Heap House for Hotkeys

by Edward Carey

  From another part of the room there was a new voice, ‘Freddie Turner.’

  ‘Robert Burrington?’

  ‘Freddie Turner!’

  Something flew over my head, in the dim light I thought it to be a hobnail but surely it was some insect, and whatever it was flew directly at the long man. It hit the long man and as it hit there was a very slight ding, and the cry, ‘Freddie Turner!’

  ‘Robert Burrington!’ Much louder.

  ‘Freddie Turner?’ A whisper now.

  ‘Burrington!’

  ‘Freddie?’

  ‘Burrington!’

  ‘Fred . . .’ and then all was still again.

  All except a sudden crying out from my bath plug.

  ‘James Henry Hayward! James Henry Hayward!’

  My plug was calling to it! And in answer there was a great roaring from the doorway, ‘Robert Burrington! Robert Burrington!’

  What happened next happened at such speed that I could only afterwards piece it together. When I looked back at the doorway, the long man was not there, the doorway was empty. I could not see him at first, but in my panic I moved backwards, scuttered backwards on hands and feet, as if I were an upturned beetle, my hands scrabbling in the bat drop, sliding a little in its chalky crumbliness, and, as I moved, up above me, as if a wind had suddenly blown through the attic, the ceiling began to fidget most urgently. I tried to get up but kept losing my footing and sliding back down, and then I saw the great long figure approaching fast.

  The principal object held by the stretched man announced itself louder than ever before, as if the mouth of a volcano had just opened, or a cannon calling, a holler, ‘ROBERT BURRINGTON!’

  There was a sudden definite smell of gas, and also of some tar, and then the stretched man lunged forward.

  ‘ROBERTROBERTEDITHMATRONEDWINMISSNO- BBYFLORENCEBURRINGTON!’

  And all went suddenly and entirely dark.

  I am dead.

  I am dead now.

  I am dead now, I thought.

  I am quite and very dead now, I thought, and yet, I thought, and yet, I reasoned, and yet, I fathomed, I’m thinking this. And yet I feel myself breathing on and yet I seem to be in the same place, and yet there are my feet before me, and yet here are my legs and yet here is my chest, still waistcoated, and yet then, am I not dead? And what then is that terrible blackness just in front, and that great screeching and flapping and yipping in and out, and swooping? And is there between the flaps and shrieks still yet some Roberting? Still a definite evidence of Burringtoning? Indeed, indeed, there was.

  As the long man stamped towards me, he had awoken the ceiling and he was now thick with it. Robert Burrington was bat-battling, and there I was scrambling up at last and was upright and heading away from the terrible screams and yelps and I found a ladder and climbed it, and then a skylight and shoved it and then was gasping upon the roofs of Heap House and then, in an instant, I could hear nothing, nothing at all.

  On the Top of Things

  I could hear nothing out there, nothing at all, because I could hear everything. Everything was calling out at me, every object that had a voice was roaring and wailing and singing, whispering, laughing, jeering, sneezing, talking and ranting, and I could discern no one noise out of so many, all was a hideous rush, a wall of sound, a great tidal wave that turned me deaf. I was an in-house thing, meant for the indoors. It was best for me to see the world through a window but not to step out, not to come so close to so many, many things. I was deaf, out there on the roof of Heap House, the heaps swirling beneath me in storm.

  The rooftops of Heap House were the great province of the birds, the wattle and daub of this highest landscape were feathers and excrement. There were other feathered things beside the seagulls, there were pigeons too, scabby city pigeons with one foot or one eye. Though not as dangerous as the bats, it would not be good to upset the seagulls. They had terrible tempers. This was their home, after all, not mine. I should scramble over the top of a dome or two and find my way to the outside spiral staircase which ran the length of the building and was taken from libraries all across London. I looked about. I looked down. And all the view was rubbish.

