Black Harvest Read online

  Oliver had dug things up that he claimed belonged to the Morrisseys, things very like the old man’s treasures. Yet he’d found them near the new house, miles away from the Yellow Tunnel.

  And Donal Morrissey had just told them that the whole family had perished during the potato blight. So how could they have anything to do with him? This grandmother of his had lived on into ripe old age, moved away, and raised a family.

  “It’s your grandmother,” Oliver was saying. “That’s the bit I can’t work out.” Prill and Colin were reassured. He seemed to know so much, and his knowledge was so particular. He knew things about this place that he couldn’t possibly have dug out of his father’s history books. Just for a minute they saw the old Oliver, worrying about pernickety details as he bored into the old man’s memory like a dentist’s drill, determined to find the last piece of the jigsaw.

  “You say your grandmother Bridget was born in 1848…”

  Donal Morrissey was only half listening. He was getting tired. “Look at that handwriting,” he murmured. “She could have been a scholar, so she could.”

  “But the date,” pressed Oliver. “You told us she was seventeen in 1865. Now if what you say is true—”

  “True? Of course it’s true!” The old man’s hand had dropped away from Oliver’s shoulder. He was shaking with anger.

  But the boy was totally wrapped up in his calculations and didn’t even notice. “If she was a baby in the worst years of the famine she was born just about the time when the whole family died. Therefore she couldn’t possibly have—”

  His voice was cut off abruptly by the dog who got up suddenly, shook itself, and growled. There was a shuffling noise by the door, then someone knocked.

  When the old man opened it they saw that the storm was dying down. The high wind was breaking up into a series of fitful gusts; the rain had washed everything clean and blown the clouds up amazingly high, into a calm sky. The air felt quite warm now, but the oppressive heat had gone.

  Father Hagan’s round moon face was peering in at them very anxiously. The dog jumped up at him and barked, and Donal Morrissey muttered peevishly, “Thanks be to God, Father, you’re a stranger surely. Days I’ve been waiting for you to show your face. I’d got things to show you.”

  “I’m sorry, Donal. It’s only two days,” the priest said, “and I tried to come last night, but a tree fell on the road and it’s only just been cleared. Jack Ryan’s arguing with the council already.”

  The old man smiled knowingly. “Him… That man is it? I could—”

  “Not now, Donal, there’s no time now. Show me what it is quickly, will you? I want these children to come back with me. I have something to tell them.”

  Prill had thought she would never go back to that house but her feet were taking her along the track after the others. When the bungalow came into view it looked so ordinary, so small, with the sun shining on the fresh white paint and the priest’s old car slewed sideways by the yellow skip. Colin had run on ahead to find Jessie. Oliver walked by Father Hagan’s side, prattling nineteen to the dozen.

  Prill followed very slowly with her eyes on the priest as he puffed along the path, with Oliver’s black sack humped over one shoulder, like a solemn Father Christmas in mourning.

  Chapter Nineteen

  MUCH LATER THAT day she sat next to Colin on Dr Moynihan’s big sofa with her back firmly turned on what was going on outside. There was a faint, smoky smell from last night’s attempts to make a fire, but fresh air blew in through the open window. Oliver sat cross-legged on the floor listening to Father Hagan, with the same bland, all-knowing look he’d had in Donal Morrissey’s caravan. Now and again he glanced round at the men outside. Two were in his hole, scraping away with spades; a head popped up occasionally and called someone over. There were also two policemen, an oldish man in a dark suit, and another clergyman, peering curiously down into the mud.

  They’d been there all day, brought to the bungalow by the priest’s telephone calls, but the children had only just come back from Ballimagliesh. They had had hot baths in Father Hagan’s little house and Mrs Moffatt next door had made them big plates of eggs and bacon. None of them had been able to eat very much but at least the food had stayed down, and nobody had been sick.

