The Scarecrow (6 page)

‘That’s right, jography,’ he mused, crestfallen. ‘Oi returned to moi bedroom which I share with moi older brother, ’Erbert. From ‘ere it drifted to moi ears—is that what you said?’

‘It drifted to my ears,’ I said, sticking to my guns.

‘It drifted to moi ears the sound of Uncle Athol snoring. ’E was obviously sound asleep. This would have been approximately eight p.m. till ten p.m. After this Oi moi-self—’

I felt myself tensing. Constable Ramsbottom gave me a hard look. The haircream started investigating his forehead.

‘Was claimed by the arms and legs of Morphia,’ I said firmly. I’d read that in a book and no lowbrow was going to talk me out of it.

‘Was claimed by the arms and legs of Morphia. ’Ow do you spell that, young feller?’

I smiled in a rather superior way. ‘M-o-r-f-e-a-r, of course.’

Constable Ramsbottom peered dubiously at the statement. He resumed. ‘On the previous Saturday morning Oi ’ad purchased from the Klynham Traders six Black Orphington fowls. Oi did this in company with Les Wilson of Camden Street, who goes to school with me. He went halves with me and we were the joint owners of the aforementioned Black Orphingtons. On the morning uv the ther-rud we discovered these fowls to be missing from their coop, situated in the yard behind my pah-harents’ residence. We were aware that a theft
had taken place, but made no complaint.’

I dared not speak, or look around. The atmosphere was pretty charged. The constable pushed the statement across. ‘Soign ‘ere.’

He was doing his best to keep an even keel, but the going was choppy.

‘Now please, Mrs Poindexter,’ he said desperately.

‘Yuv read what my son had to say, officer. It’s all been taken down and right in as they say, so I fail to see how yuh can continue to suspect my brother of this foul deed—’

‘I say,’ said Pop. ‘Foul deed, I say that’s rather—’

‘Shut up!’ said Ma. ‘It must be painfully obvious to you, officer, that your suspicions are merely a waste of your time and ours. My brother stands without a stain on his character, and has never so much as laid a hand on the property of any local citizen, let alone a fowl.’

Uncle Athol began to nod vigorously, but stopped suddenly.

‘Ah think, officer, it seems fairly conclusive,’ Pop began, but tailed off as Constable Ramsbottom leaned back in his chair and surveyed us balefully.

‘What about the geh-hurl?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Is the young lady able to add to the teste-mehoney?’

We had all made a statement now except Prudence. I was the only one who had ventured past the point of saying that, when we had retired, Uncle Athol was tucked in for the night. I considered that snoring touch to be masterly.

What with one thing and another, we had all forgotten Prudence was scheduled to turn sixteen the next day, but her legs had not forgotten and neither had her gym frock, which looked startlingly skimpy. Although she had been home from
school for more than six months, Prudence still wore her gym frock nearly every day of the week. She had not said a word all night, just stayed glued up against the end of the mantelpiece, playing soundlessly with a matchbox and now and again pushing back that lock of hair. It was the only corner of the room that was a bit shadowed, over there under the hot-water cupboard, and she looked all legs and cheekbones and eyelashes. I must have recognised then, in a mixed-up sort of way, what I had found puzzling on Saturday when she crossed the street to Les and me, and on Sunday when she had hung down from the beam in the shed. Doggone it, she was grown up and she
was
pretty. Just as Prudence moved away from the mantelpiece looking puzzled and beautiful—yes, beautiful, dirty face and all—our front door bell, which no one had used in years, started to ring and, simultaneously, our back door to knock.

‘I’ll go,’ I said. I was starting to feel the strain of sitting there not looking at my uncle, gutless wonder that I was, and my bet is, he was glad to see the back of me too.

Just what do you think when you pull the bolt on one of those old-fashioned front doors, with a couple of miniature church windows in them? The shadow could belong to anyone from the bailiff to an escaped gorilla, but it’s—it’s Mr Dabney, the undertaker. Anyway I know what I thought of as soon as I had peered out of the door long enough to establish who it was by the brandy fumes—Uncle Athol’s false teeth.

Physically speaking, Mr Dabney would have only been a mouthful for an escaped gorilla, but the ape would have probably immediately sat down and beamed around at all present.

‘Franky,’ beamed Mr Dabney, peering past me down the hall.

‘Neddy,’ I corrected.

‘Of course it’s Neddy, is yuh father there? I’ll come right along in and say howdy to yuh father, Franky. It’s nice to meet nice people. Great Scott, the lights won’t go out all night, Franky, never fret about that, my boy. Just tell yuh father and dear old Athol that Charlie Dabney is without.’

