Fat Man, The

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long does she sit there?’

  ‘Twenty minutes. Till the train comes.’

  ‘Auckland train?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And no daughters on it. That figures. What does she do?’

  ‘Goes home.’

  ‘Yeah. So that was the Swanson train we heard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, kid. You done good. Jeez, look at her.’

  The old lady crept from the bridge. Her wheezing, which had scratched more softly than the cicadas’ song, faded away. Her mildewed hat sank below the cutting.

  ‘Right, kid, you and me are going to pay a visit,’ the fat man said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘This Mrs Muskie, she lives in the house with the two storeys, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So lead on. You’re the leader.’

  The bridge, Colin thought, I can get on the bridge. But when he turned away from the creek and started to climb, the fat man took him hard by the shoulder, ‘Hey no, kid, none of that. We stay down here by the water.’

  ‘There’s no path.’

  ‘We don’t need no path, you and me.’

  He made Colin break through the ferns and scrape among the blackberry, which he, coming behind, trampled flat. They went out of the sunlight, under the bridge. No car went over. For fifty yards they kept to the same bank, then crossed on rocks that stood above the water. The bank on the other side rose straight, with black old trees leaning from the top. They hung on to the roots and swung and stepped, and Colin thought that here … but no, the fat man was too quick; he went from root to root as smoothly as Tarzan, although there must be eighteen stone of him to swing along.

  ‘Back across that log,’ he said, pointing at a dead tree lying on the water. Colin went first, without the nimbleness he usually had, and halfway across a layer of rotten bark sheered under his foot and he gave a screech and fell sideways into the water. Even before he started coming up he felt the fat man’s hand twist in his hair. It jerked him hard against the log.

  ‘You do that on purpose, kid?’

  ‘No, no, sir. I slipped. You’re hurting me.’

  ‘If I thought you did –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s big eels down there. They’ll have your foot off with a single bite. And your willy. I think I see one.’

  ‘No.’ Colin curled his legs and tried to climb the slippery trunk. The fat man squatted, grinning; but in a moment shifted his grip and pulled him out one-handed. He held him on the log until he had his balance.

  ‘Well, a kid with no feet is no good to me. Be a bit more careful now, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin chattered. He crossed the rest of the log and jumped on to the bank and stood there dripping, in a daze. The fat man followed, then pushed him along. They came to a bend in the creek, with a deep pool held in the curve, and the fat man said suddenly, ‘See, a water rat.’ The animal’s head moved quickly on the surface, with a V of ripples widening behind. ‘Blam!’ the fat man said, pointing his finger. ‘Gotcha, rat. You ever fire a gun, kid?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘They’re good things to keep away from. Plenty of other ways to do a job. Now, you show me, where’s this old dame live?’

  ‘Up there,’ Colin said, ‘round the corner.’

  ‘Backs on to the creek, eh? Slopes down from the garden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that’s the way we go. Lead on, kid.’

  As they approached, Colin saw rusty cans, rotten planks, scraps of cloth, worn-out shoes, lying on the bank and in the water. There was a lidless suitcase, sheets of iron, a meat safe with the wire mesh torn off – all sorts of things. It was like the town dump. But it was, he knew, Mrs Muskie’s dump, built up over the years since her husband had died. Rats had made tracks and burrows in it – under the old window frame, through the broken glass, round the mangle, round the broken cot and the wire mattress. The smell of mould hung over it, with an underlay of rot.

  ‘Jeez,’ the fat man said. He looked offended. He took out his handkerchief and held it to his nose. ‘I hate smells, kid. What’s the old lady think she’s at?’

  ‘It’s her rubbish dump.’ Colin shivered. He was getting cold in his wet clothes.

  ‘She shoulda burned this stuff, not left it here.’

  ‘She’s too old.’

  ‘There shouldn’t be old people. They should lie down and die. Go up there, up the side. Jeez, what a pong.’

