Let's Kill Uncle (9 page)

Neither child had ever had a pet. Christie’s mother vowed animals were germ-ridden and invariably suffered some sad fate that broke the child’s heart. Barnaby had once adopted a stray kitten which ended its life in a fireplace, following in the footsteps of an earlier, unfortunate Teddy bear.

To the children the sight of this great golden cat with the jewelled eyes and fur as clean and sweet as honey was like a vision from fairyland. Never had they seen anything so beautiful, and, as in the case of Sergeant Coulter, it was love at first sight again.

‘Look at the scar on his side,’ whispered Christie.

‘Somebody must have shot him.’

One-ear was becoming more distressed by the minute. He knew from only too painful experience what would happen if he harmed them. The full complement of dogs, men and guns would be out again, and he had retired to this lovely little island to spend his declining years in peace. He cringed further in his bower.

As he took a step back, both children moved toward him. A muted snarl rose from his deep chest. A warning.

‘He’s only got one ear,’ said Christie, as she held her hand out toward him.

One-ear hissed and spat like a demon, and the velvet paw, extended now to the size of a dinner plate, swung in the air before her. Another warning. Useless, of course.

He didn’t dare hurt them. The wily, battle-scarred old warrior knew that if he tampered with the cubs of men once more, it meant death for him. It was an unforgivable crime, and
they
spared neither expense nor effort in hunting down the transgressor. Only by a miracle had he escaped the last time.

‘Now be careful, you’re scaring him,’ said Barnaby turning to Christie. ‘You’ll get him upset.’

He nodded reassuringly to One-ear, ‘It’s all right, we won’t hurt you.’

The cougar, fearful of attacking and unable to escape, bunched himself up in a miserable heap, his tail curled around his paws and his broad head lowered on his thick neck. His coat had a sheen like silk.

‘Isn’t he beautiful, Christie?’

Christie nodded. ‘It looks like somebody shot his ear off too. Poor kitty.’

Barnaby, still mourning his own lost kitten, shook his head. ‘How could anyone be so mean.’

One-ear watched them with cold-eyed fury.

‘Now listen, Christie, we mustn’t tell anybody about him, because they’ll come and shoot him again. Not even Sergeant Coulter.’

Christie nodded.

‘Look how pretty his coat is. See how it shines?’ Barnaby slowly extended his hand toward One-ear.

The cougar, again panic-stricken, retreated until he reached a wall of solid bush. With ear flattened against his triangular skull and, hissing impotently, he regarded them with hopeless hate.

Barnaby’s hand rested gently on the cougar’s head.

‘You see?’ he said in triumph, ‘I told you he wouldn’t bite.’

One-ear had lost and he knew it.

Together the children patted his glowing coat, stroked his radar whiskers and caressed the stump of his ear.

Martyred, he squelched his eyelids together, but he sensibly, if resentfully realised he must suffer them.

And the children hugged him with delight because he was all theirs.

‘He doesn’t look too happy,’ observed Christie.

‘That’s because he’s hunted and nobody loves him. I know just how he feels. I’ll always love him.’

‘Me too,’ chimed Christie.

‘You? You don’t know how it feels to have nobody love you, and to be hunted.’

‘Who’s hunting you? And I can love him if I want to.’

Bowed by a lifetime of vagrom misfortune, One-ear sighed in sulky despair and ignominiously capitulated.

S
ERGEANT COULTER
sat in the police launch writing his weekly letter to Gwynneth Rice-Hope.

My dear:

Tomorrow is the second Friday of the month, so I suppose you and Dudley will be over to the church here. I’m off duty for the weekend, starting tonight, so I’ll spend a couple of days at my father’s old place. I’ll he watching to catch a glimpse of you. I saw you in the real estate office at Benares last Tuesday, but you didn’t look as if you saw me.

