‘Feel this,’ I said and I crushed his windpipe.
His eyes stood out. His face swelled. I let up on him.
‘That’s a taste of what I’ll give you if you ever come nosing round her again,’ I said. ‘Get me?’
I tightened my grip.
‘Yes,’ he gasped.
I left him lying there. He had enough to think about. I got my swag and met her at the door. She had a small suitcase. I took it and we set off down the road.
I put my arm around her. She smiled at me. She was beautiful there under the stars.
‘Tomorrow we will get married,’ I said. ‘Tonight I will fix you up a bed in an old shed about half a mile further on. Do you love me?’
‘Yes.’
I stopped and took her in my arms. We kissed and it was as if we had never kissed before.
I did not even know her name.
No Murderin’ from Now On, Eh?
I am working on a farm in the hills. There is a hut there and I live in it. The owner has another farm some miles away. He lives there. He is in the money.
He comes to me and says:
‘George, on account of me being charitable, I’m giving a murderer a job,’ he says.
‘Good,’ I says. ‘You are doing a noble thing. Very few men would give murderers a job,’ I says.
‘He will be living here with you,’ he says.
‘What!’ I says. ‘A murderer! Here?’
‘Well, we can’t exactly call him a murderer,’ he says, ‘because he was acquitted. Although there’s no doubt he did it,’ he adds.
‘Did what?’ I asks.
‘Murdered his grandfather,’ he says.
‘A bloke that would murder his grandfather is pretty low,’ I says.
‘I know that,’ says the boss, ‘but the police asked me to take him on. They like him,’ he says. ‘They say he is finding it hard to get work on account of people not liking murderers about the place even if they are acquitted.’
‘What about my studies?’ I says. ‘How can I think with a murderer talking to me?’
‘He won’t talk,’ says the boss. ‘He is a very quiet bloke, they say. He hardly ever says a word. You could easy study if a fellow never says a word. What are you studying?’ the boss asks me.
‘I am studying this here psychology,’ I says. ‘I’ve got all the books on it. I know what makes people laugh and all that sort of thing.’
‘That doesn’t sound very hard,’ says the boss. ‘Are they funny yarns like?’
‘You don’t understand,’ I says. ‘These books explain the reasons for the things we do.’
‘They might tell you what made this man do the murder,’ he says.
‘Well—er,’ I says, ‘those things are . . . But you tells me he was acquitted,’ I says.
‘Acquitted, yes,’ he says. ‘But innocent, no.’
‘His grandfather, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of bloke was he?’
‘The murderer?’
‘No. The grandfather.’
‘A very nice old gentleman. A very, very nice old gentleman. Quite harmless. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. One of the old school,’ says the boss.
‘How come this bloke slit his throat?’ I says.
‘There was no slitting about it,’ he says, and my boss leans forward and puts his hand on my shoulder. He whispers in my ear: ‘Poison.’
‘Poison?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort?’
‘Arsenic.’
‘Arsenic?’
‘Yes.’
‘Cripes!’
‘Does it say about arsenic in your books?’ asks the boss.
‘I’ll look it up,’ I says. ‘How do you know he used arsenic?’
‘From my intelligence,’ says the boss.
‘What did he murder him for?’ I asks.
‘For absolutely no reason whatsoever,’ he says. ‘They lived together,’ goes on the boss, ‘and they worked together. There was no reason for him to murder the old man, no reason whatsoever. At the trial he reckons the old man died from indigestion on account of eating pork chops fried in a lot of fat. But,’ says the boss, looking significant, ‘we all know about that,’ and he raises his eyes to heaven and back again.
‘Is this cove safe?’ I says. ‘I don’t like the sound of him to live with.’
‘Safe as a bank,’ says the boss. ‘Absolutely as safe as a bank, though, mind you,’ and he nods his head at me, ‘watch him. I say, watch him.’
Then he gets up and goes away.
Next morning he brings back the murdering bloke.
He’s a smiling sort of chap with an I-like-you-but-keep-off look. He laughs easy. I sees that. But he has hands like hams and a chest as deep as a well. When he speaks you can hear his words start before they come out and when they come out they fly about like magpies.
