Scarecrows

by Robert Westall

  Then, suddenly, the cat was round his feet; rubbing against his legs. He knelt and gave her the dish. She sniffed cautiously, then fell to eating with a fearsome silent determination, ploughing her nose through the brown heap, swallowing in huge gulps. All her long hunger in her eating.

  He tiptoed away up the steps and signalled Mum, not wanting to shout for fear of scaring the cat. Mum was crouched on the dam wall, staring at the water; but she saw his wave straight away. Together, they watched the cat lick the stainless steel dish back to spotlessness.

  ‘Give her the other tin,’ said Simon. ‘She’s still hungry.’

  ‘No. It would kill her. She has to get used to eating again.’ Mum stroked the cat’s back gently, aghast at the knobs on its spine. ‘You saved her just in time, Simon. I wonder if we can have a look at her foot? Do you think she’ll let us?’

  The cat had begun to wash her face.

  ‘I think so,’ said Simon. ‘It looks pretty swollen. Shall we take her to the vet? What about the kittens?’

  Just then came a loud continuous noise from the dam wall above. An all-too-familiar noise. Jane doing her baby-act. ‘Ooh, look, Joe. It’s like a jungle. A real jungle. You be a nellephant, Joe. You’re the nellephant and I can ride on your back an’ we can go shooting tigers. The cat can be the tiger. But you’re big an’ strong. You’re not afraid of tigers, are you, Joe?’

  The cat looked up in alarm. Simon grabbed for her, but she was gone with painful leaps into the depths of the long grass.

  ‘Shit!’ said Simon, looking up at the dam wall with hate.

  ‘She’s only little, Simon.’

  ‘She ought to have more sense.’

  Joe clumped down the steps with ponderous care, Jane on his back. She was waving a frond of cow-parsley with one hand, and clutching Joe round the head with the other. The remains of Joe’s hair was standing up like a pathetic brush. His blue shirt, open to his hairy navel, was dark and wet under both arms; he was sweating like a big fat pig, and his paunch hung out. Jane let go of his head, and swung the cow-parsley at Simon with both hands.

  ‘There’s the tiger, Joe. Bang! He’s dead. Good nellephant.’ She shot Mum too, for good measure. The pair of them looked bloody ridiculous.

  Joe put Jane down. She dug her fingers hard into his shoulder; but he didn’t flinch. He straightened up, brushed his hair back into place, looked at Mum and said, ‘What goes, then?’

  ‘We got a tin of steak down her. I think she’s gone to feed her kittens.’

  ‘You scared her off,’ said Simon, looking at nobody. ‘You scared her off, making all that stupid noise. You should have known . . .’ He nearly added ‘You big fat ape,’ but Mum said, ‘Simon!’ warningly.

  ‘Oh, she’ll come back,’ said Joe. ‘Now she knows where the food is. She won’t snuff-it overnight, not with a tin of steak inside her.’

  ‘Her foot’s hurt,’ shouted Simon, at the mill door if anywhere. ‘It’s swollen. It’s probably septic. She might get gangrene. She might lose her foot. She might die.’

  ‘We’ve done all we can for now,’ said Mum, with determined lightness.

  ‘This is a curious building,’ said Joe, sounding as real as a three-pound note. ‘I’d noticed the roof, but I’d no idea what it was . . . interesting. A water-mill—’

  ‘No – it’s a yoghurt factory, actually.’

  ‘Simon! One more word . . . one more word!’

  Simon shrugged, still staring at the mill door.

  ‘Must have a look at this,’ said Joe. Like he owned the bloody mill too. He forced back the door with clumsy shoves and went in.

  ‘Oooh, Joe, isn’t it creepy. I’m scared.’ Jane was back in his arms again, loving every minute of it.

  Joe looked round, eyes suddenly sharp. Seemed to be listening. In that mood, he looked different. You had to admit it. Like a dog that sees a rabbit. Suddenly you didn’t notice his yobbish flab. He frowned; then actually shivered. ‘I don’t care for this place much. Odd vibes . . .’

  ‘Just an old mill,’ said Simon. Glad that Joe was scared of it. Yellow ban-the-bomb pacifist. Pacifists were scared of everything. That’s why they were pacifists. No guts.

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ said Mum.