Things are fine on the Island. Do you remember when I was in the POW camp how you used to write to me about the gardens here? I never thought I’d be doing the same thing for you. Mr Duncan’s corn looks very pretty. I walked by earlier, and the leaves or whatever you call them are bright green and already have little gold tassels. I finally found out what ails Lady Syddyns’s roses. They haven’t got afeedees, they have aphides. The hollyhocks are eight feet tall and the flowers look as if they are made of crepe paper.

The children are fine and have improved tremendously. It’s just as I said all along, they merely needed a firm hand. It was nice of
you to have them over for church last Sunday. Old Brooks told me about it. You must have been tired by the time you returned them here. My God, they’re noisy. I know there are only two of them, but somehow they always manage to give the impression of a crowd, or maybe riot would be a better word. Of course, the Island has been so quiet for so long, it doesn’t take much to liven it up. They’re odd little beggars, though. They’re doing a good job on the graveyard (I see to it) but on their own they have even put fresh flowers on one of the graves.

Naturally they picked Lady Syddyns’s roses without permission. I wrung that out of them. Lady Syddyns doesn’t know about it and I have no intention of telling her.

Brooks says the boy’s uncle wrote he’ll be here any day, flying over in his private plane. Maybe we’ll have more peace now. He’s wealthy, I suppose. Well, he won’t End much company on the Island.

I’m on my way up to the post office to see if Professor Hobbs’s book is here yet. He promised me an autographed copy. He was the one, I suppose I’ve told you a thousand times, who first got me interested in archaeology when I was in the POW camp. He taught a course in it.

Constable Browning is still reading indiscriminately; I never know what I’ll find him busy scanning. The last book was How I Lived With Bright’s Disease. I asked him if he thought he was coming down with it and he said no, but this fellow didn’t know he was going to get it either. I’m only eight years older than he, but sometimes I feel like his grandfather.

Well, I must close. I hope to see you tomorrow. With my love, as always,

Albert

He folded the letter carefully and put it in his tunic pocket. As he walked up to the post office, he glanced at the war monument and the list of names.

Three mute and inglorious years in a POW camp. It wasn’t his fault, they had been fighting a rearguard action and they had fought until they were surrounded and out of ammunition. Then, as ordered by their officers, they had smashed their rifles and surrendered.

He had been reported killed in action. What finished the old man off, was not that – it was the later news that Albert had surrendered instead. Forty years in the Indian Army, and he had never surrendered. Nobody else’s son on the Island had surrendered either.

It was Dudley Rice-Hope who had written and told him of his father’s death; he still remembered the phrases, the kindness, the genuine sympathy.

But it was she who had written to him after that. Knowing there was no one else to write to him, no one else who really cared whether he was a prisoner of war or not. Like her husband’s, her first letter had been prompted by sympathy, but she had continued to write, week after week, month after month, year after year. She had knitted for him, and sent him food parcels. Her letters, innocent and loving, to a lonely eighteen-year-old boy. News of the Island, Mrs Brooks’s heart condition, Dickie’s death, Lady Syddyns’s roses and rheumatism, the church bazaar, the fishing, Mr Duncan’s new calf, Mr Allen’s border collies and their prizes. Little things. Little things that had saved his sanity and made him love her. Irrevocably.

The children were having their second breakfast at the Brookses’. They sat sipping tea and munching toast and marmalade while Mrs Brooks opened her mail and Mr Brooks read the three-day-old paper.

‘Have you ever seen a cougar here on our Island?’ Barnaby asked.

Mrs Brooks put on her gold-rimmed spectacles.

‘Good gracious, no!’ she said. ‘Sergeant Coulter would never allow a cougar on
our
Island.’

A happy glance passed between Barnaby and Christie. One-ear’s presence was unsuspected.

‘Those Russians!’ Mr Brooks folded his newspaper and with the comfortable fierceness of old age declared, ‘If they don’t start behaving, we shall have to fight them.’

‘Sydney,’ said Mrs Brooks, handing him a letter and taking off her spectacles, ‘read this.’

He read it, nodded and handed it back to her. They leaned over, whispering softly to each other for a few minutes. The children, oblivious to all except food, ate noisily.