  Such peaks and troughs, such mountains and valleys, such deep depths. To look at it all shifting and moving, stinking and cracking, it was such a thing! Heaving and humming! It is not possible for an Iremonger not to be proud of the dirtheaps, proud and of course fearful. I could have stayed there and watched it in its glory, I could perhaps have caught the Heap Blindness that so many Iremongers before me had succumbed to. My Second Cousin Roota who, unhappy in her school hours, bullied and shunned, sticked and stoned, word-hurt and bruised, took herself up to these roofs day after day for comfort, until at last, she fell in love with the heaps and gave her heart to them, and one day, bully-bled and hurting head and heart, she wandered the rooftops and looking out at the waves of rolling filth, she gave herself entirely up to them and threw herself from the rooftops. She sailed wonderfully, soaring at first but then the grace was over and turned into a hurried plummeting down.

  Then, suddenly, there was something other than the heaps, something else moving. The hatchway where I had escaped was opening up once more and a top hat began to emerge, like a chimney breaking through a roof. More top hat came and more yet; though the hat was certainly scratched and dented it continued to sit atop the long man.

  The long man, the long man was coming.

  I scrambled on then, as fast as I could. I prayed he had not seen me. How could he have survived the bats? On I rushed, on and on, scuttling seagulls who snapped at me in complaint, and I made it at last to the Forest on the roof.

  The Forest on the Roof

  The Forest was what we called all the chimney stacks that Grandfather, in his wisdom, had had gathered up from all over London town, small pots or great organ pipes, so many, many stacks, only some of which connected to the vertical passageways down below. There were several thousand of these upright dominoes and among them I now rushed, screaming, as behind me, through that fog of seagulls and their things, the long man with his long hat and long face, long arms and long legs marched.

  I set off down a lane somewhere in the middle of the Forest and charged on, kicking the birds out of the way. I did not stay in that one lane of chimney stacks but kept switching, diving further in, turning left here, then right, then right again, once more a right, then a left, count three four five now turn, back up a bit, left, left, down this one a long way, switch lanes again, down another path and left here, on a bit and turn around, quickly quickly, anyone there, birds and chimneys, quick get behind one, which one, this one. A tall multiple stack with five pots at its top, here I crouched and heaved and panted. I stuffed James Henry further down just in case, and waited and panted, panted, waited, and wondered. Who is that person? What is he? Where did he come from? How did he come to be like that, so strange and stretched?

  There he was again. He wasn’t in my lane, he was three or four lanes away, but so tall that he was longer than the chimneys and the top of him peeked up above them. He was pushing at some of the chimneys, knocking them down; at larger ones he leant over to look inside, inserting his long hands into the limited interiors and pulling out, on occasion, birds’ nests and a gull or two and when the birds bit and shrieked at him he smacked them away, not hurt at all, undeterred. He selected chimneys, one here, one over there, stamping among them and peeking within, coming closer to me until I saw his shadow upon my own lane. He was only two chimneys away, the shadow darkening all before me, but then his long legs hurried him on again, and I waited and shook, my face hard against the rough clay, and each time when I thought him gone, I would catch him again, his tall hat seen above the Forest.

  At last I thought I must try it, I should have to or my head would explode. I stepped out a little, I could not see him, I looked down the path of stacks east and west, I could not see him, I trod out, I could not see him. In the distance was the rusting dome that marke
d the top of the spiralling staircase that would safely deliver me back down into the house, but between me and the metal stairway were whole streets and lanes of chimneys and he might be waiting for me, behind or to the side of any one of those.

  I couldn’t see him. Now or never.

  He’s gone, I said to myself, whoever he was, he’s certainly gone.

  I ran.

  And then, suddenly, there he was again.

  He was sitting in line with the chimneys, he was sitting up. I saw the long stretched body, his top hat at chimney height, just another chimney pot I thought at first, one with a thicker stack. But this stack had thin arms crossed around it and long legs drawn up, had a long body and, most terribly, a stretched face. Before he had always been in the dark or at a distance, but now there he was a few small steps away, keeping still amongst the chimney stacks. Waiting. Biding his time. It was then, with him so close, that I saw him properly for the first time. The horror of it.

  The long thin man wasn’t a person.

  He wasn’t a person at all.

