Is (18 page)

‘I never gave thee leave to come in here, young ’un, interferin’ wi’ the workers – that I dunna. Be off with thee – right away – or I’ll call the constables.’

And what would the constables do with me? Is wondered, reluctantly obeying; in fact she had no choice, as, with his heavy hand on her shoulder, he practically shoved her out of the melting-shop. Would they send me to prison? Is there a prison in Holdernesse? That’s one word I’ve never heard. Maybe they don’t need a prison here – everywhere else is just as bad.

Is made a detour on her way home to visit a couple of Dr Lemman’s older patients. These were among what he and Ishie called ‘the Warren’ – various of Aunt Ishie’s friends who had either secretly disobeyed the order to move into new accommodation in Holdernesse, or had stealthily and inconspicuously left that new accommodation again, once the general move was over and the authorities were no longer paying heed to them.

There were twenty or so of them scattered over the dismantled landscape of Old Blastburn, making what use they could of its ruined amenities. Mostly they were old people, living like rabbits in concealed burrows: small half-ruined houses in out-of-the-way glens or dells where they could grow a few cabbages, keep a hen or two, and kindle a morsel of fire at twilight without being observed.

Miss Sibley and Mrs Crockett were among these: two elderly sisters, one of them a widow. They lived on the western side of Holdernesse Hill in what had once been a flour-mill, surrounded by a few scrub fir-trees that had managed to survive the poisonous fumes from the blast furnaces. The roadway to Corso Mill ran up to a bridge which was half broken. A young and agile caller might just be able to cross the gap by taking a tremendous leap over the millrace which ran below, but the two elderly owners preferred to follow a more circuitous route, crossing the stream lower down by a natural bridge formed from fallen ash-trees webbed together by creeper. Dr Lemman also used this approach, tethering the mare to a tree on the near side.

‘What’ll you do when the trunks rot through?’ Is had asked on her first visit.

‘My dear, by that time our aged bones will be long scattered. And this rustic gangway provides a useful defence against persons of a superstitious habit. There are plenty in Blastburn – yes, I assure you! – who, already half suspecting us of witchcraft, are afraid to cross a bridge composed of mountain-ash trunks.’

What the sisters lived on, nobody knew. Mrs Crockett suffered severely from rheumatism (very possibly because their hideout in the ruined mill building was so close to the mill-stream); she was obliged to go about almost on all-fours, bent double, and helped by a short stick. Dr Lemman called on her as often as he could, treated her with aconite and bryony and applied arnica to her joints with a camel-hair brush.

The sisters had been schoolteachers in the days when there had been schools. Now they were certainly thought to be witches, if anybody thought about them at all.

Is, carefully manipulating Mrs Crockett’s stiff joints, told them about Grandpa Twite’s plan to print story-books for the workers.

‘There’s a fine library still in Blastburn, did ye know?’ said Mrs Crockett. (‘Ah, that does me a power of good; thank you, my dear.’)

‘A library? In the new town?’

‘No, no, no. In the old town, in one of those ruined buildings. Nobody sets foot in there now, it has been declared unsafe. Books in Holdernesse? Nobody wants them, nobody reads. They play that game instead, with dice and counters.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen them,’ said Is, who had noticed the guards, overseers and constables playing this game when otherwise unoccupied.

‘It is called
Steal a March
– Gold Kingy invented it, so he makes a profit on every set sold.’

‘Now the other side, missus, if you’ll turn over,’ said Is. ‘Does Gold Kingy have any family?’

‘No, my dear. He did have a wife, but she ran off and left him. (Can’t blame her, can you?) Went off in a ship to Holland, ship got wrecked, that was the end of her. Some said Gold Kingy got word beforehand, had the ship scuttled. Wouldn’t put it past him. Stayed single after that. Out for number one. He always was that, Roy Twite. I knew him from my evening class at the Workers’ Institute – always stealing ideas and textbooks from his next neighbour.’

There came a loud plangent angry caterwauling from the entrance.

‘See to him, my love, would you,’ said Mrs Crockett to her sister, ‘while this dear child just finishes my back.’

