The Scarecrow (13 page)

Les looked a bit blank, but when I told him it was for Pru he went away and asked his father. Mr Wilson came back with Les.

‘I haven’t stocked it for a long time, Ned,’ he said. ‘But there’s six or seven rolls of a remnant here somewhere. Very pretty paper, too, and if I remember right, it’s been selvedged and everything. Look in that carton under the shelf there, Les.’

This ‘remnant-selvedge’ jazz was so much gibberish to me, but when Les found the wallpaper and held it up for me to see I knew that was it all right.

‘It’s pretty,’ I said. ‘Gee, but that’s the prettiest wallpaper I’ve ever seen. Cop those roses and things. Gee! I’ll bet it’s dear though, Mr Wilson.’

‘Oh, it’s terribly expensive, Ned,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘You could
go up town to Hardley & Manning and buy up their whole stock for the price of that wallpaper. You just can’t get wallpaper like that, any more. The factories just don’t make it any more, Ned. I’ll bet you there isn’t a store in the whole country has got a single roll of a wallpaper that quality. When you see a wallpaper of that class it makes you realise that things aren’t what they used to be, Ned. Probably never be the same again, not when it comes to making wallpaper.’

‘I guess yuh right at that,’ I muttered.

‘No, sir,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘That wallpaper is a real quality product and that’s something yuh just gotta expect to pay for, eh?’

‘Well, maybe,’ I mumbled, ‘I could pay yuh a little a week for the rest of my life or something, but Mr Wilson that paper is just right for this bedroom of Prudence’s and I’m sure it wouldn’t matter how many I looked at now I’d never be happy with anything else, not now I’ve seen this special wallpaper.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Wilson, ‘I guess you’re intending to hang this wallpaper yourself. You have any idea what’s the first thing you need to hang wallpaper?’

‘No,’ I mumbled.

‘Paste,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘And to make paste you need flour. Now I take it you’ve got flour at home. Where did you buy that flour, Ned?’

‘Why here, I guess. I guess Ma got it here.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Wilson, ‘in that case I’m gunna meet you half-way. This is a family business, Ned and we certainly appreciate it when someone can turn right round and say, without thinking, that something they’ve got at home came from this store. Like that flour. So do you know what I’m gunna do?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Neddy,’ said Mr Wilson, and put his hands under his apron to stop his belly from shaking loose with laughing, ‘I’m gunna
give
you that paper. Yes sir,
give
it to you and I want you to tell everybody in town that that’s the sorta gesture of appreciation you can expect from A. C. Wilson, Family Merchant.’

When Les told me he intended to help as soon as he had filled a few more bottles with kerosene, I nearly burst my boiler getting home to rip the remaining wallpaper down, and generally make Prudence’s bedroom presentable for a working-bee. Ma must have thought I had gone stark, staring, but she dropped everything she was doing the moment she cottoned on. She pitched-in making paste, still talking about how the new wallpaper reminded her of the parlour in Grandma Cudby’s old house that was burnt to the ground. I have to hand it to Ma. Without her I would not have stood a chance of papering that room, but Ma was a dynamo, doing everything at once and talking nineteen to the dozen. To my everlasting astonishment, Pop pitched in too when he arrived, but he had a few under his belt and got in our road as much as anything. We were short of a stepladder and this is where Les Wilson showed his mettle. The stud was pretty high in that old house, but Les was like a monkey standing tiptoe on the top of the bed-end, while I stood on a chair on top of a washstand. We worked like demons, but I never thought for a moment we could ever finish the job before Prudence arrived home. We expected her about 9.30 when the shops shut, but when this time went by and there was still no sign of her, we figured she must have gone to see a film, which gave us another hour. By eleven the room was done, but there was still no Prudence and
my frantic delight was becoming tinged with worry.

