down in order to press the message on to the prepared paper.

‘Croopus, Grandpa, you really could print a book of stories on this!’

‘No reason why not,’ he answered sombrely, ‘but, as Ishie says, who would read them? Now, riddles!’ He picked up his candle, declaiming, ‘In a white petticoat, with a red nose, the longer she stands, the shorter she grows!’ and moved to the far end of the cellar. Here stood a quantity of large earthenware vats, stone jars, wooden kegs, firkins and puncheons, which appeared to be full of liquor in various stages of preparation. Some of them bubbled gently; thick oily liquids trickled at a slow pace down through glass tubes, bubbles rushed upwards through other pipes, and then, cooling again, dripped down to be collected in stoppered flasks.

There was a warm, yeasty smell of brewing, much more welcome than the sharp odour of burnt milk which hung over the whole of Blastburn and even crept into every corner of the rooms upstairs.

‘What a deal o’ toddy!’ said Is, looking round.

‘Distilling is my hobby,’ explained Grandpa Twite. ‘Alcoholic drink is
very
bad for you, and I hardly
ever
touch it myself; but, it is my hobby to make it.’

‘So who drinks it? Aunt Ishie? The Reverend?’

‘Bless me, no! Various people, at various times,’ he answered vaguely, and repeated for the third time, ‘Making it is just a little hobby of mine.’

‘My dad used to get flaming drunk,’ said Is. ‘And then he’d clobber me.’

‘Disgraceful,’ said old Mr Twite. ‘It is as well he – ’

Aunt Ishie called down the cellar stair’s. Her voice was raised, as if in stress or annoyance.

‘Father! Your grandson Roy is here to see you!’

‘Oh, perdition it. I wish my grandson Roy were at the bottom of the Red Sea!’ muttered the old man, beginning to climb the cellar stair.

Is could hear her Uncle Roy’s loud voice, and his loud rattling laugh, long before she saw him – it seemed to fill the whole kitchen, thundering and booming, echoing from one wall to the other. She was quite startled when she came in sight of Roy: he hardly seemed big enough to account for such a row. Though short, he was thick and stocky, grey-haired and whiskered. His face, round and red, had a blob of nose in the middle. Two pale, close-set blue eyes fastened at once on Is and studied her sharply. The eyes had a bright, suspicious stare, like that of a scarlet-faced baby grasping and sucking at its bottle, sure that the whole world intends to snatch it away. He wore a suit of reddish plush – to match his face, Is thought – and a tall hat of the same fretful colour. The hatband was a broad gold ribbon, sparkling with coloured stones. A kind of crown, in fact. So
he’s
Gold Kingy, she pondered; he’s the one in charge of this whole shindig. He owns the mines and the foundries; it was his notion to split off this land from the south. He’s the enemy of poor old King Richard.

And he looks like an enemy, sure enough.

‘Gad’s teeth! I don’t know how you can stand to live in this kennel,’ Uncle Roy was declaring irritably. He flung his hat down on the table. ‘’Pon my soul, I don’t indeed! It’s a disgrace, a downright disgrace to
me
! I’m more ashamed and mortified each time I come here.’

‘Then it is odd, Roy, that you come so often,’ remarked Aunt Ishie tranquilly.

She sat by the table with a bale of coarse canvas, and was cutting squares from it with a pair of sharp scissors. Glancing up, as she completed a square, she went on, in the same tone, ‘And here is your brother Desmond’s daughter Is, come to visit us.’

‘How do, Uncle Roy?’ said Is.

‘
Desmond
’s brat? How can she be that?’ he demanded. ‘I thought he had only the two, Penelope and Dido. Come to think, though, I suppose she does have a look of Desmond.’ Is scowled at this suggestion. Uncle Roy went on, ‘Well, my girl, you’d best get right back where you came from – unless you want to work in the mines. Up here in Humberland, children don’t just loll around and play – they have to earn their bread, same as adults. Do you know what a
doul
is, niece?’

‘A slave.’

‘And that’s the status children have here –
douls
– until they are twenty. They have to make their contribution to society. And so will you, if you stay.’ He gave her a glance of dislike.

‘Don’t worry, Roy, she’s already ’prenticed to Chester Lemman,’ said Aunt Ishie placidly, rethreading her needle.

At that moment Dr Lemman himself walked into the room.

‘Hilloo, dearie,’ he said coolly to Uncle Roy. ‘Saw your rig outside. How’s the liver – eh? Giving us a bit of a twinge – eh? I can see that, from the colour of your cornea. Let’s have a look at the tongue. Open wider – ’ and he peered thoughtfully into the huge red cavity of Uncle Roy’s open mouth. ‘Hmnnn,
not
very pretty; no, by Joshua! You’d best lay off rich food, pastry and stimulants for the next few weeks. No more Early Purl. Stick to broth and rice pudding – that’s my advice.’

Uncle Roy looked glum, but seemed prepared to pay heed to the doctor’s counsel.

‘Follow the example of the gaffer, here,’ went on Lemman, patting Mr Twite’s bony shoulder and darting a bright-brown, needle-sharp malicious glance at each man in turn. ‘You want to live to a hundred and two like him – eh? Then moderate your way of life, my dear fellow!’

The malicious smile moved, like a sunbeam, to Grandpa Twite’s face.

He said, ‘Roy hasn’t my constitution, more’s the pity! Here’s a conundrum for you, Roy: