Scarecrows

by Robert Westall

  Halfway across, he shivered. Felt spooky. Stupid, feeling spooky in blazing sunlight. But the field was so big, and so empty, and when he looked back, Mill House seemed very far away. He spun round looking for some other human being, but there was no sign of anyone, all the way to the circular horizon. A car passing on the road made him feel better, but when its noise faded, that made him feel worse again. He had to force himself to go on.

  The scarecrows watched him come. The first one was very big. Bulky in an old blue gabardine, tied round the middle with string. He had a broad, cocky face, with a beard made of frayed hempen rope, that blew in the wind when the woman’s arm rose and fell. He had a rolled balaclava helmet on his head, and a stick in one hand, and his other arm round the shoulders of the woman. He looked bullying, and yet somehow not very sure that his bullying would work. A bit like old Bowdon, after Simon had hit him. Bowdon after the loo . . .

  The woman was facing sideways. Her woman’s coat was tied round with string as well, but the arm that lifted and beckoned was pure white rag, so tattered with age and wind it looked like lace. It had no hand on the end.

  She was looking not at the man, but over the man’s shoulder; at the second man, who was standing a long way behind. At least . . . not standing, but almost like he was walking up behind the big man, with a stick in his hand too. His head was tipped, facing down at the ground; his cap was pulled well down over where his eyes should have been. He had no face at all, just shadows in damp straw; but you could make a face out of the shadows. Only, each time you looked, the face was different. Somehow, you could tell he was up to no good. And you could tell that the big man didn’t know he was there. But the woman did. She was waiting for him to come up behind the big man and . . . what . . . ?

  Ten yards away, Simon stopped. He couldn’t make himself go any further, try though he might. Instead, he walked round them; thinking that from behind, the sticks and things that held them up would make them look fake; like behind the scenery at the school play, where it was all paint brushes and bits of rope and people’s scripts. But the scarecrows looked just as real from the back. The guy who made them certainly knew what he was doing. A real artist. Joe Moreton would be interested . . . but Simon blocked Joe Moreton from his mind. He didn’t want to owe anything to Moreton.

  In fact, the scarecrows were worse from behind. They stood between him and the house. And from the hunch of the second man’s shoulders, Simon just knew he was going to do something horrible to the first man.

  And the woman knew. She wanted him to . . .

  Oh, rubbish. He stared around for anything that would help. A vapour trail from Manchester Airport in the clear blue sky; the noise of a tractor . . .

  Nothing. Just turnips and silence. Then he thought that if he tried to run away back home, the rows of turnips would make it very difficult. They would catch at his feet and trip him. Slow him down; tripping and falling. With the scarecrows following. He was sweating like a pig now. The sunlight made it worse when it should have made it better . . .

  He ran round quickly to the front of the scarecrows again.

  The woman’s arm raised and beckoned. Had there been a gust of wind that time? He hadn’t felt one. Why did they look so familiar?

  And then . . . he knew.

  The blue gabardine, the rolled balaclava helmet . . .

  The scarecrows were wearing the clothes from the mill. The clothes he had tried on.

  Someone had made them, using the old clothes from the mill . . .

  A rage seized him. He flew at the first two scarecrows. Pushed them with all his might. Rocking, they resisted; he could feel the weight of the earth, of the field, around their sticks. Then the earth cracked, the red earth, and they fell together with a soft rustling and crackling, the man on top of the woman.

  They looked like victims in a road accident, or on a telly-news from Northern Ireland. No they didn’t. They still looked alive and well. Like they were . . . making disgusting animal noises; in the middle of the day, in the middle of a field, in broad view of everybody.

  He turned on the third scarecrow; advanced. But he still couldn’t read the third scarecrow’s look. The third scarecrow was far, far worse. The third scarecrow looked like he might fight back . . .

  Simon got to within a yard; then a dank musty smell hit him; like the smell from the mill-pool. Maybe it was the smell from the mill-pool.

  He turned and ran. The leaves of the turnips did catch and whip at his ankles. He did fall and get up, looking over his shoulder.