Les and I hung her little picture up on the wall again and Ma came in with some geraniums in a glass jar and put them by the bed. She took the tattered rug off the floor and replaced it with one in better condition that must have been in her and Pop’s room. I was a bit disappointed at the paper not looking tighter and I did not like the dark, wet patches spoiling the pattern, but both Ma and Pop said it would be OK when it dried out. I hoped they were right. Anyway you would never have believed it was the same room. With the window open and the curtains blowing in and out, and the rose-covered walls, it could have been a room at the Quins’ or Josephine McClinton’s. It looked too good to be true. But where was Prudence?

We had a cup of tea and some toast. It was half-past eleven by this time, but Les said no, he’d be damned if he would go home before Prudence saw the room. I know how he felt. I wandered up and had another look at the room, and, to my joy, Ma and Pop were right when they said it would dry out and tauten. It looked wonderful. If only Prudence would come home. There was something sad about the way the curtains blew in and out of the neat, bright, empty room.

Then I heard Ma calling me in an urgent stage whisper and I just got out to the kitchen as I heard footsteps on the verandah. She went to the washhouse first.

‘You get under the table, Les,’ I said. ‘Quick. She’ll smell a rat if she sees you here at this time of night.’

As it was, Prudence looked most surprised to see Ma and Pop and me sitting around the table. She looked very dejected.

‘Whatcha all doing up?’ she said.

‘Having a cuppa,’ said Ma promptly. ‘Like a cuppa,
Prudence?’

‘Awright,’ said Prudence wearily. Ma poured her out a cup and Prudence, who was standing by the table with her legs about a foot from Les’s face, then said, ‘I’ll take it into my room, Ma, and drink it in there. I’m pretty tired. Ni’, ni’, Ma, Pop, ni’, ni’, Neddy.’

She kissed Ma, and took the cup and away she went. Les came out from under the table grinning like a halfwit. We heard the light go click in her room and then there was a long silence. Then she burst into the kitchen and her eyes were like saucers. Doggone it, I hate admitting this, but I may even have been on the verge of blubbing myself, I was so happy.

Prudence just looked at us all stupidly.

‘Well,’ said Ma. ‘Do you like it Pru?’

‘I dunno what to say,’ said Prudence. It was a fact that she looked absolutely flabbergasted.

‘However didya do it so quick?’ she said. ‘Where didya get that pretty wallpaper? I thought I was in the wrong house. Ma, Eddy, Pop, I dunno what to say. It’s wonderful.’

She kissed us all and, as a matter of pure routine the way things were lately, started blubbing again. That was only to be expected. Les got an extra big kiss and after that it looked to me as if he had no intention of going home at all that night. It looked to me as if he was getting ready to settle right in and paper the whole house.

Holidays have been defined as a time spent wondering if one would not be better off somewhere else and doing something different; but this May, fate seemed to have everything cut and dried. It was a case of the more you stir the more you stink. Prudence’s bedroom now laughed at the rest of the house and the kitchen now looked unbearably dingy in our eyes.

‘What say we paint it?’ said Prudence, eyeing the kitchen on Saturday morning. ‘There’s tins and tins half-full of paint in the old shed.’

She was right. There were dozens of tins and most of them gallon tins at that, down in the old shed. Pop had apparently stumbled across all this paint at some time or other on his travels and piled it all on the truck, just in case. There were even some brushes soaking in a tin of stagnant water. It was difficult to read the label on some of the tins and the contents all looked the same,
like brown oil, but we stirred and stirred and gradually the brown oil churned into rich, creamy paint. There were some tins of red roof paint, which appeared to have never been opened. I dismissed a fleeting doubt concerning Pop’s sense of distinction between tweedlemeum and tweedleteum (or something. I am unable to find it in any of my reference books) as unworthy of me.

‘’Y’know something,’ I said. ‘There’s enough paint here to do the whole flippin’ house.’

‘Well,’ said Prudence, ‘why don’t we paint the whole flippin’ house?’

We stared at each other and then down at the tins of paint. Thoughtfully, Prudence began to pull up her dress and tuck it into her knickers. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘this’ll teach me to keep my big mouth shut. Here goes the May vacation.’

