Heap House for Hotkeys

by Edward Carey

  For my sister Neg, the Coldstream Guards and my cricket bat.

  For my Cousin Bornobby, a release of the debt of ten shillings and four pence you owed me, and a return of the corset catalogue of Jos. Horle & Sons, Burlington Arcade.

  For my Cousin Clod, my stamp album, my bird books (Familiar History of Birds by E. Stanley, Birds by Land and Sea by J.M. Boraston, A History of British Birds by T. Bewick, Harmonia Ruralis by J. Bolton, unless Ormily wants one – perhaps you might share), my lintel (and his matchbox), please to look after.

  For my Cousin Ormily, my love and this single feather from my seagull, Wateringcan (I do think it was his). Dear Ormily, dearest Ormily and your lovely tin watering can, I kiss you both.

  I don’t have anything else.

  So sorry.

  T.

  18

  A Tap (Marked ‘H’ for ‘Hot’)

  Lucy Pennant’s narrative continued.

  The Captain blew his whistle.

  ‘Open the gate!’

  The heap Iremongers charged forth, and I stumbled out with them as fast as I could.

  Into the heaps.

  I kept falling. I got up but then I tumbled down again soon enough. I told myself there was strong rope behind me and that at the end of that rope, hard by the wall, was my anchor and all the other anchors, holding on, keeping us connected.

  For a little while we stumbled beneath the shadow of the house. There was protection there, but out from the shadow, well out of it, you were naked, weren’t you, more alone. Only I didn’t feel so alone, not at first, because there were all those other heap Iremongers ploughing along beside me. I wasn’t alone then. Look down. Don’t look down. Look down.

  There I was.

  I was in the heaps. They stretched before me, into the distance. The heaps were shallow by the wall, you felt you were on hard ground there, and for those first couple of yards the heaps weren’t very deep at all, you waded a bit, and I thought, I’ll be all right, you’ll be all right, but then those shallows were left further behind, and you had to keep moving, you had to keep walking or you’d sink, you’d sink down, each stop sank you a bit, you had to keep climbing up afterwards and keep moving. And still then we weren’t very deep at all, and if I stopped for a moment then I sank up to my shins, and must scramble up, try to find something to step onto, a bit of wood or metal, some brick, to get my boots out again. Keep moving. Keep moving. Don’t look down. Look down.

  It was like walking upon a creature, that’s what I thought. Only the creature, whatever it was, wasn’t living, it had died some time ago and we were out picking upon its great rotten body, it was hard in one place, soft in another, you slipped about, and sometimes just plunged a bit. But still the wall was behind us then and I wasn’t alone.

  The heap Iremongers swung themselves about, picking stuff up in their big mittens or stabbing at it with their sticks, leaping from spot to spot as if they knew all the stepping stones, as if there was nothing random in this ground, as if it were solid and trustworthy and well mapped. With each small timid step I slipped and slid. I saw two of the heap Iremongers lugging some beam, already heaving it back to the wall, another had an old engine of some sort, and one held nothing more than an old soap dish. And he seemed quite happy with that. Keep moving. Keep moving. Don’t look down. Look down.

  The thing about the rubbish was that it didn’t keep still. I could see it bobbing up and down in front of me. There was a large cupboard of some kind, some old dresser I think, I could see it in the distance, one of its doors flapping open and closed. Sometimes I could see it but at others it went down and I couldn’t, it dipped deep, one moment high on a mountain top, the next sunk down a valley. The further out you got the more the objects shifted. There were fewer Iremongers with me soon enough, fewer and fewer, and after a bit there were probably only five of us, and I could see the others around me had ropes that had begun to stretch out full, that they were at their limit already, but not me. I had far to go yet.

  The birds were thick about, swooping around, some of them found it hard to wrestle with the wind and kept plummeting or were swept far away. I saw one dive down and come up with a rat in its beak. On I must go, keep the line free, don’t let it get snagged. Now and then I must turn around and lift up my rope to make sure it was all right. And then I’d tug on it twice so that the anchor should know I was still there, and then so I should know the anchor was still there he’d tug back twice and that was good. That was something. He was still there, then.

