Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  When will the ache stop?

  Oh never let it stop.

  Never to be Left Alone

  My family filled me with hate. Well then let them, I’m empty now, they may as well fill me with something.

  ‘Who killed us? Who brought down Heap House?’ they asked me.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t it you?’

  ‘Lungdon did,’ they said. ‘It was Lungdon that done it.”

  “London, you mean?” I asked.

  “No, no, we do call it Lungdon, we Iremongers. For we shall make it shift from London to Lungdon under our influence. It shall come all over Iremonger! Yes it shall, since it was them that done it, so now Lungdon shall be made to feel it. Now Lungdon shall suffocate on itself. Can’t kill off the Iremongers, can’t be done.’

  ‘Lucy,’ I whispered, ‘Lucy Pennant.’

  ‘She’s a dead one,’ said Uncle Aliver. ‘No discernable life pulse, on account of them.’

  My family came visiting and prodded me in my misery, to set light to it. I didn’t eat much so they fed me with their hatred.

  ‘Well then, Clod, old Clod, shall we dead them?’ said Uncle Idwid, blind and full of grin. ‘Shall we dead them right back, my fellow lugs? How should you like that, my chick? Shall we that hear so, shall we hear them screaming? Shall we make them our instrument and have a nasty music come from them? I think we shall, oh I think we shall: they killed your Lucy.’

  ‘Quite murdered her,’ put in Uncle Timfy, not wishing to be outdone by his twin. This uncle’s birth object (whose name was Albert Powling) was a pig-nosed whistle, which he held threateningly in his small hand. But that whistle was not allowed to be sounded these days, not since we were all to keep ourselves as quiet as we may. Not since we’d gone into hiding, the House of Iremonger, all muted, waiting, waiting to move. All shoved into one heaving address.

  ‘They done for her,’ some relative echoed, chewing nonchalantly on his own greasy hair.

  ‘But you would have killed her yourselves,’ I said. ‘You should have, given half a chance!’

  ‘Maybe yes, maybe no, but they were the ones that did it. Not us.’

  ‘Did she scream?’ wondered Timfy.

  ‘Did they hurt her?’ put in Aliver.

  ‘Bet she screamed,’ concluded Timfy.

  ‘We’re entirely hinnocent of the crime,’ said Idwid, topping his twin. ‘No we never. You shan’t let them get away with it, shall you? To do such a thing. To one you were so partial to. Monstrous, is what it is, monstrous. Murder them right back, that’s what I say. You’ll do it, you’re the one to do it. You’re all black with fury, aren’t you, and so you should be.’

  ‘What are you going to do, cousin?’ said Moorcus, mocking. ‘Are you an Iremonger or not? Earn your nightshirt, why don’t ye?’

  The Girl Across the Street

  They are looking for us, I am told over and over, and if they find us they’ll snuff us out and we’ll never be lit again. But the longer they don’t find us, the longer they look in wrong rooms, and innocent houses, the stronger we grow, the more ire in our Iremonger there is. We are not allowed in London – I shall not call it by that other name – we are forbidden, we Iremonger people. We are illegals. They destroyed our home, so now, with no place, what else are we to do, but hide? We secrete ourselves upon quiet London shelves, so that all around us are only our own flesh and our bloodlikes. And all, though in strange surroundings, are horribly familiar company, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, servants, no one new but space. No new company. No one that isn’t blood. And there, close, breathing in and out our stale air, to prime ourselves and make cruel plans. In London. On London.

  We help only ourselves, there are only ourselves to help. We move in one great fug of blood, we itch of Iremongers, a disease stuffed up in a single house, until we find, we hope, we hope, some somewhere where we may settle. Somewhere someday to call a home. But wherever could that be, and what would it even look like?

  When I could I pulled back the curtains and looked out at the street before us, Connaught Place it was called. That’s when I saw her.

  Someone else looking there.

  Looking back at me.

  A girl at the window across the way. The shock of it. There she was looking right at me. And then the great thing happened. She waved at me. The wonderful, terrible shock of it. Someone London. Waving at me.

  I waved back!

