Scarecrows

by Robert Westall

  Well, he had to do something, go somewhere. He couldn’t just stand in the hedge all day, till Mum got organized and found him, and thought him a baby, hanging round waiting to be found.

  He’d have to walk all the way round the hedge to get to the roof. If he tried crossing the open field, they’d see him. He walked. Difficult. Some places he had to crawl under the hedge; even at one point into a ditch full of long grass and cobwebs full of dead insects that stuck to his face. Sometimes the hedge thrust out wide branches, forcing him out among the deep sandy furrows of the field, where his feet slipped and ripped wet skin off the turnips, increasing their smell. He kept getting pricked, and began to sweat. He took off his anorak and tied it round his waist. But it kept getting caught; and once, thrusting forward in a temper, he tore it. That upset him. The anorak was practically all he had left in the world. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with nothing.

  Finally, he decided going round the hedge would take all day. He must go straight across. Mill House was far off, now; the inviting roof nearer. He’d step carefully, so as not to harm the turnips.

  He hadn’t gone ten yards when a voice called, ‘Boy!’ making him jump a yard in the air.

  But it was nobody he knew. It was a vicar, peering through a gap in the hedge, from astride a bicycle with a basket on the front. The vicar wore a pale-grey linen coat and straw hat, the kind old men wear. He did not look particularly old; the few strands of his hair that showed were still dark and wavy. But he looked lifeless, as if he could never have laughed for the last forty years. There was an air about him that would stop you laughing anywhere near him. Yet though his brow was heavily wrinkled, he did not look particularly miserable. As if it was his job to stop people laughing, and he was good at it and rather enjoyed it.

  ‘Boy!’

  He went back reluctantly; the vicar had a voice like the masters at school.

  ‘Boy, what are you doing? That is not your field. Those are not your turnips.’

  ‘I was being careful.’

  ‘That is not enough. Can you guarantee that your foot will not slip once all the way across? That you will not harm one turnip?’

  Simon could only shake his head.

  ‘Then you are betraying a trust. That farmer bought his turnip seeds with his own money, which he earned with the sweat of his brow. He planted them with the sweat of his brow, and left them to grow, trusting all men that they would not harm them.’

  For God’s sake, thought Simon. What’s one or two broken turnip leaves? The farmer probably couldn’t give two monkeys. He mustn’t know how many he’s got. Nor care. He probably expects hundreds to be stolen or eaten by rabbits. You silly old goat . . .

  ‘Oh, you may say,’ continued the clergyman, ‘what does one leaf or one turnip or even a hundred turnips matter? But it does. If you destroy one leaf, can you remake it? The world is changed. You are changed, in a way you cannot know. Never a sparrow falls to the ground but is seen by your Father . . .’

  He’s nuts, thought Simon. But on careful inspection, the vicar didn’t look alive enough to be a dangerous nut. Not the sort that gives sweets to children. Just the sort who spends all day watching a turnip field, counting the leaves.

  ‘Now go your way in peace,’ said the vicar. ‘Be thankful you have been stopped in time. God be with you.’ And he pedalled away. He could have been a grey ghost, except that the cranks of his bicycle groaned for lack of oil.

  Perhaps your God cares about poor un-oiled crankshafts too, thought Simon. But he didn’t try to cross the field again; he knew the vicar’s sort: the sort that would try to catch you out a second time, and would hang around all day to do it.

  Wearily he began to work his way round the hedge again. Occasionally, he cast longing glances across at Mill House; not thinking about Joe Moreton, but about glasses of orange squash with ice, and a breakfast of bacon and egg. But the other roof was close, now, and the hole in it summoned him like a dark unblinking eye.

  He came to the great pond first; desperately thirsty. But the water wasn’t the kind you could drink. It lay at the bottom of a stone wall, six feet below Simon’s shoes. If you fell in, you could never climb out again. And the water was dark grey, as though somebody had mixed soot with it. Yet you could see down through it, in the bright sunshine, to dim beds of weed that had grey scum growing on them. The only cheerful thing was masses of tiny bright-green leaves floating on the surface, almost a mad yellow in the sun. But they only made the pond seem deeper, darker, dirtier.

