The Insect Rosary

by Sarah Armstrong

  17

  Then

  We didn’t know what was happening, but the quiet voices alerted us to something so we listened extra hard to find out what it was. We didn’t say anything, but slid across walls to listen at doors, inched open the serving hatch to catch any sounds. We had checked for Tommy’s car, so we knew he wasn’t involved. We were pretty sure, anyway. Mum was saying, ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell the girls,’ and Sister Agatha was saying, ‘Don’t blaspheme, Eithne,’ and Donn was saying nothing.

  It was when we saw Donn leaving by the front door that we finally spoke to each other.

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ I whispered.

  Normally Nancy would have rolled her eyes at me saying something so obvious. ‘I know.’

  ‘He’s going to kill someone,’ I whispered.

  Nancy looked as scared as me which made me even more scared.

  ‘Have you seen any cars? Is anyone here?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  We went upstairs and looked out of every window, except for Donn’s which, apart from being illegal, stank of his socks. We didn’t know how even he could bear to go in, let alone close the door. We were very careful about looking out of Mum’s window because the last time we’d been seen. And by someone who we were worried about seeing us again, though neither of us said it. Nancy picked up the book Mum had been reading and put it down again. Most days she’d have moved the bookmark forward or back a few pages, but it didn’t even occur to her today.

  And it wasn’t really Mum’s room now that she had to share it with Beth and the mouse, but they’d gone off for a couple of days to test run the caravan again. Beth said Jackie missed her so, and she liked to be missed. But she left a lot of things here, just in case she had to come back. We expected her back at any moment.

  We sat on Mum’s bed and listened for a bit. It was the quietest room because only the best room was below it, and no-one ever went in there, unless there was an extra special visitor. Not even Sister Agatha, who spent most of her time expecting everyone to treat her like that.

  ‘Let’s ask Mum,’ she said.

  ‘She won’t tell us.’

  ‘She has to.’

  We found her at the table with Sister Agatha and Florence, eating biscuits. I was annoyed that we weren’t offered biscuits as well, and then I realised they were a distraction. Whatever we did, we couldn’t say yes to the biscuits.

  ‘Sit down girls,’ said Sister Agatha. ‘I’ll get some more biscuits.’

  ‘We don’t want them, thank you,’ I said.

  I don’t know who looked more shocked, Sister Agatha or Nancy.

  ‘We just wondered where Donn was going.’

  Sister Agatha snorted. ‘Did you, now? Don’t you know what curiosity did?’

  As we hadn’t seen the kittens for days I thought that was mean. I turned away from horrible Sister Agatha and talked to Mum instead.

  ‘Where is he going?’

  She smiled at Florence. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You say when people don’t look at you they’re probably lying.’

  Sister Agatha pulled me round by my elbow. ‘Don’t you talk to your mother like that.’

  Nancy pulled at me. ‘Come on.’

  ‘And don’t go outside,’ said Mum.

  ‘Because nothing is happening out there?’ asked Nancy, with her one eyebrow raised. She’d been trying to teach me that for months.

  ‘That’s right. Nothing for you two to get involved with.’

  ‘Because we might get shot?’ I said.

  Mum glared at me and Sister Agatha crossed herself, then pulled her rosary beads from inside her black blouse. Florence froze, unsure whether to cry or not.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ Mum said, then dragged me into the hallway. Nancy followed. ‘There is a dog worrying the sheep. You know what that means, but I thought you’d probably rather not know about it, and I certainly don’t want Florence to know about it. Happy now?’

  When she opened the door to go back in I saw Sister Agatha feeding Florence glacé cherries. Our glacé cherries. The door closed on us.

  ‘You do know what that means, don’t you?’ asked Nancy.

  I nodded. ‘He’s going to shoot it.’

  Nancy whispered, ‘It’s someone’s pet and he doesn’t even care.’

  ‘He’s horrible sometimes.’

  We looked at the closed door and went to sit on the settee.

