Let's Kill Uncle (21 page)

They flung the fish down and threw themselves on either side of him. He graciously allowed them to caress him, his lazy eyes on the salmon.

‘Now then,’ said Barnaby, sitting up, ‘we’ve got to get busy and train him. He’s got to learn to follow us, and to come when we call, and later we’ll sick him on things and teach him that.’

He stood up and walked a few paces away.

‘Here, One-ear. Come here. Good boy. Come here!’

One-ear yawned.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ said Christie. ‘Go on, One-ear, go to Barnaby. You’ve got to learn to do what we tell you.’

One-ear stretched, yawned again, and then peeked slyly out of the corner of his eye at the fish.

Christie stood up.

‘He doesn’t get the idea. Maybe I can help.’

Sinking her hands into the loose fur of his neck, she heaved and panted as she tried to drag him to his feet.

With only the slightest hint of irritation, he sat up and shook himself violently.

Christie was flung on her knees a yard away.

Angry, she sprang to her feet and pointed an accusing finger at him.

‘You quit that, One-ear!’

With a show of penitence, he lay down meekly.

Barnaby sighed as he saw One-Ear stretch out again. Walking around the cougar, he took hold of One-ear’s tail and tried to heave him up from the back end.

One-ear gave a tiny, bored snarl and, carefully keeping his claws sheathed, he turned and cuffed Barnaby across the shoulder.

Barnaby spun in a circle and fell on his face six feet away.

Winded, he stood up. After breathing heavily for several moments, he went to the fish and picked it up. Turning to Christie he said.

‘It isn’t going to work. He won’t do anything we tell him. He won’t stand up, fetch, or follow, and never will.’

He looked at One-ear reproachfully.

‘Come on. We might as well go.’

A smirk began curling one corner of the cougar’s lips as the silly boy stood holding the fish right under his nose.

With a quick flick of his claws, One-ear flipped the beautiful salmon from Barnaby’s arms, caught it in his mouth and with a huge bound he disappeared into the bushes.

The children watched with open mouths, then Christie stamped her foot in anger.

‘What are we going to do? What’ll we tell Auntie?’

Barnaby’s belligerent lower lip stuck out.

‘That was mean. We’ll have to say we lost the fish.’

It was lying, a sin they had promised Sergeant Coulter to forgo, but angry as they were, they knew they couldn’t tattle on One-ear.

It had been a long, long time since One-ear had eaten salmon, and he finished it with gusto. When the last delicious titbit had gone down his gullet, he sat preening his satin coat.

Had he known what they wanted, and had their intended victim been Sergeant Coulter, he would gladly have obliged, could he have done so with impunity. Who knew how many cougars that murderer had wantonly destroyed?

When the children arrived at the goat-lady’s, she put down the sweater she was knitting and looked at them in amazement.

‘How could anybody just lose a big fish?’

The children admitted it had been plain carelessness on their part. They had put it down somewhere, forgotten to pick it up, walked on and now they couldn’t remember where they left it.

The goat-lady was annoyed.

‘Well, it’s no good going back to look for it if you don’t know where you left it. In this heat it will spoil in the sun before you find it. I could have got a dozen jars of salmon from that.’

The waste was unpardonable. Barnaby must return to the store and confess to Mr Brooks, while Christie would have to stay in for the rest of the day.

They felt badly.

‘You need your hair washed and a bath anyway,’ said the goat-lady to Christie. She pushed Barnaby out the door, then relenting slightly, gave him a cookie and told him to come back the next day.

Christie stood with downcast eyes.

‘Get a lemon out of the cupboard. I’ll put the juice on your hair to make it brighter.’

Forgiven, Christie felt much better.

‘I’m getting my hair bleached with lemon juice,’ she shouted to the retreating figure of Barnaby.

Even Mr Brooks was cross.

‘For shame, Barnaby, a big boy like you. I hope you’ll be more careful next time, or I won’t feel I can trust you to do errands.’

Mrs Brooks dabbed her eyes and begged Mr Brooks not to be so harsh. Barnaby would be a child only once. She kissed Barnaby’s cheek and said she was sure it would never happen again.

