Black Harvest Read online

  “Pull yourself together and stop imagining things,” she told herself angrily, and stood quite still for a minute, right in the middle of the village street. Then she put her hand against her forehead. She definitely felt feverish, her temperature must be over a hundred. It must be this fluey feeling that Colin had complained about. If they sold aspirins at Mooneys’ Stores she’d better buy some.

  The plumber’s van was parked a few houses down and a man in overalls was lolling against it, chatting to an old woman in a doorway. There was no sign of the two children and the ploughed field was empty, so was the muddy lane that joined it to the pavement.

  Prill spotted a telephone box at the far end of the street and began to walk towards it. Next door she found Mooneys’ Stores with dustbins and mops displayed outside. It was the kind of shop that sold everything. A comforting baking smell wafted through the door. She hesitated, then went inside.

  The shop was gloomy and full of people waiting. Prill edged past them trying to make out what was on the shelves. Why was it so dark inside? There was hardly enough light to read her mother’s shopping list. Then she remembered, there was a power cut in Ballimagliesh. They were doing some maintenance work, Mrs O’Malley had told her. That would be why they’d rigged up this smelly oil-lamp that smoked and spluttered over her head.

  When a wave of fresh customers came in Prill was pushed to one side. People jostled each other and tried to get to the front of the queue. But it was strangely quiet. All she could hear was money chinking and things being slid across the counter. The shop was so crowded she couldn’t raise her arm to hold the list under the lamp. When her turn came she’d give it to the shopkeeper, that would be the quickest. She wanted to get out really, she could hardly breathe in this stuffy place.

  The shop door rattled again and Prill glanced back. Her heart warmed to see the fat face of a clergyman. It just had to be that Father Hagan. Oliver was right, he was a bit like Friar Tuck. She smiled at him. But he had already turned his back to talk to someone. She just caught the words “tobacco”, “very difficult” and “old Donal”. Then she heard something else. An argument was going on at the counter. The general mumbling in the queue died away and everyone leaned forward to listen.

  But the customer clearly didn’t want anybody to hear. Prill could only make out the tone of the voice, the note of pleading. Then she heard, “Give me what you have then,” from the shopkeeper. “We’ve got little enough ourselves, God knows.” And suddenly, very close, she could see a hand thrust out at him, with the fingers drawn tightly over the palm, shrivelled yellowing fingers like turkey claws.

  It lay lifeless on the bare counter and Prill watched the plump, pink hand of the man prise the fingers open slowly, one by one, revealing nothing.

  “I’m sorry, but if you have no money at all…“Then the words turned into mumbling again. The woman’s voice deadened into a low, monotonous keening. It was the most desolate sound Prill had ever heard.

  Suddenly there was a shriek. “For the love of God, spare me something!” Then several things happened at once. The shop door blew shut with a bang and buckets rolled over the floor. Prill heard Father Hagan wheezing at the back, helping another man stack them up again and laughing. A strip light over the counter was flickering into life and the tubby, white-overalled shopkeeper blinked up at it. In that instant the shawled figure at the counter leaned forward and grabbed.

  A neat pyramid of loaves, buns and cakes toppled over. “Take what I have, and may God help me,” the woman cried shrilly and, pulling a bundle from under her arm, she thrust it at the goggling shop owner.

  As she pushed past, Prill could smell the new loaf in her hand. The swinging oil-lamp turned the woman’s face a muddy yellow and patched the shrunken face with shadow. The girl saw the familiar domed head, the remains of springy, russet hair, the gaunt cheekbones almost breaking the flesh.

  All the lights were back on in the shop and the man was reading her list and saying pleasantly, “I’ll get you a little box for this surely. Oh, you’ve got a bag? If you’ll give it to me then. The bacon’s out at the back, I won’t be a minute.”

  As she waited, Prill fingered the sacking bundle lightly, then laid her whole hand flat upon it. A coldness came up through the coarse webbing. She pushed at it. The lump inside was heavy, unyielding, and gave off a high, gamey smell.

