Black Harvest Read online

  “I don’t think—” he began.

  “Look, it’s only a bit of a climb up a cliff path. You can walk with Mum if the tunnel’s bothering you. Don’t be so pathetic,” Colin said impatiently.

  That did it. Oliver chucked his spade down, pushed past both of them, and was soon walking with Mrs Blakeman. It was quite peaceful. At least the carrier was keeping that awful baby quiet.

  Chapter Six

  AS THEY WALKED along the beach, Oliver was planning his getaway. This was his sly streak coming out. He did have one, and he told lies sometimes to get what he wanted. He’d once listened, through a closed door, to his parents discussing the fact that he was adopted. “Perhaps it’s not our fault,” his father said. “Perhaps it’s just, well, in the blood.”

  “Blood? Rubbish!” his mother had said sharply. “It’s training. He’s our son now and he’ll tell the truth.” That night he’d been made to stay in his room without anything to eat. Mother was very strict with him. Sometimes she seemed to forget he was just a little boy. Mr Catchpole was scared of her too.

  It was a long walk to the Yellow Tunnel. In spite of its name, Ballimagliesh Strand seemed to be miles beyond the village. They could soon see the crumbly yellow cliffs that gave the crack its name, but it never seemed to get any nearer.

  The dog leaped ahead and was soon out of sight. Oliver plodded along at his aunt’s side. The sand and the sea, all bathed in sunshine, lifted everybody’s spirits, but made no impact at all on him. His mind was full of beetles. Overnight the leaves in the jar had been virtually chewed to nothing, and he was certain the insects had multiplied. He must go back and talk to Donal Morrissey. He wasn’t scared of him.

  Gradually he dropped behind and left his aunt to walk on her own. Colin and Prill were deep in conversation, about him probably. He dropped back still farther and pretended to examine a bit of driftwood. Then, when the others were well ahead, and Mrs Blakeman nearly out of sight, he turned round and started to walk back.

  Colin saw him. “What are you doing, Oliver? Get a move on.”

  “I think I’ll go back.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake? It’s not much farther now.”

  Oliver dithered. Words like “Too hot”, “Not swimming” and “Doing a bit more to my hole” floated along the beach. He saw Prill take a step towards him then Colin holding her arm. “I can make the tea,” he shouted. “Well, I can get the table ready and everything, for when you come back.” He liked Auntie Jeannie and it might please her. That squalling baby was definitely getting on her nerves.

  “Will you be all right on your own?” Prill called to him. She didn’t sound so bad-tempered as Colin. “You don’t have to climb the tunnel. You can go with Mum. Anyway, the bungalow’s locked.”

  “I’ll ask Mrs O’Malley to let me in. She’s got a key. I’ll be all right,” he shouted. He was already turning his back, but he saw Colin pulling Prill impatiently in the other direction. “An utter drip” and “Chicken” were the last words he heard as he hurried along the beach, much faster now.

  The door of Donal Morrissey’s caravan was shut, but smoke poured from the tin chimney. Oliver crept up through the vegetable patch and examined the plants at his feet. The stripy beetles were still thriving and nibbling away steadily, turning the leaves into pieces of green lace.

  He stood up, took a deep breath, and hammered on the door. Instantly a dog barked inside. Oliver quaked. He was scared of dogs and that collie was a brute. But there was no time to run. The door opened and Donal Morrissey was looking down at him, holding on to the growling dog with a bit of rope.

  Their eyes met. The old man’s gaze terrified Oliver. The wide-eyed, bloodshot stare was full of threat and there was an awful hardness about it. It was a face from which every drop of human kindness suddenly seemed to have drained away.

  “What do you want? Get away from here or I’ll set this dog on you. I told you yesterday.” He gave the collie a bit more rope and it leaped to Oliver, snapping its teeth.

  “I’ve come to—” he began nervously, taking a few steps back.

  “Leave me alone, coming here with your noise. I’ll get the Garda on to you! Leave an old man in peace can’t you, in the name of God, or you’ll be sorry for it!”

  The door crashed shut in Oliver’s face and the whole van shook. Inside, the dog went on barking and the old man shouted, a mumbled torrent of fast Irish of which the boy could make nothing, save the fact that he’d be wise to make a quick retreat before that dog was let loose and old Morrissey went off to find a policeman.

