The Scarecrow

  ‘I’ll just have to confess, if he hasn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m not a complete ratbag.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ said Les hotly. ‘I’ll confess too. But I’ll tell you something, Ned Poindexter, and that is I know who is a ratbag.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yeruncle Athol,’ he said. After a while he said, ‘How d’yuh know it wasn’t our chooks he stole? How d’yuh know it wasn’t yuh preshus Uncle Athol who took our Black Orphingtons and not Victor Lynch attall?’

  We gaped at each other.

  ‘It adds up,’ said Les excitedly. ‘These fowls he was raffling. That musta been on Saturday. Pru told yuh it was Saturday. The raid on our coop was Friday night. Doesn’t that ring a bell?’

  ‘By cripes, but we did the Lynch job on Saturday night. How do the police tie that up with Uncle Athol raffling ’em on Saturday in the daytime? Howja count fuh that?’

  ‘P’raps he’s been at it all along. P’raps he’s been flogging chooks right and left for a long time. This job of ours mighta just been the last straw.’

  ‘But Les, he helped us build that coop. Surely he wouldn’t be such an absolute barstid?’

  ‘According to my father,’ Les said firmly, ‘he’s the biggest barstid yud meet in a day’s march. According to my father, if Mr Cudby was around and yuh had any gold in yuh teeth, yud be running an awful risk going to sleep with yuh mouth open. According—’

  I winced. ‘Don’t keep on saying “according to my father”,’ I rasped. ‘I heard yuh the first time. Awright then, so Uncle Athol is a ratbag, but the point is he’s in the boob for stealing chooks and for all we know it might be the same chooks we took from Lynch’s. Pru said it was Lynch’s chooks the stink was over. We gotta find out where we stand. We gotta know what’s happening.’

  ‘Well, didn’t I say that?’ said Les. ‘We gotta have more grata. That’s what I said before. Unless we get some more grata we just can’t figure anything out attall. We just don’t know what course of action to ‘dopt. Not without grata, Ned.’

  It seemed no time at all before we heard the school bell in the distance.

  ‘Time sure goes a lot quicker playing the wag than it does at school,’ Les observed gloomily. ‘Almost wish we’d gone now. Now we’ll be in the cart at school on top of everything. It’s not as if we’ve been able to figure anything out. We just haven’t got the grata to think anything out. Now if only we could see a young lady, in the nood, with her throat cut, floating on that pond, like those jokers in the city did, we’d really give the cops something to think about.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said absently. ‘WHAT!’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t we? That ud stop all this fuss about a few chooks. And if they blamed yeruncle Athol for it, it wouldn’t be any of our dern business.’

  ‘That’s a terrible business, Les. I told you I saw her aunt and cousin on the train, didn’t I? And they haven’t caught anybody yet. Ask me, all the cops are good for is hounding down poor devils like Uncle Athol and me’n you. I wonder who it was?’

  ‘Now how in hell should I know! Thas one thing you can say about living in a sleepy hole like Klynham—yuh don’t meet real bad sods like that. I wonder what those kids felt like when they saw her floating on the pond with her throat cut from ear to ear? Water red as red ink like as not. Can’t yuh just imagine what that poor sheila musta looked like, Neddy, floating there with her throat gaping open from ear to ear, in the nood, and the water red as ink all around. Can’tcha just see the sorta bubbles—’

  ‘Now look here, Les,’ I said, having had just about enough of this, ‘the way you’re going on you’d think we had found her. I’ve just about had a gutzfull uv the way you go on and on about things. Honestly yud think nothing would please yuh more than if yuh did find a nood sheila with her throat cut from—floating on the lake.’

  ‘In the nood,’ said Les. ‘According to my father he’s a necro something or other.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The guy that cut this poor sheila’s throat from ear to ear. According to my father—I listened to what he was saying outside the door—he’s a guy that has inter something with sheilas when they’re conked. According to my father the police have found out that this guy conks them first and then roots them and that makes him the saddest guy and a necro something.’

  ‘Now is that so? Well, Les, you certainly surprise me. I’m not quite sure I quite understand this conks and then roots them business.’

  ‘Well neither am I, Neddy,’ Les confessed. ‘But you can take it from me thas the general idea. It’s what my father said to my mother and he wouldn’t be kidding her.’

  ‘Well it makes me sick.’

  Les made no answer and after a while I looked over at him. He was stretched out with one arm and one leg held stiffly up in the air, and he had the screwiest look on his face as if he had thrown a fit. It gave me a nasty start.

