Moominvalley in November Page 6

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ asked Fillyjonk sternly.

  ‘I’m convinced of it,’ answered Snufkin.

  There was another peal of thunder, this time quite close. He looked at Fillyjonk and grinned. ‘There’s going to be a thunderstorm anyway,’ he said.

  There really was a big storm coming in from the sea. The lightning was white and violet, he had never seen so many or such beautiful flashes of lightning at one time. A sudden pall had descended on the valley. Fillyjonk lifted up her skirts and rushed back through the garden with leaps and bounds and shut the kitchen door behind her.

  Snufkin sniffed the air, it felt as cold as steel. It smelt of electricity. The lightning was pouring down in great quivering streaks, parallel pillars of light, and the whole valley was lit up by their blinding flashes! Snufkin jumped up and

  down with joy and admiration. He waited for the wind and the rain, but they didn’t come. Only the thunder rumbled to and fro between the mountain peaks, enormous heavy spheres of sound, and there was a smell of burning everywhere. Then there was a last, triumphant earsplitting crash, and all was completely silent, without a single further flash.

  That was a strange thunderstorm, Snufkin thought. I wonder where it struck.

  At that moment he heard a terrible cry down by the bend in the river, and a cold shiver went up his spine. The lightning had struck Grandpa-Grumble!

  When he got there, Grandpa-Grumble was jumping up and down. ‘A fish! A fish!’ he was shouting. ‘I’ve caught a fish!’ He was holding a perch between his paws and was beside himself with glee. ‘Do you think it ought to be boiled or fried?’ Grandpa-Grumble asked. ‘Is there an oven to smoke it in? Is there anyone who can cook this fish without spoiling it?’

  ‘Fillyjonk!’ said Snufkin, and laughed. ‘Fillyjonk’s exactly the right person to do it!’

  *

  Fillyjonk stuck a quivering nose with all its whiskers standing on end round the door. She let Snufkin into the kitchen and closed the latch behind him. ‘I think I’ve got over it,’ she whispered.

  Snufkin nodded his head. He knew she wasn’t referring to the thunderstorm. ‘Grandpa-Grumble has caught his first fish,’ he said. ‘And now the Hemulen says that only hemulens know how to cook fish. Is it true?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t true!’ Fillyjonk exclaimed: ‘Only fillyjonks know how to cook fish, and the Hemulen knows it!’

  ‘But you’ll never be able to make it enough for everybody,’ Snufkin objected sadly.

  ‘Indeed! You don’t think I can,’ said Fillyjonk, snatching the perch. ‘I’d just like to see the fish I can’t make do for six people!’ She opened the kitchen door and said seriously: ‘Now you must be off, I have to be alone when I’m cooking.’

  ‘Aha!’ shouted Grandpa-Grumble, who had been standing with his ear to the door. ‘She likes cooking after all!’

  Fillyjonk dropped the fish on the floor.

  ‘But isn’t it Fathers’ Day?’ Snufkin muttered.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Fillyjonk said disbelievingly. She looked sternly at Grandpa-Grumble and asked: ‘Have you any children?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ answered Grandpa-Grumble. ‘I don’t like relatives! There are some great-great-grand-children somewhere, but I’ve forgotten them.’

  Fillyjonk sighed. ‘Why can’t any of you behave normally,’ she said. ‘This house will drive me mad. Now off with both of you, I’m going to get dinner ready.’

  She closed the latch of the door and picked up the perch. She looked round Moominmamma’s kitchen and forgot everything except the right way to cook a fish.

  *

  During the short and violent thunderstorm Mymble had become completely and utterly electric. Sparks flew from her hair and every little bit of down on her arms and legs stood on end and quivered. Now I’m full of ferocity, she thought. I could do anything, but instead I’ll do nothing. Isn’t it marvellous to do just what one feels like? She curled

  up on the eiderdown, feeling like a tiny flash of ball lightning, a ball of fire.

  *

  Toft was standing in the box-room looking through the skylight. He could see the flashes of lightning coming down into Moominvalley and he felt proud and carried away, and perhaps a little scared. It’s my thunderstorm, Toft thought. I did it. At last I can describe things for myself so that they can actually be seen. I shall describe things for the last Nummulite, the little Radiolaria who belongs to the Protozoa family… I can make thunder roll and lightning flash, I am a toft whom nobody knows anything about.

