by Edward Carey
‘Then perhaps any future Sittings must be delayed. I’d say we should replace the sofa but it has been sat upon for over a hundred years, and, besides, we have only your word on it.’
So continued our rounds. We even went beyond a door marked EEF on one side and ODOM on the other – to represent the separation of the sexes, named after the unfortunate couple expelled from the Garden of Eden, though we use the Iremonger variation of their names. I saw something of the girl cousins’ establishments, and, in truth, they were not so very different to the Odom side of things, the classroom was just about identical, except different objects said different things. It was in one of the classrooms, the one for the senior girl cousins, where at one of the desks sat Pinalippy staring at me peculiarly, and so many other girls staring at her and then at me, that the second incident occurred. Uncle spoke to the form mistress, the mistress ordered silence and I went about doing my hearing, and I very nearly missed it, but kneeling down at the desk of Cousin Theeby I heard just under the noise of her hot-water bottle cover (Aimy Aiken) which in itself was not loud, a porcelain inkwell called Jeremiah Harris saying, along with its name, ‘I should be much obliged.’
Uncle asked me if I was absolutely certain. I was.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Uncle told the form mistress, ‘but have that inkwell sent downhouse. Label it first.’
I felt very important then, with all the girl cousins watching me, until I heard Cousin Horryit muttering, ‘Send him downhouse while you’re at it.’
Horryit was considered the most beautiful of all the Iremonger cousins. She had a loud birth object called Valerie Borthwick, I had no idea what Valerie was. Horryit was due to marry Cousin Moorcus the next month.
Later on, in the long gallery, there was a carpet beater that said, besides Esther Fleming, ‘Whooping cough.’ And in Grandfather’s great dining room there was a decanter, Alexander Fitzgerald, that said, ‘I’d rather not.’ But there was no Alice Higgs to be heard anywhere. At last Uncle Aliver said we might stop now. We sat down upon the marble steps of the grand staircase near the bottom between Grandmother’s dozing porter and Grand Grandfather.
‘What’s happening to the objects, Uncle?’ I asked.
‘I’ve no idea, Clod, we may need to call in help. How are you feeling? I haven’t tired you out too much?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Thank you, Clod,’ and then, I think it must have been the pressure of the day, all those objects making such new sounds, that, after a sigh, Uncle Aliver spoke out of turn, ‘Clod, your grandfather has asked me to take particular care of you.’
‘Grandfather?’ I asked. ‘Grandfather mentioned me?’
‘Yes, Clod, he speaks of you often. He will say as I tend to him, “And tell me, Aliver, how is our Clod these days, we have such hopes for him.”’
‘Does he?’ I asked. ‘Does he really? I haven’t seen Grandfather for over a year. I hear the train coming back of course and going out. Grandmother won’t see me, she said she might in the summer, but it’s far from certain. And I always thought Grandmother was fonder of me than Grandfather.’
‘He has not forgotten you. Only the other day he said to me, “Clod shall be trousered soon I think?” I tell him yes. And your grandfather says, “I must see him before then.”’
‘Grandfather wants to see me, he actually said that?’
‘Yes, Clod, he did. You’re a special case, the one that hears things, and so we must be careful with you. We must keep you safe until your grandfather reveals his plans.’
‘Grandfather,’ I whispered, ‘when will I see him? I shan’t be alone then, shall I? Will you be there, Uncle Aliver?’
‘You must not upset yourself, I’ve probably said too much already. Go back to your room now, Clod, get some rest. I’ll sign a chit and have it sent to the schoolrooms. And, Clod, do not spoil yourself over Tummis Iremonger, Tummis is not the kind of friend that you should have, so keep him at a distance, such a person can do you no good at all. You might cultivate, say, your Cousin Moorcus instead.’
‘But Tummis –’ I protested.
‘I shall tell your grandfather how good you are. You do want that, don’t you? A good report.’
‘Yes, Uncle, of course.’
‘Off you go then, my little germ. I must send a message to Bay Leaf House. Tread along carefully.’
