Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

by Roald Dahl

  ‘Where’s the money?’ he said to Claud.

  Claud put a shilling piece on the bonnet, near the radiator. The ratman produced two sixpences and laid them beside Claud’s money. As he stretched out his hand to do this, the rat cringed, drawing its head back and flattening itself against the bonnet.

  ‘Bet’s on,’ the ratman said.

  Claud and I stepped back a few paces. The ratman stepped forward. He put his hands in his pockets and inclined his body from the waist so that his face was on a level with the rat, about three feet away.

  His eyes caught the eyes of the rat and held them. The rat was crouching, very tense, sensing extreme danger, but not yet frightened. The way it crouched, it seemed to me it was preparing to spring forward at the man’s face; but there must have been some power in the ratman’s eyes that prevented it from doing this, and subdued it, and then gradually frightened it so that it began to back away, dragging its body backward with slow crouching steps until the string tautened on its hind leg. It tried to struggle back further against the string, jerking its leg to free it. The man leaned forward towards the rat, following it with his face, watching it all the time with his eyes, and suddenly the rat panicked and leaped sideways in the air. The string pulled it up with a jerk that must almost have dislocated its leg.

  It crouched again, in the middle of the bonnet, as far away as the string would allow, and it was properly frightened now, whiskers quivering, the long grey body tense with fear.

  At this point, the ratman again began to move his face closer. Very slowly he did it, so slowly there wasn’t really any movement to be seen at all except that the face just happened to be a fraction closer each time you looked. He never took his eyes from the rat. The tension was considerable and I wanted suddenly to cry out and tell him to stop. I wanted him to stop because it was making me feel sick inside, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. Something extremely unpleasant was about to happen – I was sure of that. Something sinister and cruel and ratlike, and perhaps it really would make me sick. But I had to see it now.

  The ratman’s face was about eighteen inches from the rat. Twelve inches. Then ten, or perhaps it was eight, and soon there was not more than the length of a man’s hand separating their faces. The rat was pressing its body flat against the car bonnet, tense and terrified. The ratman was also tense, but with a dangerous active tensity that was like a tight-wound spring. The shadow of a smile flickered around the skin of his mouth.

  Then suddenly he struck.

  He struck as a snake strikes, darting his head forward with one swift knifelike stroke that originated in the muscles of the lower body, and I had a momentary glimpse of his mouth opening very wide and two yellow teeth and the whole face contorted by the effort of mouth-opening.

  More than that I did not care to see. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again the rat was dead and the ratman was slipping the money into his pocket and spitting to clear his mouth.

  ‘That’s what they makes lickerish out of,’ he said. ‘Rat’s blood is what the big factories and the chocolate-people use to make lickerish.’

  Again the relish, the wet-lipped, lip-smacking relish as he spoke the words, the throaty richness of his voice and the thick syrupy way he pronounced the word lickerish.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘there’s nothin’ wrong with a drop of rat’s blood.’

  ‘Don’t talk so absolutely disgusting,’ Claud told him.

  ‘Ah! But that’s it, you see. You eaten it many a time. Penny sticks and lickerish bootlaces is all made from rat’s blood.’

  ‘We don’t want to hear about it, thank you.’

  ‘Boiled up, it is, in great cauldrons, bubblin’ and steamin’ and men stirrin’ it with long poles. That’s one of the big secrets of the chocolate-makin’ factories, and no one knows about it – no one except the ratters supplyin’ the stuff.’

  Suddenly he noticed that his audience was no longer with him, that our faces were hostile and sick-looking and crimson with anger and disgust. He stopped abruptly, and without another word he turned and sloped off down the driveway out on to the road, moving with the slow, that almost delicate ambling walk that was like a rat prowling, making no noise with his footsteps even on the gravel of the driveway.

  Rummins

  The sun was up over the hills now and the mist had cleared and it was wonderful to be striding along the road with the dog in the early morning, especially when it was autumn, with the leaves changing to gold and yellow and sometimes one of them breaking away and falling slowly, turning slowly over in the air, dropping noiselessly right in front of him on to the grass beside the road. There was a small wind up above, and he could hear the beeches rustling and murmuring like a crowd of people.

