Scarecrows

by Robert Westall

  He came awake with a start. He had no idea what time it was, but the room was a lot darker; it must be late. He had a sense of being watched, of being watched over; coming from the left. He glanced round – and thought for a moment that three people were standing in the shadowed corner, watching. The same three people. It made him leap inside his skin.

  But it was only the coats. Or a dream; or the coming out of a dream. Just coats hanging on a wall, and hats on pegs.

  All the same, he left the mill quickly, without even pausing to shut the door properly behind him.

  TEN

  ‘Foxes,’ said Mr Mercyfull. ‘Foxes is cunning devils, specially she-vixens. Yer dog-fox is a straight crook, but yer she-vixen . . .’

  Yesterday’s hoeing had been abandoned, and he was now digging the rosebed with about as much enthusiasm. Simon watched as he let go his spade and proceeded to straighten his back. This was a long process, involving putting both his hands in the small of it, and heaving upwards. Rather like a cross between a housewife doing keep-fit and an old grey wolf baying at the moon. He creaked, then cracked, then sighed with relief and lowered himself into the barrow.

  ‘I mind one January I were hedging our bottom field, ’cause it were too cold for owt else. An’ I see this she-vixen come running by, lookin’ over her shoulder. And she goes an’ sits in t’middle o’ a frozen pond, bold as brass. An’ I thowt, what’s up here, then? I soon knowed, ’caused I heard t’ Hunt coming. But she still held her ground, bold as brass, till hounds came swarming all ower me and onto t’ice. Then she skipped onto t’far bank, and they nearly had her when t’ice gave way wi’ a greet crack, and the whole pack went down into it. Aye, ye could see t’hounds down under t’ice, blowing greet bubbles.

  ‘An’ then huntsmen arrived, and they fetched ladders an’ laid ’em across t’ice. An’ Lord Herdsmere, who were Lord Knutsford’s son, crawled out on the ladders hisself in his scarlet coat to try an’ save them, but it weren’t no good. They all drowned but four, who came ashore theirselves, being on t’edge when ice went. An’ the old vixen sat on a wall, just watching it all an’ laughing wi’ her tongue out. Till Lord Herdsmere sent a man for a gun, then she slipped away sharp. Lord Herdsmere were a hard man an’ proud – gie ye a whip across yer face as soon as look at ye – but he were blabbin’ like a bairn that day. Tears running down his face an’ freezin’, an’ they say he never hunted again.

  ‘But I ask you – how did yon she-vixen know t’ice were that thin? I didn’t know, and I were hedgin’ there.’

  He began to roll one of his awful cigarettes.

  ‘Aye, but she were too fond o’ that pond in the end. I seed her sitting on its bank soon after, an’ there was two dog-foxes fightin’ over her, on t’ice, and her sitting there watchin’ an’ enjoyin’ every minute. I had me gun with me, an’ I lined them up an’ got all three wi’ one shot. An’ they were so intent on what they was doing that they never even knew I was theer.’ Mr Mercyfull gave a deep sigh, at the satisfying state of the world.

  ‘Did you do it,’ asked Simon, ‘to revenge the hounds?’

  ‘No. I cared nowt for hounds nor hunt. Them foxes had taken too many of my chickens.’

  ‘Why do they call you Mercyfull?’ asked Simon.

  ‘It’s a twisting o’ the name. They say our real name were Merseyfield – a field by the River Mersey, up a bit north. Some says we were really Vikings.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon. Then added, almost against his will, ‘What kind of name is Moreton?’

  ‘Oh, Moreton’s a local name enough – there’s a Little Moreton Hall just down t’road – a greet black-and-white place wick wi’ tourists. But yon feller come from Manchester wi’ his ma in 1940 – evacuees, she said. There never were no da showed up – his ma made out she were a widow; but nobody ever dared ask to see her marriage licence . . .’

  Mr Mercyfull spat accurately at a butterfly hovering between the rose bushes; but the butterfly dodged craftily, like they always do.

  Simon lay in his attic bedroom in the dark. They had packed him right away at the top of the house. There had been no need to. The place had plenty of rooms in its long funny shape. Downstairs, the lounge, facing the road, with its huge new picture-window in the gable-end. Then the entrance-hall, then the dining room, with the kitchen beyond that, then the scullery, then the door through to the newly-built two-car garage at the back.