Mrs Brooks looked fondly at Barnaby.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘we didn’t want to disappoint you again, so we didn’t say anything until we were absolutely sure, but we’ve just got a letter with wonderful news.’

Barnaby looked at her inquiringly.

‘It’s from your uncle, he’ll be here any time now.’

Barnaby said nothing.

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Brooks, squeezing him, ‘I know you’re disappointed because he isn’t here now, dear, and you have thought he was coming so many times. But this time he says he is sure, and you’ll probably have to wait only a few more days.’

Barnaby did not look disappointed. He looked like the condemned prisoner whose last appeal has been denied.

‘Can we go out and play now?’ he asked.

‘Of course, dear.’

Mrs Brooks leaned her faded cheek down for him to kiss. He brushed it with his lips and turned to Christie.

‘Are you finished? Come on.’

Mr Brooks gave Mrs Brooks a proud glance as they watched the two children leave.

‘Just like Dickie,’ he said. ‘Hates to show his emotions.’

As Sergeant Coulter came into the store, the children, barefooted and tanned and usually so ebullient, slipped past him. The girl smiled at him, but the boy, with a set face, walked on as if he hadn’t seen the big policeman.

Sergeant Coulter shrugged. Kids. One day they climbed all over you with their sticky little fingers mucking up your uniform; the next day you were discarded, like some toy they had tired of.

He rang the bell on the counter and stared absently at a cobwebbed picture of the Queen hanging over the mail slots. That ought to be dusted.

‘Good morning,’ he said to Mr Brooks, ‘is there a package here from London for me?’

‘Nothing yet, Albert.’

‘Is that you, Albert?’ Mrs Brooks’s quavering voice floated like ectoplasm from behind the beaded curtain.

‘Yes, Mrs Brooks.’

‘You must come in for a cup of tea; it’s just freshly made.’

Sergeant Coulter suppressed a sigh. He dreaded going in that dim little parlour, a mausoleum to the dead Dickie.

He hated tea in the morning, but he could never think of excuses quickly or gracefully, so squaring his shoulders, he followed Mr Brooks to the back room.

Feeling three times his normal size and as though he were crammed in a doll’s house, he perched on the edge of a delicate cane-bottomed chair.

‘It’s been quite a time since I’ve seen you, dear. How big and brown you are. Our own policeman. The only Island boy left. My, my, how proud your father would be if he could see you, Albert.’

Albert smiled and gripped his teacup as though it were alive. He always spilled tea when he visited the Brookses.

‘How’s the heart?’ he asked politely.

Even before the death of Dickie, Mrs Brooks had had a heart condition, and she was never far separated from her bottle of digitalis.

‘The same, dear, the same. It’s a cross I’m used to bearing. I’ve learned to live with it.’

Like himself, Dickie Brooks had been born late in life to his parents, and his picture, with a look of startled innocence, gazed at Albert from the silver frame. How young he seemed. Of course, he’d been only nineteen. His face had a pure, untouched expression that made Sergeant Coulter feel guilty and old. Had he looked that guileless when he went overseas?

He dragged his eyes from the picture only to be confronted with a large seashell lettered with gold. Dickie had bought it overseas, on his last leave, which he had spent with his aunt at Brighton. Behind it, mounted on a stuffed heartshaped cushion of white satin were Dickie’s silver Sunday school attendance pins and his war decorations.

‘We’ve had another letter from Major Murchison-Gaunt,’ said Mr Brooks, lighting his pipe and settling down in his worn leather chair. ‘He’ll probably be here tomorrow.’

Sergeant Coulter looked at him vaguely for a minute.

‘Murchison-Gaunt? Oh, Barnaby’s uncle. That’s nice.’

Dickie’s last letter home was framed and hanging over Mr Brooks’s chair. Sergeant Coulter didn’t know where to look next until he noted with relief that the carpet was littered with comic books, two worn running shoes, a piece of bubble gum, some cereal-box plastic toys and a threadbare tennis ball.