Mister Creecher

by Chris Priestley

  ‘Fletcher,’ he said, frowning. ‘What happened?’

  ‘That was three days ago.’

  ‘Three days . . .’ But Billy did not finish. He shook his head and closed his eyes, half expecting the giant to be gone when he opened them, but he was still there. This was no fever dream.

  ‘Wait,’ said Billy, squinting. ‘I know this place. We’re in the attic above the baker’s in Chalk Street.’

  This was one of Billy’s favourite hideaways, something he had managed to keep to himself. The heat from the baker’s ovens made it unbearable in summer, but in winter it was a lifesaver.

  ‘You brought us here,’ said the giant.

  ‘What?’ said Billy. ‘Yes. I remember. I was floating.’

  Billy still felt like he was floating. His head seemed light. His own voice caused him pain, it sounded so loud. The giant’s growl was deafening. Billy winced, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘I carried you,’ said the giant.

  His voice was thick with an accent – the accent of the French weavers in Spitalfields.

  ‘And you looked after me?’ said Billy.

  The giant nodded slowly.

  ‘Why? Who are you?’

  ‘Sleeeeeep,’ said the giant, leaning towards him.

  It seemed more of a command than a recommendation, and Billy had no desire to argue with whoever – whatever – this stranger was. Besides, sleep did seem appealing all of a sudden . . .

  Billy looked around for the giant. He was not always there when Billy woke up and if Billy had been stronger he would have climbed out of the window and run for it. But he had already tried to stand and found that his legs did not share his enthusiasm for escape.

  In any case, the giant was back. Billy could see him sitting at the far end of the attic. There was a pale yellow glow seeping through the window. Morning? Evening? It was hard to tell.

  Billy’s vision was clearer now and the fog that had clouded his mind had also begun to dissolve. Even so, he found it difficult to find the courage to speak.

  ‘Hey?’ he said.

  The giant slowly raised his head and Billy saw his watery eyes twinkle in the gloom.

  ‘You are awake?’ said the giant.

  He was so large that he would have put his head through the roof had he stood up. He moved slowly towards Billy on his hands and knees, and the sight of it made Billy take a sharp, stuttering intake of breath.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’ said Billy.

  ‘You needed help,’ said the giant with a shrug.

  Billy raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘You think because of . . . how I look,’ the giant said with a curl of his lip, ‘. . . you think I must be without goodness?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Billy.

  ‘You think I am a demon, no?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are,’ said Billy, but he knew that he did not like the word ‘demon’ being mentioned.

  The giant grinned unpleasantly.

  ‘Maybe I am the Devil himself?’ he snarled.

  ‘What?’ said Billy nervously.

  ‘Yes . . .’ The giant seemed pleased at the notion. ‘I am surely cursed as Satan was cursed, shunned as he was shunned. There can be no heaven for me, on Earth or elsewhere. For me there is only hell.’

  It ain’t no fairytale for me neither, Billy thought. But he said, ‘You certainly gave old Fletcher a taste of hell, and no mistake.’

  A wave of dizziness came over him and he closed his eyes. When he opened them everything seemed far away and blurred.

  ‘Fletcherrrrr?’ said the giant, rolling the syllables round in his mouth as if tasting them. Billy had never seen such white teeth.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, struggling to concentrate. ‘You remember – the one who was planning to winkle my eyeball out. Is he dead?’

  The giant shrugged disinterestedly.

  ‘Look, what do you want with me?’ said Billy, wincing at the sound of his own voice and dropping it to a whisper. It felt as though someone had taken the top of his head off while he slept. His brain felt raw and tender, his thoughts exposed.

  The giant did not reply. He was staring at his own massive blue-grey hands, turning them over and staring first at the palms and then at the backs – staring as if he had never seen them before or as if they belonged to someone else.

  ‘Mister!’ shouted Billy, the sound of his own voice rattling round in his head like dice in a cup. The giant turned and looked at him. ‘Can you hear me?’

