The Hypnotist Page 4

  ‘Did y’ now?’ she mumbled. ‘An’ thar’s me thankin’ the tray floated in like Aladdin’s carpet . . .’ She folded a slice of cornbread and dunked it deep in her beans. ‘Wal, that was Hannah . . . Mmm, mm, mmm . . . Laike ah say, she do the cookin’ roun’ here. She understand everthang raight enough, but don’t ’spect her to say nothin’, ’cos Hannah cain’t tawk. She’s what y’ maight call moot. Kinda surly too. Don’t pay her no maind.’

  Lilybelle prised open Pip’s fingers and stuffed his hand with French fries and tender scraps of chicken, which smelled sweeter than life itself.

  ‘Mmm . . . mmm . . . mwah . . . You have an except’nal intelligence, Pip. Anyone tell you that? A boy of your age who cin read laike that, why tha’s a remarkable thang. But see, Pip, Hannah ain’t laike you . . . She do what she tol’ when she’s mainded and she don’ make too much trouble, but ’tween you ’n me’ – Lilybelle tapped the side of her head – ‘she’s slow as molasses up hill.

  ‘Mmm . . . mmm . . . Now, Pip, ah adore havin’ you here an awl, but ah’m sure you’re taired after all that travellin’. Also . . . wal, maybe Zach mentioned this, but it may be best if you’re settled afore our li’l boy returns. Jes for the first day or two. Erwin’s faine if he’s in a good mood, but if he’s been at the moonshaine . . . wal, he cin git a little twitchy.’

  Pip closed the book and slid quickly to the floor.

  ‘You gotta kiss fer Lilybelle?’

  Well, a thirteen-year-old boy doesn’t hand out kisses too freely, so Pip mumbled and muttered awkwardly until Lilybelle hauled him against her vast body and planted a sweet, greasy smacker on his forehead. Then she whispered into his ear, ‘Ah’ve loved havin’ you here, Pip. Truly ah have. Come agin tomorrow, y’ hear? Promise you won’ run away, Pip? Ah couldn’t bear to lose another chil’ . . .’

  Pip turned the rose-petal handle and let himself into the dim corridor. He stepped nervously, alive to every sound, scanning with dread for Erwin and with restless hope for Hannah. He crept past the tall, tall door, then into the living room with the stopped clock, and the eyes like spies. The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Out on the porch, Pip found Zachery, spindly legs stretched in a broken easy chair, with Amigo curled at his feet. The old man was dressed in his long johns, a bottle by his hand, rolling a cigarette, as a peachy sunset filled the sky. Pip stared across the track to the whitewashed bungalow, but there was no sign of the strange man he had seen through Lilybelle’s window.

  ‘You an’ Lilybelle git ’quainted?’ said Zachery, gesturing at a plastic stool near his feet.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Her health ain’t good, but she’s still the gull ah married. Ah’ll go ’n tawk to her by and by. Now listen up, boy, ye must be hankerin’ fer yer bed. That buildin’ thar, that’s the tool store – young Hannah sleeps ’bove . . .’

  There was her name again . . . there was her name . . .

  ‘Yer bed’s directly across the yard ’bove the stable block. Ye’ll find a ladder, an’ thars mor’n ’nuff blankets t’ keep you warm, an’ water at the pump.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘That’s good, Pip. Y’ know ah’d find you a bed in the house if the law permitted. Anyhows, you ’n me gonna git ’long faine. You don’ ruffle mah feathers, ’n ah don’ ruffle yourn.’

  There was a moment of absolute silence, which almost seemed like calm. Pip tried to imagine himself living there, with the hens and the dog and the beautiful silent girl; reading stories to Lilybelle and being fed.

  On the other hand, there were no locks on the yard gates, so presumably he would be free to wander away whenever he felt like it. All he would have to do is tuck his book under his arm and stroll calmly towards those mauve mountains on the horizon . . .

  And a faint picture floated into his head in which he and Hannah walked side by side into the setting sun . . .

