Little Nelson (3 page)

All Police leave was cancelled. The Army itself was placed on a twenty-four hour alert, and the Territorials were called up. The population was given the additional protection of a civilian force of part-time vigilantes, Safety and Prevention Squads, with the specific task of rounding up any standing gnomes who might still be in situ beside their goldfish pools or hidden in secluded grottos.

Those were the days of suspense: and looking back on them it must stand as an historic tribute to the British people that there was no national panic, no widespread disorder.

There were, of course, isolated outbreaks of unrest – protest marches, demonstrations, lootings, arson, mob violence and so forth – but never anything that could be said truly to reflect upon the national ethos. Surprisingly enough, during this period, admissions to county asylums and private nursing homes declined, though the sale of Valium and similar beneficent sedatives rose appreciably. Some
people made a point of taking a tablet or two before even venturing out of doors. All in all, however, it was a time of which the Mother Country could be proud. The whole race was bound by a common purpose as in war.

For the social historian interested in the decade, it is the correspondence columns of
The Times
that many have come to regard as the richest mine of fact and information. For, though the news pages were full of reports of the latest incidences (and these were often sensational enough) the letter page was devoted almost exclusively to the expression of views as to the cause of the whole puzzling affair. The theories put forward were various and conflicting. Attributions ranged from the decline of parental authority and dwindling church attendances, through Communist and neo-Facist teachings to the adoption of the metric system, legalized abortion and the arbitrary introduction of Double British Summer Time.

The Emergency Committee at once got into its stride. It was the man from Marks and Spencer who saw to that. With their red and white armbands, the Safety and Prevention Squads were soon swarming. No one disputed them. They invaded gardens, play parks, schools, nurseries, civic centres, council allotments and private residences.

It was, of course, all too late. The Squads found nothing except for footprints – some embedded in concrete, others mere impressions on the soil – to show where their quarry had so recently been standing.

One extraordinary feature did, however, emerge: and fortunately by then the Police had begun to recognize the importance of correlating all extraneous facts. For the point that struck the searchers was that, in several instances, the plastic feet had actually been broken off in the cement sockets, suggesting that the marauders who had stolen them
were not only desperately eager for possession but working against time. That, at least, was the misconstruction currently placed upon it. The number of missing and severely damaged gnomes was calculated to exceed the two hundred mark.

It seemed for a time as though the peril was lessening. The night time whistlings continued, practically unabated, but people were beginning to grow used to them. Ear-muffs in mink and assorted oriental colours were advertised on TV and sold in large quantities in the bigger stores and super markets. Double-glazing flourished in areas such as Carshalton and Chorley Wood; and, because it had turned out to be a particularly hot and sultry summer, air-conditioning units were to be found in most of the now sound-proofed but, in the result, entirely airless houses.

Reports of stolen gnomes had, however, dwindled significantly. For days on end nothing at all reached the Emergency Information Department at the Yard – possibly, it was admitted, because the raiders had done their job so thoroughly that there were no more gnomes left to steal.

Reports of sightings had also declined. And, most important of all, when they were received they were simply not believed. Thus, when a keeper in Hyde Park logged having seen three diminutive figures, far too small for the job, painfully attempting to row
a punt on the Serpentine long after official closing time, he was treated with incredulity. It was, the keeper kept asserting, the sound of whistling coming from the lake that at first directed his attention. Nor was he believed when he said that, after he had shouted at them they had, one after another, jumped overboard and swum breast-stroke to the shore. Even the incontrovertible fact that the abandoned punt was found next morning beached alongside the swimming pool, with smudges of green and scarlet paint along the woodwork, was held to prove nothing.

It was in this mood of diminishing tension that the months of June, July and the first half of August passed off peacefully enough, even though the climate remained humid and tropical throughout, and unprecedented outbreaks of prickly heat had added to the general burden on the National Health Service.

Then, on the 21st of the month, everything changed. For a start the whole weather system went into reverse. There were 100 mph gusts in Torquay and Truro, torrential rain in Ipswich, and early snow falls in Inverness-shire. Nature herself seemed in disarray. The Met Office could make nothing of it. Even their satellite warnings were blotted out by sun spots: and the anemometer on the Kingsway roof was put out of action by hailstones as large as grapes.

