Let's Kill Uncle (31 page)

He felt as he had the day he was released from the POW camp, hesitant, unsure, and not quite able to believe in his good fortune. His heart sang, physically he felt he was
almost floating, and he had to resist a boyish impulse to turn cartwheels or chin himself on the gay flower baskets hanging from the lampposts.

He stopped again to look at his reflection and found he was in front of a toyshop. He smiled happily to himself. He would buy them each a goodbye present.

Once he had entered the store, he felt awkward as he faced the clerk and stated his needs. He suddenly realised he had never bought a present for anyone before.

‘A boy and girl about ten?’ repeated the clerk. ‘Yes, we have a good many things for children that age. Would you be interested in one of these lovely queen dolls for the little girl?’

It was, Albert agreed, a beautiful toy, elaborately dressed in a scarlet robe and gold crown, but it wouldn’t do.

Not for her. If they had one of Lady Macbeth, perhaps yes, but not the Queen. It smacked of treason somehow and it wouldn’t do.

The clerk brought out toy after toy, but none of them seemed to be right. Albert’s face was getting red. He hated bothering people, and he felt he was being a nuisance.

And then he spied it, high up on a shelf, at the back.

‘That,’ he pointed.

The clerk got a ladder and lifted it down.

‘I’m afraid this is a rather expensive gift for a ten-year-old girl,’ she said, turning the price tag over. ‘Perhaps I can give you a reduction though, it’s been in stock for years. There were only two made. The original owner of the store brought this one from Australia.’

Sergeant Coulter, who had never had toys as a boy, turned it over with delight.

‘It was made as a novelty for export,’ said the clerk. ‘That’s genuine koala fur. I think I can let you have a 20 per cent discount.’

‘I’ll take it,’ said Sergeant Coulter.

He turned it upside down, and chuckled as the music box inside tinkled ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and the merry brown eyes winked at him.

‘Now for the little boy’s present,’ said the shopgirl.

She pointed hopefully to a rack of toy rifles.

Sergeant Coulter almost burst out laughing.

A popgun for
that
kid?

No, he thought, something a little older.

‘A Meccano set?’

Yes, Albert nodded, Barnaby was a mechanically minded child, maybe a Meccano set. He had always wanted one himself, but of course he’d never had one.

‘They start at quite a reasonable price,’ explained the clerk, ‘and then you can add to them. It’s a sensible way - every birthday you can give him another section.

That was hardly likely. Albert smiled smugly to himself.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘do you mind if I look around a bit, just in case there’s something else?’

He was fascinated by the toyshop. He got down on his hands and knees to examine a beautiful electric train, and moved on to a model village. He smiled again as he looked at the gleaming toys. It must be fun to be a child.

‘How about this?’ asked the clerk. ‘We just got them in. It would be a nice hobby to start a boy in.’

‘What is it?’ asked Albert, looking at the shining tan leather case.

‘It’s one of those cameras that takes instant pictures. Here, I’ll show you.’

She snapped a picture of Albert.

‘It’s really very simple, you just have to wait a few seconds, and presto, there’s your picture. Now isn’t that a good likeness?’

‘It’s remarkable,’ said Albert. He was sold on it. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said.

After all, if the boy did like to go around shooting, this ought to direct his energies in a healthful way.

‘Would you like them gift-wrapped?’

‘Yes,’ said Albert.

They must be wrapped exactly the same way. The children were already jealous enough for his affections, it would never do for one to have nicer wrapping than the other.

The presents were expensive, but he didn’t mind. He had nothing except himself to spend his money on anyway. He might as well do it properly. In a way, it was almost like a bribe - the payoff. He’d pay anything to get them off his Island. A goodbye present, and as long as they left, he didn’t mind the cost.

F
ACED WITH THE PROSPECT
of being parted from their many loved ones, the children had spent a melancholy evening, though when morning arrived and nothing remained but for them to go, they seemed resigned.

