Heap House for Hotkeys

by Edward Carey

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ I said, ‘I want to know.’

  She was a small, pale and bony girl with a downturned mouth and with that nose, but she did not yet have the grey skin of many of the Iremongers, her lips were even a touch reddish. When I sat down she kept eating, pretending I was not there.

  ‘Do you remember your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Iremonger,’ she said.

  ‘My name is Lucy Pennant,’ I whispered.

  ‘God, don’t I know it.’

  ‘Will you tell me your name?’

  ‘Do you know there are a herd of Lucy bloody Pennants, common as dirt they are. The girls have got it bad, I hear them whispering to themselves in the scullery or the kitchens, in the scrub room, in the laundries. Lucy Pennant, or variations of it, they often get it wrong, I heard one Iremonger muttering all about Lurky Penbrush. Well, Lurky, I’m quite sick of you if you want to know. I’m ill with it!’

  ‘Tell me your name then, if you still know it.’

  ‘I do know my name. I do know it! Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m Lucy Pennant, who are you?’

  ‘I wrote it down somewhere.’

  ‘Did you? Well then?’

  ‘Yes, I wrote it down so that I should never forget it. But when I try to remember my own name I can’t, all I come up with is Lucy Pennant. For five minutes I was sure I was Lucy Pennant. But I’m not, I’m certainly not, I’ve my own name and I’ve written it down.’

  ‘Where did you write it?’

  ‘Oh, Lucy Pennant,’ she said and there were tears in her eyes, ‘I can’t remember. I just can’t remember. Though I know I wrote it somewhere, I know that I did. With a knife I scratched it. I was looking for it, you see, when Mr Briggs found me. I was taken to Mrs Piggott straight off and put to the heaps for two whole months as punishment and I’m not to see my tea strainer for two weeks neither, I do not know how I shall make it. And two months in the heaps!’

  ‘Just for looking about a bit?’

  ‘They don’t like it, they want you where they put you. And now I don’t think I’ll ever find my name.’

  ‘You and me,’ I said, ‘we’ll keep looking, we shan’t stop until we find it.’

  ‘They’ll put you to work in the heaps at the slightest thing,’ she said.

  ‘Well, they can go to hell, can’t they.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘go to hell with them.’ When she smiled, which was rare, she looked so much more pleasant, even a bit pretty.

  ‘We shall find your name, I promise it,’ I said.

  ‘It’s all I can think of, even when I’m out there.’

  ‘What’s it like in the heaps so far out?’

  ‘It’s hell, that’s what it is, hell.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You never know if you’ll come back or not. You have to be so careful, suddenly the ground gives under you and you start sinking down. I don’t know what I’ll find tomorrow. P’rhaps I’ll find my own death. You stick to your firegrates, you hold onto them firm for all your life. But be careful up there and do exactly as they say and don’t run into any of the upstairs Iremongers, any of the family, or you’ll find yourself out in the heaps with me. When are you going up?’

  ‘As soon as Mr Briggs rings the bell.’

  8

  A Lace Doily

  Clod Iremonger’s narrative continued

  The Last Breakfast

  I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. Pinalippy was in my head, and when, next morning came at last, with its thin light, I was already up and moving mournfully towards breakfasting.

  It was my habit to head to the mess hall as early as I could before too many of my fellow corduroy shorts arrived because if I left it too late then the din of their birth objects was too much for me, and my head should be pounding. I usually was the first to appear, the first to leave. That morning Tummis was there already, we shook hands.

  ‘Given all the business with Rosamud,’ I said, ‘maybe I shan’t have my Sitting today, maybe it shall be cancelled.’

  ‘And the pair of us remain behind in shorts? That should not be so bad.’

  ‘One day, Tummis, your trousers are certain to come.’

  ‘I dreamt of Ormily last night. May I tell you of it?’

  We were interrupted then by a plain woman’s voice announcing, ‘Cecily Grant.’

