The Scarecrow

  Having got this off his chest, Uncle Athol went off down our dirt path using the peculiar, spry shuffle which was his characteristic mode of locomotion. I wondered for the hundredth time how a person could answer to the description ‘spindle shanked and herring gutted’ yet still run to a brewer’s goitre.

  This was Saturday morning and two minutes later I knew I was a marked man. I sauntered out to the street whistling ‘Roll Along Covered Wagon, Roll Along’ and the first thing I saw was the front wheel of a bicycle drawing back out of sight. Someone was sitting on that grid leaning up against the concrete wall of the Temple of the Brethren of the Lamb, which was right opposite our shack across Smythe Street and facing Winchester Street. I went back into the house and up to a front room and peered over the street. I could still see only the front wheel, one handle-bar and a hand, but in a moment or two the stationary rider lost balance and put out a steadying leg on the footpath. It was Skin Hughson, Lynch’s right hand man. No doubt about it, he was on the watch. No hood squinting out of a black Cadillac ever struck more fear, no tommygun ever looked more sinister than the propeller on the front mudguard of Hughson’s bicycle.

  I crawled through a tunnel in the bamboo clump and cut through Grindly’s orchard. Between their woodshed and the hedge was a narrow track along which it was possible to squeeze sideways. This brought me out in another backyard, and, once through these people’s garage, I would be on the street I was heading for. If I had been one second sooner my little ruse would have been discovered because, just as I slipped through the back door of the garage (the car was out) Peachy Blair went past and only had to look around to have seen me. I could have bashed up Peachy—or Cupid, as some called him—with one arm in a sling, but Peachy was a Lynchite, and this sissy had never copped a thumping at school yet. The plump form was the body of Peachy, but the shadow he cast was the shadow of Victor Lynch and Skin Hughson and Clem Walker and D’Arcy Anderson and Viv Rolands and Don Butcher and Dan and Harold Lowe—in fact the shadow of the gang. His actual function as a member of such a tough bunch was the topic of fascinated whispering. The boys were practising on him, it was said, for the great day when they could procure the genuine article—girls. When that day came the Lynch boys had no intention of showing up as raw beginners. It was all very vague and disturbing but I knew that, to me, Peachy Blair represented the depths of depravity. And because I was puzzled I felt inferior and even more scared. These guys were bad. But bad.

  I was puffing pretty hard when I slowed down to a walk in Camden Street where Les Wilson lived and maybe that is why I failed to hear the whirr of speeding wheels on the footpath behind me. I let out a staccato yelp of terror when the bicycle skidded to a halt right alongside, so close that one pedal gouged my bare calf. The collision barged me backwards into the hedge. Clem Walker’s eyes were gleaming. He was big and powerful, horrible looking, with cropped hair and an abundance of warts and pimples. Another grid came wheeling in off the road ahead of us. A smiling D’Arcy Anderson propped it in the kerb and dismounted. I was a bit jealous of D’Arcy Anderson’s good looks and in some twisted way his arrival helped me to put on a better show. If Skin Hughson, say, had been Clem Walker’s companion, I do not think I could have stopped my knees shaking.

  ‘We wanna have a little talk with you, Poindexter,’ said D’Arcy smiling and standing with his thumbs hooked into his belt.

  ‘Well, can I get outa this hedge, first, please?’ I said as angrily as I could.

  ‘Let ‘im out, Clem,’ grinned D’Arcy. It began to look as if D’Arcy ranked higher in the gang than Clem Walker. I suppose that meant he got more turns with Peachy. It made me sick.

  My leg was pretty sore and tears were not far away.

  ‘By crummy, that hurt,’ I said. The blood was running down my leg. ‘What’s the idea, anyway?’

  ‘Hop on the bar of my grid,’ said D’Arcy. ‘I’ll double you round to meet some pals of ours.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ I said. ‘We kin talk here, can’t we?’

  ‘We could,’ said Walker. ‘But we ain’t gunna, see?’

  Quick as a flash he grabbed my ear and twisted it. It doubled me over and forced me to my knees. With my eyes swimming with tears, I saw the big, hairy legs and the bicycle tyres and I felt as sick as a pig with life in general.

