Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell

  ‘Erm…no.’

  ‘Ain’t goin’ to huff and puff and blow yer house down, yer know. Lady of the house at home, by any chance?’

  ‘Mum? No. She’s working in Cheltenham.’

  ‘A shame that is. Year back, I grinded her knives sharp as razors but no doubt they’ll be blunt again by now. A blunt knife is the most dangerous knife, yer know that? Any doctor’ll tell yer as much.’ His accent skimmed and skittered. ‘Blunt blades slip fierce easy. She’ll be back soon, will she?’

  ‘Not till seven.’

  ‘Pity, pity, don’t know when I’ll be passin’ here again. How ’bout yer fetchin’ them knives now, and I’ll make ’em nice and sharp anyway, eh? To surprise her, like. Got my stones and my tools.’ He thumped a lumpy kitbag. ‘Shan’t take no more’n a second. Yer mam’ll be that pleased. The best son in the Three Counties, she’ll call yer.’

  I doubted that very much. But I don’t know how you get rid of knife grinders. One rule says you mustn’t be rude. Just shutting the door on him’d’ve been rude. But another rule says Never Talk to Strangers, which I was breaking. Rules should get their stories straight. ‘I’ve only got my pocket money, so I couldn’t afford—’

  ‘Cut yer a deal, my chavvo. I like a lad who keeps his manners about him. “Manners do maketh the man.” A proper clever haggler, yer mam’ll call yer. Tell us how much pocket money’s in yer piggy bank, and I’ll tell yer how many knives I can do for what yer got.’

  ‘Sorry.’ This was getting worse. ‘I’d best ask Mum first.’

  The knife grinder’s look was friendly on the surface. ‘Never cross the womenfolk! Still, I’ll see if I can’t call this way in a day or two after all. Unless the squire o’ the manor’s at home, that is, by any chance?’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Aye, Dad.’

  ‘He won’t be back till…’ You never know these days. Often he calls to say he’s stuck in a motel somewhere. ‘Late.’

  ‘If he isn’t fierce worried about his driveway,’ the knife grinder tilted his head and sucked air, ‘he needs to be. Tarmac’s cracked serious, like. Pack of tinkers laid it originally, that’s my guess. Rain’ll freeze inside them cracks come winter, prise the tarmac up, see, and by spring it’ll be like the moon! Needs tearin’ up and re-layin’ proper. Me and my brother’ll get it done faster than—’ (His finger-click was as loud as the popper in Frustration.) ‘Tell yer dad from me, will yer do that?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. I could take your phone number.’

  ‘Telephones? Liarphones, I call ’em. Eye to eye’s the only way.’

  Knife Grinder heaved up his kitbag and walked down the drive. ‘Tell yer dad!’ He knew I was watching. ‘A promise is a promise, mush!’

  ‘How generous of him,’ was what Mum said when I told her about the TV. But how she said it was sort of chilling. When I heard Dad’s Rover get home I went out to the garage to thank him. But instead of looking pleased he just mumbled, a bit embarrassed, no, almost like he was sorry about something, ‘Glad it meets with your approval, Jason.’ Only when Mum dished up the stew did I even remember the knife grinder’s visit.

  ‘Knife grinding?’ Dad forked off some gristle to one side. ‘That’s a gypsy scam, old as the hills. Surprised he didn’t get his Tarot cards out, there on the porch. Or start scavving for scrap metal. If he comes back, Jason, shut the door on him. Never encourage those people. Worse than Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

  ‘He said he might,’ now I felt guilty for making that promise, ‘come back to talk about the driveway.’

  ‘What about the driveway?’

  ‘It needs retarmacking. He said.’

  Dad’s face’d turned thundery. ‘And that makes it true, does it?’

  ‘Michael,’ Mum said, ‘Jason’s just reporting a conversation.’

  Beef gristle tastes like deep-seam phlegm. The only real live gypsy I ever met was a quiet kid at Miss Throckmorton’s. His name’s gone now. He must’ve skived off most days ’cause his empty desk became a sort of school joke. He wore a black jumper instead of green and a grey shirt instead of white, but Miss Throckmorton never once did him up for it. A Bedford truck used to drop him off at the school gates. In my memory that Bedford truck’s as large as the whole school. The gypsy kid’d jump down from the cabin. His dad looked like Giant Haystacks the wrestler, with tattoos snaking up his arms. Those tattoos and the glance he shot round the playground made sure no one, not Pete Redmarley, not even Pluto Noak, thought about picking on the gypsy kid. For his part, the gypsy kid sat under the cedar sending out piss off waves. He didn’t give a toss about Kick-the-Can or Stuck-in-the-Mud. One time, he was at school for a rounders match and he whacked the ball clean over the hedge and into the Glebe. He just strolled round the posts with his hands in his pockets. Miss Throckmorton had to put him in charge of scoring ’cause we ran out of rounders balls. But when we next looked at the scoreboard he’d gone.

