'Now that it has pleased you, Arnold Bros (est. 1905), to take our brother to your great Gardening Department beyond Consumer Accounts, where there is Ideal Lawn Edging and an Amazing Floral Display and the pool of eternal life in Easy-to-Lay Polythene with Real Crazy-Paving Edging, we will give him the gifts a nome must take on his journey.' The Count de Ironmongri stepped forward. 'I give him,' he said, laying an object beside the nome, 'the Spade Of Honest Toil.' 'And I,' said the Duke de Haberdasheri, 'lay beside him the Fishing Rod of Hope.' Other leading nomes brought other things: the Wheelbarrow of Leadership, the Shopping Basket of Life. Dying in the Store was quite complicated, Masklin gathered.
Grimma blew her nose as Gurder completed the service and the body was ceremoniously carried away.
To the sub-basement, they later learned, and the incinerator. Down in the realms of Prices Slashed, the Security, where he sat at night-times, legend said, and drank his horrible tea.
'That's a bit dreadful, I reckon,' said Granny Morkie, as they stood around aimlessly afterwards. 'In my young day, if a person died, we buried 'em. In the ground.' 'Ground?' said Gurder.
'Sort of floor,' explained Granny.
'Then what happened?' said Gurder.
Granny looked blank. 'What?' she said.
'Where did they go after that?' said the Stationeri patiently.
'Go? I don't reckon they went anywhere. Dead people don't get about much.' 'In the Store,' said Gurder slowly, as if he was explaining things to a rather backward child, 'when a nome dies, if he has been a good nome, Arnold Bros (eat. 1905) sends them back to see us before they go to a Better Place.' 'How can-' Granny began.
'The inner bit of them, I mean,' said Gurder. 'The bit inside you that's really you.' They looked at him politely, waiting for him to make any sort of sense.
Gurder sighed. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll get someone to show you.' They were taken to the Gardening Department. It was a strange place, Masklin thought. It was like the world outside but with all the difficult bits taken away. The only light was the faint glow of indoor suns, which stayed on all night. There was no wind, no rain, and there never would be. There was grass, but it was just painted green sacking with bits sticking out of it. There were mountainous cliffs of nothing but seeds in packets, each one with a picture that Masklin suspected was quite unreal. They showed flowers, but flowers unlike any he'd ever seen before.
'Is the Outside like this?' said the young priest who was guiding them. 'They say, they say, er, they say you've been there. They say you've seen it.' He sounded hopeful.
'There was more green and brown,' said Masklin flatly.
'And flowers?' said the priest.
'Some flowers,' Masklin agreed. 'But not like these.' 'I seed flowers like these once,' said Torrit and then, unusually for him, fell silent.
They were led around the bulk of a giant lawnmower and there- -were nomes. Tall, chubby-faced gnomes. Pinkcheeked painted gnomes. Some of them held fishing rods or spades. Some of them were pushing painted wheelbarrows. And every single one of them was grinning.
The tribe stood in silence for some time.
Then Grimma said, very softly, 'How horrible.' 'Oh, no!' said the priest, horrified. 'It's marvellous! Arnold Bros (est. 1905) sends you back smart and new, and then you leave the Stone and go to a wonderful place!' 'There's no women,' said Granny. 'That's a mercy, anyway.' 'Ah, well,' said the priest, looking a bit embarrassed. 'That's always been a bit of a debatable question, we're not sure why but we think-' 'And they don't look like anyone,' said Granny. They all look the same.' Well, you see-' 'Catch me coming back like that,' said Granny. 'If you come back like that, I don't want to go.' The priest was almost in tears.
'No, but-' 'I saw one like these once.' It was old Torrit again. He looked very grey in the face and was trembling.
'You shut up, you,' said Granny. 'You never saw nothing.' 'I did too,' said Torrit. 'When I was a little lad.
Grandpa Dimpo took some of us right across the fields, right through the wood, and there was all these big stone houses where humans lived and they had little fields in front full of flowers like what they got here, and grass all short, and ponds with orange fish, and we saw one of these. It was sitting on a stone toadstool by one of these ponds.' 'It never was,' said Granny, automatically.
'It was an' all,' said Torrit, levelly. 'And I mind Grandpa sayin', "That ain't no life, out there in all weathers, birds doing their wossname on your hat and dogs widdlin' all over you." He tole us it was a giant nome who got turned to stone on account of sitting there for so long and never catching no fish. And he said, "Wot a way to go, that ain't for me, lads, I want to go sudden like," and then a cat jumped out on him. Talk about laugh.' What happened?' said Masklin.
'Oh, we gave it a good seeing-to with our spears and picked him up and we all run like bu - run very fast,' said Torrit, watching Granny's stern expression.
'No, no!' wailed the priest. 'It's not like that at all!' and then he started to sob.
Granny hesitated for a moment, and then patted him gently on the back.
'There, there,' she said. 'Don't you worry about it. Daft old fool says any old thing that comes into his head.' 'I don't-.-' Torrit began. Granny's warning look stopped him.
They went back slowly, trying to put the terrible stone images out of their minds. Torrit trailed along behind, grumbling like a worn-out thunderstorm.
'I did see it, I'm telling you,' he whispered.
'Damn great grinning thing, it were, sitting on a spotty stone mushroom. I did see it. Never went back there, though. Better safe than sorry, I always said. But I did see it.' It seemed taken for granted by everyone that Gurder was going to be the new Abbot. The old Abbot had left strict instructions. There didn't seem to be any argument.
The only one against the idea, in fact, was Gurder.
'Why me?' he said. 'I never wanted to lead anyone! Anyway ... you know ...' He lowered his voice. 'I have Doubts, sometimes. The old Abbot knew it, I'm sure, I can't imagine why he'd think I'd be any good.' Masklin said nothing. It occurred to him that the Abbot might have had a very definite aim in mind. Perhaps it was time for a little doubt. Perhaps it was time to look at Arnold Bros (est.1905) in a different way.
They were off to one side in the big underfloor area the Stationeri used for important meetings; it was the one place in the Store, apart from the Food Hall, where fighting was strictly forbidden. The heads of the families, rulers of departments and sub-departments, were milling around out there. They might not be allowed to bear weapons, but they were cutting one another dead at every opportunity.
Getting them to even think of working together would be impossible without the Stationeri. It was odd, really. The Stationeni had no real power at all, but all the families needed them and none of them feared them and so they survived and, in a strange sort of way, led. A Haberdasheri wouldn't listen even to common sense from an Irorimongri, on general principles, but they would if the speaker was a Stationeri because everyone knew the Stationeri didn't take sides.
He turned to Gurder.
'We need to talk to someone in the Ironmongri. They control the electric, don't they? And the lorry nest.' 'That's the Count de Ironinongri over there,' said Gurder, pointing. 'Thin fellow with the moustache. Not very religious. Doesn't know much about electric, though.' 'I thought you told me-' 'Oh, the Ironmongri do. The underlings and servants and whatnot. But not people like the Count. Good heavens,' Gurder smiled. 'You don't think the Duke de Haberdasheri ever touches a pair of scissors, do you, or Baroness del Icatessen goes and cuts up food her actual self?' He looked sideways at Masklin.