  As I limped over to the grid propped in the gutter, Anderson lashed with his shoe at my rump and I fell on top of the machine, which toppled over. I heard them laughing, and one of them said, ‘Pick it up.’ Now both of my hands were skinned as well. I gritted my teeth.

  As soon as I realised we were cycling in the direction of Fitzherbert’s shed, I knew the game was up.

  They dropped the grids in the grass and D’Arcy called out, ‘We’ve got Poindexter.’

  To me he said, ‘In yuh get.’

  Lynch himself was in the shed, and the Lowe twins, Dan and Harold.

  ‘Nice work,’ said Lynch. ‘Cut down and call off the boys, D’Arcy. Tell ‘em to get up here as quick as they can.’

  Victor Lynch got off the benzine box he was sitting on. He kicked one of the miscreants, which was picking away at the ground by his feet.

  ‘Well, yuv got yourself real trouble this time, Poindexter,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the idea? I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Don’t waste yuh breath,’ said Lynch. ‘We’ve been watching you and Wilson come backwards and forwards to this shed ever since these fowls were stolen from my Pater. There isn’t much goes on in this town we don’t know about. Yuh can go to jail for this, Poindexter.’

  I decided the best thing was to say nothing at all. I was right in the cart.

  ‘Instead of going to the police, we’re gunna handle this ourselves. Have yuh got an idea what that means?’

  ‘Shall I tickle’m up a bit and make’m talk, Vic?’

  ‘Just a little, maybe.’

  I had always rated myself as strong for my age, but Clem Walker was way out of my class. He whipped his arms up under my armpits and whacked my chin down on my chest. My knees buckled and next thing I was getting a worm’s eye view of what the miscreants were doing in their spare time. I don’t know what they hit me on the temple with, but I have always thought of it as a big knot on the end of a rope. There had been a weapon of this nature kicking around the shed for a long time. I never saw it after this. Walker eased off the full-Nelson and I rolled over on the dirt floor. It seemed like pain was the express and hatred was a little puffing billy and they met full on. Me, I was sitting on a jigger between them. Voices. Someone hooked an arm under my neck and I sat up. A lot of feet. I thought I was going to vomit. The pain in my head made me feel really ill. I stared at the ground. Our old shed.

  ‘Want another belt, Poindexter?’ said Lynch.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Then get up—get the crybaby up on his feet, Clem.’

  When they forced me up on my feet I rocked to and fro rubbing my temple.

  Lynch said softly, ‘Come over and sit here on this box, Ned.’

  The box was like a feather bed.

  After a while Lynch said, ‘We’re only just starting to work on you, ole boy. We’re going to beatcha up and beatcha up— every day. There isn’t anything you can do. Every day we’re going to get yuh and bash yuh up, old boy. Really bash yuh up.’

  Silence and a lot of feet. Some more of the gang barged into the shed, but got signalled to shut the door quietly.

  ‘Unless,’ said Lynch, and I heard a sort of sigh go around, ‘unless you’re prepared to corporate with us, ole boy.’

  I heard the sigh go around the shed again. I think all the Lynchites must have been there by this time.

  ‘We bin thinking,’ said Lynch. ‘We’re got the idea you’d make a pretty good member of this gang. How’d yuh like to join the gang, Ned?’

  ‘Gee,’ I said.

  ‘There’s only one condition and it’s one that might just surprise you. We need a girl in this gang, to give us a b
it of class. We’re the most pow’ful gang in the town, but it seems to us we need a real pretty girl like your sister Prudence to give us a bit of class. Now how about that, Ned? You and Prudence join up with us and we’ll have the town beat. We’ll have everything.’

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Peachy. ‘Oh boy, oh boyoboyoboy—’

  ‘ Shut up. Now that’s the condition I want to put to you, Ned. You ask Prudence to join us. You bring her along here about three o’clock this afternoon and we’ll join yuh both up with the most pow’ful gang in town. We’ll forget all about bashing you up, if yuh think yuh kin bring yuh sister Prudence along to this shed this afternoon. Now that seems to me to be a pretty fair offer, Ned. More’n fair.’

  ‘Sure. Sure. I reckon if I ask Prudence to come along, it’ll be OK.’