‘Wontcha come in, Mr Dabney?’ I said, following him down the hall. ‘This way, out here,’ I said a bit wildly when we went into a bedroom. I did not want him to find the light switch because I knew, with Pop in bed all afternoon, the big flowered chamberpot would be right in the middle of the room with blankets humped up on the floor all around it. I wanted to prevent Charlie Dabney seeing that chamberpot, at all costs, so I did my level best to shepherd him out of the bedroom. I was prepared to haul him out, if necessary. He was not much bigger than me, but he surely was a hard man to out-manoeuvre.

‘Where am I? Where am I?’ he called. ‘Is that you, Athol?’

‘No, it’s me, Ned. Over here, Mr Dabney. This way, Mr Dabney.’

‘Great Scott, Athol, put the light on. Don’t play tricks on me, yuh ole rascal. Yuh know me, yuh ole reprobate. It’s Charlie, Athol, ole Charlie.’

Fingers fumbled with my face. I grabbed his sleeve.

‘Mr Dabney.’

‘Athol. It’s not Athol at all. Great Scott! Marry me, darling. Marry me now, loveliest flower. Must have heard of me. People just dying to meet ole Charlie Dabney. Not a care in the world.’

‘Mr Dabney, please, you’re in the wrong room.’

‘Not wrong room at
tall
, my precious flower. Wrong attitude, thasall. Wrong attitude altogeth’. Rightroom, insis’. Great Scott, what a smooth skin, what a complexion. Born for love and
kisses, my flower. Charlie may be a little old, but he knows a trick or two—’

‘C’mon, c’mon,’ I snarled.

The chamberpot made a gong-like sound as Mr Dabney clipped it with his foot as we waltzed around. I felt an agonising embarrassment thinking of our guest, Constable Ramsbottom; and then, blow me tight, groping around in the dark I kicked it myself. It made the same sort of mysterious, carrying sound you hear at sea in a fog.

When I got Mr Dabney out to the kitchen and he framed himself importantly in the doorway, he seemed to have dismissed the whole bedroom episode from mind, but I never will. Uncle Athol and Pop promptly gathered around the visitor, but the cop did not even glance at him. Angela Potroz had arrived via the back door and had coyly put a birthday present of the sheerest nylon stockings, encased in a plastic bag, on the table by the heap of statements. Pru had opened the bag with nervous fingers and Angela was talking to the cop, too excited to recognise him for a fiend in human shape. The cop did not seem to be listening to Angela much. Prudence held up the stockings.

‘Oh, Angela. Now I know why you’re called Angela. You’re an angel, honey.’

‘Many happy returns.’

‘Muh very first pair of nylons,’ said Prudence. ‘Many’s the time I’ve often thought how I’d love a pair of luvlee stockings. Oh, Ma’s given me everything yuh wish for, but yuh beat her there.’

She was always quick with her soft heart, Prudence. She had seen the way Ma was fluttering around, all grins but with her heart bursting.

‘Pop. Pop,’ said Prudence. ‘Oh, blow you there then, old Charlie Dabney.’

She winked at the cop and Constable Ramsbottom winked back.

‘We’ll have some supper,’ said Ma. ‘I’ll put on a quick supper for us all and we’ll all feel better. It hasn’t been such a bad Monday after all. Nothing like the old cuppa as granny’d say, to brighten us all up. And it’s nearly yuh birthday, dear. What a young lady. Kiss your old Ma.’

The stove was well out, but we had a gas-ring in the pantry. In that dark little closet, by the light of a candle and the blue flame of the gas-ring, Ma’s shadowy bulk and giant, naive heart knocked us up a pot of tea and some mince on toast. I was very surprised to see the mince, as I had no idea there was any in the house. I knew for a fact the tripe and the sausages had all been eaten.

So Constable Ramsbottom had supper with the Poindexters on the noight uv the fifth at the corner of Smythe and Winchester streets. The moonlight looked askance at the starred windows of the house and poked around among the old stoves and bottles and the ravaged hen-coop and even spared a glance for the old Dennis, which had developed another deflated five-fifty twenty-one.

