Black Swan Green (35 page)

It’s Thursday so I watched
Top of the Pops
and
Tomorrow’s World
up in my room. I heard kitchen cupboards being slammed. I put on a cassette Julia’d made for me from Ewan’s LPs. The first song’s ‘Words (Between The Lines Of Age)’ by Neil Young. Neil Young sings like a barn collapsing but his music’s brill. A poem called ‘Maggot’ about why kids who get picked on get picked on began buzzing round my head. Poems are lenses, mirrors and X-ray machines. I doodled for a bit (if you pretend not to look for words they come out of the thickets) but my Biro died so I unzipped my pencil case to get a new one.

Inside, the third surprise was waiting for me.

The scalpelled-off head of a real live dead mouse.

Tiny teeth, shut eyes, Beatrix Potter whiskers, French mustardy fur, maroon scab, nubby spinal bone. Whiffs of bleach, Spam and pencil shavings.

Go on
, they’d’ve said.
Put it in Taylor’s pencil case. It’ll be an ace laugh
. It’d’ve come from Mr Whitlock’s Biology dissection class. Mr Whitlock threatens to dismember anyone nicking mouse parts, but after a flask of his special coffee he gets drowsy and careless.

Go on, Taylor, get out yer pencil case
. Ross Wilcox probably sneaked it in there himself. Dawn Madden must’ve known too.
G-g-get out your p-p-p-P-P
-PEN
cil case
(Wilcox’s eyeballs popped),
T-T-ta-t-t-ttt-Taylor
.

I got a wad of bog paper to wrap the head in. Downstairs Dad was reading the
Daily Mail
on the sofa. Mum was doing her accounts on the kitchen table. ‘Where’re you off to?’

‘To the garage. To play darts.’

‘What’s that tissue you’re holding?’

‘Nothing. Just blew my nose.’ I stuffed it in my jeans pocket. Mum was about to demand an inspection but thank
God
, she changed her mind. Under cover of darkness I sneaked down to the rockery and tossed the head into the Glebe. Ants and weasels’ll eat it, I s’pose.

Those kids must
hate
me.

After one game of Round-the-Clock I put my darts away and came back inside. Dad was watching a debate about whether or not Britain should have American cruise missiles on its soil. Mrs Thatcher says yes so it’ll happen. Since the Falklands no one can tell her no. The doorbell rang, which is odd, on an October evening. Dad must’ve thought the gypsy was back. ‘
I
’ll deal with this,’ he announced, and folded his paper with a jarky snap. Mum let out this tiny
Ffft
of disgust. I sneaked up to my spy position on the landing in time for Dad unchaining the door.

‘Samuel Swinyard’s the name.’ (Gilbert Swinyard’s dad.) ‘My farm’s up Drugger’s End. Would you have a minute or two?’

‘Certainly. I used to buy our Christmas trees from you. Michael Taylor. What can I do for you, Mr Swinyard?’

‘Sam’s fine. I’m collectin’ signatures for a petition, see. You might not know this but Malvern Council’re plannin’ to build a site for gypsies right
here
in Black Swan Green. Not temp’ry.
Perm
’nant, like.’

‘This
is
disturbing news. When was this announced?’

‘Exactly, Michael. Never
was
announced! Tryin’ to sneak it through on the sly, they are, so no ’un catches on till it’s done and dusted! They’re plannin’ on puttin’ the site down Hake’s Lane, by the incinerator. Oh, they’re all craft, that Malvern Council lot are. Don’t want the gyppos in their
own
back yard, no thank you very much.
Forty
caravans, they’ve earmarked land for. Forty,
they
say, but there’ll be hundred’s of ’em once it’s built, once you add on their relatives an’ hangers-onners. Proper Calcutta it’ll turn into. Count on it.’

‘Where do I sign?’ Dad took the clipboard and scribbled his name. ‘As a matter of fact, one of those gypsy…blighters…called here this afternoon. Around four o’clock, when housewives and children are likeliest to be at home, unprotected.’

‘Don’t surprise me one
bit
. Been duckerin’ all round Wellington Gardens too, they was. Older houses’ve got more precious junk to scav, see, that’s their reck’nin’. But if this camp goes ahead, it’ll be more o’ the same every
day
! And once scavvin’ stops workin’ for gypsies, they try more direct ways to cross their palms with our silver, if you catch my meanin’.’

‘I hope,’ Dad returned the clipboard, ‘you’re getting a positive response to your efforts, Sam?’

