Fire-Raiser

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘She’s your fancy lady, teacher. Out of my way.’ He led the rush up the path. They knocked Hedges down and trampled on him. They burst through the front door, jamming in it, tearing at each other to go first. A baying and a yelping came from them. Hedges lay on the ground, with blood on his face. He struggled to his knees. Phil and Noel arrived, in their uniforms. ‘Are you all right, Sir?’

  ‘Yes. Stay back.’

  Cries of rage came from the house. Windows burst out from inside. And Marwick’s bull voice roared, ‘A Hun piano!’ The French doors exploded into the garden. There he stood, one arm raised, silhouetted in the light. Then he seized the curtains and tore them down and flung them backwards into the room. ‘This way,’ he yelled, ‘bring it out.’ Men heaved the piano through the door. They crashed it on its back and rolled it like a boulder in the flower beds. Hedges started forward, but Wix came panting round from the back of the house, ‘They’ll tear you to bits. She’s safe. She’s in the bakehouse with Kitty and Irene.’

  Ray Stack’s father came running through the house with an axe from the garden shed. He attacked the piano with it, chopping like an axeman at a fair. The black wood splintered and sprang in yellow chips. The brass letters of the name popped out, keys flew like snapped-off teeth, wires jangled. Marwick had vanished into the house. He reappeared, huge in the broken doors. He held a bottle high in his hand, as though he meant to swig from it. Then he lurched down through the flowers, broke through the yelling men, shoved Ray Stack’s father aside. He tipped the bottle up and liquid ran down in a silver stream and splashed on the piano. He held the bottle until it was empty, then threw it backhanded at the house, where it smashed on the wall. He took a box of matches from his pocket and gave it a manic rattle. Then he struck one and threw it on the piano. Flames leaped up and licked him. To Noel and Phil he seemed to stand in the middle of them. His hands ran over his skull, feeling for something. Flames leaped redly in his eyes. It seemed as though the inside of his head was on fire.

  Chapter Eleven

  Girlie’s Hole

  Morning. A bird was singing. And that, Wix thought, as he stirred the charred remains of the piano with his foot, shows there’s still a bit of good sense in the world. Boards were nailed in the shape of a St Patrick’s cross over Frau Stauffel’s French doors. Broken glass lay in the trampled flowers. But the thrush swelled her speckled breast and shouted happily. Wix yawned, after his shortened sleep. If he were a bird, he thought, he too would sing on this lovely morning, in spite of the human nastiness of the night.

  Hedges and Sergeant McCaa came out the front door. Hedges closed it, locked it with a key.

  ‘I gave them what-for,’ McCaa was saying. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘As long as Jobling stays in Wellington where he belongs. Are you charging anyone?’

  ‘That might come back on Mrs Stauffel.’

  Hedges agreed. ‘Marwick was ringleader.’

  ‘I’m keeping an eye on him. For other reasons,’ McCaa said.

  ‘He’s certifiable,’ Wix said.

  ‘He knows I’m watching him. There’ll be no more fires.’ McCaa got in his car and drove away. Hedges and Wix strolled up the street.

  ‘I wish I was that confident,’ Hedges said. ‘Lotte all right?’

  ‘She’s taking it well. She’d like to see you. She can stay as long as she likes, you know. We’ve got the room. Although young Irene Chalmers is coming tonight.’ Wix grinned at Hedges. ‘O! when degree is shaked.’

  Hedges laughed, and said, ‘If I know Lotte, she’ll want to get back home and start cleaning up. There’s something else you might help me with, though…’ They strolled along past the hall, talking of it.

  In the Wix kitchen Kitty and Noel and Frau Stauffel were eating breakfast. ‘Outside in the street, Walpurgisnacht – Witches sabbath – but Irene and Kitty – two angels.’

  ‘She was more like a devil with that fork,’ Noel said. ‘You should see the bruise on my ribs where she poked me.’

  ‘That’s enough, Noel,’ Mrs Wix said. ‘More porridge, Mrs Stauffel? There’s plenty in the pot.’

  ‘I am fat enough. You are spoiling me.’ She held out her plate and Mrs Wix ladled porridge in. ‘In München – in Munich – where I was born, the pastry shops, the lovely torte…Perhaps I should not talk of German things?’

  ‘It might be wise,’ Mrs Wix said.

