Crow Boy (5 page)

Five

Cameron led Tom up seven flights of stairs. At each landing, the stairs angled back on themselves to rise to the next floor and it was apparent that other people were living up on these levels. Tom could hear the sounds of conversation coming from open doorways and, on one level, he caught the smell of pipe tobacco. On the fourth floor, a fat man in a long, curly wig came out of a doorway and nodded to Cameron.

‘You, boy,' he said. ‘I need the services of a pot clenger.'

‘Very good, Mr Selkirk. I'll be right on to it in a moment,' Cameron assured him. ‘I just have to show Tom his sleeping quarters first.'

The man studied Tom for a moment. ‘New boy, eh?' he said.

Tom nodded.

‘Well, make sure you work hard and keep your fingers out of other folks' belongings and you and I will get along fine.' He smiled and strolled back along the landing. Cameron led the way upwards again.

Tom gave Cameron a quizzical look.

‘Who's he?' he asked.

‘Just one of the neighbours,' said Cameron, as though it was of no importance.

‘And what did he mean, he needs a
pot
. . .?'

‘
Clenger
. He means he wants me to empty his chamber pot.'

Tom stared at him. ‘And you . . . you don't mind doing that?' he asked, horrified.

‘Mind it? Of course not. He'll pay me a penny for my trouble.' Cameron nodded towards the next flight of stairs. ‘We sleep up top,' he said.

Eventually they came to a small, dingy room under the cobweb-festooned eaves of the house. It was empty, save for a rough-looking bed. Tom gazed at it doubtfully. The bedding looked grubby and verminous, not what he was used to at all – but, he told himself, at least there weren't any Hibernian posters blu-tacked onto the rough-plastered walls.

‘That's where you'll sleep,' said Cameron. His accent was thicker and more impenetrable than Morag's. He had a long thin face and bright blue eyes. Scatterings of brown freckles were smeared across the bridge of his nose.

‘You don't snore, do you?' he asked.

‘I don't think so,' said Tom.

‘Good. Wee Davey used to snore something terrible. I'd lie there some nights thinking I'd never get to sleep.'

‘Is that why you killed him?' It had been meant as a joke but Cameron didn't seem to see the funny side of it.

‘I never killed nobody,' he protested. ‘And don't you go saying that I did!'

‘Hey, chill,' Tom advised him. ‘It was just a joke.'

‘A joke, is it? I don't think it's very funny.'

‘Er . . . all right, sorry.' Tom looked hopefully around the room. ‘So . . . where's your bed?' he asked.

Cameron pointed. ‘There,' he said.

Tom stared for a moment. ‘But . . . you just said that one's mine.'

Cameron rolled his eyes. ‘Aye, that's where we
both
sleep. Why d'you think I asked if you snore?'

Tom was horrified. ‘We sleep in the same bed? But I counted three of you down in the kitchen . . .'

‘The girls have their own room,' said Cameron, looking appalled. ‘We sleep up here.'

‘Well, I don't much care for that idea,' said Tom. ‘I'm used to having my own space.'

‘Lucky old you,' said Cameron. ‘But beggars can't be choosers, can they?'

‘I suppose not,' admitted Tom. He went over to the bed and sat down gingerly on the grimy covers. ‘So, what's the deal here?' he asked. ‘I mean, how does it work with Missie Grierson and everything?'

Cameron turned to look at Tom. ‘She feeds us and gives us a roof over our heads. In return, we work for her.' He shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘She takes in laundry and we help to wash it. We do odd jobs for the neighbours, emptying chamber pots, fetching and carrying, whatever earns a penny.'

‘And you're all orphans, right?'

Cameron nodded. ‘Aye.' He came and sat on the other side of the bed. ‘Did I hear you right just now? Your father is still alive in England?'

‘Er . . . yeah. At least, I think so.'

‘So why don't you just make your way back to him?'

‘It's not as easy as that,' Tom assured him.

‘Let me tell you, if my Ma or Da were still alive, I'd get to them no matter what it took,' said Cameron scornfully.

‘Yeah? Well, respect to that. But you don't understand. It's more complicated than you think.'

‘How so?'

