‘What do you hear?’

‘They said I was not to listen.’

‘But you cannot help it, can you?’

‘No, sir, I cannot help it one bit.’

‘And what do you hear?’

‘Small voices.’

‘Where from?’

‘All over, so many places, here and there, when it’s quiet, so many whispers, not always easy to hear. Things, sir. They can speak, but it’s not right, I shouldn’t listen, and it hurts to listen sometimes.’

‘Tell me, tell me, what speaks?’

‘It might be anything, anything at all.’

‘For example?’

‘It might be a shoe, it might be.’

‘A shoe?’

‘A shoe, yes, sir, it might be, or a plug. It may be a plug that says, “James Henry Hayward,” or something else that calls, “Jack Pike,” or, “Alice Higgs.”’

‘This,’ he said, ‘tell me, what does this say?’

Grandfather took a coin from his pocket and tossed it onto the bed. I picked it up. I looked at it very hard. I listened to it.

‘It is a coin, Grandfather,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t say anything at all.’

‘And this?’ he asked, tossing a small pebble onto the bed.

I put it to my ear. ‘It says, “Peter Wallingford. Mondays to Fridays ten a.m. to four p.m., by appointment only, knock three times.” That’s what it says. I’m not making it up.’

‘I know you are not.’

‘My plug talks, your cuspidor talks.’

‘Of course it does, Clod. We know all about it. We knew you were a Listener since you were a baby. Some babies can never sleep for all the yelling of the objects. We always knew about you; it was not necessary for Aliver to make such a business of it, we hardly needed his interference. We knew already.’

‘And Uncle Idwid can hear too. Sir, Uncle Idwid –’ I couldn’t stop myself then – ‘Percy Detmold … sir, Alice Higgs is a girl and not a door handle! Did I see those things? Oh what has happened to Aunt Rosamud and to the world?’

‘Peace! Peace, Clod. Let me enlighten you. It is time.’

Things Are Not What They Seem

There was a hissing and a gas lamp was lit, I did not see how Grandfather had managed this, he barely moved in his corner, but a lamp was lit. Cold and dank and blue the room was now, a little place at the bottom of the ocean, smelling of gas and fat air and danger. And that great dark figure, that mountain of scree, the greatest of all dirtmounds, Grandfather himself, still in his top hat, his face, an old man’s face, smashed rubble, withered and worn, the emperor of rubbish, spoke again. ‘Now we shall begin.’