  While they were eating, Father Hagan had produced an old file of notes and newspaper cuttings about what had happened years ago in Ballimagliesh. They boys were interested but Prill’s head ached. She was feeling a bit better, but the priest’s words rang in her head like giant gongs. There were so many of them, so much to take in. And her parents still hadn’t phoned from Sligo.

  Jessie sat at her feet, very subdued. If the children called to her she half pricked her ears then laid her long nose on the floor indifferently, and when she followed Prill around it was on very wobbly legs. But she’d stopped vomiting, and an hour ago she’d been persuaded to eat a small plate of food. The vet was coming tomorrow to check her over, but the children knew that she was going to be all right now.

  “What Oliver has found out there,” Father Hagan was explaining carefully, “was probably their last hiding place—”

  “It was called a scalpeen,” interrupted Oliver. “It was just a big hole, roofed over with twigs and stuff.”

  The priest was talking about the Morrisseys, a family that had been well-to-do in the old days, a hundred years before the famine, rich enough to have proper headstones when they died, rich enough to buy fine toys for their children. But a century later they were poor peasants, suffering with a million others all over Ireland when the potato harvests failed.

  “How did they fall on such bad times?” said Colin.

  Father Hagan shrugged. “I don’t know, there’s nothing to tell us that. Perhaps someone cheated them out of their land or perhaps—” He paused and looked at Oliver. He may know. He sensed that this boy knew most of the terrible story he was steeling himself to tell them. Oliver rather frightened him.

  He went on slowly. “It’s hard to believe some of the tales about the famine years, but what happened to the Morrisseys wasn’t so unusual.”

  “What did happen exactly?” Colin asked. “Oliver seems to have read up all about it somewhere, but Prill and I don’t understand. What did happen to the old man’s family?”

  “They starved to death,” the priest said flatly. “The last thing they ate would have been their seed potatoes, put by to plant for next year’s crop. It was a very simple way of living, you see. They relied on the potato harvest absolutely, to keep going. If that failed them there was nothing. When the seed potatoes had been eaten there would have been nothing left, though some people killed their dogs and ate them, and others ate rats.”

  “And others fed on the bodies of those that had died,” Oliver added. “It was a kind of cannibalism.”

  “Oliver,” Father Hagan said quietly. The boy fell silent. Colin looked across at Prill but her eyes were riveted on the priest’s face. Through the window came the hum of voices and the chipping away of spades.

  “Just think of it, all the roads to the towns crammed with starving people, trying to find help. Some fell and died in the ditches, others reached the gates of workhouses and died there. There were so many bodies, not enough coffins for proper funerals. So people remained unburied, or were thrown into great pits.

  “And there was disease in the towns, the priests and doctors caught it and died too. Some people survived for quite a long time through begging and stealing. They say the children looked just like monkeys, all wizened and covered with hair. And they lost their powers of speech. In the end they could only open and shut their mouths. No sound came through.”

  The priest’s voice shook, and he stared out of the window. “That field would have been black, as if fire had passed over it. That’s how one man described it. And in the hot weather there was an awful smell from the rotting potatoes. The entire harvest had turned black, overnight almost. Imagine it.”

  But they didn’t need to, or
the silent, ape-like faces of the children, or the shrivelled women crawling over the potato fields like human scarecrows. They had seen them all. “What about the Morrisseys?” Prill said.

  “Well, they were a small family for those days, not many children.”

  “How many?”

  “Four. But by the time they were evicted only three were left, a boy and a girl and a small baby.”

  “What happened to the fourth?”

  “It was the first to die. It had always been weak and it was only a year old. The story goes that the mother took the corpse and left it in the town; she stole a loaf of bread and gave them the dead child instead of money. It was all she had left to give.”

  He looked into Prill’s eyes. He had forgotten that terrible story, unearthed one November afternoon in the university library, so many years ago. Then she had told him about her nightmare, in the stores at Ballimagliesh.

  “What does ‘evicted’ mean?” Colin wanted to know. “What happened to the others?”

