Mister Creecher

by Chris Priestley

  ‘What is it, Jane?’ asked Florence, seeing her face.

  ‘The stones,’ she said. ‘I saw one of them move.’

  ‘Jane, my dear,’ said Mrs Cartwright, putting an arm round her daughter. ‘Now you know that they cannot move. You’re overtired. If Mr Clerval will excuse us . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ said Billy, looking at Jane. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘You must forgive me,’ said Jane. ‘I have a weak and silly heart.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘You have the best of hearts.’

  Jane smiled weakly at him as Florence and her mother led her away. Billy turned back to the stones, frowning. He walked to their centre and looked from one to the next. Then he set off for old Thwaite’s farm.

  It was dark by the time he got back. He found Creecher standing in the moonlight, looking down the valley. The giant seemed vague and transient in that light – as though he were constructed of shadows and moonbeams.

  ‘You were at the stone circle,’ said Billy.

  ‘Was I?’ said Creecher, turning round.

  ‘Yes. Why are you spying on me?’

  ‘Why are you meeting people in secret?’

  ‘You don’t own me,’ Billy snapped. ‘I can do what I like.’

  ‘Then why keep it a secret?’ said Creecher tersely.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her,’ Billy replied. ‘I was going to, honest.’

  Creecher scowled.

  ‘Honest,’ insisted Billy. ‘I just wanted to get to know her a bit, that’s all. I just wanted something of my own, something that wasn’t about you and Frankenstein. It’s always about you and Frankenstein. I’ve got my own life, you know.’

  ‘She enjoyed your poetry,’ said the giant coldly.

  Billy winced and blushed.

  ‘Yeah, well. They like that sort of thing, don’t they? Girls, I mean.’

  ‘You have not told her about me?’ Creecher asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Billy.

  ‘Or Frankenstein?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy. ‘I’m hardly going to tell her that I’m walking the length of Britain with a man-made giant, am I? Or that we’re tracking the man that made it, because he’s going to build another one.’

  Creecher stared at Billy, and the intensity of his gaze made Billy squirm. He searched through the words he had just spoken, trying to discover the cause for the sudden drop in temperature.

  ‘It?’ Creecher said eventually.

  ‘What?’ asked Billy, but he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

  ‘You said, “the man that made it”. Is that how you see me? Am I a thing? Even after all that we have been through together?’

  ‘No,’ pleaded Billy. ‘God, it was just a slip of the tongue, that’s all.’

  But Creecher was not going to be so easily placated. He walked away and leaned against the wall they had made when they first arrived. An owl shrieked in the copse of trees behind the barn.

  ‘Damn it!’ said Billy to himself.

  Creecher had melted into the shadows of the wall by the time Billy walked after him. He stood at the giant’s feet.

  ‘Maybe that is how I used to see you. But not now. Don’t be a fool.’

  Creecher turned to face him, his eyes flashing in the darkness, and Billy took a step back, worried that the word ‘fool’ had been too much.

  ‘I came all the way up here to help you,’ he went on. ‘To help you find some happiness. Why can’t you let me be happy?’

  ‘You helped me because you were scared of me,’ snarled Creecher, ‘and then because of what I might do for you.’

  ‘At first, maybe.’

  Creecher snorted derisively.

  ‘You ain’t going to make me feel guilty,’ said Billy. ‘It’s not like you helped me out of the goodness of your heart neither. You only helped me because you needed me to follow Frankenstein.’

  ‘Pah!’ said Creecher. ‘I have never needed you.’

  Billy was caught by surprise at how much those words stung him. He stared at the giant for a long time before replying.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said coolly. ‘There ain’t no problem, is there?’

  ‘This girl,’ Creecher growled, ‘do you love her?’

  ‘No!’ said Billy. ‘Of course not. I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Creecher got to his feet and walked out into the moonbeams. Billy followed him and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Why are you so angry with me?’

  The giant refused to turn round.

  ‘Look, I didn’t understand before. About why you wanted a mate. I couldn’t see why I wasn’t enough for you.’

  ‘But you do now?’ said Creecher quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Billy replied. ‘Maybe I do.’

  Creecher muttered something under his breath.

  ‘I won’t tell her anything about you or Frankenstein,’ said Billy. ‘Why would I? I just want to be with her.’

  ‘And me?’ Creecher asked, turning to face him. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ said Billy. ‘It ain’t fair! What was going to happen to me when Frankenstein built your mate? You’d have forgotten about me in a heartbeat.’

  Creecher looked at the ground and then walked away, gradually dissolving into the darkness.

  ‘Yeah!’ shouted Billy. ‘You’ve got no answer to that, have you? Have you?’

  The following day, after he had finished his work on the farm, Billy walked to the stone circle again. His argument with Creecher was still clinging to his mind when he woke, but very quickly he felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from him.

  He was glad those things had been said. They needed to be said. It had to end somewhere – they both knew that. Why not end it here, where Billy had a chance of happiness? Creecher could look after himself.

  Billy gathered wild flowers as he went, smiling to himself at what his old cohorts back in London would have made of such behaviour. When he reached the circle he saw Jane taking the air nearby, but he lost his nerve and hid behind one of the stones as she approached.

