Fire And Hemlock Part 4

"I feel for him," said Mr. Lynn. "I had to do that to buy my good cello. What is Edna saving her money for?"

"To give to Leslie," said Polly.

"Oh the awful Leslie," said Mr. Lynn. "From what you said in your letter, I see him as dark, sulky, and rather thick-set. Utterly spoiled, of course. Is Edna saving to buy him a motor bike?"

"When he's old enough. She gives him anything he wants," said Polly. "She's just bought him an earring shaped like a skull with diamonds for eyes."

"Shaped like a skull," agreed Mr. Lynn, "for which he is not in the least grateful. How does he get on with my new a.s.sistant?"

"We hate one another," said Polly. "But I have to be polite to Leslie in case he guesses I'm not a boy."

"And for fear of annoying Edna," said Mr. Lynn. "She'd have you out like a shot if Leslie told tales."

When they had settled about Leslie and described the shop to one another-which took a long time, because both of them kept thinking of new things-they went on to Tan Coul himself. "I don't understand about him," Mr. Lynn said dubiously. "What relation does he bear to me? I mean, what happens when he's needed? Do I have to become Mr. Piper in order to become Tan Coul, or can I switch straight to Tan Coul from here?"

Polly frowned. "It isn't like that. You mustn't ask it to bits."

"Yes I must," Mr. Lynn said politely. "Please don't put me off. This is the most important piece of hero business yet, and I think we should get it right. Now-can I switch straight to Tan Coul or not?"

"Ye-es," Polly said. "I think so. But it's not that simple. Mr. Piper is you too."

"But I don't have to rush to Whatsis-on-the-Water and begin each job from there, do I?"

"No. And neither do I," said Polly.

"That's a relief," said Mr. Lynn. "Even so, think how awkward it will be if the call comes while I'm in the middle of a concert or you're doing an exam. How do do the calls come, by the way?" the calls come, by the way?"

Polly began to feel a bit put-upon. "Things just happen that need us," she said. "I think. Like the giant. You hear cras.h.i.+ng and you run there."

"With my axe," Mr. Lynn agreed. "Where do you suggest I keep my axe in London?"

Polly turned round, laughing. It was so obvious she hardly needed to point.

"In a cello case, like a gangster?" Mr. Lynn said dubiously. "Well, I could get them to make a little satin cus.h.i.+on for it, I suppose."

Polly looked at him suspiciously. "You're laughing at me."

"Absolutely not!" Mr. Lynn seemed shocked. "How could I? But I don't think you realize just how much that good cello cost."

It was odd, Polly thought then, and later, and nine years after that, remembering it all. She never could completely tell how seriously Mr. Lynn took the hero business. Sometimes, like then, he seemed to be laughing at them both. At other times, like immediately after that, he was far more serious about it than Pollywas.

"But I still don't understand about Tan Coul," he said thoughtfully, with his big hands clasped round his knees-they were sitting at opposite ends of the hearth rug. "Where is he when he-or I-do his deeds? Are the giants and dragons and so forth here and now, or are they somewhere else entirely?"

If it had been Nina asking this, Polly would have answered that was not the way you played. But Mr. Lynn had already proved that you could not put him off like that, and she could see he was serious. She pushed aside the empty plates and knelt up in order to think strenuously. Her hair got in the way and she hooked it behind her ears. "Sort of both," she said. "The other place they come from and where you do your deeds is is here-but it's not here too. It's-Oh, bother you! I just can't explain!" here-but it's not here too. It's-Oh, bother you! I just can't explain!"

"Don't get cross," Mr. Lynn begged her. "Maybe there are are no words for it." no words for it."

But there were, Polly realized. She saw in her mind two stone vases spinning, one slowly, the other fast, and stopping to show half a word each. With them she also saw Seb watching, looking scornful. "Yes there are," she contradicted Mr. Lynn. "It's like those vases. Now-here and Nowhere." The idea of Seb was so strong in her mind as she said it that she felt as if she had also told Mr. Lynn how Seb had tried to make her promise not to see him.

"Nowhere," repeated Mr. Lynn. "Now-here. Yes, I see." He was not thinking of Seb at all. Polly did not know whether she was relieved or annoyed. Then he said, "You mentioned a horse in your letter. A Nowhere horse, I suppose. What is my horse like? Do you have one too?"

"No," said Polly. She would have liked one, but she was sure she had not. "Your Nowhere horse is like that," she said, pointing to the picture of the Chinese horse on the wall.

They both looked up at it. "I'd hoped for something a bit calmer," Mr. Lynn confessed. "That one obviously kicks and bites. Polly, I don't think I'd stay on his back five seconds."

