Black Harvest (7 page)

“I think it’s this house. I know it’s very modern and expensive but there’s something terribly wrong with it. I know there is.”

“What do you think’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know. But it’s threatening us, it’s trying to hurt us. Colin, I think we’re in danger. We should go home.”

K
EVIN O’MALLEY CAME
down at eight the next morning with a can of milk and brought a message from his mother. “Dr O’Keefe is away on holiday, missus, but they’ve told her Dr Donovan will call on you.”

“When will that be, Kevin? Did they give your mother any idea?”

He looked doubtful. “Not really. Dr Donovan’s a bit slow getting round to people these days, he’s retired really. But they did say he’d come. It’ll be afternoon I’m thinking, so if you’re going out—”

“I think I’d better make a phone call myself. Ours is off again. Do you think your mother—”

“Sorry, missus, but our phone isn’t working either. It was last night’s gale. The lines are down all along the Ballimagliesh road.”

Irrationally Colin felt rather relieved. The O’Malleys’ phone was broken, too, so it wasn’t just the bungalow. He knew quite well theirs had gone dead hours before the storm blew up but he refused to think about that. There was strange comfort in the fact that they were all cut off.

Kevin was looking at Alison. “The baby looks grand,” he said cheerfully. But he did notice how thin she was. His mam had kicked herself yesterday for mentioning it, but she was right.

“Ye-es,” Mrs Blakeman said slowly. “She’s as right as rain this morning, though she gave us a terrible night. She’s such a moody little thing. One minute she’s all smiles, next minute she’s screaming the place down. That’s why it’s so difficult, knowing whether to bother a doctor.”

“I would, Auntie Jeannie,” Oliver said suddenly. “Babies don’t cry for nothing. I don’t think she’s well. My mother says you should never take risks, especially with children and old people.”

Everyone was surprised. He’d said nothing at breakfast, apart from things like “Pass the sugar”. They all thought he was sulking, or still feeling embarrassed about yesterday. But he spoke with such conviction, as if he’d been thinking about it all privately and drawing his own secret conclusions. What else had he heard, noticed, decided upon? Prill was going to talk to him the minute her mother’s back was turned.

“Well, to be sure the doctor will call,” Kevin repeated, looking up at the sky. It was warmer than ever, but there was no sun, and thunder was still grumbling somewhere in the
distance. “There’s another storm forecast,” he said. “A real beauty. If you do go out, I wouldn’t go far.”

Colin and Prill spent the whole morning helping Oliver. He’d dug quite a bit of soil out already. He was obviously stronger than he looked, in spite of his illness.

“When did you do all this, Oll?” Prill said. “
Ouch!
” She pulled at a great chunk of stone and scraped the skin off her fingers in the process.

“This morning. I was up very early and that Kevin O’Malley helped me a bit yesterday. He’s strong, he is. Said he’d bring me a piece of tin for the roof. Don’t suppose he’ll bother now, though.” He went on digging fiercely. All this embarrassment, regret and hurt over Donal Morrissey’s van were expressed in his furious scrabbling and poking at the hard-packed earth. It showered behind him and settled in everyone’s hair and clothes. Within half an hour they were all filthy. It was a good thing prim Auntie Phyllis wasn’t there to see Oliver.

At first Colin felt stupid, digging a hideout for his small cousin. He’d grown out of all that. But slowly the idea took hold of him and he actually started to enjoy it. There was something very satisfactory about thrusting the spade into a bank of solid earth, twisting the blade round to work it loose, then removing it in shovelfuls. He decided to get as dirty as possible, then, when he was too hot to bear it any longer, run down to the beach for a swim. The tide would be just right in a couple of hours.

Prill’s contribution was more artistic. She was working her way round the walls with a garden trowel, smoothing them over carefully and pulling out all the stones. Oliver worked beside her, stopping now and then to examine his spadeful of earth.

“Found anything interesting?” she asked him.

“Only what I showed you and some more bits of china. Oh, and the remains of a dog,” he added casually.

“A
dog?
”

“Yes. Well, I think that’s what it was. My father dug one up in our garden once, it looked the same. There were just a few bones. I put them in a bag, under that hedge.”

“Ugh. Do they smell?”

“No, not really. D’you want to see them?”