The boss introduces us and I say:
‘How are you, Mister Galveston.’
‘Hullo, Sport,’ he says, smiling like.
He shakes hands and I have to put my hand in my pocket to warm it back to life.
The boss leaves us to it.
I show the big bloke his bunk on one side of the hut then sit down at the table and become conversational.
‘They tell me you murdered old Mister Chalmers, Mister Galveston,’ I says by way of making contact.
He turn round and looks quickly at me. He is full of wonder at me.
‘I didn’t murder Mr Chalmers,’ he says. ‘That trial was a mistake. I was acquitted.’
‘Quite so,’ I says, amiable like. ‘You was acquitted before the law, but,’ I says dramatic, ‘have you been acquitted before the bar of public opinion?’
He looks at me as if he hasn’t seen me before. I am astonishing him. It is the noble speech of me that astonishes him.
‘Now, Mister Galveston,’ I says. ‘Let’s be frank. I am studying this here psychology and I know about minds and what they think and about everything—like laughing and that. I have books here,’ I says, ‘written by men who ask people questions, and by the way they answer they know how much they know and all that sort of thing.’
‘Are you mad?’ he says.
‘Not so mad, Mister Galveston,’ I says, ‘as not to know the reason for your murder of the old gentleman in question,’ I says.
‘Stone the crows!’ he exclaims with his mouth open. Then he pokes menace at me with words. ‘Shut up,’ he says.
‘Steady now, Mister Galveston,’ I says. ‘Let us both discuss the matter in a calm and collected manner. Tell me,’ I says. ‘Tell me. Did you murder old Mr Chalmers for amusement?’
He comes over and puts his hands on the table and he leans on his hands and says very distinctly with his head stuck out:
‘I did not murder Mr Chalmers. I will not talk to you about Mr Chalmers. I do not want you to mention the name of Mr Chalmers.’
‘You have mentioned him three times yourself,’ I says, ‘but let it pass. We will now go and milk the cows.’
He works well, this bloke, and he eats well, too. He eats very well. He eats our week’s supply in two days.
I goes and gets more grub and he eats well on this too.
At nights I talk about murders to him. At first he treats me with ignore, then he answers me back, then he just looks at me, then he stops looking at me and looks at the floor.
After a week he stops looking at the floor and begins looking round at the things in the hut and, what’s more, he takes care to let me see him looking at the things in the hut.
He looks at the gun and then at the shovel and then at me.
The third week he suddenly gets very friendly and conversational.
He tells me he likes shooting rabbits.
‘Have you ever heard of a gun slipping and shooting a man’s cobber while they were shooting rabbits?’ he says.
‘No,’ I says. ‘Never in my life have I heard that.’
‘It could quite ea
sily happen,’ he says.
‘Only if there were murder in the air,’ I says with solemnness and looking at him.
‘Let’s go shooting rabbits,’ he raps out suddenly.
I jumps in me chair.
‘No,’ I says. ‘Certainly not. I don’t like shooting rabbits. And, besides, I have a lot of psychology waiting to be studied.’
‘Come on,’ he says, persuasive like. ‘Let’s go shooting rabbits.’
‘No,’ I shouts at him.
He takes to sharpening the axe. He takes it off the nail and sharpens it. He loves axes, he says.
He asks me:
‘When you’re chopping down trees, does the axe ever glance from the trunk and fly wide?’
‘It might,’ I says, ‘if the wood were hard and dry.’
Next day he says:
‘Let’s go chopping down trees for wood.’
He rubs his thumb over the axe edge and looks at me, smiling with his mouth.
‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ I says.
‘A cat may look at a king,’ he says.
‘Not like that,’ I says.
‘Let’s go chopping down trees,’ he says again.
I don’t like the idea. I don’t like the look of this bloke at all. I don’t like his way of saying things.
I says: ‘No. We want to save our strength for the milking. The boss never said nothing about chopping down trees.’
I won’t go with him. I goes outside and walks about outside. This bloke is getting on my nerves.
I am getting sick of cooking for him, too. He eats too well, this bloke.
One day the boss comes and says to me:
‘Look, I’ve had to double your rations.’
