Black Harvest

by

Ann Pilling

illustrated by
David Wyatt

For E. I. C.

1916–1963

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Postscript

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“CAN YOU STOP the car? I’m going to be sick,” moaned Oliver.

“Not again,” Prill muttered, under her breath. It was the third time since Dublin.

Mr Blakeman pulled off the road, slammed the brakes on, and jumped out, grabbing Oliver and steering him towards a clump of grass. The sudden jolt had woken the baby and she was wriggling in her mother’s arms, making the dry-throated complaining noise that was usually followed by a great bawl. By now she must be both hungry and wet. Before too long they’d have to stop yet again and get the nappies out. They were never going to reach Dr Moynihan’s bungalow at this rate.

From the front seat Colin sneaked a quick look at his cousin. This car business was getting ridiculous. Nobody could help being sick, but by now Oliver couldn’t have anything left to be sick with. It was all in his mind.

“Please would you move up?” the small boy said to Prill. There was plenty of room but she still slid over towards her mother, leaving a strip of seat between them. Oliver’s large pale eyes inspected it carefully, then he bent down and lifted a pile of books back on to his bony knees, hugging them to his chest as if to ward off blows.

Colin and Prill had looked at the books last night, in the Dublin hotel. Most of them were about bugs and beetles, and there was one about Ireland too. Mr Blakeman was impressed.

“Your cousin’s obviously been doing his homework,” he said. “Look at all these… insects… mosses… The Land and People of Ireland… This is what you two should have been doing. When you’re going to spend a month in a place like Ballimagliesh, it’s as well to know something about it.”

Prill was cross. Dad didn’t often sound like a schoolteacher, even though he was one. Anyway, she’d been too busy practising for her Gold Award down at the swimming pool to do much reading, and Colin had only just come back from the school camp.

Oliver’s books smelt peculiar. They weren’t new, with shiny coloured jackets, but musty and faded, and they all had Uncle Stanley’s name in the front. That smell had taken Colin right back into his early childhood, to a place in London, a tall, thin house, in a terrace near the River Thames. He could remember a gloomy front door with the paint peeling, and dark corridors inside, where old men and women came and went silently, like ghosts. He could remember the smell of cabbage and brisk Aunt Phyllis, who looked after elderly people, pouring tea with one arm and jiggling a squalling child with the other – Oliver, the ugliest baby he’d ever seen.

Three-year-old Prill had spent her time scowling at her aunt because she insisted on calling her Priscilla, Uncle Stanley had ticked Colin off for sliding on the hall lino, and from their flat at the top of the house that ugly baby had never stopped yelling. Now it was nearly ten years old and coming with them on holiday to Ballimagliesh.

It was the first time Oliver had been away from home without his parents. He’d had glandular fever and missed two months of school. He was extremely thin. He moved slowly and his eyes watered. “Don’t forget to wear a vest,” his mother had reminded him, shutting the car door. The Blakemans didn’t have a vest between them, and who wore one in August anyway? Oliver had carefully arranged his beetle books on his knees and stared at them with cold suspicion. In their bones Colin and Prill knew that it wasn’t going to work, bringing him on holiday.

Their mother changed Alison in sight and sound of the sea. She spread an old bath towel out on the grass, and the baby kicked its chubby legs and gurgled while the Atlantic shimmered at them in a blue haze, only fields away.

“What a spot to choose!” Dad said. “Could we borrow your binoculars, Oliver? I think we can see the bungalow from here.”

Colin was the first to locate it. He focused on a group of farm buildings then followed a track past a huddle of stunted trees out of which smoke was curling. Between this and the sea’s edge was a long, low building, glaring white.

“It’s terribly new,” Prill said, disappointed. On the way down from Dublin they had driven past so many old cottages, some of them thatched, with wild gardens and hens scratching about, and cats lying on the roof. She didn’t fancy a month in a brand-new house.

“It was finished quite recently, I think. Dr Moynihan’s only stayed in it once himself, and they’re still digging into the hill to make a garage.”

Colin still had the binoculars. “Yes, I can see a concrete mixer and a pile of sand.”

“I wish you were staying too, Dad,” Prill said, feeling unsettled suddenly. “I wish you weren’t going straight back.”

“If the painting goes well I’ll come and join you, but I must make the most of the time with Dr Moynihan. I dare say he’ll be going back to America in a few weeks anyway, he never stays in one place for very long.”