  Further out were lily-pads – not well organised, but a wreck, a jumble of leaf-points sticking up like the bows of sunken ships. Further out again, a densely-wooded island. Two brown ducks swam round the island as Simon watched. Normally, ducks cheered him; fat, quacky and bright. But these looked furtive, as if they knew they shouldn’t be there. They soon vanished, bigger one in front.

  Simon walked along the massive wall, towards the strange roof. Funny, the roof came right down to the pond-wall. Must be a very low building . . . But as he reached it, he gasped. The ground suddenly dropped twenty feet. He was no longer standing on a wall, but on top of a dam. And the roof belonged to a water-mill, built against the dam. There was a huge water-wheel, red with rust. He ran down red stone steps into the garden in front of the mill.

  Only it was no longer a garden. It was a jungle. Rose trees extended long thin branches like bending fishing-rods, ten feet in the air. Laden with tiny white roses. The branches looked unsafe; waved wildly with every breath of air. There were poor grey lupins, too, desperately struggling not to drown in the engulfing sea of grass. Most of the grass was dead and rotting. Dead grass thrust up through dead grass, with the living grass just managing to push out of the top, a flicker of green.

  There was no pathway from the foot of the red steps, except the low tunnels wild things make. Nobody had come this way for a long, long time.

  Dead grass had grown halfway up the front door; a front door that didn’t really go with the rest of the mill. Modernish and painted a sun-blistered maroon, with two pebble-glass panels at the top. One panel was neatly broken, just above the lock. Not vandals. Somebody had broken the glass to get in; somebody who didn’t want to do more damage than he had to . . . The door opened inwards, but jammed halfway. Simon squeezed past.

  He was in a dim, whitewashed living room. Though the fireplace was only a black hole in the whitewashed wall, with rusty bars across to keep the coals from falling out, there was still ash in the grate. A bed stood in one corner, under the window. Just a brown mattress, with a pile of brown blankets neatly folded. Too neatly folded; folded by somebody who didn’t fold blankets every day. A wooden table, with a wooden chair pushed back from it. On the table, a stump of candle in a tobacco tin, Swan Vestas matches, a well-bitten pipe and a newspaper.

  Simon began to back out in embarrassment. This was somebody’s home. They might be back any moment. He remembered again the story of the Three Bears, and giggled. Who’s been sleeping in my bed? Then, abruptly, he stopped giggling. Somebody might be listening, beyond that far door . . .

  But the newspaper on the table drew him irresistibly; a Daily Mail. But surely the Mail was smaller than that these days.

  The headline said:

  stalingrad army wiped out

  The date was Monday, February 1, 1943.

  He grabbed it, and it crumbled to brown flakes under his hand.

  He stared round the dim room, wrinkling up his eyes in bafflement. 1943? But he knew somebody had just left the room. You could always tell when people had. You could feel their presence still. At home, when he found the house empty, he could always tell if Mum had just popped out, or been gone for hours.

  Then he knew somebody was watching him; from the left. He froze, between embarrassment and terror. He could not move his legs; only turn his head, straining to see out of the corner of his eye.

  There were three people, standing in the darkest place, watching him. They did not move either.
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  A big broad man – a woman – a smaller man . . .

  Then he laughed, shrilly. Because they were just old coats, hanging on pegs.

  He walked across and poked their flat damp emptiness. A dark blue raincoat – a grey tweed woman’s coat – a brown overall like ironmongers sometimes wore. And above them, completing the illusion of people, three hats hung: a rolled balaclava helmet, a brown felt woman’s hat and a check cap.

  Three different people, because the coats were all different sizes. A big man, a smallish woman, and a smallish man, but broad. He knew this because he suddenly had the irresistible impulse to try the coats on. Took them down off the wall, one after the other, careful not to tear them. Paraded up and down the room in them, though his skin crawled at their heavy mustiness. He even wore the hats as well, though their dampness made his scalp prickle. He giggled again; who’s been trying on my coat? He had never known himself act so silly. It must be the heat, and no breakfast.