Simultaneously, reports of gnome incidents began to start up again, in considerable numbers, and from all quarters, too. The reports, all well-attested and by reliable observers, included a description of how a company of no fewer than a dozen gnomes had waylaid a Counties & District bus at a bus stop in Wiltshire and, piling in alongside the driver, had forced him to drive them as far as Devizes. The driver was detained in hospital suffering from shock.

A railway ticket office in Essex was broken into during the night, the tickets removed from their little pigeon-holes, torn up and scattered on the floor like confetti. Gnomes were immediately suspected.

Similar suspicion was aroused when two market gardens, as far from each other as Weybridge and King's Lynn, had their entire chrysanthemum crop trampled to nothing in a single night.

Next, the proprietor of a lock-up garage in Kentish Town was called out of bed at 3 am because one of his petrol pumps had been switched on, the nozzle jammed into the open position, and left running. Again, local opinion favoured gnomes.

Then an irregular groove, three to four inches deep and more than a hundred yards long, was sliced overnight into the turf in front of the Pavilion at Lords. A child's metal spade, the sort that can be bought in seaside toy shops, was found to be the cause of the damage. It had been converted into a sort of miniature plough, the make-shift traces still
hanging from the handle. When discovered, it was leaning up against the railings outside Taverner's Bar.

Most sensational of all, however, was when three undersized and unauthorized figures succeeded in passing through the security checkpoint at St. Stephen's, penetrated as far as the lobby and then had scampered through the Chamber itself, finally making their way out through Palace Yard. Admittedly, the incident had occurred at 1.55 am. The benches were largely empty at the time. Nevertheless, the sense of national pride was affronted.

In consequence, all National Safety measures were intensified. Searchlights were brought in to scan culs-de-sac and side-streets, helicopters roared over outlying housing estates, and the auxiliary patrols of Boy Scouts and Territorials penetrated both coppice and parkland.

Hilda Woods-Denton's anxiety about her brother was increasing almost hourly. He had become a man apart, moody, self-absorbed, pre-occupied. Always a practical woman with a strong leaning towards the physical, she suspected constipation. Never particularly robust or well-padded, he now presented a pathetically emaciated appearance. Nor did his dog-collar help. His neck, thin and sinewy, set against the laundry-white circlet of the collar, was strangely off-putting.

To add to Hilda's overall feelings of apprehension and unhappiness, the weather continued to deteriorate. It rained monsoon-fashion, and continued unabated while the clouds, mile upon mile of them, gathered in congregation practically at tree-top height. For days on end no one got so much as a glimpse of the sun and life was lived in a penumbra of perpetual twilight. Moreover, the birds had all stopped singing.

The evening of Wednesday, the 23rd of the month, had proved one of the most trying. At the Vicarage the incessant downpour had at last broken through the roof and, in consequence, the spare room was now flooded, and the pretty Chinese chintz as good as ruined. The temperature, too, had dropped. If Hilda had not remembered to close the greenhouse, she would have found everything sere and withered on the shelves.

By 10.15 she had at last succeeded in getting her brother safely off to bed with his peasant-ware mug of cocoa and his two wholemeal biscuits, and she was left sitting there, alone to the world, staring mindlessly into the mock glowing embers of the electric fire. So far as her brain was working at all, she was trying to remember how long ago it was – ten, fifteen, possibly twenty years – since she had been forced to turn on the heating so early in the year.

Outside the weather was worsening. A blocked
gutter somewhere made a cataract-sized uproar on the loggia roof. And intermittent volleys of rain squalls hit the windows as though dishfuls of shelled peas were being flung against the panes. With every fresh gust that whistled in through the open letter box, the strip of carpet in the front hall flapped up and down on the brown oil-cloth.

It was then that Hilda thought that she heard something that was neither wind nor rainstorm. It was a helpless, beseeching kind of sound, half-sob, half-moan. Hilda got up immediately, her thoughts full of lost dogs, hunt-weary foxes, wounded animals in general. And, as she got to the front door, she heard it again, stifled, but inescapable.