  I couldn’t hear much of anything, the helmet was too thick. I was certain the gulls who flew around me waiting to see what I might tug up from the heaps were probably screaming, but I couldn’t hear them. All I could hear was my own breathing, my own laboured breaths. The further I struggled on the more I heard myself. Each exhalation fogged up the glass of the helmet for a moment, so that only when I breathed in did the steam go down a bit and I could see the swirling swaying mass before me.

  I was hit several times. I hadn’t realised it was the rubbish at first. I thought it was the heap Iremongers beside me, bumping me, but then I saw that what had knocked against me was actually an old wooden chair frame, rotten and chewed through, damp and useless. Once I got tangled around some chain and fell down and as I tumbled the ground beneath me opened up for a moment and suddenly I caught a tiny sight of a great cavern beneath me, a break in the heaps, a crack, and in between the crack I could see down and down into some great hollow where the objects tumbled about fathoms below. Keep moving, keep moving. Don’t look down. Don’t. Look down. Down there. Look.

  For a moment, deep, deep down under, I saw old bits of houses and even a whole dented carriage, a door, and I was right on the edge of this widening gap, staring in. Looking down and down. Leaning into it. Down and down. It was then that I think I saw someone. Some person deep down below, moving in and out of the drowned rubbish. Someone alive down there. Was it an animal, or some sort of dark fish, or was it a person?

  Smack! Something was grabbing at me, tugging me away.

  A heap Iremonger had hold of me and wrenched me back. I knew I should have gone in there, deep underground, but for him, I felt it calling to me. But I was pulled back, and the heap Iremonger that did it punched me hard on the arm to wake me up and I could see but not hear that in his helmet he was shouting, his fog inside big and white. And on I went then, stepping far around the crack, still on. Twice I saw the same old boot just by me, as if it was following me, I think it was the same boot, it was black and its toe was slightly open so that it looked like a mouth. On, I must go on, on into the muck or be cut loose. I pulled myself one leg after the other, each foot going deep in. Up again, down again. Then I saw something small and shining skimming along the surface, it was a little watch I think, on a chain. I tried to grab it but it kept dancing ahead of me. I heaved after it, so close, so close, spinning in the wind. I dived for it, nearly had it, I touched the chain, but it was gone again, no sight of it, suddenly lost beneath the surface. Then, turning round, I saw that I was on my own at last, that the other heap Iremongers were far behind me. That was a bad moment that was. I screamed inside my helmet. The glass was so fogged I couldn’t see for a few moments and when at last it cleared, I thought how much darker it had grown. The sky so black. The storm closing in.

  Dark. Darker than any coal hole I’ve ever seen, so little light from the clouds above. And cold with it, colder than any winter day when your breath makes thick clouds and the puddles have all iced over and it hurts to touch metal and you’re huddling and shivering though you’ve put so many layers on and you think you’ll never ever get warm again. Colder than that. And hopeless, without any hope at all. And the feeling of being dead. Of being lost from everyone. Buried alive deep down and no one to know it. And the feeling of uselessness, of being broken and alone. In the cold darkness. That’s how it felt.

  I’ve been put out, I thought.

  I’ve been snuffed out.

  I’m not aligh
t any longer.

  It was like being lost, dropped out, thrown out, spat out, shovelled under, dropped down a great hole. Small. Very small. Knowing then in the black coldness how small I am, that I’d never be anything big. Crumb. Splinter. Lost thing. Little lost thing. That’s how it was. Something like that. Only that doesn’t quite do it either. Not yet. It’s like you’re dead, being out alone in the heaps, absolutely dead, extinct, done in, never remembered by anyone ever, never existed even, not ever, not known anywhere at all. Like that. Except you’re alive, except you’re breathing, except you’re there in this dead place, alive with all the thick deadness about you, on top of you, all around, moving in. That’s where I was. Out in the deep of it. There I trod, panting and miserable in the thick leather suit with my hulking metal helmet covering my noggin and all of it so big for me that I had to shuffle up inside of the suit to see out of the helmet window. Me and all those dead things. Hundreds and hundreds of different sized things, all smacked up together. Load of rubbish, wasn’t it.