‘Sounds like a mighty big cat you got out there, missus,’ said Is.

‘Oh, it’s not a cat at all, my love, it’s a poor mad boy who thinks he’s a cat. He worked in the foundries and then in the mines, and the things that happened to him unhinged his brain. Now he just scampers over the hills; he’s harmless so he is left alone, even by the authorities. After all they can’t employ a boy who thinks he’s a cat. My sister and I give him a bit of fish when he comes this way; there is always fish in the mill-stream.’

‘What’s his name?’ Is asked alertly.

‘Bobbert. Bobbert Ginster.’

‘Oh.’

‘There, my dear, thank you a thousand times, you have loosened me up remarkably. Now I may even be able to walk upright for a couple of days.’

Miss Sibley came back, brushing fish-scales off her hands.

‘Would he not come in?’ said Mrs Crockett, disappointed.

‘He heard the strange voice and that always scares him off. He was very wild tonight. He ran off up the hill.’

‘When it is very cold he is prepared to spend a night by our fire,’ Mrs Crockett explained. ‘Poor boy – it is rather sad.’

Better than being in the foundries, Is thought, and Miss Sibley echoed her thought.

‘He is far happier running wild, Caroline, than in one of those atrocious places. Goodnight, my dear child, and thank you for your care. Our best regards to your aunt.’

‘I’ll come again as soon as I kin,’ said Is, stepping out into the windy dark. She wondered if from some bush or whin or ruined building the mad boy who thought he was a cat might be watching her.

When she got back to Wasteland Cottages she found Grandfather Twite in a desperately dejected and penitent state of mind. Aunt Ishie was hovering over him with a wet cloth for his head and a dose of soda for his stomach. Her eyes were full of pity, although she scolded him.

‘Look at that handle! Look at what you nearly did to your grand-daughter.’

He could not believe in the handle. ‘How could I have done that! Somebody else must have done it. I shall have to get the blacksmith to straighten it. My own handle! I would never do such a thing. Besides not having the strength.’

‘Well – you did,’ said Is bluntly. ‘I was there, so I can tell you that if I hadn’t nipped back pretty smartly, you’d be out in the snow a-digging my grave this minute. I’ll not hold it agin you, Grandpa, but I wish you’d smash up all those crocks full of grog in the cellar.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ said old Mr Twite instantly. ‘I need them, you know – not for myself, but for the requirements of hospitality. However, I swear and declare that I will, myself, never touch spirits again – ’ He paused, looked sorrowful and added, ‘Just the same, you had better not trust me. And – and do not tell me anything that I might divulge to – to unsuitable persons when under the influence.’

‘Oh, Grandfather!’ said Is. ‘It ain’t only that. It’s that – when you’re bosky – I can’t trust you not to beat my brains out!’

‘I know, I know it!’ he lamented. ‘It is perfectly true! But what can we do about it? I fear, my child, that you must take to carrying arms.’ And he chanted:

‘Oh, Grandpa, are you crazy? Me carry a barking iron? Firstways I wouldn’t know where to get one, secondways if I had it I might shoot
you!
No, no, that ain’t the answer.’

‘Then what is, my child?’

‘The answer’s for you to stop brewing that wicked tipple and kicking up shindigs with Uncle Roy.’

‘Out of the question.’

‘Why,
why
?’

While they were staring at one another, with no questions answered, Dr Lemman walked in. On his face, usually so alive with cheerful cynicism, there was a look of consternation.

‘I’m afraid something terrible has happened,’ he told Mr Twite. ‘I hardly know how best to break it to you. It is about Montrose – ’

‘A wolf got him? So early in the winter?’

‘No, sir, worse than that, I fear.’

Grandfather and Ishie hurried outside, she carrying a lamp. There on the path lay Montrose, or what had once been Montrose; now he looked like a flat two-dimensional drawing of a cat, done by some savage.

Aunt Ishie burst into tears.

‘I never liked that cat!’ she sobbed. ‘He was always bad-tempered and disagreeable. He bit me every time I fed him! But that someone should use him
so
!’

