The Scarecrow

  ‘Not attall, not attall,’ said Ma, thawing out a lot. ‘Quite welcome, I’m sure.’

  The stranger adjusted his bow tie lightly.

  ‘Take a seat, you men,’ said Ma, fussing around. ‘Here Athol, give me a lift out with the table. We’ll have Dad and Herbert home any minute. You’ll be having something to eat, you men, I suppose. Take that end, Eddy.’

  ‘We bought a beer or two home, Natalie,’ said Uncle Athol, leaning towards Ma a little and smirking in his ingratiating way. His hands were thrust deep in his trouser pockets, the fingers twiddling with the lining. ‘Feel that the boys might like a quick glass before participating in yuh most excellent repast.’

  ‘Oh surely,’ said Ma. ‘Tea’s as good as on the table. All day in town and then beer at home, is it? I’m sure yuh friend, Mr Salter, is hungry by now and anxious to partake of something more solid than alcohol in a raw state on an empty stomach.’

  The stranger, Mr Salter, fingered his bow tie lightly. ‘Perhaps Mrs P.,’ he said, ‘we might prevail on yer to indulge in a syrup cup with us. To be frank, I have had very little in the way of liquid refreshment, being as I am only a society drinker. I do feel, however, the occasion calls for a glass. With yer permission, of course, and only if yer will condescend to accompany us.’

  He touched the end of his tie with the tips of his fingers as if he were lifting a rare butterfly off an even rarer orchid. Ma looked at his bow tie, greatly impressed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I s’pose—’

  Uncle Athol stumbled in with a bag holding half a dozen bottles of beer and dived out again to bring in two flagons of draught ale, by which time the tall stranger had procured a chair for Ma and prevailed on her to seat herself at the head of the table. He lowered her into the chair, gently holding one of her elbows and with his free hand stroking her back soothingly. I wished Les were here to see this performance. It began to look as if Chester Montgomery was only a novice.

  ‘Take a seat, Mr Dabney,’ I cried, taking the mortician by the arm, for he had begun to rock gently to and fro.

  ‘What, what,’ said Charlie emerging from his brief perpendicular encounter with Mr Sandman. ‘Great Scott. Wazzat? Beer! Great Scott, the lights won’t go out all night.’

  Pop and Herbert were late rolling home in the old Dennis and, by this time, they had missed a great deal. I ducked out to meet them. The tray of the Dennis was loaded down with junk, as far as I could tell in the early darkness, so it looked like a good haul. There had been the very devil of a rumpus about Herbert not having ever had a job and the upshot had been he agreed to go out with Pop that afternoon. Standing in the feeble glimmer of the headlamps while he guided Pop to steer the Dennis through the junk, Herbert looked as disillusioned as a stadium mouse.

  ‘Pop, Herbert,’ I gabbled, ‘yuh better come along in and see if we can get this man to do it again. He’s a friend of Mr Dabney’s, but acherly he’s Salter the Sensational. He’s toured the world hundreds of times. I tell yuh he’s got a bow tie and everything. Wait till yuh see this.’

  They both looked so sour and sceptical, I lost patience with them and scuttled back indoors again. Just let ‘em wait and see, I thought. Sure enough, I had missed out on another act. Everybody around the table looked flushed and astounded and hysterical, except Salter the Sensational, who was modestly pouring himself some refreshment.

  ‘Whadud’e do? Whadud’e do?’ I breathed at Ma across the table. She shook her head wordlessly. The stranger put his glass down and put a big, brown, sinewy paw on top of Ma’s hand on the table. With his other hand he touched his bow tie lightly.

  ‘Yer see, Mrs P.,’ he said, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in yer philosophical, Horatius. More things, Mrs P., more things.’ His voice sank mysteriously. ‘Many, many, more things.’

  The way he said it, made me feel the lights were getting dimmer. This guy was really something. Wait until I told Les about this. No one would believe me, I suppose. Just like Pop and Herbert, the ignorant yokels. They came in just then and even the sight of the beer did not seem to cheer Pop up much.

  ‘Here’s Pop, Mr Dabney,’ I said.

  ‘Great Scott,’ mumbled Charlie. ‘Dee-aitch where yuh been? Who’s dead, yuh old scoundrel? Got to keep yuh ear to the ground to make a pound.’