  I’m sorry, I thought, I’m so very sorry. For all the broken things. Ugly objects, how did you get like this, who did this to you? I’m sorry no one cares for you. I am sorry. But I can’t care for all of you, there’s not enough of me. I can’t. I don’t. You’d snuff me out, soon as anything. You’d have me in an instant.

  Just ahead of me was an old wooden staircase, broken and cracked, with some steps missing. It must have been a long staircase, once upon a time. I wonder where it went. Now it climbed up to nowhere, but it stayed where it was, waving a little bit in the growing wind, but not sinking. A bit of a place, it was, I thought. As much of a place as you’re ever likely to get out here. Not very solid perhaps but more solid. I reached for it and dragged myself up it and clambered and heaved up its steps, the banister shuddering, until I was higher than the heap ground and I could see then that it was still connected to some building and that for the moment, it was on top of the heaps, the highest bit, like a mast of a ship. There I scrambled and there, on a step, I sat. Feeling sick. Gulls about me. They’re living they are, I thought, hallo to you. I’m here. I’m still here. Still alive.

  So I took a breather, didn’t I. While I could. On someone’s old staircase. From there I could see Iremonger Park in the distance, a black island it was, the very darkest great smudge, and even, when I squinted, a few figures hanging around the wall, like ants, like flies, I could see the gate, still open. Don’t close that bloody gate, I thought, don’t you dare. Not with me out here, you bastards. That would be me done for, for good and all. Well then, I sat there. That’s when I saw him.

  There was someone else in the heaps, not the deep dark shadow down underneath, but someone other entirely. He was very smartly dressed. Like he was going somewhere special. It took me a moment to think how strange it was to see someone so well dressed out here in the middle of the rubbish heap. Top hat, tails, bow tie, white shirt, quite the gent. Something strange about his trousers though, they were very tight the bottom half, and I couldn’t make them out at first. Who’s that, I wondered, what the hell’s he doing out here? He’ll sink, I thought, if he doesn’t watch it. He was tall, I could tell that even out there in the heaps, so tall I thought at first that he must be an adult. Some crazy Iremonger full-blood out for a stroll in the heaps, storm coming on. It was only when he got closer that I saw he was a boy, a tall child. I only figured that out by the strange trousers, they weren’t trousers at all, they were shorts, dark shorts like what Clod wore and naked skin beneath the knee. Oh, Clod, I thought then, Clod, who is this fellow here dancing out in the heaps, you’d know, wouldn’t you. You’d say. Oh, tell him to go back in, I thought, oh, tell him, do tell him, he shouldn’t be out there in this. He’ll catch his death. I’ve done something wrong, something very wrong in their books, but even me they thought to cover up, to give this helmet and these leathers, and to give me an anchor, no matter how weak, to give me this line and all. And then I finally realised it. He didn’t have a line. If he didn’t have a line he didn’t have an anchor. There was nothing tying him to land. He wasn’t connected. He’ll die. I think I actually said that, those words, moving around in my leathers, making steam on my helmet glass, ‘He’ll die.’

  Still the figure moved on, and seemed to make light work of the heaps to skip from place to place, taking great long strides, rushing forward, now left, now right, as if he hadn’t a care. If he gets beyond me, I thought, if he keeps on going past me then he’s totally had it, then there’s nothing between here and Filching itself and that’s miles away, and, lord knows, he’ll never make it that far. He waved his arms about as he leapt on, as if he was a great long bird trying to gain flight, but not making it. Some seagulls swarmed around him, diving about as if playing with him. He seemed at times, caught up as he was in a mass of white feathers, to be greeting them, to be playing with them. But each time the seagulls swooped down I could see, for he was closer now, that he was dirtied by their attentions, that his clothes were getting fouled, there was filth on them and rips. They’re diving him, I realised, they’re biting him. They mean to do it.

  ‘Hey! Stop that!’ I called. ‘Leave him alone!’

  They couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear me. Only I could hear myself. I’ve got to get to him, I said, I must get to him. The storm’s coming on, the heaps are getting up, they’ll be boiling in an instant. I must get to him, I must make him hear me.