  They picked their way round the rubbish and came to Mrs Muskie’s back yard – or what should have been a yard but was now a jungle. The fat man looked at it with disbelief. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘She won’t pay anyone to tidy it up. That’s what everyone says.’

  A shed, half pulled down by blackberry vines, blocked their way. The door was overgrown so they squeezed around one side, in a trough between the wall and the scratching vines. Colin, going in front, heard the fat man swear. His hat had been pulled off by a reaching bramble. It made Colin feel better – the man could make mistakes. He waited while he freed the hat and put it on again. ‘There’s the house.’

  It lay beyond an ocean of thistle that must have been a lawn once. Like the shed, it seemed to lean, but that was because a downpipe had broken from the spouting and hung crazily across the wall.

  ‘Damn, kid, you were going to climb up that,’ the fat man said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now you’ll have to go up the tree.’

  ‘Tree? Me?’

  ‘Well, I’m not. That branch is too thin.’

  ‘Branch?’

  ‘Jeez, kid, what are you, a parrot? That branch by the window. You climb up, you go along, you get in the window. Then you come down the stairs and let me in.’

  Colin looked at the tree, the bare trunk, the skinny branch. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  ‘I mean, I can’t. I mean I’ll fall.’

  ‘What, a kid like you who’s real good at stealing chocolate, eh? You telling me you can’t climb up a lousy tree?’

  ‘I – I’m no good at climbing.’

  ‘Well, now’s the time you’re going to learn. And don’t start blubbing, kid.’ The fat man rapped his knuckled fist on Colin’s wet hair. ‘Else I’ll chuck you in the blackberries there, like Brer Rabbit. And feed you to the eels after that. You hear what I say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get going then. I’ll give you a lift.’

  The fat man made a step of his hands and hoisted Colin easily until his fingers touched the lower branches of the tree. Colin pulled himself up. He had been lying when he said he couldn’t climb. He could go up the pine trees at the domain until his head stuck out the top, higher than the highest parts of the tree. This one was easy. After the bare trunk the branches made steps and he went up them until he came to the one that pointed at a partly opened second-storey window. It was the only window open in the house. He looked down. The fat man was watching, with his hat pushed back on his head. He did not look so frightening now; he looked round-faced and short. But the worm, the worm-like scar, beside his mouth, shone in the sun suddenly and all Colin’s terror returned. The razor was in the rucksack; the only way to go was along the branch.

  He straddled it and lifted himself along until smaller branches blocked his way. He was able to stand and pick his way amongst them until he came to the wall of the house. Leaves scraped against it, up and down, with Colin’s weight. The window was off to one side, but he could reach it by holding on with one hand and stretching with the other.

  ‘It’s not wide enough.’

  ‘Jeez, what a dumb kid. Open it.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t –’

  ‘Open it!’ The fat man looked for something to throw, and found half a brick lying in the thistles.

  ‘Don’t, I’m going,’ Colin said. He put his hand under the sash and
lifted, and it went up so easily, with a whisper more than a squeak, that he nearly lost his balance in the branch. Inside, behind lace curtains grey with dust, he saw a tall black wardrobe and a bed.

  ‘It’s her bedroom.’ He meant that he could not go in. Bedrooms were private, he’d been taught. But the fat man thumped the half-brick on the wall, so he gripped the sill with one hand, then the other, pulled himself across, and dangled outside with his head in the room. He walked his feet up, put his hands on the floor and scrambled in. For a moment he knelt on the boards, but a call from the fat man, half shout and half hiss, brought him to his feet. He put his head back out the window and saw the man down there, foreshortened, with the worm working in his cheek.

  ‘Don’t you touch a thing there, kid. Don’t you put your thieving hands on a single thing.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s her bedroom, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There were the bed and wardrobe he had seen, and something that might pass for a dressing-table, with half the glass broken out of the mirror and drawers that stuck out like bottom jaws, showing crumpled edges of grey clothes. Dust lay on the floor. Balls of it brushed against his feet as he moved.