  He, it, it was a great collection of things. It, it was made of metal, of pipes and springs, of gears and pistons, a mechanical being consisting of so many, many things brought together, with some sort of engine inside it. Its top hat was a long pipe with a lid and a little steam was coming out of it, and there were many small objects attached to its larger metal pipes, like barnacles upon a ship’s hull. There was a corkscrew, a clay pipe, there was a magnifying glass, there was a ball of string, an apron, a great hook hanging down from its hat swinging before the face like a monocle. I could see quite clearly what its face was now, it had no real face, the face was a polished brass plate, and the plate had writing upon it: UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES INSPECTED, 5 ½ GALLON HAND FIRE EXTINGUISHER, CLASSIFICATION NO. 650859 – this stamp I had mistaken for eyes. What I had taken for the mouth in much larger stamped letters read: TO PLAY ON FIRE TURN UPSIDE DOWN. What previously I had believed to be the long man’s nose was in fact the hose of the fire extinguisher, a length of thick black piping and at its tip a bronze nozzle. This then, this terrible collection, this was the long man and I stood right before it, appalled – appalled and fascinated. Has it stopped, I wondered. Is it broken now? Surely it was never really moving, surely I had just imagined it. Whether it moved before or not, it was certainly very still now. There, I told myself, your imagination has done this to you. And I put a finger out to prod it. And as I did it started up again.

  The nozzle began to move, to sniff so it seemed to me, and with the sniffing I could just make out a whirring coming from inside the creature and a thumping. It began to stand up.

  I stayed not a moment longer, but plunged onwards, yelling loudly, screaming, hurting, terror-turned, and hurled myself towards the rusting dome. As I ran on, a basket, surely pulled up from the heaps by the birds, rushed past me, spinning itself back in the direction I had fled, towards the creature, desperate to join it. It was not only the basket but suddenly other things were moving too, so many things were skipping about, smashing towards the mass of objects whose principal name was Robert Burrington, and Robert Burrington that great collection was growing larger and larger. I looked back, it was up again, and with great long strides hauling itself onwards, growing as it went, smashing chimney stacks as it rushed, great long hands of rakes and pistons and pipes and tubing feeling out before it and the nozzle nose bouncing to and fro in high alert and excitement, and, I think then, had not a lightning rod launched itself directly at the eager collection, and briefly felled Robert Burrington, I think I should very likely have been crushed, but it lay stunned a moment trying to make sense of this latest addition and in that moment I was beneath the dome, I was at the rusting metal staircase and had seized the railing. I began jumping and leaping downwards, screaming still, screaming all the way, and then there was the door and I was through it, somewhere high up in Heap House.

  I was inside again. I could hear. I could hear myself screaming.

  It won’t stop, that thing, all those things, it cannot be stopped, I thought, it’ll come down any moment, it’ll bring the whole roof with it, it can’t be stopped, the bats couldn’t stop it, it’s just growing and growing, it’ll have everything, it wants everything and everything runs to it. It knew I had James Henry and it knew I had Alice Higgs and it wanted them so badly. It shan’t be stopped. It shall never be stopped. How can things do that? How can things move on their own?

  Don’t stay there, I told myself, don’t stay there by that door so close to the outside stairs. That door shall open soon, right enough, and all those objects shall come smashing in, sniffing for James Henry and Alice Higgs. Quick, quick, move yourself, the house is rumbling isn’t it, isn’t it? Is it upon the stairs now? Is it winding its way down?

  On, on, Clod, to the Infirmary, give Rosamud back her handle and then, by God, get help, cry for help. Up I got, on I ran. To the Infirmary.

  The Infirmary

  My hearing was coming back though the rumbling still thundered on in my head, but ever a little less and a little less. I could not hear Robert Burrington, I kept looking behind me for the clanking of that thing of things, but it had not come yet, but soon, I thought, surely soon it would. I must return the door handle Alice Higgs to Aunt Rosamud. It had all started with the door handle, perhaps it might stop there too. That once I had delivered the handle back where it belonged somehow the whole upturning of Heap House might stop, that all the pieces of Robert Burrington might disperse, that everything might settle down once more, and that, most of all, in the night I might see Lucy Pennant. And so, the Infirmary.

