‘They think so,’ she replied, and although it sounded like a joke she wasn’t smiling, and when he looked at her she looked away.
‘Why did your brother leave?’ Colin asked. Somehow, without him noticing, the mood had changed, and it made him brave.
‘Who told you about that?’
‘Gino. He said he met him, in the truck, when he was hitchhiking.’
‘Is Gino your friend?’
‘Yes. Sort of. Dougal’s my real friend.’
Colin was sure she was going to say something else then, he saw the words forming behind her eyes, before she thought better of it and went back to the question.
‘David’s in Auckland now. He always said that’s where he’d go. I’m going to visit him. I got a letter. Mum and Dad don’t know. They saved it for me, at the store. Don’t tell them. I think he went, because if he’d stayed, he would have killed someone.’ She said it like it was a fact. Not a way of speaking, or an exaggeration, but something that must be accepted for what it is. Something that doesn’t want another question attached to it, so Colin didn’t ask.
‘So when are you going?’
‘Soon.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I don’t think I should tell you Colin.’
‘That’s okay. It’s your business. I have secrets too. There’s even things I don’t tell Dougal, and we’re blood brothers.
‘Tell me one.’
‘What?’
‘One of your secrets. Tell me one and I’ll tell you one of mine.’
She turned around so she was facing him and leaned forward, like it was some game they were playing. Colin could feel himself growing red with the warmth of her. It was like being around the fire, with the flames and the drink. Yes, that was it, it was like being drunk. But not so drunk that he didn’t know how little it would take to turn bad, how quickly this feeling would disappear, if he told her the only secret he had. If he told her how he felt.
‘I have dreams.’
‘That’s not a secret. We all have dreams.’
‘These are different. They mean things. I see things. Like with Dougal. I dreamed him before I saw him, then I dreamed something that he did, that I didn’t know about, something bad. And it frightens me.’
Although he’d only said it to cover the truth, as soon as the words found shape the dreams came close again, like a change in the weather, just beneath his skull.
‘What? What did you see?’
‘I don’t know I should tell you. It’s Dougal’s secret too.’
‘If you don’t then you haven’t told me the whole secret, and I won’t tell you mine.’
She turned away from him, exaggerating the movement like one of the girls at school, trying to seem old and important, although with Veronica it made her look younger.
‘You have to promise not to tell.’
‘It’s a secret. You don’t tell secrets.’ She’d turned back towards him and her eyes shone bright with interest, and the attention turned Colin giddy and careless.
‘We lived in the valley, before we came here. On farms. And the people where I worked weren’t good to me, and Dougal came one night and helped me run away. But that night there was a fire down the valley, and that’s what I saw in my dream. I saw him light it, and it was a house, and I think somebody died. I think he killed him, and I think he meant to do it.’
Although there was no one else for miles, and the roar of the waves would mangle any sound before it could travel, Colin had dropped his voice to a whisper, and Veronica had leant forward to catch it.
‘The Rutherfords’ place,’ she said. ‘I heard people talking about it. Mum went to the funeral.’
‘And only one died?’ Colin asked.
‘I don’t really know much about it.’ She looked at Colin carefully, as if to check he wasn’t lying. And you really saw this, in a dream?’
‘I did. Dougal wouldn’t tell me that. He says a lot, but he doesn’t tell so much. Can I have that other sandwich please, if you’re not eating it?’
‘Mum has dreams too. She tries to get Dad to do things sometimes, when she’s dreamed about them, change his crew or not go into town on a certain day, but he says they’re just nonsense.’
‘Maybe they are.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’d rather I didn’t have them. I haven’t had one since I’ve been here. Maybe they’ve finished. What about you? What about your secret?’
‘It’s like yours. You can’t tell anyone.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Do you know Scott, who got married just last year, to Jane?’
‘Yeah, sort of.’
Of all the men in the village Scott seemed particularly close to Ron, and in Colin’s view, particularly suspicious of Gino. He was a surly type, not much given to smiles or conversation. His wife, Jane, was a short woman, made to appear even more diminutive by seven months of pregnancy, her protruding stomach seemingly having dragged her closer to the ground.
‘He has a scar,’ Veronica said, her eyes lighting up at the word, as if this was the most delicious revelation. Colin, the talk of death still fresh in his mind, felt cheated. Veronica looked at him, waiting for a response. ‘Do you want to know where it is?’
‘I suppose.’
‘It starts here,’ she said, reaching out with her finger and touching Colin’s stomach just to the left of his navel, ‘and goes all the way to here.’
She traced its jagged path, down to the line where Colin’s jersey bulged over the band of his trousers, and then further, until her finger was on his groin, just at the point where hair had begun to grow. She pulled it back without lingering, as if nothing much had happened, although Colin’s heart had stopped and a lungful of air was trapped halfway down his throat. His face burned with embarrassment; fuelled by excitement, dampened with understanding. Veronica must have been able to sense his discomfort, but she made nothing of it, just smiled as if this was a game for children, nothing more.
‘So, don’t you want to know how I know?’ she asked him.
‘I know already,’ Colin told her.