  This was always the best time of the day for Claud Cubbage. He gazed approvingly at the rippling velvety hindquarters of the greyhound trotting in front of him.

  ‘Jackie,’ he called softly. ‘Hey, Jackson. How you feeling, boy?’

  The dog half turned at the sound of its name and gave a quick acknowledging wag of the tail.

  There would never be another dog like this Jackie, he told himself. How beautiful the slim streamlining, the small pointed head, the yellow eyes, the black mobile nose. Beautiful the long neck, the way the deep brisket curved back and up out of sight into no stomach at all. See how he walked up on his toes, noiselessly, hardly touching the surface of the road at all.

  ‘Jackson,’ he said. ‘Good old Jackson.’

  In the distance, Claud could see Rummins’s farmhouse, small, narrow, and ancient, standing back behind the hedge on the right hand side.

  I’ll turn round here, he decided. That’ll be enough for today.

  Rummins, carrying a pail of milk across the yard, saw him coming down the road. He set the pail down slowly and came forward to the gate, leaning both arms on the topmost bar, waiting.

  ‘Morning Mr Rummins,’ Claud said. It was necessary to be polite to Rummins because of eggs.

  Rummins nodded and leaned over the gate, looking critically at the dog.

  ‘Looks well,’ he said.

  ‘He is well.’

  ‘When’s he running?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Rummins.’

  ‘Come on. When’s he running?’

  ‘He’s only ten months yet, Mr Rummins. He’s not even schooled properly, honest.’

  The small beady eyes of Rummins peered suspiciously over the top of the gate. ’I wouldn’t mind betting a

  couple of quid you’re having it off with him somewhere secret soon.’

  Claud moved his feet uncomfortably on the black road surface. He disliked very much this man with the wide frog mouth, the broken teeth, the shifty eyes; and most of all he disliked having to be polite to him because of eggs.

  ‘That hayrick of yours opposite,’ he said, searching desperately for another subject. ‘It’s full of rats.’

  ‘All hayrick’s got rats.’

  ‘Not like this one. Matter of fact we’ve been having a touch of trouble with the authorities about that.’

  Rummins glanced up sharply. He didn’t like trouble with the authorities. Any man who sells eggs black-market and kills pigs without a permit is wise to avoid contact with that sort of people.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘They sent the ratcatcher along.’

  ‘You mean just for a few rats?’

  ‘A few! Blimey, it’s swarming!’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Honest it is, Mr Rummins. There’s hundreds of ’em.’

  ‘Didn’t the ratcatcher catch ’em?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I reckon they’re too artful.’

  Rummins began thoughtfully to explore the inner rim of one nostril with the end of his thumb, holding the noseflap between thumb and finger as he did so.

  ‘I wouldn’t give thank you for no ratcatchers,’ he said. ‘Ratcatchers is government men working for the soddin’ gover
nment and I wouldn’t give thank you for ’em.’

  ‘Nor me, Mr Rummins. All ratcatchers is slimy cunning creatures.’

  ‘Well,’ Rummins said, sliding fingers under his cap to scratch the head. ‘I was coming over soon anyway to fetch in that rick. Reckon I might just as well do it today as any other time. I don’t want no government men nosing around my stuff thank you very much.’

  ‘Exactly, Mr Rummins.’

  ‘We’ll be over later – Bert and me.’ With that he turned and ambled off across the yard.

  Around three in the afternoon, Rummins and Bert were seen riding slowly up the road in a cart drawn by a ponderous and magnificent black carthorse. Opposite the filling-station the cart turned off into the field and stopped near the hayrick.

  ‘This ought to be worth seeing,’ I said. ‘Get the gun.’

  Claud fetched the rifle and slipped a cartridge into the breech.

  I strolled across the road and leaned against the open gate. Rummins was on the top of the rick now and cutting away at the cord that bound the thatching. Bert remained in the cart, fingering the four-foot-long knife.

