Little Nelson Read online

  Bearing in mind the size of the bucket and the height of the bearer, anything more ambitious would have been impractical. Even so, the load was a heavy one. But, as if trained for it, they formed a chain so that the leader always had a charged bucket ready in his hand and could mount the crackling staircase, sloshing ahead of him as he went.

  There were, of course, mishaps and confusion. From time to time the return network of empty buckets became entangled with the upward passage of the full ones. They collided. Then there was shoving. Pummelling. Even open fighting. But it was always soon over, and the conquest of the fire would begin again to the steady splash-splash rhythm of the volunteer fighters.

  With the arrival of the engine belonging to the County Fire Service, all operations ceased abruptly. The volunteers simply flung down their buckets and made helter-skelter for the front door. There was inevitably a certain amount of delay. The large men in blue found themselves in danger of being tripped up by small bodies in green and scarlet, all going in the opposite direction. But there was no attempt at competition. The sight of gas masks and breathing apparatus was too much. All the volunteers – they were, alas, no longer twenty in number – went streaking back towards the gate to the kitchen garden and hid somewhere in the shrubberies.

  An intense Police search followed. Various piles of dried leaves and some leafy branches deliberately snapped off revealed that the entire party might have been camping for days in the adjoining coppice. Nothing definite was, however, discovered.

  Not that anyone cared in the slightest. In the public mind it was sufficient that they should have come forward of their own accord to help save the defenceless inmates of the crowded dormitories. Overnight, the gnomes had become national heroes, symbols of bravery and national honour.

  Their reputation indeed was to rise still higher. For, in the ruins of the orphanage’s main staircase – it had collapsed in a cloud of sparks as soon as the heavy feet of the County Fire Brigade had begun to mount it – two scarred and scarcely recognizable bundles with traces of the original bright colours clinging to them, were found, one with a scorched brass bucket close beside him.

  The effect of this discovery was overwhelming. Readers of the popular tabloids burst into tears on their way to work. Sermons, hundreds of them, were preached with self-sacrifice as their text. Gnome charities sprung up. Postcards of gnomes – anything three-dimensional was, of course, still prohibited – began to appear in the better newsagents.

  A Special Safety Patrol that was caught in the act of demolishing a small and bewildered-looking gnome that had been discovered hidden in a pile of fertiliser bags in a potting-shed was violently set upon by a group of indignant housewives.

  Little Nelson himself seemed to be settling in very nicely. That was because Hilda had given him more to do. There was the box of old nursery bricks with picture letters on them for him to play with; a low-built four-wheel carriage, big enough to support him; and a teddy bear, its fur rubbed right down to the canvas in places through years of loving.

  They were a careful family, the Woods-Dentons, and the toys had all belonged in Cyril’s and Hilda’s nursery. They were joint possessions. Indeed, Hilda had felt vaguely guilty about taking them without asking Cyril’s permission. It had seemed almost like stealing. In any case, it had proved to be a mistake about the bear. Little Nelson had been alarmed by it. It may have been something about its brown button eyes that upset him. Whatever it was, he kept walking round and round it, keeping carefully out of range of paw and claw, and ready to jump back at the slightest sign of personal danger. But, thank goodness, Hilda kept telling herself that all that silliness was now over. Little Nelson had overcome his fears. He and the bear went everywhere together, even riding in the low-built four-wheel carriage whenever Hilda was there to push them both.

  There were also the afternoon excursions around the house when Mrs Mewkes was not there and Cyril had gone off on his bicycle to do his visiting. Little Nelson loved exploring. He would start off down the staircase, hand in hand with Hilda, but as soon as they reached the hall, he would begin to struggle to get his fingers away so that he could go off on his own.