  Upstairs, on the first floor, a long corridor with four bedrooms off it, and Joe Moreton’s huge new studio at the back, over the huge new garage. A funny house, five rooms long and one room wide, if you didn’t count the corridor . . . and him alone up on the top floor in the attic, up a tiny narrow stair with doors at the top and bottom of it.

  He’d taken to coming to bed early. He couldn’t stand the cosy huddle round the telly. But then he felt so lonely he got into the habit of leaving both the staircase-doors open and playing his records very loudly. Mum came up sometimes to tell him to shut the doors and turn the record player down; but she never stayed to talk. Then he would go down to the loo, and on the way back he would leave all the doors open all over again . . .

  But now all was silent. He’d heard Mum look in on Jane at eleven, then cross the hall to her own bedroom, below his. He’d strained his ears for noises, but heard nothing. The old house was built very thick.

  All around him in the dark lay his old toys. His big models of a Super-fortress and a Lancaster, a Stirling and a Liberator had even been hung tastefully from the ceiling-beams when he first arrived. Just as he liked them.

  He had carefully moved them all to different positions. He had a shrewd idea who had arranged them. Mum hadn’t a clue about flying; she’d have hung them all crashing into each other. What else had Joe Moreton fingered, looked at sarcastically, messed about with his big banana-fingers? It made everything perfectly useless; even if not a thing had been thrown away or broken . . . he had checked double-carefully.

  Even in this old attic, there was the smell of Joe Moreton; the smell of woodworm-killer from the beams, the smell of new paint and expensive Vymura, the smell of Joe Moreton’s money. Simon felt so lonely it was like freezing to death slowly.

  Only one thing that Joe Moreton wouldn’t have dared touch: Father’s kit. It lay in a white cupboard in the corner – a cupboard built-in as part of the house. A cupboard that had been there a hundred years before Joe Moreton. He crept out of bed; he would lay his head against the two bulging hold-alls that held Father’s kit; hold-alls with Father’s name, rank, number and regiment stencilled on the outside.

  105692 maj d. e. wood, royal durham fusiliers. Derek Edward Wood, M.C.

  The canvas would be a harsh comfort to his cheek. It only smelled of canvas now, no longer of Father; but it was better than smelling of Joe Moreton. He opened the cupboard door, and gasped.

  There was a tiny oval of light inside the cupboard, shining on one of the hold-alls, illuminating the MAJ.

  He glanced over his shoulder, expecting a trick; expecting Jane had crept up on him and was shining a pencil-torch over his shoulder. But there was no one there. The room was completely dark, except for the faint blue squares of the window. In a panic, he slammed the cupboard shut and fled back to bed.

  But the cupboard door, not properly latched, swung slowly open. He could still see the oval of light, quite clear.

  He wondered if it would leave the cupboard and somehow start moving around the room. He wondered if the oval light had something to do with Father; Father come back to look after him? If it was Father’s ghost, he wouldn’t mind at all. He would welcome it, really he would . . .

  But long though he watched the little oval of light, half-hopeful, half-petrified, it did not move. He would have to go to it.

  He crept towards it on legs that shook disgustingly. Squatted and stared, closer and closer. It still did not move. Just showed up the rough weave of the canvas.

  He reached out and touched it. His finger threw a shadow on it, upwards.
It was ordinary light. From where?

  The floor of the cupboard. On the dark plank floor shone a tiny gold jewel of brilliance. Nothing more than a hole in the old planks, and the light of the bedroom below, shining up through. He pushed the kitbags aside, and put his eye to the hole. All he could see was flowered wallpaper, a white skirting-board and a piece of blue carpet.

  With a bra of Mum’s thrown down on it. Not like her, that. She was normally so tidy with her clothes. All neatly folded on a chair, when he had gone to her room in the night; when he’d felt sick or had toothache or something.

  She used to be tidy . . .

  Then he heard her voice. ‘Happy?’ Her voice, all gooey and dreamy, like treacle.

  Rumble. Big fat hairy rumble from big fat hairy chest.

