The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

by H. G. Parry

  And at the heart of all, as Uriah Heep had once predicted, was my brother, Dr. Charles Sutherland, David Copperfield. I sat on the couch, Lydia curled up next to me, and we watched him and Millie on the television being shoved past cameras on their way to negotiations. Millie looked terrific, of course—the girl adventuress grown up—but Charley had, once again, become someone I didn’t recognize. Or rather, someone I had glimpsed once before: in front of a lecture hall, his face glowing as he told a room full of students about the darkness at the heart of Dickens. He was exhausted, I could tell, but he looked self-possessed, otherworldly, and brilliant.

  “There’s no law against what we are,” he said, in answer to a question, “not just because there’s no precedent, but because there is no law against a person being made of ideas, intuitions, interpretations, and language. If there were, nobody could ever step outside their door. Excuse me, please, we’re expected somewhere…”

  “Is it true that literary interpretations like yourself are highly unstable?” a reporter asked.

  He laughed a little. “You’ll have to take that up with Derrida.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but plainly a few of the reporters had suffered through classes in literary theory, because they snorted.

  There was no sign of Eric among those taken from the new world, or anywhere else. His ferry had left from the harbor: the last one before all transport to or from the city had ceased. I didn’t know if he had truly escaped, or where he had escaped to. I didn’t want to know.

  My parents had been forced to return home without seeing Charley. I tried to phone him a few times, but it went to voicemail. I had no idea, as usual, if that meant he was in the Street, he was talking to the prime minister, or he had simply never had his phone on him in the first place. He never called me back. He seemed, from what I could see, to be surviving without me. So I forced myself to hold back, keep my distance, and wait until I was needed.

  Then, late on Friday night or early Saturday morning, the phone rang.

  “Hi, Rob,” Charley’s voice said.

  “Hey!” I said, sitting up straight in surprise. I’d assumed it was one of those endless reporter calls. Lydia and I were lying in bed, talking quietly in the dark, and I’d only picked up the phone to unleash some choice insults. “Hey, where are you? How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” he said. “I think. Things have quieted down on the Street—in the City, I mean. There’s still a lot of talking to do, but we’ve reached a temporary truce with the government. Negotiations are suspended over the weekend while the government talks over the terms. In the meantime, nobody’s going to come and take us away in vans, or experiment on us, or try to deport us back to our books, all of which were real possibilities, so that’s good. Rob—I’m sorry, but can I come and stay at your place? Just for tonight, maybe the night after? I don’t have anywhere to go. There were people at my house when I went there—I don’t know who they are, but none of us are really safe outside the Street. I don’t even know what’s happened to Henry. I’ve been staying with Millie, but as I said, things have finally quieted. I don’t want to stir it all up by being there. Not everyone thinks I should be welcome, given what I can do. I wouldn’t ask, except—”

  “Of course you can, you idiot,” I said, finally managing a word in edgeways. “And Henry’s in the back garden. He practically is the back garden, actually. Couldn’t you have made him a little smaller?”

  “Blame Conan Doyle,” he said, and sighed. “Thanks. Would it be too strange for Lydia, though? After what happened? Ask her, seriously, I won’t mind.”

  “Is that Charley?” Lydia whispered, sitting up in bed beside me. I suppose there are only a few people I call idiots on a regular basis.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking up from the phone. “He can come stay, right?” I asked the question as if it were a foregone conclusion, but I was a little worried.

  “Of course he can!” she said. “He’s family.”

  I don’t deserve Lydia. I really don’t.

  “Did you hear that?” I said to Charley. “Get here as soon as you like. I chased off the reporters and that one spy from the secret service across the street, so you’ll have a clear run to the door. Do you need a ride?”

  “No,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

  I thought about insisting we pick him up, but restrained myself. He’d battled Moriarty and taken possession of a Dickensian underworld. He could probably handle whatever form of transport he was planning. Probably. Even though it was raining.

  Charley seemed to be hesitating. “Um… are Mum and Dad going to be there?”

  “Do you want them to be?” I had an idea where this was coming from.

  “No,” he said. “No, not right now.”

  “Then no. They’re not staying here—they’re at home. I’ve convinced them to stay quiet, so nobody will look too closely at what Mum can do.”

  “The government doesn’t know,” Charley said. “I made sure of it.”

  I was fairly sure Mum meant to tell them herself, once she was sure that it wouldn’t put Charley at any further risk. She felt it was cowardly to stay hidden while Charley and Millie took the weight of two worlds on their shoulders. But I didn’t mention that. “Come on over. There’s leftovers in the fridge and hot water in the shower.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Honestly, you might have saved my life. Be there in a second.”

  He hung up.

  “How did he say he was coming?” Lydia asked. She was propped up on one elbow, watching.

  “He didn’t.”

  “Right.” She yawned. “Well, you’d better go turn the porch light on, I suppose. For all we know, he’s coming on a dragon.”