  The giant tilted his head to one side.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied in a low rumbling voice.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Billy, blinking, trying to focus his sleepy vision.

  ‘Who?’ said the giant.

  ‘You,’ said Billy, jabbing his finger towards the stranger’s face.

  ‘Me?’ said the giant, prodding his own chest.

  ‘You,’ repeated Billy. ‘What do they call you?’

  The giant frowned and mumbled a reply.

  ‘Creecher, is it?’ said Billy, looking surreptitiously for an escape route. ‘Well, I suppose I ought to thank you, Mister Creecher.’

  ‘Monsieur Creecher?’ repeated the giant slowly. After a pause, he began to laugh – or at least that was what Billy assumed the strange wheezing sound to be.

  Billy raised an eyebrow. Who was this strange foreign monster of a man? Was he from a freak show? Had he escaped from Bedlam?

  ‘My name’s Billy.’

  ‘Bill-ly . . .’ said Creecher.

  ‘Will you stop repeating everything I say, for goodness’ sake!’

  Creecher stared at him malevolently. Billy let out a nervous laugh.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to shout at you. Where are you from?’ he asked hurriedly. ‘You ain’t from London, are you? Or England neither. Where are you from?’

  ‘Frrrrrom?’ said Creecher. He looked puzzled by the question.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy, then speaking more slowly and carefully, in the voice he used on tourists before he relieved them of their watches, ‘where are you from? Where did you come from to get here?’

  Creecher frowned and seemed lost in thought. Did he have to think about where he was from, or was he trying to come up with a lie? Billy wondered if the giant had been knocked on the head after all. Maybe his brains have been scrambled, he thought. Then something appeared to spark in the stranger’s mind.

  ‘Switzerland,’ said Creecher.

  ‘Swissland?’ said Billy. ‘I thought you was French. The accent. Sounds French. You sure you’re not French?’

  Creecher made no reply. Swiss? Billy was none the wiser. His geography was a little limited. He knew London like the back of his hand – rather better actually. But outside of the city was foreign to him. Switzerland, France, Wales – it was all the same to Billy.

  ‘I was born here. In London,’ said Billy. ‘Ain’t never been anywhere else.’

  The giant said nothing and the silence was somehow dreadful and Billy felt obliged to fill it.

  ‘I’m an orphan,’ he went on. ‘Mother died when I was eight. Never knew my father. He left when I was just a baby, or so my mother said.’

  Billy was surprised to see a look of sympathy pass over the giant’s terrible face. Creecher shook his head and tears welled in his eyes. Whether the tears were for Billy or for himself, Billy could not tell.

  ‘What brought you here, then?’ said Billy, raising himself up and rubbing his eyes.

  ‘A ship,’ said Creecher.

  ‘No, no,’ said Billy, shaking his head. This was going to be hard work. ‘What I mean is – why have you come? You don’t look like a tourist to me.’

  The giant did not reply.

  ‘So how come you were stretched out in Finsbury Square?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Creecher, frowning, clearly trying to remember. ‘I must have slept.’

  ‘Slept?’ said Billy. ‘In that weather?’

  Billy remembered how sure he had been that Cre
echer was dead when he had found him that night. His fear of the giant came back suddenly. He shuddered and felt his heart flutter like a trapped moth. Creecher must have noticed.

  ‘Ugly,’ he said, waving his hand towards his face.

  ‘I’ve seen worse,’ said Billy pointlessly. They both knew it was not true.

  Creecher seemed to slip into a daydream once more and Billy thought about getting to his feet and making a run for it. But he did not have the strength.

  He was a fearful monster, but he could have snapped him in two an hour ago if that was what he wanted, Billy reasoned. Besides, had not he saved Billy’s life? Not once but twice: from Fletcher and then from the fever.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ said Billy.

  ‘Rest,’ said Creecher. ‘I will fetch food. When it is dark.’

  CHAPTER IV.

  Billy drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few hours, before eventually sitting up and stretching his aching muscles.

