Scream for Sarah Read online

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be left here alone with a nameless tramp. What would I call him?’

  ‘Hob the Hobo, perhaps? That would be a good name for him. He’ll not bother you. He’s chained up, remember, and he understands what he’s to do. I’ll take the Mini to a garage and see if I can get the dent knocked out, and do your shopping on the way back. You can get on with your clearing out in peace and quiet, and tonight we’ll dress ourselves up and go out. I see there’s a Jazz Festival on somewhere nearby. Do you fancy it?’

  I’d seen the posters, too. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said, ‘Even though I’d have to go as I am.’

  Toby went off in my Mini, and I found myself work to do inside the cottage. I didn’t want to pass the tramp, so I made excuses not to go outside. At twelve I made myself some sandwiches and a cup of coffee. It was a baking hot day, and even inside the thick walls of the old cottage, the air was thick and warm. I had an argument with myself about feeding the tramp, and then took him out a sandwich and a mug of water on a tray.

  He had finished cleaning the silver, which was gleaming in the sun. Now he was resting, lying at full length on the bench, his bruised and bloodied feet towards me. The chain round his ankle allowed him just enough leeway to get both feet onto the bench. I didn’t like to look at him too closely, but I couldn’t avoid seeing his feet.

  I pushed the tray of food onto the table, and he sat up, slowly. I stepped back, to be out of his reach, although the table was between us, and he could not possibly have hurt me from where he sat. His eyes fixed on the tray I had brought him; Toby was right, and the tramp was hungry. But when I reached for the knife box and silver cleaning things, he raised a hand to stop me. I dropped the tray in fright. He tried to smile, to reassure me. He pointed to the mug of water and made washing motions over his face and hands. He wanted water to wash himself in.

  This evidence of civilised behaviour reassured me. I promised to fetch some for him, and this time he let me remove the silver. I brought him a bowl of warm water, soap and a rag of a towel. He had drunk half the mug of water by that time, but not touched the food. He thanked me with a dignified bow that should have been ludicrous, but wasn’t. He had dark brown curls all over his head, and although his hair was tangled and thick with muddy patches at the moment, it might once have been attractive. I have always wished that my hair were curly; I won’t go through all the rigmarole of perms and weekly sessions at the hairdressers, so instead I keep my hair cut short and neat, close to my head.

  I watched him from the doorway. He luxuriated in the water. I could hear his intake of breath as he touched a bruise, but he didn’t miss any. In silence I fetched him a refill of water, and he got to work on the rest of himself. He was wearing nothing but a reasonably clean pair of blue pants; I wondered where he’d pinched them, for they actually fitted.

  ‘More water?’ I asked, when he reached his feet. He nodded, his eyes wary, but not unintelligent. It was difficult to tell how old he was, even now. A beard that had once been trimmed to a reasonable shape covered the lower part of his face, but his teeth were good. His nose was no splodge, though it did widen at the tip. His forehead was square under a loose mop of hair without a thread of grey in it, but the crow’s-feet around his eyes marked him as a man past his twenties.

  His feet were a mess, and in my opinion, needed more than a wash. It was a wonder to me that he’d been able to walk on them at all. I fetched ointment, lint and bandages from Granny’s medicine cupboard, and ordered him to lie flat on the bench and not move till I’d finished. He didn’t stir while I washed and bound his feet, but his eyes followed my every movement, like a watchful robin. When I had finished he put both his hands together over his heart, as if he were praying, then touched them both to his forehead and spread them towards me. In thanks.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said, foolishly confused. Hob the Hobo might not be able to speak, but he could make himself understood.

  From a window I watched him eat, which he did with restraint. He rinsed his fingers afterwards. I took him out a small bookcase which needed scrubbing down.

  ‘You understand why Toby wants you to stay? You will work for us for a few days, and sleep in the garage at night? We’ll pay you for what you do, and at the end of the week you can be on your way with some money in your pocket. You agree with this?’

  He watched my face while I spoke, and frowned when I finished. But he nodded. I wasn’t satisfied with his reaction, although I couldn’t tell why.

  ‘Can’t you speak at all?’ I asked.