  The scarecrows hadn’t moved. The third one still looked ready, threatening. The other two still lay in each other’s arms, obscene, even more convincing now they were partly hidden. The man’s back was humped, the woman’s arm outstretched. And her head was still turned, so she could watch the third one come. And the first man still hadn’t noticed.

  Simon regained the gate to the garden, panting and slobbering and shaking all over.

  Deep down, he knew there had been a fight; and the scarecrows had won.

  FOURTEEN

  He stumbled into the kitchen. The Aga was turned down low, but the warmth against his backside was a comfort; in spite of the heat of the day, he felt cold and shivery again. The smells were good too: cakes baked, the sharp clean smell from the vegetable-rack. The electric clock hummed and clicked soothingly, and he felt a bit better.

  There was a scurry from the cardboard box, and a kitten skittered across the floor, braked hard with its front legs, was overtaken by its back legs, and ended lying in a heap facing the way it had come. Another kitten emerged from the shadows and pounced on it gleefully. There was a fierce whirr of legs, and the pair vanished again, heading in opposite directions.

  Those two were fine, if raising more and more hell every day meant they were fine; though still too leggy and thin. Mother-cat was fine, too. The amounts of food she ate were a daily wonder. Simon looked into the box. Mother-cat was out ratting; only the third kitten remained. It, too, was better. The terrible crusts of green filth had stopped oozing from its eyes. Mum no longer had to bathe them three times a day. The eyelids were pink and normal now. But still tight shut, like a newborn kitten’s. It sometimes got up on its wavering legs and wandered round the box, bumping into things over and over. It was doing that now.

  He watched it with despair. The bigger and stronger it got, the more it would simply bump into things – the blind cats he’d known were old cats, who had gone blind slowly, so they could get used to it. They were slow anyway, and no longer went anywhere, except a well-worn triangle between a dish of food, a place by the fire and a quick nip outside to relieve themselves; they were OK till they died. But young cats wanted to jump and leap and play – and the other kittens bullied the blind one. Nipping it as they nipped each other, and it would try to retaliate and not know how. Some day he knew he would have to let it go to the vet’s and be put to sleep. But Mum would wait till he gave the word. That was the awful thing.

  He picked up the kitten; it gave a squeak of terror. It always did. The others didn’t. It swung its head blindly from left to right and left again. Frantic. He held the head still. Made himself look at the hopeless-closed eyes.

  One eye opened. Not completely; only a tiny triangle of black in the middle of the stuck-together pink eyelid. But as he turned its head to the light of the window, the little triangle glistened healthily. There was nothing nasty behind that eyelid. And the other eye was starting to open, too.

  Choked with hope, he whizzed a finger past the kitten’s face. It gave a flick, as if following the finger . . . but it could have been coincidence. He did it again. And again the kitten seemed to follow. A third time, it didn’t. But a fourth time it did . . .

  He became aware he was being watched by someone standing in the open door that led to the dining room. Someone big and very silent. Someone who had been watching him for some time.

  He whirled.

  It was Joe Moreton. A look was fading from Joe Moreto
n’s face, as if Joe Moreton was ashamed of it. But it hadn’t been a look of hate or spite; Simon knew all about hate and spite. Sadness? Regret? He didn’t know. But it hadn’t been hate, and it was gone now anyway. Replaced by a look of careful don’t-give-two-buggers.

  ‘It can see. I think it can see,’ said Simon.

  ‘I know,’ said Joe Moreton. ‘I thought so too.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to build your hopes up. It still mightn’t be true. But I think it is.’

  Somehow Simon knew that Joe Moreton had been picking up the kitten twice a day and looking at it too.

  ‘Hey, they’re my cats!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Joe Moreton. ‘Your cats. But there’s no charge for looking.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Simon. Then put the kitten back abruptly, because he was blushing.

  ‘What you going to do with them?’ asked Joe Moreton.

  ‘Keep them. All.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll pay you for their keep.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘How much do they cost?’

  ‘Dunno. You’ll have to ask your mother.’

  ‘I suppose . . . I could find good homes for a couple – those two.’ He pointed to the two frenzied battling bodies. ‘When they’re bigger.’

