He looked too long; the woman noticed. As he plunged for a bit of toast, the woman said,
‘He your eldest, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Mum.
‘Fourteen, is he?’
‘Nearly,’ said Mum.
‘Awkward age that. Like our Carrie. Caroline really, but we call her Carrie for short. Caroline Tracy Amantha, to give her her full titles.’ The woman laughed vulgarly, as if at some obscure joke. ‘Cheeky they are, at that age. Think they know it all.’
The door opened. Joe came in, looked at Simon, then said roughly, embarrassedly, ‘You ready, Mrs Meegan?’
‘Just let me gather me wits,’ said Mrs Meegan, clutching her shopping-bag even more tightly, as if all her wits were inside. ‘Well, it’s all in a day’s work, I suppose. As the Yanks used to say: another day – another dollar. My, they were ones . . . they used to keep Warrington lively, till they closed Burtonwood airbase down. Saturday nights—’
‘Let’s get started,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t want to waste the light.’
Mrs Meegan departed, swigging her coffee on the hoof. Simon almost felt grateful to Joe. When the door shut he said,
‘Is she the char?’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘She works . . . for Joe.’
‘Doing what?’
‘In the studio?’
‘Doing what?’
‘He’s painting her . . . portrait.’
‘What? With all that make-up? She’s painted herself already, seems to me.’ He hoped Mum would laugh; but she didn’t. A hideous thought entered Simon’s mind. ‘You don’t mean . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Mum, beating hell out of a saucepan with a scourer. ‘In the nude. Finish your breakfast. I must get washed-up. I haven’t got all day.’
‘Does he paint you in the . . .’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘That’s why he’s got Mrs Meegan.’
‘I think that’s disgusting. In your house . . .’
‘This is not my house. This is Joe’s house. And don’t start again, Simon. I really couldn’t bear you starting again.’
He could tell from the sound of her voice that she meant it. He threw down his half-eaten toast and swept out into the garden in a rage. Found a panga in the garden-shed. It might have been Father’s; then on the other hand it might not. He went and hacked down dock-plants at the back of the orchard, till the panga and his hands were green and black with dock-blood.
It didn’t help at all. The moment he sat down, panting, his eyes went up to the studio window. He wanted to see. He knew it would make him feel awful. But it was there and he had to see it.
There was an apple tree pretty close to the studio window. If he climbed up that . . .
The trunk was mossy and flaky, and his legs were shaking from hacking the dock-leaves. It took him a long time, and he literally had to crawl up the tree on his knees, which was shameful. Once, a rotten branch cracked under his foot and, spreadeagled in the branches, he looked up at the studio window in terror. But nobody noticed; nobody looked out. He settled in a branch and turned.
Mrs Meegan stood with her back to him, on a wide wooden box on wheels. Although the day was fine, she was surrounded by little electric fires, with black snaky cables running to sockets all over the place. She looked enormous and saggy, with veins on her legs. She was standing with all her weight on one leg, so her hip stuck out like a mountain. She had a hand on that hip and she looked very bored. Probably halfway through Cheekowski’s first piano concerto . . .
Joe was standing on her left, beside a huge white canvas like a sail. His face was screwed up in agony, like an old ugly prune. Kept swinging his head from side to side, from Mrs Meegan to the canvas; a bit like a spectator at Wimbledon whose favourite player is losing six-nil. He kept holding out his hand with a brush in it; and moving his thumb up and down the brush. He swayed from side to side; stepped back, stepped forward in a ridiculous swaying dance. Every so often, when he stepped back, he bumped into a cupboard and gave himself a fright. Finally, after about five minutes, he stepped up to the canvas and put a tiny cross near the middle of it.
Then he went through the same ridiculous performance all over again; rubbed out the cross he had made with a filthy turpsy rag, and put in another cross about a quarter of an inch to one side.
