Scarecrows

by Robert Westall

  Simon looked at him. His eyes were far away, cocked up somewhere into the sky. He droned on his set-piece as if he was a gramophone . . . he was like the people who came back from Granny’s funeral. All pretending to be jolly, and wondering who was next for the chop.

  Simon walked away, equally blind. For the first time he knew there was no hope at all.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘No bread left again,’ said Cosima. ‘And I’ve had to triple me order for fruit pies. Triple! I feel raped!’

  She cast her eyes around her shop; hand to haggard face. There wasn’t much on the shelves, apart from packets of disposable nappies, aerosols of instant starch, and some wizened apples looking very sorry for themselves.

  And although there was still some pleasure in Cosima’s voice when she said ‘raped’, there wasn’t much. She looked exhausted; a tiny nervous tic made her plucked eyebrow tremble. And she was resting on a high stool behind the counter, that had never been there before.

  ‘You kids,’ said Cosima. ‘What have you started?’

  Simon shrugged bad-temperedly. He hadn’t started anything. It was Tris la Chard and Joe Moreton, the Dynamic Duo.

  Discovering that Joe did own the mill, they had rung the local representative of the National Trust. Who happened to be a Knutsford architect. Who ummed, aahed, strode around the mill and declared it definitely thirteenth century (at least in the lower parts), which made it the oldest surviving water-mill in the country . . . And he whistled when he saw the cracks in the walls.

  ‘They’ve got worse recently, very recently,’ he pronounced.

  Apparently the situation was critical; a national treasure hung in the balance. Tris la Chard nodded intelligently, keeping his face absolutely straight.

  By the evening, there were three more architects crawling all over it, bickering about transome and architrave, Early English and Norman. Next day there were ten architects, including several from Manchester, and half the County Planning department. And the next day the big National Trust boys from London . . .

  But at least in the beginning, all the talk was of rescue work, conservation. Even when the Granada van pulled up by the house and technicians began paying out black cables across the turnip field. Followed quickly by their rivals from Look North. Everybody in the house crowded round the telly that night.

  It was unfortunate that Robin Smart, driven out of the mill by National Trust protests, chose to give his commentary against the background of the scarecrows . . .

  That was the first time They got into Mill House.

  Nobody seemed to notice, except Simon.

  And perhaps Tris la Chard, Simon thought, watching his inscrutable face in the flickering light from the screen.

  And Jane, who said proudly, ‘Those are our scarecrows!’

  But by the following day, some reporter on the Knutsford Guardian had dug up the old story of the murder at the mill. The day after that, the national press descended. It was a marvellous story for the Silly Season of August, when nothing else was happening. And on Sunday, the News of the World and The People made full-page spreads of the Murder at the Mill. There were smudgy war-time photos of the miller (whose name turned out to have been George Joseph Henshaw), glowering stubbornly out of page five, unsure of himself as ever.

  Josie Cragg lived again, with the collar of her grey tweed coat turned up and her legs crossed for the photographer’s benefit. Raising a glass of something or other, to a grinning U.S. serviceman.

  Starkey’s picture was from a police photograph; it made him look dead and decapitated. But worse, the closer you looked, the more it broke down into spots and patches of light and dark. You still couldn’t see the real Starkey, as you could see the real miller and the real Josie Cragg.

  There were reporters everywhere, digging up old grannies who’d been at school with Josie; or the miller’s first sweetheart. If it could be believed, the miller had fallen in love with a whole platoon of land-girls. And Josie’s class at the village school must have been full to bursting.

  But nobody had known Starkey.

  The TV vans came back again, churning the village green to pulp, and twice knocking over the small war-memorial. Mill House had been under siege; after two days Joe had forbidden anyone to give another interview, but none of them could go out into the garden without a flashbulb going off, and cameras clicking . . .

  ‘Rape!’ repeated Cosima, as a new customer came in, only to be turned away breadless. ‘Rape. I think they should knock that rotten old place down. And I wish someone would take those Great Nasty Things away.’ She meant the scarecrows, and there was a certain desperation in her voice.

  Simon drifted out to the sound of long explanations why there would be no more Arctic Rolls till the middle of next week. Went back to his own garden and looked over into the turnip field.

