Black Harvest

“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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