Simon looked at the canvas. It was nothing like a nuddy magazine. It was a maze of small triangles – blue, green, pink, yellow – that seemed to have nothing at all to do with the huge bulges of Mrs Meegan. Until he looked at Mrs Meegan again, and saw she was sort of funny-coloured. The backs of her thighs were yellow, like tallow. And her shins were bright pink from the heat of the electric fires. And the fold on her back where her bra-strap went was a kind of green . . .
It was not at all sexy. Simon felt flat as a pancake. He started to climb down; and then Joe saw him.
They stared at each other through the glass. Joe didn’t look at all guilty. He looked bloody furious, as if someone had jogged his arm when he was writing. He gestured to Simon to get down; as if Simon was a nasty little beetle that had crawled out of a crack in the tree-trunk. Simon went on sitting where he was; settled himself quite deliberately. He was not a beetle. He had a perfect right to sit in any tree he chose. He was not going to be pushed around any more. He had a right to be somewhere.
Joe said something to Mrs Meegan, and Mrs Meegan got down off her box, vanished behind a screen, and reappeared in a maroon silk dressing-gown with a fag stuck in the corner of her mouth.
But she didn’t look out of the window. She sat down and began massaging the sole of one foot, which was nearly orange in colour. Then Joe began showing her something in a magazine. But every so often he would glance across at Simon and make silent furious gestures for Simon to get down.
Then Simon got it.
If Mrs Meegan knew he was there, she wouldn’t half raise a stink. Probably flounce out of the house and never come back. Leaving Joe stuck with a half-finished painting.
Great. Simon went on sitting and glaring. That would teach Joe Moreton what it felt like to be helpless; to have the thing you wanted most in the world torn away from you.
Joe went on wandering around the studio, picking up things and putting them down again in a bigger and bigger tizzy. Mrs Meegan went on reading the magazine, till her fag burnt right down. Then she stubbed it out, and began reluctantly to take off her dressing-gown. Her breasts were huge, pendulous and faintly purple. Now she would know who was at the awkward age; cheeky, thinking they knew it all . . .
But Joe shook his head violently at Mrs Meegan. She put her dressing-gown back on. Joe pointed downstairs and she went.
Victory. Where it hurt most.
Joe picked up a big sketchbook and came to the window. Simon waited for the big, big shouting; the feeble, impotent gestures of rage. Joe Moreton would look ridiculous, like a politician on the telly with the sound turned off. Instead, Joe Moreton’s eyes were no longer screwed up in agony; just cool and assured. Like the day he drew the Headmaster. Swiftly, surely, cruelly.
Simon held his position for twenty long shuddering breaths. But all the time he could imagine the savage scribbled shapes that Joe was putting down. He put out his tongue; put up two fingers, screamed insults. But Joe just drew the tongue, the fingers, the shouting mouth. Joe Moreton making his spider’s web network of lines, and Simon was the poor buzzing fly caught inside them. Joe Moreton was eating him alive. Then he would spit out the bits for other people to laugh at.
Simon leapt from the tree in one wild reckless leap. Landed in a patch of stinging nettles that old Mercyfull had somehow missed. Must have dropped twelve feet. He ran for the kitchen door.
Mum looked terrified; Mrs Meegan, cup in hand, merely startled. Mum caught him by the arm as he started to push past. ‘Simon! What’s the matter? Simon!’
‘Let me go. He’s drawing me! He’s drawing me!’ He ran for the stairs. Mum ran after him. And Mrs Meegan, cup still in hand. He flung open the studio door.
‘That’s not me. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not!’
All the adults burst out laughing.
‘The spitting image,’ said Mrs Meegan. ‘Mr Moreton, I take my hat off to you. How’d you do it, sir?’
Simon ran across and pulled the drawing off the wall. The drawing-pins spattered on the floor and rolled away across the lino. Then he tore the drawing across, and tore it again and again, then dropped the pieces. They lay across the floor and his feet like confetti at a wedding.
‘Simon,’ said Mum. ‘That picture was worth a hundred pounds.’
‘I don’t care. It was me. He stole me.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Joe Moreton. ‘He hasn’t really torn it up. It’s still in my head and he can’t tear that up.’ And, very pale, he picked up his sketch-pad and began to draw again. The crook of the apple tree.