Barnaby looked so thoroughly miserable that Mr Brooks could not bear it.

Patting the boy’s shoulder, he said: ‘Now, now, it’s not that serious. Just remember to be more careful next time.’

Barnaby gave a wan smile and went outside. He sat moodily on the porch, reading a crime-comic magazine and trying to think of a foolproof method of murdering his uncle.

So desperate was he that he even considered telling Sergeant Coulter. As the thought crossed his mind he looked up to find the big Mountie gazing down at him.

‘Hello,’ said Barnaby.

Sergeant Coulter smiled at the sight of the small, miserable figure.

‘Hello,’ he said.

He sat down next to the boy, took the comic book, looked at it, shook his head and handed it back to Barnaby.

‘Where’s your partner in crime?’

‘Who?’ said Barnaby, startled.

‘Christie.’

‘Oh, her. She’s getting her hair bleached with lemon juice and having a bath. And then she’s going to have her hair curled.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Sergeant Coulter. ‘You look as if you’ve lost your last friend. But then, you wouldn’t want your hair curled and bleached, would you?’

He paused and looked at Barnaby’s grubby knees.

‘Still, a bath wouldn’t hurt you,’ he admitted.

He offered the boy a package of gum, his panacea for all the problems of childhood.

‘Did you have a good time last week at Benares?’ he asked.

Barnaby looked at him blankly.

‘When you had tea with Mrs Rice-Hope.’

What was the matter with the boy, was he retarded? What else could he possibly be referring to.

‘Oh,’ Barnaby gave an indifferent sigh. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

He peeled the whole package of gum and as usual put the lot in his mouth. Sergeant Coulter’s interest waned visibly.

‘Did you play games?’

Barnaby chewed silently, then, suddenly realising his hero was actually talking to him, he began speaking eagerly.

‘Yes, we had a contest. She showed us how, Mrs Rice-Hope. Christie and me, we made miniature gardens. You take a piece of plywood about a yard square, with a little edge an inch high around it, and you fill it with earth. Then you make a garden. I had moss for lawn, and a piece of broken beer bottle for a lake and then I got little shells and made a path. I had flower beds too, beside the lake, with wild violets and nasturtiums and foxglove petals. It’s hard to make a little garden because you need little flowers.’

Sergeant Coulter smiled. ‘She liked it, didn’t she?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Christie?’

‘No, Mrs Rice-Hope,’ said Albert.

‘Christie’s was better. She made a little bridge of matchsticks and a beach of white sand and pebbles, and her ocean looked really real, she used a pocket mirror. And her flower garden, you should have seen it.’

‘I wish I had,’ said Albert.

‘We got prizes. There were only two of us, so we both got prizes because Mrs Rice-Hope said they were too beautiful to choose between.’

Yes, of course she would. She would never leave one child disappointed while praising the other.

‘What was your prize?’

‘A little prayer book. Christie got one too. I gave mine to Christie.’

‘What for?’ asked Sergeant Coulter.

‘Oh,’ said Barnaby, ‘she’s collecting them.’

Sergeant Coulter stood up. A rare tenderness came over him, and reaching down, he ruffled the boy’s hair.

Barnaby got to his feet.

‘Sergeant?’

‘Yes?’

Barnaby stood very straight.

‘There’s something I want to ask you. No - something I want to tell you- ’

The sergeant’s mind was wandering back to Benares and he murmured ‘yes’ absently.

‘It’s about my uncle.’

‘Yes, Barnaby?’

‘He- ’ Barnaby faltered for words. ‘He’s not like other people.’

He knew from experience not to go too far or say too much.

The policeman’s face altered slightly. Polite, clinical, disinterested, eyes missing nothing.

‘Isn’t he, Barnaby? In what way?’

Barnaby’s lips trembled.

‘He’s not nice.’

Sergeant Coulter looked down at the little boy.

‘I don’t understand you, son. What do you mean?’

Barnaby mumbled and looked away.