  ‘Les,’ I said uneasily, ‘Whatta hell. Snap out uv it.’

  ‘I’m conked,’ he informed me out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Root me.’

  ‘I’ll root you awright,’ I hissed, pouncing on him, ‘and I’ll cut yuh throat and chuck yuh in the lake too, you see if I don’t.’

  Some days I could beat Les and some days he could beat me and some days nobody won. In the end we would just collapse. This was one of those collapsing days. After the battle royal we made our way back to town and bid each other an exhausted ‘Abyssinia’ at the corner—just a couple of good pals, with muddy knees, sweaty spines and a toss-up who had the most pine needles down his shirt.

  The very youthful policeman, who came to our place on Monday night with a portable typewriter, was called Ramsbottom. I am not going to divulge what we called him. No amount of kidding around, ‘Oh go on, do tell,’ will prevail. It is just too vulgar altogether.

  The whole business was highly irregular, as I can see. The police wanted us to go to the station, but Ma had apparently gone into a flat spin and it does not surprise me in the least, knowing how Ma can go when she gets into overdrive, that the cops threw in the sponge.

  When the cop arrived he asked for a side room to take our statements in, one by one, and Ma went into another nose-dive. Our kitchen did not have much decor to speak of, but alongside the other rooms it was a Louis Quinze salon. The young constable solved this brightly by suggesting that he took over this room and we all waited in the passage, or somewhere, but this was as far as he got.

  ‘What and freeze!’ said Ma, although it was such a balmy night we had let the stove go out. ‘Freeze us up to a state where we’d say the first thing that popped into our head I s’pose. Oh no, yuh don’t, and have yuh putting words into muh children’s mouth to swear away their innocence. I’ve heard all about those tricks, thank yuh very much, and it doesn’t suit me at all to letcher get away with it under muh very nose. The truth will prevail, by Jesus, and it’s my avowed intention and Mr Poindexter’s too, to see that the innocent are not going to suffer while we freeze to a state where we say the first thing that pops into our head.’

  ‘I feel shuah,’ began Pop, who was only just feeling his way, having spent the afternoon in the sack.

  ‘Mr Poindexter feels sure and so does Mr Cudby,’ Ma went on, ’that the interests of justice will be best served by us all remaining in here together in this room, having a council of war, and everyone saying his piece until the whole shameful business is brought to a satisfactory collusion. My husband and me feel badly mortified to have the arm of the law under our very roof on account of the drunken foolishness of muh brother. In spite of all his drunken foolishness and the trouble it has brought into our dwelling on a Monday I feel it is only Christian to remember that Athol has never been the same since he lost his eye and been rupchud.’

  ‘Natalie,’ said Uncle Athol, feebly, ‘I feel sure—’

  ‘You go to hell!’ said Ma. ‘Yuv brought enough trouble and disaster to our very doorstep. Now, officer, let’s get on with this here intergration and third degree.�
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  So that was that. The only victory to the law was that Herbert, who tried to sidle nonchalantly into the night, was brought back and allotted a chair next to Uncle Athol. Even then it was not long (the instant his statement had been taken) before Herbert managed to dematerialise.

  ‘Moi noime,’ Constable Ramsbottom recited, reading my own statement back to me that night, ‘is Edward Clifton Poindexter and Oi reside with moi pah-harents at their residence Number one ’undred and foive, Winchester Street. Moi age is fourteen and Oi am a pupil attending Klynham Primary School.’

  Under the unshaded electric light bulb a bottle or so of haircream glistened on the cop’s wavy, dark hair.

  ‘On the noight uv the ther-rud ’aving completed moi ’omework…’ He paused craftily. ‘ ’Istory did you say?’

  ‘Jography,’ I said promptly. No flies on me.

  ‘That’s right, jography,’ he mused, crestfallen. ‘Oi returned to moi bedroom which I share with moi older brother, ’Erbert. From ‘ere it drifted to moi ears—is that what you said?’

  ‘It drifted to my ears,’ I said, sticking to my guns.

  ‘It drifted to moi ears the sound of Uncle Athol snoring. ’E was obviously sound asleep. This would have been approximately eight p.m. till ten p.m. After this Oi moi-self—’

  I felt myself tensing. Constable Ramsbottom gave me a hard look. The haircream started investigating his forehead.

  ‘Was claimed by the arms and legs of Morphia,’ I said firmly. I’d read that in a book and no lowbrow was going to talk me out of it.

  ‘Was claimed by the arms and legs of Morphia. ’Ow do you spell that, young feller?’