  I made it out into the hallway just in time to see a door appear in the middle of our freshly painted walls. Not the green, weather-beaten Secret Garden door this time: this was carved wood, curved, and opened from the center. A wardrobe door. A portal. A door from another world.

  Charley stepped out, bringing a blast of snow-speckled air. “Hello,” he said. He stared about him in wonder. “It worked. It actually worked. That’s incredible.”

  “Tell me you didn’t come from Narnia,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I wish. Just from the Street. It’s snowing there now.”

  “It’s spring.”

  “Not in Dickensian England. Millie says wait until we get to Christmas.”

  Lydia came out from the bedroom behind me, obviously drawn by the voices. She blinked once at the wardrobe door, but only once, and she didn’t comment. “Oh, hi, Charley,” she said. “So glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks for inviting me,” he said. “Um. How are you both?”

  “All right,” I said. “You look terrible.”

  This is probably exactly the kind of thing Eric meant, but too bad. I know that I’ve tried to underestimate him, on purpose, for the sake of my own ego, for a long time. He’s not useless. He’s not hopeless. He has, in fact, both use and hope. But he’d also been through a heck of a lot this week, and he did look terrible. He was wound so tightly I felt that if I touched him he’d shatter like glass.

  Lydia gave him a quick hug, took him by the shoulders, and looked at him critically. “Right,” she said. “You know where the bathroom is. Go stand under hot water for at least twenty minutes. Rob will find you something to change into, I’ll reheat some pasta, and then the couch is all made up for you. Don’t try to be polite. That can wait. Go!”

  Lydia has three younger brothers. Can you imagine?

  We never got to the reheated pasta. After he came out of our bathroom, wearing a long-sleeved shirt I’d dug out and a pair of my old tracksuit pants, Lydia sat him down on the couch, handed him a drink, and went to get a plate. I went, too, to help dish up. In the two minutes that took, he had quietly curled up and fallen so deeply asleep that our coming back failed to stir the slightest response. Lydia wanted to wake him, but I thought it was probably best
just to find him a blanket and leave him. I ate the pasta instead. It was the compassionate thing to do.

  After a while, we went back to bed for the few remaining hours until daybreak. There didn’t seem much else we could do. We talked a little more, quietly. Lydia dozed after a while, I think. I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. I got up once or twice and went into the living room, to keep the fire stoked. It wasn’t really cold enough for it, in the middle of spring, but never mind. It was snowing in Dickensian England. Each time I went out, he hadn’t stirred since the time before, and the firelight was flickering across his face.

  We let him sleep through to lunch the next day, then Lydia insisted on shaking him gently awake for toast and a Cup-a-Soup. I don’t think he really woke up all the way at first, but he sat up and ate what she gave him. And I have to admit, he did seem a little better afterward. He spoke to us, at least; the night before, it had seemed as though all his words were gone.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

  Of course he was.

  “You’re not a nuisance,” Lydia said. “You’re a guest. And frankly, as guests go, so far you couldn’t be lower maintenance.”

  “She’s right,” I said. “It’s been like having a dead body on our couch, without the awkward police interrogations.”

  Lydia kicked me without looking in my direction. But Charley smiled a little, so it was worth it.

  He finished his soup, and tried to get up and rally and be sociable. I took him out to see Henry, who had to be restrained from leaping all over us in delight. (What is fine for a terrier is dangerous for a creature the size of a lion.) But it was obvious he was still desperately tired. When Lydia passed the dirty mugs off to me and told him to go lie back down, he didn’t need much persuading.

  We did the dishes quietly in the kitchen, trying not to wake him.

  “Is he really okay?” Lydia said. “He was in intensive care not that long ago. Then he was text, or imagination, or something. In between those times, from what you told me, he fell through a floor.”

  “Well, it’s not like he could go back to intensive care, even if he needed to,” I pointed out. “The Street’s the only thing keeping people like him safe. Outside, he’d likely be hauled off and interrogated—or dissected. But he’s fine. Or he will be soon.”

  “You both will,” Lydia said. “I’m sure. But I think you and he do in fact need to talk.”

  “We don’t need to talk,” I said. “Brothers don’t really do that sort of thing.”

  Lydia raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, oh pillar of masculinity,” she said, “but your particular brother rather likes words.”

  I flicked the soapy liquid at her, but couldn’t exactly argue.

  So, when it was time for dinner, I left Lydia to prepare it—she gave me a hard look, but she let me get away with it for once—and went into the living room where my particular brother was still dead to the world. The sounds coming from the kitchen were starting to revive him. He stirred, and I saw his eyelashes flicker.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He opened his eyes, and blinked a couple of times before he focused on me. “Oh,” he said, still drowsily. “Hey. What time is it?”

  “Probably about time to eat again,” I said. “Proper food, this time, not in a mug. Do you want to get up, or are we bringing it in here?”

  “No, I’ll come.” He propped himself up on one elbow, and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks. Just give me a couple of minutes?”

