Mister Creecher

by Chris Priestley

  They sat a while and dried their bodies in the warm breeze, then got dressed and walked on. Billy’s hair was long now too; the wet locks fell about his face and he tossed them back behind his ears.

  As they traversed a ridge, the mist began to break up, and Billy was amazed at how quickly it disappeared, revealing the landscape below. To see so far and to see such expanse of open land, with only the merest hint of human life here and there, tucked in among the humpbacked hills – the sheer scale of it had a vertiginous effect on Billy.

  How can people live like that? he thought. How can they live with such silence and separation? He needed the heartbeat throb of a city. Or at least he had always assumed he did.

  They found their way on to a sheep drover’s track and Billy was struggling to keep up with Creecher again. The giant said that they should find a place to rest and pointed to a barn on the other side of a high stone wall. As soon as there was a break, they passed through and went inside.

  The barn was cool and dark. There was a pile of hay at one end, and Billy and Creecher settled themselves down. Within moments, they were both asleep.

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  Billy dreamed he was back in the chimney again, looking up at the tiny circle of light above. It seemed so far away. He wished he could float up and out of the chimney, like smoke.

  Then he felt something grab his ankle. He kicked at it, but the grip just got stronger. Then there was a tug. Then another. Then Billy was yanked down in a cloud of soot.

  The sweep dragged him out of the fireplace, banging his head against the marble surround, and hurled him down in front of the hearth.

  ‘You come when I call!’ he shouted, hitting Billy across the side of the face with the back of his hand.

  Billy snatched up a poker and held it up in defence, but the sweep was too quick for him, twisting his arm so that he dropped it. Then he grabbed Billy by the scruff of the neck and lifted him to his feet.

  ‘Try and hit me, would you?’ he said. ‘Me, who feeds you and puts a roof over your head? Why, you little . . .’

  The sweep thumped Billy in the stomach, making him double up and collapse to his knees, gasping.

  ‘This ain’t the half of what you’re going to get when we’re out of here, I can tell you that for nothing,’ growled the sweep.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ said a voice behind Billy. He turned, wincing, to see a manservant watching from the doorway.

  ‘None of your affair,’ the sweep snapped.

  ‘Don’t adopt that tone with me!’

  ‘He works for me and I’ll do as I like! It ain’t no concern of yours.’

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. He’s nothing but a boy.’ The manservant stepped forward. ‘I’d like to see you try and hit me, you coward.’

  ‘Think I’m scared of you?’ said the sweep, squaring up to him.

  Billy saw his chance and bolted past both men, into the hall and out of the front door, which slammed behind him – and the noise woke him, or at least the echo of the noise in the real world. Billy tried to rouse himself. There was someone there – a figure standing silhouetted in the doorway of the barn, too small to be Creecher.

  ‘My eyes ain’t as good as they was,’ said the figure. ‘And this thing in’t exactly accurate, but I’ll hit something if I pulls the trigger.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Billy quickly. Creecher sat up beside him. ‘We meant no harm. We’re just travelling through and looking for somewhere dry to spend the night.’

  The farmer squinted at Creecher and then back at Billy.

  ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘Scotland.’

  ‘Scotland?’ said the old man with a whistle. ‘That’s a long way off.’

  ‘Well, Keswick first,’ said Billy.

  ‘Keswick. Just down the valley, lad.’

  Billy cautiously got to his feet and dusted himself off.

  ‘We’ll be on our way, then.’

  ‘You looking for work?’

  ‘No, not real—’ began Billy.

  ‘What kind of work?’ Creecher interrupted him.

  ‘Son went off to the army. Got himself killed. Left me here on my own,’ said the farmer. ‘There’s a wall needs fixing for starters. Help me with that and I’ll give you a place to stay and food as well. I ain’t much of a cook, but you won’t go hungry.’

  ‘We’ll help you with your wall,’ said Creecher.

  Billy nodded, understanding that this place gave them a good base from which to look for Frankenstein.

  ‘All right, then,’ the old man replied, finally putting the gun down and walking out of the barn. After a moment, Billy and Creecher followed him.

  ‘Name’s Thwaite,’ said the old man.

  ‘I’m Billy,’ said Billy. ‘And this here’s Creecher.’

  ‘This is my farm,’ Thwaite explained. ‘Black Crag Farm. I owns all the land hereabouts. Thwaites have done for centuries. Thwaite bones in the burial ground. Thwaite blood in the earth. Do things my way and we’ll get along fine.’

  Billy could not decide whether the old man really was as short-sighted as he claimed to be, or whether he simply chose not to see the giant for what he was, for he made no comment on Creecher’s appearance.

  He certainly seemed to see well enough to correct any mistakes Billy was making as they got to work on the wall.

  ‘Use a nice, big, flat one there,’ said Thwaite. ‘No – not that one. A big one! That’s it, that’s it!’

  Having satisfied himself that they had the hang of it, the old man left Billy and Creecher to get on.

  They laboured on either side of the wall. It was hard work, even for Creecher, and before long they were both stripped to the waist, Creecher’s translucent anatomy still unnerving to see.