When I walked out of the shed, carrying two tins of paint, my heart sank. The house looked as big as the government buildings. I thought, better nip this in the bud and call it off right away before we start wasting our time. I put down the paint and turned around to face Prudence, who was following me with the tin of water that had the handles of the brushes sticking up out of it. One look at my sister and I picked up the paint again and kept walking. She looked ruthless.

By four o’clock in the afternoon I was thoroughly enjoying myself. By mutual agreement Les and I postponed our visit to the cinema and the current episode of ‘The Fire God’s Treasure’ until the evening session.

Oh yes, by this time Les was on the job with us. And so also, I might point out, were Chester Montgomery, butcher boy Herman, and Pop. This was the team that coped with the really
big areas; but also, playing their part, were Ma and Angela Potroz, who painted the verandah and the more easily reached places. I can still see sweet-natured Angela down on her knees all on her own, around the shadowed front of the house, earnestly scraping the moss off the ventilation boards, with her paint can in readiness beside her.

We painted right through Sunday, the full gang, even Herbert, although Ma went inside and hid as the cars began to arrive outside the Temple of the Brethren of the Lamb. She concealed herself again later on when the service broke up and the worshippers started up their vehicles to go home.

Uncle Athol painted a few boards in the afternoon and then he went away to borrow a blowlamp; and ta-ta, Uncle Athol.

The weather was perfect for painting, fine but cool, after heavy frosts in the early morning. By Monday, Les and I were painting the roof, and it was marvellous up there. The air seemed fresh and the town, seen from above, looked different somehow, wide-spread and dreaming. We could see the old Fitzherbert mansion, and, among the pines, our old shed where we had not ventured (well not to speak of anyway, oo-hoo that applejack) since the brush with the Lynchites. Josephine McClinton went past and in a weak moment, while having a smoke behind the chimney, I confessed to Les I was nuts about her. Well, I guess that made us square, but at least he had a friend at court. My case looked pretty hopeless. Josephine’s ivory tower was high, like a skyscraper is high, and I had a feeling I would need a brass band rather than a guitar to go serenading her.

The five-fifty twenty-one situation had reached an all-time zero and, with the Dennis smugly immobilised in the yard, Pop
and Herbert spent the day helping Prudence give the walls a second coat. By evening, one could hardly credit it was the same house. The second coat made all the difference. The old, dry wood just guzzled up the first coat. Angela Potroz had taken it upon herself to do all the window facings and sills and a very artistic job she was making of it. Just after five o’clock, as soon as they finished work, Chester and Herman turned up to do what they could before nightfall. Chester even came for a little while in the dinner hour, but the call of the nosebag was strong and he accomplished very little.

Tuesday there were just Les and me, Prudence and Angela, working. It was extremely peaceful and a happier little team would not have been found anywhere.

We decided to make an early start on the Wednesday in an effort to cut the job out. We decided that after Angela had gone home after tea. Les had stayed for tea too. Ma was so pleased with us and so proud of the house she seemed dazed. She put up a terrific spread for tea. The gastrological cards Ma could deal off the bottom of the pack in emergencies never failed to amaze me. I had known mincemeat was due, but the dumplings took the wind out of my sails.

There was another snorter of a frost in the morning so Les and I were unable to mount the roof first thing. The three of us were just deciding which of the remaining unpainted areas to tackle when Uncle Athol and Charlie Dabney arrived on the scene. Time, 7.45. Charlie Dabney had a bottle of brandy sticking out of his pocket and Uncle Athol clutched the blowtorch he had set out to borrow on Sunday afternoon. Ma appeared on the verandah, hands on hips.

‘And what have you got there, Athol, at this hour of the day?’

‘Ah, hah, Natalie,’ burbled Uncle Athol, ‘a blowtorch m’dear. Soon have the job done now. Thought ole Athol had forgotten, but never on yuh life. Not Athol.’

