Spaced every mile or so on the chequerboard of fields was a village, and spaced rather further apart were the towns. They were called towns because they were bigger than the villages. The cart passed through a couple of them. They had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed store, one forge, one livery stable with a name like JOE’S LIVERY STABLE, a couple of barns, three old men sitting outside the tavern, and three young men lounging outside JOE’S swearing that one day really soon now they were going to leave town and make it big in the world outside. Real soon. Any day now.
‘Reminds you of home, eh?’ said Cliff, nudging Buddy.
‘What? No! Llamedos is all mountains and valleys. And rain. And mist. And evergreens.’
Buddy sighed.
‘You had a great house there, I expect?’ said the troll.
‘Just a shack,’ said Buddy. ‘Made of earth and wood. Well, mud and wood really.’
He sighed again.
‘It’s like this on the road,’ said Asphalt. ‘Melancholy. No-one to talk to but each other, I’ve known people go totally ins-‘
‘How long has it been now?’ said Cliff.
‘Three hours and ten minutes,’ said Glod.
Buddy sighed.
They were invisible people, Death realized. He was used to invisibility. It went with the job. Humans didn’t see him until they had no choice.
On the other hand, he was an anthropomorphic personification. Whereas Foul Ole Ron was human, at least technically.
Foul Ole Ron made a small living by following people until they gave him money not to. He’d also got a dog, which added something to Foul Ole Ron’s smell. It was a greyish-brown terrier with a torn ear and nasty patches of bare skin; it begged with an old hat in its remaining teeth, and since people will generally give to animals that which they’d withhold from humans it added considerably to the earning power of the group.
Coffin Henry, on the other hand, earned his money by not going anywhere. People organizing important social occasions sent him anti-invitations and little presents of money to ensure he wouldn’t turn up. This was because, if they didn’t, Henry had a habit of sidling ingratiatingly into the wedding party and inviting people to look at his remarkable collection of skin diseases. He also had a cough which sounded almost solid.
He had a sign on which was chalked ‘For sum muny I wunt follo you home. Coff Coff’.
Arnold Sideways had no legs. It was a lack that didn’t seem to figure largely among his concerns. He would grab people by their knees and say, ‘Have you got change for a penny?’, invariably profiting by the ensuing cerebral confusion.
And the one they called the Duck Man had a duck on his head. No-one mentioned it. No-one drew attention to it. It seemed to be a minor feature of no consequence, like Arnold’s leglessness and Foul Ole Ron’s independent smell or Henry’s volcanic spitting. But it kept nagging at Death’s otherwise peaceful mind.
He wondered how to broach the subject.
AFTER ALL, he thought, HE MUST KNOW, MUSTN’T HE? IT’S NOT LIKE LINT ON YOUR JACKET OR SOMETHING . . .
By common agreement they’d called Death Mr Scrub. He didn’t know why. On the other hand, he was among people who could hold a lengthy discussion with a door. There may have been a logical reason.
The beggars spent their day wandering invisibly around the streets where people who didn’t see them carefully circled out of their way and threw them the occasional coin. Mr Scrub fitted in very well. When he asked for money, people found it hard to say no.
Scrote didn’t even have a river. It existed simply because there’s only so much land you can have before you have to have something else. .
It had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed store, one forge, a couple of barns and, in a gesture of originality, one livery stable called SETH’S LIVERY STABLE.
Nothing moved. Even the flies were asleep. Long shadows were the only occupants of the streets.
‘I thought you said dis was a one-horse town,’ said Cliff, as they pulled up in the rutted, puddled area
that was probably glorified by the name of Town Square.
‘It must have died,’ said Asphalt.
Glod stood up in the cart and spread his arms wide. He yelled: ‘Hello, Scrote!’
The name-board over the livery stable parted from its last nail and landed in the dust.
‘What I like about this life on the road,’ said Glod, ‘is the fascinating people and interesting places.’
‘I expect it comes alive at night,’ said Asphalt.