  “I just came to tell you that your vegetable patch needs looking at, Mr Morrissey! It’s got some kind of infestation! I know about insects, you see!” he shouted helpfully, from a safe distance. “If you don’t do something your crop’ll be ruined, that’s all I came to say.”

  “Mother of God, will you get off my land!” came the strangled voice from inside, and through a filthy side window Oliver saw two bloody eyes staring out at him. “Don’t be telling me how to farm. It’s a count of ten I’m giving you to get out of my sight, and I’m starting now.”

  Through the yelps of the dog Oliver heard him chanting, “One, two, three…” It reminded him of hide and seek. In less than a minute he was hidden in the trees, well off Donal Morrissey’s “land”, that pathetic, wind-blown plot of poor soil, planted so lovingly, marooned in the middle of the O’Malleys’ fields. You’d think it was a thousand acres, from his crazy behaviour.

  But Oliver knew what he had to do. Old people had funny ideas sometimes, and they often got frightened when you were only trying to help them. Donal Morrissey was nearly ninety and wouldn’t respond to common sense any more. Drastic measures were called for.

  He went straight back to the bungalow. There was no need to bother Mrs O’Malley, he could let himself in with the spare key. It hung inside one of the kitchen cupboards and Oliver had pocketed it that morning. This was the kind of sneaky behaviour that made his mother angry. “He needs watching,” she’d warned her niece Jeannie, when they were discussing the holiday. “Once that child gets an idea in his head there’s no stopping him.” Mrs Blakeman had only half-listened. She liked Aunt Phyl but she did fuss over children.

  As he got everything ready Oliver thought about his two cousins, shinning athletically up the walls of some ghastly tunnel. And he’d given them the slip. He grinned to himself as he stuffed matches into his anorak pocket and poked around in the utility room for the vital cans. He found them among paint pots and household cleaners and also a garden broom, propped in a corner. That might just be useful.

  Before setting off he had a final look at his Naturalist’s Pocket Book, then at the jar. The green plant the bugs were feeding on was starting to wilt and turn yellow. They would die soon.

  He looked at Colin’s bare mattress. The sheets and blankets lay on the floor in a grubby heap with the dog’s pawmarks all over them. He’d said something about waking up in the night because the bed was damp and the room smelt musty, and he’d mentioned an awful smell outside. Oliver couldn’t understand it. Everything looked perfectly normal to him, and Colin was such a hard-headed, no-nonsense type, a bit like his own mother.

  But those sheets weren’t fit to sleep in. Oliver decided to be forgiving and to try and please everybody. He bundled them up, took them to the kitchen, and set the washing machine going. He knew exactly what to do. One of his jobs at home was putting the washing through. Then he went back to his bedroom and inspected the jar again. After a minute’s hesitation he decided to take it with him. He picked it up and went outside. It was nearly half past four. With luck, Donal Morrissey would be on his way to the O’Malleys to help with the evening milking.

  Before he struck his first match, Oliver checked and double checked. All the affected plants were thoroughly soaked and the two cans empty. It was so dry that what he had to do wouldn’t take long. The leaves would catch and be scorched, the pests would perish, and anything worth eating could still be p
ulled up. He knew all about burning the fields at the end of summer; “swaling” it was called in Cheshire, where his father had been brought up on a farm.

  The air was still. He’d checked that. They didn’t burn the fields when a high wind was blowing. Carefully, but with a certain excitement, he slid open the matchbox.

  Within seconds the whole of Donal Morrissey’s vegetable patch was ablaze. Oliver stood by the caravan and watched it burning; there was much more smoke than he’d expected and the plants gave off a bitter smell that caught at his throat and made his eyes water. It was going well. Very soon the whole thing would be over. The old man would thank him for this in time; he was doing what Donal Morrissey couldn’t or wouldn’t do. He was cleansing the earth with fire.

  He felt somehow triumphant. Without really thinking what he was doing, he unsealed the glass jar, pulled out the yellowing stalks and flung them into the flames. Then he shook the debris out from the bottom. The tiny, engorged creatures on the withered leaves disappeared into the smoke, spitting and crackling. Everything must be destroyed. Oliver stood back and surveyed his small fire with satisfaction.