  Simon leapt away as if he’d been stung. He wasn’t an eavesdropper. He hadn’t meant to listen. Just been curious about the light. Besides, listening hurt so much; he would never, never, never listen again.

  Within two minutes he was back to the hole. He could put his ear right against it, though it made his neck ache and the sill of the bottom of the cupboard bit into his collar bone.

  ‘It was worse tonight.’ Joe Moreton’s voice. ‘There we were, all three of us snug round the telly, and all I could think about was him upstairs. Like a bloody death in the house.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mum.

  ‘D’you think he’s doing it deliberately? I don’t want to seem paranoid—’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s doing it deliberately. Trying to upset you. He never used to be like that; he used to bring his records downstairs and play them. Nearly drove me mad with the noise, but he wanted to share them, then. Bloody awful things. Led Zeppelin. But he sees something in them. He used to try to make me see it.’

  Joe Moreton sighed, and the bed creaked as he turned over. ‘By God, I used to think it rough when I was broke. When I first left art school and was washing-up in Lyon’s Cornerhouses all night and tramping around Fleet Street all day, and drawing when I could hardly stay awake. But that all seems so simple now . . . Then when I hit what I shall mockingly call the Big Time, and the money was pouring in, I thought, well . . . I thought, things can never be so bad again. But this!’

  ‘I told you we shouldn’t get married. You could have laid low in his holidays – the rest would have been OK.’

  ‘No, Deb, you know I didn’t want that. Besides, you get tired of driving home in the middle of the night. I need something to cuddle permanently on tap. And your shiny face at breakfast. And Jane . . .’

  ‘Oh, I knew you’d have no bother with Jane. She’s man-mad. You never think they can be sexy at that age. Always hanging round my chair when I was getting ready to go out, wanting a bit of perfume, bit of lipstick. She wanted me to have you for what she could get out of it. But never stops trying to steal you off me, sexy little beast. But that’s no problem.’

  Joe Moreton sighed. ‘It’s a laugh really. All this talk of domineering parents, ruining their kids’ lives. Nobody says you’re the prisoners of your children.’

  ‘There speaks the old bachelor. Where have you been, these last twenty years?’

  ‘Making me way, missus . . .’

  ‘Was there never any other woman . . . ?’

  ‘I’ve told you. When you’re going places, you travel light. Mainly on account of your empty belly—’

  ‘You haven’t got an empty belly now.’

  ‘Ow. Lay off, sadist! Blame your own cooking. I used to have a figure like a long-distance runner . . .’

  ‘I’m not grumbling. You suit me as you are.’

  ‘Stop it, will you? Lay off!’

  Giggly laughter floated up through the hole in the floorboards. Then silence. Then Mum said, ‘Mmmmmmmm,’ appreciatively.

  ‘Shall I bugger off? Till the end of this holidays?’

  Simon’s heart leapt for joy.

  ‘No,’ said Mum, and she really meant it. ‘That’s exactly what he wants. And it would be very bad for him if he got it. Letting him drive you out of your own house? He’d be intolerable for the rest of his life.’

  ‘I’m not scared of him. I’m scared for him. He’s so bloody lonely – it fills the whole house, like the smell of a leaky lav.’

  ‘It’s not just you – he’s always been lonely. Even when he was little, he’d never really let you get through to him. Like his father; like Derek. He’d never stop still and let you touch him either.’

  ‘We’re all a bit locked up inside, I suppose.’

  ‘You? Locked up inside? That’s really funny. You’re the one that lets it all hang out – you’re the easiest person to touch I know. Why do you think I fell for you – your classic good looks?’ She was laughing again. A contented gurgling that went through Simon like a spear. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Joe.’

  ‘Even with . . . all this?’

  ‘Even with all this. I’m worried – but to be without you now would be unthinkable. Kiss me, you silly sod.’

  Another long silence, with nothing of despair or loneliness in it. Then Mum said, ‘Again? Joe – not again!’ Then the terrible undecipherable animal noises, surging to peaks and falling, like the waves of the sea. Then Mum crying, ‘Joe. Joe. Joe. Joe!’ as if she were gladly falling off a cliff into some warm bottomless dark.

  For nearly an hour, Simon remained crouched by the cupboard, head between his knees and hands over his ears. Every so often he would rock backwards and forwards gently. Then be motionless again.