  ‘I hate him,’ said Nancy.

  I didn’t really hate him, but I nodded.

  ‘Shall we go and look out of the window?’

  ‘I don’t want to see it. What do you think he does with the body?’

  ‘Leaves it on the road? I don’t know. Maybe people never find out where their dogs went. I think he’d shoot his own dogs, if they were bad sheepdogs. Or just old.’ Nancy looked older again, like she wasn’t shocked.

  I gasped. ‘He said he sent them to be pets.’

  ‘I didn’t even know he had a gun, did you?’

  I chewed on my lip and decided to try out the name. ‘Maybe Tommy gave it to him.’

  We’d both been thinking about him, but I was the one who said it. Nancy quickly checked behind us and pulled her legs up so they were bent in half and wrapped her arms around her leg warmers. She wouldn’t be caught saying his name. She didn’t answer me at all.

  ‘What did he say to you?’ I said.

  ‘I haven’t seen him.’ She looked out of the window. There was a crash in the kitchen and a flurry of distant movement.

  ‘I saw you this morning. You were talking to him in the yard. You swore, Nancy. You can’t tell him anything else.’

  ‘I heard you.’

  We were quiet for a bit.

  ‘I wish we had taken some biscuits,’ I said. ‘Maybe the mouse will come back for the crumbs. Or the mouse baby will hoover them up.’

  Nancy didn’t even pretend to smile.

  ‘It will be all right, won’t it? He won’t come round when Dad’s here. He never does.’

  ‘I don’t care anyway,’ she said, but she kept looking behind her.

  18

  Now

  She walked down the lane, past the silo and turned right. It felt naughty, her heart beat a little faster, but there was no sign that made her turn back. She’d imagined them as a child, big wooden oblong ‘Keep Out’ signs on hand driven posts, maybe even a dead rabbit nailed to it. The lane was only familiar, stone walls with wild flowers creeping out from the crevices, a small hump backed bridge over a sluggish stream. There were no large trees screening Mary’s farm from the road. It was low and grey pebble-dashed. It was normal.

  She remembered the old woman, Mary, as she arrived at where the gates had seized open. The grass and pebbles were pushing up in front of them and the bottom hinge had pulled away from the wall entirely. She heard dogs barking and thought of Donn’s last dog and Bruce before him.

  Hesitating by the gate she looked for movement in the yard and barns beyond. This was a stupid idea. Elian wouldn’t even want the farm and she probably couldn’t afford it without him. She didn’t want another farm, just this one. She knew it was silly to be so fixed on the idea, but it seemed urgent. She had to know whether it was possible before she told Elian she wanted to emigrate. But somehow it wasn’t just about that. It was the name coming up after all those years. She wanted to see things from a new perspective. See people from a new perspective. She couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was imagined any more.

  Still, she was nervous. She’d rather have the conversation outside, or start it there and gauge the reaction where she could still see the gate. The outbuildings were right by the farm in a square as if everything was observing itself. Mary’s house looked tiny compared to Donn’s farm. There was something odd about the way barns three storeys high leaned over the one storey house.

  A muddy jeep came up the lane, through the gate and pulled into the yard in front of her. A woman, grey haired and
armed with a shotgun jumped straight out and strode towards her.

  ‘What do you want?’ She held the gun pointing down but too easily as if it would flip right into her arm.

  ‘I’m looking for Tommy.’ Nancy tried to smile.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to him about the farm, Donn’s farm.’ Nancy gestured over her shoulder. The woman didn’t follow her gesture with her eyes but kept looking at Nancy. There was something there and in the long, carelessly pulled back hair. ‘Are you Catriona?’

  There was a flicker. ‘What do you want?’

  Nancy took a breath and tried to get the explanation out in one go. ‘Donn’s my uncle and I heard he’s selling the farm to you, to Tommy, but I’d like it to stay in the family and I thought we could talk about it.’

  There was a movement behind her and two red heads, one a boy and one a girl, got out of the jeep and stood by it. The girl had a long ponytail, a fox tail.