‘That was done by a steam-hammer,’ pronounced Grandpa Twite, closely inspecting his flattened pet. ‘Well – at least he won’t need a deep grave.’

Is said nothing at all. I gotta get out of here, she thought, aghast. That was a message — to me. From that human rat. That murderer. That monster.

‘Poor old Montrose,’ Grandfather Twite was saying. ‘But at least it must have been a quick end. And he has been very surly for the last few years.’

‘
Surly?
He was the worst-tempered cat in Humberland.’

‘It’s my fault,’ said Is. ‘Oh, Grandpa, it’s my fault.’

‘Why?’

‘Come back in the kitchen,’ said Aunt Ishie.

They left Montrose leaning against the house like a piece of board.

‘Why your fault?’ repeated Mr Twite.

‘Because I wouldn’t tell Gold Kingy anything about King Richard. And he said if I didn’t he’d hammer me, and I was to go home and think, and then tell him some more. But I haven’t
got
anything to tell him. And I reckon he had Montrose hammered for a warning.’

‘He is really quite lacking in moral sense,’ said old Mr Twite.

‘My child, I think you had best go home to the south country,’ said Aunt Ishie.

‘How, though?’ said Dr Lemman.

‘Any case I can’t,’ said Is. ‘Not till I found what I come for.’

‘Your sense of duty is going to land you in trouble, dearie,’ said Lemman.

‘But I
gotta
do what a dying person asks,’ argued Is. ‘And never mind about anyone else.’

The three elders looked at her, frowning with worry.

After writing these lines, Is hid the little red notebook (which Penny had given her) behind a loose brick in the attic wall. For I’m sure to come back here some time, she thought . . .

Next morning Grandfather Twite was feverishly at work in the cellar long before daylight.

‘The foundry blacksmith straightened out the handle for him,’ Aunt Ishie told Is, ‘and he is printing quick sheets of riddles for me to take to the children.’

Indeed he could be heard chanting:

‘Aunt Ishie, I’m going to go and live with the old ’uns at the mill,’ said Is. ‘And I’m a-going to work in the foundries. I reckon that’s the only way I’ll ever get to find out for sure about – about what I want to know – ’ as Aunt Ishie laid a finger on her lips.

Grandfather Twite was climbing the stairs, mumbling to himself:

‘I guess it’s a bed, Grandpa,’ Is told him kindly as he came into the kitchen for his morning drink of saloop. He looked sad and drawn, aged by what had happened.

‘Is tells me that she is going to live with Jane Sibley and Caroline Crockett,’ Ishie informed her father, handing him the mug of warm drink. ‘She wants to work in the foundries, and that way she will be closer to her place of employment.’

Grandfather Twite sighed, a sigh that began in his stringy chest and went right down to his bony feet in the red-and-green slippers.

‘I fear you are right to do so, child. We shall miss you sorely, sorely; but I fear you are right. Your continuing presence in this house – might lead to trouble.’

Trouble, thought Is; that’s putting it flea-size.

Aunt Ishie’s huge otter-eyes were full of sorrow. She hugged Is.

‘I shall come and visit you, my love, in the foundries; that way I shall not lose you entirely, I – I hope.’

‘I’ll be right happy to see you, Auntie, any time,’ Is said, hugging back.

Dr Lemman came running downstairs, munching a crust.

‘Ready to go, dearie?’

‘Only as far as the dock. I’ll explain while we ride,’ she told him, embraced old Mr Twite (he still smelt of spirits, mixed with saloop) and left Number Two, Wasteland Cottages, with deep regret.

‘I’ll miss you as a helper, Is,’ Lemman said when she had explained her plan. ‘But I reckon you are doing the right thing. For the sake of Ishie and the old boy, certainly. Gold Kingy won’t come around so often when you are gone. When he does come, Mr Twite can’t resist teasing him and that’s bound, sooner or later, to lead to ructions. I hope you soon find what you are looking for; when you do, my best advice is to get back to the south and warn your friends that there may be trouble coming from here.’