‘That’s natural,’ I says. ‘I still eat,’ I says.
‘Yes, I know,’ he says. ‘But not counting yours, I’ve still had to double it.’
‘I’m too good a cook,’ I says. ‘That’s the trouble.’
‘Let him do the cooking,’ the boss says. ‘Let him do the cooking and he’ll get jack of the work,’ he says. ‘He eats like a horse, that cove.’
So I lets the murderer take over the kitchen.
He feeds us up well. He dishes up pies and everything.
One night he fries a panful of pork chops in plenty of fat. That afternoon I had been talking murders to him. He is very sour about the face.
After I eats the chops I wish I hadn’t. I gets to thinkin’. This cove doesn’t eat any chops. Old Mister Chalmers’s last feed was pork chops fried in fat. I tell you, I am feeling crook.
The murderer sits and watches me. I am feeling terrible crook. I looks into this cove’s eyes and, by the living Harry, I know it’s all up with me, but I’m not sure.
An’ then I gets the pains.
‘S’elp me Bob, Mister Galveston,’ I says. ‘I believe you’re trying to murder me. I’m full of pains and arsenic or something,’ I says. ‘I can tell by the feel of me,’ I says. ‘S’elp me Bob! I’m goin’ to die,’ I says. ‘Say, what’s the symptoms of arsenic poison?’ I asks.
He leans over to me till his face is six inches from mine and he mouths each word separate, slow like:
‘You feel crook inside.’
That’s enough for me. I dash outside and am I sick!
Then I hears him laugh. Laugh, and me full of his arsenic. I hear the boss coming in the bottom gate with our week’s grub. But I don’t wait for help. I pick up a log of wood and I rush inside.
The murderer is bending down laughing. I let him have that log of wood fair behind the ear. I stand on my toes to give it to him.
You’ve never seen a bloke fall like that bloke falls. He goes down like a pole-axed calf. You can see his eyes roll and he goes stiff as a crutch. He lies on his back and his breath comes out and goes back into him like a pump.
‘Gripes!’ I says. ‘I’ve murdered him.’
I tear out to the boss who has just pulled up.
‘I’ve murdered your murderer,’ I says, and am I shaking. ‘He’s in there dead as mutton. He’s that stiff you can’t bend him.’
The boss goes all jittery. He rushes in and the big bloke is sitting up.
I never knew a bloke to have a head like that bloke for toughness.
He holds it in his hands and rocks it a bit.
‘How’s it goin’?’ I says kneeling down beside him. I am feeling good after being sick like I was.
He shakes his head like a bull and comes round.
‘You tried to murder me,’ he moans as if he can’t believe it.
‘Forget it,’ I says. ‘You tried to murder me. Now we’re quits.’
‘Murder you, be blowed!’ he says. ‘It was them pork chops.’
He gets up rubbing his head.
‘Boy, what a crack!’ he says with sorrow.
‘Look,’ I says. ‘Say we start again. No murderin’ from now on, eh?’
‘And no more talking about murders either,’ he says.
‘It’s a bet,’ I says, and we shake hands on it.
That’s how come I live with this bloke, see?
Boot Factory
You work better in the morning. . . you are fresh. You tire towards lunch. You work better after lunch . . . you are fresh. You tire towards five. . . but Blue can keep at it. . . . Blue is a tiger for it. . . . Blue on the jumbo press . . . and the thump . . . and the thump . . . and the thump . . . a thousand soles a day from Blue on the jumbo press . . . the six-foot jumbo press that takes a side of leather. . . . Blue Henderson is a star . . . he takes risks . . . he keeps his foot on the treadle . . . don’t keep your foot on the treadle, Blue. . . the giant head of the press rises and falls without ceasing . . . you’ll lose your fingers, Blue . . . you are not a stuff-cutter unless you have lost two fingers . . . and you’ll lose two fingers if you keep your foot on the treadle, Blue. . . but he keeps his foot on the treadle . . . for you’ve got to take risks to do one thousand soles a day . . . and between the rise and fall of the jumbo’s iron head his hand darts in and moves the heavy, sole-shaped knife a cut further. . . and the thump and the bang, and the island floor trembles, and dust falls on the heads of the girls in the cleaning room below, and in the stiffened hide that once had clothed a bullock’s shoulders, is punched a hole the shape of a footprint. . . .
