The Iron Woman (2 page)

Then she began to think about the twisting eel. 

In Lucy’s attic bedroom it was still pitch black. But if she had been awake she would have heard a strange sound – a skylark singing high in the darkness above the house. And if she had been standing in the garden, and looking up into the dark sky through binoculars, she might have seen the glowing, flickering body of the lark, far up there, catching the first rays of the sun, that peered at the bird from behind the world.

The lark’s song showered down over the dark, dewy fields, over the house roofs, and over the still, wet
gardens
. But in Lucy’s bedroom it mingled with an even stranger sound, a strange, gasping whimper.

Lucy was having a nightmare. In her nightmare, somebody was climbing the creaky attic stair towards her. Then, a hand tried the latch. It was a stiff latch. To
open the door, you had to pull the door towards you before you pressed the latch. If you didn’t know the trick, it was almost impossible to open the door. The hand in Lucy’s nightmare did not seem to know the trick. The latch clicked and rattled but stayed shut.

Then the latch gave a loud clack, and the door swung wide. On her pillow, Lucy became silent. She seemed to have stopped breathing.

For long seconds the bedroom was very dark, and
completely
silent, except for the faint singing of the skylark.

Then, in her dream, a hand was laid on Lucy’s
shoulder
. She twisted her head and there, in her dream, saw a dreadful thing bending over her. At first, she thought it was a seal, staring at her with black, shining eyes. But how could it be a seal? It looked like a seal covered with black, shiny oil. A seal that had swum through an oil slick and climbed to her attic bedroom and now held her shoulder with its flipper.

But then she saw, on her shoulder, not a flipper but a human hand. And the hand, too, was slimed with black oil. Then Lucy suddenly knew this was not a seal but a girl, like herself, maybe a little bit younger. And the hand began to shake her, and the girl’s face began to cry: ‘Wake up! Oh, wake up! Oh, please wake up!’

She cried those words so loud it was almost a scream, and Lucy did wake up.

She sat up in bed, panting. What a horrible, peculiar
dream. She pulled the bedclothes around her, and stared into the darkness towards the door. Was it open? She knew the door had been closed, as every night. But if the door was now open …

At that moment, wide awake, she heard:

Tap, tap, tap.

On her window.

She listened, not daring to breathe, and it came again:

Tap, tap, tap.

Was it a bird? An early bird? Sometimes little bluetits came and pecked at the putty around the edge of the window-panes, and peered in. But that was always
during
the day.

She slid out of her bed and kneeled at the low
window
, parting the curtains.

At first, she couldn’t see a thing. Just blackness. Then, pressing her nose to the glass, she made out the darker roof shapes of the house across the street. And then she noticed something very odd, close to the glass. Something quite small, and dimly white. As she peered, it came closer, till it almost touched the glass.

How could it be what it looked like?

She darted to switch her light on, beside her bed. She paused there, but only a moment, staring at her
bedroom
door, which was wide open. Then she went back to the window.

Very close to the glass, just outside the window, were
three snowdrops. Their stalks were together, their heads hung apart.

How could three snowdrops be flying or floating
outside
an attic window, so high above the ground? She tugged the catch down, and opened the window.

The light shining from behind her made the darkness outside seem blacker than ever. But it lit the snowdrops, which were so close. And now she saw they were being held between a gigantic finger and thumb. They came towards her.

She jumped back, and half fell on to her bed. She lay there, staring at the open window. As she stared, the
finger
and thumb very daintily laid the three flowers on the sill, and withdrew.

Lucy was badly frightened. But, even more, she was curious and excited. Surely this was something
wonderful
. She must not be afraid. If she let herself be afraid now, what might she miss?

She went forward, and picked up the three flowers. They were real. But where could they be from? Snowdrops in April? Snowdrops were long past.

She peered out into the darkness. And there again, quite close, were the huge finger and thumb – holding a foxglove. A foxglove! In April? Months early?

She reached for it. As she did so, it withdrew. What did that mean? She thought: It wants me to follow. She remembered her nightmare, and the cry.

And now she could see a gigantic shape towering there in the darkness. It must be standing on their small garden, she thought. Or maybe out on the pavement.

She turned, and began to pull on her clothes.

Lucy eased open the front door and looked out. Her heart was pounding. What was she going to see? A
person
on top of a vehicle? Or on top of one of those cranes they use for repairing streetlights? Or simply a colossal person with those immense fingers? Whatever it was,
the three snowdrops had been real enough. But the street was empty.

Now she was outside, the world seemed not quite so dark. Already, behind the roofs to the east, the inky sky had paled a little. She closed the door behind her and stood a moment, listening. She realized she was hearing a skylark, far up. Somewhere on the other side of the
village
a thrush sang a first few notes. But the great shape had vanished.

Then something brushed her face lightly and fell to the ground. She picked it up. A foxglove.

At the same moment, she smelt a dreadful,
half-rotten
smell. She knew it straightaway: the smell of the mud of the marsh. She thought it came from the
foxglove
. But no, it filled the whole air, and she looked upwards.

An immense dark head with two huge eyes was
looking
down at her, round the end of the house. It must be standing in the driveway, she thought, in front of the garage.

Lucy walked slowly round the end of the house,
gazing
up. And there it was. Not standing, but sitting – its back to the house wall. And here was the smell all right. This immense creature seemed to be made entirely of black slime, with reeds and tendrils of roots clinging all over. Lucy simply stared up at the face that stared down at her. She felt a wild excitement, as if she were travelling
at the most tremendous speed. Had this thing come from the sea, and waded through the marsh? She remembered the face like a seal’s in her nightmare, the girl’s face with eyes like a seal, and then very sharp and clear that voice crying: ‘Clean me.’ Had it said: ‘Clean me’? Was this what the snowdrops meant?