  Joe picked at the newspaper on the table. But it just fell into tinier and tinier bits, crumbling under his big sausage fingers. Simon didn’t enlighten him. He laughed when Joe picked up the Swan Vestas box and it fell apart again. It was Joe’s fault now.

  Joe opened the door into the mill proper and they all followed silently, hesitantly; Simon last. The same cold smell, the same draught; and darkness – until Joe forced open one of the slatted windows, letting in light and a gust of warm air. Now you could see that the mill was just one huge room, three storeys high. No ceiling, just rafters and the underside of roofing-flags, cemented with rough blobs to keep out the wind. The rafters were hung with looping drapes of cobweb, that billowed like silk curtains in the sudden breeze.

  Inside that dim cavern had been built a whole hamster-cage of heavy wood. Huge vertical posts a foot thick; whitewashed, but the whitewash had flaked off and the flakes hung trapped in more cobwebs, spinning wildly now. The posts had been eaten into; small holes of woodworm, bigger holes of death-watch beetle; gnaw-marks where something bigger still had been at them, a squirrel or a rat perhaps. Between the vertical posts were platforms and staircases and handrails. Huge wooden wheels stood vertical and horizontal, like the works of a giant clock, cogs still black with grease. And loops of rope and grey canvas drive-belts soared up to the ceiling, like in a church belfry or sailing ship.

  Nervously, they trooped upwards. Each tread of the staircases was worn down to a knife-blade by the passing of feet. But only on one side; the other side of each tread was good and square. The treads were worn alternately on the left and right. Simon could imagine the miller nipping round his wooden cage, practised as a hamster; always putting the same foot on the same stair: left, right, left, right. It made Simon feel very close to the miller; as if he was the miller, working his mill. The miller must have known every inch of the mill; so well that he could work it in the dark. The handrails were chalky, with worm holes, but their edges and ends were rounded and blackly-greasy, from the palms of the miller’s hands.

  There were other signs of the miller, too; in one corner, a face-mask against flour-dust hung on a rusty nail, and a long brown apron with a loop of binder-twine on top to hold it round the miller’s neck. An old wicker chair, with an oilskin cape slung on it; nearby on a beam, a rusted ashtray full of fag-ends. That was where the miller would have taken his break. Joe tried to lift the oilskin, but it was stuck too close to the wicker; the marks of the wicker had pressed through. When Joe heaved, the oilskin tore.

  Clumsy elephant, thought Simon. How dare you! It doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to the miller.

  There was a soft creaking suddenly behind them, that made them all turn. But it was only the old grain sack, suspended over a trapdoor and swinging in the new draught the opening of the window had made. The blond strands of hemp fluttered limply and the canvas legs danced.

  ‘The trapdoor opens upwards only,’ said Joe Elephant Clever-cuts. ‘It’s for hauling sacks up.’ He went and stood on the trapdoor, which didn’t give way, even under his great weight.

  ‘How did they get sacks down then, big-head?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Didn’t have to,’ said Joe smugly. ‘The grain came up in sacks and went down through the grindstones and emerged at the bottom as flour.’ He pointed down through the open hamster-cage to where, on the ground floor, two chutes stood, one marked BRAN and the other FLOUR.

  They wandered down again. There were signs of the miller everywhere; hanks of binder-twine hung on nails, ready to tie the mouths of sacks; little rows of pencilled marks on the wall; four vertical strokes with a diagonal across, meaning five; five bags ground today. They walked on narrow gangways over pits of green darkness, where wheels glinted. Down to the bo
ttom cellar with its acid-sweet smell of bare damp soil; where a sack of grain had rotted and sprouted, and then withered and died. Where there was a row of spare wheels; whitewashed, but the rust had spread over it like a rash of red pimples.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Mum. ‘Give me sunlight. Let’s go home.’

  ‘It’s an amazing place,’ said Joe. ‘Wonderfully preserved.’

  ‘I wonder if it still works,’ said Simon dreamily. ‘I wonder how you start it up.’

  Joe caught him by the shoulder, roughly. Simon pulled back out of his grip with even more violence, making Joe say, ‘Sorry. But I’d better warn you now. I may not be much of a countryman, but I do know about water-mills. They are very frail things, even when they’re in working order.’

  ‘Frail?’ sneered Simon, looking at the foot-thick timbers.