David Blakeman was an art teacher who really wanted to paint. Colin couldn’t actually remember a time when he’d not painted, in the ramshackle sun-room built on to the back of the house. Those were the times he was happy, shut away for hours at weekends and emerging for the odd cup of tea, humming to himself. He liked painting people best. He’d done several drawings of friends’ children, but nobody had paid him very much for them.

“You’re too soft,” his wife was always telling him. “Your work’s really good.” But he usually shrugged and said nothing. Then, last summer term, he’d had a blazing row with the headmaster at school. It was all to do with timetables. He stormed home and said he was throwing his job up. He hadn’t, of course. The Blakemans were short of money and Mum was having a baby. But when the holidays started he cleared out the sun-room, prepared a large canvas, and started an oil painting of Colin and Prill.

Everyone who saw it said it was the best thing he’d ever done. The chairman of the local art group persuaded him to send it to London, and it was hung in an important exhibition. They were all pleased and for a while Dad was more cheerful than he had been for ages. But eventually the excitement fizzled out. He started to think about the new term at Horwood Comprehensive, and gloom settled down on him again.

Then, just before Christmas, a man came to see him on behalf of a Dr Peter Moynihan, an American industrialist with offices in New York and Amsterdam, and a home in Dublin. He’d seen the portrait of Colin and Prill in London and made enquiries about the artist. A month later, at a meeting of his directors, it was agreed that David Blakeman should be commissioned to paint Dr Moynihan and the portrait was to hang in the company’s main office, in New York.

Dad said it was a minor miracle. He resisted the temptation to give his job up but he privately hoped that in a couple of years he might be able to paint full-time. The summer was to be spent in Dublin, working on the portrait, and meanwhile Dr Moynihan had offered the rest of the family the use of his second home.

“It’s barely finished,” he explained on the phone. “But I’d like it lived in. It’s near the sea and I think they’d find it comfortable. If you would like to think about it…”

Would they! Money was tight and the Blakemans hadn’t had a holiday for three years. The sun beat down as Dad steered slowly down a bumpy track that left the main road and plunged through a patchwork of tiny fields towards the sea.

It was a superb position for a house and they all poked their heads out of the windows for a better view. Everyone was excited, except Oliver. Jessie, the Blakemans’ dog, was barking wildly in the back, and Alison had started whimpering again. Oliver didn’t like dogs or babies. Both were noisy and had strange smells. In fact, he was definitely unsure about the whole thing. And that made three of them.

The bungalow was the lightest place Prill had ever been in. Large windows on all sides looked out over the cliffs and the sea, and on the small fields behind. All the paint was white, the colours cool, the bedspreads and curtains sandy browns and fawns.

Colin and Prill went from room to room, peering in at the shining interiors. Nearly everything looked and smelt brand new, though the chairs and sofas were rather angular and uncomfortable. The pale walls were hung with very modern paintings; there was a locked glass cabinet in the main sitting-room, full of porcelain figures, and a collection of old snuff-boxes on a glass-topped table in the hall.

It was the most luxurious house they had ever set foot in, like a film-set or something featured in a magazine. No wonder Dr Moynihan had fussed about everything being locked up when they went out. Mum plonked the grizzling baby down on a thick, cream-coloured carpet, then thought better of it and carried her off to the kitchen.

“How fabulous!” Dad said, looking at the enormous fridge, and the dishwasher, and the automatic washing machine. “You can sit at this table, eating your cornflakes, looking at the sea, with all these machines whizzing round…”

“I suppose this is what people mean by a dream kitchen?” Prill said flatly, thinking about their own small, dark one at home.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But I thought it was going to be an old house.” She rubbed at her neck. She was feeling itchy, and sticky all over. “It’s awfully hot, Dad. Have they left the central heating on, by mistake?”

He was leaning against a radiator. “No. This is quite cold. It’s a hot day. Why don’t you go and have a look round outside?”

As Prill trailed off through the back door, Dad noticed how red the baby was. “Is she all right, Jeannie?” he said. “Do you think she’s running a temperature? Hope she’s not going to play up while I’m away.”

“Oh, it’s the car journey. She’ll settle down.”

Mrs Blakeman felt the baby’s forehead. “Mm. She is hot, you’re right. Still, it’s a warm day. I thought it was always supposed to rain in Ireland? Look at that sky! I think we’re in for a heatwave.”