“No
thanks.
”

Colin came over and looked at their end of the hole. The “den” now measured two metres in length and Oliver was widening his bit.

“It’s not very deep yet, is it? How far down d’you intend going, Oll?”

“Well, I’d like to stand up in it, when the roof’s on.”

“It’ll mean a lot more digging then.”

Privately Colin thought he was crackers. They’d abandon the project long before that point was reached. And yet Oliver was so determined, he was working away like a giant mole, as if his life depended on it. Colin wanted to laugh but part of him was impressed by the small boy’s determination. Prill was right. There was something very odd about Oliver.

After about an hour Colin chucked his spade down. “I’m boiling. I’m going in for a drink.”

“Bring us one,” Prill shouted. She had just found her first bit of pottery and Oliver was cleaning it expertly with his toothbrush. Soon Colin was back with some biscuits and a bottle of fizzy lemonade. They all sat dangling their legs over the edge of the hole, swigging from the bottle in turn.

“Where’s Mum?”

“In the kitchen, walking Alison to sleep. She says she’s not going out till the doctor’s been.”

Prill could just see her mother pacing the kitchen floor with the baby flopped over one shoulder. She was trying to croon her to sleep, and reading a book at the same time. Quite suddenly she said to Oliver, “We think there’s something wrong with this house, Oll.” It came out in a loud, impassioned burst. Her cousin went on drinking lemonade and didn’t even look at her.

Then he said, “Yes, I think there might be. You never know, perhaps it’s haunted.”

His flat, matter-of-fact voice struck a chill into her. “So you
knew
something was wrong and you didn’t even tell us?”

“Well, you didn’t ask me. Nobody’s bothered with me since we arrived.”

Prill felt uncomfortable and there was a stiff silence. Then Colin said, “Why d’you say ‘haunted’, Oliver? How can people be haunted by a smell, and things going mouldy?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s very complicated. But I can tell you one thing, Mr Catchpole’s aunt in Dorset was
haunted once, by an old woman, and before she saw her there was always this smell of bacon frying.”

“Who’s Mr Catchpole?”

“An old man who lives in our house. He’s a friend of mine.”

“I wouldn’t mind bacon,” Prill said. “But this smell! Yuk, it’s foul.”

“I’m sure it’s the smell that’s making us feel sick all the time and giving me these stomach pains,” Colin added. “Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with Alison.”

“Perhaps,” Oliver repeated, kicking at the side of the hole. Then he said, “But you’ve not actually seen anything, have you?”

“No,” Prill admitted. “But we’ve had some awful nightmares, and last night we both had the same dream. I thought it was a woman, but Colin thinks it was Donal Morrissey.”

Oliver jumped when he heard that name. He’d been thinking about nobody else all morning. Much earlier in the day, next to the dog’s bones, he had come across something else. It was the greatest find he’d ever had. He’d cleaned it up, put it in a little box, and hidden it with the plastic sack under the hedge. When the right moment came, and the old man had calmed down again, he planned to take it up to the caravan.

“Well, I dreamed about him too,” he said, trying to speak calmly, “but then my father says that you often dream about the last thing that happened just before you went to bed. I don’t think that means anything.”

“But why is it happening to
us
, Oliver? That’s the frightening thing. This place doesn’t seem to have the same effect on you. You don’t feel sick or anything, do you? Nobody’s had a proper night’s sleep since we got here, except you.

“I know. I’ve been thinking about that. Perhaps it’s something to do with your family, something I’m not part of.”

“But you
are
family, you’re our cousin.”

“I’m adopted.”

“Well, you don’t think we’re imagining everything, do you, Oliver?” Prill said, suddenly feeling quite desperate. “That’s what Colin keeps saying.” She was trying hard not to cry. Actually spelling her fears out was making it worse somehow, not better.

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” he answered in a flat, uninterested voice, climbing back into his hole. “It’s what my father’s always saying.”

“And what’s that?” Colin said coldly. He was really irritated by Oliver. He was behaving like a lump of dough, as if these terrifying things happened to lots of people every day. And he was fed up of hearing the sayings of Uncle Stanley and Auntie Phyllis.

Oliver took a deep breath and spouted, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean when it’s at home?” Colin said rudely.

“Well, he’s always saying that. I think it’s Shakespeare.”

“But what does it
mean
?”