  But as if he were reading Pip’s mind, Zachery reached down to his feet and picked up a shotgun. He raised it to his eye and squinted through the sights, then laid it on his lap and fondled its parts as if it were a mewling pussycat. He said, ‘By th’ way, my neighbour, Cletus, has a pack o’ huntin’ hounds. Ye wander off without mah permission – yer’ll come home in naice thin slaices, y’ hear me? Laike bacon rashers, boy.’

  Pip shuddered silently on his stool. The orange sky turned violent red and purple like a spreading wound. Then, from far away, the faint drone of an engine stirred the silence. The sound barely entered Pip’s consciousness, but in absolute synchronicity, Zachery and Amigo sat bolt upright and stared goggle-eyed at the dirt track leading to the yard.

  ‘It’s Erwin!’ hissed the old man. ‘Move yerself, boy! Go on – git t’ bed – skedaddle!’

  Pip raced towards the stable block, but the vehicle was approaching at speed and he realized he would never make it in time. The dog was faster – tail between legs, he scuttled into the doghouse. Pip heard the roar of an engine, saw a rapidly approaching dust-storm and, in an instant of blind panic, fell to his knees and scrambled into the kennel after Amigo.

  A split second later, a battered olive-green Jeep hurtled into the yard, engine gunning, brakes squealing. Pip huddled against the dog, who scrambled to the back of his den.

  From his hiding place, Pip watched a pair of gargantuan combat boots swing lazily from the vehicle and stride across the yard, more slowly than is normal in a man. Less than three feet from where Pip crouched, the legs halted, like twin tree trunks framed by the arched mouth of the doghouse. Pip clutched his arm tight around Amigo’s trembling ribs. Under his knees, he felt the curves and splinters of gnawed knucklebones.

  In his short life, Pip had experienced more suffering than is reasonable, but now his terror knew no bounds. He felt a warm trickle seep inside the leg of his pants.

  ‘How y’ doin’, Erwin?’

  There was a long, long pause. Then, from way up near the roof of the farmhouse or the menacing sky above, Pip heard the man’s slow, deep, terrible voice. And it said: ‘Ah hear you brung a boy?’

  ‘Well, that’s true, son. Your ma needs help, an’ this boy cin read. You know how your momma love—’

  ‘What kaind of boy?’

  ‘Jes a reg’lar boy. Two arms, two legs an’ a heed on top—’

  ‘He ain’t a Negro boy?’

  ‘Ah’m tryin’ to ’splain, Erwin. He was the only one as could read. Besaides, a Whaite boy would’a cost more than ah got. Y’ know we ain’t worried ’bout that kinda thang at Dead River, Erwin . . . never have been. Way ah see it, don’ make no diff’rence if the boy’s braight blue. S’long as he cin work, any boy’s the same to yer ma ’n me.’

  ‘Zat right? Well, maybe it don’ make no diff’rence to you . . . maybe it don’ make no diff’rence t’ me . . . but lemme tell yer summat, it makes a big diff’rence to summa mah freends. Mibbe you should mention that to your . . . boy. Y’ hear what ah’m sayin’, ol’ man?’

  ‘Ah hear ye, Erwin. Ah hear ye.’

  4

  The Night (I)

  I had a squatter in the bungalow. A stray cat with ginger tiger rings had taken to turning up on my deck. Sometimes when I came home from the university I found him waiting for me, bathing in a pool of sunshine or licking his wrists and washing his pink nose with his paws. He chose to go without a collar and you could tell he was awful proud of that.

  What I like about cats is they couldn’t give a damn whether you are there or not – although this fellow wasn’t averse to the odd tickle behind the ears when the fancy took him. My da used to say that if you call a dog, he comes; but a cat takes a message and gets back to you!

  After a few days we became friendly and the little moggy would hop through an open window and march right into the living room, bold as brass, tail sticking up like a car aerial. Then he’d rub against my legs until I relented and forked some food into a bowl. When he purred in thankfulness, I felt insanely grateful for the favour. I named that pussy Finnegan, to
remind myself of home.

  It was Finnegan who kept me awake the night the boy arrived. The cat was restless, prowling around the bungalow . . . or maybe I was restless myself. It was awful hot, and out in the night the crickets crackled like static.