  Peeping out, he saw that she was looking another way, and he quickly sneaked out to place the flowers on an altarlike stone, before scuttling back behind one of the monoliths.

  He watched Jane walk this way and that. She was singing a song to herself in a clear, quiet voice, and Billy began to fear that she would never see his gift.

  But, all at once, she turned, making him jump back out of sight. A few moments later, when he peered out, she was standing holding the posy in her pale hands and smiling – a sweet, puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, without turning round.

  Had she seen him? Billy did not know. He only knew that the moment would be ruined, somehow, by the awkwardness of any meeting that would follow it. So he stayed where he was.

  The next time he looked, Jane was walking towards the cottage gate. Billy sank back against the stone and laughed. He felt a little foolish, but even that felt good.

  Everything felt good.

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  Billy spent the next morning digging out an old tree stump, while Creecher helped Thwaite replace a roof beam in the house. He and Creecher had barely spoken since their argument about Jane.

  It was hard work. A group of sheep came to a safe distance and watched him, staring with their long, silly faces. Billy shooed them away and they bolted, bounding down the hill as though pursued by wolves.

  Billy looked down across the distant fells and saw the scattered farmhouses dotted across them. Maybe one day he would live in one of those cottages with Jane.

  They would have some sheep and tend the land. Billy would work in the field until dusk, then come home to his wife and sit by the fire with his children, and tell them how he once knew a terrifying giant and how they became friends . . .

  As Billy returned to the farmhouse, he saw Creecher resting in the shade of the barn, reading.

&nbs
p; ‘If I wanted to stay a bit longer,’ he said to the old man, ‘would that be all right with you?’

  ‘How much longer?’ asked Thwaite.

  ‘For good maybe,’ said Billy.

  ‘Just you?’ The old man looked over towards Creecher.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘What about the big fellow?’

  ‘He’s got to go to Scotland,’ said Billy.

  The old man winked and tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘Scotland, is it?’ he said. He nodded and sucked on his pipe.

  Billy half opened his mouth to assure old Thwaite that Creecher really was bound for Scotland and not heaven, but thought better of it. Scotland, heaven, hell – what difference did it make? Creecher was going, that was all that mattered.

  ‘So I can stay?’ said Billy.

  ‘Aye – of course you can, lad,’ he said. ‘Stay as long as you like.’

  Billy walked over to the little cottage by the stones when he had finished his work and had washed. Every rock and leaf seemed to have its own particular significance now that he thought he might live here permanently. He noticed new things at every stride. It was as if his senses had been heightened.

  He saw dragonflies flitting past, using the path as their guide. He noticed the new bracken fronds rising up and curling open. He heard a skylark twittering above him, a lamb bleating down the valley. He saw quartz crystals twinkling on a distant crag and slate shards, watered by a nearby spring, shining in the sunlight.

  Glistening fragments of the poems Creecher had read out over the past months came back to him, tumbling one over another until Billy was no longer sure whether he was remembering or inventing.

  ‘I was just passing,’ he said as Florence opened the door of the cottage. ‘I wondered if I might call on Miss Cartwright.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied Florence coldly. ‘She cannot see you today, Mr Clerval.’

  She was already closing the door.

  ‘I was only planning to stay a few min—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Clerval,’ said Florence, and she shut the door.

  Billy frowned and raised his hand to knock again, but paused midway. There was no hurry. He just needed to get Jane away from this frosty witch, and there would be ample opportunity to do that. ‘Stay as long as you like,’ the old man had said. He had all the time in the world.

  Billy decided to walk into Keswick. He would buy Jane a present. He still had some money left. Girls liked gifts. He was sure of it.

  But Billy had never bought a present in his life. He had no idea where to start looking and, after walking round in circles for ten minutes, he stood staring confusedly at passers by.

  He saw two women enter a dressmaker’s shop, but Billy knew he could never go into a place like that. He stood outside a jeweller’s, but could not work up the nerve to ask the price of any of the items he looked at in the window.

  He would have found it far easier to steal the jewellery, but he felt uncomfortable with the idea of giving Jane something he had stolen. He wanted to make a new start with her. His whole life was about to begin again. It was as if a great fog had lifted and he could see clearly at last.

  Suddenly it came to him: a book. That was what he would buy her. But what book? He did not want to buy her poetry. That would confuse things. He hoped that now he had got to know Jane, he might let the whole idea of his being a poet gently die away.

  A novel, that was the thing. Women loved novels. And women loved Jane Austen, didn’t they? He would buy her a Jane Austen novel – the one that Creecher had been reading when they were in the attic, back in London. What was it called? Permission? No – Persuasion. Perfect.

  Billy knew he had seen a bookshop at the end of the alleyway leading down to Frankenstein’s warehouse, and so he set off, whistling a song his mother used to sing.

  He paid for the book and had it wrapped in lemon-coloured tissue paper and tied with sky-blue twine. And, all the time, Jane’s smiling face flashed across his mind like sunlight on water.

  When he stepped out of the shop, he looked down the alleyway. He walked towards the warehouse and stood staring at the ivy-covered building, wondering where the story would end, but content to let it go on without him.

