Treacle Walker, page 2
Then light and pain were gone. Joe pulled up the patch and opened both eyes. He went upstairs to the tall mirror in his bedroom and looked. There was nothing wrong; only a smudge of green violet where his stained finger had touched the lid of the good eye. He still felt dizzy from the heat and the sunlight, and he went back and lay on the settle, as he always did when he had a bilious sick headache.
V
‘Come in, Joe,’ the man said.
Joe went into the room and sat on the chair.
‘How are things?’
‘All right.’
‘Let’s have a shufti, then.’ He pulled his chair up. ‘Let’s do the business.’ He switched off the room lamp and pushed his face against Joe’s. ‘Now look straight ahead.’ He shone a bright light into Joe’s eye. It hurt. ‘Excellent. Now the other. Take your patch off.’ The light hurt more. ‘Excellent.’ He put a metal frame with round eye holes on Joe’s nose and lodged it behind his ears. He slotted a blank disc into one of the holes then walked himself across the floor on the wheels of his chair to a screen at the other side of the room. A white dot and a red line appeared. ‘The usual drill. Keep your eye on the dot. Is the line to the right or the left, or through the middle?’
‘The middle.’
‘Excellent.’ He turned the image. ‘Is the line above or below, or through the middle?’
‘The middle.’
‘Excellent.’ He moved the blank disc to the other hole. ‘Same again, please, Joe.’ He flashed lights on and off, changing the disc, asking questions. He switched on the room lamp. ‘All tickety-boo. At least we know your eyes point in the same direction.’ He moved the disc across.
‘Now I want you to look at the chart.’ There was a white board with rows of black letters, each row smaller than the one above, hanging on the opposite wall. ‘Tell me which is the last line you can read without bother.’
‘Number six,’ said Joe. ‘E, D, F, C, Z, P.’
‘Excellent.’
‘I can do the next.’
‘Surprise me.’
‘F. E. L. O. P. Z. – O?’
‘Nearly.’ He moved the disc so that Joe was using his good eye. ‘And which is the last line you can read now without bother?’
‘The bottom,’ said Joe.
‘The bottom?’
‘Yes. A, B, E, D, O, C, T, I, S.’
‘What?’
‘A, B, E, D, O, C, T, I, S.’
‘And the rest?’
‘Dead easy. Top line, H. Next, I, C. Next, L, A, P. Then I, S, E, X. Then I, L, I, S, E. Then X, T, A, T, P, R. Then E, T, I, O, Q, V, O. Then Q, V, E, V, I, L, I, S. Then S, P, E, R, N, I, T, V. Then R, A, S, T, V, L, T, I, S, A. Then M, A, T, V, R, P, L, V, S. And A, B, E, D, O, C, T, I, S.’
‘Not funny, old son.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘It doesn’t help if you faff around.’
‘I’m not faffing.’
‘Hmm.’ He changed the disc over. ‘Press on regardless. How far can you read now?’
‘E, D, F, C, Z, P. It’s the wonky eye.’
He took the frame off Joe’s nose. ‘And how do you see with both together?’
‘Squiffy.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What’s up?’ said Joe.
‘The letters you read with your good eye aren’t there.’
‘Yes they are! You swapped the board!’
‘I didn’t.’ He set the frame back on Joe’s nose and gave him a sheet of paper and a pencil. ‘Put the patch over your weak eye and write down what you see with the other.’
‘Don’t want to.’
‘Come on. There’s a good lad.’
‘Where?’
‘Come on. Just for me.’
‘It’s daft.’ Joe worked the patch under the frame and wrote.
‘Thanks, Joe.’ He took the paper. ‘Interesting. Very, very interesting.’
‘What is? What’s up?’
‘You tell me, my old mucker,’ he said, and gave the paper back to Joe. ‘You tell me.’
Joe got off the chair and went close to the chart. He read it, then moved his patch over and read again.
‘Heck.’
‘Yes?’
‘It looks different,’ said Joe. ‘Like there’s two of ’em.’
‘But there aren’t. There’s only one chart.’
‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong with my eyes?’
