Black Harvest Read online

  “Is this your house?”

  “It is. You fainted in the shop, then you were sick. Do you remember? Lucky I was around. This house is just two doors past Mooneys’ Stores. So how are you feeling now, dear?”

  “All right.”

  It wasn’t true. She was feeling bilious and unbearably hot again. Where was her shopping bag and the precious bit of paper? She still hadn’t phoned her father.

  “We went for Dr Donovan, but he’s out on his rounds. Anyway, they tell me he’s calling on your mother later this afternoon to look at the baby. So he’ll see you too. Is the little one not very well then?”

  Prill found his gentle kindness quite unbearable, after all that had happened. “No,” she whispered. “No, she isn’t at all well,” and she started to cry.

  Something in the man’s face told her he would listen and try to understand. It was the same thing Dad had seen and wanted to paint. It was nothing to do with his being a priest, or with the simple crucifix hanging on the wall. She couldn’t say what it was exactly, she just knew he wouldn’t say her story was stupid, or all made up.

  Once the tears started she couldn’t stop them. Father Hagan heard everything from the beginning, how she’d disliked the bungalow the minute she’d set foot in it and how she hadn’t wanted Dad to leave them there. She told him about the strange smell on the beach, and about the mustiness in Colin’s room, and about her nightmares, that figure crawling across the blackened fields towards the house, and the wasted face looking in at her, the fact that Colin had seen the same face.

  Father Hagan sat up when she said this. So far he thought he could give explanations for everything she’d told him, but this was different. If the girl was feverish, with a high temperature, she could have imagined all kinds of things. But she was insisting that the brother had shared her dream. That was more difficult to explain away.

  Now she was telling him about the beggars on the road to Ballimagliesh. “I did see them,” she sobbed. “They asked me for money. The boy stuck his nails into my arm and it bled. Look, if you don’t believe me.” She pulled the blanket back to show him. All he could see was a slim, sunburnt arm, slightly freckled. Without thinking, he shook his head.

  This maddened Prill and she started to shout. She didn’t know whether she was crying or screaming. “It’s true. I don’t care what my arm looks like now. I did see them, and I saw the baby!”

  “Yes, well now, let’s talk about that, dear. In the shop, was it? Try to keep calm, Prill. It’s important to remember as much as you can. It will help you to talk about it.” She had certainly been very violent in Mooneys’ Stores. It wasn’t exactly a fainting fit. He had been waiting at the back of the queue and seen everything. It seemed to him that the girl had had some kind of hysterical attack. She had kept poking crazily at something a delivery man had left on the counter, a ham he thought it was. Now she was telling him it was a child, a corpse, left there by a poor woman in exchange for a loaf of bread. All he had seen was the girl herself, plunging about the floor in a wreckage of paint cans and broken glass.

  She raved on and on about the woman in the dream, and in the shop, but Father Hagan wasn’t really listening now, he was studying her face. She definitely looked ill. The sooner he got her back to her mother, so Michael Donovan could take a look at her, the better for everyone. Poor child.

  He rarely used his ancient car. It was a temperamental beast and he could do most of his journeys on a bicycle. But today it started first time. “Ah,” he said, with simple joy, “the grace of God.” He helped Prill to climb in. She was shivering now so he got a rug and tucked it round her. He planned to drive very slowly so they could talk.

  He said nothing till they were up the hill and out of Ballimagliesh, then he said tentatively, “Prill, dear, is this your first visit to Ireland?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you know anything about it, I’m wondering? Sure it’s a land rich in history, every stick and stone of it.”

  “Not much,” she said. “Oliver does, though. He knew all about the potato famine. His father teaches history, he made him read books about it before we came.”

  “Ah, yes. What about you, though? I’m just thinking, perhaps you’ve read something for yourself, have you, or watched a television programme? Might there be something you’ve seen that’s worried you – you know, stuck in your mind? That’s where our bad dreams come from, very often.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Well, not that I can remember.”

  Father Hagan decided to shift his ground slightly. “Tell me about your cousin Oliver.”