‘Please, Joe,’ whispered Mum. ‘Please don’t.’
‘If it’s a lie,’ said Joe, ‘it won’t hurt him. Lies don’t hurt. And if it’s the truth, it’s about time he knew it.’
The little figure with the upraised fingers began to appear again, in the bough of the apple tree; amidst the swift spiderwork of pencil-lines.
‘Please, Joe!’ said Mum desperately.
‘I’ve tried to please,’ said Joe. ‘And where has it got me? If he wants a fight . . . maybe it’s better out than in.’
The mouth appeared, a loathsome triangle; and the outstretched tongue.
Simon flung himself on the sketch-pad, but Joe was ready. A large hand thumped flat-palmed into Simon’s chest, and held him at arm’s-length while he flailed ineffectually.
‘Children these days,’ said Mrs Meegan, still slurping her coffee with gusto. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’
Simon fled. He walked and walked till three in the afternoon. When he got home, Joe Moreton was still painting Mrs Meegan. Simon could see the flicker of his blue shirt through the big studio window.
Mum was waiting in the kitchen. She got up and gave him his dinner from the oven. There was a glass dish over it, heavily steamed up, and the food inside was glued to the red-hot plate with dried-out gravy.
‘Simon, I want to talk to you . . .’ said Mum.
He listened in silence, prising up bits of meat with the point of his knife and chewing them without tasting a thing. In the end he promised not to go near the studio; to stop provoking Joe; to behave like a civilized human being.
She talked to him very gently; but it was a fake. He answered very gently, and that was a fake, too. It didn’t matter. It was too late anyway.
When he had come home from his walk, he had seen the scarecrows.
They were halfway across the turnip field.
SIXTEEN
He crouched by the pond in the middle of the garden, watching the goldfish, the big red goldfish rise and sink through the muddy green water. They were fat, with smooth curving sides. Like Mrs Meegan. Smug. So sure of themselves and their safe muddy world. He could have killed them easy; punctured their smooth sides with one prod of the sharp-snapped stick in his hand.
But he couldn’t be bothered. It was too late for that. Too late for anything but to let it happen.
Let what happen? He couldn’t even begin to guess. Except this morning the scarecrows were nearer; and he could feel them stronger inside his mind. He could feel each one separately now.
The young miller. Thumped at school every day, till he ran home blubbing. To a father who rubbed his face in the dirt even when he was a grown man. Then he got power; money and a big fast car and a pretty wife. He and his wife in the dark, making noises.
But not real power. Trying to buy friends with drinks, and always knowing they were laughing behind his back, even while they were drinking his drinks. And his pretty wife with another man, helping to steal him blind. And then death, down and down in the black water, round and round in the choking mill-wheel. And still his wife and the other man, making the animal noises above him, even when he was dead. And still the miller’s voice squealed desperately, ‘I am the greatest.’ Knowing it was never true.
And he felt Josie Cragg. You’ve got to have a good time, haven’t you? While you’re young and still got your looks. You’re entitled, aren’t you? You got to be free, free from slobby hands groping you every single night. Great fat weight crushing your life out. But all you get’s another drunk – and he runs off and leaves you. I’m entitled to more than that. Entitled . . . entitled . . . entitled . . .
Then Starkey; Starkey was unmentionably worst of all.
He fled from Starkey, back to the others . . .
But all three were hungry . . . to live again. They had lived on their own hate for thirty years, and it was a thin, bitter, unsatisfying thing. Like endlessly drinking vinegar because there was nothing else.
The dead, Simon knew now, were always hungry. And they felt entitled.
They were coming to prey on the fatness of the living. And he, Simon, had opened the larder door and it could never be closed again. Nothing could stop it happening now. He just didn’t know how it was going to happen, that’s all. He just had to wait.