  Bert had something wrong with one eye. It was pale

  grey all over, like a boiled fish eye, and although it was motionless in its socket it appeared always to be looking at you and following you round the way the eyes of the people in some of those portraits do, in the museums. Wherever you stood and wherever Bert was looking, there was this faulty eye fixing you sideways with a cold stare, boiled and misty pale with a little black dot in the centre, like a fish eye on a plate.

  In his build he was the opposite of his father who was short and squat like a frog. Bert was a tall, reedy, boneless boy, loose at the joints, even the head loose upon the shoulders, falling sideways as though perhaps it was too heavy for the neck.

  ‘You only made this rick last June,’ I said to him. ‘Why take it away so soon?’

  ‘Dad wants it.’

  ‘Funny time to cut a new rick, November.’

  ‘Dad wants it,’ Bert repeated, and both his eyes, the sound one and the other stared down at me with a look of absolute vacuity.

  ‘Going to all that trouble stacking it and thatching it and then pulling it down five months later.’

  ‘Dad wants it.’ Bert’s nose was running and he kept wiping it with the back of his hand and wiping the back of the hand on his trousers.

  ‘Come on, Bert,’ Rummins called, and the boy climbed up on to the rick and stood in the place where the thatch had been removed. He took the knife and began to cut down into the tight-packed hay with an easy-swinging, sawing movement, holding the handle with both hands and rocking his body like a man sawing wood with a big saw. I could hear the crisp cutting noise of the blade against the dry hay and the noise becoming softer as the knife sank deeper into the rick.

  ‘Claud’s going to take a pot at the rats as they come out.’

  The man and the boy stopped abruptly and looked across the road at Claud who was leaning against the red pump with rifle in hand.

  ‘Tell him to put that bloody rifle away,’ Rummins said.

  ‘He’s a good shot. He won’t hit you.’

  ‘No one’s potting no rats alongside of me, don’t matter how good they are.’

  ‘You’ll insult him.’

  ‘Tell him to put it away,’ Rummins said, slow and hostile. ‘I don’t mind dogs nor sticks but I’ll be buggered if I’ll have rifles.’

  The two on the hayrick watched while Claud did as he was told, then they resumed their work in silence. Soon Bert came down into the cart, and reaching out with both hands he pulled a slice of solid hay away from the rick so that it dropped neatly into the cart beside him.

  A rat, grey-black, with a long tail, came out of the base of the rick and ran into the hedge.

  ‘A rat,’ I said.

  ‘Kill it,’ Rummins said. ‘Why don’t you get a stick and kill it?’

  The alarm had been given now and the rats were coming out quicker, one or two of them every minute, fat and long-bodied, crouching close to the ground as they ran through the grass into the hedge. Whenever the horse saw one of them it twitched its ears and followed it with uneasy rolling eyes.

  Bert had climbed back on top of the rick and was cutting out another bale. Watching him, I saw him suddenly stop, hesitate for perhaps a second, then again begin to cut, but very cautiously this time; and now I could hear a different sound, a muffled rasping noise as the blade of the knife grated against something hard.

  Bert pulled out the knife and examined the blade, testing it with his thumb. He put it back, letting it down gingerly into the cut, feeling gently downward until it came again upon the hard object; and once more, when he made another cautious little sawing movement, there came that grating sound.

  Rummins turned his head and looked over his shoulder at the boy. He was in the act of lifting an armful of loosened thatch, bending forward with both hands grasping the straw, but he stopped dead in the middle of what he was doing and looked at Bert. Bert remained still, hands holding the handle of the knife, a look of bewilderment on his face. Behind, the sky was a pale clear blue and the two figures up there on the hayrick stood out sharp and black like an etching against the paleness.

  Then Rummins’s voice, louder than usual, edged with an unmistakable apprehension that the loudness did nothing to conceal: ‘Some of them haymakers is too bloody careless what they put on a rick these days.’