  ‘Danyel,’ Ma was trying to get a word in. ‘This is your turn to wait for yuh tea. I want yuh to meet Mr Sensational Salter, who has toured the world times without number and performed his feats in places which to the like of us are merely something out of the Arabia Nights. My husband—Mr Salter.’

  The wizard, for such without doubt he was, arose with alacrity and, so great was his height, reached clean across the table to shake hands with Pop. Herbert, the clot, had vanished.

  ‘Yer must join us in a syrup cup,’ said Salter the Sensational. ‘Yer are a dealer, sir, I believe.’ Quick as a flash he touched his bow tie.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ said Pop, managing to tear his eyes off the bow tie. ‘That is correct, Mr Salter. Thank you, a glass of ale will be extremely acceptable.’ Glug, glug. ‘Possibly I could request yuh to replenish the goblet. You are correct. I am a dealer of long standing in the locality. A dealer, sir, in antiques.’

  I guess he was right at that. I was unable to contain myself longer. ‘Do the one with the teapot. Show us the India-rubber man trick, Mr Salter. That’s the best of the lot—’

  Salter held up his hand. The others laughed at my youthful enthusiasm. Pop put his hand on top of my head.

  ‘For yer father, son,’ said the mysterious visitor, ‘I will perform an amazing and dangerous act of skill and daring seldom, if ever, witnesseth beyond the confines of the mistykeist.’

  I may as well confess that for a long time, years in fact, I did not wake up that he was saying ‘mystic East’. They were favourite words of his, but he brought them out, after a pause, in such a sudden way that they sounded like one strange, outlandish word beyond our ken.

  The enthralled hush as Salter the Sensational took up a position in front of the fireplace flushed a still sulking Herbert out of the bedroom. Now he was going to see something!

  Slowly, our eyes riveted on him, the tall, gaunt man slipped his hand beneath the lapel of his coat. Dead silence.

  The door opened to admit Prudence. She looked around the kitchen in astonishment.

  ‘What cooks?’ she said, and well she might have asked. ‘Ma,’ she resumed, obviously assuming we were all a bit loofy, and disregarding us accordingly, ‘Chester has asked me to go to the Film Society Club evening with him. It’s a Charlie Chaplin and it’s a real old beaut, he tells me. We get supper up at the rooms and I’ve had some fish and chips, so I’ll just go out without any tea, eh, Ma? OK? Chester’s calling for me just after eight.’

  No one said a word because Salter the Sensational had withdrawn his hand from beneath his coat and was pointing straight across the room at Prudence.

  ‘So,’ he said.

  ‘So what?’ said Prudence.

  ‘Pru,’ said Ma, feebly.

  ‘So,’ said Salter. There ensued a long silence and then he beckoned her mildly.

  ‘Come over here, mer dear.’ Prudence did not say anything, but she went slowly across to where the stranger was standing. She looked puzzled. Then she stopped dead with her hands on her hips and her feet apart and the bang of hair in one eye as if to say, ‘I’ll be damned if I’ll go any further.’

  Actually she said, ‘Yeah.’

  I had known for a long time she had been busy knitting a frock for herself. Tonight, I realised, she was wearing it, but I did not think it made her look as pretty as usual. The shade of wool was unkind to her complexion, but the frock itself, without doubt, did things for her figure. It was skin-tight for one thing and gave one’s imagination a back wind and downhill slope.

  Prudence was looking up at the tall man by the mantelpiece and from where I was sitting it looked like a staring-out contest. Salt
er the Sensational gave his bow tie a gossamer flick.

  ‘Behold,’ he said, producing from under his coat the longest-bladed knife I have ever seen. It must be remembered this is some time ago, but I am prepared to swear it had a blade nearly a foot long. It caught the light like a mirror. Prudence started to scream, but he was still holding her eye and the scream faded to a gasp. We all gasped. I had my back to Herbert, but my guess is that he gasped too. Probably Herbert’s gasp was the biggest gasp of the lot, would be my guess.

  Slowly Salter the Sensational arched over backwards, standing flat-foot and holding the hilt of the knife by a finger and thumb. Under our hypnotised and appalled gaze he lowered that impossible, glittering length of blade down his throat until his thumb touched his lower lip. It would have been possible to stick a scythe down Ma’s throat, her mouth was open so wide. Prudence spun around towards me with her hands covering her eyes. Over her hair, which tickled my nose, I saw the great man withdraw and triumphantly spin the knife, clean and shiningly bloodless. He looked down in disappointment at Prudence’s turned back. His nose was huge, veined, pock-marked. I avoided looking at his nose. It was a spectacle I felt no desire to contemplate for a long period.