Veronica giggled to herself, stood and brushed the stones from her backside.
‘Come on, let’s get this into the bags so we can dry another load.’
The wind had died and it was warmer now. Colin took off his jersey and Veronica did the same. Beneath it she wore a heavy woollen singlet, tight enough to make it difficult for Colin to look, and more difficult not to. Every time she bent over to drag in an armful of seaweed, the smooth white skin of her breasts was clearly visible, and Colin hated Scott all the more.
The afternoon passed more quickly than the morning. Now that the talking had begun there was no stopping it. Veronica wanted to hear all about his home in London and Colin told the parts he was happy for her to hear. The more he spoke the easier it became. The words formed without thinking, and in the same way he found he could see her without having to look. By the time Ron came down with the truck, to load on the bales and the frames, the shadow of the cliffs was already touching the sea, and the two of them were friends.
Colin should have been happy then, and in a way he was. It was more wonderful than he could ever have hoped for. Now, whenever he saw her, he would say hello, and sometimes they would stop and talk, and he wouldn’t crumple into shyness. But there was unhappiness too, a line of tingling running down his stomach, tracing the pattern of Scott’s scar, telling him a start was not enough.
* * *
‘You could have just said no,’ Dougal mumbled to Colin as he bounced next to him on the flat tray of the covered truck. Ahead of them, out of sight, Gino and Mary sat together in the cabin. Gino doing the talking while Mary concentrated on the graunching of gears and bouncing over rocks.
‘So could you.’
‘Would have, if you’d told me last night.’
‘Could have this morning then.’
‘She doesn’t listen to me. She listens to you.’
‘It’s just church.’
Dougal’s mood had been unusually black throughout the morning’s ritual of washing and dressing. Both boys wore clothes Mary had provided; borrowed trousers, and jackets three sizes too big, scented with beer and tobacco. And fish too, no doubt, after a journey in the back of the truck. Dougal’s hair, which earlier had been wetted down and brushed into submission, had bounced back, redder and more defiant than ever.
‘You should have said we weren’t going.’ Dougal seemed set on this point.
‘It’s Mary. You can’t tell her anything.’
‘I’ve seen you and Veronica together, and the way Mary always smiles at you. You’re practically family.’
‘I am not,’ Colin replied, although he was pleased to hear it.
‘We could just jump out now. We’re not going that fast. They wouldn’t notice.’
‘They’d kick us out of the village.’
‘Never said anything about going back there.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Colin said, surprised at how much it hurt to even think it.
‘Why not?’ Dougal asked.
‘No reason.’
‘Veronica you mean,’ Dougal mocked, and Colin heard in his friend’s voice all the times he and Gino must have already had this conversation.
‘Are you scared people might recognise us?’ Colin asked, mostly to change the conversation.
‘Sowbys didn’t go to church did they?’
‘No.’
‘Neither did mine.’
‘But other people. Everyone will have heard.’ Colin pushed the point, certain it was the reason for the darkness in his friend’s eyes.
‘It’s done with. That’s not what we should be worrying about.’
‘So what should we be worrying about then?’
‘Me?’ Dougal replied, putting his hands behind his head and breathing in with a smile that wasn’t real. ‘Nothing. I don’t have nothing to worry about. Grand isn’t it?’
With that the truck hit another rock and Dougal’s head banged hard against the back of the cab. Colin laughed at his scowling friend.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘It bloody is.’
They were silent as the truck pulled slowly up the winding road which took it above the cliffs and gave Colin his first view of the valley since he’d left. It looked narrower from this angle, the hills higher, more imposing.
The church was tiny, more like a painted doll’s house after the massive structures Colin was used to seeing in London. It was white, and set near the road at a rise in the gently rolling countryside. Next to it was an equally small and tidy graveyard. Colin saw Dougal stare at it, and look away as soon as he was noticed. There were seven or eight other vehicles already parked on the grass at the side of the road, and a small crowd lingered outside the door, sharing stories and laughing, like divers taking their last gasps of fresh air before disappearing beneath the water. People dressed in their very best clothes; the women with hats to match their dresses, the men in jackets, their caps already in their hands, revealing long strips of hair carefully combed across balding domes. Despite Dougal’s earlier assurances Colin was immediately nervous at the sight of so many strangers. And Dougal too, by the way he scanned every face from the safety of the truck before climbing down.
‘Don’t worry. Just keep your head down. No one’ll notice us.’
But they did. Every head turned as they entered the tiny space. The polished wood of the pews and the white lace at the altar reminded Colin of the only coffin he had ever seen, when their headmaster had died of a heart attack, while cycling to school, and they made every student attend the funeral, and march by his body as a sign of respect. That’s what it was like now, like walking into his own coffin, Gino and Mary solid behind him, so there was no turning back. Somewhere outside, in the world of the breathing, the sun slipped the cover of a cloud and sent a dazzling ray of split colour through a stained glass window above the pulpit, causing Colin to squint.
And still every face examined his, like they were making notes on what they would tell the police, as soon the service was over.
‘Why are they all looking at us?’ Colin whispered to Dougal, whose neck was bent forward, his face on show only to his feet.