  ‘If there’s pastry shops. Dad would like to go there,’ Kitty said.

  Voices sounded in the hall and Wix came in. ‘I’ve brought Tom Hedges to see you, Mrs Stauffel. You’ll find him in there, in the sitting room.’ He winked at his wife when Frau Stauffel had gone. ‘Any of that porridge left for me?’

  Kitty had finished. She excused herself and went to her bedroom, but stopped beyond the sitting-room door, which was ajar, and peered through the crack. Hedges and Frau Stauffel were by the window.

  ‘It’s not as bad as I thought,’ Hedges said. ‘There’s things broken in the parlour. The busts.’

  ‘Barbarians!’ Frau Stauffel exclaimed.

  ‘Mozart’s all right. A chip off his ear. Beethoven’s in pieces. I can’t sort him out from Brahms.’

  ‘They are the Huns. They are Visigoths.’

  ‘The French doors are gone. And some windows broken.’ Kitty saw him take Frau Stauffel’s hands. ‘As for the piano – I’m sorry, Lotte.’

  ‘It does not matter. I shall buy another. They did not burn my fingers.’ She freed one hand and touched the bruise on his face. ‘And Thomas, now I shall marry you. Because I am not afraid. And you are not. And that is why. Today I shall go home and clean my house. For us to live in when we are der Mann und die Frau.’

  Kitty watched, breathless, but then she felt a stinging slap on her bottom, and half an hour later, at school, it was still sore.

  ‘She kissed him,’ she told Irene.

  ‘Where? On the cheek? On the mouth?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell. Mum caught me. She gave me a whack. It’s just as well you’re staying tonight or I’d get another.’

  ‘Fancy kissing someone as ugly as Clippy.’

  Hedges was approaching along the footpath. ‘Good morning, Mr Hedges.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Hedges,’ Kitty sang. They beamed at him.

  ‘Good morning, girls.’ He looked at them suspiciously and went on.

  ‘If he marries Frau Stauffel she’ll be Mrs Hedges. I’ll be able to go back for piano lessons,’ Irene said.

  ‘She’ll still be German. I’ll bet people will start calling him Herr Hedges.’

  Meanwhile, Hedges reached the gate and stopped to talk to Phil, lounging there. ‘Ah, Phil! I’ve had a letter from your father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Phil said. He had been expecting this.

  ‘He’s keen on college. Wants you to have a proper chance.’

  Phil nodded glumly.

  ‘As for somewhere to stay – I’ve been talking with Mr and Mrs Wix.’

  ‘Wix?’ Phil wasn’t sure he liked that.

  ‘Good people, Phil. They’ll make you clean your teeth, eh?’

  ‘How long will I stay?’

  ‘Two or three weeks. Then I’ve got another idea.’ He looked sly. ‘I’ll tell you later. Somewhere I think you’ll do well.’

  Probably with some parson, Phil thought, although Hedges didn’t like parsons much. ‘When do I go?’

  ‘Tomorrow night. One more night in your old house, eh? Noel can help you shift.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Late.’ He pointed. ‘Bell. Go on, Phil. We’ll talk later.’

  Phil trotted off. Then he ran, and climbed the stairs to the belfry. He threw a glance at Miss Perez’s cupboard and crossed through the jumble of buckets and desks to a tiny fixed window in the wall. He rubbed away dust with his hand and looked at Hedges talking with children in the playground. Suddenly he knew where he would be going after the Wixes, and it frightened him. He gave a groan. As if he had heard, Hedges looked up at the belfry. He pulled out his watch agai
n. Phil jumped for the rope and gave a tug. The bell pealed out.

  The classroom buzzed that morning. The children could not stop talking of the pageant and the attack on Frau Stauffel’s house. The purple bruise on Clippy’s cheek kept it all alive. Then Mrs Bolton came in and Clippy stood at the window with his back to her while she talked to the class.

  ‘Quiet! Quiet children! I know you’re excited. Last night was a most unusual night, but I want to say how pleased I am with you – apart from those who were late.’ She looked at Phil. ‘You played your parts beautifully. Irene, you did very well. And Noel and Kitty.’

  ‘Phil was good, Mrs Bolton,’ Noel said.

