Moominvalley in November (6 page)

There came a moment in the darkness of early dawn when he knew that he wanted to go to a valley where he had once been a very long time ago. It was just possible that he had only heard about this valley, or perhaps he had read about it, but it made no difference really. The most important thing was the brook that ran through the valley. Or perhaps it was a river? But certainly not a stream. Grandpa-Grumble decided that it was a brook, for he liked brooks much more than streams. A clear, flowing brook, with him sitting on the bridge and dangling his legs as he watched the little fish swimming round each other. No one to ask him whether he ought to go to bed. No one to ask him how he was and then start talking about other things without giving him time to work out whether he felt well or not. There was a place there, too, where one could play and sing all night, and Grandpa-Grumble would be the last to go home at dawn.

Grandpa-Grumble didn't leave straightaway. He had learnt the importance of putting off the thing you're longing for and he knew that an excursion into the unknown must be prepared with the proper consideration.

For several days he wandered in the hills surrounding the long, dark bay, sinking deeper and deeper into forget-fulness, and he began to feel that the valley was getting nearer and nearer.

The last red and yellow leaves fell off the trees and gathered round his feet as he walked (Grandpa-Grumble still had very good legs) and from time to time he stopped and picked up a leaf with his stick and said to himself: that's maple. I shan't forget that. He knew perfectly well what he wanted to remember.

It was incredible how much he succeeded in forgetting during those few days. Every morning he woke up with the same secretive expectation, and immediately started about the business of forgetting in order to make the valley come nearer. No one disturbed him, no one told him who he was.

Grandpa-Grumble found a basket under his bed and packed it with all his medicines and the little bottle of brandy for his stomach. He made six sandwiches and dug out his umbrella. He was getting ready to escape, he was running away from home.

Over the years many things had accumulated on his floor. There are so many things you never bother to pick up, and so many reasons for not picking them up. These objects lay scattered all over the place like so many islands, an archipelago of lost and unnecessary things. Out of habit he stepped over them and round them, they gave his daily walks round the room a certain excitement and at the same time a feeling of repetition and permanence. Grandpa-Grumble decided that they weren't needed any longer. He took a broom and made a storm sweep through the room. Everything, scraps of food, lost slippers, bits of fluff, pills that had rolled into corners, forgotten shopping-lists, spoons and forks and buttons and unopened letters, he brushed them all into a heap. From this great heap he picked out eight pairs of spectacles and put them in his basket: I shall be looking at quite new things, he thought.

The valley was now quite close, just around the corner, and he had a feeling that it wasn't even Sunday yet.

On Friday or Saturday Grandpa-Grumble left his house, and naturally he couldn't help writing a farewell note. 'I'm going away now and I feel fine,' he wrote. 'I've heard everything you've said for a hundred years because I'm not deaf at all and I know you have parties on the sly all the time.' No signature.

Then Grandpa-Grumble put on his dressing-gown and his gaiters, he picked up his little basket, opened his door and closed it behind him, shutting in a hundred old years. Strengthened by his determination and his new name he headed due north towards the Happy Valley and nobody in the bay knew that he had gone. Red and yellow leaves danced round his head and from far away in the hills came another autumn downpour to wash away the last of everything he didn't want to remember.

CHAPTER 8
Lady in a Muddle

F
ILLYJONK
's visit to Moominvalley was postponed a little because she couldn't decide about the moth-balls. Putting moth-balls in everything is a big operation, with airing and brushing and all that, not to mention the wardrobes themselves, which had to be scrubbed with soda and soap. But as soon as Fillyjonk touched a broom or a duster she felt dizzy, and a giddy feeling of fear started in her stomach and got stuck in her throat. She couldn't do any cleaning, it was no good. Not after that business of washing the window.

This won't do, poor Fillyjonk thought. The moths will eat up everything I possess!