"You'll have to try," Polly said severely.

Mr. Lynn took it meekly. "Oh well," he said. "Perhaps if I spoke to it in Chinese-Now, how did I come to find this vicious beast?" They were thinking of various ways Mr. Piper could have met the horse, when Mr. Lynn happened to see his watch. "When does your mother want you back? Is she coming here?"

"Half past five," said Polly, and then had an awful moment when she seemed to have forgotten the lawyer's address. She had just not listened in the taxi. But, because Ivy had made her say it, it had gone down into her memory somehow. She found she could recite it after all.

Mr. Lynn unfolded himself and stood up. "Lucky that's quite near here. Come on. We'd better get going if we're to be there by five-thirty."

Polly got her coat. Mr. Lynn put on a once s.h.i.+ny anorak almostas worn-out as Edna's dressing gown, and they set off, down the hollow stairs and into the now dark street. Strangely enough, Polly forgot to look in case Mr. Leroy or Laurel were following her. The road was so busy and Londonish and full of traffic that she only thought how glad she was to be able to grab hold of Mr. Lynn's hand, and how grateful she was that he took her a shortcut down small streets where there were fewer cars and even some trees. The trees still had some s.h.i.+vering leaves clinging to them. Polly was just thinking that those leaves looked almost golden in the orange of the streetlights when the noise began in the street round the corner.

It was about seven different noises at once. A car hooter blared. With it were mixed the awful screech of brakes and a splintering, cras.h.i.+ng sound. Behind this were angry voices yelling and several screams. But the noises in front of these, which made it obviously different from a simple car crash, were iron-battering sounds and a terrible shrill yelling that was the most panic-stricken noise Polly had ever heard.

Mr. Lynn and Polly looked at one another. "Do you think we should go and see?" Mr. Lynn said.

"Yes," said Polly. "It might be a job for us." She did not believe it was for an instant, and she knew Mr. Lynn did not either, but it seemed the right thing to say.

They went round the corner. Mr. Lynn said, "Good Lord!" and a lot seemed to happen in no time at all.

The thing making the noise was a horse. It was loose in a narrow street with a rope bridle trailing off it, dodging and rearing as people tried to catch it-or the people might have been running away from it: it was not clear which. Slewed across the street behind the horse was a car with a broken headlight. A man was leaning angrily out of the car window, shouting. And the horse, a great, luminous, golden thing in the streetlights, slipping and crunching in the gla.s.s from the broken headlight, had just dodged someone's grabbing hands and was now coming battering toward Polly and Mr. Lynn, screaming more like a person than a horse. There was just an instant, while Mr. Lynn said "Good Lord!" when Polly could see Mr. Lynn's eyes behind the orange glow of hisgla.s.ses, staring at her, wide and gray and incredulous. Then the horse was almost on top of them, and it reared.

Polly, to her everlasting disgust, did not behave anything like an a.s.sistant hero. She screamed almost as loudly as the horse and crouched on the pavement with her arms over her head. The horse was huge. It stood above her like a tower of golden flesh and bone, beating the air with its iron hooves, and screaming, screaming. Polly saw a big eye, a rolling bulge of blue-brown and white, shot with veins and tangled in pale horsehair, stuff like detergent bubbles dripping, and huge, square teeth. She knew the horse was mad with terror, and she screamed and screamed.

She heard Mr. Lynn say, "Here." Something hard and figure-eight-shaped was pushed into her fending hand. Polly's fingers closed round it without telling her what it was. She just knelt and screamed among flying shadows while the front hooves of the horse crashed down close beside her with Mr. Lynn's feet next to them. Then its back feet crashed. Mr. Lynn's hunched shoulder had hit the horse in its side as its back feet left the ground to lash at Polly, and swung it round just enough to miss her. After that, he managed to grab the rope trailing from the horse's nose. There was furious trampling and squealing. Sparks that were pale in the orange light came from under the horse's feet, and the horse's head, twisting and flattened, more like a snake's than a horse's, darted at Mr. Lynn's arm and tried to fix the huge teeth in him.

Mr. Lynn said words which Polly, up to then, had thought only Dad and the dustmen knew, and pulled hard down on the rope. There was a further rush of feet and sparks, and the two of them were trampling away from Polly toward the crashed car. The horse stopped screaming. Polly could hear the things Mr. Lynn was saying quite clearly. Most of it was to the horse, but some of it seemed to be just swearing. She giggled rather, because Mr. Lynn was not behaving like a hero either. Nor did he look like one. As the horse stamped round in a half-circle in front of the broken car, with Mr. Lynn hanging on to the rope at the end of both long arms and his anorak up under his armpits, he looked more like an orangutan than anything else, or perhaps a spider monkey. His hair, which even the wind at the funeral had not done much to disarrange, was all over his face and he seemed to have lost his gla.s.ses.

