Ever Dundas - Goblin

Monsta sleepily crawled onto my shoulder and sat snoozing against my head, tentacles threaded through my scraggly hair. I let CP out and he was off, crushing flowers and searching for insects.

‘We’re going home, CP,’ I said as I led him through the cemetery and out into London’s streets.

When we got to the East End the ARP were still putting out fires. Some people were making their way to work, walking past the smashed up buildings as if it was normal. Some stood and stared at their lost home. One of the houses was spliced and there were framed photographs still hanging on the wall, a fireplace with a mirror above and vases on the mantle. A door remained intact but opened out on to nothing but the rubble below. Beams criss-crossed, leaning against the crumbling building as if supporting it.

A woman was bent over, rummaging through the rubble, rescuing a cooking pot. She stood, clutching it, staring at the building, mesmerised by the insistent embers that glowed and crackled beneath the onslaught of water.

I spotted a camera and picked it up.

‘This yours, Mrs?’

She looked at me blankly and shook her head. The camera was a bit bashed but I knew David could fix it if it didn’t work. I shoved it in my bag and walked further on, reaching my street. A jagged hole hunkered down into old Fenwick’s home, revealing my house behind it. I wasn’t ready for this homecoming, I wasn’t prepared for this absence. I wanted to burrow down into the earth, into the Kensal Green crypt, into the underground tunnels with the lizards.

I picked my way around the rubble that was Mr Fenwick’s house, not daring to clamber through the new thoroughfare. I circled round it, as if the emptiness would suck me in. I wondered if he’d died, or moved on. I wondered what had happened to Groo. I saw no sign of her now, but old Fenwick’s two chickens were pecking round the rubble in the garden. Their run was smashed open but they looked unharmed.

I rounded them up, Corporal Pig snorting at their arses to keep them in line and there I stood, on my doorstep, with a pig, a monsta, and two chickens. That terrible absence pulsed at my back, pushing me to safety through the door, pushing me back to David, back to ma and da.

London, 7 August 2011

‘So you’re back?’

Amelia, Queen Isabella, Scholler.

‘I’m back.’

I stand in Kensal Green Cemetery looking at the crime scene tape around Devil’s grave.

‘It’s almost as if they’re treating Devil’s death as murder.’

‘You look old.’

‘Yes, very old.’

‘It was murder, you know.’

‘We know.’

‘But it’s the photo that matters, not Devil’s bones.’

‘They’ve set fire to London. Is that why you’re back? Drawn to the flames?’

‘Like a moth,’ I say. ‘But I won’t burn just yet.’

London, March 1941

‘Ma?’

‘So you’re back? Didn’t they want you?’

‘They said I was possessed by a demon.’

She nodded, rocking a little, holding a pen like it was a cigarette.

‘Ma? Can I take your picture?’

‘So you can steal my soul, demon?’

‘I forgot what you looked like. When I was away, I forgot.’

‘Well, you’re here now, no need for pictures. I thought you’d died. I told everyone you’d likely died and they all said what a shame it was.’

She looked away and her head swayed from side to side as she said shame, shame, shame, in a sing-song voice.

‘And here you are, Goblin-runt born blue. Nothing can kill you.’

‘No.’

She looked me in the eye.

‘You’re like a cockroach,’ she said.

She chewed on the end of the pen and stared at the fireplace.

‘I got you cigarettes.’

Her head snapped up, her eyes narrowed.

‘Where’d you get those?’

‘Soldiers.’

‘Give them here.’

She lit up.

‘Where’s da?’

She sucked on the cigarette and closed her eyes.

‘Ma?’

‘He’s dead.’

I stared at the floor and scrunched my fingers into the folds of my shirt.

‘Died months ago, leaving me, just like that.’

‘How’d he die?’

She exhaled and said nothing.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, ma? Why didn’t you write me?’ I gestured back into the hallway. ‘All my postcards and letters are just lying there. Ma?’

‘What?’

‘Why didn’t you read them? Why didn’t you tell me about da?’

She waved her hand through the smoke and said, ‘No time for that. I’ve been working so hard, day in day out, while everyone just leaves me.’

I stared at her, clenching my fists.

‘Where’s David?’

‘Where’s David, where’s David?’

‘Where is he, ma?’

‘No one’s seen David. Here I am on my own, everyone just leaves and I’ve got to run this house alone.’

‘He’ll come back.’

‘He better. What use is it otherwise?’

‘I’m here, ma.’

‘What use is it?’

‘I’ll help out.’

‘What use is it, huh? Just me alone.’

She cried with the cigarette in her mouth, tears and snot and saliva slithering over her lips and down her chin.

I found Corporal Pig in the hallway, fast asleep, making huffy noises. I looked down at all my postcards and letters piled behind the door. I got down on my knees and searched for something from Angel – it was a postcard with a picture of a beach and she’d drawn me, her, and CP basking in the sun. I turned it over and read her words aloud: ‘My handsome Goblin, I miss you. I didn’t eat for two days but Ann and Bill were worried and made me. Your pretend parents told everyone your ma and da had wanted you back so you’d gone. The Idiot was being a shit and saying things about you at school so I punched his face. He’s got a broken nose and I was kept in for two weeks but I didn’t care becos I don’t go out anymore anyway. Write and tell me London stories, your Angel forever xxxx.’

I sat for a few minutes reading it over and over again, looking at where the ink was smudged by her hand, before turning it over and staring at the drawing of us on the beach. I put it in my pocket. I shooed the chickens out into the back garden so they could eat insects and have dust baths. I dragged my bag and a half-asleep CP up the stairs into mine and David’s room, and there was Groo curled up asleep on my bed. Without even realising, I was crying. I was smiling and laughing and crying and I called her name and she meowed at me, little plaintive confused sounds I’d never heard her make before. I gathered her up, hugging her and staining her with tears. She struggled and I let her go, dropping her back on the bed. She meowed and meowed and meowed.

‘I missed you, you strange wee terror,’ I said, hiccupping through the tears. ‘There’s no Devil-dog to groom, you skinny wee thing. No Devil dogs at all.’

I hoisted CP onto my bed and Groo looked startled, backing away, her fur standing on end.

‘It’s just CP, Groo. Just good old CP, trusty weary walker. We’re a fine scrawny bunch,’ I said, petting her and feeling her ribs. ‘You two wait here and I’ll get you some food. Don’t you touch CP, mind.’

When I returned, CP was snoring and Groo was keeping her distance, sat on my pillow, pressed up against the wall.

‘You’ll make friends soon enough.’

I gave her food and she was so excited about it she got most of it on her face and my bed. I looked around the room. Some of the Dietrich pictures had fallen off, so I pressed them back onto the wall. The note I’d left for David was still on his desk. I traced my finger across it: ‘I’m going on an adventure. Love, Goblin.’

It felt like so long ago I’d written it. And he hadn’t read it. He hadn’t read any of my postcards or letters. I scrunched up my note and threw it on the floor. I crushed it under my foot. I crawled into David’s bed, pressing my face into the pillow. I could still smell him. Monsta climbed from my bag and lay on my shoulder, tentacle-worms stroking my head. Groo hopped up and sniffed at Monsta, sneezed, then licked my hair.