  He thought that he had punished Moominmamma with his thunderstorm and he decided to keep very quiet and not tell anything to anyone but himself and the Nummulite. Other people’s electricity had nothing to do with him, he could feel it in the air but it was strange to him, he had his own storm all to himself. He wished that the whole valley had been empty with plenty of room for dreams, you need space and silence to be able to fashion things sufficiently carefully.

  The bat on the ceiling was still asleep, it hadn’t been at all bothered by the thunder.

  The Hemulen called from the garden: ‘Toft! Come and give me a hand!’

  Toft left the box-room. He went down to the Hemulen, hidden by his silence, and by his hair, and nobody knew that he was holding electrical storms in his paws.

  ‘Thunder, eh?’ said the Hemulen. ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘No,’ answered Toft.

  CHAPTER 13

  Music

  THE Fillyjonk’s fish was ready at exactly two o’clock. It was concealed in a huge, steaming light-brown pudding. The whole kitchen smelt convincingly and comfortingly of food. The kitchen had really become a kitchen, a safe room where one could take charge of things, the heart of the mysteries of the house and a source of confidence. No creepy-crawlies, no thunderstorms could reach it, for here Fillyjonk was in command. Fright and fainting-fits had retreated into the remotest corners of Fillyjonk’s brain and the latch had been closed on them.

  Thank goodness, she thought. I can’t ever do any cleaning again, but at least I can cook. There’s hope left after all! She opened the door and went out on to the veranda, she took down Moominmamma’s shiny brass gong, held it in her paws and saw the reflection of her calm, triumphant face. She took the beater with its round wooden head covered with chamois-leather and struck the gong, ‘Dong dong’, and it resounded through the whole valley! ‘Food! Come and get it!’

  They all came rushing, shouting: ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  Fillyjonk answered calmly: ‘Dinner is served.’

  The kitchen table was set for six and Grandpa-Grumble’s place was in the middle. Fillyjonk knew that he had been standing outside the window the whole time, anxious about his fish. Now he was allowed in.

  ‘Food,’ said Mymble. ‘That’s good. Gherkin and cinnamon biscuits don’t really go together.’

  ‘From now on,’ said Fillyjonk, ‘the pantry will be locked. The kitchen belongs to me. Now sit down and start before it gets cold.’

  ‘Where’s my fish?’ asked Grandpa-Grumble.

  ‘It’s inside the food,’ Fillyjonk answered.

  ‘But I want to see it!’ Grandpa-Grumble complained. ‘It ought to have been whole and I would have eaten it all by myself!’

  ‘Mercy me,’ said Fillyjonk. ‘I know it’s Fathers’ Day, but that’s no reason for being selfish.’ She thought that sometimes it’s difficult to respect old age and comply with all the traditions that belong to a respectable way of living.

  ‘I refuse to celebrate Fathers’ Day,’ Grandpa-Grumble insisted. ‘Fathers’ Day, and Mothers’ Day and all the nice little Whompses’ Day, I hate relatives! Can’t we celebrate All Big Fishes’ Day?’

  ‘But this is real food,’ said the Hemulen reproachfully. ‘And we are sitting here as one big happy family. I’ve always said that Fillyjonk is the only one who can cook a fish.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ said Fillyjonk. She said ‘ha ha ha’ over again and looked at Snufkin.


  They ate in silence. Fillyjonk went backwards and forwards between the stove and the table serving them, she poured out lemonade and was cross with anyone who dropped food down themselves and she was brimming over with well-being.

  ‘Can’t we have three cheers for Fathers’ Day?’ the Hemulen suddenly asked.

  ‘We’ll have no such thing,’ said Grandpa-Grumble.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the Hemulen. ‘I was only trying to be pleasant. Aren’t we forgetting that Moominpappa is a father, too?’ He looked gravely at them all and added: ‘I have an idea. Why don’t we, each one of us, prepare a surprise for Moominpappa before he comes home?’

  Nobody said anything.