  I waved!

  Oh the joy!

  And then I closed the curtains and felt my heart sprinting. I looked out for her afterwards and when I could I waved again. The girl across the way. That little bit person of London.

  But then, oh then, the last time as I smiled and saw her, I was discovered. Cousin Rippit was there fast as anything, he kept the voices about him so muffled. I didn’t hear him come in. He tugged the curtains closed. And a high long scream came out from deep in him, barely stopping for breath.

  ‘Rippitrippitrippit!’

  He took hold of my hair and shook and shook me. He banged my head against the wall, like they used to do to idiot boys in the school room back at home, to smash some sense into us. It was expressly forbidden to communicate with any London person unless absolutely necessary, it was considered unbelievably dirty and also, and especially, most terribly dangerous to our security. So Rippit he banged and banged me. He scratched at me with his sharp fingernails.

  Cousin Rippit, hunched and bunched in, squashed and horizontaled, flat crab-like Cousin Rippit, his eyes so wide apart, fish-face, in my face day and night. He couldn’t speak yet, not properly; so long and tough was his battle with his birth object, which as man had been Alexander Erkmann the Tailor, and as object was a rusted and twisted letter opener, concealed deep in a Rippit pocket. They had fought, ripping each other so, so much energy fighting length from width, stretching each other one in portrait, the other in landscape.

  Always so close to me now, Cousin Rippit.

  Day or night, I’d hear Rippit take my dear plug out, for he had been made keeper of James Henry Hayward, and croaked his ‘Rippit’ at it, he should never let me see my plug, never let me near it, he was the keeper of it now. He drew it out that morning after I was caught waving, he let my poor plug out the full length of its chain, and waved it before me, swinging it like a pendulum.

  ‘James Henry Hayward, James Henry Hayward.’

  Oh my poor plug.

  His own birth object was never revealed, but was kept always hidden away, lest it should pull itself out of his prison and be free once more.

  Rippit, the croaker, the burper, the creaker, cracking his sound over me, into my thoughts and my loss, staring at me with his yellow eyes. My constant companion.

  ‘Rippit.’ My cousin, my frog cousin.

  ‘Rippit,’ in the night and in the day.

  Rippit that caught me waving.

  I Hurt my Room

  They painted over all the windows in my room with black paint, they nailed the windows closed and boarded them up. Keeping London from me.

  They said they’d sent cousins Otta and Unry over to watch that girl, to see what she was about. Should I be found waving at her again, Unry and Otta would creep up upon her and stop her from meddling permanently. So I mustn’t wave again, it wasn’t safe to. Not for her.

  I wonder if she ever thought of me afterwards, the girl across the way.

  I was stuck in the room in my nightshirt, not allowed to go out, forbidden to look out, we must be quiet, we must keep still. But I cannot. Oh, Lucy, I cannot bear it.

  This new home, home for a bit, a little bite of London, this room of mine. I shall ruin it, I think.

  And so I did just that.

  I only had to think it and it happened. How strong I had become, what things I could do! I’d so love to show Lucy, but I couldn’t. And so I ruined and ruined.

  I blackened.

  I sooted.

  I breaked, bruised, buckled, bludgeoned, bloated and blasted. I hurt things now. I
was so sad that I pulled my sadness out of me and onto all around me and I made all grow stale and rotten and unhappy. I spread my gloom, I sprinkled it. I felt it coming up inside me and belching out and then just by looking I saw the wallpaper start to weep and buckle, to grow strange blisters and hairs. It frightened me that I could do this. I watched as chairs grew awkward and unbalanced, their legs heaved long and thin and stretched to the thinness of needles and as they shifted they creaked and wept and longed not to be so strange, to go back to their former shape. But they couldn’t. I had been misshaped and so all about me must be misshapen too. Now was I made of hate.

  I hated the wallpaper and it blistered and blackened.

  I hated chairs until they stretched and shrieked.

  I hated my bed and so its frame twisted and rusted, I hated the mattress and so it stained and bloated and belched out its guts of springs and feathers.

  I hurt the things. And they let me do it, those things, they never called out, they never said a thing.