Chapter Two

OLIVER WAS TO share a bedroom with Colin. Without consulting anybody he got his case out of the car, lugged it inside, and started to unpack. Jessie kept leaping up at him and barking. He flapped his hands at her nervously.

“She’s a stupid dog,” Colin explained, realizing he was quite frightened. Jessie was nearly as big as Oliver. “She just wants to play. When people don’t want her she never seems to get the message. It just makes her worse.”

“Do you think she’s educationally subnormal?” Oliver said solemnly, pronouncing the long words very slowly.

“Dunno. Don’t think she’d get any O levels. Well, that’s what my dad says.”

Then the dog crashed into a table and sent a lamp flying. ‘Jessie!” Colin shouted. The snuff-boxes would have to be put vay or the whole lot would be dashed to smithereens. He took her outside and tied her to the concrete mixer. “Stay there, daft dog, till I’ve unpacked. Then I’ll take you for a walk.”

Oliver’s side of the bedroom was soon beautifully neat and tidy. His books were arranged on a shelf, his bed was made, a pair of winceyette pyjamas lay neatly folded on his pillow.

“Shouldn’t think you’d need those, Oliver, it’s so hot.”

Colin was sweating. He’d already stripped down to his shorts and kicked his sneakers off, and even the carpet felt warm. Oliver looked distastefully at his bare feet. “I’m not hot.”

He went on reading his book. He was wearing both socks and shoes, thick trousers and a shirt with a light sweater over it. Underneath that lot he no doubt wore thermal underwear. Colin was irritated. Oliver looked so cool, while he had a raging thirst and was sweating like a pig.

Then somebody tapped on the window. Oliver spun round and Colin nearly dropped his precious camera. A big red face was looking in at them and smiling.

Colin tried to open one of the panes but it was stuck. The person outside, a very fat man, with a clerical collar and a dusty black suit, pointed a plump finger and mouthed, “Front door. I couldn’t make anyone hear.”

“Oh, OK. Hang on,” Colin mouthed back, and went out into the hall. Oliver slipped a marker carefully into his book, placed it on top of the pyjamas, and followed silently.

“You just have the two boys, then?” the priest was saying, perched precariously on a kitchen stool. Mrs Blakeman was opening cupboard doors, looking for cups and saucers so she could make a cup of tea.

“Oh no, this one’s ours,” Dad explained. “Oliver’s a cousin.”

“Second cousin,” the small clear voice said emphatically. “By adoption.” He was staring at the fat clergyman, thinking he looked like Friar Tuck.

“Yes, yes of course,” the man said hurriedly. There was so little resemblance. The older boy had coarse ginger curls, green eyes and skin like a speckled brown egg. He was tall and well built and looked like a footballer. The cousin was small and scrawny with lank black hair and rather bulging blue eyes that stared at him out of a thin white face.

Father Hagan returned the stare, then smiled, before dropping his eyes. Something in the boy’s face made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t for the life of him say what it was.

“There are two more,” Dad was saying. “Our daughter Priscilla and a baby. She’s just six months old. They’ve gone down to the sea for a bit of air, Prill wasn’t feeling too good. It’s the long car journey, I expect.”

“You won’t have met old Donal yet, will you?”

“Donal? Er, no. We’ve only been here a couple of hours.”

“Well, you’ll see him around. But it’s as well to be warned. Sure he’s a good soul, Donal Morrissey, salt of the earth. But he’s got to that stage when the smallest change upsets him.”

“Does he live nearby then?”

“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

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.

“Well, we were warned,” Colin pointed out. “He’s obviously got a thing about strangers. The builders must have really upset him, then a great red setter comes out of the blue and knocks him flying. Dad’s right about Jessie, she has got a screw loose.”

“A dog like that should have been painfully destroyed at birth,” Oliver said suddenly. There was a dreadful silence. Colin looked at him in disbelief and Prill’s mouth dropped open.

“That’s a cruel thing to say… a really terrible thing.” She wanted to cry, and Colin felt like hitting him. The two children loved Jessie; she was their best friend.

“It’s a joke… only a joke…” Oliver stammered. “It’s what my father says sometimes, about really awful pupils, you know.”

They could imagine. Uncle Stanley was a teacher too. According to Dad he had a dry, sarcastic sense of humour, and sometimes reduced the boys in his school to tears. Colin stood up and said firmly, “Come here, Jessie.” The dog came, like a lamb, and he fastened the lead on.