In the Sun Room
So dripping, minute counting, second hauling, the rest of the day slowly ebbed. I’m done with the sun, I said to myself, and did a sort of stomping dance to it. I caught naps here and there, shut off bits of daytime, pulled the curtains of my eyes on them and tried to store up a few borrowed minutes, took time from the day and gave it to the night, only when I slept Grandfather stalked my dreams and I sat up in a sweat. At last Grandfather’s steam scream engine sounded throughout the house. Not long, not so very long now.
I waited for Lucy Pennant, I was dressed and ready though all Iremongers around me were undressed of the day and surely in pyjamas and under sheets and hair nets and moustache nets and mosquito nets. I was waiting, I had brushed my hair in the mirror, pulled my socks up, tightened my shoes and lay on my bed waiting for the house to quieten down. I heard a footman up and down the corridor making sure nothing else was needed, that we had all gone to bed. As I waited and waited I must have fallen asleep. I woke up suddenly, something had just come running past my door, cawing.
Whatever it was had woken me up. How long had I been asleep? I couldn’t quite say. Was I too late? I didn’t know. I brushed myself down a bit, parted my hair, telling myself if I’m to have any chance of seeing her I must hurry. I opened my bedroom door. What was outside? The night was. I walked into it.
I could not find her at first. She was not in the common room, that fireplace had already been laid. She was not in any of the schoolrooms. At last, down a deep corridor so thick with night that my small candle was nearly choked on it, there she was and there was the quiet, so quiet, words coming from her bonnet, I heard amongst the other objects in that room Patrick Wellens and Jenny McMannister (a fire grate and a bell jar) some other slight whispering. She was in the Sun Room, but she was not making the fireplace, she was wiping the windows.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Don’t creep up on me like that! Not unless you want a shovel across your ear.’
‘I thought you did the fireplaces.’
‘I wanted to look out,’ she said.
‘Should you be doing that? I mean, is it right? I mean, won’t you be in trouble?’
‘Who does the windows in this house? They’re shocking.’
‘They probably thought it wasn’t worthwhile. It all gets covered over so quickly.’
‘I just want to see out, I can’t open the window, it’s bolted down . . .’
‘Well, you see, otherwise the gulls will come in.’
‘I thought if I gave one a good scrub maybe I’d see something, anything really, just something, out.’
‘You do know that it’s probably worse on the other side.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘That’s one of the problems, living in a dustheap as we do, there’s so much dust and soot and ash, it does tend to get everywhere. If you step out just for a minute and then come back inside and blow your nose, well then your snot is rather black. It gets everywhere, the dust, all over, not just the house, people too.’
‘So there’s really not much point then in cleaning the window.’
‘Not much I shouldn’t think.’
‘But it might make the room just a little lighter. Mightn’t it?’
‘I suppose it shouldn’t make it any darker.’
‘Let us try then.’
‘Me? You can’t mean me, I’m an Iremonger.’
‘Yes, you can help.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and, ‘all right then.’
And so I did, and so we did. Clean a window. We wiped it down with old rags and the rags which were not exa
ctly white to begin with were very soon utterly black, no matter how many newish rags we used they were soon all as black, so much night mopped up, but still so much more to go. And as I scrubbed so close beside her I listened out for those muted words, they seemed a little quieter than before, but at last I understood the first word, ‘Alec!’ I said. ‘I think it’s Alec!’
‘What did you say?’ she asked.
‘A lec,’ I said, ‘er . . . I like to clean windows.’
‘Idiot,’ she muttered. ‘Where’ve you been anyway? I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘I meant to be here much earlier, I really meant to, but it didn’t quite happen. Another night I’ll be much quicker.’
‘You’d better, I can’t stay up here all night waiting for you.’
‘No, no, one wouldn’t expect that.’
‘Things to do.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said and for a while we were quiet, scrubbing along.
‘I’m sorry about your ear,’ she said at last.
‘It’s quite well now, thank you.’