But it made him jumpy. Like a big storm coming up. He glanced at the sky. There was a film of dirty cloud all over the sky, like thin soup. With patches of failed yellow sunlight like patches of grease floating in the soup. And thicker darker clouds inside the soup, coming and going like the goldfish in the pond.
Joe Moreton was painting in his studio. No Mrs Meegan today; the light wasn’t right. Joe had the electric light on up there.
Mum was in the kitchen, with both the light and radio on. As if she, too, couldn’t bear the approaching silence that closed and closed. The tinny weak voice of the radio just made the silence seem more silent.
Jane was hanging out of her bedroom window. She saw him look at her and called, ‘Simon, Simon,’; voice as irrelevant as a bird’s. He didn’t bother to answer, or even wave. She was irrelevant. He thought of all the nasty tricks she’d ever pulled; all the tales she’d told. Little blackmailer . . . But it didn’t matter. Only the waiting mattered.
How would it come? That was the unbearable bit . . . waiting.
Only the silence, the anger, the hunger, getting worse. Till he felt his head would split.
He heard a bus pull up at the road-junction nearby. The throbbing of its engine felt like a terrible impertinence against the silence; like a boy telling a dirty joke in class, when he hasn’t heard the Head coming up silently behind him. Get away, bus. This has nothing to do with you. You are blameless, bus. Get away quick, if you know what’s good for you.
Obediently, the bus drove off. But now there were feet coming along the road. Impudent feet, silly feet, not caring the danger they were in. Feet that stopped and looked at something; feet that gave a skip of glee. Feet that went with a thin, high, carefree whistle.
The scarecrows’ anger grew yet more terrible. Simon hunched close to the ground, rocking, rocking.
‘Hallo, you silly sod. What are you up to?’ said a voice. A bean-shaped face grinned at him over the front gate. A shock of black hair, sticking up all over the place.
Tris la Chard.
The hate of the scarecrows cracked like a glass bell-jar, shattered. It was like a flash of lightning in his brain. One minute it was there; next minute it was far off. The clouds moved their own separate ways; a bird sang about its business; a little wind blew through the grass. The whole world seemed to get up, shake itself and get on with things. Like an electric train-set at the end of a power-cut. Simon got up and shook himself too.
‘How do you open
this bloody gate? People put handles in such daft places.’ Tris came through, and gave a jump and a wriggle that dumped his rucksack onto the grass. ‘That thing makes me feel like a carthorse. Pity the humble carthorse. Goldfish?’ He crouched by the pond. A goldfish rose and waved its fins, mouthing water. Tris stuck a hand each side of his own head in imitation and waggled them in pouffish fashion, opening and closing his mouth in rhythm. ‘Oh, get off, honky-tonk!’ The goldfish, as if offended, wriggled its tail and vanished. Tris wriggled his hips and said, ‘I must go and see Everard. Nobody appreciates a poor goldfish.’
Simon laughed, for the first time in a week.
Mum looked out of the window, waved, and came hurrying across the lawn wiping her hands on a tea-towel, all smiles. Her eyes were glowing warm again. Jane waved anew from the window. ‘Tris-is. Triiiii-iiiiis! Come and frighten me. I like it when you frighten me.’
Summoned by all the racket, Joe emerged, paintbrush in hand.
‘How do you do?’ said Tris, shaking hands with the paintbrush.
Tris dumped his rucksack on the other bed in the attic.
‘Thanks for inviting me. Even if you couldn’t be bothered to write yourself. I can just do with a fortnight away from bloody tomato plants. This time of year, Jersey is just one great tomato jungle. To be cleared by yours truly, along with every tramp and layabout on the island. Honestly, there’s nothing so depressing as a mile of tomato plants when all the tomatoes have been picked. All yellow and slimy and your hands turn black, and the pong . . . I haven’t been able to face a tomato since I was four. One milligram of tomato-sauce gives me the galloping migraines.’
Simon saw it all now. Cunning old Mum. Tris was the guy she had got in; the one guy who could deal with Simon.
Simon didn’t mind; he would quite like to be dealt with.
Scarecrows Page 13