“If it hadn’t been for you it would never have happened,” Prill said. “You knew perfectly well that wasn’t the way down to the beach. You just wanted to spy on him. I’d have thought you’d have had enough of old people, living with them all the time.”

“Oh, let’s get moving,” Colin snapped. “I want a swim.”

They set off down the track, but Oliver stayed where he was, staring after them.

“Hurry up, can’t you?”

“I’m not coming. I’m going back to the bungalow.”

“Mum did say we had to keep an eye on him,” Prill whispered, then she shouted back, “Oh, come on, Oll, don’t sulk.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Leave him,” Colin said impatiently. “Even he can’t get lost between here and the house. We’ll have a better morning without him, anyway.”

Oliver had no intention of going home. As soon as the other two had dropped out of sight he walked quickly back along the path, into the trees. His watch said twelve noon, the time the old man went for his daily think at Danny’s Bar in Ballimagliesh. He’d heard that priest telling Uncle David. “Never misses a day, regular as clockwork,” he’d said.

From his hiding place he watched Donal Morrissey leave the van and walk off up the field with his dog at his heels. He moved quite quickly for such an old man, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a ragged overcoat, a squashed green hat on his head. Oliver could hear him muttering as he walked past the neat little pyramids of peat blocks, stacked up to dry all along the track.

When he was out of sight the boy crept out and went up to the van. He pushed at the door and it swung inwards slowly. Oliver went in.

It was dark and hot inside the caravan, and very smelly. He detected a dog, and dirty clothes, and food that should have been thrown away. Something else too, a sharp scent, slightly sweet, the peat the old man was burning on his stove. Mother had said you never forgot the smell of it. She’d lived in Ireland once.

In the middle of the floor was a table, a chair, and a filthy dog blanket. All round him cardboard cartons were stacked up to the roof, and he could see junk heaped in corners, broken furniture and bags of rubbish, old biscuit tins, rusty tools. It looked like a rag-and-bone man’s yard.

The mess didn’t surprise Oliver. At home his favourite resident, Mr Catchpole, lived in a room just like this, with a kind of nest in the middle for his bed and television set. Everywhere else was stuffed with rubbish, except that Oliver and Mr Catchpole knew it wasn’t rubbish. It was the story of his life. All his eighty-three years were stacked up in boxes in that bedroom on the second floor. Memories mattered to old people, that’s why they kept things.

The smell in the van was making him feel ill. He was dying to have a look in the biscuit tins but he felt queasy, so he climbed down the van steps again and took a few breaths of fresh air.

On the sea side of the van there was a tiny patch of garden. The neat rows of vegetables were a strange contrast with the mess inside. Perhaps someone from the farm helped him. According to that priest, the O’Malleys thought a lot of Donal Morrissey. He had worked for the family for years and years.

Suddenly Oliver noticed something moving on the bright green potato leaves and bent down for a closer look. One of the plants was a mass of small stripy insects. He felt in his pocket for his little magnifying glass then remembered he’d left it in the bedroom. But he did have a matchbox. Very carefully he picked a couple of the beetles off a leaf and shut them inside.

He walked up and down the rows of vegetables stopping to turn leaves over and inspect the stalks. Something was attacking Donal Morrissey’s potato crop. The striped creatures had eaten great holes in the leaves, and what remained was covered with dark pink grubs. There would be tens of thousands by the end of the summer, unless something was done about it.

When he stood up again he spotted someone waving at him a couple of fields away. It was Kevin O’Malley, the curly-haired boy from the farm who’d brought the milk that morning. He’d tell him about it. He might know about spraying crops.

Then he thought better of it. This was something he could tackle on his own. He knew quite a bit about natural history from his father, more than those Blakemans, with their swimming and their athletics. They thought he was weedy anyway. And he didn’t like the way they’d talked about the old man; Prill had said he was mad.

Oliver suddenly thought of something. He knelt down again, gritted his teeth, and grasped one of the plants hard, shaking off the insects as they ran over his fingers. He pulled it out of the earth. It wasn’t exactly stealing, all that came out of the ground were some shrivelled skins, a bit like large raisins. Poor Donal Morrissey.

Kevin O’Malley waved again, and shouted something, but Oliver pretended not to hear. He slipped the matchbox into his pocket and, holding the potato plant at arm’s length, started to walk rapidly in the direction of the bungalow.