  ‘Snufkin could mend the bathing-hut jetty,’ the Hemulen went on. ‘And Mymble could wash our clothes. And Fillyjonk could have a good spring-clean…’

  Fillyjonk dropped a plate on the floor and cried: ‘No. I shall never do any more cleaning!’

  ‘Why not?’ Mymble asked. ‘You love cleaning.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Fillyjonk muttered.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Grandpa-Grumble. ‘One should put all unpleasant things out of one’s mind. Now I’m going to catch another fish and I shall eat it all myself.’ He picked up his stick and went out, his napkin still hanging round his neck.

  ‘Thank you for dinner,’ said Toft, and bowed. And Snufkin said: ‘That was a jolly good pudding.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Fillyjonk answered with a faint smile, for her thoughts were elsewhere.

  After dinner Snufkin lit his pipe and went down to the sea. He walked slowly and for the first time he felt lonely. He went right out to the bathing-hut and opened the squeaky narrow door. There was a smell of mould and seaweed and past summers, a melancholy smell. O houses, houses, Snufkin thought. He sat on the steep little steps leading down into the water. The sea was calm and grey and there were no islands. Perhaps it isn’t so difficult to find people who are hiding themselves and get them to come home again. The sea-chart shows all the islands. The dinghy could be made watertight. But why, thought Snufkin. Leave them alone. Perhaps they want to be left in peace, too.

  Snufkin gave up looking for his five bars, they would have to be allowed to come when they wanted to. There were other songs anyway. Perhaps I’ll play a little this evening, he thought.

  *

  It was late in the autumn and the evenings were very dark. Fillyjonk had never liked night-time. There’s nothing

  worse than looking into complete darkness, it is like walking straight out into eternity and not having anybody with you. That’s why she put out the bucket of rubbish on the kitchen steps double quick and shut the door tight again, that’s what she’d always done.

  But tonight Fillyjonk stood on the steps and listened to the darkness. Snufkin was playing in his tent, a beautiful, vague tune. Fillyjonk wasn’t musical, although neither she nor anybody else realized it. She listened breathlessly. She forgot all the awful things; tall and thin, she was silhouetted against the lighted kitchen, an easy prey to all the lurking dangers of the night. But nothing happened. When the melody was finished she gave a deep sigh, put down the bucket and went back into the house. It was Toft who emptied the bucket.

  In the box-room Toft told himself: the Creature curled up by the big pool behind Moominpappa’s tobacco bed and waited there. It was waiting until it would become so big and strong that it could never be disappointed, and until it cared about nothing but itself. End of chapter.

  CHAPTER 14

  Looking for the Family

  IT was taken for granted that no one slept in Moominmamma’s room or in Moominpappa’s room. Because she was fond of the morning, Moominmamma’s room faced east and Moominpappa’s faced west because the evening sky used to make him feel wistful.

  One day at dusk the Hemulen crept up to Moominpappa’s room and stood respectfully in the doorway. It was quite a small room with a sloping ceiling, a place where one could be by oneself. Or a place where one could be got out of the way. On the blue walls Moominpappa had hung up curiously-shaped branches and he had stuck trouser-buttons on some of them. There was a calendar with a picture of a shipwreck and a piece of board saying Haig’s Whisky hung over the bed. On the desk there were some peculiar stones, a nugget of gold and a mass of the sort of odds and ends one leaves behind at the last minute when one goes on a journey. Under the mirror there was a model of a lighthouse with a pointed roof, a little inlaid wooden door and a railing of brass nails round the lamp-room. There was even a ladder which Moominpappa had made out of copper wire. He had pasted silver paper on all the windows.

  The Hemulen looked at all this and tried to remember what Moominpappa was like. He tried to remember the things they had done together and what they had talked about, but he couldn’t. Then he went over to the window and looked out at the garden. The shells round the dead flower-beds shone in the twilight and in the west the sky was yellow. The big maple-tree was coal-black against the sunset – the Hemulen was looking at exactly what Moominpappa looked at in the autumn twilight.

  Then all of a sudden the Hemulen knew what he would do, he would build a house for Moominpappa in the big maple-tree! He was so pleased with this idea that he started to laugh! A tree-house, of course! High above the ground between the strong black branches far away from the family, free and full of adventure and with a storm lantern on the roof; there they would sit and listen to the south-wester making the walls creak and talk to each other at last. The Hemulen rushed out into the hall and called: ‘Toft!’