  They do not speak to me.

  Those new things never did.

  All those about me, all those London pieces, were silent. They were only things, just little bits, small properties. They had no voices. They were not like the poor lost tortured bits of Foulsham that screamed and bellowed to me, that sung to me and lifted for me, and saved me, oh yes they did. I loved those things, every last whispering, howling one of them. I moved them and they moved me, and beneath them I heard them all and understood all their pain and distress, I knew them, I knew them. But these new things, these possessions of London, these expensive things all about me: why, they were dumb – every last one. It was only the birth objects of all my family about the house that spoke to me as we lived and breathed and hid in our new address. And yet I could feel them all, those bits and pieces, so much of this and of that, and I could have them move and bend and burn, I could shatter them and huft them with the slightest thought. I am Clod, the mover of objects, I am Clod, thing lifter, I am Clod and I may move, I do think, any thing. And break it.

  Voices in the Night

  Suddenly they were there again. I heard them outside my room in the night, talking about me.

  ‘It would seem to be his unhappiness that makes him so,’ Idwid was whispering outside my door. How his Geraldine Whitehead stammered beside him, as if those nose-hair clippers of his were afeard of me. And among the muffled noises I caught, barely, so timid:

  ‘James Henry Hayward.’

  My own plug. And therefore Rippit was outside my door now too, whispering with the others, my own plug in his hands.

  ‘Yes, yes, the more miserable he is, the more the things dance for him,’ came the twin with the whistle.

  ‘Is he dangerous, do you think?’

  I heard something saying, ‘Jack Pike,’ and knew at once it came from a cuspidor, and that Grandfather himself was without the door.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ said Idwid. ‘I would swear so.’

  ‘Can you control him?’ asked Grandfather.

  ‘Not I,’ said Idwid.

  ‘Rippit,’ said Rippit.

  ‘Good Rippit, see that you do.’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘I think, sir, I think, Umbitt Owner, Capital of Iremongers, great hope in our despair, father, father of us all, I think on the whole, just for now, while all is uncertain – just three nights, only three more nights and then we shall be there – I do think, in the meantime, you might leave Clod on his own and not come too much too close.’

  ‘For my sake?’ angered Umbitt.

  ‘No, no, of course not, however could that be?’ said Idwid. ‘I think you might find yourself wishing to punish him a little too much. And though I am certain he deserves such a walloping, it may be best, for the now, to leave him be and find himself.’

  ‘If you say so, Idwid. I’ve no love for the child.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, who could, who would … such a creature!’

  ‘We shall keep our separate ways, for now.’

  ‘I think it wisest. Rippit shall steer him right, shan’t you, Rippit?’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Wait!’ cried Idwid. ‘I hear something.’

  ‘I too,’ said Umbitt. ‘It is the door! There’s someone there, at the front door downstairs. Hush all, be still!’

  ‘Rippit.’

  ‘Surely,’ whispered Timfy, ‘surely it’s locked.’

  ‘No, idiot brother of mine,’ said Idwid, ‘it must be unlocked. For Unry and Otta to come back in when they need.’

  There was someone downstairs. Some non-Iremonger, someone from London. A very new person. I went to my bedroom door, but Rippit had locked it.

  ‘Let me out,’ I said.

  ‘Silence, Clod,’ came Grandfather. ‘Go back to bed.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a London person,’ I said, ‘not up close. I should very much like to.’

  ‘Lungdon, you must say Lungdon,’ said Timfy.

  ‘This is not the time, Clod,’ said Grandfather. ‘You will be silent.’

  But I would not be silent. Be silent and miss this phenomenon amongst us? No. I commanded the objects all about my room to shift and dance. I had them flying all about me, scuffing the wallpaper, making such a din.

  ‘Rippit,’ said Grandfather, ‘silence that child at once.’

  In response I made a porcelain potty shatter itself.

  I heard a voice then, a young voice downstairs.

  ‘I think there are people here,’ the voice was calling. ‘Hello! Hello!’

  ‘Hello!’ I cried.