Chapter Four

COLIN WOKE UP and clicked his light on. It was two in the morning. Oliver slept peacefully in the other bed, his warm pyjamas buttoned right up to the neck. But his face looked cool.

Colin was red hot. He wore nothing but thin cotton trousers and these, like his bedding, were soaked with sweat. He felt unwell, horribly warm and rather dizzy, and there were griping pains in his stomach, like the pangs of hunger, though he’d had a big meal quite late in the evening.

Prill was right, there was a funny smell about this place. She had told him about it that morning, how she’d gone along the beach looking for a dead animal, the stench was so overpowering.

Colin had been doubtful. Prill did sometimes get odd ideas into her head. She had a wild imagination. Now and then her English compositions were quite fantastic. He was more down to earth. “Uninspired” was usually scrawled across his essay.

“What kind of smell?” he’d wanted to know.

“Rich, but sickly. Rotten, yet sweet somehow. It really turned my stomach.”

“Was it like pigs?”

They both laughed at this. Dad had once booked a country holiday for them in a bed and breakfast place that had turned out to be a pig farm. Pigs had a very strong, sweetish smell, a bit like sugar boiling, a bit like hops in a brewery. They’d all smelt of pigs, all holiday.

The bedroom window had been stuck fast with paint, and Dad had prised it open with a screwdriver. But now Colin shut it again, anything to get rid of that smell. If it was fertiliser they’d used an awful lot of it. Perhaps the O’Malleys were making up for lost time, with Dr Moynihan’s money.

He sat down again, his head swimming; the foul smell was still there, though fainter. He felt himself falling forwards and put his hands out flat, to steady himself. The bedclothes were sodden. He stood up and felt them; pillows, sheets and stripy cover were all very damp, almost wet. The sweat of one boy couldn’t have caused all that.

And there was something else. At the risk of waking Oliver he switched the main light on. He had to be sure. Mixed with the farmyard smell there was a mustiness in the room that reminded him of a cellar, and it was coming from his bed. Then he saw why. The edges of his sheets and pillowcase were softly edged with grey, and a greenish fuzz was starting to form in patches over them.

He put out a shaky hand and touched it. The cobwebby strands fell away and became a green cloud, dispersing slowly into the clammy air. It was decay.

Just for a second Colin felt like screaming. Some strange atmospheric condition must be causing all this heat and stench, making a mould form on everything in the room. What he needed was a gust of cold fresh air. He ought to fling the windows wide open, but he just couldn’t bear that smell from the fields.

At least he could open the door. He stumbled past Oliver’s bed and stubbed his toe on something hard. The sudden pain made him plump down abruptly on to the carpet. His cousin turned over, muttered a jumble of words, but slept on. Colin pulled out something that Oliver had been trying to hide with his bedspread. It was a large glass bottle, the kind used for making home-brewed beer; Mum had discovered six of them at the back of a kitchen cupboard. Oliver had filled the bottle with green leaves, already chewed to tatters by some striped insects that were crawling about inside. There were dozens of them.

Colin didn’t like beetles much. He noticed with relief that the top of the container was firmly corked and sealed, but in a way the mad activity of the tiny creatures gorging on potato plants in the middle of the night made him feel less panic-stricken. So this was what Oliver had been up to in the afternoon, creeping around secretively, even more silent than usual, shutting himself up in the bedroom with his insect books. What on earth was he playing at?

His face was very close to Oliver’s bedspread. It too felt damp. There was no sign of the green must he’d found in his half of the room, but he could still smell the mouldiness, mixed up with that sickening rotten smell.

He knew he would be awake till daylight came so he opened the door and lay down flat on the strip of carpet between the beds, taking slow, deep breaths, trying desperately to calm himself. Having the door open made no difference at all. Heat hit him in the face like the sting of boiling water. He lay there in panic, hating everyone in the house for being fast asleep.

Prill was asleep, but dreaming. The small green field that sloped away from her window had turned into a vast sweep of dark earth and it was raining. She knew it was autumn, from the trees.

In the distance someone was moving about, not walking upright but crawling over the soil, like an animal trying to reach its hole. In the dream Prill didn’t move, but suddenly the scene was jerked nearer and she could see everything clearly, right up against her face. The field was planted with some crop that was rotting as it grew. The stalks were bright green but the leaves had turned slimy and dark. The whole field was black, as if a fire had swept over it.