  Here was Cousin Bornobby beside us, Cecily his women’s size four shoe swinging in a leather pouch around his belt so that it hung between his legs. Cousin Bornobby had a great collection of drawings and prints of women wearing very little clothing, all were found out in the heaps – somehow he always knew how to find them, he smelt them, he said, he had a particular snout for it. Bornobby was always extremely tired-looking, there were always brown and grey circles around his eyes. Bornobby washed with some sort of scented soap and you could always smell him coming, but always there was an undersmell with him, as if the ghost of a fish was following him about, swimming in his air. He had recently found something new in the heaps, and bored of it himself he now wondered if he could rent it out to us, it was an advertising pamphlet, it said:

  CHAS. THOMPSON COMELY CORSETS

  Glove-Fitting. Long-Waisted Perfection!! Sold by drapers. One million pairs annually.

  Made in lengths 13, 14 and 15–inch. Fits like a Glove!!

  If your draper cannot supply you write direct to 49, Old Bailey, London giving size, and enclosing P.O.O. and the Corset will at once be sent to you.

  ‘Not today, Bornobby,’ said Tummis, ‘it’s his Sitting today.’

  ‘Today is it?’ said Bornobby. ‘Then all the more reason. Come on, Clod, have a look at these corsets, do think of Pinalippy so attired.’

  ‘Bornobby, please not now,’ said Tummis, ‘don’t upset him.’

  ‘How about this one, this is something special, just for you, Tummis.’

  PULVERMACHER’S ‘ELECTRIC SUSPENSOR BELT’

  Muscular vigour is around the corner, Pulvermacher’s Galvanic Establishment,

  194 Regent Street, London W. Established over 40 years. Every appliance warranted.

  ‘No, Bornobby,’ said Tummis, ‘I’m really not in the market today.’

  But Bornobby was not to be so easily put off. He took hold of Tummis’s arm, but just at that moment the advertisements were plucked away by a different hand. Moorcus.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen, I’ll look after these!’

  ‘Please, Moorcus!’ begged Bornobby.

  ‘Albert Powling!’

  Turning about a little before Moorcus, Bornobby and Tummis, I saw Albert Powling, the whistle, and the Uncle Timfy that belonged to it. Then the others jumped because Timfy was blowing hard upon his Albert.

  My Cousin Pinalippy

  ‘Clod Iremonger!’ called Timfy.

  Albert Powling whistled me out of the dining hall, up the stairs, and all the way to the Sitting Room.

  ‘Nervous?’ Uncle asked.

  ‘A little,’ I admitted.

  ‘Know what’s on the other side of this door?’

  ‘One Cousin Pinalippy,’ I murmured.

  ‘How do you look?’ asked Timfy. ‘Pale and sweaty. What a prize you are. There’ll be many another cousin weeping for lost love now, I shouldn’t wonder. Surely you’re a heartbreaker, Clod.’

  ‘Is it time?’ I asked.

  ‘Very nearly.’

  ‘What’s it like, Uncle Timfy, what is marriage like?’

  ‘I was only married to Cousin Mogritt for two months,’ said Timfy sadly, ‘before she caught bleaching fever and all that was left was her little mouth-harp.’

  ‘I am sorry, Uncle, were you happy, was it everything you had hoped for?’

  The train screamed below the house, Grandfather going into the city, the whole house shaking in acknowledgement, it did little to improve my spirits.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said. He blew his Albert once, so weak now in comparison, he opened the door, propelled me in
side, closed it after.

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting.’

  ‘James Henry Hayward.’

  Inside, in the half-light, seated at the far end of the room on the particular small red sofa that was used for these occasions I knew, without looking, by hearing alone, was sat my Cousin Pinalippy Iremonger with her Gloria Emma. It was the same sofa that my own mother and father had sat upon years ago. No other seat in that room. Never was, never shall be.

