Cryers Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

consideration. In 1930 this was not regarded as a desirable attribute in a girl.
    'Yes,' she continued good-humouredly, 'kicked him when he was turned. His brains went in a bucket.'
    Walter struggled to come up with a suitable reply. Mary did so for him.
    'Never mind,' she said.
    Walter could not think of a single thing to say. He stared at the slates and waited for time to move on.
    'Mind you, I seen worse than that,' she continued pleasantly.
    He listened to her shoe scraping the stone, her breath go in and out of her open mouth, loud as Doug Shaw's breeding bull.
    'I'm sure you have.'
    'I have.'
    He was done for, he suspected. He didn't know why he thought that.
    'Which d'you want to hear about?'
    'None. Thank you.'
    'Well. So, one had his arm off from a scythe and another one got his whole head taked off by a Marshall engine at threshing time. Dogs drunk all the blood off the ground. His legs went on all right, like a chicken's, trying to run.'
    And she laughed a startled, good-natured laugh as if this were not so terrible as it sounded. Walter was grateful for the laugh that wiped from his mind the poor man's scrabbling legs. Now at least they wouldn't have to stand there in silent contemplation of the wretched fellow, headless as a Christmas bird, running everywhere and nowhere at all.
    He looked at her and felt the shock of her bold blunt stare. When he looked away her face remained like an imprint on his eye, her wind-tangled hair and jumble of teeth, so that he saw it over everything, the Victorian brickwork, the drain gulleys, the sky.
    'Something in there?' she asked, as he pressed his finger against his eyelid.
    'Gone now,' he replied, not daring to glance again.
    'Give it a rub then.'
    He obeyed for something to do.
    'My grandad had a glass eye he could take out. He swallowed it once, playing the fool.'
    'Oh.'
    'He got it back. Came out his rear, covered in plop.'
    'Oh.'
    'Yes. So, cheerio then.'
    Walter stood there a while after she'd gone. 'Cheerio.' He didn't trust himself to think or move; almost as though his head too had come clean off his shoulders and his legs wanted to dash nowhere at all. Here then was Mary Hatt. True enough it was to say she was no Cissie.
    Sankey and Walter stand together at the old gate on the Four Ashes road. They lean their backs to the valley view. Behind them are the forested hills, sharply angled farmland and flowing sky. They smoke. Walter is forbidden to light up at home until he is twenty-one. Sankey too is unable to smoke his pipe at his lodgings. The old gate on the Four Ashes road lay between their respective addresses. If it was raining or inclement they would shelter in Town Wood or retire to the White Lion. They will speak with each and everyone who happens along. Just now it is the road sweeper, Saul, trimming the banks and verges, carrying his mole traps – a shilling he would get for a good pelt, rats too. He was surprisingly effective with his catapult and lead balls. A menace rats were, in the feed rooms, corn ricks; Saul earned his fresh milk and cheese.
    One year Saul got himself chased into the pond by wasps. He still talks about it. Chased him a good quarter-mile. A million of them he said there were afterwards, showing off his red swellings. 'Your arithmetic's off,' Sid Perfect informed him. Sid Perfect was an excellent darts player. He could tell you how many you needed and how best to score them before the last dart had landed. He was good at predictions. He could tell a woman whether she should expect twins. He could tell a person they were going to die a violent death. He was never wrong.
    A million, Saul insisted again. He got upset about it. I'm no liar, he said. I know one million wasps when I see them. And he punched Tommy King in the head to prove it.
    Walter sees the cattle on the hill have raised their heads. More curious than a cat, a cow. Tommy Castle said that. A natural with cattle he was. Something about those who nursed a grief a long time,