‘Not Athol,’ burbled Charlie Dabney. ‘Not ole team AtholnCharlie, Miz Dee-aitch, not AtholnCharlie.’

He tottered around and began opening and shutting his hands. Uncle Athol put the blowtorch under his arm and began opening and shutting his hands as well. The blowtorch fell to the ground.

‘Cremation arrainsh,’ they chanted. ‘Cremaish arrainsh, cremaish arrainsh.’

‘Oh what’s the use,’ stormed Prudence and bolted inside the house, past Ma.

‘Soon have the job done,’ roared Ma. ‘I like that, yuh drunken clot. Too inebriated at this hour of the morning to look around and see that the job is done, thanks to Prudence and Eddy. What an hour to come staggering up the path with a blowfly torch, or whatever it is, and start talking about finishing the job. I can well imagine what finishing the job would mean in your inebriated eyes, Athol Cudby, and that’s probably burn the house down to the ground around our ears like Grandma’s house (if Grandma could see you now at this hour of the morning!) just when we’re all so proud of looking a bit respectable for once in our lives. “Finish the job!” ‘

With a snort of infinite disgust Ma retired, doubtless to console the temperamental Prudence.

‘Episode closed, episode closed,’ said Charlie to Uncle Athol. ‘Have a brandy ole soulmate, have snort brandy to ‘leviate gloom, dispel sorrow, and so on and so on. Episode closed.’

‘Well I’ll be damned if I’ll paint the house, now,’ said Uncle
Athol. ‘Damned if I’ll lift a finger to help them paint the house if they crawled to me on their knees, begging for me to use this here blowtorch.’

‘Thas spirit,’ said Charlie. ‘Man’s got his pride after all. But never do the balls, Athol ole boy. Have brandy, reconsider, reflect, forgive transgresh against as forgive et cetera. AND so on and so on, so on. Episode closed. Prosheed according to plan.’

Much pleased with his oration, Charlie Dabney subsided into an imperceptible chair, and somersaulted in the direction of the gully-trap. He fell heavily. He could have killed himself for all I cared. Disgusted and ashamed, I beckoned Les to follow me, and we went around the back of the house.

The frost was still on the ground and it was going to take an effort to remove our hands out of our pockets and start to paint. The Uncle Athol-Charlie Dabney act had undermined our morale somewhat, taken in conjunction with Prudence going inside to sulk, and our hands stayed in our pockets. We crouched down on our haunches in a patch of sunlight and had a moody conversation. Ma rapped on the window. I said to Les, ‘C’mon and let’s have a cuppa anyway. Then maybe we’ll get cracking.’

I was relieved to see Prudence sitting up at the end of the kitchen table, her good temper apparently restored. In fact she was actually laughing at Charlie Dabney who was sitting up at the table half-asleep but still master of ceremonies over an almost incredibly idiotic conversation-piece.

Pop and Herbert were standing by the coal range eating toast with their cups of tea on the mantelpiece. Pop was doing his best to be polite to old Charlie, but it was taking him all his time.

‘Great Scott, Dee-aitch,’ said Charlie. ‘Incredible. Fansh being
together to break our fast over the festive board and that buyhooful flower of the wilderness’— indicating a giggling Prudence—’being among those present. It’s an ill wind that blows no one over, Dee-aitch, a long lane that hasn’t got a worm in it.’ He peered owlishly around. ‘Wheresh Athol?’

I looked around also and Ma said to me in an aside, ‘Yeruncle is doing the front door with his blowfly torch. I tried to stop him, but anything for a quiet life on the ocean wave as the saying goes.’

As soon as I opened the kitchen door I heard the roaring of the blowtorch. Uncle Athol was sitting on the doorstep with the door open into the passage and he was subjecting the panels of the door to a fierce blue jet of flame. He had the blowtorch in one hand. With the other he was following the glowing trail of the flame with the blade of a kitchen knife. No doubt about it, he was ripping off the old paint beautifully. Even Angela had mentioned the lamentable condition of the front door and had so far baulked at tackling it. Wonders would never cease. The old Uncle had some use after all.