‘Well, OK, since you ask . . .' Tom took a deep breath. ‘I'm actually from the 21st century . . . that's like about five hundred years from now. I came to visit the Close with a bunch of other kids from my school, but it wasn't like it is now; it was sort of the remains of it, all buried under these new buildings, the way it's going to look in five hundred years' time.'

‘Uh huh,' said Cameron. His face was expressionless.

‘And I saw Morag there, but not like she really is; she was sort of all flickery and that, like an old movie?' He thought for a moment, realising that this wouldn't mean anything to Cameron. ‘Like a ghost, you know? And I thought she was this other girl, Annie, that was supposed to have died here, so I followed her into this room where I wasn't supposed to go and the floor gave way under me and when I woke up, I . . .' Tom's voice trailed away.

Cameron was just sitting there, looking blankly back at him. It wasn't that he was thinking Tom was a nutcase or anything, it was just that what he had heard meant absolutely nothing to him. Tom might as well have been talking in Chinese.

There was a long silence then Cameron stood up and said, ‘Well, I've shown ye the bed. I'd better get down and see to Mr Selkirk's chamber pot, before he gives that penny to somebody else. I wouldn't hang around up here too long if I was you, because Missie Grierson will have work for you too. There's always work.'

And, with that, he turned away and went back down the stairs.

‘Great,' muttered Tom. ‘Now I've got a job.' He sat and stared resentfully after Cameron for several minutes, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do now. He looked around the grubby room and then announced aloud, ‘If you want to put everything back the way it was, that's all right with me.' He had no idea who he was supposed to be talking to, but whoever it was didn't bother to give any kind of answer. ‘This is nuts,' he said and, just in case there should be any doubt, he said it again for good measure. ‘This is NUTS!'

A thought occurred to him and he reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out his mobile. He pressed the ‘on' button and looked hopefully at the screen but he wasn't really surprised to see a ‘No service' message. He could hardly have hoped to find anything resembling a phone signal in the seventeenth century when he sometimes had enough trouble getting one in the twenty-first.

He sighed and turned out his pockets. He found a crumpled five pound note, which he'd been given in order to buy some lunch, a few assorted coins, a key to his parents' house in Manchester (Hamish hadn't gotten around to giving him a key for the house in Fairmilehead yet), a grubby paper tissue, and a cardboard box containing two blister packs of antibiotic pills. He'd forgotten he had them; they'd been prescribed months ago for a suspected ear infection, which had cleared up the moment he'd started taking them, so only two pills were missing. They'd been in his pocket ever since. Typically, Mum hadn't even bothered to check the pockets when she'd sewn the new school badge on. He put them down with the other things and stared at them dismally, telling himself that this was all he had left in the world and none of it was any use to him – he wouldn't even be able to spend the money. He gave a grunt of disgust and crammed the items back into his pocket.

Just then, his attention was caught by a sudden scuffling noise in the far corner of the room. He turned his head to look and was horrified to see a sleek grey shape scuttling along the base of the wall. A rat, bigger than he could ever have imagined. He suppressed a shudder and got quickly up from the bed. He'd never been fond of rats, even though his experience of them had mostly been confined to films he'd seen and horror stories he'd read. This one was for real and, frankly, way too close for comfort. Without hesitation, he hurried across the room to the staircase and went down, three steps at a time.

Six

In the kitchen, Missie Grierson was still issuing instructions to her orphan workforce. When Tom came in, she studied him doubtfully.

‘Settled in, are ye?' she asked him.

‘Not really,' he told her. ‘You've got rats up there.'

This remark seemed to puzzle her. ‘So?' she murmured.

‘Well, I'm not being funny, but . . . that's not right, is it? Rats . . . in a bedroom. That's mingin
'.
'

Now she took her pipe from her mouth and gave an odd snickering laugh.

‘And how would you propose I keep them out?' she asked. ‘Send them a strongly worded letter? Rats is rats, son. They go wherever they've a mind to.'

‘Yeah, but you need to get rid of ‘em! What about all the plague that's around the Close? Don't you know that rats spread it?'

Now she looked quite bewildered and Tom realised why. Seventeenth-century people would have had no idea about the causes of bubonic plague. What was it that Agnes Chambers had told the class? They believed it was spread by a miasma – bad air – which was why Doctor Rae always wore that mask, the beak of which was stuffed with flowers and herbs.

‘I never heard tell of such a thing,' said Missie Grierson. ‘Rats are everywhere. If
they
spread the plague, then the good Lord help us all.'

‘It's not just the rats,' Tom assured her. ‘It's the fleas, too.'

‘The fleas?'

‘Yes. The fleas feed on the rats and then they bite the people and . . .' He broke off at the sounds of laughter from behind him and he saw that Morag and Alison were chuckling as though he'd just told a joke. ‘It's not funny,' he protested. ‘It's what really happens. It's how plague is caused.'

‘The fleas bite the rats!' sang Alison.

‘The rats bite the people!' joined in Morag.

‘We all fall down!' added Alison.

Tom glared at them and their laughter faded away.

‘I'm being deadly serious,' he told them. ‘It's not meant to be funny.'

Missie Grierson seemed to dismiss the matter. ‘I've no doubt there's lots of strange ideas being bandied about across the border,' she said. ‘And who am I to say that there isn't something in it? But like I say, rats is rats; you'll no' keep them out of anywhere they want to go and that's a fact.'

The door swung open and Cameron entered, carrying a full chamber pot from which issued an unbelievable stench.

‘Auld Mr Selkirk's been eating cheese again,' he announced and Morag and Alison groaned, as though this were a regular occurrence.

‘What are you going to do with that?' Tom asked in disbelief as Cameron hurried past.

The boy gave him a scornful look. ‘What do you suppose I'm going to do with it?' he smirked. ‘I'm going to take it outside and beat it to death with a stick.'

‘You
will
wash your hands after you've finished, won't you?' Tom called after him.

‘Why would I want to do that?' muttered Cameron, as he passed through another door.

Tom turned to look at Missie Grierson. ‘You must make him wash his hands,' he told her. He gestured around at the other kids. ‘All of them. If they handle . . . poo, they've got to scrub their hands with soap and hot water.'

‘Another of your strange Sassenach customs?' she asked him. ‘I wouldn't worry. They'll all be doing the laundry in a while and there's plenty of soap and hot water to be had there.'

‘Yes, but they're working with food
now
!'

Missie Grierson waved away his worries and gave him an inquiring look.

‘Don't make me regret giving you a chance,' she advised him. ‘Now, I've been thinking about how we might make best use of you around here. How are you with pigs?'

Tom actually took a step back in surprise. ‘Pigs?' he echoed. ‘You mean like . . .
real
pigs?'

‘No, I mean straw ones,' said Missie Grierson and, when he seemed to relax a little, she added, ‘Of course, real pigs, do you know of any other kind? What experience have you with ‘em?'

‘Well, I'm fond of a bacon sandwich,' said Tom. ‘If that helps?'

Missie Grierson shook her head. ‘I mean, have you looked after them?' she cried.

‘I don't think I've ever seen one until today,' he admitted. ‘And that one was dead. Before that, I've only seen them in photographs.'

‘In where?'

‘I mean, like . . . in pictures?'

This caused even more merriment among the orphans.

‘He's never seen a pig!' echoed Alison gleefully, ‘Except in pictures!'

‘Well, I'm from the city,' argued Tom. ‘You don't get pigs in the city, do you? You only ever see them out in the . . .' His voice trailed away. ‘Oh right, this
is
a city . . . and . . . somebody was chopping up a pig on the way here, so . . . I suppose you
do
have them, right?'

‘Of course!' cried Morag. ‘The best porkers on the Close!'

‘Ask anybody,' said Alison proudly. ‘You haven't tasted pork until you've tried some of ours. The secret's in what we feed them.'

Missie Grierson waved to silence her. ‘Too much jibber-jabber,' she said. ‘Morag, show Tom where he'll be working. And mind you don't stay out there all day. We need to make a start on the laundry.'