  The woman’s and the small man’s coats were just a little too long for him; but the big man’s coat slithered along the dusty floor behind him as he walked. He hung everything back on the pegs, careful to put the right coat under the right hat, suddenly feeling he’d been terribly cheeky.

  But the inhabitants of the mill didn’t seem to mind. In fact the room seemed to get friendlier, homelier. He sat on the wooden chair, feeling weary. Fell into a daydream. They must be – must have been a wartime family . . . the miller’s family . . . mother, father and son. Going through the Battle of Britain together – only there hadn’t been much of a Battle of Britain in Cheshire. Now if this had been Kent . . .

  The big man in the blue coat would be the father, busy milling . . . the son would help him. The mother cooking bread from their own flour . . . at least millers wouldn’t have gone hungry in the war . . . setting snares for rabbits . . . he could almost smell new bread and rabbit stew – he liked new bread and rabbit stew. Cosy . . . a mum who stayed home and was always there when you needed her; a father around who you could help and ask questions.

  Tears pricked his eyes and he dashed them furiously away.

  Suppose the father had been killed in the war? But no – somehow from the coat you could tell he’d been big and fat, too old for a soldier. And all the coats looked equally ancient. Wherever the family had gone, they had left together on the 1st of February, 1943. Thirty-two years ago; a long, long time. He came out of his dream and remembered the grass growing up the front door, and the pathless garden.

  And who had broken the pane of glass in the door? Burglars? But it didn’t look as if they’d stolen anything, done any harm. Just folded up those blankets in that cold unnatural way. Burglars wouldn’t bother to fold blankets . . .

  He suddenly felt intensely protective about the mill and the family. And felt, in a funny way, the room respond. Nothing spooky; not spooky at all. It was just you could tell if a place or people like you or not. Simon could always tell when he was wanted.

  But if three people lived here – had lived here – why only one single bed? He got up and opened the door that must lead into the mill.

  Darkness, and a cold, cold smell; damp earth and slimy water and rotting plants: a graveyard smell. A draught came out of the dark, and went past him as he stood in the doorway. It stirred his hair and cooled all the sweat on his body. Every nerve said run, run.

  But Woods did not run; Woods headed straight for what they were afraid of. He braced himself against the fear, as if it were a wave of the sea, and when it passed, he stepped out gingerly into the dark.

  It wasn’t totally dark. As his eyes adjusted, he could see several rows of faint blue horizontal slits, set into the walls. And the blue light bounded round, picking out corners of great wooden wheels and axles. Only the mill machinery; nothing to be afraid of.

  Then he saw the blond man hanging; from a rope around his neck. Legs dangling, body swaying gently in the breeze that came out of the dark and passed through the door behind Simon. Simon felt his whole body go rigid; felt his knuckles go to his mouth; felt his teeth bite on them, bottling up a scream.

  Woods did not run. Father, he thought, and walked towards the hanged man.

  Touched him.

  And the moment he touched, everything changed shape. It was far too light to be a hanged man.

  A sack. Thirty-two years ago, the miller had hauled a sack of grain up on a hoist, and left it hanging, that last day. Over the years the sack had dampened, rotted, burst, spilling the grain on the floor. Now the burst bottom of the sack dangled down in rags, making the hanged man’s legs. And over the years, the rope had chafed half-through; two pale strands of frayed hemp hung loose, making the hanged man’s hair. And animals had come and eaten the grain lying beneath, leaving only a clotted black mess.

  So simple . . . But he still ran back into the living room and slammed the door on the mill; he wasn’t interested in the workings of the mill, he told himself.

  With the door shut, the living room closed round him, friendlier than ever. How light it seemed, how warm and dry on his skin. Simon went all floppy and giggly again. What’s wrong with me today?

  Nothing, said the living room; silly boy. Nothing to be afraid of in an old sack. He smiled and mooched lazily around. The Swan Vestas wouldn’t light; in fact the box fell apart in his hand. He felt bad about that, even if it had really been caused by the damp. He put the matchbox together again, and put it back on the table exactly where it had been, in the rectangular mark in the dust. It looked OK if you didn’t touch it. He didn’t want the family upset when they came back. Could they come back, after thirty years? Well, the son might . . .