‘There’s not a lot wrong with your eyes, Joe. What beats me is your sight.’
VI
Joe got off the settle and sat in the chimney. The sick headache had cleared. He took the paper out of his pocket, and spread it on his knee and read what he had written.
H
IC
LAP
ISEX
ILISE
XTATPR
ETIOQVO
QVEVILIS
SPERNITV
RASTVLTISA
MATVRPLVS
ABEDOCTIS
What the dickens?
Outside the door, close by, a cuckoo called. Joe stuffed the paper back and opened the door. Nothing.
‘Where are you?’
A call came from the alders.
‘Wait your sweat!’
Joe put his wellies on. He took his catapult and went into the yard, picked up small pebbles and dropped them in his pockets. He went through the gate and down Big Meadow, climbed over the earth bank that bordered the trees and onto the bog, catapult at the ready.
The copse was old and had not been worked. The stems from the root stools had grown to full trunks, making islands of clumps with the roots running and twining among dead leaves, and black water beneath. Where light came through there were thickets of undergrowth: nettles, brambles and whatever else could live.
He put his catapult in his pocket and moved from stool to stool, feeling for roots to stand on. If he slipped, his leg sank in deeper than his wellies and he had to grab and pull himself out against the suck.
‘Where are you?’
The cuckoo called to his front. He went on into the bog.
The bog dragged at him. Soon he had to stop and rest against a tree. Mosquitoes whined and bit. The only sounds were the wings of insects. The air was heavy with marsh smells. There was no wind, and what sky there was showed all one bronze.
The cuckoo called to his left. He turned. It called to his right. He splashed towards it. Now it was behind. Joe braced himself between two trunks to get his breath.
‘Give over messing!’
The cuckoo answered from another side. Then another. It was all around him. And another. Another. Another. Another. Another. ‘Give over!’ Another.
‘Right, then! If that’s the game, I’m out! No barleys!’
Joe looked for his tracks to go back, but there were none; only the black water, the red veins of root, the dead leaves and mire. The sky was no guide. He moved his patch to use his good eye in the gloom. The alders stood so close he could not see the fields; but the copse was small, and if he walked straight he would come to the earth bank or find the brook and follow that. Joe set off, keeping to each tree in front for his line.
And the cuckoo was all about him, in the air, in his ears, in his lungs, in his head.
His bones hurt from the pull of the mud, and his hands stung on the roots and lost their feeling so that they did not grip. His wellies were full and heavy with water. But he went on.
He went on. He went till he could not go. He put his arms round a trunk. Everywhere was the same. He had walked straight, he knew. The copse was not big. But however he moved there was nothing beyond: no bank, no brook, no field, no end; only cuckoo, wet, and slutch.
He fell on the alder stool. ‘Help!’
A man sat up in the bog. ‘Why the stramash, Joseph Coppock,’ he said, ‘and you with the stone in your pocket?’
He wore a close hood made of leather, tied under his chin. The rest of him was bare. Hood and skin and eyes were all the same copper brown.
Joe lay across the stool, held between the trunks.
‘May a body not rest in his bog?’ said the man.
‘Can’t…’
‘ “Can’t never did.”’
‘… get.’
‘Is that it? Is that the hue and the cry you woke me for?’
‘No… way. All… over. Same.’
‘Move the dish clout and shut your glims.’
‘Damn…’
‘Do it.’
‘Bloody…’
‘Do it.’
Joe lifted his patch to his forehead and shut his eyes.
‘Are you seeing me?’
‘Bloody damn…’
‘Open a glim.’
‘Piss off…’ He opened his good eye.
‘Are you seeing me?’
‘Piss off!’
‘Off or on are one to me. Shut that glim and open the other. Do it.’
Joe grabbed a trunk. ‘Where are you? Where’ve you gone?’
He opened his good eye again. The man was there and had not moved.
The bog spun. ‘Where were you?’
‘Where I am, Joseph Coppock,’ said the man. ‘And where were you?’
Joe shut his good eye and looked with the other. He could not see the man. He changed over. The man was there. He changed again. He changed back. And changed again. It was always the same. His good eye saw the man; his weak eye saw only the bog. With both eyes open he saw, but not as clearly in the blur.