‘Only three refusals who’re half-gyppo ’emselves, if you ask me. The vicar said he can’t get involved in “
party-zan politics
” but his missus nudged him fast enough, sayin’
she
ain’t no clergyman. Every’un else – as quick to sign as yourself, Michael. There’ll be an emergency meetin’ in the village hall Wednesday comin’ to discuss how best to stuff them pillocks up in Malvern Council. Can I count on yer bein’ there?’

Wish
I’d said yes.
Wish
I’d said, ‘Here’s my pocket money, sharpen what you can, please, right now.’ The knife grinder’d’ve got his gear out, there, on our doorstep. His metal files, stones, his (what?) flint flywheel. Crouched over it, his face glowing and creased like a goblin, eyes burning dangerous. One claw making the flywheel spin, faster, blurrier, one claw bringing the blunt blades closer, slowly,
closer
, till the stone touches the metal and buzzsawing sparks gush, furious blue, dribble, spurt into the drizzly Coke-dark dusk. I’d’ve
smelt
the hot metal. Heard it shriek itself sharp. One by one, he’d work through the dull knives. One by one, old blades’d be made newer than new and whistlier than Norman Bates’s Bowie knife and sharp enough to pass through muscle, bone, hours, dread, through
Those kids must
hate
me
. Sharp enough to slice
What’ll they do to me tomorrow?
into wafers.

God
, I
wish
I’d said yes.

Being seen with either of your parents in public is pretty gay. But tonight loads of kids were walking to the village hall with their parents too, so that rule didn’t apply. The windows of Black Swan Green village hall (erected 1952) glowed buttery yellow. It’s only a three-minute walk from Kingfisher Meadows, slap bang by Miss Throckmorton’s. Primary school seemed so
huge
then. How can you be sure anything is
ever
its real size?

The village hall smells of cigarettes, wax, dust, cauliflower and paint. If Mr and Mrs Woolmere hadn’t saved us chairs up front, Dad and I’d’ve had to’ve stood at the back. The last time it was as full as tonight was on the Christmas nativity play night, when I’d been a Scruffy Urchin of Bethlehem. The audience’s eyes reflected the stage lights like cat’s-eyes at night. Hangman made me have to half-fudge a few key lines, to Miss Throckmorton’s disgust. But I’d played the xylophone okay and sung ‘White or Black or Yellow or Red, Come See Jesus in His Shed’ okay too. You don’t stammer when you sing. Julia had braces for her teeth then, like Jaws’ in
The Spy Who Loved Me
. She told me I was a natural. That wasn’t true but was so nice of her I’ve never forgotten.

So anyway, tonight the audience was hysterical, like a war was about to break out. Cigarette fug blurred the lines. Mr Yew was here, Colette Turbot’s mum, Mr and Mrs Rhydd, Leon Cutler’s mum and dad, Ant Little’s dad the baker (who’s always at war with the hygiene people). All yackering yackerly to be heard over the yackering yacker. Grant Burch’s dad was saying how gypsies steal dogs for fighting and then eat the evidence. ‘It happens in Anglesey!’ Andrea Bozard’s mum agreed. ‘It’ll happen here!’ Ross Wilcox sat between his dad the mechanic and his new stepmother. His dad’s a bigger, bonier, redder-eyed version of his son. Wilcox’s stepmother couldn’t stop sneezing. I tried to avoid looking at them, the way you try not to be sick by ignoring the fact you’re about to be. But I couldn’t help it. Up on the stage with Gilbert Swinyard’s dad were Gwendolin Bendincks the vicar’s wife and Kit Harris the borstal teacher who lives up the bridleway with his dogs. (Nobody’d try to steal
his
dogs.) Kit Harris’s got a gash of white in his black hair so all the kids call him Badger. Our neighbour Mr Castle walked on from the wings to take the last chair. He gave Dad and Mr Woolmere a heroic nod. Dad and Mr Woolmere returned the nod. Mr Woolmere muttered to Dad, ‘Didn’t take old Gerry long to get in on the action…’ Taped to the front of the trestles was a length of wallpaper. On it was painted
VILLAGE CAMP CRISIS COMMITTEE
. The VCC and C were blood red. All the other letters were black.

Mr Castle got to his feet and the hushers began hushing the yackers. Last year Dean Moran and Robin South and me were playing footy and Moran wellied his ball into the Castles’ garden, but when he asked for it back Mr Castle said it’d crushed a hybrid rose worth £35 and he wouldn’t give Moran’s ball back till we’d paid for his rose, which means never, ’cause you don’t have £35 when you’re thirteen.