  I tried to twist my helmet off, but it wouldn’t come, I tried to open the window of the helmet but my thick gloves were too large and fat, too greasy and slippery to unfasten the bolt, and I couldn’t take the gloves off, they were part of the suit, stitched on they were. I must smash it, I said, before it’s too late. Look, look at him. He was opening his arms out to the gulls. They flew up between each attack, and he would stand again and open his arms to them, waving out for them to come back. And they would. There must have been a hundred of them, swarming, nipping and scrapping in the air, and each time they came back they barrelled into him, winding him, lifting him for a moment up off the ground, into the air, only to be dropped once more in a heap. A pale, torn scarecrow, bloodied now in parts, and still – how ridiculous this seemed – still with his top hat on his head, as if it was right to be properly dressed for such horrors.

  I waved my arms at him, even jumped up and down upon the stairs as much as I dared. But he, so taken up with the seagulls, never looked to me. I threw things at the birds, but whatever I hurled was way off, nowhere near. I must smash the helmet glass, I thought, I have to smash the glass. On the top right at the tip of the staircase, at the end of all the treads, was a sharp broken one, with a metal brace. And against this now I banged my head and the glass. Smack! Smack! Smack! Nothing. Not a scratch. And I mustn’t do it too hard or I’ll bring the sharp edge right through my own face and have me impaled for ever on top of a stairway that leads nowhere. Smack! Smack! Smack! A crack now, a good crack! Smack! Smack! Crash, the edge goes through and slices at my cheek. But it’s done! It’s done, the window’s broke. I pulled the bits out with my thick gloves. I called then, I called for all my lungs’ worth.

  ‘Halloo! Halloo! Out there! Over here! Over here!’

  He didn’t hear me. Though now I could hear him, as he jumped about between the gulls’ return, he was singing, he was singing in this foul weather, in this foul place.

  ‘Homily, homily, homily, homily!’

  That’s what I thought it was.

  ‘Halloo! Over there! Can you hear me?

  ‘Homily, homily –’ but that wasn’t it, that wasn’t quite it – ‘Ormily, Ormily.’ Yes, that was it, ‘Ormily, Ormily, Ormily!’

  ‘Hallo! Hallo! I’m over here!’

  He did stop a moment then. He looked out at me. I waved madly at him. He waved back, even took his hat off in salutation, and the moment he did some great gull plundered it, carrying it off for ever. Then I saw his hair.

  It was fair and fluffy and so light. Then I knew him. He was Clod’s f
riend. He was called Tummis. This was Tummis Iremonger so far out in the heaping land.

  ‘Are you Tummis?’ I cried.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend of Clod’s, of Clod Iremonger’s! Hang on a minute, hang on there!’ I cried. ‘I’m coming over to you. I’ve got a line.’

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t want it! I’m not going back.’

  ‘You can’t stay out here. The storm!’

  ‘They won’t let me marry Ormily! Won’t let me!’

  ‘I’m coming over!’

  ‘And Clod’s being sent away!’

  ‘I’m coming to you!’

  ‘Oh, my Ormily!’

  ‘Here I come!’

  ‘I shan’t go back!’

  The storm was getting up behind him, a great wave rising up in the distance, a great black billowing wave of bricks and glass of bones and rubble, all coming this way.

  ‘Hold on, Tummis! Nearly there!’

  I was nearly at him, I was so close, just a few more paces, but then as I struggled on, I felt something pulling me back, tugging me back from my waist, stopping my progress, dragging me back towards the house. I was being pulled in, my anchor and surely not just my anchor but other stronger people than my anchor were hauling me back to the safety of the wall. I reached out my hand for Tummis.

  ‘Grab on, Tummis, the wave, the wave!’

  And he looked behind him and then there was fear about him and he reached out at last, he reached out as I was being dragged away, he stumbled towards me.

  ‘Come on! Come on!’ I cried.

  He stretched something out to me, not his hand but something shining, something to extend his arm.

  ‘Come on! Tummis! Quick!’ I cried, because then whoever was tugging was tugging hard, so hard I could barely keep my feet on the ground.

  I stretched my hand out, caught hold of the shining thing, felt metal.

  ‘I’ve got you!’ I cried. ‘Hold on, they’ll tug us in, only hold on!’