  ‘Don’t underestimate the power of water,’ said Joe solemnly. ‘It’s possible even with a working mill to race it to pieces if you open the sluice too wide and let too much water in. This mill may look perfect, but it can’t have been used in years. Timbers eaten away, axles gone dry, wheels rusted. If you tried to start this mill without six months’ restoration, it could explode like a bomb.’ His stupid face was owlish with concern.

  ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ said Simon.

  Mum sighed loudly, in a way that meant storm-warnings.

  Outside, they looked for the cat, but she was nowhere to be seen. As they headed back across the turnip field, following the now all-too-visible trail, Mum said:

  ‘It’s weird. That marvellous old place just being allowed to rot. The National Trust should take it over . . . there can’t be that many left.’

  Joe stopped. ‘Funny. I’ve just remembered, when I was a little kid, the bigger lads would dare each other to go up to the mill and touch the door and run away again. I told my mother and she nearly went mad; got out her big black Bible and made me swear on it never to go near the mill. I can never remember her getting so upset; all white and chewing her lips. She scared me silly. But I was only a toddler – I didn’t even know where the mill was. For me, then, going to the village shop was like crossing the Sahara. And later I forgot. Well, now I’ve finally been there . . . but I doubt I shall go again.’

  And out in the mid-day sun, in the middle of the great field of turnips, Joe shivered again.

  Simon turned away, to hide the sneer on his face.

  EIGHT

  As soon as Simon finished breakfast, he set off back to the mill. Carrying the duffle-bag that hadn’t been unpacked since yesterday. It was OK. The rug inside was from their old home; and Mum’s first-aid kit. And a tin-opener was just a tin-opener; and a can of meat was just a can of meat, and a bottle of milk was just a bottle of milk.

  Nothing belonged to Joe Moreton.

  He went straight across the turnip field. Damn the vicar. He wasn’t about anyway. Probably down in Knutsford, lecturing kids that if they dropped a lollypop-stick in the road they would change Eternity.

  The clouds were low and heavy today; he thought he felt a spot of rain. It set him worrying about the cat. Would she come back if it rained? Were the kittens in a dry spot? He quickened his pace.

  But he needn’t have worried. She came running as soon as he descended the red steps. Hovered, watching his hands, bad paw held in the air in her anxiety for food. He wondered suddenly if she had been the miller’s cat. No, stupid. Cats only lived about sixteen years . . . But she might be a descendant of the miller’s cat. A great-great-great-great grand-daughter. Cats bred a new generation every year; thirty-two generations . . . not far short of a thousand years in human terms . . . only sixty-five human generations back to Jesus Christ.

  As he was thinking that, the rain came. Solid rods, slashing cruelly at the grass in the garden; making the long wild branches of the rose trees sag and swing alarmingly. He ran for the door, and left it open for the cat to follow.

  ‘Puss, puss, puss.’

  He got the tin of steak out on the table, and opened it, expecting any moment to feel the cat rub against his legs. She didn’t. He looked up, dish of food in hand. She was peering round the open door, but she wouldn’t come in.

  ‘Come on, you silly puss.’ He went to grab her, but she backed away into the garden. Already she was soaking, wretched.

  He went out and grabbed her. She came to his arms willingly enough, even purring. But when he tried to carry her inside, she went mad. He tried to hold her, but she flailed out with her claws, narrowly missing his eye in her panic. Finally, with a convulsive spring of unbelievable strength, she leapt over his shoulder and was free. She retreated a few yards; her fur was sleeked with wet now, making her look like a tatty walking skeleton. He rubbed blood off his cheek with the sleeve of his anorak.

  ‘You stupid cat.’

  She raised her hurt paw again, and cried piteously for the food.

  ‘All right!’ he shouted, and put the dish just inside the open door. Her nose twitched as she scented it. She came eagerly, then stopped right on the threshold. And would not cross it. He pushed the dish nearer; only half an inch inside. She tried to reach across and dab it with her swollen paw, but even the paw would not cross the invisible point where the door usually was. As if there were a pane of glass there, and she miaowing on the other side, like a cat he had once seen locked inside a shop window over a weekend. The rain was dripping off her now. He had never seen a cat in such a mess. In her weakened state she would catch pneumonia.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ He pushed the dish outside so violently, it tipped off the step and spilled onto the tramped grass. She fell on it as ravenously as a wolf. The rain belted bare spots of pink skin through her fur, but she never even seemed to notice. As she finished, he poured the cream off the milk among the last traces of meat in the dish, making a brown, coffee-like mixture. She scoffed the lot. When his milk bottle was half-empty, she left as suddenly as she’d come; but he noted carefully which way she went, from the waving of the grass. Round the far corner of the mill . . . When the rain stopped, he would go and find the nest where she had her kittens.