  “It was when the landlords drove you out of your house,” Oliver said, “if you couldn’t pay your rent. That’s right, isn’t it, Father?”

  “Yes, Oliver. You’re quite right.”

  He paused again, not knowing how to continue. “It would have been a poor place, of course, not even grand enough to be called a cottage, just a mud cabin shared with pigs and chickens in better days. But it was the only home they had and—” but he stopped again.

  “And what, Father Hagan?”

  “And it stood here, Colin, here where they built this house.”

  There was a long silence. Colin and Prill stared at each other, then they both looked at Oliver. When he saw their faces, and knew that they understood, the priest, who had helped people through sickness and death, who had seen all kinds of miseries in Ballimagliesh, felt more helpless than he’d ever done in his life.

  “So that’s why everything happened to us,” Prill murmured. “It was because we were here, in the very spot they’d lived in. We sort of went through it with them, didn’t we?”

  “And that’s why we had to get away,” Oliver broke in eagerly. “That’s why I had to force you, Prill, because otherwise—”

  But Father Hagan was shaking his head. “Let me finish the story now, Oliver.” The boy unnerved him. He had an uncanny sense that he understood what had happened far more clearly than anyone else, and that he’d not really needed to look at those old papers, or the university files. But the priest cleared his throat and went on.

  “When the Morrisseys were driven out the cabin was destroyed, to stop them coming back. They would have battered the walls in and ripped off the roof, probably set fire to it too.”

  “And did they kill them?” Prill asked.

  “Oh no. Once they’d been got rid of nobody cared what happened to them. The landlords and sheriffs would have moved on then, to root out other poor souls. The Morrisseys obviously went into hiding.”

  “In that tunnel,” Colin broke in. “In that crack below the chapel? That’s where they hid, isn’t it? I found some initials scratched there, and some bits of writing.”

  The priest looked very surprised. “Did Donal tell you that? He found his little rattle in that tunnel, and his precious piece of silk. Years ago he discovered those, when he first came here from Kilmacrenan. He knew his family had come from Ballimagliesh and he was determined to find out all about them. And he did. But I’m amazed he told you about those initials in the rock. He’s very secretive. It was years before he told me.”

  “He didn’t tell me. It was just a fluke. I was poking about in there with a torch and I climbed up on to a kind of ledge. There were letters scratched into the walls. They said ‘Salvation’.”

  There was another silence and the children waited for the priest to go on. But his soft voice was getting lower and lower. He was slowing down, pushing himself to get to the end, like a man crawling up a rock-face.

  “At some point they must have come back, to the ruins of their cabin, and dug themselves a hole to live in, a scalpeen, as Oliver explained. Just a shallow pit, about a metre deep, roofed over with twigs.”

  “And were they driven out of that as well?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they were dead. They died here, together.”

  “And nobody buried them?”

  “Nobody. The bodies remained in the hole they’d made, in the ruins of the cabin, out there, where Oliver dug his den. In time someone must have come and filled the pit with earth. At least it was a grave.”

  “But why didn’t somebody—” Colin started.

  “Wait,” Oliver said loudly. “He’s not finished. There’s something else. Don’t interrupt him.”

  The priest’s voice was lighter somehow. “Yes, he’s right. Something else, something good, came out of this.”

  “But how?”

  “There was a survivor. The baby didn’t die. It was found very near death, wailing in the ruins. Someone took it in and cared for it. It was a little girl. She grew up on a farm outside Ballimagliesh. When she married—a cousin, a Michael Morrissey—they went to farm in County Donegal and—”

  “And her name was Bridget,” Oliver said. “And she was Donal Morrissey’s grandmother.”

  “So it was her voice we heard last night,” Prill whispered. “We thought it was Alison. It was their baby, wasn’t it, sobbing in the ruins, all those years ago?”

  “Did the old man tell you all this?” Colin said, in a choked voice, putting his arm round Prill.