‘Look here, does he beat you?’

‘No.’

The Mountie paused. The next question was a delicate one and he phrased it carefully.

‘Listen, now, you know I’m a policeman, and it’s my job to help people. Little boys like you. You say your uncle isn’t nice. Does he hurt you? I mean, not spankings, does he ever hurt you in a way that isn’t nice? Is this what you’re trying to tell me?’

Barnaby was puzzled. How could you hurt people in a way that
was
nice? He looked sullen.

‘All right,’ said Sergeant Coulter, trying a new tack, ‘tell me the worst thing he’s ever done.’

Barnaby thought back on all of Uncle’s subtle, terrible cruelties. Without a moment’s hesitation, he said, ‘He burned my Teddy bear in the fireplace.’

Sergeant Coulter rubbed his hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

‘That sounds pretty awful,’ he said. ‘But sometimes these things are necessary as we grow up. I had an old patent leather doll called Felix the Cat, when I was a little fellow. The patent leather all cracked and his stuffing came out, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t go to sleep without him.’

Barnaby looked up in amazement. At last he had found someone who understood.

Sergeant Coulter grinned and gave the boy a mock punch on the chin, then he leaned down and took the crime-comic book from Barnaby’s pocket.

‘My father put Felix the Cat in the garbage can,’ he said.

Barnaby felt hopeless but in one last bid for understanding, he grabbed the policeman’s hand and gazed at him searchingly.

‘Sergeant, he’s going to kill me.’

It wasn’t Barnaby’s day.

Sergeant Coulter was staring with disgust at the illustrations in the comic book.

No, it really wasn’t Barnaby’s day.

The picture showed a small boy trussed with ropes, while a barrel-chested man, who, by unfortunate coincidence, bore a remarkable resemblance to Uncle, wielded a long, sharp knife.

Sergeant Coulter handed the book back to the boy.

‘He is, Sergeant, he is! I know he’s going to kill me!’

‘Well, I’ll speak to him about it tomorrow. Now, how about trying to find something else to read, eh? This sort of trash isn’t good for kids, you’ll be having bad dreams. You ask Mrs Brooks if she’s got any of Dickie’s old books around. I’ll bet she has. Things I used to read,
Chums
,
Chatterbox
, the
Boy’s Own Weekly
. Okay?’

He patted the boy’s head again and walked away.

I
T HADN’T RAINED
for weeks, and every afternoon the temperature crept a few degrees higher. By two o’clock the landscape hung quivering like stage scenery. The blackberry bushes and wild roses banking the roads were a confectioner’s dream, powdered with a fine white dust. The arbutus leaves lost their glossy sheen, rattling gold and dry against their peeling bronze trunks. Little streamlets that formerly cavorted merrily to the ocean lingered in weary trickles, finally disappearing completely, leaving only round white polished pebbles to mark their course.

Since there was no electricity on the Island, there was no refrigeration and the old people pulled their curtains to sit panting in darkened rooms. They increased their already formidable amount of tea-drinking and assured each other that hot drinks were far more cooling anyway.

Mr Brooks cast his eyes anxiously to the mountain, watching for the first telltale plume of smoke that would herald the scarlet-tongued demon of the Pacific Coast, the forest fire.

He shook his head and turning to Sergeant Coulter said, ‘We’re in for trouble if we don’t get rain soon. The whole Island is like tinder and the wells are drying up.’

Sergeant Coulter nodded and sighed, dreaming of sitting in a cool, dim tavern, tie loosened, and sipping a beaded ice-cold beer.

No. He didn’t want that. Not in the beer parlour on Benares, in any case. Sergeant Coulter had a large, painful-looking black eye, and if he had any choice, which he hadn’t, he would never go in that beer parlour again. He sighed once more; he would probably be recruiting crews for fire fighting before the week was out, and that meant bearding them in the Benares beer parlour. He really couldn’t blame them for grousing - it was forced labour, and the government paid only a pittance of their normal wages - but that was the Law. Able-bodied men could be pressed into service, and it was his job to uphold the Law.