The girl nodded, wiped her hands on her apron and then, stepping away from the sink, she stooped and picked up a big iron bucket filled with potato peelings and other scraps of thrown-away food. She swung her head to indicate that Tom should follow her and led him across the kitchen to a door, which she barged open with one shoulder to reveal a small, sun-blasted yard at the back of the house. She stepped outside and Tom followed – then almost reeled backwards as the smell hit him full in the face.

‘There,' said Morag, grinning. ‘Here are our lovely ladies, all ready to meet you.' Several huge pink shapes were waddling around in the mud-filled yard, snuffling and grunting contentedly. Morag started pointing to the pigs, identifying each of them in turn. ‘That one's Bessie, she's my favourite; she's so wise she can almost talk to you. That one with the black ear, that's Mary; you need to watch her ‘cos she can be a bit of a handful. The one with all the wee bairns around her is Matilda and . . . Tom, whatever's wrong with you?'

He was hunched over, desperately trying not to heave. The smell was unbelievable, quite the most disgusting stench he had ever encountered, and he was almost afraid to breathe because it felt as though the foul air was burning his lungs. He turned to head back through the doorway in to the house but Morag caught his sleeve and pulled him further into the yard.

‘Ach, come on with ye!' she chided him.

‘I can't!' gasped Tom. ‘What about the awful smell?'

Morag grinned mischievously. ‘Oh, don't worry, they'll soon get used to it!' She laughed delightedly at his outraged expression. ‘Come on, it's no' that bad.'

‘It's ‘orrible,' snorted Tom. He had pulled a grubby tissue from his pocket and was holding it over his mouth and nose. ‘How can you stand it?'

‘You'll soon get used to it. Goodness, you Sassenachs must lead an odd kind of life, if you've never smelled pigs. Here . . .' She set down the bucket of slops. ‘Perhaps you'd like to feed ‘em?' She indicated an empty trough on the far side of the yard. ‘Just dump it all in there,' she suggested.

Tom looked for a clear path to the trough but soon realised there wasn't one. It meant wading through an ankle-deep slurry of mud and excrement to reach it. ‘These are my school shoes,' he protested.

Morag looked down at her battered old boots. ‘These are my
only
ones, but there's just the one way to get to that trough, unless you know how to fly. Go on with ye and stop acting like a baby.'

He picked up the bucket and began to wade grimly over to the trough. His feet sank to the ankles, the thick glop tugging at them, threatening to pull his shoes right off. Every time he lifted a leg, a fresh wave of the stench flowed around him and he could feel his eyes filling with moisture. To make matters worse, the pigs were clearly aware of the reason for his visit and they came charging over to him to root at the bucket, their great bristling bodies jostling him, nearly knocking him over.

‘Don't lose your footing,' Morag shouted helpfully. ‘Pigs will eat anything they find on the ground.'

‘Thanks for the advice,' he muttered. He made it to the trough and upended the bucket of slops into it. He was instantly surrounded by a crowd of grunting pigs, eager to be the first to get their noses into the food. Tom was nearly knocked flying by Bessie as she brushed one massive shoulder against him, but he somehow managed to keep his balance and started to wade grimly back to Morag. When he finally emerged on to drier ground, he looked down to see that his feet were two clumps of evil-smelling muck.

‘What am I supposed to do with these?' he asked.

‘They really suit you,' said Morag – but not in her own voice. Tom glanced up in surprise, to see that the girl's pretty face was flickering and melting like a dodgy DVD.

‘Morag?' he whispered.

But she was no longer Morag. She had grown another foot in height, her long blonde tresses replaced by a short auburn bob. ‘I think you should take them,' said Mum. ‘They look really cool.'

Tom looked down again to see that the two blobs of muck had been suddenly, inexplicably, replaced by a pair of bright red Converse sneakers – while the filthy ground beneath them had turned into a stretch of clean blue carpet. He looked up again in dull amazement. Mum was just standing there, smiling at his astonished expression. ‘What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?' she asked him. But before he could even think of an answer to that, another figure stepped into view from behind him. It was Dad – Dad dressed in an immaculate black suit with a crisp white shirt and a black silk tie. He was grinning as though everything was fine and dandy.

‘Well?' he prompted. ‘What do you say? Do you want them or not?'