And again the knife is moved, and again the bang, and again the hole . . . a thousand times the hole. . . and each mutilated hide, a fretwork of leather, is cast aside. . . and another hide . . . and another. . . and another. . . a thousand soles, and the bang and the thump and the darting hand beneath the falling weight and the quiver and tremble of the island floor on its supports of steel. . . .
But you get tired before lunch . . . even Blue gets tired before lunch . . . for your belly is empty before lunch . . . but watch that the knife doesn’t catch in the leather, Blue . . . swallow the dust in your throat . . . you’re a tiger for it, Blue . . . the manager says so . . . and the doctor said you had a weak heart from rheumatic fever—when you were a kid . . . ha-ha . . . and the thump . . . a weak heart. . . and the thump and the thump . . . you’ve got no weak heart, Blue . . . you’re a tiger for it . . . the secretary says so . . . the director says so . . . the manager says so . . . the manager says you’re a tiger for it, Blue . . . twelve hundred soles a day, he says, Blue . . . but you’re only doing a thousand, aren’t you, Blue . . . your docket says so . . . and the thump and the thump . . . don’t get the knife caught in the leather . . . if it rocks over your hand will go, Blue . . . and you will get compensation under the Workers’ Compensation Act from the Workers’ Compensation Department of the Workers’ Insurance Limited capital, three millions. . . .
Watch the knife, Blue . . . you get tired before lunch with an empty belly . . . and watch the side of the jumbo, too, Blue . . . only an eighth of an inch clearance there, Blue . . . and you’ve taken your foot off the treadle . . . and the press is still . . . the scarred hand pulls at the knife jammed in the thick crop . . . but yo
u’ll have to reach over further, Blue . . . just a little further . . . and . . . you’re tired, Blue . . . lean over further . . . now, pull . . . pull harder, Blue . . . empty belly . . . tired . . . now . . . she’s out . . . pull her over . . . step back with the knife . . . she’s free . . . you’re right . . . the treadle is behind you . . . don’t step on the treadle, Blue . . . look out for the treadle, Blue . . . the treadle . . . LOOK OUT! . . . Jesus! and the thump. . .
The manager ran down the factory shouting, ‘Get Martin.’
Men turned their heads, shoes held stiffly in their hands. The girls straightened their backs and looked quickly at each other. Martin, the first aid man, sped towards the cupboard with the red cross painted on the door.
The factory’s machines, deprived of their food, snarled with empty mouths.
‘Get Martin . . . hold his head up, Ron . . . lift that bar, Plugger—quick. . . . Christ! . . . hold this . . . steady . . . steady . . . lift him, lift him . . . Jesus, look at the blood! . . . you’re hurting him . . . look out. . . lay him down here. . . .’
‘O-o-h . . . O-o-h’
‘You’re all right, Blue . . . grab the wrist . . . Christ, it’s spouting! . . . here, Martin, the bandages . . . you’re all right, Blue . . . Tie the ligature— there, higher. . . .’
‘Goodo, Martin. How you feelin’, Blue? Feelin’ all right?’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Don’t try to talk. You’re all right, Blue.’
Lift him, Plugger. Get his legs, Ron. Now, steady.’
Drip —— Drip ——
‘Get on with your work,’ yelled the manager.
‘Steady, Plugger. . . . Put your good arm round my neck, Blue. . . .’
‘He’s white as a bloody sheet.’
Drip —— Drip ——
‘Lift him, Ron . . . he can’t walk. . . .’
‘What about his fingers? They’re on the floor.’
‘Shut up, you bloody fool. Don’t let him hear you. You’re all right, Blue. . . . Hang round my neck. . . .’
‘Careful, here . . . a bit higher, Plugger. . . . Now, steady. . . . You’re all right, Blue. . . . Keep his head up. . . . Turn round. . . . Legs first down the stairs. . . . Steady, now. . . .’
The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall Page 15