  “I don’t know very much. We don’t see him often. He’s only our second cousin, his mother’s Mum’s auntie. He’s adopted.”

  “And does he know who his parents were?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know that anyone does. Auntie Phyllis – that’s his mother – married Uncle Stanley when she was quite old, and after a while they fostered Oliver. They’ve adopted him now, I think.”

  Prill was hesitating. She didn’t think Father Hagan would approve of her private jokes with Colin, about Oliver being found by the swings in Battersea Park, or left on some hospital steps in a Sainsbury’s carton. But there was a mystery about him. She knew that because it was never discussed at home.

  “Why are you so interested in Oliver?” she said sharply.

  “Oh, nothing really… He’s an unusual little boy though, isn’t he, digging his hole and trying to save the old man’s potatoes? An individual, I’d say.” Father Hagan knew it sounded feeble. He couldn’t tell Prill what he felt about Oliver, or how disturbed he’d been at their first meeting. He didn’t understand it himself.

  It was five o’clock when the car bumped its way down the track and parked outside the bungalow, next to Oliver’s den. Mrs Blakeman was standing by the window looking out for them. Their phone was still dead but the farm was back on again, and Mrs O’Malley had been down to tell her Prill had fainted in Mooneys’ Stores and that Father Hagan was bringing her home.

  They had only been in the house ten minutes when a second car drew up outside and doors slammed. Then the bell was rung three times in quick succession. Mum tripped over the dog as she ran to answer it. Whoever it was had no time to waste.

  Dr Donovan didn’t wait to be asked inside. Father Hagan was in the hall, on his way out. The man just shoved past him rudely, muttering, “Now then, where is this child? Humph, don’t need to ask, do I? Just follow the screams. All right, all right, let’s have a look at you. Come on, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Send one of the boys along if you need me,” the priest whispered as he went through the front door. “I’ll not get in the doctor’s way. Don’t want him to think I’m interfering or anything.”

  When the bell rang, Colin, Oliver and Alison had been eating tea at the kitchen table. They all looked up when the elderly doctor appeared in the doorway, and all three disliked him on sight. So did Mrs Blakeman, so did Prill, and when he touched her, Alison set up a wailing loud enough to wake the dead.

  Under the table Jessie gave a sudden howl in sympathy. She seemed off colour again. Colin had persuaded her to eat her dinner but she’d been violently sick afterwards. It had upset them all. Everyone was fond of Jessie. Even Oliver had seemed concerned and offered advice. If Dr Donovan had been a bit kinder to Alison they might have asked him what was wrong. But the man was hopeless.

  They could all smell the drink on his breath. Colin watched him fumble with the catches on his case, wondering whether the way he lurched and staggered across the kitchen floor was the result of too many whiskies or just extreme old age. He looked nearer eighty than seventy and was almost as decrepit as Donal Morrissey.

  The baby screamed at the thermometer and screamed at the stethoscope. She went on screaming as the strange-smelling, whiskery old man inflicted his various cold instruments of torture upon her one by one.

  Mrs Blakeman had been waiting for this visit all day. She�
��d had plenty of time to prepare what she wanted to say, but one look at Dr Donovan and the words died on her lips. She doubted that he would listen to her, even when sober. He’d hardly looked at Alison and he was already putting his instruments away. There was no point in asking him to examine Prill. All he wanted was to get home.

  The truth was that the old man was well past making house calls on a sticky August day. He’d been dragged out of retirement because Dr O’Keefe was on holiday and the usual locum was ill. He’d had a long afternoon of difficult old women with imaginary aches and pains, neurotic mothers and snotty-nosed children.

  This baby’s temperature was normal, so was its pulse. It wasn’t refusing its food and its bowels were in order. Nothing wrong with this child that a bit of firm handling wouldn’t put right. The mother clearly spoiled it and was determined to worry. It was certainly on the thin side but that was all to the good. Fat babies were unhealthy.