  The room was almost entirely dark save for a bluish glow coming through the partly opened shutters of the attic window nearby. Though the shadows were big enough to hide the giant, Billy was sure that he was alone.

  He had not only awoken from sleep. He had completely shed his fever too, he sensed. He felt light-headed with hunger, but that was all. Now was the time to get out and away from Creecher and whatever he had planned.

  Billy got to his feet a little too quickly and had to steady himself, bright spots dancing before his eyes. He was about to push open the shutters and climb out on to the roof when he felt his body stiffen. He began to limber up – to get his lazy muscles going. He needed to move before the giant came back.

  But where exactly was he intending to go? Creecher did not seem to know if Fletcher was dead, and if Fletcher was alive then sooner or later their paths would cross. Fletcher wasn’t going to be satisfied with an eye this time.

  Billy found himself imagining how sweet it would be if Creecher were with him when he met Fletcher. Creecher might finish the job this time. Until Fletcher was dealt with, London was not safe for Billy.

  But how safe was Billy with Creecher, whoever – whatever – he was? Just as he was sizing these thoughts up in his mind, he sensed that something was outside and heading his way.

  Instead of opening the shutters, Billy returned to the pile of sacks and hessian rags that had served as his bed for the last few days and lay back down, trying to look as though he had never stirred.

  No sooner had he done so than the shutters opened and Creecher dropped through the window. Billy marvelled at how it was possible for so large a man to move so quietly. He had heard nothing of the giant’s approach across the tiles and he had a thief’s hearing.

  Creecher had dropped to his haunches and now rose up like a shadow and moved towards Billy. The boy let out an involuntary whimper at the giant’s approach and flinched as Creecher’s hands thrust towards him.

  ‘Food,’ said Creecher. ‘Eat.’

  Billy now saw the loaf and grabbed it greedily. He had taken several mouthfuls before he remembered to say a muffled, ‘Thank you.’

  Creecher had withdrawn to his side of the attic and was eating his own loaf of bread. There was a small sack between them.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Chicken.’

  Billy was out from under his rags in a flash. He dashed across the filthy floorboards and pounced on the bag. He shoved in his hand and pulled out a whole roast chicken. The smell made him giddy and he had to sit down. He held it out to Creecher.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You ought to have first go.’

  Creecher shook his head.

  ‘I do not eat . . . flesh,’ he said.

  There seemed something particularly unlikely about this great hulking beast denying himself the taste of meat.

  ‘You don’t want any?’ said Billy. ‘You’re sure?’

  Creecher smiled and shook his head again.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, pointing at Billy. ‘It is all yours.’

  Billy did not need telling twice. He retreated to his side of the attic with his prize and set about it with all the delicacy of a ravenous wolf, slumping back a little drunkenly when he had finished. The food sat heavily in his stomach, but he liked the feeling. It seemed to warm him from the inside.

  Billy’s wits had now fully returned, and now he was well fed he felt better able to cope with the strange situation he found himself in. He still felt a vivid, visceral fear of the giant, but it no longer seemed to immobilise him.

  He belched and looked at Creecher. He had studiously ignored him while eating. The giant’s monstrous form was not good for the appetite. Billy saw that he was now huddled over a book.

  It was an extraordinary sight. The book looked tiny in the giant’s massive grip. What was this weird creature, this frightful demon who did not eat meat, this growling brute who read books?

  ‘How can you read in this light?’ asked Billy. He could barely see the giant in that gloom.

  Creecher shrugged.

  ‘What’s the book?’

  ‘Persuasion,’ Creecher replied.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Billy. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It is about a woman who loves a man, but he is thought unsuitable by her family.’

  ‘Why’s that, then?’ said Billy.

  ‘He is not rich enough.’

  Billy snorted.

  ‘Sounds about right. Who wrote that, then?’

  ‘Jane Austen,’ said Creecher.

  Billy laughed out loud. Even he had heard of Jane Austen. Creecher scowled at him.