‘The bell will be rung soon enough, I should go down. You’d better be quicker tomorrow. If you want me to tell you anything.’
Our hands were very filthy by then and I didn’t mind at all. We stood back to look at the glass. It looked just the same to me, though I told her that it surely was a little lighter, and she seemed glad of that. She made me promise to come back into the Sun Room during the day and see if it was at all different, and I promised her that I would.
‘Do you know that what we’re doing now,’ I said, ‘I’m really not supposed to do at all.’
‘Clean windows?’
‘Not supposed to do that either actually, but most of all, not to talk to you.’
‘Why not.’
‘Not allowed. House rule.’
‘Who said?’
‘Grandfather did.’
‘Who’s Grandfather?’
‘Umbitt Iremonger of the dustheaps.’
‘I’m one of you lot too,’ she said. ‘An Iremonger. On Mother’s side.’
‘I’m Iremonger through and through, mother and father.’
‘Then I know what that makes you.’
‘What does it?’
‘It makes you grow up to look all odd and crooked.’
That stung a bit. ‘I’m not very tall, am I?’
‘You’re a little shifty, aren’t you?’
‘For my age? I’m fifteen and a half, when I’m sixteen I have to marry.’
‘Well, good luck to you.’
‘I don’t want to marry. I’d rather not.’
‘Then say no.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Rule. Everyone marries at sixteen. Well, nearly everyone.’
‘You do like your rules, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t. They’re just there, aren’t they, I can’t get over them.’
‘Because you’re so small?’
‘Because I’m an Iremonger.’
‘I’m sixteen already and not married. Nor likely to be. Came close to it though. Was going to be. Narrow escape.’
‘Really? Were you really? Do you mind my asking to whom?’
‘The heaps, you dolt.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh, he says.’
‘Will you tell me about it?’
‘What’s on the end of that chain you’ve got there?’
‘It’s my James Henry Hayward.’
‘Your what?’
‘My Ja— My plug, my birth object. Do you want to see it? I’ll show it to you.’
‘You called it something else just a moment ago.’
‘Ah . . . well, I may as well tell you I suppose. I hear voices.’
‘You do what?’
‘Objects, you see, some objects have voices, they have names, they tell me their names. That bell jar over there. Do you see it?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s called Jenny McMannister.’
‘What are you talking about? Are you ill, is that it?’
‘Yes, I am ill. Uncle Aliver gives me pills.’
‘Is there something very wrong with you? I thought there was to begin with, I had that feeling. Are you dangerous? You don’t look that dangerous.’
‘No, no, I’m not dangerous at all.’
‘You better not be, I’ll thump you if you’re dangerous.’
‘I’m not dangerous,’ I said, ‘I just hear things.’
‘Well, you can hear things away from me. Don’t you spook me or I’ll get my shovel out again.’
‘No, no, I shouldn’t dream of it.’
‘I’d better get back downstairs now, before I’m missed.’
‘Goodnight then. Thank you for talking. I’ll come sooner tomorrow.’
‘Better had.’
And off she went with all her cleaning business, but she turned around at the door.
‘What’s my name again?’ she said, quite fiercely too.
‘It is Lucy Pennant of course,’ I said.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and was gone.
‘And Alec something,’ I whispered.
And that was it. What a night. I felt quite light as I walked back to my room, I even swung my James Henry around on its chain. I ran the last part, and as I rushed up the stairs I saw, moving fast with me, something just above, for the smallest moment there was a bird moving about in the shadows.
‘Wateringcan!’ I called.
But then he was gone, out of sight, up into the rooms at the top of the house. He’d better not get into the attics, the bats would do for him there.
I went to bed thinking that it was a shame I had no keepsake of Lucy Pennant, some small thing, something to help me through the day, something to remember her by. A portrait should be best though, a likeness.