  He paused, and again the silence, the men motionless, and across the road Claud leaning motionless against the red pump. It was so quiet suddenly we could hear a woman’s voice far down the valley on the next farm calling the men to food.

  Then Rummins again, shouting where there was no need to shout: ‘Go on, then! Go on an’ cut through it, Bert! A little stick of wood won’t hurt the soddin’ knife!’

  For some reason, as though perhaps scenting trouble, Claud came strolling across the road and joined me leaning on the gate. He didn’t say anything, but both of us seemed to know that there was something disturbing about these two men, about the stillness that surrounded them and especially about Rummins himself. Rummins was frightened. Bert was frightened too. And now as I watched them, I became conscious of a small vague image moving just below the surface of my memory. I tried desperately to reach back and grasp it. Once I almost touched it, but it slipped away and when I went after it I found myself travelling back and back through many weeks, back into the yellow days of summer – the warm wind blowing down the valley from the south, the big beech trees heavy with their foliage, the fields turning to gold, the harvesting, the haymaking, the rick – the building of the rick.

  Instantly, I felt a fine electricity of fear running over the skin of my stomach.

  Yes – the building of the rick. When was it we had built it? June? That was it, of course – a hot muggy day in June with the clouds low overhead and the air thick with the smell of thunder.

  And Rummins had said, ‘Let’s for God’s sake get it in quick before the rain comes.’

  And Ole Jimmy had said, ‘There ain’t going to be no rain. And there ain’t no hurry either. You know very well when thunder’s in the south it don’t cross over into the valley.’

  Rummins, standing up in the cart handing out the pitchforks, had not answered him. He was in a furious brooding temper because of his anxiety about getting in the hay before it rained.

  ‘There ain’t goin’ to be no rain before evenin’,’ Ole Jimmy had repeated, looking at Rummins; and Rummins had stared back at him, the eyes glimmering with a slow anger.

  All through the morning we had worked without a pause, loading the hay into the cart, trundling it across the field, pitching it out on to the slowly growing rick that stood over by the gate opposite the filling-station. We could hear the thunder in the south as it came toward us and moved away again. Then it seemed to return and remain stationary somewhere beyond the hills, rumbling intermittently. When we looked up we could see the clouds
overhead moving and changing shape in the turbulence of the upper air; but on the ground it was hot and muggy and there was no breath of wind. We worked slowly, listlessly in the heat, shirts wet with sweat, faces shining.

  Claud and I had worked beside Rummins on the rick itself, helping to shape it, and I could remember how very hot it had been and the flies around my face and the sweat pouring out everywhere; and especially I could remember the grim scowling presence of Rummins beside me, working with a desperate urgency and watching the sky and shouting at the men to hurry.

  At noon, in spite of Rummins, we had knocked off for lunch.

  Claud and I had sat down under the hedge with Ole Jimmy and another man called Wilson who was a soldier home on leave, and it was too hot to do much talking. Wilson had some bread and cheese and a canteen of cold tea. Ole Jimmy had a satchel that was an old gas-mask container, and in this, closely packed, standing upright with their necks protruding, were six pint bottles of beer.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, offering a bottle to each of us.

  ‘I’d like to buy one from you,’ Claud said, knowing very well the old man had little money.

  ‘Take it.’

  ‘I must pay you.’

  ‘Don’t be so daft. Drink it.’

  He was a very good old man, good and clean, with a clean pink face that he shaved each day. He had used to be a carpenter, but they retired him at the age of seventy and that was some years before. Then the Village Council, seeing him still active, had given him the job of looking after the newly built children’s playground, of maintaining the swings and see-saws in good repair and also of acting as a kind of gentle watchdog, seeing that none of the kids hurt themselves or did anything foolish.

  That was a fine job for an old man to have and everybody seemed pleased with the way things were going – until a certain Saturday night. That night Ole Jimmy had got drunk and gone reeling and singing down the middle of the High Street with such a howling noise that people got out of their beds to see what was going on below. The next morning they had sacked him saying he was a bum and a drunkard not fit to associate with young children on the playground.