  He dumped two bottles of medicine on the kitchen table. “The pink – give her a couple of spoonfuls at bedtime if she’s playing up. The white – that’s for stomach upsets…warm weather…you never know, may just be hatching a little bug. Come up to the surgery in a couple of days, if you’re still not happy about her.” Dr Donovan’s pinched, lopsided face had a glassy look. It plainly said, “Don’t you dare”. Then he added, “She’ll be as right as rain tomorrow.”

  In less than two minutes he was weaving his way up the track. Helplessly, Mrs Blakeman watched him go. “That’s that then,” she said blankly, going back into the kitchen and flopping down at the table. “He wasn’t much help, was he? Mrs O’Malley did warn me.”

  “Wonder how many drinks he’d had?” Colin said darkly. Alison was still grizzling but more quietly now, more as a matter of routine. She was as pleased to see the back of Dr Donovan as everybody else.

  Prill looked at the pink bottle, unscrewed the cap, and sniffed. “I know what this is. It’s only baby aspirin in a kind of syrup. This is no good.”

  “I know, I know,” her mother said wearily. “It’s just happy juice. You both had it as babies. All it did was knock you out for a bit, so Dad and I could get some sleep. It doesn’t really cure anything.”

  “What are we going to do, Mum?” Colin asked. “And what about Jessie? You said you’d ask him about her.”

  “I know,” Mrs Blakeman said wearily. “But how could I? Oh, I just don’t know. Perhaps Mr O’Malley’s got something we could dose her with, but I don’t like to keep running up there. I must speak to your father tomorrow. Somebody’s got to have a phone that works. Surely the whole of Ireland can’t be cut off? Anyway, I think I’ll have a bath. Can you cope with Alison, between you? I don’t think I can stand much more of her today.”

  She would have a good long soak, and a think. Then she’d make another pot of tea. When in doubt, have a bath and a cup of tea. She knew the baby would start yelling the minute she went through the door, but she still shut it firmly. Then she locked herself in the bathroom. There were now two closed doors and the running taps between her and the baby.

  Prill had been watching Oliver closely. He obviously couldn’t stand it when Alison cried. For a while he stared at her intently, his face white and tense, his strange, large eyes goggling, then he stood up suddenly, unstrapped her from the high chair and took her in his arms.

  “I hate it when she cries, Prill, I just can’t stand it,” he whispered, walking round and round the kitchen table, making soothing noises. His shoulders were shaking. Prill looked at Colin but he just shrugged in embarrassment.

  She went up to them. His face was hidden against Alison’s sticky babygro, but she knew he was crying. “Oliver, don’t. It’s all right, honestly. She cries a lot sometimes. Don’t get upset.”

  “I can’t bear it somehow.”

  “Look,” Colin said, trying to be practical. “We’ve got these now, this stuff may do the trick.” But nobody believed him. He didn’t believe it himself.

  To everyone’s surprise Alison had stopped crying. She began making little cooing noises and pulling at Oliver’s hair. “Huh, she won’t shut up for me,” Colin said enviously. But he was glad really. Oliver went up half a notch in his estimation, he was gentle with Alison.

  They all sat round the table with the baby on Oliver’s knee. He rubbed his eyes. “I think your mother should take her to a hospital,” he said firmly.

  Prill was shocked. “But why, Oll? What could they do? Don’t you think it’s just a mood she’s in? I mean, she’s not got a high temperature, and she’s eating.”

  “I think she may be starving.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s just ridiculous,” Colin exploded.

  “No it isn’t,” Oliver said patiently. “There is an illness, I don’t know what it’s called and it’s very rare, when whatever you eat doesn’t do you any good. It’s something to do with your blood and things. You just lose weight, and—”

  “And what?”

  “What happens if they can’t get you better?” Prill asked anxiously.

  “You die.”

  “Oh, how on earth can that be right?” Colin was shouting. “How on earth do you know that?” But he was frightened.

  Oliver was maddeningly calm. “Don’t forget my mother was a nurse. She’s treated all kinds of people. When she worked on the intensive care unit at St Thomas’s—”

  “Yes, well, don’t let’s go into that,” Colin said curtly, “you’ve said enough for one day.”

  Prill was looking at Alison. “You’ve certainly done the trick with her, Oll, she’s actually smiling.”

