Black Harvest

“So he does. He’s your nearest neighbour. See those trees, where the smoke is? There’s a caravan in the middle of them, that’s where he lives. He’s got an old stove; he burns peat on it.”

“Is he very old?” Oliver said, still staring.

“Nearer ninety than eighty. He was upset when they started building this bungalow. He didn’t like the noise they made, or the lorries going up and down the track.”

“I’m surprised Dr Moynihan was allowed to build here,” Dad said. “I’m amazed the farmer sold him the land.”

“Well, the O’Malleys needed the money to get their farm back on its feet. They’ve had a run of very bad harvests. The house looks a bit raw and new at the moment, but when everything’s tidied up and the trees have grown it’ll fit in. He’s even having his garage built into this slope, so you can’t see it. That costs money.” He finished his tea and stood up. “Well, goodbye now. I just wanted to wish you all a good holiday. Ballimagliesh is my parish, I’m always around. Mrs O’Malley keeps her eye on the bungalow of course. She has a key. But I’m only up the road, so just knock on my door if you need anything. It’s the last house on the road when you leave the village.”

They watched him clamp a shapeless black hat on his head, mount an ancient bicycle and pedal away slowly, his coat flapping round him, and his thick grey hair blowing about as he bumped over the stones. He had a calm, generous face. Dad rather wished he could spend the next month painting him, and not rich Dr Moynihan who had a little bald head and wore navy-blue city suits.

Prill walked along the beach with Alison in her arms. The tide was out and the sea a flat blue line edging a strip of tawny sand. She’d hoped for a wind down here, but the air was strangely still. Everything had gone very quiet suddenly. Nothing broke the silence, nothing that moved. There wasn’t even a gull to tear at the quietness with its sour, high crying, not even a crab.

She looked back at the steep path she’d climbed down from the fields. The tall cliffs reared up all round, ringing the cover, blotting out the gleaming white bungalow, the grass, the wind-blown trees. She and Alison could have been the only people alive on earth.

The baby wriggled in her arms and started to whine. Prill jiggled her up and down and tried to make soothing noises. “Come on, Alleybobs, it’s all right. Look. Look at the sand. Look at the sea. Bye Baby Bunting…” But it wasn’t her mother’s voice, and the baby squirmed and flung herself about violently in Prill’s arms, then went rigid, like a lump of wood. Her face was bright red. Through the tiny cotton dress she was sweating and sticking to Prill’s T-shirt.

Prill still felt very hot herself, and rather sick too. But Alison should be all right now, she’d been fed and changed again before coming down to the beach and she smelt of talcum powder. Prill held her close and tried to comfort her, breathing in the baby smell through the little frock.

Then something made her stomach lurch violently. There was a smell drifting over from somewhere, a rich, sweetish, rotten smell. At first she thought it came from the farm, some kind of fertiliser they’d been spreading on the fields. But it wasn’t manure. She wouldn’t have minded that. This was too sweet, too cloying, and anyway, it was so close.

With the baby crying loudly and twisting about in her arms she walked slowly along the beach, her insides heaving, looking for something dead. A sheep could have fallen down on to the rocks and rotted there, or it might be a dog, lying in the blistering sun with its back broken, empty eye-sockets staring up at the sky, alive with maggots.

She shuddered, feeling for a handkerchief to put over her nose, but she couldn’t find one. So she thrust her face close to the baby and breathed in her smell, trying to blot out whatever it was that made her stomach lurch about and brought vomit into her mouth.

For a minute she thought the smell might be coming off the sea. It could be seaweed, piled up by the water along the tideline, steaming in the sun. But the pale sand was quite bare, and when she turned and looked back at the cliffs it met her again, sweeping over her in great waves, making her insides heave.

What on earth was it? Bad meat? Just a farmyard smell? Or was it rotting vegetation, something like leaf mould? But no garden had ever smelt like this and anyway, how could it be any of these things on a lonely beach, miles from anywhere?