  ‘But maybe she doesn’t use it any more.’

  No one could sleep in that bed. The mattress sagged in the middle so you’d end up like sleeping in a basin. And the headboard leaned over as if it came down like a lid to shut you in.

  ‘She uses it,’ the fat man said. ‘Old ladies are creatures of habit, kid. Now go downstairs and open the window and let me in.’

  ‘Yes. All right.’

  Colin licked his lips. He did not want to move from the window, which was his doorway to the outside world. He did not want to go into the dark house behind him and downstairs into what would be like a pit.

  ‘Kid, if you don’t shift I’ll put a match to this place and burn you like a bloody Guy Fawkes,’ the fat man said.

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Well, go then. Where’s me matches?’

  Colin pulled his head in and turned to face the room. The door was closed, but a crescent shining in the floorboards showed where it opened. It seemed the only clean thing in the room. He crossed and pulled the door, making it squeak; and for a moment was blinded by light. Colours shone at him – red, blue, yellow, green – each one like a fire. They came from a long window of coloured glass. The sun shining on it filled the centre of the house with light.

  He drew back, then felt himself drawn forward. It was like stepping into a rainbow. He forgot the fat man and the room behind him. Nothing seemed ugly or frightening for a moment. Then something crashed on the wall outside – it must be the brick – and the fat man yelled, ‘Kid! You! You play any tricks I’ll wring your neck like you was a chook.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Colin cried.

  He ran down the stairs, leaving the coloured glass – the roses, the lilies, the green hills, the yellow sun – shining at his back. Down at the bottom he was in a pit all right – black broken furniture, torn wallpaper, bulging scrim. He did not know which way to turn, but pulled a curtain back, raining dust on himself, and saw the fat man framed in the dirty glass. He was from a nightmare and seemed bigger than before. Up, up, he motioned with his hands, and Colin tried to lift the window; then saw that it was fastened with a catch, rusted tight. He called out that he could not do it, and the fat man pointed to the next, so he went there and pulled the curtain back. Dust came down like soot, with cobwebs floating in it.

  This catch was easier. He worked at it until it grated round and the window was free. He wobbled it open an inch and the fat man put his fingers in and heaved, shooting it up with a shriek like a run-over dog. He put his leg over the sill and stepped inside; waved his hands to clear the dust; dusted himself. Then he looked around.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘this is it.’

  ‘Can I go now?’ Colin said.

  The fat man smiled at him. Was it a smile? It was like a sneer, a snarl, although it was amused. ‘Why so anxious, kid? Don’t you want to see what she’s got?’

  ‘All I want …’

  ‘Yeah, all you want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The kid don’t know. The kid is confused. Stick with me, kid, and you’ll find out what’s what. Where do you reckon the old lady would hide all her loot?’

  ‘In the – I don’t know. She hasn’t got any, I don’t think.’

  ‘If she had.’

  ‘In the …’

  ‘Kitchen? Wash-house? Dining room, maybe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The fat man rapped him on the head with his knuckles. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. When do burglars come? Except us, ha.’

  ‘In the night.’

  ‘So where would she keep all her stuff in the night? Her money? Her jewels?’

  ‘I suppose in her bedroom.’

  ‘Now you’re thinking. Not so dumb. Not so Pottsie, eh? Follow me, kid. And watch what I do, ’cause I’m a pro.’

  The fat man started up the stairs. The coloured light struck him halfway up and made him pause.

  ‘Now ain’t that something.’ He took off his hat. ‘See that, kid? You never forget a thing like that. The lilies and the roses, eh?’

  Colours banded his face. The worm had turned blue. ‘I reckon you might be in a room, ten thousand miles from home, and not a friend in cooee, eh, and something like this might suddenly come back. It could make you cry, kid, what do you reckon? See that rose in the middle? That’s a beauty.’ The scar turned red as he moved. His eyes turned red. ‘I’d pinch that if I could and leave her jewels.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said.