  The kitchen was his chief delight, though his liking for the place was marred by a rather unfortunate incident. He was down there one afternoon with Hilda when she decided to make some toast. He watched admiringly while she sliced the cottage loaf, carefully removing the crust, and saw her place the two almost rectangular pieces into their allotted slots in the electric toaster. Then he noticed how she set the time control. It was the figure ‘3’ at which she left it. Little Nelson took stock of things to see how he could help. He began by twisting the knob right round to ‘6’. A few moments later he was aware that there was smoke instead merely of the delicious smell of freshly-made toast. He went over to the machine to examine it again. That was when the two slices popped out. Little Nelson recognized an emergency but still remained entirely calm. He took up the milk jug that Hilda had just filled and emptied it over the electric toaster. Then he went upstairs to his private resting place in Hilda’s wardrobe, feeling sure that she would understand the nature of the disaster from which he had just saved her.

  After the kitchen, Little Nelson preferred the drawing room. Sprung furniture especially appealed to him, and Hilda had to stop him jumping up and down on the sofa for fear that he might go right through. But it was the ivory paper-knife on the top of the bureau to which he kept going back. The fascination that it had for him was apparent from the start. And, when Hilda put it in his hand and let him hold it, he rocked backwards and forwards in sheer joy. It seemed somehow to complete him. There was quite a struggle when at last Hilda had to tell him to put it back where it belonged.

  With his new-found confidence, Little Nelson’s other habits had been changing, too. Notably, his sleeping habits. He had by now entirely given up the absurd business of spending the night standing up in the converted drawer with his hand on the wooden side for support. This break with the past had come as an immense relief to Hilda because, with anyone bolt upright and apparently staring straight ahead, it is difficult to be absolutely certain whether the person really is asleep or merely shamming it. And Hilda had been taking no chances. So long as there was even the remote possibility that he might be awake, she had made a point of undressing in the bathroom, carrying her clothes all bundled up under her arm through to the bedroom afterwards.

  That was how it made everything so much easier, so much more within the accustomed pattern of her life, when Little Nelson took his folded-up face towel into the wardrobe. Not that he always retired there. On the contrary, his daytime cat naps, his forty winks, were still taken vertically. And sometimes, as evening came on and he grew tired of his playing, he would fling himself into the nearest chair and slumber away, slouched up against a cushion, with one leg hanging over the arm like a ventriloquist’s abandoned dummy.

  One night the profoundest change of all took place. The day had been quiet and uneventful. Most of it had been spent shut up in the nursery-bedroom and Hilda, her back aching from the endless backwards and forwards pushing of Little Nelson and his teddy in their toy chariot, had gone to bed early. Looking back on it and trying to remember, she could still not recall exactly when the little miracle had taken place. All that came back to her was the fact that she had been asleep when she had felt a slight jolt, a tugging at the bed clothes. Always in fear of burglars and night rapists, she had sat up immediately. Then she saw what was happening. Her bed was a tall, brass-railed one and there at the bottom of it was Little Nelson, laboriously heaving himself up by his one good arm. It took him some time, and it was obvious that he was being as quiet as possible about it. When, under his weight, the coverlet suddenly shifted, he just hung there dangling in the air, doing nothing, waiting long enough to make sure that his expedition had passed unnoticed. Then he began climbing again.

  Hilda slowly eased herself back on the pillow again, her head raised just high enough to see over
the edge of the bed clothes. Little Nelson was right up on the bed by now. And he was panting. She could see his small green and scarlet sides rising and falling as he got his breath back. Then he went down on his knees and she lost sight of him. But not for long. Slowly, almost as though stalking something, he began crawling up the eiderdown. Hilda could feel his weight – he proved rather heavier than she would have expected – first on her knees, then on her thighs and stomach, next on her breasts and shoulders until he reached the pillow. Once there she felt him give a deep sigh and put his head down alongside hers.

  Gently, very gently, she turned over and, putting her arm around him as in the old days she had put her arm round her own dear doll, Emma Jane, she pulled him closer.

  A moment later they were both asleep.

  Chapter 5

  As so often happens in such matters, the pendulum of public esteem suddenly swung just as far the other way, and gnomes were suspect creatures once more. And all because of what happened at Covent Garden on the Gala Night of the Royal Ballet.