  Someone whistled softly. The Lynchites started slapping each other’s backs and punching arms. Peachy started jumping around all over the shed.

  ‘We’ll leave Wilson outa this,’ Lynch grinned. ‘Do him and yuhself a good turn, Neddy, and leave him on the out. Yuh understand. I don’t want us to find out yuh been even talking to him. For both yuh sakes.’

  D’Arcy Anderson walked a couple of blocks with me not saying much and just waving casually when he mounted his grid and rode off. My thoughts, now I was alone, were muddled and miserable as I walked. What a long street! Without any dinner and a throbbing lump on my temple, it certainly looked a long street.

  When I went past Les Wilson’s place I took a quick look up and down the street and made a dive for it. Les was feeding his little sister on the back steps when he saw me come pelting around and he looked embarrassed. He could see it was an emergency so he dumped the kid and we went into the woodshed.

  ‘I’m a member of the Victor Lynch gang,’ I said, playing it tough and straight. I told him how they had hailed me that morning. I showed him my lump. ‘Now look, Les,’ I said, ‘yuh got to pretend me’n you’re enemies now. Unless I do what this crowd say I’m in for it good and proper. I told them OK, I’d join on condition they left you alone and of course me too. They said if I joined no one was gunna hurtcha. All the same I’d keep outa their road, if I wuz you. Now, look, Les, yuh know I’m no traitor. I’ve gotta do this, just gotta do it, and all the time I’ll be spying on ‘em. Soon we’ll know all their secrets and then look out.’

  ‘But whadda they want yuh for?’ said Les. ‘Whadda hell they want you in the gang for?’

  It was pretty insulting, but it was too good a point to just shrug off. Les did not look very happy. He kept looking at my stomach, instead of my face.

  ‘I dunno, Les,’ I said helplessly. ‘They must want me to do something, I s’pose. Don’t ask me what it is, ‘cause I don’t know. Look, Les, we’ll have to work out a system of seeing each other at night, somehow. Yuh can’t come around to our place ‘cause I’m a cert to be watched. I’ll have to sneak around here when I’ve got some news.’

  ‘I don’t care what they say,’ said Les. ‘That’s our shed.’

  ‘Don’t be a mad fool,’ I told him. ‘I tell yuh they were all in the shed this morning. They know all about it. For Chrissake don’t go near the shed. I know how yuh feel. I feel the same way, but we’ll beat this bunch, somehow.’

  ‘Aren’t yuh goin’ to the pitchers this afternoon?’ said Les. ‘What about “The King of Diamonds”?’

  He could not have said anything to make me feel worse. But I knew now I had to get going to catch Prudence in case she was going to the cinema. The funny way Les was taking it did not make me feel any happier about what I was going to have to say to Prudence. Come to face it, what was I going to say? All the way to our place I tried out different approaches. I decided on something along these lines.

  ‘Pru, you’ve got to help me. We’ve always been pals, Pru. They’re real wild about those fowls and it wouldn’t surprise me if they go to the police and then I’ll go to Borstal. That’ll really knock old Ma. All they want is for you to join the gang, Pru. They’ve got an idea a pretty girl is just what they want in the gang. They reckon you’re the prettiest girl in Klynham. They all reckon that, the prettiest by far. They’re not bad guys really, there’s D’Arcy Anderson and the Lowe boys and all, they only want you to join up and they’ll forget all about us pinching the chooks.’

  This is just about what I did say too.

  ‘What about Les?’ said Prudence, rubbing some butter on my lump.

  ‘Les is out of it for now, ouch,’ I said. ‘All they want is me’n you. They’re the most pow’ful gang around, Pru. It’s not going to do any harm giving it a go and I’m gunna be in for a lot of trouble if yuh don’t come along this afternoon. Be a sport, Pru. It’ll be a lot of fun, I reck’n. Ouch.’

  ‘Who said I was the prettiest girl in town?’ Prudence asked. ‘Sounds like a lotta bull to me.’

  ‘No, fair dinkum. They all said yuh were. That’s why they reckon yuh ought to belong to the most pow’ful gang in the town.’

  ‘But I’m older’n them. They’re just a bunch of kids.’

  ‘Hey, come off it. You’re only a year older’n me.’

