More William (19 page)

THE PEA DID NOT EMBED ITSELF INTO THE GARDENER’S SKULL AS WILLIAM HAD SOMETIMES THOUGHT IT WOULD. IT BOUNCED BACK. THE GARDENER ALSO BOUNCED BACK.

He surveyed the scene with a deep sigh of satisfaction. The only drawback was that he felt that he could not safely stay to watch results. William possessed a true strategic instinct for the
right moment for a retreat. Hearing, therefore, a heavy step on the stairs, he seized several pieces of toast and fled. As he fled he heard through the open window violent sounds proceeding from
the enraged kitten beneath the cover, and then the still more violent sounds proceeding from the unknown person who removed the cover. The kitten, a mass of fury and lust for revenge, came flying
through the window. William hid behind a laurel bush till it had passed, then set off down the road. School, of course, was impossible. The precious hours of such a day as this could not be wasted
in school. He went down the road full of his whole purpose. The wickedness of a lifetime was somehow or other to be crowded into this day. Tomorrow it would all be impossible. Tomorrow began the
blameless life. It must all be worked off today. He skirted the school by a field path in case any of those narrow souls paid to employ so aimlessly the precious hours of his youth might be there.
They would certainly be tactless enough to question him as he passed the door. Then he joined the main road. The main road was empty except for a caravan – a caravan gaily painted in red and
yellow. It had little lace curtains at the window. It was altogether a most fascinating caravan. No one seemed to be near it. William looked through the window. There was a kind of dresser with
crockery hanging from it, a small table and a little oil stove. The further part was curtained off but no sound came from it, so that it was presumably empty too. William wandered round to inspect
the quadruped in front. It appeared to be a mule – a mule with a jaundiced view of life. It rolled a sad eye towards William, then with a deep sigh returned to its contemplation of the
landscape. William gazed upon caravan and steed fascinated. Never, in his future life of noble merit, would he be able to annex a caravan. It was his last chance. No one was about. He could pretend
that he had mistaken it for his own caravan or had got on to it by mistake or – or anything. Conscience stirred faintly in his breast, but he silenced it sternly. Conscience was to rule him
for the rest of his life and it could jolly well let him alone
this
day. With some difficulty he climbed on to the driver’s seat, took the reins, said ‘Gee up’ to the
melancholy mule, and the whole equipage with a jolt and faint rattle set out along the road. William did not know how to drive, but it did not seem to matter. The mule ambled along and William,
high up on the driver’s seat, the reins held with ostentatious carelessness in one hand, the whip poised lightly in the other, was in the seventh heaven of bliss. He was driving a caravan. He
was driving a caravan. He was driving a caravan. The very telegraph posts seemed to gape with envy and admiration as he passed. What ultimately he was going to do with his caravan he neither knew
nor cared. All that mattered was, it was a bright sunny morning, and all the others were in school, and he was driving a red and yellow caravan along the high road. The birds seemed to be singing a
paeon of praise to him. He was intoxicated with pride. It was
his
caravan,
his
road,
his
world. Carelessly he flicked the mule with the whip. There are several explanations of
what happened then. The mule may not have been used to the whip; a wasp may have just stung him at that particular minute; a wandering demon may have entered into him. Mules are notoriously
accessible to wandering demons. Whatever the explanation, the mule suddenly started forward and galloped at full speed down the hill. The reins dropped from William’s hands; he clung for dear
life on to his seat, as the caravan, swaying and jolting along the uneven road, seemed to be doing its utmost to fling him off. There came a rattle of crockery from within. Then suddenly there came
another sound from within – a loud, agonised scream. It was a female scream. Someone who had been asleep behind the curtain had just awakened.

William’s hair stood on end. He almost forgot to cling to the seat. For not one scream came but many. They rent the still summer air, mingled with the sound of breaking glass and crockery.
The mule continued his mad career down the hill, his reins trailing in the dust. In the distance was a little gipsy’s donkey cart full of pots and pans. William found his voice suddenly and
began to warn the mule.

‘Look out, you ole softie,’ he yelled. ‘Look out for the donk, you ole ass.’

But the mule refused to be warned. He neatly escaped the donkey cart himself, but he crashed the caravan into it with such force that the caravan broke a shaft and overturned completely on to
the donkey cart, scattering pots and pans far and wide. From within the caravan came inhuman female yells of fear and anger. William had fallen on to a soft bank of grass. He was discovering, to
his amazement, that he was still alive and practically unhurt. The mule was standing meekly by and smiling to himself. Then out of the window of the caravan climbed a woman – a fat, angry
woman, shaking her fist at the world in general. Her hair and face were covered with sugar and a fork was embedded in the front of her dress. Otherwise she, too, had escaped undamaged.

The owner of the donkey cart arose from the melee of pots and pans and turned upon her fiercely. She screamed at him furiously in reply. Then along the road could be seen the figure of a fat man
carrying a fishing rod. He began to run wildly towards the caravan.

‘
Ach! Gott im Himmel!
’ he cried as he ran. ‘My beautiful caravan! Who has this to it done?’

He joined the frenzied altercation that was going on between the donkey man and the fat woman. The air was rent by their angry shouts. A group of highly appreciative villagers collected round
them. Then one of them pointed to William, who sat, feeling still slightly shaken, upon the bank.

‘It was ’im wot done it,’ he said, ‘it was ’im that was a-drivin’ of it down the ’ill.’