Lucy knew exactly what to do. She unrolled her father’s hosepipe, which was already fitted to an outside tap, turned the tap full on, and pressed her finger half over the nozzle to make a stiff jet.

It was then she thought she heard another voice, a soft, rumbling voice. Like far-off thunder. She could not be sure where it came from. A strange voice. At least, it had a strange effect on Lucy. It made her feel safe and bold. And she seemed to hear:

‘Waste no time.’

The moment the jet hit the nearest leg she saw the bright gloss beneath. It looked like metal – polished black metal. The mud sluiced off easily. But it was a big job. And Lucy was thinking: What are people going to think when it gets light and they see this? She washed the nearest leg, the giant foot, the peculiar toes. She hosed between the toes. This first leg took about as much hosing as an entire car.

The voice came again, so low it seemed to vibrate inside her:

‘Hurry!’

A faint tinge of pink outlined the chimneys to the east. Already it seemed that every single bird in the
village
must be singing. A van went past.

Lucy switched the jet to the face. It was an awesome face, like a great, black, wet mudpack. Then the giant hand opened palm upwards, flat on the driveway. Lucy saw what was wanted. She stepped on to the hand, which lifted her close to the face.

The jet sizzled into the deep crevices around the tightly closed eyes and over the strange curves of the cheeks. As she angled the jet to the massively folded shape of the lips, the eyes opened, brilliantly black, and beamed at her. Then Lucy saw that this huge being was a woman. It was exactly as if the rigid jet of water were carving this gleaming, black, giant woman out of a cliff of black clay. Last, she drove the slicing water into the hair – huge coils of wires in a complicated arrangement. And the great face closed its eyes and opened its mouth and laughed softly.

Lucy could see the muddy water splashing on to the white, pebble-dashed wall of the house and realized it was almost daylight. She turned, and saw a red-hot
cinder
of sun between two houses. A lorry thumped past. She knew then that she wasn’t going to get this job finished.

At the same moment, still holding Lucy in her hand, the giant figure heaved upright. Lucy knew that the
voice had rumbled, somewhere: ‘More water.’ She dropped the hose, which writhed itself into a
comfortable
position and went on squirting over the driveway.

‘There’s the canal,’ she said.

The other great hand pushed her gently, till she lay in the crook of the huge arm, like a very small doll. This was no time to bother about the mud or the smell of it. She saw the light of her own bedroom go past, slightly below her, the window still open, as the giant woman turned up the street.

When they reached the canal, and stood on the bridge looking down, Lucy suddenly felt guilty. For some reason, it was almost empty of water, as she had never seen it before. A long, black, oily puddle lay between slopes of drying grey mud. And embedded in the mud were rusty bicycle wheels, supermarket trolleys, bedsteads, prams, old refrigerators, washing machines, car batteries, even two or three old cars, along with
hundreds
of rusty, twisted odds and ends, tangles of wire, cans and bottles and plastic bags. They both stared for a while. Lucy felt she was seeing this place for the first time. It looked like a canal only when it was full of water. Now it was nearly empty, it was obviously a
rubbish
dump.

‘The river,’ came the low, rumbling voice, vibrating Lucy’s whole body where she lay.

The river ran behind a strip of woodland, a mile away
across the fields. That was a strange ride for Lucy. The sun had risen and hung clear, a red ball. She could see a light on in a farmhouse. A flock of sheep and lambs poured wildly into a far corner. Any second she expected to hear a shout.

But they reached the strip of trees. And there was the river. It swirled past, cold and unfriendly in the early light. The hand set Lucy down among the weeds of the bank, and she watched amazed as the gigantic figure waded out into midstream, till the water bulged and bubbled past those thighs that were like the pillars of a bridge. There, in the middle of the river, the giant woman kneeled, bowed, and plunged under the surface. For a moment, a great mound of foaming water heaved up. Then the head and shoulders hoisted clear,
glistening
black, and plunged under again, like the launching of a ship. Waves slopped over the bank and soaked Lucy to the knees. For a few minutes, it was like a giant sea beast out there, rearing up and plunging back under, in a boiling of muddy water.

Then abruptly the huge woman levered herself upright and came ashore. All the mud had been washed from her body. She shone like black glass. But her great face seemed to writhe. As if in pain. She spat out water and a groan came rumbling from her.

‘It’s washed you,’ cried Lucy. ‘You’re clean!’

But the face went on trying to spit out water, even
though it had no more water to spit.

‘It burns!’ Lucy heard. ‘It burns!’ And the enormous jointed fingers, bunched into fists, rubbed and squeezed at her eyes.

Lucy could now see her clearly in full daylight. She gazed at the giant tubes of the limbs, the millions of
rivets
, the funny concertinas at the joints. It was hard to believe what she was seeing.

‘Are you a robot?’ she cried.

Perhaps, she thought, somebody far off is controlling this creature, from a panel of dials. Perhaps she’s a sort of human-shaped submarine. Perhaps …

But the rumbling voice came up out of the ground, through Lucy’s legs:

‘I am not a robot,’ it said. ‘I am the real thing.’

And now the face was looking at her. The huge eyes, huge black pupils, seemed to enclose Lucy – like the gentle grasp of a warm hand. The whole body was like a robot, but the face was somehow different. It was like some colossal metal statue’s face, made of parts that slid over each other as they moved. Now the lips opened again, and Lucy almost closed her eyes, she almost
shivered
, in the peculiar vibration of the voice: