The Iron Woman by Ted Hughes Read Free Book Online Page A

‘Did you see that man’s face? I thought it was going to fly off and out through the window when I grabbed his ears.’
    ‘But will it stop the factory?’ Lucy almost frowned.
    ‘It might!’ cried Hogarth. ‘They’ve got to think about it. How long do you think it will take before the whole world’s plugged into the giant scream? And nobody dare touch anybody else?’
    The idea horrified him. At the same time, he felt likerolling on the ground with laughter. It was horrifying – but also amazing, wonderfully amazing! To think of such a thing!
    And Lucy too, she was frightened by everything that was happening. At the same time, she was dazed with excitement. After all, if that was the way things were, that was the way they were.  
    Her mother and father were less trouble than she had expected. Once she had grabbed their hands and let them hear what everybody was talking about, they sat listening to her. She told them everything. As they listened, they began to feel slightly afraid of their daughter.  
    ‘But this business about closing the factory,’ her father kept saying.  
    ‘Destroying it,’ corrected Lucy. ‘Not closing it.’  
    ‘But people’s livelihoods!’ he cried. ‘Everybody works there. What do you think I’d do?’  
    ‘That doesn’t bother the Iron Woman,’ said Lucy. ‘All she thinks about are the screams. Some of those screams are baby screams, you know.’  
    Her parents stared at her. She reminded them again of the creatures that had come dancing and writhing up the tunnel of fire. Her mother sighed and rested her forehead on her hands. She stared down at the table.  
    ‘How do you come to be mixed up in all this?’ shouted her father. ‘Why you?’ The wrinkles on his brow were a new, unfamiliar shape. His hair was tousled,as if he had just got out of bed in the middle of the night.
    ‘The Iron Man will know what to do,’ said Hogarth. He wanted to make Lucy’s parents feel better. But now they turned their stare on him, with the same dreadful, anxious look. Blackish rings had appeared under their eyes. And Hogarth was thinking: Is this how people look during a war? – when there came a knock on the door.
    ‘The police!’ gasped Lucy’s mother, looking more haggard than ever.
    ‘Why should it be the police?’ cried Lucy. ‘I’m not going tearing up any factory. I’m not the Iron Woman.’
    Her mother opened the door. Three journalists stood there from the local newspapers. And as they introduced themselves, others, behind them, were getting out of cars.
     *
    The family managed to get to bed finally, but none of them could sleep. Their brains were spinning. They would be headlines in the morning. And before noon the television people were coming.
    Lucy had put the cup with the snowdrops and the vase with the foxglove beside her bed. She fancied she could see the snowdrops glowing slightly in the dark. Though the journalists had asked a thousand questions, she had never mentioned the Iron Woman. They hadgone off thinking it had all begun with her – Lucy. All they could think was: This girl has abnormal powers. And they argued with each other about different explanations .
    Hogarth lay in his tent, listening to the orchard and the darkness. Everything was so silent now, he thought he could hear the stars rustling. How could the whole globe seem so silent with that terrible scream, somehow, still going on. He took hold of his left wrist with his right hand. Silence. It needed two people to plug into the scream. Then a tawny owl hooted, just above his tent, and his hair went icy. He curled up and pulled his sleeping bag over his head. And suddenly he was thinking of the Iron Man. He imagined him coming across the country in a straight line. So he fell asleep dreaming about the Iron Man, who seemed to grow, till he was far bigger than the Iron Woman, as he strode through the night, over trees and houses, with the moon glistening on his metal.

4
    Next morning