  He was just turning away when he thought of Clerval. Borrowing the man’s name had made Billy think of him more and more in the past few days.

  He had always liked Frankenstein’s friend, and somehow he felt a bond with him. He sympathised with Clerval, for he, too, was a victim. Through no fault of his own, his fate, like Billy’s, had become entwined with those of Frankenstein and his creation. Billy wondered if he did not have a duty to warn him.

  Then there was a loud thud and everything went black.

  CHAPTER XL.

  Billy took some time to come round. Different levels of consciousness seemed to wash over him like waves, each one leaving him more awake than before, his blurred vision slowly focusing, the echoing sounds in his ears gradually sharpening.

  The more awake he felt, the more the pain in his head kicked in, and he groaned and winced as he tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up.

  He was lying on a raised surface. He couldn’t move his arms or legs and slowly realised he was tied down. He blinked again and shapes began to materialise out of the dimly lit gloom.

  ‘Ah,’ said a voice. ‘You’re awake.’

  Billy looked towards the sound and saw a figure with his back to him. He knew where he was and who the figure was before Frankenstein had even turned round.

  ‘What were you doing here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Billy, struggling to break free of his bonds. ‘Let me go. You’ve got no right.’

  He began to yell until Frankenstein clamped a hand over his mouth. In his other hand, Frankenstein held a knife with a long, sharp blade.

  ‘If you shout once more, I will have to cut out your tongue,’ he said calmly. ‘Now, you either talk to me, or never speak again.’

  Billy closed his mouth and Frankenstein removed his hand.

  ‘All right, I was just looking for something to pinch,’ said Billy. ‘Turn me over to the Justice of the Peace if you want.’

  ‘I’ve seen you before,’ said Frankenstein.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Yes. You were at the warehouse in Oxford. And I think I saw you before that in London – at the British Museum. But you were a ragged urchin then. Why are you following me?’

  ‘I’m not following you,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life.’

  ‘Stop this silliness at once.’ Frankenstein leaned towards Billy’s face with the knife. ‘It is very tiresome.’

  Billy nodded.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What of it? I ain’t done nothing wrong. I’m English, mate. This is my country – I can do what I like.’

  ‘Is that so? I thought that even in this wonderful country there were laws to govern its people.’

  ‘None that says I can’t walk in the same direction as you, Frankenstein.’

  Frankenstein grabbed Billy’s face and Billy was surprised at how repelled he was by the touch of those hands.

  ‘You know my name?’ said Frankenstein. ‘How do you know my name?’

  Billy made no reply but stared sullenly into Frankenstein’s eyes.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘I know what you’ve done,’ said Billy, tiring of Frankenstein’s voice. ‘I know what you are.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I know everything.’

  Frankenstein snorted.

  ‘Then you are a lucky fellow, my young friend.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a fool. Creecher told me all –’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Frankenstein. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Creecher,’ Billy replied. ‘It’s what I call him. I thought it was his name. But he was saying “creature”, wasn’t he? Your creature!’

  Frankenstein smiled. There was a wildness to his eye
s that Billy had never seen before.

  ‘The thing of which you speak – it is a monster. A foul and hellish monster!’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’ said Billy. ‘No one asked you to bring some great giant to life! You ain’t God!’

  Frankenstein smiled.

  ‘God! How quaint. Even scum like you turn to God at their end. I have no need for God.’

  ‘It’s wrong!’ shouted Billy. ‘It’s wrong to think you can just make something and then turn your back on it.’

  ‘Come now,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Do fathers not do this every day? Has God not done that with his own creatures? Am I so very different? And with more reason. The thing I made is a foul horror.’

  ‘But what if you’d been kind to him?’ asked Billy. ‘He can’t help the way he looks. You made him that way.’

  Frankenstein shook his head.

  ‘You sound a lot like him,’ he said. ‘He has obviously worked his spell on you, and I suppose, in some ways, you must be a remarkable young man to accept such a creature as a friend. But I wonder if he has told you the whole truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Has he told you anything of his life before he came to England?’

  ‘Yeah. He told me all about you, for a start.’

  Frankenstein smiled.

  ‘Did he now?’ he replied. ‘And did he, I wonder, also tell you that he is a child killer?’

  ‘What?’ said Billy, startled.

  ‘Ah.’ Frankenstein smiled bitterly. ‘So he did not tell you all of the truth, I see. Yes! He murdered my brother. Poor William! Strangled him. A small, defenceless boy.’

  ‘No!’ said Billy. ‘I don’t believe you.’ But as he said it, he remembered the giant’s hands around his neck. The pain in his head returned with even more force.

  ‘But you know it’s true, don’t you? You cannot have been with him so long without seeing his murderous rage?’ Frankenstein peered at Billy and seemed to read something in his eyes. ‘My God – you’ve seen him kill, haven’t you?’

  Billy did not reply but looked away.

  ‘Is that it? Did he kill for you? Is that why you travel with him?’ Frankenstein leaned closer. ‘He is a monster, an evil monster. He killed my little brother for no other reason than he bore the same name as me.’