Mister Creecher (15 page)

Billy took a deep breath. Tears were forming in his eyes and he was determined not to cry. He thought he would feel better after paying for the old man’s funeral, but he didn’t. The confusion and bitterness he had felt ever since he had heard of Gratz’s death were still there. Creecher put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

‘Kindness is not a weakness, mon ami,’ said the giant quietly.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Billy.

CHAPTER XXI.

It was so quiet in Windsor in comparison to London. There was no way that Creecher could secrete himself in a place like that, even allowing for his ghost-like stealth. So Billy and the giant headed to the outskirts of town, where they found a suitable old barn for Creecher to stay in.

Billy made his way back to the coaching inn. It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of the Swiss travellers. They had, in fact, taken a cottage at the edge of the forest, not far from the barn in which Creecher resided.

Billy booked himself a room for the night. He may as well sleep in comfort – he was exhausted and his bones ached. But he was surprised to find that he could not get the old man from the coach out of his head. He kept picturing him there, hunched over, gripping the handles. He heard the snap of that finger and every time it made him flinch.

Billy was never going to grow old. That was no way to go, snuffed out like a candle. He was going to go out roaring if he had anything to do with it. What was the point of being alive if no one noticed when you died?

Billy thought of Creecher and wondered if the giant would ever grow old or ever die. Could you die if you were never truly alive? Would Creecher still be striding the Earth centuries from now, when everything Billy knew had turned to dust?

The bed was as lumpy as a patch of ploughed earth, but exhaustion won through and Billy slept soundly enough until the morning coach woke him as it rumbled out of the courtyard.

The route back to the barn was so different in the morning light. Although the sky was grey, the mist clung like cobwebs to the meadows and the lane Billy walked along. A farmer eyed him suspiciously, but he tipped his hat and walked on.

The lane curved through a stand of trees and, as Billy rounded the bend, he saw his way blocked by a herd of deer. They looked at him, each face a picture of alert concentration, each eye a fathomless black.

Billy froze in wonder. For a few seconds nothing moved except the twitching tails of the deer, and then they were off, bounding away across the meadow and out of sight.

Billy’s heart raced with excitement. He grinned, exhilarated. He had never seen a deer in his life before; he did not even know what they were, and it took Creecher to name them from Billy’s description.

Billy told the giant what he had discovered about the location of Frankenstein and Clerval’s cottage. From the directions Billy had been given, it could only be a ten minute walk away through the forest, and so they set off.

Billy and Creecher looked out from the trees at the edge of the forest, the smell of damp earth and rotting leaves rising up from the ground. It was so dark where they stood that it was as if they stood in the night, and the cottage in the day. Even the thin sunlight that managed to seep through the clouds contrasted so sharply with the gloom of the wood that Billy had to squint into the relative brightness.

Within minutes of them watching, Clerval came out of the cottage, stretched and placed a knapsack on the ground beside the open door. Frankenstein emerged moments later and Billy could feel the giant flinch beside him, as if he was having to resist the urge to run towards Frankenstein.

The ever-cheerful Clerval slapped his friend on the back, picked up his pack and headed off. Frankenstein looked around him, and seemed to hesitate when he looked in their direction, but Billy knew there was no way he could see them. Could he sense Creecher? he wondered. But after a few seconds, Frankenstein set off after Clerval.

When both men had gone, Billy and Creecher walked over to the cottage. They peered in through the window, but there was little to see.

‘Well, he’s not working here, is he?’ said Billy.

‘No,’ said Creecher sullenly. ‘Does he think that I will wait for ever while he amuses himself, walking in the woods? Perhaps if I snapped Clerval’s neck it might focus his thoughts.’

Billy winced at both the image and at the sudden change in Creecher’s tone of voice.

‘Still,’ said Billy in an effort to placate him. ‘the fellow at the inn says they’re only here for a couple of days before heading on to Oxford. They’ve probably sent everything on.’

Creecher nodded grimly, still staring after the two men.

‘When will he keep his promise to me?’

There was such a terrible longing in that voice, a black despair that Billy had never heard before. He was used to Creecher sounding angry, but this was something new. Billy reached out and touched Creecher’s arm. When the giant turned there were tears in his eyes.

‘Look,’ said Billy, ‘I know how annoying it must be –’

‘Annoying? If only it was merely annoying.’

Billy said nothing, sure that whatever he said it would not make things better. He could see that Creecher was upset but felt powerless to help. It was Creecher himself who broke the silence.

‘It is all I think about,’ he said quietly. ‘The idea that one day I will not be the only one of my kind. One day I will have someone to share my isolation with and we will each be everything to the other.’

The giant looked up into the forest canopy above their heads.

‘But in my darker moments I think about what it will be like if Frankenstein does not fulfil his promise.’ There was a note of desperation in his voice.

‘He will,’ said Billy. ‘Of course he will.’

‘I wish I could be so sure,’ Creecher replied. ‘What if something were to happen to him? What if a robber were to attack him and kill him? If he dies, my dream ends with him.’

‘He’s not going to die,’ said Billy with all the comfort he could muster. But to himself, he had to admit that Creecher had a point.

‘But if he did,’ Creecher went on, ‘I would be doomed to continue alone. I do not even know if I can die. Perhaps I will live on, for all eternity, alive and yet not quite alive, shunned and rejected.’