  I blobbed HP sauce into my stew. ‘Who are gypsies, Dad?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well…where did they live originally?’

  ‘Where do you think the word “gypsy” is from? Egyptian.’

  ‘So gypsies’re African?’

  ‘Not now, no. They migrated centuries ago.’

  ‘Why don’t people like them?’

  ‘Why should decent-minded citizens like layabouts who pay nothing to the state and flout every planning regulation in the book?’

  ‘I think,’ Mum sprinkled pepper, ‘that’s a harsh assessment, Michael.’

  ‘You wouldn’t if you’d ever met one, Helena.’

  ‘This knife grinder chap made an excellent job of the scissors and knives, last year.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Dad’s fork stopped in mid-air, ‘you know this man?’

  ‘Well, a knife grinder’s been coming to Black Swan Green every October for years. Couldn’t be sure if it’s the same one without seeing him, but I’d imagine he probably is.’

  ‘You’ve actually given this beggar money?’

  ‘Do you work for nothing, Michael?’

  (Questions aren’t questions. Questions’re bullets.)

  Dad’s cutlery clinked as he put it down. ‘You kept this…transaction hushed up for a whole year?’

  ‘“Hushed up”?’ Mum did a silent huh of strategic shock. ‘You’re accusing me of “hushing up”?’ (That made my guts quease. Dad flashed Mum this Not in front of Jason look. That made my guts quease and shudder.) ‘Doubtless I didn’t want to clutter your executive day with trivial housewifery.’

  ‘And how much,’ Dad wasn’t backing off, ‘did this vagrant rip you off for?’

  ‘He asked for one pound and I paid it. For sharpening all the knives, and a jolly good job he made of them. One pound. A penny more than one of your frozen Greenland pizzas.’

  ‘I can’t believe you fell for this gypsy-shire-horses-painted-wagons-jolly-old-England hokum. For God’s sakes, Helena. If you want a knife sharpener buy one from an ironmonger’s. Gypsies are work-shy hustlers and once you give them an inch, a horde of his cousins’ll be beating a path back to your door till the year 2000. Knives, crystal balls and tarmacking today, and car-stripping, raids on garden sheds, flogging stolen goods tomorrow.’

  Their arguments’re speed chess these days.

  I’d finished. ‘Can I get down now, please?’

  It’s Thursday so I watched Top of the Pops and Tomorrow’s World up in my room. I heard kitchen cupboards being slammed. I put on a cassette Julia’d made for me from Ewan’s LPs. The first song’s ‘Words (Between The Lines Of Age)’ by Neil Young. Neil Young sings like a barn collapsing but his music’s brill. A poem called ‘Maggot’ about why kids who get picked on get picked on began buzzing round my head. Poems are lenses, mirrors and X-ray machines. I doodled for a bit (if you pretend not to look for words they come out of the thickets) but my Biro died so I unzipped my pencil case to get a new one. />
  Inside, the third surprise was waiting for me.

  The scalpelled-off head of a real live dead mouse.

  Tiny teeth, shut eyes, Beatrix Potter whiskers, French mustardy fur, maroon scab, nubby spinal bone. Whiffs of bleach, Spam and pencil shavings.

  Go on, they’d’ve said. Put it in Taylor’s pencil case. It’ll be an ace laugh. It’d’ve come from Mr Whitlock’s Biology dissection class. Mr Whitlock threatens to dismember anyone nicking mouse parts, but after a flask of his special coffee he gets drowsy and careless.

  Go on, Taylor, get out yer pencil case. Ross Wilcox probably sneaked it in there himself. Dawn Madden must’ve known too. G-g-get out your p-p-p-P-P-PENcil case (Wilcox’s eyeballs popped), T-T-ta-t-t-ttt-Taylor.

  I got a wad of bog paper to wrap the head in. Downstairs Dad was reading the Daily Mail on the sofa. Mum was doing her accounts on the kitchen table. ‘Where’re you off to?’

  ‘To the garage. To play darts.’

  ‘What’s that tissue you’re holding?’

  ‘Nothing. Just blew my nose.’ I stuffed it in my jeans pocket. Mum was about to demand an inspection but thank God, she changed her mind. Under cover of darkness I sneaked down to the rockery and tossed the head into the Glebe. Ants and weasels’ll eat it, I s’pose.

  Those kids must hate me.