  ‘What is so funny?’

  ‘That’s a woman’s book!’ Billy said. ‘It’s a novel, ain’t it? Only women read novels!’

  Creecher gave him a withering look and turned back to his reading.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Billy.

  Creecher ignored him.

  ‘Seriously, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’ Billy tried to suppress a snigger. ‘I’ve just never seen a man read a novel before.’

  ‘Lots of men write novels and lots of men read novels,’ said Creecher. ‘Besides – it helps me with my English.’

  Billy observed that the giant’s accent already seemed less noticeable than it had before.

  ‘Any good?’ he asked. ‘The book, I mean.’

  ‘Not bad,’ said the giant. ‘Don’t you read?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy defensively. ‘I can read if I have to. My mother taught me. She said I’d never amount to anything if I couldn’t read. Ha! Can’t see the point of stories, though. They’re for children, aren’t they? And women.’

  He could not stop himself laughing again. When he looked up he saw that the giant was studying him.

  ‘You say your mother taught you,’ said Creecher. ‘You did not go to school?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy. ‘I was brought up in the workhouse.’

  ‘But your mother could read?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy. ‘She’d fallen on hard times and . . . and, well, she had me.’

  Creecher nodded.

  ‘Your father?’

  Billy shook his head.

  ‘I never knew him,’ he said. ‘He left me and my mother to fend for ourselves. Didn’t care about her. Didn’t care about me. I hate him. He’s probably dead anyway. I hope he is.’

  The giant seemed to take a moment to absorb all this information, and again, Billy was surprised to see a gentle look pass over his terrible face.

  ‘And how did you come to be a thief?’ said the giant.

  ‘I was a climbing boy for a chimney sweep, but I ran away.’

  ‘Why?’

  Billy shrugged and looked away. ‘We didn’t get on.’

  ‘And so you steal,’ said the giant.

  Billy bristled at the disapproving tone.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  The giant did not reply.

  ‘How you paying for all this food?’ said Bill
y. ‘You rich, then, are you? You don’t look rich.’

  The giant frowned.

  ‘I am not a thief. I take only what I need,’ he growled.

  ‘Don’t we all, Swiss,’ said Billy.

  He leaned back against the wall, cradling his swollen belly in his hands, and winced. He needed to get away and think.

  ‘Look, thanks for the grub. But you still ain’t said why you’re looking after me. It’s not that I ain’t grateful, you understand. I don’t have you down as the charitable type, so I’m guessing you want something from me. What?’

  The giant took so long to respond that Billy almost asked again, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Creecher leaned forward. The giant might not eat flesh, but he smelled like a butcher’s gutter.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I do have work for you. But you will need to come with me. Are you well enough?’

  Billy nodded. He would be glad to get out of that stuffy room and fill his lungs with some cold London air – glad, too, to put some space between himself and Creecher. But what work could he possibly do for this monster?

  CHAPTER V.

  Creecher waited while Billy stood and climbed through the window and on to the roof. Billy had been this way so many times he did not need the moonlight to show him down to the alleyway behind the baker’s.

  Creecher’s descent was as alarmingly silent as his approach had been, and he dropped noiselessly to stand next to Billy, his feet barely registering a sound. A ghost would have made more of a din.

  ‘So,’ said Billy, ‘what are we doing? Where are we going?’

  ‘We must walk towards the river, near to Waterloo Bridge.’

  Billy hugged himself.

  ‘Don’t you feel the cold?’ he asked.

  ‘Oui,’ said the giant, nodding. ‘I feel the cold. It is in my bones always.’

  ‘What’s the name of the place we’re going to, then?’ Billy asked. ‘What street?’

  ‘Whale Street,’ said Creecher. ‘Come.’

  Billy grabbed Creecher’s arm as the giant set off and he spun round with terrifying suddenness. Billy recoiled and raised his hands defensively.

  ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘I know Whale Street, all right. But this way’s quicker.’