  ‘Don’t interrupt. I came to say thank you, on behalf of the Belgian Relief Fund. The evening was a very great success. I’m sure Mr Hedges agrees with me.’

  Hedges turned from the window. ‘The singing was good. And some of the acting not too bad. If it hadn’t been for a stupid speech from our MP –’

  ‘Mr Hedges!’

  ‘A stupid speech. And then a gang of bully boys attacking a woman who had never done them any harm –’

  ‘You can’t blame patriotic feeling.’

  ‘I blame stupidity, Mrs Bolton, but it’s done with. And you children did very well. Especially those who tried to help Frau Stauffel. Now, we’ve lost a lot of time in the last few weeks, and we’ve got swimming this afternoon so, unless you’ve got something you want to say, Mrs Bolton?’

  ‘No thank you!’ She went out stiffly.

  Hedges sighed. He would have more trouble with her, and probably with the Committee and the Board. They might even try to get rid of him when he married Lotte – but he felt complacent about that. He was angry, but satisfied with himself. The children though needed calming down. He made them take their books out and worked them hard for the rest of the morning.

  After lunch, walking to the river, Phil told Noel about coming to live with him. They grinned at each other, both hoping it would be all right. Noel hoped someone would tell Phil to have more baths. Phil wondered if he would be able to help Mr Wix bake pies again.

  The girls turned off to Girlie’s Hole. Hedges and the boys went over the bridge and up the riverbank, past the ‘No Trespassing’ sign lying in the blackberry, and came to Buck’s Hole. At the house, Marwick watched them vanish in the scrub beyond the paddocks. He raised his arms and flexed his forearms. Since last night at the German woman’s house he felt able to do things, and though the sight of Hedges and the boys angered him, he knew how to drive them off his land. He went into the house and down the hall and looked at his mother in the music room. She had been there all morning, talking with Lucy, and once he had heard her cry, ‘Don’t hide from me!’, but now she sat on the sofa with her eyes closed and a photo of Lucy in her lap.

  ‘Ma,’ he said, ‘you all right?’

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘Yes, Edgar, I’m all right,’ she said tiredly.

  ‘Those town kids are here again. In the river.’

  ‘River?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Ma. I’ll get rid of them. You stay here.’ He closed the door. His footsteps went away down the hall.

  ‘River?’ She stood up. The photo slid from her lap and fell on the floor, cracking the glass. She looked at it. Lucy’s face was dislocated. It trembled and sank; it was under water. Mrs Marwick gave a loud cry.

  Outside, Marwick strode through the yard. Axe, he thought, but then he caught sight of the crosscut saw lying across a pile of cut wood by the sawhorse. He changed course and picked it up without breaking stride and set off for the bush by the river.

  Hedges had tested the water. He called out the temperature and put his thermometer away. It was cold today. This might be the last swim of the season. ‘Boys for practice stroking, come with me, up on the grass. All you others in, and no horseplay.’ He led the non-swimmers up the bank. ‘All right, on your tummies. Point your toes. What’s the matter, Hankin?’

  ‘There’s ants here, Sir.’

  ‘Well shift somewhere else.’

  ‘Ow, there’s thistles.’

  Hedges gave them a bit of time. The ones in the pool were skylarking in spite of his order, but there was no point in expecting boys not to break the rules. He was more concerned to see they didn’t drown. He shouted at Phil to stop ducking people, then he turned back to the boys on the grass. But before he could start them stroking, he heard the rasp of a saw close at hand. He was so aware of Marwick, and the threat of Marwick, that he knew at once it had to do with him. He ran to the shingle.

  ‘Quiet, boys.’

  Their yelling stopped. The saw kept on, chuffing like a train. He spotted Marwick then, half hidden in scrub, with his arms moving back and forth. A shaking started in the head of the giant matai tree over the pool.

  ‘Marwick!’ he yelled. Then saw there was no time for argument.

  ‘Out! Run! This way!’ he yelled at the boys. ‘Out of the pool!’

  They scattered like chickens. A loud crack came from the tree, and Marwick cried, ‘Ha!’

  Hedges ran into the water to his waist. He grabbed a boy, the last of them, and dragged him out by his shoulder. The tree was falling. It blotted out the sky as it came down. Its head whacked the water and seemed to empty the pool. A wave two feet high washed over the shingle and sheets of water lashed at head and chest – but the boys were out. Hedges was out. He felt the top thin branch of the tree sting his heel. Then there was only the lapping of waves in the pool.