  Her fingers crept to the end of the sacking where the loose brown folds had fallen open. She could hear the bacon-slicer whining faintly in the back room, and Father Hagan chatting away somewhere behind her. She didn’t want to unwrap the bundle, she wanted to run out of the shop. But something compelled her to roll the thing over and over on the counter till the sacking fell away, and with it the layer of filthy rags underneath. Then she could see properly.

  The smell coming out of the bundle was like very bad meat. But what Prill saw, lying on the counter, was a human child. The tiny body was naked, the face blotched and swollen, the eyes glazed in a white, expressionless stare like a fish on a slab. It looked like Alison.

  She remembered the shopkeeper coming back with the bacon and staring at her open-mouthed as she stood clutching the countertop, staring down at the dead baby, screaming the one word “No!” over and over again. She remembered him scuttling into the back shouting for his wife, “Maraid! Maraid! Come here, for God’s sake!” Then a sick darkness wrapped itself round her as she plunged about on the shop floor, knocking into displays of pans and glasses when she crashed to the ground.

  She remembered getting outside and being sick against a mossy, white-washed wall, and Father Hagan peering down at her anxiously as the blood from a cut on her head streamed down her face, like warm rain.

  Chapter Eleven

  “WELL, YOU WERE wrong about the weather,” Colin said, climbing out of the hole. “It’s hotter than ever, I think. Oh, get off, Jessie!”

  “Mmm,” Kevin mumbled, looking up at the sky. “But there’s a lot of rain up there. It’s got to come down sooner or later. Anyway, I’m going now. I’ve got to help my dad.”

  Colin felt disappointed. He really liked Kevin O’Malley, and he was a much better companion than his cousin. Oliver was so slow, so pernickety, always stopping to inspect what he’d dug up and shouting bossily, “Hey! Don’t touch that! We’re not up to there yet.” He could be so babyish. Kevin had just grinned to himself and humoured him. After all, it was his hole.

  “Do you want to come with us? We’ve got some land on the high ground, the other side of Ballimagliesh. We’re cutting peat for the winter. You can give us a hand if you like.”

  Colin didn’t need to think twice. “OK. I’ll just check with my mother. Should I bring this?”

  “No. We’ve got special spades for that job. Do you want to come, Oliver?” Kevin called down the hole.

  “Oh, no,” Colin was thinking. But Oliver didn’t even look up.

  “No, thank you,” he said politely. “I’ve got some more work to do on this.”

  “It’s surely deep enough now?” Kevin said. “When I bring you the sacking, and that piece of corrugated iron, it’ll be a grand little den.”

  “Oh, let him get on with it,” Colin whispered, impatient to get away. “The rate he digs there’s not much danger of him shaking anybody’s foundations. We did most of the work this morning. Are you ready? I can come. My mother’s waiting in for the doctor.”

  Kevin shrugged. “All right. Goodbye now, Oliver.” He was thinking that the Blakeman boy hadn’t got much patience with his small cousin. He’d liked dens himself when he was little, especially when his father let him play in the bales and make one there after harvest. But he’d never actually dug himself a hole. It was a great idea that was, it took brains.

  Oliver may well be fussing over his hole like an old woman, but if you approached everything at top speed, like Colin, like a bull at a gate, you could miss a lot. You had to stop now and then, to work out what you’d done so far. That’s what his father always said.


  Take a den for example. Colin obviously hadn’t noticed something that Oliver thought was very important, something he’d only spotted in the last half hour. You could only see it properly if you looked into the hole from above, at a certain angle.

  Right in the middle, where he’d just been digging, someone must have dug once before. The soil was different, crumblier and lighter in colour, and there was a definite shape to it. It was a rough oval, about a metre across.

  It was a hole within a hole and it was directly above this that Oliver had unearthed the dog. Now he was uncovering handfuls of moist, peaty stuff, like black matting, with the shapes of twigs and leaves still visible in it.