Alison was now screaming hysterically. Hanging on to her with one arm, and with the other across her face to stop the smell, Prill stumbled, choking, back along the beach, towards the cliff path. The baby must have some bug that was making her peevish, she was usually so good-tempered. And Prill must have caught it too. That would be why she felt so sick and hot and kept imagining this awful smell.

She clambered up the track towards the bungalow, trying to tell herself firmly that everything was all right. But fear gnawed at her. She had a feeling of panic festering inside that was nothing to do with the screaming baby, or the horrible sick feeling. She didn’t want to be left alone here, in this sumptuous house, with its sweeping views of sky and sea, not even with Colin and her mother. She didn’t want Dad to take the car and drive back to Dublin without them, to start his painting. She was frightened, but she didn’t know why.

Two people lay awake in Ballimagliesh that night. Father Hagan, looking out into the darkness over his tiny garden, said aloud, “Lord, Grant me a quiet night and a perfect end.” Then he went to bed. But he didn’t sleep. The faces of the new people at the Moynihan bungalow kept drifting into his mind and troubling him, the cousin’s face particularly, with its flat white cheeks, its curious hard stare.

Mr Blakeman had set off for Dublin at seven that evening, when the baby had finally dropped off to sleep. But Prill didn’t walk down the track with the others, to wave him goodbye as he turned the car out on to the metalled road. She shut herself in her room, flung herself down on the bed, and cried.

Chapter Three (#ulink_ca3a258f-aaab-5dd0-abc3-4c4ab1b5d6b8)

COLIN WENT OUT before breakfast to have a look at the building site, and Oliver trailed after him. On the land side of the bungalow, where the earth sloped up and turned into a field, the builders had started digging a huge hole. There were piles of sand everywhere, and bricks stacked neatly. A yellow skip full of soil stood blocking the path to the back door.

“Do you think we could dig here?” Oliver said. “Are we allowed?”

It was the third time he’d asked Colin about what was “allowed”. They had woken up early and decided to go out while the others slept on. “But are we allowed?” he’d asked anxiously, as Colin slid back the door bolts. “And are you allowed to go outside without your shoes on?” Aunt Phyllis must be very strict with him.

Colin looked at the piles of sand. “I shouldn’t think it would matter if you poked round here with a spade. When they come back in September they’re going to dig down about three metres with an excavator. Well, so Dad said. The roof of the new garage will be level with the house, and it’s going to be a patio with plants on, or something. It sounds very elaborate. What do you want to dig for, anyway?”

“I want to dig a hole,” Oliver said, eyeing the shovels and spades propped against the concrete mixer.

“What on earth for?”

“I’d like to build a den.”

“How babyish,” Colin thought, and nearly said so. Then he thought better of it. After all, the best summer he could remember had been spent in a den, in a field behind their house, before they’d built the new estate. They had made it out of an enormous hole that used to be an air-raid shelter, roofed it over with bits of corrugated iron, and made a lookout with old tea-chests. It was the worst moment of his life when the contractors arrived, filling the hole in and flattening everything. He was just about Oliver’s age then.

He said, “Well, I suppose it’d be all right. We’d better ask Dad though, when he rings up. You could always dig in the sand, Oliver. It looks a fabulous beach.”

Oliver didn’t reply. He’d never had a proper seaside holiday. He couldn’t even swim. Those two had been going on in the car about swimming awards and different kinds of diving. He’d be happier up here on his own, digging his hole.

“That dog needs a long walk,” Mum said after breakfast. Prill knew that voice, it was ragged at the edges. It meant she’d had enough of Alison bawling and of the others hanging around. She wanted some peace and quiet.

Jessie had spent a well-behaved night under the kitchen table but now she was tied up outside, barking madly at Kevin O’Malley, the boy from the farm who’d just brought them some milk.

“Come on,” Prill said to Colin. “Let’s take Jess down to the beach. Coming, Oliver?”

Colin waited for him to say no. He hoped his cousin would want to stay behind and make a start on his den. It would be a good chance for them to talk privately, and work out how they were going to survive for a month with him around. Colin wasn’t very patient and Oliver was getting on his nerves. He hated the way he stared at people, and never spoke unless you spoke to him. Mum said that he was an only child, with rather elderly, fussy parents, and that they must “make allowances”. But she didn’t have to share a room with him.