  Sometime in the wee hours I gave up trying to sleep. I switched on the bedside light, picked up a copy of Scientific American and got absorbed in a great little article about the development of computers. The fellow was arguing that within a few decades, every home would have their own computer, which they’d use for everything from ordering shopping, to communicating with friends, to educating the kids. There’d be telephones with moving pictures too. What a world that would be!

  That was when I noticed the rumbling. I felt the bed vibrate slightly and it crossed my mind that it might be a small earthquake – not unknown in this part of the world. I got up and walked to the front room in my pyjamas. Under my bare feet I felt the floorboards tremble beneath the carpet. It was an unsettling sensation.

  There was an unpleasant buzzing sound in the room and I realized it was the windows rattling in their frames. I pulled back the curtain a little and peered into the night, where ragged clouds dragged at a lemon-slice moon. Then a strange thing happened: my front yard and Dead River Farm became bright with wavering spotlights. A convoy of vehicles was approaching along the track.

  The rumbling grew louder and I could make out ten or more slow-moving vehicles. It made me shudder to my bones. I stood well out of sight and counted four large motorbikes, several station wagons, a garage tow truck, two or three hefty customized four-wheel drives with giant tyres, spotlights and grilles on their fenders. I even noticed a couple of police patrol cars.

  What were they doing out there? Where were they going?

  As they trundled by, I caught glimpses of a crew of heavily built White men, some with caps over eyes, or bandanas and thick muscled necks. I saw beards and tattoos and the occasional flicker of studs and rings and chains. For one terrifying moment I thought those visitors were heading for my door . . . but they kept on rolling, up a steep path by the side of Dead River Farm and into the fields above.

  For the rest of the night I lay sleepless, my ears scanning the night. I heard occasional shouts and revving engines far away in the fields, and it was almost light before those vehicles returned, the same way they had come, rumbling slowly past my door.

  Being a rational fellow, I searched for some explanation for what a group of men would be doing in the dead of night. A hunting party perhaps? Or maybe they played poker or brewed moonshine together?

  Whatever it was, it was not conducive to sleep.

  5

  The Night (II)

  Scritch, scritch, scratch!

  Pip was woken by a scratching sound in the deep heat of the night. He didn’t know where he was and the room was black as pitch. He thought about going into his parents’ room opposite. He knew that his mother would half open one eye, pull him under the blankets and nuzzle him against the warmth of her body. He’d wake in the morning and his father would pretend that he’d discovered a baby bear in the bed – he’d grab Pip and they would play-fight until Mama said he’d be late for school.

  Then, to his dismay, Pip recalled that his parents were lying dead in the cold ground. With a feeling of overwhelming loneliness, he remembered that he was in the dormitory of the St Joseph Poor Boys’ Orphanage. The scratching sound must be another boy in the darkness beyond.

  But that wasn’t right either. There had been a long, long journey in a truck and now he was lying . . . where? In a bed made of wooden palletes and straw above a disused stable. There had been a huge woman who had stroked his shoulder; a beautiful silent Indian girl; and a giant of a man who hated him with a fierce violence, although he had never once set eyes upon him.

  Pip sat up in bed. He heard a faint drone of engines and a cold slab of light leaped onto the ceiling. The light multiplied and a kaleidoscope of geometrical lights danced about the room.

  The engines grew louder, and it became clear to Pip that the lights were the headlights of many approaching vehicles. Then the sound seemed so near, he feared they would enter the room.

  Pip dived beneath his blanket and squeezed his palms tightly to his ears. It seemed a long time before the sound subsided and the vehicles passed the farmyard and continued uphill into the fields.

  And all that remained was the scratching – scritch, scritch, scratch! – of rats in the stable below.

  6

  The Dreamcatcher

  The next day was a Saturday, which was just as well because it was after nine before I stirred. Old Finnegan must have let himself in through the bathroom window and now he was padding about on my bed, demanding to be fed.

  As I washed and dressed, the memory of the night returned to me. Again I struggled for some explanation for that slow-moving convoy, but the logic eluded me.

  After breakfast I decided to take a stroll in the direction they had gone. Of course, it crossed my mind that I might be trespassing, but what harm could I be doing by taking a little walk beside the fields?