  I smiled in a rather superior way. ‘M-o-r-f-e-a-r, of course.’

  Constable Ramsbottom peered dubiously at the statement. He resumed. ‘On the previous Saturday morning Oi ’ad purchased from the Klynham Traders six Black Orphington fowls. Oi did this in company with Les Wilson of Camden Street, who goes to school with me. He went halves with me and we were the joint owners of the aforementioned Black Orphingtons. On the morning uv the ther-rud we discovered these fowls to be missing from their coop, situated in the yard behind my pah-harents’ residence. We were aware that a theft had taken place, but made no complaint.’

  I dared not speak, or look around. The atmosphere was pretty charged. The constable pushed the statement across. ‘Soign ‘ere.’

  He was doing his best to keep an even keel, but the going was choppy.

  ‘Now please, Mrs Poindexter,’ he said desperately.

  ‘Yuv read what my son had to say, officer. It’s all been taken down and right in as they say, so I fail to see how yuh can continue to suspect my brother of this foul deed—’

  ‘I say,’ said Pop. ‘Foul deed, I say that’s rather—’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Ma. ‘It must be painfully obvious to you, officer, that your suspicions are merely a waste of your time and ours. My brother stands without a stain on his character, and has never so much as laid a hand on the property of any local citizen, let alone a fowl.’

  Uncle Athol began to nod vigorously, but stopped suddenly.

  ‘Ah think, officer, it seems fairly conclusive,’ Pop began, but tailed off as Constable Ramsbottom leaned back in his chair and surveyed us balefully.

  ‘What about the geh-hurl?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Is the young lady able to add to the teste-mehoney?’

  We had all made a statement now except Prudence. I was the only one who had ventured past the point of saying that, when we had retired, Uncle Athol was tucked in for the night. I considered that snoring touch to be masterly.

  What with one thing and another, we had all forgotten Prudence was scheduled to turn sixteen the next day, but her legs had not forgotten and neither had her gym frock, which looked startlingly skimpy. Although she had been home from school for more than six months, Prudence still wore her gym frock nearly every day of the week. She had not said a word all night, just stayed glued up against the end of the mantelpiece, playing soundlessly with a matchbox and now and again pushing back that lock of hair. It was the only corner of the room that was a bit shadowed, over there under the hot-water cupboard, and she looked all legs and cheekbones and eyelashes. I must have recognised then, in a mixed-up sort of way, what I had found puzzling on Saturday when she crossed the street to Les and me, and on Sunday when she had hung down from the beam in the shed. Doggone it, she was grown up and she was pretty. Just as Prudence moved away from the mantelpiece looking puzzled and beautiful—yes, beautiful, dirty face and all—our front door bell, which no one had used in years, started to ring and, simultaneously, our back door to knock.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said. I was starting to feel the strain of sitting there not looking at my uncle, gutless wonder that I was, and my bet is, he was glad to see the back of me too.

  Just what do you think when you pull the bolt on one of those old-fashioned front doors, with a couple of miniature church windows in them? The shadow could belong to anyone from the bailiff to an escaped gorilla, but it’s—it’s Mr Dabney, the undertaker. Anyway I know what I thought of as soon as I had peered out of the door long enough to establish who it was by the brandy fumes—Uncle Athol’s false teeth.

  Physically speaking, Mr Dabney would have only been a mouthful for an escaped gorilla, but the ape would have probably immediately sat down and beamed around at all present.

  ‘Franky,’ beamed Mr Dabney, peering past me down the hall.

  ‘Neddy,’ I corrected.

  ‘Of course it’s Neddy, is yuh father there? I’ll come right along in and say howdy to yuh father, Franky. It’s nice to meet nice people. Great Scott, the lights won’t go out all night, Franky, never fret about that, my boy. Just tell yuh father and dear old Athol that Charlie Dabney is without.’

  ‘Wontcha come in, Mr Dabney?’ I said, following him down the hall. ‘This way, out here,’ I said a bit wildly when we went into a bedroom. I did not want him to find the light switch because I knew, with Pop in bed all afternoon, the big flowered chamberpot would be right in the middle of the room with blankets humped up on the floor all around it. I wanted to prevent Charlie Dabney seeing that chamberpot, at all costs, so I did my level best to shepherd him out of the bedroom. I was prepared to haul him out, if necessary. He was not much bigger than me, but he surely was a hard man to out-manoeuvre.

  ‘Where am I? Where am I?’ he called. ‘Is that you, Athol?’

