The small beady eyes of Rummins peered suspiciously over the top of the gate. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting a couple of quid you’re having it off with him somewhere secret soon.’
Claud moved his feet uncomfortably on the black road surface. He disliked very much this man with the wide frog mouth, the broken teeth, the shifty eyes; and most of all he disliked having to be polite to him because of eggs.
‘That hayrick of yours opposite,’ he said, searching desperately for another subject. ‘It’s full of rats.’
‘All hayricks got rats.’
‘Not like this one. Matter of fact we’ve been having a touch of trouble with the authorities about that.’
Rummins glanced up sharply. He didn’t like trouble with the authorities. Any man who sells eggs blackmarket and kills pigs without a permit is wise to avoid contact with that sort of people.
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘They sent the ratcatcher along.’
‘You mean just for a few rats?’
‘A few! Blimey, it’s swarming!’
‘Never.’
‘Honest it is, Mr Rummins. There’s hundreds of ’em.’
‘Didn’t the ratcatcher catch ’em?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I reckon they’re too artful.’
Rummins began thoughtfully to explore the inner rim of one nostril with the end of his thumb, holding the noseflap between thumb and finger as he did so.
‘I wouldn’t give thank you for no ratcatchers,’ he said. ‘Ratcatchers is government men working for the soddin’ government and I wouldn’t give thank you for em.’
‘Nor me, Mr Rummins. All ratcatchers is slimy cunning creatures.’
‘Well,’ Rummins said, sliding fingers under his cap to scratch the head, ‘I was coming over soon anyway to fetch in that rick. Reckon I might just as well do it today as any other time. I don’t want no government men nosing around my stuff thank you very much.’
‘Exactly, Mr Rummins.’
‘We’ll be over later – Bert and me.’ With that he turned and ambled off across the yard.
Around three in the afternoon, Rummins and Bert were seen riding slowly up the road in a cart drawn by a ponderous and magnificent black carthorse. Opposite the filling-station the cart turned off into the field and stopped near the hayrick.
‘This ought to be worth seeing,’ I said. ‘Get the gun.’
Claud fetched the rifle and slipped a cartridge into the breech.
I strolled across the road and leaned against the open gate. Rummins was on the top of the rick now and cutting away at the cord that bound the thatching. Bert remained in the cart, fingering the four-foot-long knife.
Bert had something wrong with one eye. It was pale grey all over, like a boiled fish-eye, and although it was motionless in its socket it appeared always to be looking at you and following you round the way the eyes of the people in some of those portraits do, in the museums. Wherever you stood and wherever Bert was looking, there was this faulty eye fixing you sideways with a cold stare, boiled and misty pale with a little black dot in the centre, like a fish-eye on a plate.
In his build he was the opposite of his father who was short and squat like a frog. Bert was a tall, reedy, boneless boy, loose at the joints, even the head loose upon the shoulders, falling sideways as though perhaps it was too heavy for the neck.
‘You only made this rick last June,’ I said to him. ‘Why take it away so soon?’
‘Dad wants it.’