  After one game of Round-the-Clock I put my darts away and came back inside. Dad was watching a debate about whether or not Britain should have American cruise missiles on its soil. Mrs Thatcher says yes so it’ll happen. Since the Falklands no one can tell her no. The doorbell rang, which is odd, on an October evening. Dad must’ve thought the gypsy was back. ‘I’ll deal with this,’ he announced, and folded his paper with a jarky snap. Mum let out this tiny Ffft of disgust. I sneaked up to my spy position on the landing in time for Dad unchaining the door.

  ‘Samuel Swinyard’s the name.’ (Gilbert Swinyard’s dad.) ‘My farm’s up Drugger’s End. Would you have a minute or two?’

  ‘Certainly. I used to buy our Christmas trees from you. Michael Taylor. What can I do for you, Mr Swinyard?’

  ‘Sam’s fine. I’m collectin’ signatures for a petition, see. You might not know this but Malvern Council’re plannin’ to build a site for gypsies right here in Black Swan Green. Not temp’ry. Perm’nant, like.’

  ‘This is disturbing news. When was this announced?’

  ‘Exactly, Michael. Never was announced! Tryin’ to sneak it through on the sly, they are, so no ’un catches on till it’s done and dusted! They’re plannin’ on puttin’ the site down Hake’s Lane, by the incinerator. Oh, they’re all craft, that Malvern Council lot are. Don’t want the gyppos in their own back yard, no thank you very much. Forty caravans, they’ve earmarked land for. Forty, they say, but there’ll be hundred’s of ’em once it’s built, once you add on their relatives an’ hangers-onners. Proper Calcutta it’ll turn into. Count on it.’

  ‘Where do I sign?’ Dad took the clipboard and scribbled his name. ‘As a matter of fact, one of those gypsy…blighters…called here this afternoon. Around four o’clock, when housewives and children are likeliest to be at home, unprotected.’

  ‘Don’t surprise me one bit. Been duckerin’ all round Wellington Gardens too, they was. Older houses’ve got more precious junk to scav, see, that’s their reck’nin’. But if this camp goes ahead, it’ll be more o’ the same every day! And once scavvin’ stops workin’ for gypsies, they try more direct ways to cross their palms with our silver, if you catch my meanin’.’

  ‘I hope,’ Dad returned the clipboard, ‘you’re getting a positive response to your efforts, Sam?’

  ‘Only three refusals who’re half-gyppo ’emselves, if you ask me. The vicar said he can’t get involved in “party-zan politics” but his missus nudged him fast enough, sayin’ she ain’t no clergyman. Every’un else – as quick to sign as yourself, Michael. There’ll be an emergency meetin’ in the village hall Wednesday comin’ to discuss how best to stuff them pillocks up in Malvern Council. Can I count on yer bein’ there?’

  Wish I’d said yes. Wish I’d said, ‘Here’s my pocket money, sharpen what you can, please, right now.’ The knife grinder’d’ve got his gear out, there, on our doorstep. His metal files, stones, his (what?) flint flywheel. Crouched over it, his face glowing and creased like a goblin, eyes burning dangerous. One claw making the flywheel spin, faster, blurrier, one claw bringing the blunt blades closer, slowly, closer, till the stone touches the metal and buzzsawing sparks gush, furious blue, dribble, spurt into the drizzly Coke-dark dusk. I’d’ve smelt the hot metal. Heard it shriek itself sharp. One by one, he’d work through the dull knives. One by one, old blades’d be made newer than new and whistlier than Norman Bates’s Bowie knife and sharp enough to pass through muscle, bone, hours, dread, through Those kids must hate me. Sharp enough to slice What’ll they do to me tomorrow? into wafers.

  God, I wish I’d said yes.

  Being seen with either of your parents in public is pretty gay. But tonight loads of kids were walking to the village hall with their parents too, so that rule didn’t apply. The windows of Black Swan Green village hall (erected 1952) glowed buttery yellow. It’s only a three-minute walk from Kingfisher Meadows, slap bang by Miss Throckmorton’s. Primary school seemed so huge then. How can you be sure anything is ever its real size?

  The village hall smells of cigarettes, wax, dust, cauliflower and paint. If Mr and Mrs Woolmere hadn’t saved us chairs up front, Dad and I’d’ve had to’ve stood at the back. The last time it was as full as tonight was on the Christmas nativity play night, when I’d been a Scruffy Urchin of Bethlehem. The audience’s eyes reflected the stage lights like cat’s-eyes at night. Hangman made me have to half-fudge a few key lines, to Miss Throckmorton’s disgust. But I’d played the xylophone okay and sung ‘White or Black or Yellow or Red, Come See Jesus in His Shed’ okay too. You don’t stammer when you sing. Julia had braces for her teeth then, like Jaws’ in The Spy Who Loved Me. She told me I was a natural. That wasn’t true but was so nice of her I’ve never forgotten.