Here Polly's fingers told her again about the figure-of-eight object she was clutching. She looked down and found it was a pair of gold-rimmed gla.s.ses. She scrambled up and backed against a wall behind her, holding them very carefully. It would be awful if she broke Mr. Lynn's gla.s.ses. The horse was sliding about in the broken headlights. "Look where you put your b.l.o.o.d.y feet, you fool!" Mr. Lynn said to it. It looked as if he was going to make it stand still any second.

The motorist climbed angrily out of his smashed car. "I say!" he called out in a loud, hectoring voice. "Is this your d.a.m.ned horse? It could have killed me!"

That set the horse off again. It became all orange, rearing panic, high on its back legs, with Mr. Lynn frantically leaning on the rope. He swore at the horse, then at the motorist. "No, it is not my horse," he added. "Get out of the way!"

The horse managed to land out with a hind foot before its front feet hit the road. The motorist bolted for his life. Mr. Lynn yelled at the horse that its grandfather was a donkey with venereal disease and told it to Come off that! Come off that! And the two of them came rus.h.i.+ng back up the street again. They trampled round in front of Polly, with Mr. Lynn practically swinging on the rope. Polly could feel waves of terror coming off the horse. She had to hold both hands, and Mr. Lynn's gla.s.ses, to her mouth to stop herself screaming this time. In front of her were huge, bent, golden hind legs, stronger than she could have imagined, and a tail that lashed her face like her own hair in the wind, only harder, smelling of burning. Someone's burned it! she thought. No wonder it's so upset! And the two of them came rus.h.i.+ng back up the street again. They trampled round in front of Polly, with Mr. Lynn practically swinging on the rope. Polly could feel waves of terror coming off the horse. She had to hold both hands, and Mr. Lynn's gla.s.ses, to her mouth to stop herself screaming this time. In front of her were huge, bent, golden hind legs, stronger than she could have imagined, and a tail that lashed her face like her own hair in the wind, only harder, smelling of burning. Someone's burned it! she thought. No wonder it's so upset!

The next thing Polly knew, the motorist was standing beside her, watching the horse and Mr. Lynn rush away down the street. "How was I to know it wasn't his b.l.o.o.d.y horse?" he said to Polly. "He's behaving as if he knows it."

"Be quiet," Polly said. Her voice was thick from screaming. "Mr. Lynn's being a hero."

The motorist did not seem at all grateful. "Well, he needn't have said that that to me," he said. When Polly did not answer, he gave herup and went to complain to some of the people further down the street. Polly could hear him, all the time Mr. Lynn was dragging the horse to a standstill, telling someone that the horse had appeared out of the blue right in front of his car and that people shouldn't be allowed to own wild animals like that. to me," he said. When Polly did not answer, he gave herup and went to complain to some of the people further down the street. Polly could hear him, all the time Mr. Lynn was dragging the horse to a standstill, telling someone that the horse had appeared out of the blue right in front of his car and that people shouldn't be allowed to own wild animals like that.

The horse stood still at last, orange flecked with detergent stuff, swis.h.i.+ng its tail. Each of its legs seemed to be shaking at a different speed. Polly could see s.h.i.+vers chasing up and down them as she walked gently toward it. Mr. Lynn was rubbing its nose and calling it soothing bad names. "You cartload of cat's-meat," she heard him say. "Mindless dogfood. They'll eat you in Belgium for less than this."

Before Polly had reached Mr. Lynn, people at the sides of the road began crowding forward. "That'll be them," someone said. "Help at last!"

The horse s.h.i.+vered and stamped. "Keep back, can't you!" Mr. Lynn said over his shoulder.

Everyone, Polly included, prudently stopped. Two small, worried-looking men in greasy body-warmers slipped hurriedly round the broken car and came rather cautiously up to Mr. Lynn and the horse.

"Thank you, sir," said one. "Thought we'd never catch him."

"Kid let off a firework in his stall," said the other.

"I thought I smelled burning," Mr. Lynn answered. The horse answered too, in his way, by putting his head down and letting one of the small men feed him peppermint. Mr. Lynn pa.s.sed the other one the rope.

This made it clear to the motorist and to all the other people that the horse belonged to the two little men. They crowded round-at a safe distance-and called complaints. "Wild horse like that!... Ruined my car!... Panicked the whole street... Really dangerous! Ought not to be loose!. Scared my old mother stiff. No end of damage. Police." In the midst of the babble Mr. Lynn somehow located Polly and stretched a long arm backward to her. Polly put his gla.s.ses into his hand.