  ‘Nearer two years, boy.’

  ‘Well, awright, but half these guys are older’n me. Aw c’mon, Pru, I tell you they’re gunna give me the works over those chooks if we don’t join up.’

  ‘That’s your funeral,’ she said, putting the butter away. ‘OK. What am I s’posed to wear, and if I don’t like their style I’ll tell yuh something, Neddy, if they start fooling around any, my name’s Goff and I’m off.’

  Now Prudence had agreed, my worries should have been on the way out, but I felt miserable and a heel. I had smelt a big rat all along about their wanting Prudence to join the gang, but I had just shut it out of my mind. When she spoke of them fooling around, as she put it, I thought about Peachy Blair and the looks the Lynchites had exchanged among themselves when I agreed, to save my own skin, to talk my sister into coming along down to the shed. They were going to fool around that was for sure. I was forced to admit it to myself at last and I felt pretty sick.

  Saturday mornings were always bright and noisy and I never hear sausages sizzling without remembering them, but once the last plate had clattered in the rack over the sink, it was afternoon and peaceful. Pop and Uncle Athol had taken off in the Dennis. Herbert was in town with his 18 oz. sweetheart, looking on the cloth while it was green. The tap was running in the washhouse where Ma was. Dolly and Monica were around somewhere playing with their rag doll.

  The autumn sunshine had no zip in it, but it was warm in the kitchen. The door was open, admitting a pathway of yellow light, and when the loose board on the verandah went ker-lunk a big shadow fell right across the room. Prudence stepped sideways to see who it was, manifested great surprise, and said ‘Good-dayee, come on in.’

  In came Len Ramsbottom with a silly smirk and his portable typewriter. He looked even more embarrassed than Les had when I caught him feeding the baby. I felt as sick as a pig myself at the sight of the big cop. He started in talking about how he was just on his way past and suddenly remembered promising Prudence some typewriting lessons. It did not seem possible that a big fellow like him had actually become infatuated with my sister, but what were you supposed to think when he blushed like that? Come to think of it he only looked like an overgrown boy, dressed as he was in open-necked shirt and sports clothes. Suddenly I wished I was as big as that. With those shoulders I could wade into the Lynchites and skittle them right, left and centre. If only I could say, ‘Look, Mr Ramsbottom, would you help me?’ But that was out. Overgrown boy or not he was still a cop. Lynch had me over a barrel.

  ‘Harpas’ two,’ I said meaningly, and gave Pru one of those looks, but she ignored me and sat up behind the typewriter at the table, too excited to heed her brother in his plight.

  ‘Oi have some foolscap ’ere, which we insert into the machine thus,’ said the young cop. Insert into the machine thus!

  I went into the bedroom and sat on Herbert’s bed
. Save for one amber shaft of autumn sunlight in which dust shimmered and danced, it was dark in here, particularly after sitting in the kitchen. I recalled a saying of Ma’s which went, ‘Oh, well, I s’pose it’ll all be the same in fifty years’ time.’ Anyone who has ever had occasion to say something like this to himself will appreciate how low I was feeling and what a great spiritual boost the afore-mentioned saying can be. In a pig’s eye it can be.

  But after a while Prudence called out to me: ‘Neddy, it’s getting on for three. You better scoot down to Connie’s place and tell her I’ll be there’n ‘bout half ’n hour.’

  What a sister in a million! And yours truly was leading her by the hand into a gang of thugs that took turnabout at Peachy Blair. I knew it was Prudence’s way of telling me she would come on down to the shed as soon as she could to meet the gang, but I was in such a stew, I was half-way to Connie’s place before I woke up and altered the tiller. I think I hinted at this before, but Connie is our married sister who got in the family way to that railroad man, Jim Coleman.

  By four o’clock it was one of those silent, dark afternoons when people burn leaves.

  ‘Quite sure she’s coming OK, Poindexter?’ D’Arcy said, pitching away his fag end. ‘I wouldn’t like to think of you making a mistake, y’know. You bin telling us for over an hour how your sister is coming, but no sign, no sign. How come?’

  I smiled toughly. ‘She’s coming, Ander—’ I hoped he thought I had said Andy. I had wanted to call him Anderson, but choked on it.