  ‘Great Scott,’ said Charlie Dabney. ‘At this rate the lights won’t go out all night.’ Now it was his turn to put his hand under his coat and produce something. He placed the bottle on the table and it caught the light in the same way the big knife had.

  ‘This is my turn,’ Uncle Athol suddenly piped. ‘I’ll swallow that.’ He cackled like an imbecile, but I looked at him with a certain admiration.

  Prudence seemed to be settling down on my chest for the night. I put my arms around her. Then we heard the crash. Herbert had apparently been slowly sliding down the door jamb of our bedroom in a dead faint and had just done the last lap in a gallop. Prudence was the last to realise what had happened, not counting Mr Dabney.

  ‘Where’s that man?’ she whispered to me. I was looking over my shoulder at the soles of my brother’s boots. We pulled them off and got him into bed. A suck at Mr Dabney’s recently produced bottle helped Herbert to co-operate with us.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ protested Charlie Dabney when, acting on Ma’s instructions, I grabbed the bottle from under his nose. ‘Over my dead body. Great Scott, what’m I saying? My dead body. Who’s gunna foot the bill, thas what I wanna know. My dead body!’

  ‘And this is what comes about of playing ducks and drakes with the appointed and proper time for nourishment,’ cried Ma. ‘This is a judgment on all of us for sitting about, taking alcohol in a raw state on an empty stomach, while the poor boy stood there faint with hunger, watching people swallowing swords in front of his own fireplace, after a day of toil and nothing but a burnt chop for lunch.

  ‘To a great degree, I blame muh own brother for this cally-amity,’ continued Ma, ‘muh own brother, Athol Cudby, who for many years has styled himself as muh husband’s partner and accomplice genrilly speaking and yet, on account of his rupchuh, has been of no practical assistance to the firm of Dee-aitch Poindexter. Many’s the time when muh husband has fallen into bed exhausted from his labours and with muh own eyes I have seen muh own brother—yes it’s true, Athol, so shut yuh trap—muh own brother, as bright as a button, sally forth to spend what has been earned by the sweat of muh husband’s brow, in riotous living and raw alcohol until the crack uv dawn. And a fat lot you care, Athol Cudby, if now muh own son has fainted dead away from a strained heart and the shock of watching people yuh have brought into the house from the hotel at tea-time, swallowing swords right and left in front of his own fireplace.’

  ‘It may interest yuh to know, my dear Natalie,’ said Uncle Athol, who always appeared to be looking at someone else on account of his bung eye, ‘that I have this very day accepted employment with my dear friend, Mr Dabney. Mr Dabney has kindly offered me a position in the old-established firm of Dabney and Son, undertakers of taste and distinction.’

  ‘Calls for a drink, calls for a drink,’ exclaimed old Charlie. ‘Pass your glass to Charlie, thou good and faithful servant.’

  ‘Pychah,’ snorted Ma.

  ‘Right-hand man, absholooly. Regards, regards.’

  ‘Regards, Charlie.’

  Charlie Dabney now leaned back and, holding up both hands, palms outwards, began to clench and unclench his fingers rhythmically.

  ‘What in the name of God Almighty are you supposed to be doing now?’ demanded Ma, hands on hips, as Uncle Athol started to do the very same thing.

  ‘Neon sign,’ explained Uncle Athol in an embarrassed aside. ‘Charlie’s getting one of these here new-fangled neon signs.’

  ‘Brainwave, brainwave,’ said Charlie, opening and shutting his hands. ‘Cremations arranged. Cremations arrainsh.’

  ‘Cremations arrainsh,’ chanted Uncle Athol, opening and shutting his hands. ‘Cremations arrainsh.’

  ‘Well now I am convinced beyond all doubt that I’m living in a bloody nuthouse,’ stormed Ma.

  I looked to see whether Salter the Sensational thought so too, but he was draped over the mantelpiece and Prudence was looking up at him, fascinated, and holding out her hand. The lines around the wizard’s mouth were almost gullies, they were so deep. I had observed before that the deepening of those lines was the great man’s way of smiling. Slowly he withdrew the fearsome knife again and passed it to Prudence. She fingered the steel in awe. He retrieved it from her, but instead of returning it to its place of concealment under his coat, he pressed the hilt lightly against Prudence’s chin so that the blade glittered down between her breasts, reaching to the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Behold, my child,’ said Salter, ‘its length. Behold how far that razor-sharp edge would sink into yer lush and virginal body.’