  He’d put everything of importance in a black plastic rubbish sack under some bushes. The bones were in it, and the bits of pottery and the clay pipe. Only the treasures for Donal Morrissey were ready in their box, transferred to the pocket of his trousers.

  Auntie Jeannie was sitting at the kitchen table reading, with her back to the window. The baby was asleep presumably. He didn’t intend to disturb her, in case there were awkward questions. He scribbled, “Gone for a short walk,” on a scrap of paper and weighted it down with a stone. Jessie opened one eye as Oliver crept about. She was tied up again. It was the first time she’d not barked at him and she looked strangely listless. It must be the heat, he decided. Then he smiled at himself. He was saying it now. It was the Blakeman explanation for everything.

  But it was hot. He peeled off his sweater, left it neatly folded by the note, then started to walk rapidly along the track.

  The door of the caravan was propped open with an old broom and he saw an upturned yellow bucket next to it, crowned with a scrubbing brush. A pile of neatly cut new timbers lay close by, together with a collection of tools. The O’Malleys must think a lot of Donal Morrissey. They’d already started repairing the van and someone had been inside, washing the floor. The old man wouldn’t like that much; old people got agitated if you moved their things.

  There was nobody about but Oliver still looked round carefully before climbing up into the van. The vegetable patch was now a pathetic black square. The scorched remains of stalks and leaves lay twisted together on the ashy ground, and last night’s rain had turned everything tarry. His rubber soles made black, striped marks on the clean floor.

  The van was lighter inside and smelt much fresher. The tiny windows had been rubbed clean and the smelly dog blanket had disappeared. It was probably tumbling round in Mrs O’Malley’s washing machine by now. Donal wouldn’t like that either.

  He sat down on an old stool, took the little box from his pocket and put it in front of him on the table. Then he looked round. Mrs O’Malley certainly hadn’t cleaned the shelves, the piles of tins and boxes were so thickly furred with dust nobody could have touched them in years. But one of them was quite shiny; it was on its own in a corner, next to a cracked mug and some old pipes. It looked as if someone had polished it.

  Oliver went over and lifted it up. It was quite heavy and rattled. Very carefully he put it on the table and sat down again.

  His fingers itched. This would be the old man’s treasure box, where he kept all his precious, most private things. Mr Catchpole had one too, but it wasn’t as big as this. There was a brass lock, but when Oliver lifted the lid it gave way. He pushed it right back and looked inside. Whatever the box contained was hidden by folds of thick yellow newspaper. Oliver’s little finger played with one corner of it. He couldn’t stop now.

  Then a dog barked outside. Oliver pushed the box right away from him and stood up, but Donal Morrissey had swung himself up into the van before he could get through the door. The dog snarled, straining at the end of a short rope, and the old man stared at him in disbelief across the rickety table.

  Oliver, trembling and white-faced, was starting to sweat in the strange heat. Donal Morrissey’s eyes were bloodshot and bulging, weariness filled his crumpled, bony face. So the boy had come a second time, and he’d just walked all the way back from Father Hagan’s place in Ballimagliesh, to be on his own again, to have some peace.

  Oh, he didn’t blame him for starting the fire, not now the Father had explained it all to him. Donal thought the lad may well be a bit weak in the head. He’d been very ill apparently, perhaps it had affected him. There was a funny look in his eyes, and he was plainly terrified, twisting his fingers about, his thin shoulders shaking. Donal Morrissey pitied him. He wasn’t such an ogre. He’d seen a lot of things in his time, lived through most things.

  But even though he looked frightened, the boy sat down again and began to speak. His voice was loud and penetrating. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, he’d been rehearsing it all morning while he was digging.

  “Mr Morrissey,” he burst out, “I came to say that I’m very sorry about your van. It was a mistake. I was just trying to help you, that’s all, so you wouldn’t be without something to eat in the winter.”

  The old man went on staring at him. Then he noticed his box on the table. Eileen O’Malley must have polished it. She was welcome, she knew that box well. She’d sat on his knee many a time, in the old days, and played with some of the things inside.