  He didn’t appear to hear me, but bent down to start work on the bookcase. I stamped my foot at him. He took no notice.

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ I said, trying not to be angry with him. He didn’t look up from his task, so I left him to it.

  With anger came contempt for him, and I no longer avoided going into the yard because it meant passing by the bench on which he sat. He was a scruffy little man. He’d probably be no larger than me, standing up. It was a pity that all of Grandpa’s clothing had been burned or given away when he died, or I could have lent the tramp something to wear. Then I laughed at myself, for Grandpa had been a six-footer, and his clothes would have drowned the tramp.

  By teatime the sun had moved round from the front of the garage, and the tramp tried to move along the bench with it. The chain wouldn’t allow him to move that far, and I saw him shiver.

  Of course, my clothes would probably fit him all right. No, I couldn’t. I could not lend him anything of mine. I’d never see it again, and … no, the idea was repellent.

  Only he couldn’t go around naked, and I had several pairs of worn jeans and some old sweaters with me. I looked over my stock and selected an ancient navy sweater and a pair of paint-stained jeans that had once belonged to one of my elder sisters and were a trifle too large for me. He took them from me wonderingly, his eyes distrustful. He pulled the sweater on at once, but couldn’t do anything about the jeans until Toby unlocked the chain.

  And where was Toby, anyway?

  He came back in the late afternoon, flushed with sun. He explained his lengthy absence by saying he’d been hanging around trying to get the garage to do something about my car. They had knocked the dent out, eventually, but the car would have to be taken back again on the morrow for the paintwork to be touched up.

  Toby was both surprised and amused to see that I’d managed to transform Hob into something approaching civilised man. He chaffed me about Hob while I prepared supper, and I laughed and agreed with him that we were doing the right thing, and that I was glad, after all, that I’d not called in the police to deal with him. I said that we ought to ask Hob for his word of honour not to escape, so that we could let him off his chain. I argued that we were trying to build up Hob’s self-respect once again, and that that couldn’t be done while he was being treated like a bitch on heat. Toby didn’t agree; he thought Hob would take off for the woods the moment we let him off the chain. We had quite an argument about it. I thought that Hob was to be trusted, I suppose because he had not turned on me when I had tried to help him. Toby said that was a poor argument, and that Hob had likely been wandering the roads for years, and had forgotten anything he might once have known about gratitude or fair-dealing.

  I replied that you couldn’t expect him to learn how to behave like a human being once more, unless you treated him as one. Toby gave me a hug and said I was a proper little Dragonfly, wasn’t I? He said he might let himself be persuaded, if I worked on him in the right way. I didn’t mind. He was big and fair and strong, and I’ve always been attracted by men of his physical type. Mentally he had proved himself my superior, too. What more could I ask for? I did give him a kiss or two, and he gave them back to me, and we only realised how late it was when the potatoes boiled over.

  While I was dishing up, Toby went out to speak to Hob. I could hear him quite clearly, putting the case to the tramp. I thought he was doing well, but
unfortunately he didn’t seem able to make Hob understand.

  ‘The man’s wits are wandering,’ said Toby, flinging back inside, ‘I can’t do anything with him. We’ll have to keep him on the chain, I’m afraid.’

  I could see the top of Hob’s curly head from the window, and I guessed he’d been able to overhear everything Toby and I had said about him.

  ‘He seemed bright enough to me,’ I said, and went outside. Hob was drooping against the wall of the cottage, his body slack. The chain still shackled his ankle, and his right leg was beginning to puff and discolour from his bruises.

  ‘How could he have come by such injuries?’

  He turned his head away from me, a stupid look on his face.

  Toby came to lean in the doorway. ‘A fight with another tramp, I suppose.’ He was angry that his well-intentioned plan had miscarried. ‘Look, Sarah, if he won’t cooperate, there’s nothing we can do about it except safeguard ourselves. I’m determined to keep him until he’s earned himself some money. I’ll do good to him in spite of himself, if necessary. I’ll lock him up in the garage. He can stay there all the time from now on; he’ll be out of your way there and he won’t be able to make trouble for us, either.’

