‘I suppose I felt a little uncomfortable.’
‘Look at him now Mrs Lyons. The boy is beginning to sweat. You did right to bring him here.’
Colin looked past the priest towards Mary. She was less frightening and perhaps his only hope. He thought of screaming, so that Dougal might hear and come running, but he was too frightened to dare.
‘Mary, what’s happening?’
‘Just relax Colin. I’ve brought you here so Father McBride can help you.’
‘Colin.’ As he spoke Father McBride opened his book at a page marked by a long red tassel. ‘You have the devil in you, and we are going to pray now, and help you be rid of him. That’s good isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean? I don’t have no devil.’ Colin looked desperately to Mary for support. ‘I don’t know what you mean. They’re just dreams. Tell him Mary. I want to go.’
Colin tried to stand but Father McBride had stepped forward, so the only way out was through him. Slowly the priest reached out his hand and Colin felt a cold palm against his forehead.
‘Mrs Lyons, you will need to help me lay the boy down. You may need to hold him.’
It was too much. Colin struggled to break free but Father McBride was on his shoulders and Mary’s full weight followed quickly, pinning him with a force he could never resist.
‘It’s the devil fighting us now Mrs Lyons,’ Father McBride said grimly. ‘Join me in prayer, and we will ask God to set this boy free.’
Above him Colin could see the eyes of Mary’s fat face close over. Behind her, he caught glimpses of a mournful Christ behind the altar, half naked and dying upon his cross, blood dripping from the thorns which surrounded his head. Colin closed his eyes and said a prayer of his own, trying to block out the priest’s foreign words, which were building steadily toward some horrible climax.
Please God, these people are crazy. Don’t let them hurt me. This is supposed to be your place. Don’t let them hurt me.
Colin said it again and again, but the priest’s words were growing louder and there was no ignoring them. He felt new hands on him now, the cold bony grip of Father McBride, long fingers searching each side of Colin’s temple, feeling for something, he was sure. And they found it, a nerve on each side so exposed that when the pressure came Colin had no choice but to convulse with the pain of it.
‘He’s going Father. Look you, it’s happening.’
You bastard, Colin wanted to shout, but the pain was too great and all he could do was cry. You bastard. You’re a trickster. You’re doing this to me. You’re doing it.
Again and again he twitched, and prayed, this time that the pain would end. He almost blacked out and barely registered when the chanting died away and the fingers moved from his head. He could hear noises as if from a distance, the low murmur of conversation between priest and parishioner, shyster and unwitting accomplice, and beneath that the low rumble of sobbing, the sound of his own pain.
Then he was standing, helped to his feet by Mary, who hugged him, and told him it was for his own good. He wanted to say something, he wanted to explain, but Father McBride was standing there, ready to tell them the devil hadn’t properly left, if need be.
Dougal asked him what had happened on the way back, but Colin refused to say a thing. He sat, and stared at the dust behind them, and thought of Veronica, which was the only thing that could make the anger in him subside.
* * *
The next time Gino disappeared he didn’t say anything; just swung out of his hammock, pulled on a jersey and his trousers and walked out the door.
‘You know where he goes don’t you?’ Colin accused his friend, when the sound of Gino’s boots on the stones outside had drowned beneath the crashing of waves.
‘Course I don’t.’
‘I bet he’s told you, when you’re out on the boat together.’
That too had become routine now. It was a busy time and Dougal and Gino had become regular crew, while Colin was left behind to clean nets and do as Mary asked.
‘He hasn’t, and I haven’t asked.’
It was stupid, the way Colin was feeling, he knew that. Gino still talked to him whenever they were together. Colin was included in their games of cards and although there were times Gino and Dougal would share a joke he couldn’t understand, it was nothing so unusual. Nothing to be bothered with. But he was bothered, that was the thing. He was bothered and whatever the worst was, he wanted to know it.
‘He’s said he doesn’t want me on the boat though hasn’t he?’
‘Of course he hasn’t.’
‘He has.’
‘I’m telling you he hasn’t.’
‘So why haven’t I been asked then?’
‘I don’t know do I? It’s not my job to do the asking.’
‘So what does Gino say, when you ask him about it?’
‘Why would I ask him?’
‘I bet you do.’
‘It doesn’t matter what Gino says.’
‘See, I knew he said something. Come on, tell me.’
‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell you.’
‘You have to.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Blood brothers.’
‘Blood brothers have secrets.’
‘Do not.’
Colin rolled quickly in the dark, trapping Dougal’s wriggling frame under the coarse wollen blanket before he had a chance to escape. He crawled forward, pinning Dougal’s shoulders beneath his knees.
‘So tell me, what does Gino say?’ Colin asked the squirming darkness beneath him.
‘It’s nothing. It’s just he says Mary wants to keep a close eye on you. He says she’s got plans for you.’
‘What plans?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. I don’t think he knows. It’s just talk. Get off me will you?’
‘What plans?’ Colin leant his weight forward, forcing the bones of his knees down into the soft tissue of Dougal’s shoulders.
‘Get off and I’ll tell you.’
‘That’s a promise then. You can’t go back on a promise.’
Colin rolled back to his side of the lumpy mattress and waited.