‘Are we going to be at peep-bo till night?’ said the man. ‘Or shall we be getting you out of here and me to me dreamings?’
‘What’s up with my eyes?’
‘You have the glamourie,’ said the man. ‘In just the one. And that’s no bad thing, if you have the knowing. She’ll be the governor while you learn the hang of it, and when you’ve got that you’ll be fine as filliloo. But you need the both of them. What sees is seen.’
The man stood. Water and leaves dripped from him.
‘Shut the glamourie and turn about. And when you’ve looked, open her again.’
Joe twisted his head round and closed his good eye. He saw the green of Big Meadow between the trees, and above it the house. The copse was small, and the bank near. He opened the good eye. The bog was everywhere.
‘And that’s the way to do it,’ said the man.
Joe kept his good eye shut, and worked himself upright. He left the alder stool and trod across to the bank and over into Big Meadow. He opened his eye and looked back. The man was standing behind him.
‘Use the two glims together,’ he said, ‘till we get you home. And after, don’t wear your clout. For though at the first you’ll be in a flustication with it all, you’ll be needing the both. I’ve tellt you. What sees is seen.’
‘Come with us,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t feel right.’
‘I’ll not,’ said the man. ‘I must have me bog and me trees, else I’ll be drying out, and that won’t do. The sweet smiling of a step will hold you safe. But we can sit here on the bank till you’re fit to go; and you can tell me why you were clanjandering in me bog at all.’
‘I wanted to see the cuckoo.’
‘Why heed cuckoo?’
‘I want to see it,’ said Joe. ‘It comes every year. But I’ve never seen. Only heard.’
‘Well, well.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Well, well.’
‘Anyroad, I collect birds’ eggs. I’ve got ever so many; all sorts.’
‘How?’ said the man. ‘An egg got is an egg gone.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Why, it’s eaten.’
‘You don’t eat them,’ said Joe. ‘You make a hole at either end with your knife and blow them. Then you put the shells in the case.’
‘For what?’ said the man.
‘So you can see at them.’
‘Why?’
‘To learn you. About birds.’
‘They do? And how are you to get cuckoo’s egg?’
‘You listen. Then when you hear it you follow it and pop it with your catapult and get the egg. But only one. You leave the rest.’
‘For cuckoo?’
‘Yes. If you took them all it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Oh, you’re the very know-all of cuckoo!’ said the man. ‘You have the book of him!’
‘What’s so funny?’ said Joe.
‘I’m laughing for the joy of meeting such a high-learnt cuckoo young-feller-me-lad as yourself.’
‘I’ve been at it a while,’ said Joe. ‘That’s why. But I haven’t got a cuckoo yet.’
‘And I wish you the luck on it there,’ said the man. ‘So I do. But you’re the delight of the ages to me; for there’s little laughing in a bog. And less in dreaming.’
‘Why’ve you got no clothes on?’ said Joe.
‘And wouldn’t they be drenched, if I had?’ said the man.
‘What’s the hat for, then?’
‘Against the rain.’
‘Who are you?’ said Joe.
‘Thin Amren is the name. And that’s enough. I’m not the one to be out of the water. I need me wetness. Now think on what I’ve tellt you. And to show the meaning, put the clout to the glamourie and use the glim that’s in the mirligoes.’
Joe moved his patch down. ‘What’s mirlithingies?’ he said.
The man was not to be seen.
Joe ran.
VII
It was a blue-grey day; no use to anyone. Joe lay on his mattress reading his Knockout and playing marbles against himself on the top of the cupboard. Sometimes he let the other Joe win, but he never let him take his dobber glass alley. Inside the glass were twists and fiery swirls of all colours. It was his biggest marble, and it had just beaten a blood alley. The blood alley was good. It was made of red and white glass, but Joe couldn’t see into it like he could the dobber.
Knockout was the best comic, better than The Beano or The Dandy, because it had daft ideas. And the best in it was Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit, who was always fighting Whizzy the Wicked Wizard and his chums the Brit Bashers. Whizzy wore a pointed hat.