  Then his blood ran cold. There was a breeze. Not much of one, but it had sprung up from somewhere and was strong enough to bend the flames towards him. And while the vegetable patch was metres away from the van, there was something he’d not noticed before stacked against one end, a big pile of twigs for kindling. Peat was a slow burner, according to his mother; you always needed small stuff to get it going.

  The heaped twigs had ignited and turned into a bonfire. Another little gust sent the flames licking along the underside of the van. One wheel caught fire and a window darkened with smoke. Then, from inside, a dog started barking.

  In terror Oliver looked for the garden broom. There it was, at the end of the plot, propped against a post. But he couldn’t reach it. The furrows were full of stubble and dry grass, all kinds of rubbish made bone dry by the hot weather, and everything was burning now with big flames. The intense heat drove Oliver back to the van and he saw fire nibbling along the underside, making a start on the wooden steps. The dog barked and whined and he heard it scratching pathetically on the inside of the door. He pulled at it but it was fastened with a rusty hasp and fixed with a padlock. Someone stronger could have prised it apart with a screwdriver, or bashed it in with a stone. But Oliver was too feeble. There was no stone, and the flames were scorching his shoes.

  The boy screamed and stepped back. He tried to stamp on the flames then ripped off his anorak and beat at them with it, but it was useless, so he climbed on to a stinking dustbin then clawed his way up on to the roof itself. Tearing off his sweater and T-shirt he jumped up and down like a maniac, waving them madly, screaming for help, as the poor dog barked frantically inside and howled for release.

  On Thursdays Donal didn’t help with the milking. It was his night for a long drinking session at Danny’s Bar. Most of his old friends were dead now, but he liked the crack. On the Ballimagliesh road he’d met Father Hagan and told him about his potatoes and what the boy had said. The priest was a gardener too.

  “Will I walk back with you now, Donal, and give it a look over?” Father Hagan said gently, turning his bike round. The old man was going earlier and earlier to Danny’s these days. “I’ll drink a cup of tea with you, will I, then we’ll see if John O’Malley’s got a spray you could use.”

  But they met the farmer in the yard and he walked up the fields with them. The farmhouse was sheltered by a sweep of land and had no views. Only after a long pull up the track could John O’Malley see most of his fields, the sea, and the old man’s caravan. But long before they reached the brow of the hill he knew something was wrong. He could smell burning. A dog was squealing frantically and a child crying out like a tormented soul, screaming for help.

  He dropped the spray-gun he was carrying and ran, and Father Hagan lumbered up the slope after him, leaving the old man on his own. The sudden effort made the priest wheeze and groan, but for such a large man he moved quickly. His jacket filled with wind and billowed and flapped round him like a big black flag.

  The vegetable plot was still blazing strongly. Father Hagan grabbed the broom then dropped it again; the handle was red-hot and smouldering. He took his coat off and spread it on the flames, then trampled on it. John O’Malley picked up an old chisel from the rubbish round the van, wrenched the door open and the dog leaped out. It had chewed the rope to pieces in its terror. Somewhere inside the old man stored drinking water in a couple of buckets. The farmer lugged them through the door and threw the contents at the caravan wheels, then refilled them at an old rainwater barrel a little way down the track.

  The fire hadn’t really taken hold of the caravan, but he needed more help. “Leave that, Father, it’ll burn itself out. This needs the water, I’m thinking. You.!” he yelled up to Oliver. “Come down here, will you. Make a chain with Father Hagan.”

  Numb, but sagging with relief, Oliver slithered off the roof and staggered towards the water barrel on weak legs. The priest filled the first bucket, and Oliver carried it to John O’Malley who doused the flames under the van. One wheel and the steps were burning too fiercely to be saved, and to stop the fire spreading upwards the farmer brought out a rusty axe from inside and chopped them away, leaving them to burn themselves out on the scorched earth.

  The bonfire of kindling wood was still flaring wildly. Bucket after bucket of water was hurled over it and eventually a thick white cloud enveloped the caravan, shrouding everything but the tin chimney.

