Tomato Cain and Other Stories Page 8

  Callister’s face was like wet clay. He came and grasped the wheel of the trap and trembled.

  “Easy, lad,” said Mr Clucas.

  The smith looked up past the old ladies, who sat like button-eyed stuffed birds. “If she loses it, I - I don’t know —“

  Something like a groan came from the roadside.

  “No! Wait, boy,” said Mr Clucas. “Ah - here’s the water.” Some was spilt, though Edward John had run carefully. “Give it here, sonny,” said Clucas. “I’ll take it to your mother. Promise to wait, Jemmy.”

  He stepped across the road. On the verge he almost collided with Mrs Kaighin.

  The widow was almost laughing. With relief.

  “It must have been the kippers! She’ll be all right in just a minute, the darlin’! Oh, good - I’ll give her this to drink.”

  The wild change in Jemmy, and having his wife back in the trap, shadowy but able to smile, and all their assistance, made the old pony square his feet against the shaking of the shafts. Mr Clucas even took out the whip and cracked it, when Mrs Kaighin said they could go on.

  Gaiety grew all the way.

  The younger Miss Barlow started it, with the softest singing of a hymn, as a form of lullaby. Her sister took it up, still almost as clear as in a Wiltshire choir-stall. And soon the singing of all of them, scandalous and happy, was bringing people to their cottage doors to wave good-night.

  END

  Chapter 11

  Flo

  A man came out of the pawnbroker’s, blinking in the sunlight. From a little below the eyes, whitening stubble crept down his face: his eyes were fiery red. He was very low and thick-bodied, as if the earth had drawn him to it and shortened him. It was Mr Percy Hurd.

  He pushed the perforated slip into his jacket pocket. In the other hand he held three cold half-crowns.

  He looked back into the dark shop, where his overcoat was being hung away with a white duplicate ticket pinned to the collar. He called, “Flo! Come on, Flo!” and squeaked persuasively with his lips.

  An old half-bred collie padded stiffly out into the light, eyelids quivering. Her muzzle was white, and the brindled body heavy and sagging. She grunted with the jolt the step gave her.

  She stood quietly while Mr Hurd passed a length of string through her collar and rubbed her head. “Good dog. Now where are we going, eh?” The old creature’s claws clacked loudly on the pavement as they walked. From time to time she raised her head, peering, and sniffed in the nature of shops and walls and people she could hardly see.

  A man stood on a corner, sorting his stock of early newspapers. Mr Hurd pulled back on the string and stopped to speak to him.

  “Another day off, Perce?” said the man.

  Mr Hurd smiled. “Just like you were saying - it’s bright to-day. Know what’s special about it?”

  The other man shouted a headline and said, “Eh?”

  “Ten years ago today my old woman went.” Mr Hurd watched his friend make a sale, and repeated, “Poor old girl died ten years ago this very afternoon. Day to celebrate, eh?” He grinned a jagged outline of teeth, and winked at the paper-seller as he moved off.

  He liked to look in the window of the next shop he visited. Before going inside, he stood admiring the huge bottles of coloured liquid that stood high up in the window, above the dummy packets of laxative and sleeping tablets. They looked good.

  “Give us a pint of meths,” he said to the chemist.

  The man came back licking a label. He looked up through his eyebrows at Mr Hurd’s face, and said, “For fuel?”

  Mr Hurd pocketed the heavy bottle coldly and said, “Going to clean an overcoat. How much?” He waited in the shop, insultingly, while he counted the change aloud.

  “Come on, Flo,” he said, and patted the dog as they reached the pavement.

  They turned down a side street, past a disused church with auction labels stuck on it, and between two untidy stables. Stems of chaff blew beneath their feet. The dog sniffed at the horse smell. Her master did the same. “Good hearty stink, eh girl?”

  Beyond the stables, they came into a bleak field where shiny patches of bald earth shone through the grass. The animal panted shallowly after her walk.

  “Lie down, Flo,” said Mr Hurd. “Good dog, lie down!”

  The creature’s white eyebrows flickered as she watched him. Slowly she sat, then paddled her forepaws along until she was stretched out: she rolled her stout body sideways for greater comfort.