This time, Kit was falling out of a tree, and he dropped thump woof bam crash on Whizzy, who was having forty-one winks in a hammock, which is a lot of holes tied with string, and Kit bundled him up in the hammock to take him as a prisoner for King Kongo and swap him for two cigarette-cards. He met a Brit Basher disguised as a milk maid. The Brit Basher was wearing a wig and carrying a big jar on his shoulder. Kit asked him the way to the palace, but the Brit Basher said TRY THIS WAY, MATEY! and dropped the jar over Kit, and then he set Whizzy free from the hammock. What would happen to our hero now?
Joe was so excited he put the dobber in his mouth and sucked it like a gobstopper.
The Brit Basher picked up a boulder and Whizzy said he was going to lift the jar, and the Brit Basher must plonk the boulder on Kit’s head. But when Whizzy did lift the jar there was only a round hole in the ground. Kit had been standing on the cover; and in the next picture he was sliding down a pole in a shaft, and there was a sign saying TO THE STONEHENGE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.
Joe laughed; and Kit looked up and winked at him and put a hand out and got hold of the frame of the picture to stop himself. The line sank under the weight of his grip; and the other three sides opened to keep the square.
Kit let go of the pole and pressed the side of the picture to make it bigger. He pulled himself through onto the mattress. HOW DO, JOE? he said. The words came out of his mouth in a bubble, just as they did in the comic, and made no sound. He jumped down from the cupboard. Joe heard the clump of his feet. He sat up and saw Kit’s back reflected in the tall mirror. In the mirror Kit was running towards the door next to the chimney. But in the room there was no one.
Joe felt a draught of cold air. He turned to the picture. He touched the square with his finger. His finger went in as if there was no paper, and his hand was on rock. He reached and held the pole. He twisted against the rock and saw a circle of daylight above, and the dark of two heads, one with a pointed hat.
Joe glanced under his arm into the room. The wall and chimney were at a slant. He felt the pole quiver in his hand. He looked up again. Two shapes were sliding down the pole towards him. He shouted, and the dobber glass alley fell from his mouth into the shaft. He heard it hitting the sides. The sound grew fainter, but he did not hear it hit the bottom. He jerked back onto his mattress, and a man with a pointed hat was on the pole and holding the frame. He hopped onto the cupboard. It was Whizzy and behind him came a Brit Basher. WOT ABOUT THIS ONE, GUV? he said. Whizzy said NAH. WE’LL COME BACK LATER AND BIFF HIM FOR THAT BRICK AND POT HE’S GOT. They jumped down into the room, and Joe saw their backs in the mirror as they disappeared through the reflection of the doorway by the chimney.
Joe lay on the mattress until the room was steady. He took his patch from his pocket and pulled it over his eye. The picture shrank to the page; and Kit was on the pole, a drawing in the comic, not looking at him. Joe put his finger out, and felt paper. There was sand on his shirt from the rock.
VIII
Joe got down from the cupboard and went to the mirror. He saw himself and the room behind. He touched the hard glass. He pushed it. He moved from side to side, so that he saw into the whole room. He backed away from the mirror towards the door by the chimney, watching. When he reached the door he turned and looked over his shoulder, and saw himself looking over his shoulder in the doorway, nothing like Kit and Whizzy and the Brit Basher in the mirror running from the empty room.
He went back up to his mattress and counted his marbles. They were all there, except for the dobber glass alley. He shook his comic, but nothing fell out. He went to the window to look closely in the better light.
The pony and cart were in the yard; and Treacle Walker was sitting against the pear tree.
Joe ran down and opened the door. The clouds had broken.
‘Treacle Walker!’
He ran across the yard into the sun.
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘What are you at? Where’ve you been?’
‘I have been through Hickety, Pickety, France and High Spain,’ said Treacle Walker, ‘by crinkum-crankums, crooks and straights. And I am at your pear, with my ears in my hat, my back in my coat, and two squat kickering tattery shoes full of roadwayish water. The sun is not good for you, as I recall.’