All who came to the store were startled by their beauty. Was this Christie, of the floating spun-silk hair and flushed, heart-shaped face, the same shabby and sallow child who had arrived only two months ago? It hardly seemed possible.

As a going-away present, the goat-lady had knitted her a cardigan and tam-o’-shanter in a delicate, pastel Fairisle pattern, while Mr and Mrs Brooks had given her a short white pleated flannel skirt, and she flitted into the store with all the innocent nonchalance of a visiting butterfly.

By her side was Barnaby, wearing a blue-and-white-striped seaman’s sweater, gift of the goat-lady, and short grey trousers donated by Mr and Mrs Brooks.

Surely this handsome child with the carriage of a toy soldier, his small manly face generous and frank, was not the rude, sullen-visaged little boor who had landed in their midst only a scant eight weeks before?

Even Sergeant Coulter, who was not given to being mistyeyed over children, stared at them in wonder when he came bearing his ornately wrapped gifts.

Some alchemy of the Island had transformed them into a pair of royal children. Magic children.

All their friends had sent presents. Lady Syddyns gave a huge armful of her most precious roses. From Mr and Mrs Rice-Hope were a tiny coral necklace for Christie and a pocketknife for Barnaby. Agnes Duncan, confined to the parental acres, sent by way of poor Desmond two one-dollar bills in an envelope, and on behalf of poor Desmond, Mr and Mrs Brooks gave them each a cheap fountain pen.

The children accepted Sergeant Coulter’s gifts gravely and unwrapped them without haste.

When Christie saw the beautiful camera, she let her breath out slowly. She had always wanted a camera, and speechless, she could only gaze up at Sergeant Coulter and clasp his hand.

Before Sergeant Coulter could explain that the presents were mixed, he heard Barnaby shout: ‘
Rodney! Rodney!
’

Sergeant Coulter’s fate was sealed.

‘Oh, Sergeant! I knew I’d find him again, someday, somehow! How did you know where to find him! Oh, I’ll be the best boy in the whole world, for ever and ever now!’

Sergeant Coulter didn’t know who Rodney was, but if they were both satisfied with their presents, he was certainly not going to start any new inquiries.

The children shimmied up him as if he were a Maypole. They wound their arms about his neck and their legs about his waist, and they smothered him with kisses.

He hugged them, then smilingly set them on their feet.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t such a bad summer, was it? Things turned out pretty well, but I suppose you’ll be glad to get back to town.’

‘Oh,’ said that star-bright child, Barnaby, ‘I’m coming back.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sergeant Coulter suspiciously.

Barnaby turned to Mr Brooks. ‘Tell him, Mr Brooks, tell him!’

Mr Brooks smiled at the boy and said.

‘Oh, it’s your good news, Barnaby. You tell him.’

And so Barnaby explained that Mr Brooks and Mr Robinson, his uncle’s lawyer, had had a long conversation, and it was decided that Barnaby would attend boarding school in the city but spend his holidays on the Island with the Brookses. All that remained to be settled was for the courts to appoint a legal guardian for Barnaby. Because of Mr and Mrs Brooks’s ages, both they and Mr Robinson thought a younger person should be appointed, and Mr Brooks had suggested none other than Sergeant Coulter.

Sergeant Coulter was appalled.

‘Oh, no,’ he said, and then, ‘I really don’t think I could do that.’

‘Yes you can,’ said Christie.

‘Yes you will,’ Barnaby spoke significantly.

No I won’t, thought Sergeant Coulter stubbornly.

Their direct, unflinching gazes suddenly chilled him.

The report.

Oh, no, he was dreaming. They wouldn’t do that. Why, why, that was blackmail!

As if reading his thoughts, they nodded.

‘You shouldn’t of done it for us, and we promise never to forget.’ Their eyes were adoring.

No, no, they wouldn’t do that. He’d done it for them, hadn’t he? They wouldn’t do that, they loved him. He was certain of it.