‘Ladies, gentlemen, fellow Black Swans. That so many of you have braved this frosty evening is in it
self
proof of the strength of feeling in our community about our elected council’s shameful – shame
less
– attempt to meet its obligations under the’ – he cleared his throat – ‘1968 Caravan Sites Act, by turning our village –
home
, to all of us – into a dump for so-called “travellers”, “gypsies”, “Romany” or whatever the correct “liberal” – with a
very
small L – phrase is in vogue this week. That not a
single
councillor bothered to appear this evening is less than edifying proof’ (Isaac Pye, the landlord of the Black Swan, yelled, ‘We’d’ve
lynched
the buggers out on the green, that’s why!’ and Mr Castle smiled like a patient uncle till the laughter’d died away) ‘is less than edifying proof of their duplicity, cowardice and the weakness of their case.’ (Applause. Mr Woolmere shouted, ‘Well said, Gerry!’) ‘Before we begin, the committee wishes to welcome Mr Hughes of the
Malvern Gazetteer
’ (a man in the front row with a notepad nodded) ‘for slotting us into his busy diary. We trust his report of the
outrage
being perpetrated by those criminals at Malvern Council will reflect his newspaper’s reputation for fair play.’ (That sounded more of a threat than a welcome.) ‘Now.
Apologists
for gypsies will in
evitably
drone, “What do you have against these people?”
I
say, “How much time have you got? Vagrancy. Theft. Sanitation. Tuberculosis…”’ I missed what he said next, thinking how the villagers
wanted
the gyspies to be gross, so the grossness of what they’re not acts as a stencil for what the villagers are.

‘Nobody
denies
that the Romany people need a permanent place of abode.’ Gwendolin Bendincks’s hands shielded her heart. ‘Romanies are mothers and fathers, just like us. Romanies want what they
believe
is best for their children, just like us. Heaven
knows
I’m not prejudiced against
any
group of people, however “way out” their colour
or
creed, and I’m sure no one in this hall is either. We are all Christians. Indeed, without a permanent site, how will Romanies ever be taught the responsibilities of citizenship? How
else
will they be taught that law and order guarantee their children a brighter future than begging, horse-dealing and petty crime? Or that eating
hedgehogs
is simply
not
a civilized act?’ Dramatic pause. (I thought how all leaders can sense what people’re afraid of and turn that fear into bows and arrows and muskets and grenades and nukes to use however they want. That’s power.) ‘But
why
oh
why
do the powers that be believe that Black Swan Green is an appropriate location for their “project”? Our village is a finely balanced community! A horde of outsiders,
especially
one of, shall we say, “problem families”, swamping our school and our surgery would tip us into
chaos
!
Misery!
Anarchy!
No, a permanent site
has
to be near a city big enough to mop them up. A city with infrastructure. Worcester, or better still, Birmingham! The message
we
send to Malvern Council is united and strong. “Don’t you
dare
fob
your
responsibilities off on to
us
. Country people we may be, but by golly
yokels
that you can
hoodwink
we are jolly well not!”’ Gwendolin Bendincks smiled at her standing ovation like a cold man smiling into a bonfire.

‘I’m a patient man.’ Samuel Swinyard stood feet planted apart. ‘Patient and tol’rant. I’m a farmer, I’m proud of it, an’ farmers ain’t people to get a bee in their bonnets about nothin’.’ (A rash of good-humoured mutterings broke out.) ‘I ain’t sayin’ I’d be objectin’ to a
perm
’nant campment’n all for gypsies if they
was
pure gypsies. My dad Abe used to employ a few
pure
gypsies come harvest-time. When they put their minds to it they was hard ’nough workers. Dark as niggers, teeth strong as horses’, their people’d wintered’n all in the Chilterns since the flood. Had to keep an eye on ’em. Slipp’ry as the Devil they could be. Like in the war and they all dressed up as women or buggered off to Ireland to avoid goin’ off to Normandy. But at least with
pure
gypsies yer knew what they was an’ where you stood. Now why I’m on this stage tonight is, most of these characters driftin’ round
callin
’ ’emselves gypsies’re chancers an’ bankrupts an’ crim’nals who wouldn’t know a
pure
gypsy if one flew up his’ (Isaac Pye shouted ‘Arse, Sam,
arse
!’ and a giant fart of laughter erupted from the back of the hall) ‘nose, Isaac Pye,
nose
! Beatniks an’ hippies an’ tinkers’n all who tag ’emselves “gypsies” so they can qualify for handouts! Unedyercated scroungers after “
Social Security
”. Oooh, it’s all flush-toilet campsites’n all they’re wantin’ now! Social workers flappin’ round at their every beck and call! Why don’t
I
call
my
self a gypsy and get all this loot’n all for free, eh? Beats workin’ for a livin’! ’Cause if
I
wanted to—’