  The scene here bore no resemblance to that at the Albert Hall on the occasion, ten days earlier, of the interrupted concert. The Opera House was full. There was not an empty seat in the house. The Royal Box was a bower of selected blooms and lovely jewels. Tier upon tier of the little rose-coloured bracket lights shone down upon the assembled company, and the illuminated Exit signs glowed encouragingly for those ticket-holders who did not particularly care for ballet.

  As the conductor turned to face his players, came a hush. Then, three minutes and thirty five seconds later, the great curtain rose and, half drowned by the tidal wave of the orchestra, the occupants of stalls, boxes, circles and amphitheatre found themselves magically transported into a fairyland of Prince and Peasant Girl, lacy branches and woodland glades.

  The Prince, an ex-member of the Communist Party and an emigré from Nova Sibersk, and the Peasant Girl, the daughter of a Cheltenham dentist, were the acknowledged stars within their sphere. Already the partnership had become world-famous, and the Prince’s one fear was that the authorities back home might one day answer his wife’s impassioned pleas for a visa and that he would have her beside him once more. In the meantime, the Cheltenham dentist’s daughter had acquired a rather stronger Russian accent than her companion’s, and she and her Prince were regularly seen about together in places frequented by gossip-writers and the better class of Press photographers.

  On the night of the Gala the ex-Party member had, by universal consent, never been more ethereal, more inspiring. Effortlessly he had already held his loved one in his arms and made half-a-dozen full-speed rounds of the stage, with the Peasant Girl held either upright in crucifix position or wrapped around his neck like a boa constrictor. Throughout, his feet had seemed scarcely to touch the boards and, in all parts of the house, the name ‘Nijinsky’ was being discreetly whispered. The dentist’s daughter, too, assumed a magical, almost unearthly quality and after each sauté she was caught in mid-air as gently as if she had been a dream-child made of gossamer and swan’s down.

  The moment for which the audience had been waiting was about to come. The Prince was standing, stage right, his body braced like concrete ready for the impending impact. The Cheltenham girl, stage left, was looking down demurely at her feet, breathing deeply in preparation for the headlong rush and spell-binding leap upon his bosom. Otherwise the stage was deserted. A deep, impenetrable silence had fallen upon the house for the second time. The instant, imprisoned within the eternity of space and time, had become sacred.

  Then without warning, three small, incongruously dressed figures emerged from behind one of the canvas trees. The Prince, transfixed in his stance and too rigid to move a muscle, remained entirely unaware of what was happening. The Peasant Girl, on the other hand, could see only too well. With a gasp she let out all the air that she had been conserving and sank, deflated, where she stood. The conductor held his baton aloft. Not a note was struck. Violin bows remained frozen in mid-air and only the trembling of the baton showed that the conductor was breathing and still among them.

  Meanwhile the three small figures had arranged themselves in line abreast, marched purposefully down-stage, bowed to the Royal Box, and proceeded to link arms. There was a neatness about the whole operation that showed that the whole thing must have been intensively rehearsed. And this was apparent in the first ten steps of the number, all backwards and all faultless. Then, with a rolling side-to-side movement, distinctly nautical in effect though bucolic in intention, they broke into the opening steps. And immediately it showed itself for what it was – a perfectly executed version of the old North Country favourite, Fred Fazackerly’s Ride Even the audience, waving their free copies of the advertisement-infested programme, applauded.

  The trio, as the dance demanded, were all wearing clogs, and Prince and Peasant Girl withdrew tactfully into the woodland while the clatter-clatter-clatter continued. It may indeed have been the noise as much as the visual shock that temporarily disarmed the Management. It is admitted that they faltered. But what, they asked themselves afterwards, could they have done, even if it had not been a Gala Night? Curtains are not lowered lightly in the face of distinguished audiences. And it is to the credit of the Assistant Stage Manager that he should have succeeded in restraining the indignant stage-hands from forming a posse and charging onto the stage in force. What he had not remembered was that the Chief Electrician was a Welshman and an impulsive one at that. Otherwise occupied at the time of the incident, as soon as he was informed he gave the order that the main switch should be thrown and, behind the proscenium arch, primal darkness, nothing less, prevailed.