  There was no disputing that this Salter was the real McCoy and it was without any doubt a great honour and a marvellous stroke of luck to have him under our roof all to ourselves; but right then I entertained a creepy feeling. Even if he had toured the world times without number, I felt convinced that there was something screwy about him.

  Now he was balancing the knife on the palm of his hand, tip pointing at the roof. His eyes were glittering. Doggone it there was something screwy about him. As he lowered his head slowly floorwards his eyelids began to droop, hooding the crazy gleam I had glimpsed. Fascinated, Prudence’s eyes followed the descending tip of steel. The knife was trembling slightly and the light winked its way up and down the blade like a diamond. Salter now steadied the tip of the knife with his other hand and turned the edge a little so the light shone directly on Prudence’s staring eyes.

  ‘Watch the lights dancing,’ he said softly. ‘The dancing lights. The lights dancing. Dancing and dreaming. See how they dance and dream, mer darling.’ One of his eyes, just in one corner, moved and took me in, standing close to them and I felt this man’s hatred for my presence come out of him like a wave. And now I hated him too. Hated and feared him.

  ‘The dreaming lights,’ he whispered.

  To do what I did, I had to remind myself that this was our own kitchen, that Ma was in the pantry, that Pop, Uncle Athol and Charlie Dabney were guzzling grog at the table just behind me; but I did it, and I am glad and proud. I coughed, and the evil spell he was weaving shattered like a dropped electric light bulb. Prudence turned her head towards me. She looked bewildered.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ said Salter urgently. The sweat was pouring out of him now, glistening on his big, jutting beak of a nose. The corner of an eye that he spared for me twitched in my direction again, and again I felt the wave of hatred for me he exuded. It was as real as an octopus squirting its inky fluid.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ he repeated. He laid the knife flat against Prudence, this time with the hilt down against her stomach, the contour of which was so plainly etched against her knitted frock that I could almost see the fish and chips. Now the blade pointed upwards between her breasts. ‘See, see,’ he said. ‘See how long it is, mer dear, and how far u
p into yer lovely young body it reaches.’

  One thing I could see anyway and that was, holding the hilt of the knife against her stomach the way he was, he had the tips of his fingers pressing hard up between her legs. Prudence turned away from him with a jerk as if she were only just capable of wrenching herself free from his spell. Feet apart, she stood still between Salter and me. Her hair had fallen over one eye again. Salter gave me a cold, evil look. His eyes lost their gleam and became muddled and murky as he looked at me. I wondered how drunk he was. He put the knife away and I glimpsed a long sheath under his armpit. He ran the sleeve of his coat quickly across his sweat-drenched face. As he did this, one end of the bow tie came loose from his collar and hung down on his dirty shirtfront like a dead beetle. His elbow had caught the bow tie and snapped the ancient ribbon. Now, instead of being impressive, the bow tie only looked absurd. It was a slender thread for a complete aura of mastery and mystery to hang by, and it had snapped. I am unable to say whether it was seeing the bow tie hanging like that, or whether it was just the abrupt easing of tension, but suddenly Prudence laughed her high-pitched, girlish laugh. There could be no mistaking the fact that she was laughing at Salter. It was very rude of her, but next thing I realised I was laughing at Salter too. The two of us stood looking up at the gaunt, lined, evil face with its great nose and we laughed and laughed.

  Salter stared at us uncomprehendingly, despairingly, and then suddenly his hand flew to his throat. Our laughter died away. His face worked as if he were in pain. He tore the tie away from his neck savagely, so savagely the top button of his dirty white shirt popped off and fell to the floor at his feet. He held the tie swallowed up by his clenched fist in front of him. I had never seen anyone so blind and shaking with anger. I had seen people go white and sometimes red with anger, but never black, really black. Prudence and I were frozen. His blood was black! The blood of Salter the Sensational could turn black. He walked with great, slow, unsteady strides across the room to the door. He opened the door and then wheeled around to face the room again. His mouth was dragged down like a bloodhound’s. A clawlike hand reached over the unsuspecting and nodding head of Charlie Dabney and seized the bottle of Hennessey’s Three Star Brandy. For a lingering, menacing second his gaze sought us out and then he was gone.