I had only just got back into the kitchen when Prudence stood up and said, ‘C’mon, c’mon, let’s get on the job.’ Les followed her out like a dog, but I gulped down my tea first. Nobody was going to hustle me along. Still gasping, I joined Prudence and Les in the yard.

‘Up yuh go on the roof,’ said Prudence imperiously. ‘And then I’ll need the ladder to finish off that bit up there.’

That left Les and me marooned on the roof.

‘You do that bit,’ said Les. ‘I’ll finish off over there.’

It was beginning to look like I was just the rouseabout round this place. Grimly I set to work, keeping at least one foot
jammed against every lead-headed nail I could see. It was about half an hour later that I noticed the wisps of smoke coming up over the edge of the roof and drifting playfully around my brush. A few minutes later I woke up.

‘Hey,’ I yelled. ‘Prudence! Bring the ladder! Hey! Help! The house is on fire. Bring the ladder, Pru, get the fire brigade, ring the phone! Hey, Les! We’re trapped on the roof and the derned house is going up in smoke.’

Keep cool, I thought.

‘Prudence!’ I screamed. ‘Over here, round here with the ladder, get the fire brigade, yuh goof, and get me outa here, we’re going up in smoke!’

Relax, I thought; keep calm, the captain is the last to leave the ship. Prudence appeared below me, brush in hand.

‘You idiot,’ I remarked placidly. ‘Bring the ladder willyuh before I’m roasted alive on the roof and ring the fire brigade and
bring the ladder.
Can’t you see THE WHOLE FRIGGIN’ HOUSE is on fire!’

Les did something I would never have dared to have done. He jumped. Prudence staggered round with the ladder to where I had been painting and I retreated in good order, apart from forgetting my brush and paint can.

From the ground there was no smoke to be seen and I began to think I had made an ass of myself properly, but Prudence was white-faced and panting.

‘The place is on fire!’ she hooted. ‘Uncle Athol has set the house on fire! Do something, willyuh. Ma’s stuck in the hedge trying to use the phone next door, but there’s no one home. Do something, willyuh!’

And so it came to pass that yours truly E. C. Poindexter
(Neddy) had the pleasure of smashing the glass on the emergency fire alarm fixed to the telegraph pole right outside the front door of the Temple of the Brethren of the Lamb. I pressed the button and waited for the town to blow up. From here our beautifully painted house on the corner was wreathed in clouds of curling smoke. I sank helplessly down in the gutter. The ghost of my spiritual sparring partner, Schopenhauer, sat down alongside me.

‘Here we go again,’ he remarked. ‘See what I mean, Bud?’

There were only two Dennis products in Klynham. One of them was our little old tip-truck and the other was the big fire-engine. They were both ancient models, in fact it would not surprise me to learn that the fire-engine was the earlier of the two, but what a thrill I got when the old red monster came screaming around the bend and began to thunder up Winchester Street, all its brass glittering in the morning sunlight and the banshee really going to town. They were probably not going very fast, really, but what a psychological effect that howling banshee has! I reckon Malcolm Campbell would have pulled the Bluebird over to let them past even if he had to sit there and roll a cigarette while he waited.

The whole town, including Josephine McClinton, arrived a minute or two after the Dennis. I went and sat in the shed, I was so ashamed. I never loved Prudence so much as I did when her shadow in the shaft of the sunlight through the half-open door was followed by herself and she sat down gloomily and inelegantly on a box beside me. It was a long time before the shouting died away and then, by tacit agreement, we emerged.

Not much damage had been done. The front door no longer needed blowtorching, being now non-existent; the paint in front of the house needed a touch up, the passage was full of foam
and water and wallpaper and the ceiling was black and charred, but otherwise everything was hearteningly intact. The Poindexters still had a roof over their heads and a newly painted one to boot.