  ‘I have seen you,’ came the voice down below. ‘I’ve seen the fellow in the brass helmet. One of servants said she saw a dog. I’ve seen the young man upstairs in his nightshirt, I waved at him, he waved at me.’

  The girl, it was the girl!

  ‘Rippit.’ He was inside the room then, Rippit was, closing the door behind him, shaking his head at me, coming closer.

  ‘Hello,’ I called. ‘Up here!’

  ‘Rippit.’

  Rippit was at me. His squat, cold hand across my mouth. His sharp nails digging into my cheek.

  I closed my eyes and, thinking hard, pulled a saucer from a table and, opening the door a moment, sent it downstairs, but that was not enough. So then I dragged every porcelain piece from about the house and made it rush over to her downstairs, to let her know that I was there, but not to hurt, never to hurt, to tumble near her, not to touch her, to play about her legs.

  Though Rippit had hold of me, I heard the pieces falling.

  But the girl was crying out now.

  I think I had frightened her.

  I never meant to frighten.

  Rippit took hold of my hair and tugged hard at it, he kicked me in the shins with his sharp boots, he had his nails out to scratch and scratch. And then from one of his many pockets he pulled out an old rusted pudding spoon, and from another some small packet of stuff, which he dipped the spoon into until the spoon was heaped full of grey mixture. Grinding, he had some grinding to dull me. I should not take it, but he leapt and pounced, so agile for such a strange lump, and had a chair rush up to me – for he too could set the objects in movement by his thoughts – so that I found myself sat upon it, and then he was upon me again, the sharp fingers digging, those of one hand opening my mouth, those of the other pinching my nose shut.

  ‘I shan’t eat! Leave me be!’

  ‘Rippit.’

  I spat at him, he dug his nails in deeper.

  ‘Rippit!’

  He was so strong, strange Cousin Rippit, he had my mouth open, and the spoonful was shoved down me, I could not stop him. And very soon, very soon, very soon I was asleep. And then Grandfather I suppose must have taken over in his particular way.

  I Exercise my New Strength

  In the morning, I crushed and cracked, I moved mercilessly from thing to thing, I could not stop myself, the doing of it was, I admit, such pleasure.

  Clod, Clod, clever Clod.

  Kille
r of things.

  ‘He’s at it again! Quick, call Idwid!’ wept my relatives.

  ‘He’s breaking things, he’s ruining his room,’ they cried.

  ‘Clod,’ Idwid called up the stairs but in strained whisper. ‘Clod, tidy your room.’

  ‘I shall not!’ I cried.

  ‘You must be quiet or we shall be discovered.’

  In response I smashed a vase and did a jig in its pieces.

  ‘How ever did he come so wild?’

  ‘He never used to be.’

  ‘Such a shy one as was.’

  ‘So silent and obedient.’

  ‘Never one to raise his voice.’

  ‘Look at him now.’

  ‘So bold, so bold.’

  ‘I hate you all!’ I cried. ‘I hate every last drop of blood of you, I hate your skin and your hair, your vile organs, your yellow eyes and your selfish lives, your busy biles, your shrunken hearts, your lumpen livers, your fetid bloodways, your clogged drains, your grey stains in your swollen skulls. I loathe, loathe, loathe every last ounce of you all.’

  ‘Now, Clod man,’ said Uncle Aliver, our doctor, ‘you know you haven’t got that quite right.’

  ‘I’ll anatomise your anatomies!’

  ‘Listen to the child!’

  ‘Such a strong voice.’

  ‘For one who never shouted.’

  ‘Coming along most particular.’

  ‘Under Rippit’s special guidance.’

  ‘Ripening, I’d call it.’

  ‘He’s the one to do it.’

  ‘Ever has been.’

  ‘For good and all,’ I seethed at them and marvelled at my seething, ‘I’ll do nothing for you ever. You cannot make me!’

  ‘Thinks we’ll make him.’

  ‘No, we’ll never.’

  ‘Never even have to.’

  ‘He’ll do it, good and strong.’

  ‘He’s the man.’

  ‘Look at the very latest in Iremonger.’

  ‘Breaking the mould.’