  ‘But it’s too big to fit in me pocket, so I guess I’ll leave it where it is.’ He put his hat back on and climbed to the top of the stairs. ‘Come on, kid. Enough of the baloney. Let’s get our hands on the real stuff.’

  Colin had left the bedroom door open. Outside the window he saw the green leaves of the tree. The sagging bed, the wardrobe, the dressing-table with the broken mirror, were touched with coloured light shining through the door. But the room seemed like a lair where something might sleep with its back to the wall, away from the daylight outside. The fat man went in; he felt none of it. He stood in the centre, tipped his hat back on his head and looked at everything with a sneer.

  ‘It beats me how people can live like this. What do you say, kid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I would have said an old lady would be clean. This must’ve been a nice house once. Look how she’s let it go.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So here we are in her bedroom, eh? Where do you reckon she’d hide her loot?’

  ‘I don’t know. Under the bed?’

  ‘You reckon? Take a look for me. I can’t get down there.’

  Colin knelt and peered under. The dust was thick, matted like a carpet. ‘There’s nothing.’

  ‘Crawl under, kid. Have a feel. I want to be sure.’

  He gave him a nudge with his toe. Colin crawled, holding his breath. He went along close to the head of the bed. Rusty broken wires from the wire mattress snagged his shirt. He lay down and slid on his stomach. Dust piled up in front of him like the bow wave of a boat. He found a ha’penny. He found a bobby pin. And a half-sucked toffee cemented to the floor. Nothing else. When he came out the other side – it was a double bed – his front was grey, his clothes were matted with dust.

  The fat man laughed. ‘I’ll have to dunk you in the creek again.’

  ‘There’s nothing there.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘A ha’penny.’

  ‘You can keep that, kid. That’s your share. Look in the wardrobe for me.’

  Shivering, Colin obeyed. Warm mouldy air puffed out when he opened the door. Old dresses, old coats, hung on wooden pegs, old shoes lay on the floor – everything old. He looked in the corners. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Try the dressing-table.’

  The fat man sat down
on a chair by the wall, and Colin did as he was told again. Searched in the drawers, most of which were empty; searched in Mrs Muskie’s bloomers, in her folded stays.

  ‘There’s nothing here.’

  ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ the fat man said. ‘What do we do now, kid?’

  Colin said nothing. He did not understand the game. The fat man knew a hiding place, that was obvious, but Colin could not work out what he was meant to do.

  ‘Feel in the bed,’ the fat man said. ‘Anything you find you can keep.’

  Colin put his arm in the grey sheets. He felt under the pillows. Lifted the mattress, looked underneath.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘So, that’s everywhere?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nowhere else in the room to look?’

  ‘No.’

  The fat man stood up. ‘You lost your chance to be a rich man, kid.’ The chair he had been sitting on had a hinged seat. ‘You seen one of these?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a commode. It’s where old ladies pee in the night. What do you say? We look in there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘A thing ain’t always what it seems to be. You heard of gangsters carrying Tommy guns in violin cases?’

  Colin did not answer. The man was mad. There was nothing he would find in this old room, or in this house. Only a ha’penny. Only bobby pins.

  ‘Hey presto, kid,’ the fat man said. He lifted the lid.

  It was like the coloured window again. It was red and green and white. Yellow and blue. It was jewels. A chamber-pot full to the brim with jewels.

  ‘You thought I was off me rocker, eh kid?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘So what do you think now? You think we’re rich?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong. ’Cause we’re not. That stuff in there ain’t worth peanuts. It’s all glass. But watch me, kid.’

  He lifted out the jewels in handfuls, piled them on the floor. In the bottom of the chamber pot sat a round pipe-tobacco tin. He lifted it out. Colin saw it was heavy from the way he handled it. He prised the lid off. It made a popping sound – and this time what Colin saw was real: golden coins. Even the fat man held his breath.

  ‘You know what that is, kid?’ he said at last.