  So anyway, tonight the audience was hysterical, like a war was about to break out. Cigarette fug blurred the lines. Mr Yew was here, Colette Turbot’s mum, Mr and Mrs Rhydd, Leon Cutler’s mum and dad, Ant Little’s dad the baker (who’s always at war with the hygiene people). All yackering yackerly to be heard over the yackering yacker. Grant Burch’s dad was saying how gypsies steal dogs for fighting and then eat the evidence. ‘It happens in Anglesey!’ Andrea Bozard’s mum agreed. ‘It’ll happen here!’ Ross Wilcox sat between his dad the mechanic and his new stepmother. His dad’s a bigger, bonier, redder-eyed version of his son. Wilcox’s stepmother couldn’t stop sneezing. I tried to avoid looking at them, the way you try not to be sick by ignoring the fact you’re about to be. But I couldn’t help it. Up on the stage with Gilbert Swinyard’s dad were Gwendolin Bendincks the vicar’s wife and Kit Harris the borstal teacher who lives up the bridleway with his dogs. (Nobody’d try to steal his dogs.) Kit Harris’s got a gash of white in his black hair so all the kids call him Badger. Our neighbour Mr Castle walked on from the wings to take the last chair. He gave Dad and Mr Woolmere a heroic nod. Dad and Mr Woolmere returned the nod. Mr Woolmere muttered to Dad, ‘Didn’t take old Gerry long to get in on the action…’ Taped to the front of the trestles was a length of wallpaper. On it was painted VILLAGE CAMP CRISIS COMMITTEE. The VCC and C were blood red. All the other letters were black.

  Mr Castle got to his feet and the hushers began hushing the yackers. Last year Dean Moran and Robin South and me were playing footy and Moran wellied his ball into the Castles’ garden, but when he asked for it back Mr Castle said it’d crushed a hybrid rose worth £35 and he wouldn’t give Moran’s ball back till we’d paid for his rose, which means never, ’cause you don’t have £35 when you’re thirteen.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, fellow Black Swans. That so many of you have braved this frosty evening is in itself proof of the strength of feeling in our commu
nity about our elected council’s shameful – shameless – attempt to meet its obligations under the’ – he cleared his throat – ‘1968 Caravan Sites Act, by turning our village – home, to all of us – into a dump for so-called “travellers”, “gypsies”, “Romany” or whatever the correct “liberal” – with a very small L – phrase is in vogue this week. That not a single councillor bothered to appear this evening is less than edifying proof’ (Isaac Pye, the landlord of the Black Swan, yelled, ‘We’d’ve lynched the buggers out on the green, that’s why!’ and Mr Castle smiled like a patient uncle till the laughter’d died away) ‘is less than edifying proof of their duplicity, cowardice and the weakness of their case.’ (Applause. Mr Woolmere shouted, ‘Well said, Gerry!’) ‘Before we begin, the committee wishes to welcome Mr Hughes of the Malvern Gazetteer’ (a man in the front row with a notepad nodded) ‘for slotting us into his busy diary. We trust his report of the outrage being perpetrated by those criminals at Malvern Council will reflect his newspaper’s reputation for fair play.’ (That sounded more of a threat than a welcome.) ‘Now. Apologists for gypsies will inevitably drone, “What do you have against these people?” I say, “How much time have you got? Vagrancy. Theft. Sanitation. Tuberculosis…”’ I missed what he said next, thinking how the villagers wanted the gyspies to be gross, so the grossness of what they’re not acts as a stencil for what the villagers are.

  ‘Nobody denies that the Romany people need a permanent place of abode.’ Gwendolin Bendincks’s hands shielded her heart. ‘Romanies are mothers and fathers, just like us. Romanies want what they believe is best for their children, just like us. Heaven knows I’m not prejudiced against any group of people, however “way out” their colour or creed, and I’m sure no one in this hall is either. We are all Christians. Indeed, without a permanent site, how will Romanies ever be taught the responsibilities of citizenship? How else will they be taught that law and order guarantee their children a brighter future than begging, horse-dealing and petty crime? Or that eating hedgehogs is simply not a civilized act?’ Dramatic pause. (I thought how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want. That’s power.) ‘But why oh why do the powers that be believe that Black Swan Green is an appropriate location for their “project”? Our village is a finely balanced community! A horde of outsiders, especially one of, shall we say, “problem families”, swamping our school and our surgery would tip us into chaos! Misery! Anarchy! No, a permanent site has to be near a city big enough to mop them up. A city with infrastructure. Worcester, or better still, Birmingham! The message we send to Malvern Council is united and strong. “Don’t you dare fob your responsibilities off on to us. Country people we may be, but by golly yokels that you can hoodwink we are jolly well not!”’ Gwendolin Bendincks smiled at her standing ovation like a cold man smiling into a bonfire.