She had no idea how long her visit would last. If she didn't enjoy it the whole thing might be over in a couple of days. But if she was enjoying herself it might last a month. And if it was a month, her clothes might be full of moths and carpet-beetles when she got home. With horror she imagined their little jaws eating through her clothes, her carpets - and their wicked delight when they found her feather-boa!

In the end Fillyjonk was so tired and overcome with not being able to make up her mind that she flung her feather-boa round her neck, locked the house and started off.

Moominvalley wasn't far from her house but when she arrived her suitcase felt as heavy as lead and her boots hurt her. She went up on the veranda and knocked on the door, waited a little and then went into the drawing-room.

Fillyjonk saw immediately that no one had cleaned up there for a long time. She took off one of her cotton gloves and ran her finger along the edge of the stove, making a white line in the grey dust. It can't be true, she whispered, and a shudder of agitation went through her. To stop cleaning, and of your own free will, too... She put her suitcase down and went over to the window. It was dirty as well, the rain had left long melancholy streaks all over the pane. Only when Fillyjonk noticed that the curtains had been taken down did she understand that the family wasn't at home at all. She saw that the chandelier had been wrapped in muslin. And all of a sudden the chilly smell of the deserted house enveloped her and she felt utterly deceived. She opened her suitcase and took out the china vase, the present for Moominmamma, and put it on the table. It stood there as a silent reproach. It was terribly quiet everywhere.

Suddenly Fillyjonk dashed upstairs. It was even chillier there, the kind of stagnant cold you find in a summer-house that has been closed up for the winter. She opened one door after another, all the rooms were empty and in semi-darkness with the blinds down. She became more and more uneasy and began to open the wardrobes, tried to open the clothes-cupboard but it was locked, and suddenly she went quite crazy and hammered on the cupboard door with both paws, then she rushed up to the box-room and pulled the door open.

There inside sat Toft, staring at her. He had a big book in his lap and looked frightened.

'Where are they? Where are they?' shouted Fillyjonk.

Toft dropped his book and crept against the wall, but when he caught the smell of this strange, excited fillyjonk he knew that she wasn't dangerous. She smelt of fear. He said: 'I don't know.'

'But I've come to see them!' Fillyjonk exclaimed. 'I have

a present with me. A very fine vase. They can't have moved away just like that without saying a word!'

Toft just shook his head and went on staring at her. Then Fillyjonk shut the door behind her and went away.

Toft crept back into the roach-net that lay rolled up on the floor and made a fresh comfortable hollow for himself and went on reading. It was a very big book which had no beginning and no end and the pages were all faded and had been nibbled by rats at the edges. Toft wasn't used to reading and it took him a long time to spell his way through every line. All the time he was hoping that the book would explain to him why the family had gone away and where they all were. But the book was about quite different things, curious beasts and murky landscapes and nothing had a name that he recognized. Toft had never known before that deep down at the bottom of the sea lived Radiolaria and the very last Nummulites. One of the Nummulites wasn't like his relatives, there was something of Noctiluca, about him, and little by little he was like nothing except himself. He was evidently very tiny and became even tinier when he was frightened.

'It is impossible for us to express sufficient amazement,' read Toft, 'at this raro variant of the Protozoa group. The reason for its peculiar development naturally evades all possibility of well-founded judgement, but we have grounds for conjecturing that an electrical charge was a crucial necessity of life for it. The occurrence of electrical storms at that period was exceptionally abundant, the postglacial mountain chains described above being subjected to the unceasing turbulence of these violent electrical storms, and the adjacent ocean became charged with electricity.'

Toft let the book fall. He didn't really understand what it was all about and the sentences were so long. But he thought all the strange words were beautiful, and he had never had a book of his own before. He hid it under the roach-net and lay still, thinking. A little bat was hanging from the broken skylight, sleeping upside down.

He heard Fillyjonk's shrill voice in the garden, she had found the Hemulen.

Toft felt very sleepy. He tried to describe the Happy Family, but he couldn't. Then he told himself all about the solitary creature instead, the little Nummulite who had something of Noctiluca about him and liked electricity.