The crawling figure was a woman, with arms and legs like sticks. She moved painfully, rooting among the scorched leaves, clawing at the soil, putting what looked like clods of earth into her mouth then spewing them out on to the slime of the furrows.

Prill closed her eyes, willing the picture to go away, but when she opened them the woman was outside the window, her mouth open in a scream and the wet soil dripping out of it. Her ridged yellow fingernails plucked at the pane, and Prill saw her face, with its high, domed forehead, its cloud of reddish hair, the prominent cheeks from which all the flesh had dropped away.

She was crying out, but Prill heard nothing. She was helpless, cut off, sealed away behind a thick wall of glass through which the woman moved and implored her, bobbing and jerking about like some ghastly marionette.

She shouted in her sleep and woke up suddenly. She was out of bed and standing by the open window breathing in great lungfuls of air. It was getting light. The small green field was misty, the air fresh and cool. The countryside and sea were very peaceful in the early dawn.

In the quietness she heard a light click on and then the baby started crying. She had been yelling on and off all night. Prill went down the hall to the kitchen and found Colin there, talking to his mother. He wore nothing except his blue pyjama trousers and his face looked hot. Mum had just stuck a thermometer into his mouth. She looked relieved to see Prill.

“Oh, hello, love. So you couldn’t sleep either. Now we’re all awake, except Oliver. I’ll have to get a doctor to look at Alison. She’s only had about two hours’ sleep all night. Just look at her.”

She looked. The baby wasn’t pink, like Colin, she was turkey red and her whole body was tense. Prill picked her up and tried to slip a finger into the tiny hand; she loved it when the little fingers curled tightly round her own. But Alison wouldn’t respond. Both her hands were clenched up into hard little knots, and she was wailing.

“Has she been eating?”

“Yes. That’s what I don’t understand. It’s not as if she’s hungry. How can she be?”

“Perhaps she’s got what I’ve got,” Colin mumbled, removing the thermometer and reading it. “I feel most odd. Oh, that’s funny. My temperature’s not up, Mum.”

The electric kettle clicked off. “Let’s have some tea,” Mrs Blakeman said wearily. “When in doubt have a cup of tea.” She was trying to sound cheerful but Prill wasn’t fooled, she looked so tired and strained, not a bit like her usual self. She didn’t panic easily. “Do you drink Oliver would like some?”

“Oh, he’s still dead to the world,” Colin said. “I should think he’s the only one who’s had a good night’s sleep, lucky devil!”

Prill took the milk jug out of the fridge. The smell made her wrinkle her nose up. “Ugh! We can’t use this, Mum. It’s off.”

“It can’t be. The O’Malley boy brought it straight up from their dairy. It was chilled. Anyway, I used it at supper, Oliver had some Ovaltine.”

“Well, it’s off now.”

Colin took the large brown jug and sniffed, then he carried it to the sink and looked more closely under the electric strip light. The contents of the jug had solidified completely, they were now greyish, and a fine hair was forming on the thick, wrinkled skin.

He upturned the jug into the sink and a slimy gel plopped out on to the stainless steel. There was a sharp, bitter smell.

“It must be the fridge,” Mum said, more concerned about the whimpering baby. “Perhaps there’s a lemon. We could have that with our tea.”

“The fridge light’s on,” Colin said numbly. “And the motor’s going, listen. It’s working all right.” In the quietness they could hear the motor humming gently.

“This fridge is brand new,” Prill pointed out. “Look, they’ve not even taken the label off it.”

Colin carefully washed the stinking mess down the sink. Prill came up and looked over his shoulder. “I wish Dad was here,” he muttered, out of the side of his mouth so Mrs Blakeman couldn’t hear him. “I think Alison looks awful.”

Prill was trying to convince herself that the woman outside the window had been a nightmare. She did not succeed, no more than Colin succeeded in persuading himself that he’d imagined that fuzzy growth on his pillow.

“It’s this house,” she whispered back. “I wish we’d never come.”

Chapter Five

BUT AS THE earth warmed up and birds started singing, Alison, exhausted by her night’s bawling, fell asleep abruptly in her mother’s arms. Mum crept to the kitchen door and mouthed, “I’m going back to bed for a bit.”

“Good idea. I’m going too,” Prill told Colin. “I feel as if I’ve been awake all night.” She was thinking, Dad’ll be phoning at ten o’clock and I’m going to ask him to come back. I can’t bear it here.