  Meanwhile . . .

  The mill was exactly the same. The box of Swan Vestas that Joe Moreton had spilled still lay on the table. Joe Moreton was afraid of the mill; Joe Moreton had said he wouldn’t come here again.

  Good. The mill was all his now.

  He looked at the coats in the corner. Had they moved in the semi-darkness, seemed to nod agreement? Or had they just swayed in the endless draughts?

  All right, he said, nodding at the coats. The mill is ours now. Then he shook himself, as if he’d been silly . . . But if Joe Moreton had his rotten Buddha-museum, the mill was bigger, grander. Full of new sounds; patter of rain on the stone-slab roof, far away. Tiny gurgle of water from the water-spouts like faceless gargoyles, high up in the walls. Somewhere in the main part of the mill a window was banging in the rain-wind. The window that Joe Moreton had opened as if he owned the place; then left open carelessly. Simon went through the door to shut it.

  Yesterday’s footprints lay clear in the flour-like dust. His own, with ribbed soles; Mum’s pointed ones; Jane’s little ones; Joe Moreton’s elephantine ones. He walked round wiping out Joe’s footprints with a twist of his foot, wherever he could find them.

  The vertical main drive-shaft caught his eye, with the great grinding millstone at the bottom. An octagonal oak pillar, with a huge wooden cog fastened horizontally across the top. Struts went up from the shaft to support the cog; diagonally, like the diagonal strut on a gallows. But he was far more interested in the way the cog fitted into the next cog, which fitted into the next shaft, which had another cog . . . He began to understand how the mill worked. Understanding, he climbed slowly upwards to the very top platform.

  There, he found a big wooden lever; whitewashed below, but rounded and black above, with the grease of the miller’s hand. He put his hand to it; it fitted his hand so perfectly, like a sword he’d once picked up in the Tower of London
and been told off for. Something made him pull the lever gently towards him. It seemed the thing to do, somehow.

  There came a faint sour-sweet smell: the smell of rain hitting dry summer dust; a smell he’d always loved. It came from a long wooden trough running past him. As he looked, the floor of the trough changed from rough wood to shining blackness.

  Water was running into the mill. All over, different sounds of rushing waters, like little waterfalls.

  Then the noise of a dustbin being rolled by bin-men, right beneath his feet. A dustbin two inches thick . . .

  Then tong . . . tong . . . tong tong tong tong tong – a noise like a boy rattling an iron bar along iron railings.

  The whole mill began to vibrate gently up through the soles of his training-shoes.

  Entranced, he moved about. The sounds changed as he moved. Went deeper. Roaring, like a lion, chained up underground. Water going shee-shee-shee, like a heart beating. Rumbles like indigestion inside his own body, so deep-down were they. Again, shee-shee-shee, like the blood pounding in his own ears.

  But the mill didn’t run evenly, like a vacuum cleaner. It varied like a living thing. In the long wooden trough, the water surged deep for a few seconds, then shallow again. The machinery would run quietly for a while, then break out with a violent chatter of gears. Even the quiet-and-loud patches were never quite the same length. You could never get used to them; you had to listen carefully for every change, because it was new.

  You could go on listening forever. He wandered slowly down the narrow stairs and gangways, over the throbbing pits. It was like being inside a clock. Segments of wheels turning in the grey light from the still-open window; then spinning off into pitch darkness. The thick grease on the cogwheels was like blue-black butter.

  The inside of a great drum, with a dozen drummers playing, loud and soft, near and far. But the biggest drummer was still lower, beneath his feet.

  Down, down, he went. To where the brick of the walls sweated. And the white roots of plants pushed down through the brick arch overhead; tried vainly to curl back up, back into the brick from whence they came; but they never would, they’d just hang helpless forever in the dark. The only homely thing was the lettering on the bricks, which said the name of a firm in Manchester.