  ‘No, it’s me, Ned. Over here, Mr Dabney. This way, Mr Dabney.’

  ‘Great Scott, Athol, put the light on. Don’t play tricks on me, yuh ole rascal. Yuh know me, yuh ole reprobate. It’s Charlie, Athol, ole Charlie.’

  Fingers fumbled with my face. I grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘Mr Dabney.’

  ‘Athol. It’s not Athol at all. Great Scott! Marry me, darling. Marry me now, loveliest flower. Must have heard of me. People just dying to meet ole Charlie Dabney. Not a care in the world.’

  ‘Mr Dabney, please, you’re in the wrong room.’

  ‘Not wrong room attall, my precious flower. Wrong attitude, thasall. Wrong attitude altogeth’. Rightroom, insis’. Great Scott, what a smooth skin, what a complexion. Born for love and kisses, my flower. Charlie may be a little old, but he knows a trick or two—’

  ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ I snarled.

  The chamberpot made a gong-like sound as Mr Dabney clipped it with his foot as we waltzed around. I felt an agonising embarrassment thinking of our guest, Constable Ramsbottom; and then, blow me tight, groping around in the dark I kicked it myself. It made the same sort of mysterious, carrying sound you hear at sea in a fog.

  When I got Mr Dabney out to the kitchen and he framed himself importantly in the doorway, he seemed to have dismissed the whole bedroom episode from mind, but I never will. Uncle Athol and Pop promptly gathered around the visitor, but the cop did not even glance at him. Angela Potroz had arrived via the back door and had coyly put a birthday present of the sheerest nylon stockings, encased in a pl
astic bag, on the table by the heap of statements. Pru had opened the bag with nervous fingers and Angela was talking to the cop, too excited to recognise him for a fiend in human shape. The cop did not seem to be listening to Angela much. Prudence held up the stockings.

  ‘Oh, Angela. Now I know why you’re called Angela. You’re an angel, honey.’

  ‘Many happy returns.’

  ‘Muh very first pair of nylons,’ said Prudence. ‘Many’s the time I’ve often thought how I’d love a pair of luvlee stockings. Oh, Ma’s given me everything yuh wish for, but yuh beat her there.’

  She was always quick with her soft heart, Prudence. She had seen the way Ma was fluttering around, all grins but with her heart bursting.

  ‘Pop. Pop,’ said Prudence. ‘Oh, blow you there then, old Charlie Dabney.’

  She winked at the cop and Constable Ramsbottom winked back.

  ‘We’ll have some supper,’ said Ma. ‘I’ll put on a quick supper for us all and we’ll all feel better. It hasn’t been such a bad Monday after all. Nothing like the old cuppa as granny’d say, to brighten us all up. And it’s nearly yuh birthday, dear. What a young lady. Kiss your old Ma.’

  The stove was well out, but we had a gas-ring in the pantry. In that dark little closet, by the light of a candle and the blue flame of the gas-ring, Ma’s shadowy bulk and giant, naive heart knocked us up a pot of tea and some mince on toast. I was very surprised to see the mince, as I had no idea there was any in the house. I knew for a fact the tripe and the sausages had all been eaten.

  So Constable Ramsbottom had supper with the Poindexters on the noight uv the fifth at the corner of Smythe and Winchester streets. The moonlight looked askance at the starred windows of the house and poked around among the old stoves and bottles and the ravaged hen-coop and even spared a glance for the old Dennis, which had developed another deflated five-fifty twenty-one.

  I will wager that Constable—he was christened Leonard— Ramsbottom had a magic few minutes while Ma was in the pantry and Pop and Uncle Athol and Mr Dabney were taking turns going to the washhouse to knock over a bottle which the alcoholic mortician had smuggled in under his coat. I can see now it was a magic few minutes, but, at the time, I just sat over by the cold stove, a prey to private fears. Prudence and Angela giggled away as Prudence, seated on the edge of the old box ottoman, painstakingly rolled the nylons up her fabulous legs and hooked them on to her school knickers with some suspenders they found in a drawer. I will not go so far as to say I was unaware of these goings on, but puberty was only just marshalling its forces and the trying events of the weekend had deterred the onslaught. Len Ramsbottom was only a rookie cop and a bachelor, and that sister of mine and Angela must have caught him with his hands in his pockets and his mouth hanging open. He was at the ready. The whole bottle and a half of haircream must have been sizzling by the time Ma had the tea and sandwiches ready and Pop and Co. had their attitude restored by the visits to the washhouse.