Let's Kill Uncle (10 page)

‘How are you getting along with the boy?’ he asked.

‘Barnaby?’ Their old faces became alive, adoring.

‘You have no idea how that child is blossoming, Albert.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Brooks, filling Albert’s cup again, ‘yes, he’s such a dear little fellow. Just like Dickie was at that age.

She stopped, conscious of a warning look from Mr Brooks.

‘And he’s so happy.’ She nodded to Mr Brooks, to assure him his message had been received. ‘So happy. It’s wonderful that Mrs Nielsen’s little girl is holidaying here at the same time. They’re together from morning to night, and they never seem to quarrel anymore.’

This was not entirely accurate.

Sergeant Coulter nodded but made no comment.

Just like Dickie. It was impossible, he silently decided, to find two people more unlike each other than Barnaby and the much-mourned Dickie. There was something tough, almost manly about Barnaby and, in his own self-contained way, Albert had grown to like the boy.

He finished his tea and stood up.

‘Well, I must be going. Thank you so much.’

He passed the post office again, and although the letter was still in his pocket, he did not post it.

T
HE BREAD
, glazed and golden, was ready for delivery. The kitchen had cooled but still smelled deliciously of yeast, and Christie stood taking deep, appreciative sniffs. Barnaby, unusually silent, sat on the black leather sofa with Trixie in his arms.

The goat-lady put a clean linen cloth in a clothes basket and stacked the loaves carefully.

‘Two for Lady Syddyns, two for Mr Allen, three for Mr Duncan, and remember, don’t go up to his house, just shout at the fence, Agnes will come and pick it up, and two for poor Desmond. Don’t forget poor Desmond.’

Each carrying a handle of the basket, they began their rounds. Their first stop was at Mr Duncan’s, and following the goat-lady’s instructions, they did not go up to the house, but stopped at the fence and shouted.

Next was Mr Allen. Neither he nor his border collies had forgotten the gum incident on the boat, and the collies slunk suspiciously at their master’s heels as the old man carefully counted out pennies from a brass-topped purse.

And then on to Lady Syddyns. Wearing her faded purple velvet dressing gown and floppy-brimmed hat, she was, as usual, doctoring her roses.

She opened her arms to them and declared they must stop for tea.

Barnaby only smiled absently and did not answer, but Christie, pointing to the undelivered bread, declined with regret.

Surely next week then, said the old lady. They would have cucumber sandwiches and plum cake. She thumped both their heads affectionately with an insecticide sprayer, gave them each a rose and went on with her gardening.

The children were beginning to tire when they reached their last port of call, poor Desmond’s.

Poor Desmond, the village idiot, lived in a shabby shack in the middle of the Island. He was their favourite customer.

At the age of four he had been stricken with scarlet fever, and never, said Mr Brooks, from that day to this, had his mind developed in any way. And they must always be very kind to him.

Poor Desmond had a flat back to his head, bad teeth, huge, gentle, lemur-like eyes and he was thirty-five years old.

Either because of a natural sweetness of disposition or from being so long isolated from his own age group, the four-year-olds, Desmond displayed none of the common failings of children. He never had tempers, he never pouted and he was trusting and generous, always sharing his meager ration of candy with the children.

Once his two older sisters had lived on the Island with him, but they had long since left. They had married well, had grown families of their own, and they were ashamed of poor Desmond. They supplied him with credit at Mr Brooks’s store, where Mr Brooks chose his groceries for him, and in
exchange for simple tasks such as woodcutting or gathering clams and oysters, the goat-lady gave him bread, butter and milk.

Christie and Barnaby had become very fond of him, although there were times when he was a nuisance.

All things considered, poor Desmond lived a simple and happy life, though occasionally the children had to drive him back with shouts and stones when, like old Shep, he wanted to tag along after them on their visits to One-ear.

When they entered the shack, they found Desmond seated in a chair, washing his socks in a bowl of soapy water.

‘Oh, no!’ said Christie. ‘You’re supposed to take them off first, darling.’

While she removed Desmond’s socks, wrung them out and hung them over the doorsill to dry, Barnaby flung himself on Desmond’s cot.

‘I’ll make lunch for you, Desmond. Won’t that be nice?’

Desmond gave his random-toothed smile.

Christie rummaged through his food cupboard.

‘Salmon. You love salmon sandwiches, don’t you, Desmond?’

Desmond nodded, his trembling fingers happily brushing invisible spider webs from his face.

‘No butter. Well, we’ll just have to use that much more mayonnaise. You like mayonnaise, don’t you, Desmond?’

Desmond beamed.

Christie opened the can of salmon, dumped it in a bowl and threw the empty can out the door.

Barnaby sat up.

‘You are not supposed to do that. Sergeant Coulter says so. Desmond will get rats. You’re to put them in a card-board
box and Sergeant Coulter will take them over to his place and burn them.’

The lordly Sergeant’s merest whim was law, and retrieving the can, Christie continued her work.

‘Come on,’ she said to Barnaby, ‘the sandwiches are ready.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

He turned his face to the wall.

Christie looked at him suspiciously.

‘You sick?’

‘No.’

She and Desmond stuffed sandwiches into their mouths.

‘I think we’ll have a glass of milk, Desmond.’

She went to the cupboard and took out the milk jug.

‘Phew!’ she sniffed. ‘This is sour.’

She poured it out the front door.

Barnaby raised himself on his elbow.

‘I told you, you can’t do that.’

‘You can’t pour milk into a cardboard box, stupid. Desmond, you better go to the goat-lady’s tomorrow and get fresh milk. Oh yes, Mr Brooks says you’re to go to his place for your bath and shave tomorrow, too.’

The goat-lady always put a little treat for Desmond in with the bread.

‘Oh, goodie,’ cried Christie, opening a brown paper bag. ‘Molasses cookies. You going to have one, Barnaby?’

He shook his head and turned his face to the wall.

‘What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’ve been acting funny ever since this morning.’

Barnaby did not answer.

‘I think I’ll make us a cup of tea. You love tea, don’t you, Desmond?’

Desmond nodded.

Barnaby sat up again.

‘You can’t light Desmond’s stove while the fire season’s on. Sergeant Coulter says he’ll burn down the whole damn Island.’

Christie’s mouth became prissy.

‘That’s swearing, Barnaby Gaunt, and you know it isn’t nice.’

‘That’s what he said.’

Christie pondered for a minute. ‘Well, that’s different.’

She swept the crumbs off the table onto the floor, and otherwise busied herself tidying the place.

Barnaby had his face to the wall again. Puzzled, Christie sat on the edge of the cot. There was a camaraderie between her and Barnaby; next to her mother, the goat-lady, One-ear, Shep, Desmond, and of course the incomparable Sergeant Coulter, she liked Barnaby more than anyone.

‘What’s the matter, Barnaby?’

He sighed wearily and shook his head.

‘Is it because your uncle is coming?’

Barnaby had always been strangely disinclined to discuss his uncle.

He turned his face to her.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Don’t you love your uncle?’

Barnaby sat up, trembling.

‘I hate him!’ he said fiercely.

‘But why?’

‘Because. He killed Rodney, and he’ll kill me too.’

‘You ought to go to the police,’ said the sensible Christie. ‘Why don’t you tell. Sergeant Coulter?’

‘It’s no good. He wouldn’t believe me. You’ll see. Nobody believes me.’

He gave a hopeless sigh.

‘I told Mr Robinson, the lawyer, and he didn’t believe me. He called me a confirmed liar. And he said even if Uncle did kill Rodney, I was too big to make a fuss over a thing like that. He says my uncle is a very fine man, known for his philosophy.’

‘What’s that?’

‘When you give money away and you don’t have to. I told the headmaster of the school, too, and he waved some papers in my face and said, ‘Barnaby Gaunt, I’ve got a file here on you with the names of four schools you’ve been expelled from.’ Then he said my uncle was a long-suffering, patient man who had done his best by me. I’m bad, Christie, bad. Everybody says so.’