  I could not march into the Infirmary and loudly announce myself, this must be done carefully and quietly. Nothing could be achieved until the matron Iremonger, a great white handkerchief upon her head, was away from the desk in the entranceway. She sat there with seven watches pinned upside down upon her bosom. I waited. Come on, come on, always looking back for Robert Burrington. Come on, come on. At last some sickened Iremonger hollered out, and away the matron went, her footwear clattering upon the floor tiles. Then I was in the Infirmary and seeking out Aunt Rosamud.

  The name of the patient within each chamber was posted upon each of the doors and so I hoped my aunt should very soon be found. She was not down the first corridor I crept, nor yet the second, on the third all was much busier and I had to shelter a while behind a great basket of filthy linen. There were so many names calling out upon that floor, some groaning, some moaning, some in complaint, some in whispers, some hurt, some crying, it took me a time to isolate them, for my hearing to come back, for the thudding to cease, but then at last, among others, I caught the words, ‘Geraldine Whitehead!’

  Uncle Idwid was just beyond the door with the greatest commotion inside it. But that was not all, and that was not least, because then I caught another name amongst the jumble of names and that name was slow and serious, sharp and spiteful, ‘Jack Pike.’

  Grandfather was within. Grandfather himself was here though Grandfather should be in the city by now. Only then did I understand that for the first time in my life I had not heard the train leaving that morning.

  Grandfather himself and his portable cuspidor Jack Pike and also Uncle Idwid and his nose tongs Geraldine Whitehead were all four parked together beyond the door just before me. And then I heard the shrieking, an awful howling, a painful bellowing: screech, scratch, terrible bellow. And the worst was the name it called out in its absolute misery, ‘Percy Detmold! Percy Detmold! Percy Detmold!’

  What were they doing to poor Percy Detmold, whoever he was? What was happening inside the room? I crept up to it and saw through the keyhole Grandfather, sat with his huge back to me and beside him Uncle Idwid, holding Geraldine Whitehead in his hand. But there was no one else in the room, no one at all, and yet the screaming went on, made worse each time Idwid pushed his nose tongs at something just out of my view. Idwid shifted and I saw that the whole agony and misery was coming from nothing more than a tea
strainer. A very scratched and dented tea strainer lay on the table, which Idwid was clinking now and again with his Geraldine.

  ‘Percy, Percy Detmold!’

  A tea strainer, a tea strainer in agony.

  ‘You shall stay as you are, Percy Detmold,’ Idwid said, his voice not so gentle now, I could hear the Timfy in him. ‘You’re nothing but a tea strainer! You know nothing of a moustache cup, nothing at all. You are, and shall be, a tea strainer. Here then – Umbitt has you now!’

  ‘PERCY DETMOLD! PERCY DETMOLD!’

  Why were Grandfather and Idwid bullying the object so? What has happened to my home, what has happened? How will anything ever make sense again? Get rid of the door handle, I told myself, at least get rid of the door handle, and quickly before Idwid hears it or my James Henry.

  There were so many doors with the wrong names – Nareen, my Great-great Aunt, and my Aunt Shorly, and Second Cousin Lorry – but then near the end in a back corridor barely lit was the little sign IREMONGER, ROSAMUD, and in I went, shutting the door fast behind me.

  It was a simple room, a stool, a table, a bed, a lump in the bed that surely answered, ‘Present,’ if asked, ‘Rosamud?’

  I went to the stool, it was quite a high stool. I could just make out on the side of it: PROPERTY OF STRANGERS CLUB, LONDON I placed Alice Higgs upon the stool, but to my abused ears Alice said not a word.

  ‘Hello, Aunt R.,’ I said. ‘It’s me, Clod. How are you? How have you been these last, however long it is? I have something for you, Aunt Rosamud. Here it is. Upon the stool. Are you there?’

  There was no response, no movement, no sound at all.

  ‘Are you there, Aunt Rosamud, are you there? I have something for you, something you shall be very pleased to see. Wherever are you? Which bit, precisely, is you? I don’t remember you as a pillow, no, you never used to be a pillow.’