Colin sat in the kitchen for a few minutes, looking out over the sea. He felt quite cold suddenly, but it was going to be another beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in sight and the stillness in the air promised another scorcher. He still had hunger pains so he made himself some toast and another mug of lemon tea. Then he found the sleeping bag that Dad had stuffed under the stairs, unrolled it over the damp mattress and fell soundly asleep.

At eight o’clock they were all still sleeping, except Oliver. He got up at seven, dressed stealthily, and crept round the kitchen looking for something to eat. Jessie whined and nosed at his feet. He refilled her bowl with fresh water, holding it at arm’s length in case she bit him. He was frightened of dogs. Then he went outside, selected a spade, and started to dig his hole. His uncle David had told Colin on the phone that he was allowed to dig, provided he left the earth in a tidy pile.

The other two didn’t get up again till half past ten and by then Colin was ravenous. He sat at the kitchen table eating cornflakes, toast, eggs and bacon. All the windows were wide open. They could hear Oliver scraping away at his hole and talking to Kevin O’Malley who’d walked down with the milk. Mixed with the smell of fields was the tang of the sea.

“There’s not much wrong with you,” Prill said. “I don’t know how you can eat all that.”

“I was hungry,” Colin said simply. “It woke me up in the night.”

“Was that all that woke you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were in the kitchen at five o’clock.”

“So were you.”

They stared at each other, Prill with a look that said, “You first”. Colin pressed his lips together. Prill was nervous sometimes. When they were little he used to get into awful rows for jumping out at her and making spooky noises. She still slept with the landing light on.

“What was the matter?” she asked him.

He hesitated.

“Come on, Colin!” her voice was strained, almost angry. It wasn’t like Prill. He was supposed to be the moody one.

“Well, it sounds so stupid… It was weird. I woke up because I was too hot, and my bed felt terribly damp, and… there was a kind of, well, mould all over it.”

“Mould?”

“Yes, honestly, and it smelt peculiar too, horribly musty.”

She stood up. “Show it to me.”

“It’s no good, Prill, not now. Sit down, will you? I can’t. It wasn’t there when I woke up just now. Everything had, well, you know, gone back to normal. The sheets are a bit dirty, that’s all. I was probably dreaming.”

She was silent. A wave of fear rose inside her then ebbed away, leaving her numb and cold. “That makes it worse,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“The fact that it’s all so…ordinary this morning. It’s like that smell on the beach. It was there. But you just said I must have imagined it.”

“You didn’t imagine it. I could smell it too, last night. I was nearly sick.” He paused. “What woke you up, the same thing?”

“No… no. It was Alison, yelling her head off. Then, when I did get to sleep, I had a kind of nightmare. It was about Donal Morrissey but he’d, sort of, turned into a woman. She looked more like a skeleton. Ugh, it was horrible.”

She wouldn’t say any more. Shaking her head violently, as if this would shatter the picture in her mind of the woman crawling over the field, she went to the wall-phone and started dialling.

“What are you doing?”

“Phoning Dad.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“But he’ll ring us, before he starts painting. You know that’s the arrangement.”

“Well, it’s gone eleven and he’s not phoned yet.” She put the receiver to her ear and listened.

“Is it ringing at the exchange? They’ll take ages to answer.”

“No,” she said flatly. “And it isn’t going to ring either. It’s completely dead. No wonder Dad can’t get through.”

Oliver had marked out where he was going to dig with four sticks and tied string at each corner. He hadn’t got down very far because he kept finding things. His treasures were neatly arranged on a plastic tray he’d found in the kitchen. Prill sat outside miserably and fingered them. There were some pieces of china, a halfpence piece, and several bits of white tubing with holes through them.

“What are these, Oliver?”

“Bits of a clay pipe, I should think.”

He went on digging, puffing in the heat; he was still wearing a long-sleeved sweater even though it was seventy degrees and getting hotter.

“Why don’t you wash the soil off?”

He leaned on his spade like a little old man and said witheringly, “You don’t wash things like this, Prill, they might disintegrate. That’s what the toothbrush is for. You have to brush the dirt off very gently.”

Although Oliver was scraggy and small there was something very adult about him. Prill didn’t like the look in those large blue eyes of his. It said so plainly that he thought she was both ignorant and stupid.