  After an hour he listened for the snores below, then got up calmly and carefully closed the cupboard door, crept into bed and stared at the ceiling until morning.

  ELEVEN

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Joe Moreton, ‘about the kid.’ Simon was once again crouched over the cupboard. He had given up feeling guilty about eavesdropping; no longer cared. ‘I got through to him once, you know. I swear. Over that kitten. He really looked at me like I was human. ’Cause I was taking him seriously. Maybe he thinks I don’t like him. I mean, nowadays I can hardly bring myself to speak to him, or even look at him. Maybe he’s getting the wrong message.’

  ‘Don’t be thick, Joe. He knows exactly what’s on your mind. You’re as open as a book.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know . . . I’m not always like I am with you. I can be very sarcastic . . .’

  ‘Only with strangers. You’re like a lobster – all armour outside and soft as hell inside. I should know.’

  ‘But does he?’

  ‘Don’t think everyone’s like you. He’s not. He’s hard inside.’

  ‘Nobody’s that hard inside. I keep feeling so sorry for him. I’d like to give him a present.’

  ‘What sort of present?’ Mum’s voice, suddenly sharp, worried.

  ‘Saw a smashing bike in Knutsford – racer, alloy frame, six gears – schoolboy’s dream. What kid could resist?’

  ‘This kid. Oh, Joe, the whole point about that terrible old boneshaker he rides is that his father used to ride it. He’ll keep it, down to the last speck of rust.’

  ‘OK. Let him. Doesn’t mean he can’t have a new one as well . . . he could ride both. No harm trying, is there?’

  ‘Joe, Joe, you can’t buy love.’

  ‘Anybody’d given me a bike when I was a kid, I’d have loved them forever. Even if it was a mass of rust. Trouble with that kid is, he’s never known what it’s like to go without.’

  Mum’s voice grew sharper. ‘Leave it, Joe. He’d only use it to screw you. Refuse to ride it, leave it out in the rain, smash it to pieces.’

  Joe Moreton suddenly flared. ‘I don’t know. We’ve tried playing it your way. Where’s it got us? Things just get worse and worse. What’s going to be the end of it? C’mon, what do you see as the end of it? What you got in mind?’

  Mum’s voice went cold and dead. ‘I know what the end will be. He’ll go to Wellington at the end of the holidays, and then we shall get some peace. Just the three of us again.’

&
nbsp; ‘What about Christmas? And when he leaves school?’

  ‘He’ll go away again. Into the Army. Globe-trotting, just like his father. He’ll come and see me twice a year. Christmas and my birthday; because it’s his duty.’

  ‘God – how can you be so heartless? He’s your kid.’

  And upstairs, Simon rocked backwards and forwards. Mum, Mum, it’s not true. Mum, can’t you see I want you? I need you?

  ‘I’m not heartless, Joe. Just realistic. He’s so like his father . . . Derek was leaving me before he was killed. He’d really left already, I suppose. I’ve always wondered why it hurt so little, Derek’s dying. Till now.’

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘Nothing so human. I could have forgiven him that. No: horses and fast cars and parachutes and fighting. Any place he could risk his neck. It got to be a disease. My God, Derek certainly wasn’t afraid of death; but I used to wonder whether he wasn’t afraid of life.’

  ‘Afraid of life?’

  ‘Afraid of going grey, getting old, coming home every night and letting the kids jump all over him while he was watching the telly. I suppose, even from the beginning, he was never really with me. Not like you, Joe. Every day. In bed.’

  ‘Was he queer or something?’

  ‘No – he just took me, like I was another fence, another parachute jump. Then turned his back afterwards and lay and smoked in the dark. I could never touch him, like—’

  ‘Ouch! Leggo! I’ll go on a diet next week. Promise.’

  ‘Look. I never knew what love was, till I met you. Fancy . . . married, two kids, thirty-three years old and now I have to find out. If I hadn’t met you . . . poor Derek. You’d understand if you met Derek’s father. Terrible old man. Derek used to take me to see him twice a year – as a duty. Christmas and his birthday. We just sat around drinking Scotch and talking about the bloody regiment, because there was nothing else to do. And Derek as black as hell for a week afterwards – riding like he wanted to break his neck.’