  He was pleased. “Do you think she likes me?” He didn’t seem to notice how she was bending his fingers back, or making a wet patch on his knees.

  “Seems to.” In spite of everything, Prill was feeling better. They had misjudged Oliver, saying he was babyish, having quiet sniggers behind his back. Just in these last few minutes he seemed to have come over to their side. If her mother did go off tomorrow to find another doctor, it was reassuring to think of Oliver being there. The thought of it actually comforted her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT WAS VERY hot when they went to bed, but there was thunder around and no one could sleep. Colin and Prill lay sweating under damp sheets, and all the doors and windows were open to bring the temperature down. Oliver was in his usual cocoon of bedding, breathing steadily, with his face to the wall. Colin envied him, not knowing he was wide awake listening to Alison crying.

  They were all hungry. Prill had brought nothing back from Mooneys’ Stores so Mrs Blakeman had made do with what was left, three very small eggs, a heel of bread, and the rest of the frozen chips. After that there were two wrinkled apples to share out. Colin was ravenous. He’d always said it looked disgusting but he really believed he could have eaten a jar of Alison’s baby food. The only other food in the house was dog meat, about a dozen tins of it, in one of the kitchen cupboards. Because of Jessie’s lack of interest the supply was going down extremely slowly.

  Oliver wasn’t thinking about meals. Under the bedclothes his hands were clapped over his ears again, anything to muffle the baby’s crying. It could never have been as bad as this before. Auntie Jeannie was forever getting up, walking about with her and going back to bed again. He did feel sorry for her.

  At one in the morning a storm broke over the bungalow. The thunder was ear-splitting and as it rolled and crashed over the sky the baby cried quite hopelessly, and louder than ever. Prill didn’t like storms either and the rain was coming into her room. She got up and closed the windows. The lightning was like an arc lamp, splashing the small field with a second’s jagged light before it plunged her back into the hot, airless dark.

  The field was empty. The picture of that wasted, ragged creature clawing soil into her mouth then wordlessly screaming at her, close at hand, was carved deeply into Prill’s memory. But Father Hagan could be right. She did have a vivid imagination; Mrs Pollock was always telling her that in English lessons. Perhaps
that, and the feverishness, and something she’d read… But Prill could no longer distinguish between what she actually saw and heard and the strange tricks her mind was playing on her. So much had happened.

  The baby’s pain was real enough. They were all awake and they all heard it. As the storm raged over their heads, that voice said everything. Their fear was in it, and their pain, and their sense of loneliness. Oliver found it unbearable. He felt he might suddenly get up and quietly strangle Alison if she didn’t stop crying, and yet he wanted to comfort her too. It was the most heartrending cry he had ever heard.

  When daylight came Colin got up first, feeling very light-headed. It was the effect of sleeplessness and very little food. Instinctively he made his way to the kitchen for something to eat, but someone was there already. The door was open a crack, and he could hear noises.

  Something told him not to burst in so he nudged the door open with his foot. He could hear Alison growling bad-temperedly. “Na… na…” she was moaning, and pushing a spoon away from her mouth. Then he heard his mother’s voice. She was crying.

  Colin stepped back. He’d only seen her in tears once before, when Grandpa Blakeman died; they had been very fond of each other. Now he was appalled, not because he thought mothers had no right to cry, but because of what it meant, here, in this strange house, all on their own, without his father.

  She had become a different person in the last few days. Dad was the moody one, given to fits of bad temper and the occasional rage. Mum was much calmer. She always coped in a crisis.

  But now she was withdrawing from them; she seemed unable to make her mind up about anything. One minute she was all for getting Dad back, the next she was off the idea and seemed perfectly happy to stay where she was. All yesterday she had sat in the kitchen while Alison screamed the place down, waiting for a hopeless doctor who may, or may not, turn up. There was a limpness about her. It was almost as if she was past caring.

  Colin went back to his bedroom, pulled some clothes on, and crept outside. But she heard the front door click. “Where are you going, Colin?” she called out. “It’s only half past six.”