‘Listen to yourself,’ said Billy. ‘I’m telling you – you need to stop reading all that gloomy poetry. It’s turning you into a right misery.’

‘But –’

‘Frankenstein ain’t going to die, and he is going to build you a mate,’ said Billy. ‘Course he is. You worry too much.’

He sat down on a fallen tree. After a few moments, Creecher joined him. Billy felt uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say. He struggled to remember what his mother might have said when he was a boy and feeling sad. He slapped the giant on the back.

‘Everything will work out. You’ll see.’

Creecher looked at him with a quizzical half-smile.

‘It is unlike you to be so cheerful and optimistic.’

‘I know,’ Billy said with a chuckle. ‘It must be the clean air or something.’

‘All I want,’ said Creecher, ‘is to have another of my kind to spend my life with. Is that so wrong? If I stay among ordinary people I fear I will become the monster they all think me to be.’

Billy nodded and stifled a yawn.

‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope it all works out, eh?’

‘But what if –’

‘Look, I’ve said it’ll be all right, haven’t I?’ said Billy. ‘You don’t have to go on and on.’

Creecher’s face froze in a sullen frown and he stared off into the distance. Billy closed his eyes and sighed.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that –’

‘Family is everything,’ Creecher added. ‘Without a family we are nothing. It is the centre of everything.’

Billy stared at him in disbelief.

‘Family?’ he said. ‘You’re planning to start a . . . a family?’

Creecher looked at him.

‘But of course, mon ami,’ he said.

That these two man-made giants might mate and produce children who would themselves go on to create a race of giants was an idea so unnatural it seemed impossible to contemplate.

‘But how do you know that . . .’ began Billy. ‘I mean, what if you can’t . . . you know . . . ?’

‘Then we will be content with each other,’ said Creecher. ‘But I see no reason why we will not be able to make children. Mere humans seem to have no difficulty –’

‘Look,’ said Billy suddenly, feeling sick, ‘I’ve got to get going.’

‘Very well,’ the giant replied. ‘If you –’

‘I’ve got to go,’ said Billy impatiently. ‘Meet me at the inn tomorrow night and we’ll coach it to Oxford.’

It took Billy a while to get to sleep, but sleep he did, falling into a deep and formless void – or so it seemed at first. For slowly, as though his eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, Billy began to discern recognisable shapes amid the gloom.

In this dreamworld it was still night-time, but there was a strange blue light washing the scene. He looked for the moon but could not find it. He was not in his room any more; he was back in the wood where he had left Creecher.

He was still struggling with this confusion when he saw that Creecher was standing near the fallen tree, and he called to him.

The giant turned round and it was then Billy saw that he was not alone. Though Creecher’s figure obscured most of the view, Billy could see that whoever stood there was almost the same height.

‘Creecher!’ called Billy. ‘Who is it? Who are you talking to?’

Creecher’s teeth shone blue-white in the strange twilight and he turned back to the mystery figure, and Billy could hear them talking.

‘Creecher!’ called Billy.

Creecher began to walk towards Billy with the other person following behind. As they approached, the mysterious figure came into view and Billy was amazed to see that it was a woman. She was gigantic, like Creecher, and entirely naked.

‘Children!’ called the woman. ‘Billy is awake! Come and meet him.’

Billy stared in horror as from out behind shrubs and trees came, one after another, a procession of gigantic children, each of them naked like their mother and formed like an infant, though they were very nearly Billy’s height.

They moved with a horrible speed, clambering over any obstacles that blocked their path and swarming towards Billy. He scrabbled back against a tree, cowering in fear as they slowed their movements and came to stand in a silent, inquisitive group around him.

They were all in silhouette. One of the children moved forward and into the blue light. His face was like Creecher’s, pale and loose-skinned, his eyes deep-set, his mouth hard and lipless.

Billy gasped and jerked out of his nightmare, hitting his head on the bedside table.

‘Owww!’ he hissed. ‘Damn it!’

He rubbed his head and tried his best to clear it of the image of those children, but with little success. They were still haunting his thoughts when he waited for Creecher at the coaching inn that evening.

CHAPTER XXII.

‘Is that a bump on your head?’ asked Creecher.

‘A bump?’ said Billy. ‘Oh – yeah. I banged my head getting out of bed.’

Creecher chuckled and Billy blushed, leaving the giant to hang back in the shadows while he went to buy the tickets to Oxford.

Moments before the coach was due to set off, they strode across the courtyard with their bags and climbed on to the roof.

The driver and guard were engaged in furtive conversation. Billy frowned. He had been around dubious characters long enough to recognise them when he saw them. The guard, whose flattened, broken nose made his wide face oddly featureless, burst into laughter and slapped the driver on the back. The driver whistled to the horses and flicked the reins. The coach moved forward and they were off.

Billy and Creecher were alone on the roof this time, and each settled into his own world. Billy hunched his shoulders in a vain effort to hide his ears from the chill. Occasionally the raucous voices of the driver and guard would rise above the background rumble of the coach wheels and, every now and then, he would glance over at the black shape of Creecher, silhouetted against the blurred background. Billy wondered what went on in that mind of his.