‘Yes,’ said Cliff. ‘Yes, I can believe dat. Yes. Dis looks like the kind of town dat comes alive at night. Dis looks like the whole town should be buried at the crossroads with a stake through it.’
‘Talking of steak . . .’ said Glod.
They looked at the tavern. The cracked and peeling sign just managed to convey the words ‘The Jolly Cabbage’.
‘I doubt it,’ said Asphalt.
There were people in the dimly lit tavern, sitting in sullen silence. The travellers were served by the innkeeper, whose manner suggested that he hoped they died horribly just as soon as they left the premises. The beer tasted as if it was happy to connive at this state of affairs.
They huddled at one table, aware of the eyes on them.
‘I’ve heard about places like this,’ whispered Glod. ‘You go into this little town with a name like Friendly or Amity, and next day you’re spare ribs.’
‘Not me,’ said Cliff. ‘I’m too stony.’
‘Well, you’re in the rockery, then,’ said the dwarf.
He looked around at a row of furrowed faces and raised his mug theatrically.
‘Cabbages doing well?’ he said. ‘I see in the fields they’re nice and yellow. Ripe, eh? That’s good, eh?’
‘That’s Root Fly, that is,’ said someone in the shadows.
‘Good, good,’ said Glod. He was a dwarf. Dwarfs didn’t farm.
‘We don’t like circuses in Scrote,’ said another voice. It was a slow, deep voice.
‘We’re not a circus,’ said Glod brightly. ‘We’re musicians.’
‘We don’t like musicians in Scrote,’ said another voice.
There seemed to be more and more figures in the gloom.
‘Er . . . what do you like in Scrote?’ said Asphalt.
‘Well,’ said the barman, now a mere outline in the gathering darkness, ’round about this time of year we generally have a barbecue down by the rockery.’
Buddy sighed.
It was the first time he’d made a sound since they’d arrived in the town.
‘I guess we’d better show them what we play,’ he said. There was a twang in his voice.
It was some time later.
Glod looked at the door handle. It was a door handle. You got hold of it with your hand. But what was supposed to happen next?
‘Door handle,’ he said, in case that would help.
‘Y’r sposed do s’ning w’vit,’ said Cliff, from somewhere near the floor.
Buddy leaned past the dwarf and turned the handle.
‘Am’zing,’ said Glod, and stumbled forward. He levered himself off the floor and looked around.
‘Wh’s the?’
‘The tavern keeper said we could stay here for free,’ said Buddy.
‘S’mess,’ said Glod. ‘Some’ne fetch me a brm and a scr’bing brsh this min’t.’
Asphalt wobbled in, carrying the luggage and with Cliff’s sack of rocks in his teeth. He dropped the lot on the floor.
‘Well, that was astonishing, sir,’ he said. ‘The way you just went into that barn and said, and said . . . what was it you said?’
‘Let’s do the show right here,’ said Buddy, lying down on a straw mattress.
‘Amazing! They must have been coming in from miles around!’
Buddy stared at the ceiling and played a few chords.
‘And that barbecue!’ said Asphalt, still radiating enthusiasm. ‘The sauce!’
‘The be’f!’ said Glod.
‘The charcoal,’ murmured Cliff happily. There was a wide black ring around his mouth.
‘And who’davthought,’ said Glod, ‘that you could brew a beer l’ke that outa cauliflowers?’
‘Had a great head on it,’ said Cliff.
‘I thought we were going to be in a bit of trouble there, before you played,’ said Asphalt, shaking the beetles out of another mattress. ‘I don’t know how you got them dancing like that.’
‘Yes,’ said Buddy.
‘And we din’t even get paid,’ murmured Glod. He slumped back. Shortly there were snores, given a slightly metallic edge by the reverberation in his helmet.
When the others were asleep Buddy put the guitar down on the bed, quietly opened the door and crept downstairs and into the night.
It would have been nice if there had been a full moon. Or even a crescent. A full moon would have been better. But there was just a half-moon, which never appears in romantic or occult paintings despite the fact that it is indeed the most magical phase.