Mr. Lynn thankfully put them on. He took them off again quickly. "Can't see a thing. All greasy," he said. On one side of him, the motorist was trying to grab his arm. On the other, one of the little men was trying to thank him. Mr. Lynn was clearly embarra.s.sed. Polly could see sweat s.h.i.+ning on him. "Polly," he said. "Find the back door."

Polly looked round. There was more movement up the street, where a police car was coming whispering to a stop. "At last! The fuzz are never here when you need them!" someone said. Polly realized that she would never get to the lawyer's by five-thirty unless they went at once.

"This way," she said. "Quick." She pushed Mr. Lynn round the broken car and along the empty street beyond. Everyone's voices rose to a big babble and then faded as Polly kept on pus.h.i.+ng Mr. Lynn. "The police are there now," she explained.

"Thanks!" said Mr. Lynn. He was trying to clean his gla.s.ses on a handkerchief. "Keep guiding me, or I shall be apologizing to doorsteps and lampposts. I can barely see a thing without my gla.s.ses."

This was obviously true. Polly found she had to steer Mr. Lynn round three dustbins, some plastic sacks, and a bicycle. His face looked odd with no gla.s.ses and his hair hanging down in front of it. It looked longer and smoother, more like a real face. But his eyes did not look fat like Nina's did. "How ever did you see the horse?" she said.

"It was a bit big to miss," he said in his most apologizing way. Then he added in quite a different way, "But what an extraordinary thing, though! Just after we'd been talking about my horse! You'd almost think-"

"You would," Polly agreed. "But it wasn't the right color to be the Chinese horse."

"Streetlights," said Mr. Lynn as she steered him round a doorstep.

His elbow was bony and quivering rather. Polly kept her hands on it to guide him and stared up at Mr. Lynn's bewildered, naked face. She wanted to say what she had to say before he put hisgla.s.ses on again and could look at her. She took in a gasp of breath. "I didn't help at all. I was too scared."

"You aren't heavy enough to have stopped it," said Mr. Lynn. "You'd just have dangled." Polly thought that was very nice of him. He finished cleaning his gla.s.ses at the end of the street and put them on. He looked up at the street name, then at his watch, and set off again much faster, in the direction they needed to go. "If it's any comfort," he said, "I was scared stiff too."

"But you did something," Polly said, rather breathless from hurrying. They turned into another street before she got her second wind. "How did you know what to do?" she asked. "You did know."

They swung round another corner, with Polly sort of swirling out on the end of Mr. Lynn's arm. "Laurel taught me about horses," Mr. Lynn said.

They were opposite a small park now. clowns, clowns, clowns!!! said notices along the park fence. Colored lights looped in the trees, jack's circus, read a canvas banner over the park gate. There was music, and a smell of squashed gra.s.s and of animals. Polly could just see the orange-white s.h.i.+ne of the big tent above the entrance booth by the gate.

" That's That's where the horse came from!" said Mr. Lynn. "I wondered how-" He looked down at Polly. "Are you all right?" where the horse came from!" said Mr. Lynn. "I wondered how-" He looked down at Polly. "Are you all right?"

"Oh yes," Polly said drearily.

Mr. Lynn slowed down and looked carefully at Polly. "Now, come on," he said. "You must know that when heroes do their deeds in these modern times, there has to be a modern explanation. I can't have everybody guessing I'm really Tan Coul, can I? This circus is only a disguise."

Polly smiled gratefully, although she rather thought that it was not the circus that was the matter with her. It was the way Mr. Lynn mentioned Laurel. "Anyway," she said as they hurried on again, "you are are a hero. Except for swearing. That may be a disguise too." a hero. Except for swearing. That may be a disguise too."

Mr. Lynn gave his guilty cut-off yelp of laughter. It was not just the way he laughed at funerals. He always laughed like that. "Callit a symptom," he said. "Expert heroes never swear."

"I shall be a hero too," Polly panted. "I'm going into training from now on."

By the time they reached the lawyer's, it was so late that Mum was standing in the street beside a waiting taxi. She was in such a state that she barely looked at Mr. Lynn. "Come on on , Polly!" she said. "It's rush hour and I don't know , Polly!" she said. "It's rush hour and I don't know what what time we'll get home! Say goodbye," she added as she bundled Polly into the taxi. That was all the notice she took of Mr. Lynn politely holding the taxi door open for her. Polly was the one who remembered to call out "Thank you for having me!" as the taxi drove away. She was rather surprised that Ivy had forgotten to remind her to say it-usually she made such a point of it-but she could see Mum was in a real state. time we'll get home! Say goodbye," she added as she bundled Polly into the taxi. That was all the notice she took of Mr. Lynn politely holding the taxi door open for her. Polly was the one who remembered to call out "Thank you for having me!" as the taxi drove away. She was rather surprised that Ivy had forgotten to remind her to say it-usually she made such a point of it-but she could see Mum was in a real state.