Uncle Idwid
Quite early the next morning, just after getting dressed, not long after Grandfather’s engine had left for the day, I heard Percy Hotchkiss coming down my corridor and with it something unfamiliar called Geraldine Whitehead. Uncle Aliver knocked and entered, looking very nervous, beside him stood a man I had never seen before and yet felt I had known all my life, there was something very familiar about him. He was wearing official uniform, a gold braided bay leaf on his collar. He was a little man, his sparse hair was stuck hard to his large white skull, and there were veins on his temple clearly visible. Who was he? Why did I seem to know him?
‘May I present,’ said Uncle Aliver, but nervously, ‘your Uncle Idwid Iremonger. I do not think you have met him before; he is your Uncle Timfy’s twin brother.’
‘How is little Timfy?’ asked Idwid. ‘He is my younger brother, you know, he arrived after me, by some twenty-two minutes.’ He said all this smiling, he seemed to smile a lot. His voice, unlike his twin’s, was very gentle. I had heard of Uncle Idwid before but never met him. He was a Governor, one of the highest of all Iremongers, but he lived in the city and did not come home.
‘Here is the boy at last, is he?’ said Uncle Idwid, his face opening up to reveal his clean teeth, but he was not looking at me as he spoke, his face was pointed away. Only then did I see that the orbs in his head were wrong, they were all milky. Uncle Idwid was blind. He was smiling widely around the room and breathing deeply as if to take in all the air. ‘Sit me down please, Aliver.’
Uncle Aliver showed him to one of my chairs.
‘Make me close to him, draw me very close, and you, dear Clod, come to me. Sit with me, shall you?’
I was sat beside him, very close, both of our feet not quite reaching the ground.
‘How lovely it is to be here in Heap House once more,’ he said. ‘Now, what do I hear?’ He cupped his small manicured hands to his ears and hummed a little to himself, then smacked his lips. ‘I hear James Henry Hayward! Hallo! Hallo! Come, James Henry Hayward, come, come to me!’ He opened his hands out. ‘I know you’re here, come, I want to know you. Let it out, Clod, let me see, do let me
see.’
I couldn’t help smiling, he could hear like me! Aliver nodded to me and I slowly put my plug into his hands. Idwid brought it very close to his nose and sniffed it, patted it, and stroked it all over.
‘James Henry Hayward,’ it said, quite happily I thought.
Idwid turned it upside down, he tickled it on its underside.
‘James Henry Hayward!’ it seemed to giggle. I had never heard it laughing before. And as James Henry called out his name ever more speedily in sheer joy and happiness I became aware of another voice coming closer and that voice was saying in a cool whisper, ‘Geraldine Whitehead.’
Geraldine Whitehead I saw now was some metal implement with a long thin twisted snout, a strange skinny clamp of some sort. James Henry immediately shut up.
‘My plug!’ I called.
‘Hush now,’ Uncle Idwid said, smiling, ‘hush, it’s quite well, it’s just being looked after by my clippers a moment.’
‘Geraldine Whitehead,’ I said, ‘that’s its name.’
‘Yes indeed, what a clever one you are! I heard you hear all the names too!’ said Idwid. ‘Geraldine Whitehead is a pair of special clippers, designed for extracting nasal hair, ear hair too. Very fine and very helpful. Now let me see.’ He very gently held onto my plug with his Geraldine Whitehead, and then just as delicately released it and put the clippers away again, and James Henry said, ‘James Henry Hayward.’
‘Aliver,’ asked Uncle Idwid, ‘you have recently examined Clod?’
‘Yes, Governor, very recently.’
‘And there are positively no cracks upon him, you have checked?’
‘Indeed, Governor, none at all.’
‘And you have listened to him? And there is no hollowness?’
‘There is no hollowness, Governor, I have listened indeed.’
‘So then,’ said Idwid, quite content, ‘I was called in good time. It’s something exceptional, my dear Clod, to have a Listener. I’m a Listener and I became Governor Extraordinary of Birth Objects.’
‘I didn’t know there was anyone else. No one ever said.’
‘Clod, we shall keep each other company.’
‘I am very glad you are here, sir.’
‘We are meant for one another.’