  “Good dog,” said Mr Hurd. He wound her ear between his short fingers. “Good dog, does what her master says.” The long ragged tail swept the ground, wagging.

  Mr Hurd took the bottle of spirits from his pocket, removed the cork and sniffed the contents. He placed the bottle’s mouth to his own and tipped his head back. There was a quick bubbling in the thin blue liquid. It sparkled in the light.

  He swallowed, twisting his face and screwing up his eyes into a tangle of lines. He lowered the bottle and sighed several times with his mouth wide open. He patted his chest heavily, and then his stomach, through the tight buttons of his jacket.

  “Fire,” said Mr Hurd.

  He drank again. Presently he blew a gust of breath at the old beast’s head. “Lady!” he murmured. “Turns her head away, yah!”

  The tail wagged at his voice.

  “One day, a long time ago,” he said, “I hadn’ no dog. Then I got a pup. Fat ugly pup with a long tail.” His toe gently stirred the fur of her side.

  “Know who it was? It was you.” Mr Hurd lay back and regarded her for a time: when he spoke again his voice became foolish. “I said: ‘I’m goin’ to call her Flo.’ And I did” He took another mouthful. “My old woman didn’t like dogs. No she didn’t, no. Funny about that: why shouldn’t she like - ? But she died and it didn’t matter. And what did we use to do? We used to rat-hunt. Me and Flo used to rat-hunt.” He chuckled. “I bet old Mounsey she could catch I don’ know how many rats in one day, and she caught even more. Old Mounsey never paid up, either — “

  He took the morning’s money from his pocket, counted and replaced it.

  “Could run like the wind and fetch stones,” His hand searched about until he found a half-buried flint and worried it out of the ground. He held the clayey thing up for the bitch to see, and said, “Good girl! Fetch it, Flo!” He threw it and it bounced a few yards away. She pulled herself to her feet, trotted slowly over to the flint and picked it up carefully to drop it near him.

  He grunted and tossed the stone high again. The animals watery, blinking eyes followed it and lost it.

  “Well, where is it?” said Mr Hurd. He wiped his lips. “Got that stone?”

  She looked to each side and walked a few aimless steps. Her tail wagged, drooping.

  Her master watched. “Fetch it!” he said. “Fetch it!” She blinked at him along her white muzzle. “Fetch it!” Mr Hurd shouted. His face showed a darkening red network.

  The dog stood with her feet wide apart. Her pale tongue trembled for an instant between her lips.

  Mr Hurd pulled the neck of his shirt open. “Too old to know what to do with yourself! Where did I - where did I say I was going to send you?” He held the bottle close to his eyes and pressed the cork hard into it, then lowered it into his pocket. “Don’t know why I didn’t.”

  He stretched out a hand. “Come here!” The animal stood still, wagging her tail slavishly. Mr Hurd rose on his knees. “Come here - coward!”

  One foot at a time, she crept towards him, the tongue slipping in and out of her lips.

  “Got to do what - you’re told until - I say leave off!” pronounced the man loudly. He tugged her by the collar. Beneath the old, fine fur he felt her trembling. “Good dog,” he said. He frowned fiercely in bringing his eyes to bear: his breath caught. “What are you scared of? Silly old bitch! Don’t be - so - bloody - frightened!” he shouted. At each word he rolled her from side to side by a handful of the loose skin above her shoulders.

  He fe
lt the vibration of the thin sound in her throat.

  He stopped shaking her and shouted into her face, “What did you do? You growl at me?” He threw her with a thud on to her side. She snarled with fear and he felt teeth glance across his hand: old, blunt teeth. He drew back.

  At last he said, “So - turn on me, would you! Use teeth on me, eh! We'll see about that!”

  He braced himself and stood up: then he was as steady as always. She lay looking at him through half-closed eyes, trembling from head to foot. The lips were still drawn back from her teeth.

  “You done for yourself now, my lady! Get up!” His furious voice shot across the field and cracked up an echo from the railway embankment.