With one wild glance at the scene of devastation and anger, William turned and fled through the wood.

‘
Ach! Gott im Himmel!
’ screamed the fat man, beginning to pursue him. The fat woman and the donkey man joined the pursuit. To William it was like some ghastly nightmare after
an evening’s entertainment at the cinema.

Meanwhile the donkey and the mule fraternised over the debris and the villagers helped themselves to all they could find. But the fat man was very fat, and the fat woman was very fat, and the
donkey man was very old, and William was young and very fleet, so in less than ten minutes they gave up the pursuit and returned panting and quarrelling to the road. William sat on the further
outskirts of the wood and panted. He felt on the whole exhilarated by the adventure. It was quite a suitable adventure for his last day of unregeneration. But he felt also in need of bodily
sustenance, so he purchased a bun and a bottle of lemonade at a neighbouring shop and sat by the roadside to recover. There were no signs of his pursuers.

WILLIAM’S HAIR STOOD ON END. HE ALMOST FORGOT TO CLING TO THE SEAT. FOR NOT ONE SCREAM CAME BUT MANY, MINGLED WITH THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS AND CROCKERY.

He felt reluctant to return home. It is always well to follow a morning’s absence from school by an afternoon’s absence from school. A return in the afternoon is ignominious and
humiliating. William wandered round the neighbourhood experiencing all the thrill of the outlaw. Certainly by this time the gardener would have complained to his father, probably the schoolmistress
would have sent a note. Also – someone had been scratched by the cat.

William decided that all things considered it was best to make a day of it.

He spent part of the afternoon in throwing stones at a scarecrow. His aim was fairly good, and he succeeded in knocking off the hat and finally prostrating the wooden framework. There followed
an exciting chase by an angry farmer.

It was after teatime when he returned home, walking with careless bravado as of a criminal who has drunk of crime to its very depth and flaunts it before the world. His spirits sank a little as
he approached the gate. He could see through the trees the fat caravan-owner gesticulating at the door. Helped by the villagers, he had tracked William. Phrases floated to him through the summer
air.

‘Mine beautiful caravan . . .
Ach . . . Gott im Himmel!
’

He could see the gardener smiling in the distance. There was a small blue bruise on his shining head. William judged from the smile that he had laid his formal complaint before authority.
William noticed that his father looked pale and harassed. He noticed, also, with a thrill of horror, that his hand was bound up, and that there was a long scratch down his cheek. He knew the cat
had scratched
somebody
, but . . . Crumbs!

A small boy came down the road and saw William hesitating at the open gateway.

‘
You’ll
catch it!’ he said cheerfully. ‘They’ve wrote to say you wasn’t in school.’

William crept round to the back of the house beneath the bushes. He felt that the time had come to give himself up to justice, but he wanted, as the popular saying is, to be sure of
‘getting his money’s worth’. There was the tin half full of green paint in the tool shed. He’d had his eye on it for some time. He went quietly round to the tool shed. Soon
he was contemplating with a satisfied smile a green and enraged cat and a green and enraged hen. Then, bracing himself for the effort, he delivered himself up to justice. When all was said and done
no punishment could be really adequate to a day like that.

WILLIAM’S SPIRITS SANK A LITTLE AS HE APPROACHED THE GATE. HE COULD SEE THROUGH THE TREES THE FAT CARAVAN-OWNER GESTICULATING AT THE DOOR.

Dusk was falling. William gazed pensively from his bedroom window. He was reviewing his day. He had almost forgotten the stormy and decidedly unpleasant scene with his father.
Mr Brown’s rhetoric had been rather lost on William, because its pearls of sarcasm had been so far above his head. And William had not been really loath to retire at once to bed. After all,
it had been a very tiring day.

Now his thoughts were going over some of its most exquisite moments – the moments when the pea and the gardener’s head met and rebounded with such satisfactory force; the moment when
he swung along the high road, monarch of a caravan and a mule and the whole wide world; the moment when the scarecrow hunched up and collapsed so realistically; the cat covered with green paint . .
. After all it was his last day. He saw himself from tomorrow onward leading a quiet and blameless life, walking sedately to school, working at high pressure in school, doing his homework
conscientiously in the evening, being exquisitely polite to his family and instructors – and the vision failed utterly to attract. Moreover, he hadn’t yet tried turning off the water at
the main, or locking the cook into the larder, or – or hundreds of things.

There came a gentle voice from the garden.

‘William, where are you?’

William looked down and met the earnest gaze of Deborah.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘William,’ she said. ‘You won’t forget that you’re going to start tomorrow, will you?’

William looked at her firmly.

‘I can’t jus’ tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’m puttin’ it off. I’m puttin’ it off for a year or two.’

CHAPTER 13

T
he house next to William’s had been unoccupied for several months, and William made full use of its garden. Its garden was in turns a
jungle, a desert, an ocean, and an enchanted island. William invited select parties of his friends to it. He had come to look upon it as his own property. He hunted wild animals in it with Jumble,
his trusty hound; he tracked Red Indians in it, again with Jumble, his trusty hound; and he attacked and sank ships in it, making his victims walk the plank, again with the help and assistance of
Jumble, his trusty hound. Sometimes, to vary the monotony, he made Jumble, his trusty hound, walk the plank into the rain tub. This was one of the many unpleasant things that William brought into
Jumble’s life. It was only his intense love for William that reconciled him to his existence. Jumble was one of the very few beings who appreciated William.