  Hedges pulled the boy to his feet. ‘Nothing broken?’

  ‘No, Sir.’ He was white and shivering.

  ‘Get dressed.’

  Noel and Phil ran up. ‘Are you all right, Sir?’

  ‘I’m all right. Get them all dressed. Back to school. Wait in the playground.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Sir?’

  ‘It’s time I had a word with Mr Marwick.’

  ‘He’s gone mad, Sir.’

  ‘Back to school.’ The boy was right, and George Wix was right: Edgar Marwick was certifiable. Hedges knew he should not go near him, but his own anger was too great for him to be sensible. He left the boys and went through the scrub and climbed the fence. He saw Marwick walking to his house, then leaning on the gate to the croquet lawn. He rolled a cigarette as Hedges approached, put it in his mouth and struck a match. The flame burnt down to his fingers. At the last moment he lit his cigarette.

  Hedges climbed another fence. He passed a patch of gorse in a hollow and came to Marwick at the lawn. Ten feet away, he stopped. Marwick did nothing. Smoke from his cigarette curled in his hair. He leaned on the gate with folded arms, then knocked some ash from his cigarette and spat a thread of tobacco from his tongue.

  ‘You could have killed someone, Mr Marwick.’

  ‘My land, Hedges. I can fell any trees I like.’

  They spoke in mild tones like men discussing the weather.

  ‘You can’t stop us using the river.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ He took his cigarette out and blew a smoke ring.

  Hedges smiled. It hurt the bruise on his face. ‘There’s another thing. I don’t like what you did last night.’

  ‘To your Hun lady, eh? What are you going to do about it, Hedges?’

  In answer, Hedges took off his jacket. He folded it and laid it on the ground. He unfastened his watch from his waistcoat and put it on top of the jacket. Then he faced Marwick. He put his left leg forward and doubled his fists and stood waiting. There was something comic in it, he knew, but he would not let himself think about it. He saw disbelief on Marwick’s face. It turned to greed. Marwick stubbed out his cigarette on the gatepost.

  ‘You want to fight me, Hedges? This’ll be good.’ He opened the gate and came through. His face grinned, he worked his shoulders, splayed his hands. He meant to hurt Hedges.

  Noel and Phil were watching from the gorse patch in the hollow. They had slipped away from the other boys, and crept across the paddocks out of sig
ht.

  Noel said, ‘Marwick’s too big. He’ll murder Clippy.’

  ‘Clippy knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘We should get the police.’

  ‘No,’ Phil said. He reached into the gorse and pulled an old fence baton free. ‘If he gets him down, I’ll bash him with this.’

  They both called a warning as Marwick attacked. Hedges did not need it. He stood his ground, faced Marwick, struck him in the face with his left hand, and stepped back. Marwick looked as if he had walked into a wall. He touched his mouth and brought his fingers away smeared with blood. He could not believe it. He gave a strangled shout and ran at Hedges. Hedges hit him with his left again, stood Marwick still, and crossed a short punch with his right and knocked him down. Marwick lay stunned on the grass. He raised himself on his elbow and looked toward Hedges with unfocused eyes.

  Hedges looked at his fists. He wiped them on his trousers. He blinked, as though waking up. ‘Perhaps that can settle it, Mr Marwick. I hope we can behave like adults now.’ He saw the heat rise in Marwick’s face, in his eyes, and he said, ‘Well, I’m sorry.’ He picked up his watch and jacket and walked away. Marwick, on his elbow, watched him go. He climbed to his knees. His fingers dug into his thighs. Whimpers of rage came from his mouth.

  Hedges walked down the road to the bridge. He saw Noel and Phil running in the paddock and waited for them.

  ‘I told you boys to go back to school.’

  ‘We thought you might need help, Sir.’

  ‘Did he get you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ Hedges was gruff.

  ‘You were great, Sir.’

  ‘Where did you learn to box?’

  ‘I used to spar with Young Griffo.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Never mind. I’m sorry you boys saw that. It won’t solve anything. It’ll make him worse.’

  ‘It makes you feel good, though,’ Phil said.

  ‘I feel like a crocodile.’ They crossed the bridge. ‘We’ll have to stop using the river.’