  “You have twenty,” I said. “Go right back to sleep afterward, if you want to. Though Mum and Dad would appreciate a phone call. They’ve rung me five times today. I keep telling them you’re still alive, but—”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. His face had suddenly hardened.

  “Come on, Charley.” I sat down on the arm of the couch. “It’s nobody’s fault. You ought to know that as much as anyone. How many times have you brought someone out of a book you didn’t mean to? Would you rather she had sent you back?”

  “She could have told me,” he said. “It’s not like I wouldn’t have believed her! She knew exactly what I was, all those times I… Well, you know how it was. I knew I wasn’t right, obviously. It was hard to miss. I used to ask her why. She could have told me. And you. She could have told both of us.”

  “She could have,” I had to agree. That still stung me as well. “But she was trying to protect you. Actually, I think she might have been trying to protect all of us.”

  “I know that. Of course I know. I just…” He shook his head. “I want it to be somebody’s fault, I suppose. And I can’t help thinking that she made me this way. Which is ridiculous, and unfair, because if she hadn’t made me, I wouldn’t exist at all. And I don’t know how Dad’s going to react to me now that he knows.”

  “He doesn’t care,” I said. That was an overstatement, maybe, but true enough in the way that mattered. “He’s a little overwhelmed, obviously, but—”

  “Obviously. Mum metaphorically cheated on him with Charles Dickens.”

  I snorted despite myself. Charley’s sense of humor can come out of nowhere at times, like a blade in the dark. “It doesn’t change how he feels about you. How could it? You haven’t changed.”

  “I have, as far he’s concerned,” Charley corrected me. “What we see when we look at people is just a bundle of our own interpretations, and—”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh shut up. He loves you, you idiot. You want to feel upset about what you are, then fine, you’re entitled. But don’t put it on us, okay? We don’t care.”

  “I know,” he said again. “I know I’m not being fair. I’m not really upset about what I am—well, not very. It’s just not what I thought I was, and I’m trying to get used to it. I’m trying to get used to it in the middle of trying to defend what we are to the world, which is a nightmare. And—this sounds ridiculous, but I hate being noticed. Millie doesn’t like it either. She’s spent all her life trying to be normal. We both have. And even in the best version of the new world we can build, that’s not really going to be possible now.”

  “True,” I conceded. What could I say? It wasn’t. I could say that might not be a bad thing, and it would be true, but it would always be a hard thing. And I couldn’t help him with it.

  We sat there for a bit. I could hear Lydia ostentatiously clattering pans on the benches, trying to tell us she wasn’t eavesdropping. She wasn’t, but she was probably overhearing. There just isn’t any privacy between the living room and the kitchen in our house.

  “Look, Charley…” I hesitated so long that he sat up and looked at me properly. “I’m sorry for that day that Uriah Heep kept talking about. When I saw you getting bullied, and let it happen. I shouldn’t have walked away.”

  “I never blamed you for that,” Charley said. He looked surprised. “I was upset by it, maybe, but that was because it confirmed that even you had given up on me.”

  “Given up on you?” I repeated. “Who did you think had given up on you? You were being pushed all the way to the top.”

  “And people hated me for it,” he said. “Even some of the teachers—they didn’t think I deserved it. I was smarter than most of them, by a complete fluke of nature, and they had to watch me achieve higher in their subjects at twelve than some of them had in their lives, without ever seeming to work at it. I understood. I might have felt the same way. It wasn’t fair. And it was far worse for the other kids—especially for you. I understood that too. Even Mum and Dad—right about then, they were starting to talk about how I was going to take up my Oxford scholarship, who was going to take care of me, who would be here for you over the holidays if they both relocated to England with me and yet how much it would hurt if we split the family in two. Not to mention how worried they were all the time that someone would find out what I could do and take me away. I was the cause of that. They loved me, but they didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t fit into anyone’s plans
, and I was ruining them.” He shrugged and looked away, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know. Everyone thinks the world is ending at twelve. I just meant—I never thought of what you did as being a reflection of you. I saw it as reflection of me.”

  “But it wasn’t,” I said. “You know that now, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I used to hate you bringing those things out of books.” I didn’t quite know what I was saying until I said it. “I told you it was because they were so much trouble, but really I hated it more when they weren’t. Like Holmes. I was jealous of them.”

  I meant that I was jealous of him for being able to make them, but when I heard my own words, I realized that they were just as true in the other sense. I was jealous of them, because Charley seemed to need them so much. And when he had them, he no longer needed me.

  “I started out making them for you,” Charley said. He smiled a little. “The very first one, the Cat in the Hat, remember? It was your favorite book. I thought you’d like him. Only Mum made me put it away. And afterward, you never seemed to want them. You just told me off and helped me catch them and put them back. But when I came without them, you just told me to go away. So after a while—a long while, when I was eight or so—I just started making them for me. You’d stopped spending time with me. They always would.”