“Just that everything’s happened to someone, at one time or another, and that nobody should laugh at ghost stories, I suppose.”

“Nobody’s laughing, Oliver,” Colin said bitterly. He sounded so offhand, so indifferent, he deserved to be bashed over the head with a spade.

P
RILL WALKED UP
the track to the main road swinging a shopping bag and thinking about her cousin. It was a pity Colin had lost his temper; if Oliver hadn’t rubbed him up the wrong way they might have got somewhere. She had noticed how he’d jumped when Donal Morrissey’s name was mentioned. He seemed obsessed with the old man somehow.

There was hardly any food in the house. Prill had offered to walk the two miles to the shops in Ballimagliesh and she’d insisted on going alone. “No umbrella, thank you, and
no dog
,” she’d said firmly. Jessie had perked up a bit and eaten a huge breakfast. Perhaps she and Alison had got the same kind of bug – all smiles one minute and total misery the next. Now she was desperate for a walk, but Prill left her with Oliver, Colin, and Kevin O’Malley who were all digging enthusiastically. The dog was back on form and driving them
mad, jumping down into the hole and scrabbling for imaginary rabbits.

There was a V.G. supermarket in Ballimagliesh, but Mrs O’Malley had recommended Mooneys’ Stores, at the far end of the village. They sold good bacon there, she said, and home-made bread.

It was a boring walk. On the right the sea was a snatch of muddy blue across the fields and scrubby farmland sloped up on the left, broken by clumps of trees and the occasional house. The road shot straight ahead as far as she could see and on the horizon, under two enormous elms, she spotted two small figures with hands thrust out. Surely they weren’t trying to thumb a lift into the village? Some hope on a road like this. No one had driven past her since she’d started walking.

As she drew level they turned and looked at her. They were children, a boy of about fourteen and a younger girl, both swamped in what looked like tattered woolly ponchos with tasselled hoods. They must be terribly hot.

But their feet were bare. Prill hadn’t worn shoes since they’d arrived, neither had Colin. It was only Oliver who’d insisted on putting socks and sneakers on every single morning but it hadn’t seemed so hot to him. She only wore sandals now because of the metalled road. They were standing on the grass where it was cooler.

As she went past the boy plucked at her arm. “Please, could you spare something?” His voice was only a whisper and seemed to come from deep inside a creaking chest. In the quietness she could hear his breath rattling. The girl said
nothing but she too thrust her hand out, a tiny withered hand, more like a claw.

Prill had a five-pound note for the shopping and some coins of her own wrapped in a scrap of paper with Dr Moynihan’s Dublin phone number on it. She daren’t part with those. She might need them all for the phone box, to speak to her father. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I haven’t got anything.”

“
Please
,” the boy said again, and his fingers dug into her arm. A faint croak came from the girl; she was opening her mouth and shaping words but only a peculiar animal noise came out. As she leaned forwards to grab at Prill her face emerged from the brown hood. It was white and pinched, the skin semi-transparent like muslin cloth, covered all over with fine down. Both faces looked misshapen and shrunk, more like monkeys than children.

The fingernails were biting into her flesh. She was getting frightened and tried to pull her arm away. “Let me go, both of you,
please.
I’ve told you, I haven’t
got
any money.”

“
Please
,” the boy said again. The girl just opened and shut her mouth, like a fish. Prill screamed and gave a violent tug but the two children held on strongly. In the end she pushed at them ferociously and kicked hard at their bare legs. The small girl yelped like a puppy and fell back on the grass. Prill broke free and found herself running along the hard, yellow road with red spattering her T-shirt. The nails had made four bloody half-moons on her left arm.

Finally a stitch forced her to slow down but she still
walked rapidly. At last the first houses of Ballimagliesh appeared in a green dip below her. As she dropped down off the hill she glanced backwards fearfully. The children had disappeared. Seconds later a blue van rattled past with three people inside. “Reagan: Plumbing Contractors” was painted on the side. She hoped desperately she wouldn’t see them again, but Ballimagliesh was only a tiny place.

A broad, brown field, already striped by the plough, swept down to the road behind the first cottages. As Prill walked past she saw somebody moving very slowly along the furrows, with a bundle in its arms. The shape was dark, almost lost against the brown-black of the soil, but there was something about the way it jerked and stumbled down towards the road that plunged her into nightmare.

“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.