MUDLARKING ROYALTY
ALM No.93, September 2026
SHORT STORIES
It had been years since the old man had been down to the shore. From his bedroom window on the top floor, Malachi Senior could see upstream toward Tower Bridge, downstream toward the Thames estuary. He’d been mudlarking royalty, known for spectacular finds. A legend among admirers of the reclaimed. Upon retirement, his reputation, built gradually over the decades, faded fast.
A tap at the door. His grandson, Malachi Junior, and his daughter, Antonia.
“We can come back,” Antonia said. At his request, she’d been fixing up his new bedroom at street level, overlooking the garden.
“Might as well get it over and done.” He’d miss this view.
“It’s the right decision, Grandpa,” Junior said. He’d watched the old man climb the three flights with much pain in the last few weeks. The descent was even more precarious, Senior feeling the next step with almost numb feet. While fewer steps made sense, Junior worried he’d resent his world shrinking. His mother had already stripped the bed. He started to unscrew the heavy oak frame. Once dissembled, the bed would be easy to carry down.
#
Later that day when the tide was out, Junior was down on the river shore, observing, prodding, digging, searching for treasure. Findings were slim. Something caught his eye. Not on the riverbed but the street high above. It was Senior at the top of the embankment’s forty steps, waving and pointing. “Over there, boy. A new ridge.”
It was easier to spot shifting contours from above. They might mean a newly deposited thing. The boy, seeing no ridge, mimed, Where?
More pointing. “Wait, I’ll join you.”
“No Grandpa. The steps are slippery. I’ll come up.”
Too late, he was already over the top, lowering a tentative foot. “Haven’t I done this a thousand times?”
Giving in, Junior shouted, “Then hold the railing.”
It was painful watching the slowness of his grandfather’s descent, a grimace with each movement. To heighten the danger, slithering sea cucumber and bladderwrack coated the steps. Senior was gripping the iron railing. His grandson wasn’t sure he had strength enough to hold on should he slip. After much effort, some grunting, but no loss of footing or dignity, the old man was down. “Not so difficult, boy. Glad to be back! My country. Follow me.”
With an agility Junior hadn’t seen for some time, his grandfather led him to a rise and depression.
“Dig here. If I’m not mistaken, I found Roman coins at this very spot forty years ago. Gold and silver. They’re in the British Museum.”
Junior scratched with his trowel in ever expanding arcs, as his grandfather had taught him. The old man watched, pleased with the boy’s patience, his delicate disturbances that might detect but not harm. Minutes later, the scrape of contact. Despite his imperfect hearing, the old man caught the rasp of metal on metal. Felt the vibrations?
“That’s it boy.”
Junior worked with his hands
“Yes boy, seeing with touch.”
Junior’s fingers were closing around the artifact, finding purchase and tugging gently.
“What will it be? What will you bring out of the mud? Delight or disappointment?” A rush pulsed through him. “I should come down more often!”
Junior extracted the object: felt the weight of it, thrilled at the joy. He wiped the find with a rag: “Brooch, antique. A beauty.” Handed it to his grandfather.
“Beauty indeed.” Senior further cleaned it with a cuff. The excitement of the hunt. Identification. Classification. Hallmark: “Silver. Irish. Eighteenth century.”
He handed the brooch back. Junior saw the old man glance out toward the river. The beginnings of the turn of the tide.
“Let’s get you back up those steps, Grandpa.”
“There might be more.” He scanned the shore. “That ridge,” he pointed. Always a mudlarker. Playing games with the tide.
“Mum will worry. If she knew…”
“Indeed.” If only he had the speed of earlier days. The confidence. “Let’s go back.” A wise decision, he realized. His earlier energy had drained. Depleted, he set his sights on the bottom of the embankment steps.
Too proud to accept his grandson’s hand, he shuffled along the shore, stumbling on a rounded brick, stepping into a shallow pool.
“Yes, the steps,” Senior said.
All forty of them.
Nigel Pugh has published in Litbreak Magazine, Halfway Down The Stairs and Adelaide Magazine. He has had short plays performed and written for children’s TV. He was a CEO for the New York City Department of Education.
Subscribe to FREE digital flip copy of the Adelaide Magazine printed edition.