Forgetting all the warnings about night-time security, she hurriedly undid the two bolts, slid back the safety chain, and turned the key. Still a little breathless from having jumped up too hurriedly, she pulled open the front door.

And there a two-foot high figure stood looking up at her. A length of sodden sacking lay upon its shoulders and the body was spattered and half-encased in mud. Even though there was now the shelter of the Vicarage porch, the rain was still cascading off the brim of the red, conical-shaped hat.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then with a low drawn-in whistle of excitement, the little figure scrambled up over the top step, rushed into
the hall, and flinging its one good arm around her, buried its face in Hilda's skirt.

‘What's going on? Who is it? Anyone there?' she heard Cyril's voice, high and querulous, calling anxiously down to her from his bedroom.

When she did manage to reply, her voice was so choked with happiness he could scarcely hear her.

‘It's Little Nelson,' she was trying to tell him. ‘It's Little Nelson. He's come back to us.'

Hilda was holding Little Nelson so closely to her that his sobs were now silenced. But she could tell how upset he must be because she could feel sudden bursts of tremblings, impulsive uncontrollable tremblings, passing upwards through her from somewhere around knee-level. Freeing her left hand, she began patting him, nanny-fashion. It surprised her to find, wet as he was, how soft he had become.

Upstairs her brother was struggling into his thick Jaeger dressing-gown. It was one of those brother and sister, inside-family-jokes, that he always wore the same dressing-gown summer and winter alike. It gave him, she made a point of saying, something of the air of a big teddy bear, a sedate, rather elderly, wrapped-up teddy bear. Cyril Woods-Denton, however, was in no mood to be bothered about appearances. He was in a hurry to protect his sister. Not bothering to pick up his spectacles, not even stooping to reach beneath the chest of drawers for his bedroom
slippers, he thrust his feet into the heavy black walking shoes that he had only just discarded, and came thumping down stairs.

‘Don't undo the door, dear,' he began telling her. ‘Don't let anyone in. Not until I'm there with you.'

But, quick as he had been, he had not been quick enough. His sister was already on her way up the same staircase. What is more, she was carrying Little Nelson, cushioned tight against her bosom. And Little Nelson seemed to be liking it. His good arm was now firmly round her neck. On the landing, the three of them came face to face. Without his glasses he could see merely that Hilda was carrying something. It seemed to be a bundle of some kind. Old clothing, probably. And then, to his horror, the bundle moved. It twisted itself round and settled down again more securely than before.

‘Hilda, Hilda,' he said, ‘put that thing down at once. What do you think you are doing?'

But Hilda took no notice. She simply pushed past him.

‘I'm taking Little Nelson to the bathroom,' she told him. ‘He needs it.'

‘Little Nelson!' He thought those were the words that he had heard called out to him. But he had not believed them. It was as though his dream had come back again. Only this time Hilda was inside the dream with him. He could not appeal to her.

But he remembered that his duty was to protect
his sister. Bracing himself, he followed her along the landing. At the bathroom door Hilda turned, and Cyril found himself staring down into Little Nelson's bright blue eye. It was a hard and defiant-looking eye. It frightened him. But Cyril Woods-Denton, for his part, had frightened Little Nelson. Framed within the archway of the staircase, he appeared enormous. And not only enormous, but bear-like, too. Little Nelson became really scared and when Cyril put out his finger to examine the small wet body that lay in Hilda's arms, Little Nelson bit him.

It was a full two hours later when Hilda and her brother sat down together to review matters. In the meantime, Little Nelson had been given his bath.

That in itself had not proved easy. Little Nelson had never seen a bathroom before; and Hilda, for her part, had never given anybody a bath. There was trouble from the outset. Little Nelson seemed to think that Hilda was going to do him some kind of injury. He struggled. It may have been the clinically white surface of the walls or the clouds of escaping steam that distressed him. Whatever it was, he did not like it. And, when he saw a reflection of himself in Cyril Woods-Denton's shaving mirror, he lost all control. Snatching up the long-handled back brush he brought it down with all his force on the offending image.