  Toft came out of his box-room.

  ‘Have you been reading again?’ the Hemulen asked. ‘It’s dangerous to read too much. Listen, do you like pulling out nails, eh?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ answered Toft.

  ‘If anything is going to get done,’ the Hemulen explained, ‘one person does the building and the other carries the planks. Or one knocks in new nails and the other one pulls out old nails. Do you understand?’

  Toft just looked. He knew that he was the other one.

  They went down to the woodshed and Toft began to pull out nails. They were old boards and planks which the Family had collected on the beach, the grey timber was hard and compact and the nails rusted in. The Hemulen went on to the maple-tree, and looked up thoughtfully.

  Toft prised the nails loose and pulled. The sunset was a fiery yellow just before the sun went down. He told himself about the Creature, and he could do it better and better, not in words any longer but in pictures. Words are dangerous things and the Creature had reached a vital point in its development, it was just about to change. It didn’t hide itself any longer, it watched and listened, it slid like a dark shadow towards the edge of the forest, very intently and not at all afraid…

  ‘Do you like pulling out nails?’ Mymble asked behind him. She was sitting on the chopping-block.

  ‘What?’ said Toft.

  ‘You don’t like pulling out nails, but you do it all the same,’ said Mymble. ‘I wonder why?’

  Toft looked at her and kept quiet. Mymble smelt of peppermints.

  ‘And you don’t like the Hemulen either,’ she went on.

  ‘I’ve never given it a thought,’ Toft muttered deprecatingly, and immediately started to think whether he liked the Hemulen or not.

  Mymble jumped down from the chopping-block and went away. The twilight suddenly deepened and a grey mist rose over the river, it was very cold.

  ‘Open up,’ shouted Mymble outside the kitchen door. ‘I want to warm myself in your kitchen.’

  It was the first time anybody had said ‘your kitchen’ and Fillyjonk opened the door at once. ‘You can sit on my bed, but mind you don’t crumple the bedspread.’

  Mymble curled up on the bed which had been pushed between the stove and the sink and Fillyjonk went on

  making the bread pudding for the next day. She had found a bag of old crusts that the family had been saving for the birds. It was warm in the kitchen, the fir
e crackled in the stove, throwing flickering shadows on the ceiling.

  ‘Right now it’s just like it always used to be,’ said Mymble to herself.

  ‘You mean like it was in Moominmamma’s day,’ said Fillyjonk to be precise but without thinking.

  ‘No, not at all,’ Mymble answered. ‘Just the stove.’

  Fillyjonk went on with the bread pudding, going backwards and forwards in the kitchen on her high heels, and her thoughts suddenly became anxious and uncertain. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Moominmamma used to whistle while she was cooking,’ Mymble said. ‘Everything was a little just anyhow… I don’t know – it was different. Sometimes they took their food with them and went somewhere, and sometimes they didn’t eat at all…’She put her arm over her head in order to go to sleep.

  ‘I should imagine that I know Moominmamma considerably better than you do,’ Fillyjonk said. She greased the baking-tin, threw in the last of the soup from the day before and surreptitiously added a few boiled potatoes which were no longer what they had once been; she got more and more agitated and in the end she dashed over to the sleeping Mymble and shouted: ‘You wouldn’t lie there sleeping if you knew what I know!’

  Mymble woke up and lay still, looking at Fillyjonk.

  ‘You’ve no idea,’ whispered Fillyjonk intensely. ‘You’ve no idea what has broken loose in this valley! Horrid things have been let out of the clothes-cupboard upstairs and they’re everywhere!’ Mymble sat up and asked: ‘Is that why you’ve got fly-paper round your boots?’ She yawned and rubbed her nose. She turned round in the doorway and said: ‘Don’t fuss, there’s nothing here that’s worse than we are ourselves.’

  ‘Is she angry?’ Grandpa-Grumble asked from the drawing-room.

  ‘She’s scared,’ answered Mymble and went up the stairs. ‘She’s scared of something in the clothes-cupboard.’