  It is scarcely surprising that, in the resultant obscurity and confusion, the clog dance team should have been able to make their get-away without hindrance. Even the Stage Doorkeeper failed to stop them. Nor can he be held blameworthy when it is borne in mind that they were all below eye-level as they passed his look-out. They were observed later scampering noisily down Floral Street, spotted again for a moment in Long Acre and reported, unreliably, at the corner of St Martin’s Lane and Cecil Court, and then lost sight of completely.

  Five roughly carved and scarcely worn clogs, all children’s size, were recovered next morning from a refuse bin on the other side of Regent Street. Despite appeals in all the media, however, the sixth and missing clog was never located.

  The letter columns of The Times immediately became full once more of correspondence devoted entirely to the gnome menace. And this time it tended to concentrate on the Police Force, and the Metropolitan Police Force in particular. Why, the angry readers demanded, had there been no arrests, no round-ups? If shooting was out of the question because of the possible danger to random passers-by, could not the little fellows be painlessly lassoo-ed? It was even suggested that large nets of the kind used for tuna fishing should be installed in the entrances and exits of all public halls and Underground Stations and brought into operation, scoop-fashion, as soon as an alarm was raised.

  The whole of the correspondence, however, was by no means confined to consideration on the physical level. Theology vied with it. Satanism was put forward as the probable cause of the common nuisance and days of intercession were proposed for all the Churches. A retired Archdeacon in Dorset composed a special prayer for the nation’s use, and the superstitious were warned by clergy of all denominations of the uselessness of wearing a hare’s foot or a sprig of herb-gentle as protection against demonic manifestations.

  It was, however, left to the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Neasden to put the whole thing into perspective. His was a cold, lucid sort of letter. The writer accepted everything that had happened as perfectly explicable, even familiar. He cited the numerous examples of a similar nature from all countries and in all centuries. His list of such happenings extended all the way from the doings of Cat-Goddesses in pre-Christian Egypt down to a fortune-telling horse in Nova Scotia as recently as 1972. The letter, nearly a column long because o
f the number of scholarly references, concluded with these solemn words; ‘Satan is not a name that should be uttered lightly or cited ignorantly. Nor should the concept of demons be invoked when there is no clear evidence of demonism. The happenings in this country in recent months have shown no evil intent whatsoever, no campaign waged against the spirit of the human soul. Rather, they have been thoughtless, playful, mischievous. In short, they may confidently be ascribed to the work of imps, an order so much lower in the infernal hierarchy that no profound or lasting significance need be attached to it. The events,’ the Auxiliary Bishop added confidently, ‘will cease as suddenly as they began.’

  Much as he disliked the priesthood of what he always referred to as the Italian Mission, the Reverend Woods-Denton found the letter greatly comforting and of deep consolation.

  Mrs Mewkes, as might be expected, was not a regular reader of The Times and therefore had no such consolation. All that she knew was that there was something fishy going on within the Vicarage, and she made up her mind to find out what it was.

  This was not so easy because Hilda continued to take every precaution. Little Nelson’s pretend meals were all prepared before Mrs Mewkes got there in the morning and cleared away after she had left the house at lunch time. Even his fresh milk, carefully poured to avoid any signs of spilling, was emptied down the sink each time, and the medicine glass washed up and put back afterwards. All personal laundry was carried upstairs by Hilda herself and the vacuum cleaner, modern and ultra light-weight at the time of purchase but ponderous and old-fashioned by today’s standards, was returned to its alcove on the landing the moment Hilda had finished with it. And she was particularly careful about the door, locking it from the inside whenever she was there and turning the key behind her if ever for a single moment she had to leave the room unattended.