10
The Boy Without a Face

Pip loved the smell of paints and the bright colours that Lilybelle squeezed from stubby tubes.

On a rectangle of card cut from a cereal box she was creating a childlike scene: there was Dead River farmhouse beneath a bright blue sky and a sun as yellow as an egg yolk. On the pink cobbles of the yard stood a line of smiling people. The bearded one holding a cockerel was Zachery, with Amigo at his feet. The brown and black ones were Hannah and Pip, side by side, and on a chair beneath a densely fruited apple tree sat Lilybelle herself, nicely plump and smiling too.

‘That’s th’ way it should be,’ said Lilybelle. ‘Folks livin’ together in harmony laike spoons in a drawer.’

She squeezed a line of paint onto her plate and, with a fine brush, sketched in the outline of the final character in her painting – a boy as tall as the apple tree.

Pip watched her struggling with the face of the oversized boy; again and again she tried, but she couldn’t get it right.

These days Erwin was around more frequently – driving about in the small hours and sleeping away the days. When Pip thought of Erwin, the image that came to mind was not of a spoon but a long knife – pointed and razor sharp. The kind of knife that could open a throat like a watermelon.

‘Lilybelle . . .’ Pip began his sentence nervously. ‘Lilybelle . . . how come you’re so kind an’ Erwin is so . . . you know . . .?’

‘Unkaind, Pip. Come raight on out an’ say it. Erwin’s hard as nails an’ it breaks mah ol’ heart.’

Pip saw a tear roll down her lovely face. She seemed instantly agitated, as if the creative spell had been broken. ‘Awl ah wanna do when ah think about it is to eat an’ eat, till there’s no more room fer sufferin’.’

She tinkled the paintbrush furiously in a jar, and Pip watched a dark typhoon swirl within the glass. Then, with a rag on her fingertip, she wiped away the unsuccessful face of the boy and tried to paint his boots.

‘Even when he was a kid, Erwin was tall an’ lanky . . . doctors called it Gigantism. Ah had thyroid problems, see, so Erwin had excess growth hormones. Zach and me used t’ say a tall boy laike that gonna be a basketbawl star fo’ sure . . . ’cept . . . ’cept there was somethin’ strange about Erwin – he made th’ other kids wary.

‘We used t’ lie awake at naight frettin’ about him. Then one day he says he’s signed up t’ join th’ army.

‘Course, he was too young, but he musta lied about his age, and bein’ so big ’n awl, ah guess they believed him. They took ma boy off to a military trainin’ camp an’ next thing we know he’s in some place named Vietnam, me an’ Zach ain’t never heard of. Ah never learned ’xactly what happened there. All ah know is when he came home to Dead River, me ’n Zach didn’t hardly recognize the boy shufflin’ up the track laike a zombie. If it weren’t for the height o’ him, ah’d have thought they sent th’ wrong boy home.

‘Oh yeah, Pip, ah remember that homecomin’ laike it was yesterday. At twenny to naine Erwin walks in the door an’ his face was jus’ fulla naked hate. Zach noticed somethin’ weird – th’ clock on th’ man’lpiece stopped raight there an’ then. Ain’t never worked since. It wus laike mah whole laife stopped too.’

Lilybelle was sobbing openly now, honking and snorting into a tissue.

‘There wus summat brutish got into him, Pip. Erwin used to cuss an’ yell an’ break thangs, an’ kick th’ dawg. At naight we heard him shoutin’ an screamin’. Only time he found peace was out huntin’ with a gun . . . Ah don’ wanna tawk ’bout it no more, if it’s awl the same t’ you. Awl ah know is what ah tol’ you – it’s best when folks git along.’

‘Like spoons in a drawer, Lilybelle.’

‘Yeah, Pip, like spoons in a drawer.’

She stared at her unfinished painting and then, very quietly, she said, ‘It ain’t somethin’ a mother say easy, but ah don’ know mah son no more. He don’t speak more’n twenny words t’ me in a year . . . There’s somethin’ evil in his heed, Pip. Scares me. Erwin scares me bad.’

Even talking about him scared Pip too. He rose to his feet and began gathering an armful of Lilybelle’s clothes for washing. These chores were second nature to an orphanage boy.

‘Giss who ah’m gonna give mah li’l picture to?’

Lilybelle stroked the top of Pip’s head and handed him the painting.

Pip looked at the surreal image. The farmyard characters, the egg-yolk sun, the apple tree, and the giant boy without a face.

When that painting was dry, Pip slipped it between the pages of his book and it stayed there for many years.

Out in the yard he filled a tin tub with water. He carried out saucepans and kettles of boiling water from the kitchen and poured them in too. Then he set about pummelling and scrubbing the clothes until they were clean. It was pleasant enough to be kneeling with the warm sunshine on his back.

‘Boy . . . ah say, boy, ah got somethin’ to tell ya.’ Zachery shuffled over. ‘Now listen up – ah fixed fer you ’n Hannah to git an edoocation. Private schoolin’ near caust a fortune, but ah figured it were th’ right thang to do.’

‘Yes, sir, thank you, Mr Zachery, sir. But who gonna teach us?’

‘Crazy-eyed feller in the bungalow yonder. Teaches at th’ university, he do, an’ that’s why he’s so ’spensive. You start after chores this af’ernoon.’

Then Zachery climbed into the truck and set off to sell a couple of goats.

Lessons at the white bungalow with Hannah? It all seemed very peculiar. Pip puzzled over it as he knelt down at the tub to wring out the last of Lilybelle’s clothes.

And it was in that moment that a colossal shadow fell from behind, and all the weeks of dodging and dancing came to an end.

A mighty hand descended from above and Pip found himself catapulted violently into the air, ten feet above Dead River farmyard.

With arms and legs paddling like a helpless swimmer, Pip looked down at Erwin’s snarling face – it was infinitely uglier and crueller than he had imagined. Apple-seed eyes buried deep beneath a hulking brow. Knotted red ears projecting like bolts from his shaven cranium, and that terrible jaw – as huge and solid as a tombstone.

‘Seems ah caught mahself a li’l black rat!’ said the deep, slow, teasing voice. ‘I kep’ on hearin’ it scritchin’ ’n scratchin’ ’n snuckin’ about; but ever’ taime ah looks fer it, it turns its li’l black tail and scampers everwhichways.’

Erwin held Pip high above his head as if he weighed no more than a bundle of twigs.

‘Now you don’ wanna be doin’ awl that washin’. That ain’t work fer a boy. The li’l dumb gal cin finish that.’

He lowered Pip to the ground and set him on his feet, holding him firmly by the collar so he could not escape. Pip felt giddy and sick with fear. The top of his head reached little higher than Erwin’s waist, so that the giant had to bend right over to speak to him – stabbing him repeatedly with a finger as long as a bone.

‘We’s gonna take a wawk, li’l rat. Jes’ you ’n me. Up to th’ red barn t’ play.’

Pip felt the collar tighten around his neck. He thought fondly of his mother and prepared to die.