  How, in the past, had each male Iremonger cousin chosen to approach his female cousin? Some may have run at it. Some may have pounded at the door, begging for it to be opened. Some may have shaken hands. Some straight to the kiss. I stood there by the door. We could not be the first for whom this was true, the whole half hour going by without contact, keeping each as far from the other as could be, looking even in opposite directions until someone should come to let us out and break the horror. Cousin and cousin, close so close, cousins every day, cousins in the night, cousin with cousin, cousining. I kept as still and as quiet as I could.

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting.’

  And then another voice, ‘I’m waiting.’

  Statue. Like a statue. But the voice came once more, and terrible it was, ‘Do you require directions?’

  Statue.

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting.’

  ‘Must I fetch you?’

  The voice required movement. And I began the awful expedition to the small sofa, not directly across the room, but rather, crablike, following the walls, in little steps, side by side, so that the journey might be twice the length.

  ‘Well, this is you then, is it?’ she said.

  I thought it was.

  ‘I’m to marry you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I managed, ‘but not yet.’

  She was much taller than me. She had a little hair on her upper lip.

  ‘You are nervous,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ I said. What else?

  ‘We knew it was going to happen, it wasn’t as if they didn’t give us warning. You’re shaking. Are you very ill?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘You won’t die if I touch you, will you?’

  ‘I couldn’t be certain.’

  ‘So then I’ll be a widow.’

  ‘We’re not even married yet.’

  ‘But we will be. There’s no getting out of it.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘no.’

  ‘Will I have to look after you?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’ll be very good at that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could you grow, do you think?’

  ‘I might,’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Well then, Cousin Clod, you had better listen to me. If we remain in Heap House after you’re trousered we shall be allotted two rooms and in those two rooms, you and I are to confine ourselves. They may be very small rooms. They may be really only one room with a false wall made of little more than board. That’s what happened to my sister Flippah when she married Cousin Crosspin, but she found that after a while she could move the wall. And the more she despised Crosspin the more she pushed the wall. She stayed in one room, that room was getting bigger and bigger, and he was in the other always decreasing room. In the end he had to sleep standing up. I wonder if we’ll get a moveable wall. Do you fit in a cupboard? I think you would. I hope we get a cupboard. If not you might go under a bed. Upon a mantelpiece? No, you’d be too conspicuous there. Don’t look so miserable.’

  ‘I am miserable.’

  ‘I’m lying, you mophead,’ she said, ‘I do lie. I’m going to lie to you. I’m a terrible liar, I can’t stop myself. Never believe a word I say. That’s my advice. I’m doing you a favour telling you that, often people have to work it out for themselves.’

  ‘Erm,’ I said, then, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m older than you.’

  ‘I’m fifteen.’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘For six more months.’

  ‘I don’t love you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But I am capable of love.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve loved a lot in my time.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shall I tell you about it?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m for ever falling in and out of love,’ Pinalippy told me, in very secretive tones. ‘I’m in love at the moment, but not with you. I’m thick with love, but not with you. We’ve been together. We couldn’t stop ourselves, one with the other, leg over leg over leg. What a fumbling! Buttons all over! Hooks and eyes! What panting. All that skin and things! Oh, but it’s hopeless, I’m supposed to marry you.’

  ‘Cousin Pinalippy?’

  ‘Cousin Clod?’

  ‘Are you lying?’

  She did not answer that.

  ‘Are you lying?’ I tried again.

  ‘Well then,’ she said after a moment, ‘let me see it. Bring it out. Come, come. You know that you should. I’ll have a look at it now. Show me.’

  Slowly, carefully, I brought out my James Henry, and laid it flat in my hand, I held it away from her but so that she could see it.

  ‘A plug is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, ‘a universal plug. It fits most sinks. It’s called James Henry Hayward, that’s the name I hear it saying.’

  ‘They’ve told me about your hearing things, my Aunts Noona and Curdlia did, and they’ve told me to snap it out of you. A plug called James-whatever to your mind, Clod Iremonger, is still only a plug.’ After a moment she added, ‘A plug is not very romantic, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘not much. I suppose.’