Unfortunately, Ivy's state was a silent one. Polly was dying to tell her all about tea and Mr. Lynn's flat and, above all, about the horse, but Ivy sat fenced in silence as thick as barbed wire, and Polly knew better than to try to break in. The train was so crowded that Polly had to perch on Mum's knee, and Ivy's mood made that knee stiff and uncomfortable.

Ivy said just one thing on the train. She said, "Well, Polly, I've taken a step."

And so have I, I suppose, Polly thought with a kind of dismal excitement. I saw Mr. Lynn when they said not to. But all she could really think about was the unheroic way she had screamed and crouched on the pavement and given Mr. Lynn no help at all.

When they got home, instead of looking in the fridge or suggesting fish and chips, Ivy sat down at the kitchen table and talked to Polly. "I suppose I owe it to you to explain a bit," she said, sitting very upright and staring into the distance. "I went to talk to that lawyer about getting a divorce from your father. You may well ask why-"

Polly hurriedly shook her head. She knew now why she had dreaded being told about Dad. But Ivy talked anyway. Polly listened in silence, hoping she would begin feeling honored soon that Mum was confiding in her. She told herself she felt honored, but in fact she mostly felt shocked and awed by the way tears cameand went in Ivy's eyes without quite ever falling out and running down her face.

"You know what he's like as well as I do, Polly. Reg has no sense of reality. Money goes through his hands like water. And if I presume to say anything, he just laughs it off and spends more money on a present to soothe me down. Presents!" Ivy said bitterly. "I want a relations.h.i.+p, not presents! I want happiness and sharing-not just two people living in the same house. That's all we've been for years now-two people living in the same house. Your father's so secretive, Polly. On top, he's all smiles and laughs, but if I ever ask him what he's really thinking, it's 'Oh, nothing particularly, Ivy,' and not a word more will he say. That's not right, Polly. He's got no right to keep himself to himself away from me like that!"

This was already beginning to sound like one of Ivy's usual discontents. Polly had long ago learned to dread them. Later in her life she learned to dread them much more. This time, as usual, her feelings were hurt on Dad's behalf. She had to give up trying to feel honored and tell herself she was being considerate instead. As Ivy talked on, she found herself thinking that Dad was not not secretive. He just expected you to know what he was feeling by the things he said and did. It was Mum who kept herself to herself, locked away in moods. secretive. He just expected you to know what he was feeling by the things he said and did. It was Mum who kept herself to herself, locked away in moods.

"I know I have these moods," Ivy was saying, a long time later. "But what can I do when I'm being rejected at every end and turn? It gets me that way. I know when I'm not wanted. It didn't use to be that way when Reg and I were first married. We shared then. But not now."

Polly listened, still trying to be considerate, and kept vowing privately that she would never, ever lock herself away from anyone. When she looked at the clock, she was surprised to find it was past her bedtime and Ivy was still talking. By now it was sounding just like her usual discontents.

"Well you know me-I've slaved and worked to make the house nice, gave up my job to have it all perfect. And I do think in return the least he could do is not walk muddy feet all over the carpets,and shut drawers after he's opened them, and tidy up a bit sometimes. Not a bit of it. When I mention it-and I'm not a nag, Polly-he laughs and says I'm in my mood again. Then he gives me a present. Then Then what does he do? He goes straight from me to that Joanna Renton of his!" what does he do? He goes straight from me to that Joanna Renton of his!"

This was new, Polly thought dully. This must be what Dad had done.

"Joanna's not the first either," said Ivy. "But I was a fool before and didn't keep track of what he was doing."

"Is-is he with Joanna Renton now?" Polly broke her long, long silence to ask.

"Yes," Ivy said. She sounded tired. She too looked at the clock. "Oh, is that the time? Are you hungry at all, Polly?"

"No," Polly said considerately, though she was rather. "I had a big tea."

"Good," said Ivy. "I haven't got the energy to think of food, somehow. You hop along to bed, Polly. And remember when you get married not to make the mistakes I did."

"I don't think I will get married," Polly said as she stood up. "I'm going to train to be a hero instead." But she could tell her mother was not listening.

5.

O see you not yon narrow road So thick beset with thorns and briars?

That is the path of Righteousness, Though after it but few enquires.

THOMAS THE RHYMER.