  The turnips had suffered. There was now a motorway of mashed turnip-pulp where the old path had been. For fifty yards on each side, the turnips were stripped of leaves, sticking mute white stumps into the air.

  How many gawping sightseers, how many landrovers, how many black cables transmitting power?

  Devastation everywhere, except where the scarecrows stood. They held their ground defiantly, unscathed. The footmarks went straight towards them, then circled left or right, giving them a wide berth. Somehow, no snaking cable had caught and toppled them; no turning van backed into them. They just stood, watching Mill House.

  And at night, when the vans had gone and the reporters were packing the pub, the scarecrows moved nearer. Each night they seemed to get more powerful. It was as if they were drawing power from the electric cables, the smell of diesel fumes; above all, from the fuss on telly. It was funny. Every telly-cameraman who came to the mill seemed to have his eye caught by them; would use up his last few feet of film on them, on his way back to the van and home. The news-editors obviously liked them too; they would suddenly appear in the last few seconds of any telly-coverage. But the announcer would never say anything about them. Only Jane would, as she compulsively watched every broadcast.

  ‘Those are our scarecrows.’

  Until Simon could have screamed.

  And the scarecrows got into the newspapers too, that now lay scattered by Jane all over the lounge floor, as she made her scarecrow scrapbook, under the flickering blue light of the telly.

  Oh, They were inside the house now, all right. More and more real all the time.

  What, thought Simon, had Tris thought he was doing, getting Joe to publicise the mill? Had he thought, by making it public property, to weaken its power, spread it to the four winds? Had he hoped to ‘blow’, to expose the scarecrows as if they were enemy spies?

  Well, it hadn’t worked. They’d thrived on it.

  On the other hand, the family at Mill House got less and less real. To the reporters they said the same things over and over again. Joe, making the same wise-sounding pronouncement about a Medieval Gem and a Gift to the Nation. Mum, saying bravely she didn’t mind sleeping in a room where a murderer had slept; it didn’t bother her at all. Jane being endlessly coy and flirty in return for sweets. Even Tris’s jokes got repetitive. And having said all these things in real life, they said them again from the flickering screen.

  Mr Mercyfull’s daughter brought a message that her dad was poorly. She lingered on the doorstep of Mill House, a plain middle-aged countrywoman, and said that at his time of life, what could you expect? And Simon had known he wouldn’t see Mr Mercyfull again.

  Only Simon didn’t talk to anybody. It took all his time and energy bearing it, while the walls of Mill House seemed to get thinner and thinner and the scarecrows nearer and nearer. He was waiting again. Waiting and very tired, and very far away.

  When would it happen? When the newsmen finally went away? When Tris la Chard went home?

  Jane seldom went out any more; even she was tired of newsmen now. She just watched the telly, thumb in mouth, pulled in on herself.

  Joe and Mum didn�
�t talk much at table either. But one night after Tris and Simon and Jane had gone to bed, they had a blazing row, because Joe hadn’t been able to paint that day because the telephone never stopped ringing. Mum said he’d better bugger off to London then, and leave her to face the music alone. And Joe said if that was the way she felt, he might just do that. They’d never quarrelled before. Their voices echoed and echoed around Mill House, as Simon and Tris lay in bed and listened.

  Simon was shocked; but only in a far-off way. Somehow it didn’t really sound like Joe and Mum at all . . .

  Not from where he was hovering, on the grey edge of sleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  It happened on the Tuesday night.

  Everybody got frenetically high over dinner. Just like at Granny’s funeral again . . .

  Joe telling vulgar stories about being a guttersnipe in the slums of Salford, and Tris just couldn’t get enough of it. Traitor.

  And Jane, the other little traitor, hanging onto Joe’s arm, warming herself as if he was a radiator. Looking from Tris to Joe. Sitting between them, squealing with delight. Until Simon could have cheerfully strangled her.

  And Mum smiling, smiling. Giving them all that big, warm, loving smile that she used to save for Simon alone.

  All the smiling traitors; forgetting Father. Who had been brave and was now so lonely, in the graveyard in Aden. As if he had never been . . .