‘Oh, you are not.’ Christie yawned. ‘You always try to make things worse than they are. Who was Rodney and why did your uncle kill him?’

‘Listen,’ said Barnaby earnestly. ‘I am bad. And you know why? Because of him! I’ll tell you something nobody would ever believe.’

‘What?’

He leaned over.

‘He beats me.’

‘Oh, go on,’ scoffed Christie. ‘Lots of kids get whipped. My mother slaps me hard if I’m bad.’

‘You don’t understand! He only whips me if I’m good! If I’m bad he gives me presents. He’s crazy and nobody believes it except me. It’s the truth, Christie, he only beats me if, I’m good.’

He paused and added mournfully, ‘I don’t get beat very often.’

Christie sat staring at him. She was a shrewd little person.

‘Who was Rodney?’

Barnaby blushed and turned away.

‘All right for you,’ she said. ‘Just wait till you want me to tell you something.’

He turned to her and she saw he was close to tears.

‘Oh, stop being such a crybaby!’

‘You don’t care,’ he said. ‘Nobody does. Nobody loves me. I’m just like One-ear! And Rodney was my Teddy bear. I loved him! More than anything in the world. My mother gave him to me when I was a baby.
He
told me. Rodney had real fur, real brown fur, and a little box inside of him played music, and his eyes were glass and opened and shut when you put him upside down. I loved him and I couldn’t go to sleep without him.
He
knew it! He burned Rodney in the fireplace, right in front of me. He said, ‘I got him, Barnaby, I got Rodney and I burned him. He’s dead. You remember that. You wait, Barnaby, you wait!’ ’

‘Oh, he didn’t! That’s awful!’ Christie was horrified.

‘I’ll be next! He’s going to kill me. I know it!’

‘But why?’

‘Because of the money, don’t you see? He’s not my real uncle. He added my aunt’s name to his after they were married. When my aunt died, she left the money to me, ten million dollars. It’s in a trust fund, for me, and when I’m twenty-one I get it, and he gets what they call the interest off it until then. If I die before I’m twenty-one, he gets it all.

‘You don’t know how awful he is, Christie. He does things - awful things- ’

‘What kind of things?’

Barnaby’s face went red and he turned away.

‘I can’t tell you. They’re too awful.’

Christie shrugged.

‘Once, though, Christie, we had a lady living with us. We had lots of ladies living with us. Housekeepers, he called
them, but they never stayed long. I liked this lady, she was good to me. I liked her a lot. She came to me in the middle of the night, and she said she was going away, right then. She was crying and she put her arms about me and said, ‘You poor little boy, you poor little boy.’ You should of seen what he’d done to her!’

‘What?’

‘I won’t tell you. She said she wanted to take me away with her but she couldn’t. She said she couldn’t go to the police about me because he had her number, whatever that is. She said I must try and get away from him as soon as I could, even if it meant being poor and hungry. She said he was a devil, and if he didn’t kill me, he’d ruin me.’

‘He sounds awful.’

‘What’ll I do, Christie? What’ll I do? I’m so frightened.’

Christie sat thinking, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a prim little line.

‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘stop being such a baby, to begin with. If he’s as bad as you say, and mind you, Barnaby Gaunt, I’m not saying I believe everything, because you always make things worse than they are, but if he’s as bad as that, there’s only one thing
to do.
’

‘What’s that? What’ll we do, Christie? I’ll do anything!’

‘We’ll just have to murder him first,’ said Christie.

Barnaby looked at her with awe and admiration as she sat calmly swinging her legs over the edge of the cot.

‘I never even thought of that,’ he said. ‘I never even thought of it. You
are
my friend, Christie, and I won’t forget it, and when I get the money, I’ll give you a million dollars.’

‘Okay. Come on, let’s go home now. I’m thirsty. We’ll start figuring out how to do it tomorrow.’