  But Billy found himself enjoying it. His muscles had been honed by weeks of hard graft on the carnival, but this was skilful work, and satisfying.

  The sun gradually moved across the fellside, and it was a relief when the shadow of a great oak nearby fell across them as they worked. Birds flitted among the branches and took flight. Billy watched their tiny shapes fly away across the valley and out of sight.

  How different this life was to the frantic pace of London, or the drudgery of the cotton mills. Was this how men were supposed to live? thought Billy. Was this their natural state?

  It felt natural: hard work and open air. Maybe this was what he had always craved but never known it. It felt good to have the sun on his back. Even the ache in his muscles seemed right, somehow. He felt alive – alive in a different way.

  It was late by the time they finished and Billy slumped down against a stone gatepost, tired and sore. The light of evening was making the stones glow, and Billy looked at the new wall with unexpected satisfaction. He gazed down at his blistered hands and then back at the wall. Creecher stood nearby, smiling.

  ‘You look proud,’ he said.

  ‘You know, I think I am,’ Billy replied, surprised by the thought.

  But he did feel proud. Billy had never made anything in his life and here he was looking at something that might still be there centuries after he was dead and gone. He hoped it would. It would probably be the only thing to show he’d ever walked this Earth. Not that anyone would know he’d built it.

  The old man wandered up the field with the slow, deliberate tread of a hill farmer, trailing his long shadow across the grass like a cloak.

  ‘That’s a good job,’ he said. ‘That’s a good wall for a first wall.’

  Billy beamed with pride and glanced at Creecher, who also looked fairly pleased with himself. Thwaite patted the wall as he might the flank of a horse.

  ‘That’s not bad at all.’

  Billy patted the wall himself and then patted Creecher on the back. The giant grinned.

  ‘Are you in a hurry to get to Scotland?’ said the old man. ‘Only I’ve got more work if you want it.’

  Billy looked at Creecher, and Creecher nodded.

&nb
sp; ‘I suppose we could stay a while longer,’ Billy replied. ‘We couldn’t say how long, though.’

  ‘That’s good enough,’ said the old man. ‘I can’t say how long I’ll be around neither.’

  That evening, back in the farmhouse, Creecher read them poems from a book called Lyrical Ballads. Billy found the poems hard going mostly, but he was gripped by one of them – ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.

  Old Thwaite had already fallen asleep, but Billy leaned towards Creecher, eyes wide and alert, hanging on his every word. When he reached the section where the dead crew rise up and sail the ship, Creecher’s voice seemed to change:

  ‘The loud wind never reached the ship,

  Yet now the ship moved on!

  Beneath the lightning and the Moon

  The dead men gave a groan.

  They groaned; they stirred, they all uprose,

  Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

  It had been strange, even in a dream,

  To have seen those dead men rise.

  The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;

  Yet never a breeze up-blew;

  The mariners all ’gan work the ropes,

  Where they were wont to do:

  They raised their limbs like lifeless tools –

  We were a ghastly crew.

  The body of my brother’s son

  Stood by me, knee to knee:

  The body and I pulled at one rope,

  But he said naught to me.’

  With those words, Creecher came to a halt, staring at the page, the muscles in his face twitching. Suddenly he slammed the book shut, waking Thwaite, who sat up blinking and saying how much he’d enjoyed the poems.

  ‘That’s all for tonight,’ said Creecher. ‘I’m tired.’

  And with that, he got up and strode out of the cottage.

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  It was clear that following Frankenstein and Clerval would be more difficult here in Cumberland. So much had happened since Billy had last seen them that the whole notion of pursuing the men had almost been expunged from his mind. The memory of Frankenstein and the body in the warehouse seemed like a distant dream.

  Billy found the two men easily enough. The rooms they had rented were near the centre of town. He watched them leave and set off on a walk. Frankenstein looked relaxed and cheerful, as though his travels north had calmed him. He certainly had nothing of the furtiveness he had displayed in London or Oxford. He and Clerval were tourists once again, it seemed – tourists and nothing more.

  Billy restricted himself to keeping track of them while they were in Keswick, where there were enough people and enough places to hide him. Once the men left for one of their countryside walks, he did not usually attempt to pursue them and returned, instead, to help Creecher with work around the farm.

  But one particular day, there being little farm work to do, Billy decided to give the men a healthy head start, before setting off after them.

  Soon the relative clamour of Keswick was behind them and they were heading out into the wide, open land beyond. Billy had assumed the men were going hillwalking, but rather than aiming for the fells, they came instead to a kind of low, flat-topped mound. A ring of massive upright stones stood on this natural plinth, surrounded all about by hills – hills which the clouds had darkened as if by design, allowing the bright-lit stones to stand out with even greater drama.

  Billy hid in the lee of a hedge, bees buzzing among the bramble flowers. Frankenstein and Clerval spent a great deal of time marvelling at the huge lichen-covered stones, but it was not until they had moved on that Billy looked at them for himself.

  ‘Some say they are giants,’ said a voice behind him.