  Oh, they’ll pay, thought Simon. But he went on smiling at the jokes, joining in the fun. So that even Mum was fooled, and pleased.

  ‘What shall we play tonight?’ asked Joe archly.

  ‘Ghosts, Joe. Monsters!’ yelled Jane. ‘Like at Hallowe’en.’

  ‘Who’ll be the ghost? Who’ll be the monster?’ asked Joe, glaring at her, hunching his back like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and trying to brush his scanty hair down over his eyes.

  Jane gave a delighted shudder, and clung to him. ‘You be the monster; an’ I’ll be the baby monster an’ ride on your back.’ She began hunching her shoulders too, and pulling terrible faces at everybody.

  ‘You be careful,’ said Mum. ‘Or your face will stay like that! And if you’re both going to be monsters, who’s going to be haunted? There’s no point in being ghosts if there’s nobody to haunt. Shall I be the one to be haunted?’

  ‘No. You’re the mummy-monster. We’ll be mummy, daddy and baby monsters.’

  ‘You can haunt me,’ said Tris. ‘Will I do?’ He ruffled Jane’s hair.

  Jane thought hard. ‘It’s a pity. ’Cause you’d make a good monster too. I think you’d make a lovely monster.’

  ‘It’s being so handsome that does it,’ said Tris. ‘Compliments will get you everywhere. Anyway, somebody’s got to be haunted.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane regretfully. ‘Somebody has.’

  ‘You can haunt me as well,’ said Simon. Something spiteful escaped into his voice, so Jane looked at him, frowning, baffled.

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ she said, suddenly cross. Then she turned away to Joe. ‘Shall we have the ghost-music? Lights out an’ everything?’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Joe. ‘You mustn’t give away trade secrets, or I’ll have to report you to the Monsters’ Union.’

  Joe and Jane bustled off; you could hear scurrying upstairs, and cupboard-doors opening and shutting, and her high-pitched giggle. So high-pitched that Mum called up the stairs, ‘Steady, Joe – don’t get her too worked-up.’ But her voice was loving, not cross. Then she said, ‘I’ll do the dishes.’

  ‘I’ll do them if you like,’ said Tris. ‘Don’t you want to get ready too?’

  ‘Oh, mummy-monsters don’t get a moment to turn round. They always have to get ready at the last possible moment . . . hardly time to put on their blood-lipstick. These dishes won’t take me long.’ And she departed briskly with the trolley.

  Those about to be haunted sat on at the table, listening to the noises in the rest of the house, which seemed unnaturally loud in a surrounding silence. Dishes clinking in the kitchen. The record-player being tried, then as suddenly turned off, so that it only played five notes, and Simon couldn’t make out what record they were trying.

  The lights went on and off several times experimentally; then violently off and on, over and over again, as Jane got her hands on the main switch.

  Mum yelled upstairs, ‘Stop that, you two! You’ll blow the fuses.’

  ‘So-rry,’ Joe yelled back. He sounded about seven years old himself, poor deluded fool.

  Simon and Tris didn’t look at each other, or say anything.

  At least, Tris kept looking at Simon; but Simon wouldn’t look back. Just went on playing with the few things Mum had left on the dining-table. One clean knife, two clean forks, a serving-spoon and a plate with half a bread roll.

  Simon’s left hand played with the roll, tearing it cleverly apart one-handed. Rolling the pieces into fat little balls between finger and thumb. When he had made four, he stopped and looked at them.

  Two big fat balls, one medium-sized ball, and a small one.

  Viciously he stubbed them flat onto the plate, one after the other.

  ‘I think you’d better go and be a monster as well,’ said Tris quietly. From his very tone, Simon knew that Tris had guessed everything. But Simon said, enjoying his own cruel insincerity, ‘I can’t leave you to be haunted alone.’

  With that phrase, he killed his friendship with Tris.

  Some last loyalty broke.

  Tris understood. That was the awful thing. Tris understood, and yet he would not let Simon go. His own half of the friendship remained intact; just sad. He said again, ‘You go and be a monster with the others, Simon. I’ll survive being haunted alone. In fact, if you go and be a monster with the others, I’m quite sure we’ll all survive . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Simon. His voice was like a slash at a rope; the rope of friendship.