  He pulled the string from his pocket, frowning. With one foot he held her jaws down against the earth, growling and twisting. He stooped, tightened her collar and fumblingly worked the string through it. He had to drag her back to her feet. Then he ran, jerking her along behind him.

  They went back through the stables. “Come along!” he shouted.

  He found his way somehow, after some mistaken turnings. When he stopped, it was by a shop with a blue-painted window. He knocked loudly.

  The bitch struggled to slip her collar. He seized a handful of her coat and dragged her back to the door. He hammered again. From inside came a hurt animal cry. Then footsteps, and the door opened. A man appeared; he had sleeves rolled up on his long arms, and a pale face, angry at being interrupted.

  “Well, well, what is it?”

  “You the vet?” said Mr Hurd thickly. The man nodded wearily.

  “Then take this brute and do her in! She turned on me, vicious! Turned on - me with her teeth!” Mr Hurd tugged the string and put it into the vet’s hand.

  “She’s old,” said the vet; he pulled her lip down to look at her teeth. “Very well, that’ll be three and six.”

  Mr Hurd stared. “Wait a minute! I thought — ” He snorted and jabbed a hand into his pocket. “All right ! Nobody say I - didn’ have it done right!”

  A woman’s voice shouted inside, “Be quick, it’s trying to get loose!”

  “All right, I’m coming!” the vet called. “Injured cat,” he said. “Hurry up!”

  “Half a - crown. Shillin’. Three’n’six. There!” said Mr Hurd. “Good money all waste on - old cur!” He swung away.

  “Do you want her afterwards?”

  “Wha’?”

  “D’you want the carcase, man? Oh, all right, right, I”m coming!” The vet hurried inside, pulling the bitch after him in spite of her resistance. She was still trying to wriggle out of the collar, but it was too tight.

  Mr Hurd felt confused. He growled, and shook his fist at the street: now that the excitement had gone, everything annoyed him. He found suddenly that he was very sleepy and his eyes ached.

  It was difficult to wake up because of the pain in his head. When he forced himself to sit and look round at last, he was in one of the stables. A streak of evening sunlight was licking his trouser leg with a beautiful orange colour; across his hand ran a money spider. He seemed to be alone.

  “Flo!” said Mr Hurd.

  He squeaked with his lips, and frowned to remember whether he had left her behind when he came out.

  He stood and put his hands in his pockets. There was money there. Three and six, he thought, what was that about three and six? He drew in a great aching breath, remembering.

  “No!” he said, and ran out of the stable. He began to trot, saying, “No, no, no,” under his breath. He soon tired, and had to stop to lean on a wall; he rubbed his face in his hands and ran on.

  When he came to the shop with the blue-painted window, he said, “No!” again. But he rang the bell.

  A tall, thin-faced man came. A familiar face, somehow. He knew Mr Hurd and said, “Well, what is it? l did what you wanted.”

  “You - put - ?”

  I tried to ask you if you wanted the carcase, but you simply disappeared,” said the vet.

  Mr Hurd grabbed him by the coat and yelled into his face, “What have you done? What have you? When I came to you I was drunk! I -“

  “Get your hands off!” snapped the thin man. I know you were, but that was your own business!”

  He seemed about to slam the door. Then he said “Look here, it couldn’t have lived much longer anyway. Too old. I haven’t had time to dispose of the carcase yet - if you want it.”

  Mr Hurd followed him through a passage into a small stone yard at the back. On a narrow ledge, next to a dead white cat with a gashed side, lay the familiar brindled body. She might have been asleep, except that her head hung limply over the ledge.

  “I took the collar off,” said the vet. “You can have it if you wish - may come in useful for another - Get a grip on yourself, man! It was only an old bitch, after all.”

  Mr Hurd was kneeling by the ledge. He took one of the dead animal’s forepaws in each hand, and stroked them with his thumbs. He ruffled her ear.

  “Better take it away,” said the vet. Mr Hurd put his arm clumsily round the corpse and lifted it.

  “Bit stiff,” he said. He rubbed his chin against the fur. “You don’t want her?”

  The vet breathed in sharply and shook his head. “This way,” he said.