  Billy turned to see a girl standing nearby. She was beautiful. Her face was pale and almost luminous in the strange light. She wore a dress of deep blue and her eyes were grey and glinted like pools of pure water from the shadow of her bonnet. She giggled at Billy’s lack of response.

  ‘Sorry, miss,’ he said, flustered. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see anyone. Especially not a pretty . . .’

  The girl giggled again.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she said. ‘But to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?’

  ‘Clerval,’ he replied, suddenly conscious of how ugly and low-born his own name seemed. ‘William Clerval.’

  ‘What brings you to Cumberland, Mr Clerval?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m travelling with a friend – we’re heading for Scotland. I’m from London.’

  He could not take his eyes from this girl. It was as if the whole world had slid away, leaving only her face, her beautiful face.

  ‘There were two other gentlemen from London here just a few days ago,’ said the girl. ‘They were poets. It was so exciting. I never thought to meet a real poet. I begged them to read us something they had written, but they were too shy, I think.’

  ‘We mustn’t keep the gentleman from whatever it is he is doing,’ said another girl, stepping forward.

  Billy had not noticed her till now. He frowned. The girl frowned back. A buzzard wheeled overhead, mewing plaintively.

  ‘Florence,’ said the first girl. ‘Don’t be so impolite.’

  ‘It’s time we were getting back to the house, Jane,’ she replied. ‘Your mother will be worried.’

  The two girls turned and began to walk away.

  ‘Jane,’ mumbled Billy quietly to himself. He liked it. Then he called after her hurriedly, ‘I write poetry myself.’

  ‘Well, that is a coincidence,’ said the girl called Florence, without looking round.

  Billy frowned at her again.

  ‘I came to the stones for some, you know . . .’

  ‘Inspiration?’ Jane suggested, stopping and turning back to face him.

  ‘That’s it.’

  Florence sighed loudly.

  ‘I do have to go, I’m afraid, Mr Clerval,’ said Jane. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

  A slight breeze caught a few loose strands of her hair and blew them across her face. She lifted a gloved hand to push them away.

  ‘Perhaps I could walk some way with you?’ said Billy, approaching slowly.

  Jane smiled and nodded.

  ‘But the stones . . . ?’ said Florence.

  ‘I don’t think they’re going anywhere,’ Billy replied frostily.

  Florence put her arm in Jane’s and they set off along the path that ran beside the hedge Billy had hidden behind. Billy did his best to ignore Florence, but in no time at all they came to a gate and stopped.

  ‘Is this where you live?’ asked Billy, noticing the house for the first time.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Jane, really,’ said Florence.

  Jane opened the white gate, which creaked a little at her touch, and stepped through under an arch of climbing yellow roses. The scent was thick and heady.

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mr Clerval,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Yes,’ said Florence. ‘Goodbye.’

  Florence slammed the gate shut and a cascade of yellow petals rained down. Billy stood and watched Jane walk away and, as she approached the door of the cottage, he called out.

  ‘Wait!’

  The girls turned round, a look of surprise on Jane’s face, one of annoyance on Florence’s. The breeze caught Jane’s hair again and it rippled across her face. She brushed it patiently aside and looked at Billy expectantly.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ asked Billy.

  The wayward coils of hair sprung free from her fingertips. Billy was held in a grip firmer than Creecher’s Herculean grasp.

  ‘You may, if you’re passing,’ she replied. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  And, with that, Jane disappeared through the door, shepherded away by Florence, and Billy was left alone with the bees and the buzz of his thoughts.

  He tapped his fingers on the gate and walked back towards the stones. The clouds had moved on and the effect was now reversed, with the stones standing out dark against th
e hills now bathed in golden light.

  The change was startling. The shadowed stones seemed ominous now, less like benign figures than mourners at a funeral, or sinister witnesses to a crime, as if they had gathered to watch some terrible event long ago and been frozen there.

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  When Billy closed his eyes, he saw Jane’s face smiling at him. When he opened his eyes, he seemed to hear her voice whispering to him from the brook or the wind in the bracken.

  He wondered what his mind had been filled with before it had become fixed on this girl – and then realised that it had been filled with Creecher and Frankenstein.

  Billy looked at the giant. He was sitting with his back against the wall they had built on their arrival, reading a book as usual.

  ‘Have you got any poetry I can borrow?’ Billy asked.

  Creecher looked up and peered at him.

  ‘I just fancied reading some,’ said Billy.

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Yeah . . . What? You think I can’t understand it or something? I’m not stupid you –’

  ‘Calm down, my friend,’ said Creecher. ‘I never said you were stupid. What sort of poetry?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not too gloomy.’

  Creecher picked up a book and handed it to Billy.

  ‘Have a look at this,’ he said. ‘It’s new. It does not quite –’

  ‘Thanks,’ Billy replied, opening it up and scanning the page. ‘That’s perfect. It goes on a bit, but the first bit ought to do it.’

  ‘Perfect?’ said Creecher, peering at him. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t matter,’ said Billy. ‘Can I borrow it?’