  Hob laid his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He hadn’t had anything to eat since the sandwiches I’d given him for lunch, and the aroma of the supper I had cooked must be teasing at his nostrils. Toby went indoors, probably to fetch the key to the chain. Immediately Hob’s head came up. He linked his thumbs over crossed wrists and waggled them to simulate the flight of a bird. He was appealing to me. He wanted to be free. His eyes were intelligent enough, now.

  ‘Toby!’ I called. ‘It’s wrong to keep him against his will. Let him go?’

  ‘No, he must work his passage, like every other member of the human race,’ said Toby, from within. ‘This smells good, Sarah. May I start?’

  ‘In a moment. Hob, please! Give me your word you’ll not escape?’ He started, and looked around. I realised he didn’t know we’d re-Christened him. ‘We thought we’d call you Hob, if you don’t know your real name …?’ He shook his head, his eyes blank. He didn’t know his name. ‘Then I’ll go on calling you Hob, because you must have some sort of name, right? Why won’t you give your word not to escape? You know we mean you well …’

  His eyes slid across the yard to the Mini. He didn’t seem to find the sight pleasant, but I was in no mood to be side-tracked.

  ‘Come, now! Give me your word and I’ll get Toby to take the chain off you. Then we can all have something to eat.’

  He considered the offer for a while, scrutinising my face as he did so. I wasn’t used to being assessed as if I were a suspect in a murder case, and yet that was the impression I got. Hob had the oddest way of reversing our roles from time to time. He nodded. He agreed. He put out his right hand, and I laid mine in his by way of sealing the pact. His hand was tough-skinned, and showed signs of manual labour—and of the fight which Toby guessed he’d been in. Properly dressed, he could pass for a sailor.

  I ran to tell Toby the good news, reinforcing my plea that he should release Hob by saying that the tramp could hardly run on his injured feet. Toby was not too pleased that I had succeeded where he had failed, but produced the key and released our prisoner. There was a downstairs toilet off the kitchen, and Toby allowed Hob to use this, after first locking the back door, and pocketing the key. I set Hob a place to eat at the far end of the long table. Toby turned a shoulder on him while we had supper, but I noticed that Hob was making an inventory of the contents of the room. As I had assumed, his table manners were good, and he refused the cigarette which Toby threw him after supper. He helped me clear the table without being asked to do so, and when I showed him where everything was in the kitchen, he washed up for me.

  We didn’t get to the Festival after all. I suppose that our responsibility for Hob weighed on us. We turned on the ancient television, which didn’t have BBC2, and listened to the news before watching a play. I fixed Hob up with a stool just inside the door, where he could watch and at the same time start to strip down an old rocking chair which my mother fancied she would like to keep. Toby made signs to me that he found Hob’s presence a nuisance, but I wanted my relationship with Toby to develop slowly, so that we could get to know each other before jumping into bed, and so I ignored his hints that we should turn the tramp out of doors again.

  ‘Pity about the Festival,’ I said idly, when the news was finished. ‘Could we go tomorrow?’ I had been reminded about it because there had been a sizeable item on it in the news; it was being held about three miles away from us as the crow flies.

  ‘How long would it take us to get there?’

  ‘Not long, through the back roads. I’ve been to Point to Point races on the same site. It depends on the traffic how long it would take us.’

  ‘They’ve got quite a crowd there. I’ll see if I can get tickets tomorrow.’

  Toby helped me to shut up the hens, although that was more of an excuse for him to give me a hug in the moonlight than because I needed assistance, for the hens went to roost with the dusk. He told me that my eyes were mysterious and romantic and pointed out that the moon was nearly full. Was I affected by its light? Perhaps. Toby was personable and my heart was not engaged, so I let him explore my mouth with his as much as he wished. I began to regret that I had insisted on bringing Hob into the cottage.

  Toby didn’t chain Hob up that night, but allowed him to sleep on the settee in the living-room. Toby locked the front door and put that key in his pocket. I checked that the windows were shut fast, although they were so small it would have been impossible for him to climb out of them. There was no lock on my bedroom door, so Toby showed me how to jam a chair under the doorknob to repel possible invaders. I made some stupid joke about my fearing him more than the tramp, but he didn’t follow it up.

