by Edward Carey
Heap level still rising.
It will spill I think.
It will spill.
God keep us.
17
MY INHERITANCE
Clod Iremonger’s narrative continued
The Tailor’s Room
This is what a room looks like when the world has forgotten it, the floor thick with dirt and dust. Here hid the Tailor Alexander Erkmann for five long years. I could almost feel him there, as if he were beside me whispering, ‘Clod Iremonger, Clod Iremonger, you must stop them, you must. You are the one to do it.’
‘I am just Clod,’ I said to the room, ‘and that’s not an awful lot.’
But the Tailor was there no longer, he was lost again in the shape of a letter opener. That room, poor room, was a dead place. I needed to see something else, something other than this room, so thick with Tailor. I opened the filthy curtains. The begrimed windows were impossible to see through. I wiped clean a patch the size of my hand, of clear, clear enough, smudged and smoky glass. I looked out across the grey dullness that was the great smoking factory, a hulk of a place, Bayleaf House. There was no mistaking that place, Bayleaf House itself.
Bayleaf House, where my family was, and not only my family,
‘My plug!’ I said. ‘Oh my plug, my James Henry plug.’
I sat in all the dirt and dust, in all that thick air and wondered what was to become of it all.
How much longer, James Henry? I wondered. What time do we have left, before the creeping illness comes into me? What to do in that time? I must go in, I must go in and find those people and see all that they do. However can I stop Grandfather? I used to think living was a safe thing to do. I shall have to wander over there through those gates of metal, slip in there, just a Clod amount of space, and feel through all that smoke, sniff out Grandfather and my family and stop them. However should they listen to me? They never used to. What’s changed that they should now? I’ve changed, I thought then. I’ve changed. I shall tell them, it’s all gone foul and wrong and must be stopped. I’m Clod, I am, and I mean to stop them.
I sat up, the dust moved around me.
‘Battle, old Clod, old fellow?’ I whispered.
I sat in the dirt.
‘I’d manage better with Lucy beside me, that I know. Battle?’
Just sat there in the dirt.
‘Well, I may as well march alone. I am alone after all.’
From somewhere deep in the dust, other voices called through the cobwebs and dirt.
‘Someone new,’ came a voice.
‘Come to help?’ asked another.
It was an old broken wicker seat talking to a cracked picture frame.
Other obscure things murmured in the darkness.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Who called?’
‘Something new.’
‘Oh, how he shines!’
‘What life he has.’
‘Help us, will you,’ something called. ‘I was Bentley Orford once, am old split bellows now.’
‘I was Helen before ever I was this old crib.’
‘Oh, hullo,’ I said. ‘I do hear you. I am most glad of it.’
‘Now, that’s proper of him,’ said the bellows.
‘That’s breeding, that is.’
‘I’m of bad blood, actually,’ I said. ‘Though I’m awfully glad of your company.’
‘No, come now, you’re a bright young man, and kind to talk to old broken bits such as us.’
‘What shall we call you?’
‘Clod,’ I said hopelessly. ‘Clod the warrior!’
‘Clod the warrior, is it? What’s your true name?’
‘Tummis had some Coldstream Guards,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll be a soldier in my turn, just you see if I’m not.’
‘Clan of Orford am I,’ said the proud thing. ‘My old dad, dear old fellow, lost in the heaps.’
‘I am most sorry to hear it,’ I said. ‘It is awful dangerous out there.’
‘That it is, no doubting.’
‘I used to watch it from another attic window,’ I said. ‘Nearly got heap blindness from watching it so often, back at Heap House.’
‘Heap House, says you? Heap House?’
‘Yes, I did live there, you know.’
‘Did you? Why ever should you do that?’
‘I was born there, you see.’
‘Not Iremonger are you? Not an Iremonger, we had one of them an old dented flask how we hated him and liked to shout at him and make all a misery for him. But suddenly that flask’s here no more. Not an Iremonger, are you, surely not. Not with manners like that.’