  Catriona didn’t turn, but shouted, ‘Get inside!’

  Nancy repeated although she was sure now, ‘Are you Catriona? We met, years ago. I didn’t know that you’d had children. I have a son.’

  Nancy wasn’t trying to smile any more, wasn’t trying to pretend that this was a conversation. She just wanted her to know that if the gun, quite still at the moment, came up that she would be missed. She would be found.

  Catriona, she was sure it was her, said nothing. What would she be now, fifty? She looked older, the wrinkles deeply set and her hair had only the barest hint of colour in streaks. Nancy had thought her so glamorous but that was before three decades of wind and sun and rain. She thought of the standing stones, their permanence. How would this meeting be broken?

  The farm door opened and closed and a man walked towards them in the same quick way Catriona had before. Tommy looked like any other farmer, heavy jowls and hair cut by his wife with shears. In her mind, all these years, he had been dangerous in a Byronic way. Now he just looked like violence would come easily and she felt stupid. He stood beside his wife and crossed his arms.

  Nancy said, ‘I’ve come to talk to you about the farm.’

  There wasn’t a flicker. His blue eyes were flat now.

  ‘We have an arrangement,’ he said. ‘He gave his word and I guess you’re here because he’s keeping it. There’s nothing else to say. Time to go home now.’

  Nancy looked from one to the other and took a couple of steps backwards before turning and walking away. She felt like running, she felt the gun pointing at her back and thought of the much improved chances of being missed if you were moving at speed, but it was a test. Never look like you’re running, she thought. She had to look as if her legs weren’t wobbling, as if every step wasn’t a deliberate effort to keep putting distance between her and the shot.

  There was no talking to them, clearly. The farm would be lost, absorbed into their land or passed to their children and her link would end.

  A man was standing on the bridge. She could see his shape and thought that Tommy had called someone to cut her off already, to make her disappear right here within minutes of her leaving. She breathed fast and heavy, forcing herself to keep going and walk past him, wishing she had keys in her pocket to force between her knuckles. When Donn turned around and she recognised him she sobbed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She shook her head, crouched down and rested her arms on the low bridge walls. She felt her hands trembling and clamped them together.

  ‘Are you praying?’

  She shook her head. Then she thought, well of course Tommy would send Donn to kill me, who else? She lifted her head up but he just looked confused, not murderous.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘To see Tommy.’

  Donn bit his lip and turned away.

  ‘I wanted to ask him about the farm. I thought that I could – it doesn’t matter.’ She pushed herself up and sat on the wall.

  ‘You never did listen.’

  ‘I know. I know. But it was good. Now I know that Bernie remembers him right, not me.’

  He sat next to her. ‘Your Elian doesn’t even want to stay for a holiday. Why are you doing this?’

  She covered her face. ‘I don’t know any more. I loved it here and Hurley’s been so much calmer since we got here, so much less agitated and more focused. It seemed like a perfect idea.’

  ‘Yeah, well, there are lots of those. Two thousand Elvis impersonators can’t be wrong.’

  Nancy dropped her hands and smiled. ‘You’ve heard that too?’

  ‘I seem to have heard it a lot recently.’

  Nancy looked at him and then over the fields, his sheep, his home. A car drove along the road in the distance and she caught glimpses of it through the hedges as it passed their farm. To the right the sharp rise of the mountain was sunlit and she could see the edge of the cloud moving towards them. Soon they were sitting in sunlight too.

  ‘When I married him I thought he was someone else entirely. Now that he’s here, somewhere I feel comfortable, I realise that he’s unbearable. He embarrasses me. Just the way he talks and sits and everything. I want to apologise for him all the time. I can’t go back with him. I don’t want to live with him anymore.’

  ‘Why would you try to persuade him to move here?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I was saying that I wanted to stay here.’

  ‘With his son.’

  ‘With my son.’

  Donn looked at me. ‘Same thing.’