  I slept soundly in spite of my disappointment. It was just as well that I did, seeing what was to happen the following day.

  At first the morning went easily. I fed Hob and turned him out into the sun to finish stripping the chair. Toby helped and hindered me alternatively, teasing me to kiss him while I was making the beds, and making me giggle.

  ‘Fulfil your promise,’ I suggested. ‘What about cleaning out the henhouse?’

  He mimed horror. ‘A cup of coffee?’

  ‘Oh, you!’

  I left him to his coffee, and approached the henhouse in some annoyance. Cleaning out the henhouse was a job I detested, but it had to be done. A brown paw laid itself over my head, warm to the touch. Hob pushed me gently to one side and started to clean the henhouse himself. He didn’t speak, of course, and he didn’t smile. He wrinkled his nose against the smell, but he persisted. I noticed he wasn’t used to the job, for he took even longer over it than I would have done. But he did it, and then limped back to work on the rocking chair.

  Later, when I tried to shift an old mangle out of the kitchen, he materialised at my shoulder and lent his weight to mine. It was the same when I wanted to lower the washing-line; I didn’t have to call Toby, for there was Hob, ready to help, very much at my service.

  ‘You’d better watch out,’ said Toby, in an edgy voice. ‘Some Indian religions have it that if you save a man’s life, he must serve you and yours for ever. It looks like you’ve won yourself a slave.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘I didn’t save his life, and it was you who didn’t want him to go to jail.’

  Two sets of eyes latched on to me thoughtfully. I felt embarrassed, although I couldn’t see any reason why I should be.

  ‘I didn’t save your life, did I?’

  It was as if a black curtain had been drawn across behind Hob’s eyes. His face went slack, and he turned back to his task.

  Toby’s face was tight and hard.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Have I said something stupid?’

  He didn’t smile, or laugh, as I had thought he would, but turned away. He w
as fiddling with the old radio set when I went to fetch some water to wash Hob’s feet.

  ‘That doesn’t work properly,’ I said. ‘Give it a kick, and you might raise some static, but on the other hand, you might not. I can’t think why Granny and Grandpa didn’t throw it away and get themselves new things; they had plenty of money.’

  Toby slapped the radio, but it failed to respond. He wandered around as if looking for something to do, and then leaned against the door while I attended to Hob’s feet.

  ‘It is odd,’ I said, more to Toby than to Hob. ‘How can his feet have come by such treatment if he had boots to wear? And look at those scratches on his legs! And what about that mark on his wrist—he must have worn a watch until quite recently.’

  ‘Maybe he was wearing clothes which were reasonably decent until a few days ago,’ hazarded Toby. ‘Maybe he’s a recent drop-out, which would account for his wearing a watch. I suppose he sold it to buy food, or meths. Tramps drink anything, don’t they?’

  ‘There was meths with the silver-cleaning things yesterday, but he didn’t touch it.’

  Hob didn’t shift under my fingers, though I must have caused him pain. His face might have been chiselled from wood.

  ‘Maybe he strayed too near the Jazz Festival,’ suggested Toby. ‘And if he was wearing a watch and some decent clothes, then he might have been set upon and robbed for them. Perhaps they took his own boots and left him the ones he was wearing when we found him. You can understand why, can’t you? Who’d wear such monstrosities?’

  ‘A ploughman would. But I expect you’re right.’ I patted Hob’s ankle as a signal that I’d finished, but he didn’t thank me, as he had done yesterday.

  Something was bothering me about the clothes Hob had been wearing. I picked them up from where Toby had flung them, and shook them out. A big-framed man must have worn them and the boots. No wonder poor little Hob had been mauled, for he wouldn’t have stood a chance in a fight with such a big man. The suit was old, but didn’t smell of tobacco or meths; it smelt of hay and damp. A prickly ear of old grass stuck to a rent in the shoulder pad. I picked it off, and rubbed it through my fingers. I tried to imagine why a man would drop out of society and couldn’t. How would it feel to walk the roads by day and sleep in a ditch at night? How did a man live? Where did he find food? Obviously he had to steal to keep himself alive.