  “Catch rats in hundreds,” Mr Hurd said. Their steps echoed in the passage. “When she was young. Fetch stones. Just like a human. Understood every word.” As he went out past the blue window, the vet called after him, “Look here, the collar; d’you want it?”

  Mr Hurd did not hear.

  He was looking down at the brindled fur. He saw a wet drop appear on it. He looked at the ground to see if it was raining, and felt a cold line down his face from his left eye. He put his head down to his hand, and wiped it as he made his way through some playing children. One of them whispered, “He’s dead, that dog!”

  Farther on, somebody must have recognised him. A voice shouted, “What's up, Perce? Had an accident, lad?” He did not wish to look round.

  A man was attending a drain, and water spread over the street from it, rippling round Mr Hurd’s boots as he walked. A bread van with a broken, flapping side halted noisily to let him pass in front of it. Once a hand pulled him on to the pavement. “Plenty of better spots for suicide, chum!” It was growing dark. Soon it was hard for him to see what is was he carried. Passing cars shone lights that hurt his eyes.

  He sat down at last on a seat where there were no people, and put the body gently across his knees.

  He buried his face in the stale coat. Sparrows flew away, startled by his tearing sobs.

  Long after midnight, the constable heard moaning, muffled by the heavy, continuous rain. He switched on his lamp, quickly alert. It picked out a tall, dripping statue, scroll in hand. Sitting at the base of it, a man had dropped his head almost between his knees. Rainwater trickled through his hair and dripped from his nose. On the ground beside him lay a brindled dog.

  The policeman’s light seemed to wake him. He sat up with a hand over his eyes. “You can’t stay here,” said the constable.

  The man gave an exhausted sigh. His clothing was sodden. He stood, leaning on the policeman’s arm. His feet crunched in broken glass as he did so. There was a reek of chemical spirits from him.

  “Can’t - stay here, no. Somethin’ this afternoon, awful! Awful!” he repeated, as if trying to remember what it had been. “It was - it was - this afternoon, my old woman, she died! I can’t go on any longer.”

  His eyes were bright with discovery. “Know why she died, my poor old woman? She was bitten! She - bitten by this brute here!”

  An empty cigarette carton floated between her paws. Her muzzle lay in a pool of black water that was kept bobbing by the heavy pattering drops from above.

  He kicked savagely at the animal.

  END

  Chapter 12

  The Putting Away of Uncle Quaggin

  As one of his descendants remarked, the twentieth of June, 1897, was marked by public rejoicing
s throughout the Empire: Ezra Quaggin had died in the night. It was also the day of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

  He had lived alone on his farm, working it with hired labour, sending out occasional blasts of hate at the male members of the family. Then one night when he was concealing money in the chimney he was choked by a mouthful of soot, fell, fractured his hip and began a lingering end.

  He was visited in hospital by fat Tom-Billy Teare the joiner, who had married the old man’s niece, and was troubled. But Ezra presently told him he had forgiven the females, who could not be expected to know better.

  “I've seen to it that your Sallie’s all right. Now listen: me will is in a proper black box on top o’ the kitchen dresser. They all know I’ve made one; leave her there till you read her to them. Do the - th’ arrangements, y’self, Tom-Billy. Keep it in the family, like. An’ then maybe the cost…?” His niece’s husband was an undertaker on occasion.

  Tom went away happy, full of his executorship. He told his wife Sallie, and she was content, and stayed in town on market day to buy a black dress.

  Five days passed. Then the sad news came from the hospital and she was able to put it on.

  After Teare had informed the relatives, carefully pencilling down the expenses, he and his wife shut up their home in the village and moved quickly into the Quaggin farmhouse to look after it.

  They found the flimsy black deed-box in its place on the dresser. Having no lock, it invited a look inside.

  Under a layer of old receipts, a backless prayer-book and letters dealing with an unsatisfactory grubber, was the will. A long sky-blue paper. It was in the old man’s handwriting, with strange words in places, but clear in their meaning.

  Teare hugged his wife delightedly. She had been left the farm itself! A few small bequests disposed of the Quaggins.

  “We're made, woman!” he said.