  ‘You could put a notice in Cosima’s window.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Want a cup of coffee?’ asked Joe Moreton, going with the kettle towards the sink.

  ‘Don’t mind.’

  ‘How many sugars?’

  ‘Two.’

  He even said ‘Thanks’, when Joe gave him the cup and ambled back to his studio. Joe would tell Mum, and Jane would pick it up, and soon there would be the start of peace. He felt safe – till he went back in the late afternoon to look at the scarecrows again.

  Someone had put the two he’d knocked over back on their feet.

  Next morning, they were still in the same place.

  Well, why the hell shouldn’t they still be in the same place? What did he expect them to do – walk about? Nevertheless, he was nervous enough to be at Cosima’s the moment her shop opened.

  But there was nothing about scarecrows on Cosima’s early newscast. A two-headed lamb had been born out of season at Goostrey; for which Cosima blamed them atomic buggers at Windscale and they would blow us all up sooner or later. Old Mr Farthing was a lump better, but Mrs Leach was worse. And the price of bacon wholesale was now beyond belief . . .

  Simon had a better idea. Mr Mercyfull would know.

  As life would have it, Mr Mercyfull was late. It was nearly eleven, and Simon near despair, before he heard:

  ‘When I-hi survey the wondrous cross

  On which the Prince of Glory died

  My richest gain I count but loss

  And pour contempt on or-hor-horll my pride.’

  Mr Mercyfull had a large piece of elastoplast among his white skinhead hair. ‘Had one o’ me queer do’s. I had a terrible head all neet an’ I were just cleaning out grate for me dowter an’ I came over dizzy and banged me head on corner o’t’mantelpiece. Came to me senses lyin’ in t’ashes, wi’ a greet lump knocked out o’ marble fireplace. But ye know what? Me headache were clean gone. So I knows how t’cure it next time it comes on – I’ll just put down me head an’ run street into t’fireplace . . .’ He sat down unusually quickly in his wheelbarrow, and took out his orange device.

  ‘Mr Mercyfull – what’s that roof we can see across the field?’

  Mercyfull gave him an old-fashioned look and said, ‘Ye know damn-well what yon is – the mill. But I’ll tell ye something for nothing. See that roof – it’s t’same as the one on your house. Yon’s mill, and this is Mill House, an’ they were built at same time, hunnerds o’ years ago. Millers liked living in t’village, but they had to have mill near t’watter.’

  ‘Did you know any millers?’

  ‘I knowed two millers – old miller and young miller. Old miller was a hard man – left a fo’tune. Ye shoulda seen ’im shekking sacks to get last few grains out – even when he owned half t’ village. He were past eighty when he died – over a quarrel about handful o’ grain – dropped down dead in millyard wi’ t’grain in his hand.’ Mr Mercyfull said this with great approval, as if the old miller had won the Nobel Prize for Stinginess. ‘Old miller were into everythin’ – cartin’ and hosses – that’s how I knowed him – buyin’ and rentin’ houses – never replaced a broken pane o’ glass, no matter how much tenants complained. He cut-up for a tidy sum when his will were read.

  ‘But young miller were soft. I went te school wi’ him. All t’lads knocked lumps off him, till he run home blabbin’. Nobbut a greet soft lump all his life. His da had him runnin’ day and neet; he would send him down village for an ounce o’baccy, even when he was forty year old. Young miller were forty-five when his da died. His da left him every penny, ’cause he hated him less than he hated onybody else. Money went to t’young miller’s head – ’cause he’d worked for his da all his life and only got ten shillin’ a week pocket-money. Grand ideas young miller had – spent money like water in t’pub, tryin’ te buy friends . . .

  ‘An’ there was a lass in village – Josie Cragg – a right looker, bit o’ gypsy, dark an’ flashy. All t’lads were after her – fancied her meself – she’d have needed tekkin’ in hand, mind – but she wuddent look at the likes o’ me. Any road, young miller set his sights on her, and she married him for his money, in spite of his age. She bore him two childer – a boy an’ a girl.