‘I am, yes, I must say I am, through and through.’
‘But you sound so different.’
‘Do I? I thank you for that at least.’
‘We haven’t had new company, not for so long.’
‘You may come to me,’ I said, ‘if you like.’
And out of the dirt and dust, making their own timid tracks, broken bits from the attic came and sat beside me. And so we sat together a while, and felt each of us the better for it. Remembering our histories to one another.
We may have continued happily for some time, but then came a noise from somewhere within the house. I had so completely forgotten that there must be more to this place, I’d thought it only a room, but there were surely rooms and rooms beneath me. That was a cheering thought. What went on in those other places? Were there people down there? Were there lives? And I must admit, tears in my eyes, such happiness, that there was! There was life below, because then I heard a man singing,
‘I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!
Over in the rubbish ground,
I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!
Come and see what I have found!
‘I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!
I have found there much for thee,
I’ve been sifting! I’ve been sorting!
Let me in now, come and see!’
But on hearing this man’s singing all the heap bits around me, and on my lap, began to stir again and to retreat into the soft corners, to lose themselves in cobwebs.
‘Come back,’ I said. ‘Please come back.’ But they would not, as if they were afraid.
18
IN A COOKER LOCKED
Lucy Pennant’s narrative continued
‘Binadit,’ said Benedict from his place in the cooker.
Please, please, I thought, you must be quiet, Benedict. But the heap bits falling from the cuffs and feet of the new porter were rushing across the floor towards him, and pinging against the door of the cooker, eager to get in.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Porter Rawling. ‘What’s the size of it?’
The bits stuck fast to the cooker door, like magnets.
‘What’s the meaning on it, Whiting?’ asked Rawling of the old woman, coming closer. ‘What have you done, you old sack of bones? You’ve no license for such a business, this I know. That shouldn’t happen, it’s against the rules. Why do them things do that? They oughtn’t to, I’ll have them impounded for less. Hi there, get off that, will you?’
He poked at the things, but the bits stuck fast to the cooker.
‘Why would they do that, isn’t natural, is it?’
‘I cannot tell what you are making such a fuss about,’ said the widow. ‘Do you not have duties, Rawling? Do not let me detain you further.’
‘Is there someone in there, Mrs Whiting, is there now?’
‘Rawling, are you insinuating that I am hiding someone in my apartment?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘I am shocked and I am hurt and I am disappointed.’
‘Well, well, I can live with that, that’s as nothing.’
‘I’ve a headache. I need to be left alone.’
‘I’ve a headache, name on it: Leonora Whiting.’
The porter had his hand on the cooker latch then. ‘Who’s in there? Come out, shall you?’
Benedict was silent inside.
‘You see, Rawling, it is quite empty. How could it be otherwise?’
But Rawling, he lifted the latch, he lifted the latch and he opened the door. He sprung back of a sudden and screamed,
‘Well then, look what’s for dinner!’
‘Binadit!’ cried Benedict. ‘Binadit! Binadit!’
‘What’s your name then?’ asked Rawling.
‘Help! Murder!’ cried Mrs Whiting. ‘There’s a man in my room! Muscles!’
‘Come you out,’ said Rawling. ‘Come you out now, come, come!’
‘I stuck,’ said poor Benedict.
‘Papers!’ snapped Rawlings. ‘I’ll have papers, I will! Papers for being in this house, papers for hiding in that there cooker. Is it legal, is it right? Get out, get out will you!’
‘I stuck cannot!’
‘No, no! I’ll not sanction it,’ the porter went on. ‘This is wrong, this is most wrong and I do hate it! I will have order in this house. I am the rule book on these premises, and you, you there, big fellow in the stove, I’m taking you down. You’re cooked!’
Saying that, Rawling, in one excited leap, took hold of Mr Whiting and rung him like his life depended on it. That set Mrs Whiting screaming for her husband the handbell and Benedict screaming as loud as he might for ‘Lucy Pennant! Lucy Pennant!’