  ‘A plug,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a universal plug.’

  ‘I am to marry a plug. A plug. Is that my life? A plug. I had thought it might be all sorts of things. You’re quite mysterious I thought, being so ill and pale, and hearing voices. It could be something very extraordinary. I’d quite settled my mind on it being a pocket watch. I’d have been happy with a paper weight, a magnifying glass, but a plug, a plug. A nice shoe perhaps. Yes, a well-turned shoe would do very excellently.’

  ‘Did you think I was mysterious?’ I said. ‘There is mystery in a plug.’

  ‘Now who’s lying?’

  ‘With a plug you keep things in, or removing a plug you let things out. A plug in a boat can stop a man from drowning.’

  ‘You’ll find that’s called a bung.’

  ‘Taking away a plug all bad and poisonous things can disappear. You pull out a plug, who knows what will happen, what will escape, what has the plug been keeping shut up? A plug can keep in good nourishing things. A plug is an opening, a closing, a small, circular door. A gateway between worlds.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Pinalippy.

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘Here’s what I know about plugs,’ said Pinalippy, ‘I use a plug when I take a bath, but I don’t have contact with it myself, it’s a servant thing, a plug is. The servant puts it over the drain, then pours in the water, then I step in. I’m naked in the water, Clod, do note, altogether naked. I wash myself and get out, the water, do note, Clod, dirtier now but much more interesting, is let out when the servant uses the plug. It’s very servant-class, your plug. You’d like to see mine too, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘it’s all right.’

  ‘You’d like to see mine,’ she said very strongly.

  She carefully took out something rolled up in a tube she kept beside her. She spread it out upon her lap, upon her thigh. Upon the thigh of Pinalippy.

  ‘There!’ she said.

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting.’

  Gloria Emma was, like my plug, round. But it was larger and flatter though less substantial. It was very thin and had many holes in it, at first I feared she had not looked after her birth object at all, that some species of moth – we had so many – had nibbled at it, had bitten into her, but then I saw that the holes appeared regularly in a pattern and that t
hey were quite deliberate.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you not know?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve never seen one before.’

  ‘It is,’ she said, ‘a doily!’

  ‘A doily?’ I said. ‘A doily called Gloria Emma Utting.’

  ‘So you think it has a name, do you?’

  ‘Yes, yes it does.’

  ‘I’ve never heard it.’

  ‘I can’t help that.’

  ‘You hear it quite clearly?’

  ‘Yes, very clearly.’

  ‘Gloria?’

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting, that’s what it says.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing else, only the name.’

  ‘Gloria Emma Utting.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘A doily.’

  ‘A doily!’ she proclaimed with emphasis.

  ‘And what is a doily?’ I wondered.

  ‘You do not know?’

  ‘I never met one before. What is its purpose?’

  ‘A doily is for putting upon a table.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘And making the table pretty.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Things may be placed upon it, a plate of little cakes for example, or a vase of flowers. Or! It can be left alone, upon a table. It transforms a table, does the doily. The simplest plainest table can be made lovely-looking by a doily.’

  ‘But what does it do?’

  ‘It goes on any table and makes it look pretty.’

  ‘But it doesn’t actually do anything.’

  ‘It is a little portable piece of beauty!’

  ‘And then you put things upon it?’

  ‘You can. It is not necessary.’

  ‘But then it would be covered up. I do not think I entirely understand. But perhaps I do, is it to protect a table? So that it doesn’t get water damage, or crumbs upon it? I think I see. A small tablecloth but then why the holes in it?’

  ‘It is a piece of rare beauty. Very delicate.’

  ‘It might rip easily?’

  ‘If not properly loved.’

  ‘It is not very practical, is it?’

  ‘It will not hold bath water if that’s what you mean.’

  It seemed to me a most unnecessary object. Could I love a doily? It had so many holes in it, as if it was shy of existence, as if it wanted not to be.