  “Yes. He was quite a scholar in his way, and he found out a fair bit about the Morrisseys of Ballimagliesh. After all, Dr Moynihan came here from America to track down his ancestors. Donegal’s nearer than New York. Old Donal made his way here years ago, for the same reason.”

  “So the bones Oliver saw, when it rained, and the child’s skull—they think those might be the remains of the Morrissey family?”

  “Almost certainly they are. And there’s the rattle he dug up, and the scrap of silk. That would help identify them, along with old Donal’s relics.”

  “And what will they do with – with the remains?” Prill stammered. “When everything’s been sorted out?”

  “What is usually done,” Father Hagan explained calmly. “Graves of this kind have been dug up before. They will bury what they have found in the proper place, and the poor souls will be given their rest.”

  Outside, the men were leaning on their spades and making signs to the priest. “Well,” he said, “I’ve a feeling they’ve finished, for now anyway, so I suggest we all—” But a sound cut him off, a shrill, unfamiliar noise that had not been heard for several days. Colin and Prill stood up together, collided in the doorway and fought to get into the hall and along the passage to the kitchen. It was the telephone bell.

  Prill got there first. It was a very bad line so she shouted, asking dozens of questions and not hearing a single answer. All she was really listening for was the tone of her mother’s voice, to see whether it sounded matter of fact and normal, or horribly emotionless and cold.

  “Yes… yes…” she stammered idiotically. Mrs Blakeman sounded quite ordinary. “Something and nothing, love, just a scare in the end,” Prill made out, through the crackles. “Hospital tests,” she heard. “Marvellous doctor… abnormally high temperature… fluids… quite stable now.” Then her father spoke to her, and this time she listened more calmly. “We’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said. “You’ll wait up, won’t you? Dr Moynihan’s had to go to Amsterdam, anyway, so I’m free for a bit. It’ll be pretty late but it will be tomorrow.”

  Before they rang off, Father Hagan asked if he could speak too. Prill left him talking. “If you can give me your hotel number I’ll ring you back this evening,” she heard. “There is something I must tell you. Yes, yes, all quite well now…” he was saying as Prill closed the door and told Oliver the good news about the baby.

  Ten minutes later he came off
the phone. “I’m sorry your parents won’t be back until tomorrow. Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t stay here tonight. The O’Malleys are back and they could easily—”

  “No. We’ll be OK here,” Colin said firmly. “We’ve discussed it between us and we all want to stay. We can get things ready for Mum and Dad. It’s settled, isn’t it, Prill?”

  She nodded. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been determined to leave the place and never come back. But it was different now.

  When Father Hagan had gone, the boys went outside to have a look at Oliver’s hole. With Jessie plodding slowly after her, Prill wandered round the bungalow, delighting in the ordinariness of everything.

  Mrs O’Malley must have been in while they were at Ballimagliesh. There were fresh sheets on the beds and a jug of wild flowers on the kitchen table. All the windows were open and she could smell fields, mixed with soap, furniture polish, and home-made bread. Everything looked welcoming; even the peculiar steel armchairs with their crackly leather covers felt more comfortable. She flopped down in one, and looked through the enormous plate-glass window at the view of cliffs and sea. Now her father was coming she hoped they would stay on. She might even get to like Dr Moynihan’s strange pictures in time; they were all blobs and cubes and violent colours, with names like “Dawn” and “Man Sleeping”.

  “Come on, Jessie,” she said, getting up with some difficulty out of the strange chair. “You must practise walking. You’ll get fat otherwise.” It was most odd having to persuade a dog like Jessie to go for a walk, but she wagged her tail thoughtfully and followed Prill outside, taking a biscuit in her mouth to eat on the way. She only did that when she was pleased.

  They went up the farm track together, staggering a little, like two babies learning to walk, or like people recovering from flu. “We must thank Mrs O’Malley for that loaf,” Prill told Jessie. “Who knows? We could even cadge something else to eat, if she’s been baking. I’m really starting to feel quite hungry.”