I will wager that Constable—he was christened Leonard— Ramsbottom had a magic few minutes while Ma was in the pantry and Pop and Uncle Athol and Mr Dabney were taking turns going to the washhouse to knock over a bottle which the alcoholic mortician had smuggled in under his coat. I can see now it was a magic few minutes, but, at the time, I just sat over by the cold stove, a prey to private fears. Prudence and Angela
giggled away as Prudence, seated on the edge of the old box ottoman, painstakingly rolled the nylons up her fabulous legs and hooked them on to her school knickers with some suspenders they found in a drawer. I will not go so far as to say I was unaware of these goings on, but puberty was only just marshalling its forces and the trying events of the weekend had deterred the onslaught. Len Ramsbottom was only a rookie cop and a bachelor, and that sister of mine and Angela must have caught him with his hands in his pockets and his mouth hanging open. He was at the ready. The whole bottle and a half of haircream must have been sizzling by the time Ma had the tea and sandwiches ready and Pop and Co. had their attitude restored by the visits to the washhouse.

It does not hurt me to remember Len Ramsbottom having moments, but I wince remembering Prudence slipping her priceless new nylons off again with Mr Dabney back in the kitchen. The alcoholic mortician had just been coaxed into getting on the form between the table and the window and he practically had to be held down. He made some fearful insinuations, which Ma, who was up and down all the time, missed, thank heaven; but Prudence could not have been so dumb and suddenly she fixed him with the levellest look imaginable. A dead silence all around went with the look. Then she and Angela went back to semi-flirting with Len Ramsbottom, the heart-throb of the force.

Charlie Dabney was a person it was difficult to imagine really disliking, but for a moment or two he looked at his most unlovable.

Uncle Athol was looking around slyly and sharply and if ever I saw a scamp who was not missing a trick, it was right at that moment.

Pop had three or four tilts at his cup of tea and said, ‘Good luck’ two or three times and then varied it with ‘Regards’. The last toss, Mr Dabney rallied and said ‘Bon Sonte’. Ma ignored them and talked to Len Ramsbottom as if he had brought news from Granny Cudby, God bless her.

‘We keep open house, Mr Ramsbottom, open house. We’re not rich people, but we’re honest. As yuh know now, eh? It’s Prudence’s birthday tomorrow and no one would be more welcome than yuhself. She’s going out to service next week, Mr Ramsbottom, with the nicest people, the Quins, not really service, but looking after things in general. She’s been a good girl at school and I would’ve liked office work for her, but it’s so hard to give them a course up at the Tec. Yuh ought to teach her how to type, officer—I mean Mr Ramsbottom.’

I had privately consigned Len Ramsbottom to the pigeonhole ‘lousiest typist ever’ and I hid my sour smile by stirring my tea again, but Prudence said, ‘Oh beauty! Willyuh, Mr Ramsbottom? Willyuh honest, teach me how to type?’

The cop leered at her rosily and waved both hands, including the finger he typed with.

‘Course, course,’ he gurgled. ‘Course, Miss Poindexter.’

She goggled at him. ‘Cop that, Ma. Hey! I’m Prudence.’

I missed a bit of the by-play about now because I went out to the washhouse to try and work out how big a hash of things I had made and just how much ‘grata’ I had gleaned to give Les. The only conclusion I came to was that I was too tired to think.

Mr Dabney had produced another bottle by the time I got back and Pop and he were having a ‘regards, regards’ session. Uncle Athol was keeping as aloof as he could, consistent with getting his glass filled up as regular as clockwork. Ma was being
so ultra-hospitable to Len Ramsbottom that Pop and Co. had taken it as the green light and the bottle was slap in the middle of the table.

‘Regards,’ said Mr Dabney. ‘Great Scott, the lights won’t go out all night.’

‘Regards,’ said Pop. ‘Anytime, Charlie, old boy. Always welcome. Come any time at
tall
. Only too pleased. Always on deck. Old Southern hospitality and what have you. Demned poor show if the boys can’t compare notes once in a while, what, what. Thank you, thank you, no water, Athol. It’s made with water heh, heh, regards. Yes of course. First to agree, old man. And how’s business? One thing with you, Charlie, customer can’t argue back, eh! eh! Heh, heh. Wazzat, wazzat?’

‘Stiffasaboard. All my clients. Stiffasaboard. Stiff-as-a-board. S-t-i-f-f, yes, yes. Regards old boy. Great gal you got there. Dee-aitch. Great gal. Can yuh hear me, m’dear? Stiffasaboard. Regards, Dee-aitch. Great Scott, she wouldn’t do a thing like that in front of me unless realiesh who Charlie Dabney was, eh! eh! Fatal fascination. Always had it. Too fond of the liquor. No regrets. Know a lotta little tricks. Got a pound y’know. Got a pound. Not stuck for a pound, ole boy.’

‘All businessmen together, Charlie. Tight little town. Tight little town to get a pound in. Lucky to be where we are. Lotta people give their left, er eye, hrmp, sorry Athol, be where we are. Why? ’Stablished. Thas why. ’Stablished. Regards.’