  Nancy looked at her watch. ‘They’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Do you always have to be there, on guard?’

  ‘Where else would I be?’

  ‘Come and help me. I’ve got to move a load of sheep and I remember you used to be terrible at that. Let’s see if you’ve improved.’

  Nancy looked down at her shoes. ‘I need some wellies.’

  ‘I have plenty. Agatha could never think of anything else I might be wanting.’

  She saw the car pull into the drive and turned her head into her hood. They hadn’t been that long and this probably meant that something had happened. Something that Elian could deal with for now. Maybe it would make him realise what was happening, maybe he’d heard what the girls whispered to Hurley.

  Donn was way ahead, being a sheepdog.

  ‘Go out in the lane!’ he shouted.

  She was never any good at this. She stood in the lane, her back to the farm, and put her arms out like a scarecrow. She could see Donn rounding them into an erratic ball shape, calmly encouraging them towards the open gate and her open arms. She heard him swear and go back for one that had slipped away. The rest wandered off and he started the process again.

  Her arms ached. She wished she had sticks to wave at them. Suddenly they were there, pouring out towards her and then rearing back and heading in the right direction. She’d done it. She was a lot bigger now. The stink of them hit her as Donn followed the last ones out.

  ‘I’ll stay at the back,’ he said, ‘you head them in.’

  She walked quickly, trying not to move her arms too much and send them back the other way. Donn’s car was parked across the lane but there was plenty of room for them to edge past it, through the ditch. They had started to go into the right field without her, bleating and edgy, but she stood in front of the car and pretended it was her influence. Then a couple tried to dodge past her into the ditch and she edged to the bonnet, just in time for another to skip around the boot.

  ‘I’ve lost one!’ she shouted, and then regretted her choice of words. The animals, devil eyed, had outwitted her for all of her ability to walk on two legs. She recognised the look of disappointment in Donn’s eyes from all those years ago.

  ‘Let’s get the rest in,’ he muttered.

  When a couple scrambled and turned in front of the gate, ready to bolt, he was there and they changed their minds. She pulled the aluminium gate closed and secured it with the blue nylon rope. Donn was looking down the lane.
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  ‘You stay here, ready to open it up again and I’ll drive round to the other end. We’ll catch the bugger.’

  Nancy nodded and he drove past her and the farm. She had no idea how long the lane was or how far the sheep had gone. She remembered the zoo losing its pack of wolves when she was little and worrying all night about the hedges and gardens they could be hiding in on her way to school. She had clung to her mother and kept vigilant. It was in the evening that they found out the wolves had all been waiting for breakfast at their cage that morning.

  She looked out at the sheep, tried to count them and gave up. There were bits of wool tangled in the hedgerow near the gate and she reached through for some. The grease and smell made her throw it back straight away, but she remembered gathering handfuls as a child with the idea of spinning it somehow.

  She heard a car and unlooped the rope. The sheep had run down to the far edge but were now returning, bleating and regretting their new home.

  ‘Go back!’ she shouted.

  They didn’t, but she pulled the gate across the road and hoped that the noise of the car and her bleating little voice would keep them inside. The bad sheep trotted in front of Donn’s car as he swerved to guide it and she fastened the gate again. Now Donn smiled.

  ‘You’re still a terrible wee farmer.’

  ‘Never said I wasn’t.’

  She got in the car next to him and he drove back to the yard. This time she didn’t do her seat belt up, like him. The feeling reminded her of trips as a child, restrained only by the voices of her parents. Their car in America placed the belt on her automatically and she’d always hated it. There were no choices, so how could doing the right thing be a virtue?

  She looked through the parlour window. They were all there, her families. She sighed.

  ‘You need to go and see Agatha before you go back,’ said Donn. ‘You could see how she’s settling in.’

  ‘Are you allowed visits if you’re a nun?’

  ‘She’s not a nun yet. They may throw her out.’ Donn smiled. ‘She’s asked me to tell you to go, so I’m sure it’s fine.’