I struggled to get from my portion of the cooker. I struggled to free me. I pushed on the door with my feet but it would not come open. Mrs Whiting had closed the latch and I couldn’t get out. I thought we had a chance of getting him, I thought together we could surely overpower the porter, but I could not get free. I could not shift to tell Benedict. He was too confused, the great big man, he needed instruction. And still the porter rang his bell, not stopping for a moment, as if he was not a man at all, only a machine built for the single purpose of ringing a handbell. It all happened so fast. It all went wrong so quick. And then there were other people in the room, men in policing leathers and with truncheons and pikes.
‘What is the meaning of it?’ called one officer. ‘Who are you to disturb the day in this manner? There had better be call for it, better be good call or there’ll be such an answering.’
‘You,’ said another officer to the porter, ‘have even interrupted Umbitt with your noising!’
‘Umbitt!’ cried the porter, most terrified, ‘Not Umbitt! Surely not!’
‘Umbitt himself!’ repeated the officer.
‘Oh Umbitt, Owner,’ cowered the porter.
‘Silence! You little dirtpile!’
‘Oh my Maker!’ Rawling added involuntarily. ‘Didn’t mean it.’
‘You’re making foul noise with that brass instrument.’
‘Poor Mr Whiting, dear Mr Whiting!’ wept the widow.
‘Will you turn that noise off!’ said the officer, meaning the widow.
‘Shut it, Whiting,’ said Rawling, ‘or I reckon I’ll bash you.’
‘What’s that then?’ said an other officer pointing at Benedict.
‘That’s what the noise is for,’ said Rawling. ‘That’s a varmint, a walloping great varmint, I reckon. Something huge and unsavoury.’
‘Not peculiar to these premises?’
‘Most peculiar, but not our peculiar,’ said the porter.
‘Name, Peculiar, what ’tis?’
‘Binadit,’ he stammered.
‘Name, Binadit? Binadit, did you say?’
‘No, no,’ poor Benedict stammered, ‘’tis … Benedict Tipp.’
‘Why mention Binadit, Mr Tipp? Why would you say that name?’
‘No, no, not to mention.’
‘How came you here, Mr Tipp?’ asked an officer.
‘That’s the question, let him answer that,’ added the porter.
‘Shut it, you, stand down, or I’ll clock you good and hard.’
‘Sir,’ nodded the porter, ‘sir.’
‘Now then, Mr Tipp, explain yourself.’
I kicked at the door.
Benedict stood in front of it.
‘I am Mr Tipp,’ he said, ‘very new here, no home, no lodging.’
‘Very like,’ said the officer, ‘and so you come here of your own volition?’
‘I come,’ continued poor, poor Benedict, ‘for shelter, I come for light, I come for company, I come for the red company that I like so, the red heat, I mean, the warmth, I mean, and I come on my own.’
‘Where’ve you been then, afore you was here?’
‘Lost in darkness, Heap! Heap!’
‘On the heaps?’
I kicked the door.
‘What was that?’
‘Was me!’ cried Benedict. ‘Was my fault, things follow me, things noise for me, I cannot help it. I came here to escape the Heaps, the Heaps were following me.’
‘That is true,’ said Rawling, ‘that’s true enough, certainly. I seen it.’
‘If I hear you ever once more, Porter, you’ll be portering out where no one shall ever hear you and there you may talk till you’re blue all over, or any other colour!’
‘Sir, sir.’
‘Now then,’ the officer said to Benedict, ‘show me.’
I kicked the door as hard as I could.
‘I made the noise,’ said Benedict. ‘I would like to say, I shall step away and the noise shall not start again, for there’s no point in both drowning when one may be safe to help the other later, is there.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m telling the stove to be quiet, or I’ll be hurt by it, I mean I’ll hurt it, I mean it’ll be hurt.’
‘I’m not following.’