‘I think it’s because we stink so bad,’ Dougal replied, and Mary caught the back of his head with a heavy hand.
‘Over there, near the back. No talking.’ She nodded them forward and followed close behind. The faces, maybe thirty or forty of them in all, enough to squeeze them up tight in every pew, had turned back to the front, but Colin could feel the dent in his head where their eyes had rested.
The priest entered from a door at the side of the altar, preceded by an altar boy, his farm boy’s face scrubbed red clean for the occasion, his rough limbs well hidden beneath a long black dress and a white lace-frilled top. The congregation stood and Colin followed suit. He looked to Dougal and Dougal looked back, and they had a conversation without words, just by grinning.
Looks soft doesn’t he?
Like a girl.
I’d never do that.
Neither.
The priest’s black cap sat atop his head like a crown. He turned to the front, so there was only the cross on the back of his dress to look at, and began to speak.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
It was then Colin knew this would be a very long morning, the kind that all the fidgeting and sharing of smirks in the world would never fill. Whatever it was the priest was saying, it wasn’t in any language Colin had ever heard, and looking about him he could tell not too many people understood, or cared that they didn’t.
It was like they were in a trance, standing and kneeling together as a single body, hiding their thoughts behind quiet faces, or maybe not thinking at all. It lasted an hour and a half, relieved only by a fiery burst from the pulpit. That was when the priest faced the people, and spoke in English, although, perhaps because he’d got used to not following, Colin didn’t understand a word of it. Still it gave him a chance to study the man properly. He was tall and thin, and not as old as Colin had first imagined. His face had a bony structure, well suited to the certainty he carried in his eyes. Colin wasn’t sure if priests ever got into fights, but if they did, this was one he wouldn’t want to face.
The only other break in the droned routine came when the people filed forward and knelt at the rail, eyes closed and tongues poked forward, like children catching drips from a melting ice cream. Colin and Dougal stayed behind and watched, because a look from Mary told them they should, but Gino happily joined in the ritual, and even slipped Colin a wink on the way back to his seat, as if nothing could shake his most basic faith; that even in this choking room, there was fun to be found.
It ended with the priest leaving the same way he had entered, and Colin felt the pressure of the room lighten with his departure, as if the whole congregation had chosen exactly that moment to breathe out. There was no talking, but smiles of recognition crept out from their hiding places. Dougal, who was on the end, took his chance and escaped quickly and Colin, who felt a sudden urge to run madly through daylit air, kicking and swearing and laughing too, followed close behind.
The day had clouded over again but it was still bright after the church. Colin looked around, and saw Dougal was already halfway back to the cover of the truck’s tarpaulin. Colin felt less concerned, now that he had been released from the stuffy closeness of Sunday ritual. So he walked slowly, and in a curving line that took him close to the low gate that marked the entry to the cemetery; curious, aimless, harmless too, really. He wasn’t even intending to go in. There was sunshine on his neck, a warm reward for lingering, that was all. So he was surprised to find his friend was suddenly at his side, gripping him above the elbow and swinging him around.
‘What are you doing? Why were you going in there?’ Dougal demanded, his voice low and urgent.
‘I wasn’t. I was just�
�’
‘We have to get back to the truck. This isn’t a good place.’
‘Sorry,’ Colin apologised, believing at that moment that he understood. ‘I… is that where your Mum’s…’
‘Boys, what are you doing over there?’ Mary’s voice cut in, depriving the question of its answer. ‘You shouldn’t be there. Come on. Dougal, you go with Gino for a moment. Colin, Father McBride is ready to talk to you now.’
‘What for?’ Colin asked as he was escorted back through the gate. He looked to Gino for an explanation, but the traitor in him looked away. The other people had collected in groups, men in some, women in others, and were apparently in no hurry to leave. Some looked at Colin and smiled, amusement not sympathy, as he was dragged by the elbow back inside the church.
Father McBride, who was still dressed in his mass attire, stood in the aisle, and smiled at them both, but his face was no warmer than the stone floor beneath their feet. Close up he looked taller and thinner too, and he had grey eyes that dissolved as soon as you looked at them.
‘Hello Colin, sit down.’ He motioned to a pew at the back of the church. Colin did as he was told. He didn’t know anything much about this man, except that he was to be feared. ‘And Mrs Lyons, perhaps you would like to close the door.’
Colin heard the solid thud of the door swinging back against its frame, and the room darkened slightly as his escape was closed off. He noticed Father McBride standing over him now, holding a black bound book beneath his crossed-over hands, which sat comfortably where a fatter man’s stomach would have been.
‘Now Colin, Mrs Lyons here tells me you’ve been having some dreams. Is this true?’
‘Everybody dreams,’ Colin replied.
‘Father,’ Mary barked at him from behind the priest.
‘What?’
‘You call a priest Father. It’s polite.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Now not all dreams are the same Colin, that is the thing. Tell me, how did you feel, when you came into this church today?’
It was a trick question, that much was plain. There was a right answer and there was a wrong answer, but Colin, who was beginning to sweat, and could barely think of any answer at all, had only the truth available.
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