  But again the rope of Tris’s friendship didn’t break.

  ‘Everybody read-dy?’ called Joe coyly from upstairs.

  ‘Just let me comb my hair,’ said Mum, coming out of the kitchen and undoing her apron. ‘I’ve got to look my worst.’ She went upstairs too.

  ‘Don’t do it, Simon,’ said Tris, very quietly. He went to the dining-room window, the one that faced the turnip field, and pulled the curtains half back.

  All Simon could see was the reflection of the triple light-fitting in the window-glass.

  But Tris said, ‘They’re there. They’re right against the hedge.’

  Simon said nothing. But they both knew he knew what Tris meant.

  ‘Take coverrrr!’ sang out Joe. ‘Here we co-ome. Last waaarning!’

  Jane was splitting herself with glee, and Mum was whispering she mustn’t. She must be a proper monster.

  Then the lights slowly faded. Joe had done a lot of light-and-sound work as an art student; and he had the house rigged with remote-control dimmers, extra loudspeakers and all kinds of electronic jiggery-pokery. He let the lights dim, until you despaired of them; then brightened them back to hope, then let you drop into total darkness.

  First the lights went out in the dining room, but stayed on in the hall. Then they dimmed in the hall, but flickered lightning-blue in the kitchen. The whole house felt like a dazed, dying body; disorientated, struggling to go on living.

  Joe was good, a good artist; Simon gave him that. It helped, all Joe’s great creative mind. It was helping to destroy him, and the fool didn’t even know it.

  Then the record-player started playing, big, wild. A cool detached part of Simon’s brain noted it was Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyrie.

  Corny. But effective. The feel of galloping; the feel of something coming. Louder and louder. Nearer and nearer. Calling, summoning, summoning.

  Dee-dum ditty deeedum, deedum ditty deeeedum.

  Then the tune dragged weirdly, then swelled to an impossible loudness, that threatened to explode the amplifiers. There was a startled shout from Joe.

  He hadn’t planned that one. You
could hear him swearing in the dark, groping for the controls of the record-player. But the controls made no difference. The music slammed and bellowed round the hall and corridors now of its own accord, like a living gale.

  Then stopped abruptly. But things were moving in the air; little flickers in the corner of the eye. Among the half-lights and moving, living shadows, things were coming.

  But the mob upstairs still hadn’t noticed, stupid fools.

  ‘Whoo-hooo-hooo-hooooooooh!’ Joe’s voice, very deep from his deep chest, basso-profundo like Chaliapin in a Russian opera.

  ‘Whoo-hooooo-hooooo-hooo!’ went Jane, very shrill and collapsing into giggles.

  ‘Whoo-hooo-hooooh,’ went Mum, very lost and feeble.

  ‘I come, I come, I cooooome!’ roared Joe.

  Bump, bump, drag, drag went his feet on the stairs. Like Quasimodo or Dracula or Frankenstein.

  ‘I’m slipping!’ complained Jane. ‘Hold me tighter.’

  Simon sensed Tris move in the dark; looked in his direction. Tris was listening. But not towards the silly fools outside the dining-room door. He was listening, ear cocked, at the gap in the curtain over the window.

  He knew . . .

  And then, everything went black. The record-player screeched up to an agonising crescendo, and died for good, with a long-drawn-out groan.

  ‘What the hell . . . ?’ said Joe, suddenly very surprised and un-monster, every inch the careful householder. ‘What the hell . . . main fuse, I suppose. Oh, damn!’

  ‘Mend it!’ squealed Jane. ‘Mend it quick, Joe. I’m frightened.’

  But all their voices were wobbling and fading, like voices under water.

  Then a deep voice shouted,

  ‘I will be maister in my own house!’

  A deep voice, like Joe’s. But not Joe’s.

  And suddenly the air was filled with the sweet warm smell of whisky; whisky on the breath.

  And a strange male smell; dirty, middle-aged, alien.

  Simon disliked it; disliked having any strange man in the house near his mother. That was the first thing he disliked about what was happening . . .