‘You see,’ said Benedict, leaving me, though it was my fault, all my fault, ‘I’ve been most looked after, I’m happy for it. Now, I shall step away from this thing and when I does it shall be silent, and then, all them heap bits yonder, shall in a moment come along a me.’
I did not kick, I did not call out. I’d raise an army, I bloody would.
‘Look, after me,’ he said, ‘things, oh things, here, come to me.’
I heard one or two of the heap bits following him. ‘See how they come after,’ he called. ‘Come, come, here I be!’
More followed him, more joined into him, covering him over again.
‘Come! Come!’ he cried and as he wailed, with laughter and horror, the filth from the heaps dragged after him, but he was at the door already, he was out of Mrs Whiting’s room and thundering down the stairs before the officers knew what was happening.
‘Good God!’
‘Did you see that, the things rushing?’
‘It’s … it’s It, the Baby, it’s out of the heaps.’
‘I thought it a story. One to scare the dumb people.’
‘Does that look like a story?’ the other replied. ‘Does the house wobble on account of a story?’
‘Must get him!’
‘Get him fast, trap him!’
‘Call every man! Now, quick, before the walls fall!’
‘After him!’
‘After him!’
And all ran after, even the porter. What sounds down the boarding house stairs, what calls and hollering. Benedict would outrun them, surely he would, he had a chance, he had a head start.
I called out to the widow then, she was sitting, panting in her armchair with a doily at its headrest, she had her handbell in her lap.
‘Mrs Whiting, Mrs Whiting,’ I whispered, ‘you can let me out now. It’s safe I think.’
But she sat on in her chair, stroking her handbell.
‘Mrs Whiting,’ I said, ‘do you hear me?’
‘My heart,’ she said, ‘old organ. Old muscle.’
‘Will you let me out?’
‘Will I?’
‘Yes, will you, please, Mrs Whiting.’
‘Oh, Lucy, dear Lucy, I do not think I can.’
‘Yes, you can, Mrs Whiting, yes you will.’
‘No, no I cannot, you see, dear Lucy, I know that you are
about to turn, I’ve seen it in your face. I do know when such things are about to happen. I’ve never yet been wrong.’
‘Please, Mrs Whiting, I’m begging you.’
‘I don’t think it’ll be very long, dear. Not long at all.’
‘I need to get out, please, please Mrs Whiting, poor Benedict!’
‘And then all will be done.’
‘I have money.’
‘Yes dear, but it’s not really money I care for.’
‘I’ll find you such things, better things, the best.’
‘I’m so sorry, Lucy, believe me, I am, but I mean to collect you. Do you see? I mean to put you upon the shelf there. I would like that, I’ll look after you, have no fear of that. I mean to polish you, and dust you. I shall not ever forget you. I’ll cherish you, I promise. You’ll never be neglected, but loved, dear, only loved.’
I sat hunched in the darkness, sometimes looking at the old woman through the hatch slit, she dozed with the handbell in her lap. I saw her get up after a while and move her things about, admiring her collection, making much fuss of it, I believe she was readying it for a new member. She was waiting for me. Did I feel like I was turning, did I feel it, that buckling, shrinking, sickening feel? I wasn’t certain. The pain in my limbs may just be from my old wounds, or because I was so buckled over in there, the bad feeling in my stomach, that hollow yearning, was surely because I was hungry, because I needed to eat.
Or was it that other pain? Was I beginning … No, no, Lucy, you cannot think like that, you mustn’t. You’ve got things to do. You must help Benedict before he’s harmed. You cannot turn to a button when he needs you, that’d be no good, how can you help anyone when you’re a button … a button … a clay button. And having these thoughts, round and rounding in my tired head, I seemed to be nodding off. I seemed to be sleeping a while and in that sleep, all of a sudden, there she was. The woman. The matchstick woman, she was very close to me, I knew it. She somehow knew where I was. She sensed it, she sniffed me.