Jesus! They loved poor Desmond too, and look what they had done to him, to say nothing of the uncle, whom they had not loved. Yes, they would do it, precisely because they did love him.

‘Oh, Sergeant, you
are
going to be my guardian!’

Not on your bloody life, thought Sergeant Coulter.

Then a nasty little thought which had never before occurred to him hit him like a blow between the eyes.

If the case were ever reopened, it was not at all unlikely that his superiors would imply he had done it to protect his own reputation. After all, he had had a homicidal maniac right under his nose for two months, and the children had begged for the protection of the law.

He tried desperately to justify his position, but there were certain inescapable facts.

Under questioning he would be forced to admit that Hobbs had written him a letter, warning him. And he had withheld evidence. He had also acted with fear, favour and affection.

God! The world was populated by either Gwynneth Rice-Hopes, so brimming over with morals that you almost hated them, or by people who apparently had none. As he thought of the Etruscan figures he realised that the perfidy of man was beyond belief.

Even decent, honest Constable Browning thought Albert should still go to New York to see the statues, his reasoning being that if they fooled the world’s greatest antiquarians and art experts, they must be worth seeing. Even Browning would pay money to see frauds. Piltdown Man or the Cardiff
Giant would be his idea of a joke. Was there nobody honourable left in the world? Not like her, but like himself?

The whistle of the S.S.
Haida Prince
blasted its approach to the Island.

It was time to go, but the children wanted to see the graveyard on their way. The sad little procession wound its way down the dusty road.

Sergeant Coulter stood holding Rodney, the camera and Lady Syddyns’s roses as the children climbed the fence. Staring down at his boots, Albert listened to the first faraway little rift within the lute.

He had a pension coming to him that he fully intended to enjoy, and he was not ruining his life and career for them. Why, even a dog was legally entitled to one bite. Surely a man could make one mistake? It was just a matter of keeping his mouth shut. He’d only see the boy on holidays, anyway. If worst came to worst, Desmond could not testify and it was their word against his. And children forgot so quickly.

If that was the way the game was played, he could be a damned sight tougher than the lot of them.

The children wandered sadly among the graves.

Mr Brooks blew his nose and said they had better hurry, the boat was in.

‘You just can’t keep up with those weeds,’ said Christie. ‘The blackberry vines are right back to Sir Adrian again.’

‘I’ll just clean up John Townsend’s little angel,’ said Barnaby, ‘it won’t take a minute.’

Christie helped him, and when they were through they patted the angel’s head.

They climbed onto the fence, turned, paused, taking one last look at their handiwork. The
Haida Prince
blasted again.

‘Hurry up!’ said Sergeant Coulter. He was beginning to sweat in case they missed the boat.

They climbed down, their lovely faces secret and serene.

‘Well, let’s go.’

As he watched them climb up the gangplank, Sergeant Coulter no longer looked as if he were guarding the Khyber Pass. Indeed, one might almost have accused him of slouching.

When they reached the deck they turned, the girl blew him a kiss and the boy waved.

Christie clutched the holy camera to her breast and walked on, and Sergeant Coulter thought with something akin to amazement that at least he wouldn’t see her again. Thank God.

It was nearly dusk as the boat pulled away, and the children stood at the rail, waving, waving, waving.

The figures on the wharf dwindled.

‘It feels as if they’re moving and we’re standing still,’ said Barnaby. ‘Doesn’t it?’

Christie didn’t answer him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

Barnaby turned, his eye caught by a sign at the foot of the bridge which stated in large letters that passengers were forbidden.

He nudged Christie with his elbow.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go up. Nobody’s around.’

‘No,’ said Christie. ‘You’re not supposed to.’

‘Gee, what’s the matter with you, Christie?’

‘I told you, nothing!’

Barnaby smiled and patted her shoulder.

‘Well, whatever it is, nevermind. I’ll still give you the million dollars, even if we didn’t murder Uncle. We’ll get married if you want.’