  ‘Then Second War came, and miller lost his taste for running t’mill – had a bellyful when his da were alive. An’ he were too busy smarming his way onto War Ag committees and ARP committees. By gi’ing councillors whisky an’ runnin’ a grand big car on Black Market petrol. So he got in a feller called Ray Starkey to run t’mill. Silent kind o’man; hardly gie ye the time o’ day. I reckoned he was a deserter from t’Army, though he reckoned he was fra Liverpool and couldn’t get into t’Army on account o’ various veins. Still, he ran t’mill well enough – mainly coarse feedin’ stuff for cattle. Mill shouda closed down years afore, only being wartime, and with so many mouths to feed, they kep’ it goin’ . . .

  ‘Onyway, it soon became obvious to everyone ’cept young miller that Starkey were robbin’ him blind. One bag in ten, they reckoned. Folk tried tellin’ miller, but he were never one to listen. Him an’ his high-and-mighty ideas – thowt no one could put onything ower him. An’ flour weren’t all Starkey were getting’. Josie Cragg – Josie Cragg as was, I mean – was always droppin’ ower to t’mill to see how things was goin’. An’ soon things was goin’ very well – for Josie an’ Starkey, if ye know what I mean?’ Mr Mercyfull caught Simon’s eye and laughed; that knowing, crowing laugh that Simon hated.

  ‘Again, folk tried tellin’ miller, but he wuddent listen. Far too grand te admit that onything like that could happen to him. But he started drinkin’ heavier, any road. Then one night in t’pub, when he were drunk as a lord, it seemed to sink home te him. He went off in his grand car – a Wolseley, a Wolseley Ten it was. Weaving up t’village street from side te side like he were River Weaver itself. Goin’ ter have it out wi’ Starkey. Lads were all for goin’ wi’ him, ’cause a lot had it in for Starkey, an’ a lot had been keen on Josie Cragg. But miller was too big to want any help.

  ‘He was never seen again – not alive, any road. An’ those who seen him after wished they hadn’t.’

  Maddeningly, he paused and looked down at his little orange contraption, which he had been turning and turning with his great hands as he spoke. He pressed a lever, and a spoiled mess of tobacco and shredded paper spilled out. ‘Beggar it,’ he said, and maddeningly started the whole tedious process all over again. Then he had to get the pathetic fag alight, and it took five matches. ‘I don’t know as I owt to tell ye t’rest,’ he added, thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s a bit late for that,’ said Simon, because
an awful unease was pulling at his guts. ‘I can ask anybody now.’

  ‘So ye can,’ said Mr Mercyfull, as if that relieved him of all responsibility. ‘Onyway, next morning, Tom Herdwick took ower a load o’ grain for millin’, an’ Starkey refused to do business wi’ him, flat. Mill were broken. Tom Herdwick, he was pushed for time; he were all for goin’ into t’mill to see what were broken, but Starkey just shoved him out on t’door, very nasty. Herdwick dropped a word to millwright ower Mobberly way. But Starkey wouldn’t let millwright in either. Slammed an’ barred door in his face.

  ‘That caused talk. Specially as miller weren’t seen for a week, nor his grand car neither. Someone went ower to Knutsford an’ had word wi’ poliss.

  ‘Josie an’ Starkey told same story. Young miller had gone for Starkey an’ lost t’ fight, an’ driven off in a drunken rage an’ they hadn’t neither on ’em seen hide nor hair of him since.

  ‘Onyway, it looked black for them. Polisses turned mill upside down, an’ all t’fields around. Dragged ponds and mill-pool wi’ great long irons till they were sick, and found nowt. Then one or two folk remembered hearing a car go through t’village at two in t’morning, very unsteady an’ heading up t’Manchester Road. Then the polisses in Manchester found the car – what was left on’t – on a bomb-site i’ Withenshaw. Black marketers had tekken all t’wheels an’ left it propped up on bricks. Tekken engine, too, an’ all dials, and kids had smashed t’headlights. Only numberplates was left.

  ‘Then it all seemed to blow over. Josie an’ Starkey took to coming down pub together, spendin’ money like there was no tomorrow. Folk gossiped; but they didn’t do nowt, ’cause Starkey were a hard bitter man, and nobody had cared much for young miller.