  The old man reached the brow of the hill alone and stared down at the fire. From where he stood the flames were still quite high and his home wreathed in smoke. The dog yapped and whined at his feet and tried to get under his coat. “Husht now, husht,” he whispered to it, gathering it into his arms like a baby. Then the breeze wafted another noise up to him, the terrified sobbing of a child.

  Old memories stirred in Donal Morrissey then. He gazed numbly at the scene at the end of the track, his home in flames, the men going to and fro with buckets, the boy helplessly crying. Tears ran down his crumpled face and made dark splashes on the earth.

  Chapter Seven

  THE CHAPEL RUIN was the most peaceful place Prill had ever been in. She never forgot those last few moments of darkness, scrambling up after Colin and his bobbing ring of torchlight, then bursting up into the sunshine and flinging herself down on soft grass.

  Perhaps it was sheer relief. She hadn’t liked the tunnel much, it was much longer and harder to climb than Kevin O’Malley had made out. But it fascinated Colin. He couldn’t wait to come back and have another look with a better flashlight. “We might find something really interesting in there,” he said as he fished about in the picnic basket for something to eat. “Next time we’ll—”

  “We’ll nothing,” Prill said. “Include me out, anyway. The Ballimagliesh kids have been coming here for donkey’s years, according to Kevin’s mother. Didn’t you see all the sweet papers and the initials carved on the walls? Shouldn’t think there’s anything much in there.”

  Mrs Blakeman had taken the grassy, zigzag path up on to the headland and was waiting anxiously for them. She looked most relieved when their dirty faces popped up out of the crack. Alison was bawling again.

  “It’s no good,” she said, only half-listening to Colin’s raptures about the tunnel and Prill’s explanation about Oliver going back. “I’m taking this child to the doctor’s tomorrow, there is something wrong with her. She’s only happy when she’s asleep. The minute she woke up she started yelling. She’s usually so good-tempered.”

  Colin lifted the wriggling baby out of the canvas carrier and dumped her on the grass. She couldn’t walk yet but she was a demon crawler. “Watch her, Mum,” he warned. “She’ll be down that hole in a minute.”

  Mrs Blakeman picked her up and walked over to the main ruin with Prill. Nothing was left of the chapel but a few low walls of crumbling stone and one massive arch that must h
ave held a window. You could still see the delicate tracery on the great columns at each side. Through the arch the sea glittered. Apart from Alison’s constant grizzling everything was very quiet. In the long grass, where the main aisle must have been, was a pool of clear water.

  “How odd,” Prill said, trailing her hand in. “There’s a kind of spring here. But it must have been right in the middle of the church.”

  “It was, according to that priest who dropped in on us, that Father Hagan. It was their local miracle or something, hundreds of years ago, in a drought, he said. It was the only water for miles around.”

  “Wonder why they deserted it?”

  “Oh, places do fall into disuse. I suppose it happened when they built a new church in Ballimagliesh.”

  “Those graves must be ancient,” Prill said, looking across at Colin who was scraping away with his penknife at something in the grass. The leaning tombstones had been eaten away by years of mild, wet weather into strange mossy lumps. Lichens had woven themselves across in silent trellises of yellow-green and burnt orange. Words that had once proclaimed names and dates and manners of death had mouldered away, and only tantalizing fragments of odd letters remained.

  But though the dead lay all around them Prill didn’t want to go back to the bungalow. She felt safer out here. “Do we have to go back now, Mum?” she said as her mother manoeuvred the baby back into the sling, which was now on Colin’s back. “No, no, Alison,” she was saying snappily. “Stay with Colin now. Colin’s going to carry you home.” The baby tried to stand up in the sling and grabbed at her mother’s hair. Mrs Blakeman stuffed the arm back quite roughly and the child howled.

  Prill was amazed. Her mother must be really worried. She decided she had better take charge of the dog and stop moaning about going back. She called her over but Jessie was drinking noisily at the little pool and just wagged her tail cheekily. At last she persuaded her to come away and together they followed Mrs Blakeman down the cliff path. Colin, with the baby on his back, was trying to bend down and have a final squint at the headstone he’d found half buried in the grass.