“OK,” Oliver said, quite eagerly. He put his anorak on and zipped it up.

“You don’t need that, it’s boiling!”

“I’m not hot.”

He was already walking ahead of them, keeping well away from the dog as she leapt about wildly on the end of her lead. It was another perfect day and already very warm, but Prill felt better. A fresh smell of fields blew across as she followed Colin along the path, and the sick feeling had gone completely. Dad had phoned after breakfast to tell them he was making a start on his first sketches for the portrait. Yesterday’s panic, down on the beach, seemed slightly ridiculous now.

“Not that way, Oliver,” Colin was shouting. “We’ve got to drop down here, on to the shore. Come on.” But Oliver carried on making for the green thicket that hid Donal Morrissey’s caravan. “There’s a footpath here,” he shouted back. “I found it on a map.”

“Oh, come on, can’t you? We’ve been told that the old man… Oh, damn!” With an almighty tug, Jessie had wrenched the lead out of his hand and was tearing after Oliver, barking madly. The small boy started to run and soon disappeared into the trees. Colin and Prill pelted after him. Seconds later all three were standing at the open door of a decrepit wooden caravan. Colin had grabbed Jessie’s collar and was trying to calm her down. Inches away, a mangy black collie, stretched out across the ramshackle steps, was growling at them.

“Be quiet, girl. Sit!” Colin shouted, but Jessie was almost throttling herself in her efforts to break free. The collie stood up, cringing and whining, then it took a step forward and showed its teeth. Bedlam followed. The two dogs made for each other in a tangle of hair, tongues, and frenzied barking. Oliver backed away and clutched nervously at Prill’s arm. “Sit, can’t you, sit! Gedoff, will you!” Colin was bellowing, and in the racket someone appeared in the doorway.

Donal Morrissey was thin and extremely tall, and stood glowering at them, his knotted hands shaking. The wispy remains of his hair blew about in the wind, silver-white but still reddish at the edges, and his bald, domed head was splodged with big freckles. He must once have had auburn hair, like Colin and me, thought Prill.

His face was so wrinkled it looked like a piece of paper someone had screwed up very tight then smoothed out again, leaving hundreds of tiny lines. There was so little flesh on it the skin was stretched over the bones like thin rubber, and every single one poked out. It was the kind of face you see in religious paintings.

But the voice that came from it was shrill and harsh. They couldn’t tell whether he was speaking Irish or just making horrible noises at them to scare them off. They backed away as he came down the steps, waving his arms about and yelling.

Prill’s stomach heaved. The old man stank. It was the smell of someone who never washed his hair, or his clothes, or had a bath. How could that Father Hagan come visiting him here, week after week? She’d be sick.

His dog had slunk off and was lying under the van, peering out at them. “Go on! Go on!” he was shouting. “There’s been enough of it, I’m telling you. Leave a soul in peace will you, coming round here. God help me.”

Jessie, always slow on the uptake, leapt at the old man and tried to lick his face. He lost his balance, swayed about, then fell heavily, crashing back against the side of the caravan. Prill gasped, he was so old, and Colin let go of Jessie and went to help him. But he was back on his feet almost at once, towering over them and letting out a stream of foul Irish as he pushed them back down the path, spitting the words out and slavering, his parchment cheeks turning a slow, bright red with pure rage.

As they reached the trees he picked up a handful of stones and flung them hard. Half a brick followed. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight. It caught Jessie in the middle of the back and she yelped with pain.

“Serves you right,” Colin told the dog angrily when they were safely out of sight. Prill had found a handkerchief, licked it, and was dabbing gingerly at the gash on Jessie’s back. The dog whined and twisted away, flattening its ears and flopping down in the grass. It knew quite well it was in disgrace.

“Poor old thing. She was only being friendly. That old man’s mad. It wasn’t just gravel you know, it was a brick.” She went on stroking Jessie.