  It was another sweltering day as I skirted round the side of the farmyard and up a gentle slope lined with twisted apple trees. There were plenty of tyre marks in the cracked clay beneath my feet, and as the path levelled off in the fields, I saw the first of the high voltage towers about a quarter of a mile ahead. The closer I got, the more aware I became of the awesome scale of those pylons – almost twice the height of the ones at home. Near the base of the steel tower stood a red barn with a rusting corrugated roof, not uncommon in that part of the world. It was a large barn but it appeared dwarfed beneath that huge pyramid. The front of the barn was constructed entirely of two enormous wooden doors in the same oxide red; and in front of the doors was a flat area of cinders and compacted rubble, where twenty vehicles could park with ease.

  The path continued past the barn, but from this point it narrowed so that it was barely wide enough for a horse. I concluded that the red barn was where the convoy had stopped. I pulled at the great barn doors, but although they clanked and rattled freely, they would not open.

  With the sun scorching the back of my neck, I circled round the barn. Except for a hayloft way up near the roof I could see no other door; just the usual heaps of rusting metal and discarded beer bottles amongst thick weeds.

  Almost hidden in a tangle of bushes I found a tiny trail – an animal track perhaps. I fancied a walk and I was curious, so with my jacket slung over one shoulder, I waded through waist-high grass alive with butterflies until the trail led me to a cluster of birch and pine trees. It was ridiculously hot and I reproached myself for coming out without a drink. After ten minutes the trail stopped and I found myself on a ridge looking steeply down into a small canyon or natural bowl. It was a little secret valley, and all along the bottom of the valley, a dry creek or river bed wound like a stony scar. It had been a long time since water flowed here, and the roots of the willows along the banks had something desperate about them, like twisting fingers grasping for moisture in the dry river-bed. And then it dawned on me that, of course, this was the Dead River.

  I felt a sudden wave of homesickness as I recalled the lush green countryside of Kerry where my family had spent their holidays. I had a memory of trying to keep up with my six older siblings as they whooped and chased each other down a slope like this, to the welcoming waves at Dingle Bay. But this valley seemed lifeless, inhospitable and even dangerous. I suppose what I was feeling was the ancient dilemma of Irish people all over the globe – we go where the opportunities lie, but our hearts belong to the Emerald Isle.

  I was about to turn and head home when, with some alarm, I noticed a figure crouched on the bank of the Dead River below me. It took a moment to comprehend that I had stumbled across the secret hiding place of the black-haired girl I had occasionally seen on old Zachery’s farm. She didn’t see me because she was lost in a dream, squatting silently between the roots of an ancient willow
, her wide face and oval eyes fixed intently on the object in her hands. She was working on some kind of ethnic jewellery, and her slim fingers were expertly weaving and twisting a circular willow hoop around a red net. I had seen these things in souvenir stores and I realized she was making what Native Americans call a ‘dreamcatcher’.

  There was something indescribably magical about that feral child working patiently with coloured feathers, beads and scraps of wire and yarn; completely focused on her task in that secret den. I suppose she was at that in-between time – not quite a woman and not quite a girl. With that gleaming hair and grubby white T-shirt, she brought to mind the magpies at home, who are supposed to collect sparkling trinkets for their nests . . . One for sorrow, goes the rhyme.

  I took one step too far and she heard me. Those vivid eyes seemed to shoot up like arrows and she recoiled with fear and anger like a wildcat in a trap. I called down to her: ‘Wait a minute. I won’t hurt you. I’d love to talk . . . Won’t you show me what you’re making there? It’s the loveliest thing I’ve seen in a while.’

  But my words were left floating like so much woodsmoke, because the barefoot child had snatched her belongings and set off faster than a deer across her valley. When I looked again she was gone, and all that remained was a turquoise feather hanging in the air.

  A strange start to the day, and I was looking forward to a cold beer in the cool of my bungalow. But I only got as far as the dented mailbox which sits on a post in front of Dead River Farm when old man Zachery stumbled towards me with a spanner in one hand and a rag in the other.

  I waited on the top step of my deck, with sweat running down my collar, and when he drew close I smiled, as is my way. ‘Hello there, Mr Zachery. It’s definitely time I introduced myself properly. The name’s Jack – Dr Jack Morrow, to use my full moniker.’