  He mooched further, but there wasn’t much else. Just a piece of folded brownish paper under the bed. Someone had put a cluddering great foot on it, stamping it into a narrow dart.

  He unfolded it. It was a page torn from a report book; Cheshire Constabulary. The police must have come after whoever broke in. But all it said was On Monday morning, the 1st of Febuary. Then someone had realized they’d spelt February wrong, crossed it out and torn the page out of the book. The only odd thing was that the writing was a bit shaky; and blurred, as if something had been spilt on it. Simon smelt the stain. It smelt, very faintly, like sick; but after thirty years perhaps anything smelt like sick.

  A movement at the outside door made him jump. But it was only a large ginger-and-white cat peering in. He liked cats. He called, ‘Puss-puss-puss,’ but it stayed outside the door, miaowing a terrible complaint the way some cats do. So he had to go to it. It scampered away a few feet into the ruined garden, then fell into a limp. Something was wrong with its left forefoot. And it made no attempt to struggle, as he picked it up.

  He got another shock, then. It had looked so big and strong and clean, but it weighed no more than a feather. He could feel all the big bones under its too-loose bag of skin. He knew farm cats were lean, but . . . And it had two rows of big funny bumps along its belly.

  Suddenly he knew four things. It was a she-cat, and wild – lived by hunting. She was hurt, so she couldn’t hunt. And somewhere she had kittens. Were they starving too?

  He must get food, quick. Shops? He had enough money for cat food, but not enough for cat food and a tin-opener, and a pint of milk and to feed himself. And if he was not quick, she might be gone by the time he got back.

  Mum. Mum would help. He couldn’t stand that rotten centrally-heated Buddha-museum; but he didn’t hate it enough to let kittens die. And kittens were more important than rotten old turnip leaves. He ran straight across the turnip field. Maybe the vicar would see him, but if he ran straight for Mill House, Mum would deal with the vicar.

  SEVEN

  There was a green gate in the hedge between the turnip field and Mill House. He hung on it, panting, and just then Mum came out of the house. With her into-battle look on her face. Chin stuck out, wearing trousers and anorak.

  ‘Mum?’

  She whirled. Her eyes flamed blue. ‘Where the
hell . . . ?’

  He found the handle and went through the gate. ‘Mum, there’s a cat. She’s hurt . . . she’s starving . . . there’s kittens.’

  She took one look at his face, and postponed the telling-off. Later he’d cop it. But Mum always put first things first.

  He followed her into the kitchen. She swept round the shelves like a tornado, yelling questions over her shoulder. Snatched a stainless-steel dish, two tins of stewing-steak, a tin-opener from a drawer, a bottle of milk from the fridge, a rug from a chair, the first-aid kit from the top of the cupboard. All into a duffle-bag that was hanging on the door.

  ‘I’ll just leave a note for Joe.’ She reached for the scribble-pad that hung over the sink.

  ‘There’s not time!’ he yelled, suddenly jealous.

  ‘Joe’s out looking for you. I don’t want him going frantic about me as well. Won’t be a tick.’ She scrawled Simon back. Gone help hurt cat in mill across back field. Luv. Deb. Left it lying on the table and headed across the field, leaving the gate open. She strode straight across the rows of turnips without even bothering to look, leaving a bruised and battered trail and even kicking the odd unfortunate leaf high in the air. Simon wondered what the vicar would say. If, with Mum, he dared say anything.

  But Mum was making so much noise she’d scare the cat . . .

  Then she stopped on top of the mill-dam and opened the tin of steak. She gave it to him in the dish. ‘You go ahead, Simon. The cat knows you. Give me a call when you’re ready. I’ll wait here.’ She looked down at the pond. ‘Yuk!’ She lit a fag, screwing her eyes up, and threw the dead match into the water.

  He went down very quietly. Stopped by the still-open maroon door and called, ‘Puss-puss-puss.’ No answer. He called again. Still no answer. He went on calling, despair growing in his heart; staring down at the suddenly-useless mound of steak. A big fat fly settled on it. He brushed it off with a gesture of rage, close to tears.