He was the only person who didn’t seem affected by the house. She and Colin had talked about that in the kitchen. Nothing had made Oliver wake up in the night sweating, there had been no mould or mustiness round him. And he certainly hadn’t complained about a smell; the only smell he didn’t like was Alison when she needed a fresh nappy. In fact, the baby seemed to upset him rather a lot, especially when she cried. Prill had seen him actually put his fingers in his ears when he thought nobody was looking.

“Well, he’s used to being on his own at home,” Mum had said. “And he’s been ill, don’t forget. He was in bed for weeks, and Auntie Phyl kept him very quiet. Anyway, a din like that might get on your nerves too if all you’d ever been used to was a house full of old people.” But Prill still felt like thumping him.

Colin and his mother had gone with Alison on a walk up to the O’Malleys’ farm. Jessie went with them, mad with delight at being released from the concrete mixer. Mrs O’Malley rang the exchange to tell them the bungalow phone wasn’t working. “It’s funny that,” she said. “All the phones go off together usually, when we have gales. But last night was calm enough. Still, they’ll come to it to be sure, eventually. You didn’t need it today, did you?”

“No-o,” Mrs Blakeman said slowly. “Though my husband will have been trying to get through, and I had just wondered about getting a doctor to look at the baby. She’s been really miserable since we got here.”

The farmer’s wife took Alison on her lap. The baby gurgled and grabbed at the strings of her apron. “She looks grand now, a real grand girl she is. Oh, that’s bold!” And she prised Alison’s fingers away from the chain round her neck.

“I think it must be the weather,” Mum said. “We’ve all been terribly hot. We are expecting it to rain all the time.”

Mrs O’Malley looked puzzled. “It’s not been so hot, has it?” Then she smiled. “I’ve been so busy lately, I’ve probably just not noticed.”

“Our milk went off last night,” Colin said suddenly. His mother frowned at him. “I left it out after supper,” she said firmly. “I must have, and obviously the heat turned it.”

Kevin appeared in the kitchen doorway and started pulling his boots off. “Don’t do that,” his mother ordered. “Slip across to the dairy and fetch some more milk for Mrs Blakeman. Last night’s was off apparently.”

Mum was embarrassed. “Really,” she began. “We really don’t need—”

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs Blakeman. It may well have been the old milk you got, by mistake. It happens sometimes. I’ll ask Donal. He helps us in the evenings and he gets confused these days about what goes where.”

Kevin came back with a can and put it on the table. He grinned at Colin. “I’ve been trying to persuade your cousin to go up the Yellow Tunnel, but he doesn’t seem too keen. He wants to keep on with his digging.”

“What’s the Yellow Tunnel?”

“Well, if you want a good walk, one that’ll tire out that dog of yours, go along the shore, below the bungalow. You could do it this afternoon, it’s low tide. You walk right along the sands as far as Ballimagliesh Strand then you can climb up to the chapel. It’s a ruin really, right on the cliff edge. It’s a proper beauty spot, isn’t it, Mam?”

“So it is. We used to have picnics there years ago. All the young people went. Beautiful, it is.”

“But what about this tunnel?”

“Well, there’s a track up to the ruin, through the grass, a bit steep in places but sure it’s fine in dry weather like this. But you can climb up through a crack in the rocks. It’s great. It brings you out by the chapel walls in the middle of the old graveyard.”

“Do you need ropes?”

“Oh no, there are plenty of footholes. But I should take a torch.”

Colin could see that climbing up a real tunnel might not appeal to Oliver, and anyway, Mum might prefer him not to do it. He was still rather shaky after his illness. Digging a little hidey-hole in your garden was one thing, feeling your way up a great crack gouged out by the waves was quite another. It appealed to Colin, though.

When they were back at the bungalow he got everybody organized. Prill didn’t need persuading. She cheered up a bit when he told her Mrs O’Malley had reported that their phone was out of order, but she still didn’t want to stay in the house.

“Well, who wants to, anyway,” Colin said, “on a day like this?”

They put some food together and installed Alison in a canvas carrier that Colin usually wore on his back like a rucksack. Most days she didn’t care who carried her around but she was being awkward this morning. It had to be Mum.

Oliver kept on digging till the very last moment, muttering darkly that he didn’t want to go. He had things to do that afternoon which didn’t include the Blakemans.

“Oh, come on, Olly!” Prill shouted. “We’re wasting the day. It’ll be cooler down by the sea. You could take your sweater off,” she added, unable to resist.

“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.

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