  “Go home,” he said suddenly. “I know what you did. It doesn’t matter any more, boy. Go home, I’m telling you.” After the long walk his legs were starting to buckle underneath him. He was getting much weaker. He sat down abruptly, opposite Oliver.

  The boy’s mouth quivered. He put his little box into the old man’s hand. Donal’s words had been gentle enough but his voice was harsh, like rooks cawing. Oliver hated it. The man didn’t really believe he was sorry, and he was.

  All Donal Morrissey wanted at that moment was to be on his own with his old dog, to make his fire up, brew a mug of tea, and sit quietly in his own caravan. Now this strange boy had arrived, wanting to give him something.

  “This is for you. I often dig things up, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever found.” Wearily the old man reached out, took the box, opened it, and shook the contents into his hand. In his cracked palm lay a small, round, metal object, about the size of a walnut, stuck on to a bit of rotten wood. It rattled when he shook it.

  “I tried to clean a bit of it. I think it might be silver. There’s an initial on it, look, where I’ve rubbed.”

  The old man’s eyes were watering but he didn’t need to look at the initial, he’d seen something very like it many times before. On the flat side of the metal walnut someone had engraved a curly capital “M”.

  “And I found this with it.” Oliver took an old envelope from his pocket and removed something from it very carefully, with a finger and thumb, a scrap of purply-red material about five centimetres square. “There was quite a lot of this, but it all crumbled away when I touched it. There were some bits of wood too. Perhaps everything had been in a box.”

  The old man looked at the silver nut and the scrap of glowing silk for a long time, then he placed them on the lid of his treasure box with a shaking hand.

  “Where did you find these things?”

  “Where we’ve been digging. I’m making a den. It’s just outside the back door, at the bungalow.”

  “Was anyone else there?”

  “No. My two cousins came to help later but I didn’t show them. They think I’m stupid. Well, Colin does.”

  Oliver looked up into Donal Morrissey’s face. To his astonishment he saw that the old man’s eyes had tears in them. “You are not stupid,” he said. “And I like what you’ve brought me, I like it very much. But go home now, they’ll be missing you at the house, and I want to go to sleep.”

  As Oliver went through the door he clutched at him quite fiercely. “Promise me something, will you, boy? If you should find anything else like this bring it to me.”

  “Can I tell anybody?” Oliver didn’t think he’d want to tell, not for a minute, but it was as well to know what was allowed. There should always be rules about secrets like this, in his opinion.

  “Nobody at all,
I’m thinking,” the old man said firmly. “Unless it’s the priest. I’ll be showing Father Hagan this. You can tell him, surely.”

  Every night, when he got back from Danny’s Bar, Donal Morrissey set the contents of his box out on the filthy table. Today he didn’t wait for darkness. Before Oliver was halfway home he had lifted off the newspapers and taken out three things: a shabby black prayer book, a tattered square of dark red silk, and a baby’s rattle. The handle was apple-wood carved with tiny leaves, the top a hollow silver oval with a wavy initial carved on one side. He arranged them in front of him, next to Oliver’s present, then looked carefully from one to the other. Every time the box came out he gave that rattle a bit of a polish, and it was most nights now. Nobody came to see him these days, except the priest and John O’Malley.

  He shook the rattle and the noise made the dog bark suddenly. “Husht, will you,” and he nudged it gently with his foot. Then he unfolded his piece of silk and looked at the light through it, marvelling at the way the patterns bloodied the sky into flowing purples and strange reds.

  Chapter Twelve

  PRILL WOKE UP and found herself under a blanket on a hard sofa, next to a smoky fire. She’d come round once before when someone had dabbed her forehead with cold water and applied sticking plasters. Then she’d passed out again.

  Father Hagan sat opposite in a fat, over-stuffed chair, sucking on a pipe and looking straight at her. It was dark in the little room. Through the window she could see a neat cabbage patch and a square of thick yellow sky.