‘It’s just Gino’s theory. I don’t know, he might just be telling stories. He says it’s Mary. She wants to keep an eye on you. She thinks you’re special, you know, because of the dreams. She thinks you were sent here or something.’
‘That’s crazy. She must be crazy.’
‘I know that. What happened in the church?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Thought blood brothers didn’t have secrets,’ Dougal said, but he left it at that, same as he did the other three times he’d asked that question. Blood brothers.
‘Didn’t hurt you did I?’ Colin asked.
‘Course not. You couldn’t even if I let you.’
They were quiet then, for a minute or more, but Colin knew Dougal wasn’t thinking of sleep. He was easy to read that way, his breathing changed.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘You know how I said I didn’t know where Gino goes?’
‘I knew you did.’
‘No, I don’t. But I want to know, and I was thinking, probably we could find out.’
‘He could be anywhere,’ Colin replied, but he liked the idea of it, him and Dougal setting out on an adventure, spying on their older friend. Where could the harm be in that?
‘I saw him once, when I went out to the toilet, and he’d just left. He was walking to the crack in the rocks, you know, where I showed you. I’m sure he was.’
Colin knew the place. It was half a mile up the coast. There was a split in the rock face, a crack not much higher than he was, and narrow enough that you’d have to squeeze to get through. It didn’t look like the squeeze would be worth the effort, but Dougal had tried anyway, and they’d found an opening wider than their hands could reach, with clear sky above it; a hidden corridor of rock where two huge lumps of earth had settled one against the other. The
y’d been there twice more, once with food they had stolen from the sheep station homestead, further up the coast, and another time just to talk.
‘You saw him going in?’
‘No, but I saw him walk towards it. Straight towards it. It’s the only thing there.’
‘Maybe. It’s dark. We wouldn’t see much.’
‘There’s a moon tonight. Come on, do you want to?’
‘Course I do,’ Colin replied, partly because he was curious to know what it was Gino got up to on these nights, but mostly because of the game of it.
They dressed quickly and crept out into the night. Even barefoot there was no way to stop the stones crunching beneath their feet; so loud Colin was sure the whole village would wake at the sound of it. But no lamps came on and no doors swung open and soon they were close enough to the roar of the undertow to talk without having to worry about their voices being heard.
‘What will we do when we get there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well we can’t just go in can we? He’ll see us. And what say there’s other people there, and they’re angry? We’d be trapped.’
‘Course we won’t go in. I’m not that stupid. I’ve thought about it. We’ll climb up the side of the rock face. Then we’ll be able to look in over the top. We’ll never be seen.’
So squeezing through the gap to spy on their friend was stupid, but attempting to climb a sheer rock face thirty feet high in the dead of night wasn’t. That was Dougal’s way of seeing the world, and it went well with Colin’s way of following.
Dougal insisted they stop thirty yards shy of their target, for a last checking of the plans.
‘After this we don’t talk again,’ he whispered. ‘So we have to know what happens. We’ll creep over to the rock, there, just where it juts out. That’ll be the easiest place to climb. I’ll go first and you follow.’
‘You can’t look before I do though.’
‘Okay, I’ll wait, and we’ll look over together. Here, like this, I’ll count three, tapping on your head, and on three we both look over.’
‘Then what?’
‘Here’s the rule.’ Dougal had a comic-book important voice for times like these. ‘Whatever we see, even if we see nothing, we have to stay and watch for ten seconds. And then, it doesn’t matter what it is we’ve seen, we don’t say anything. We climb back down and we come back here. And that’s when we talk.’
All set up, almost like he knew what was coming.
‘So what do you think we’ll see?’ Colin asked. ‘We should have a bet.’
‘I think he’s with some of the other men. I think they’re gambling. Mary doesn’t like gambling, so they have to do it here.’
‘I was going to have that one.’
‘Well I said it first. Say another.’
Colin tried to think of all the reasons a man like Gino might have for slipping away into the darkness, but the truth was so plain he missed it altogether.
‘I think there’s other men too. I think they steal things, and this is where they hide them, and come to trade.’
‘You’re soft in the head. Gino’s not a thief.’
The climb was easier than Colin expected. Half a year before, back in London, it wouldn’t have been that way. He wouldn’t have had the nerve for it, or the strength in his arms to pull himself up, to grip on to crannies while his feet searched for holds. But things change. He followed close behind his friend, his face at the level of Dougal’s white feet, luminous in the moonlight. Then the feet stopped moving. They were at the top. Colin worked his way slowly to the left, then made his way up to his friend’s level. At the top the rock flattened slightly, so they could lean their weight against it and rest their legs. By edging forward only a matter of inches, they would be able to look down into the darkness below. If they were right, and Gino was there, and the moon which was high in the sky was able to penetrate as far as the ground, then below, a matter of seconds away now, was Gino’s secret. Colin felt his heart beating loud with the excitement, and he had to swallow hard to stop himself from giggling. Then came the taps. One, two, three.
The boys wriggled forward together. Colin looked down, desperately searching the eerie blue-black shadows, so that he might be able to say he saw it first, even though later Dougal would say the same and there would be no way of proving it. Then he saw them, and he wished he hadn’t. He wished he’d never looked, never seen her face, closer and clearer than he had imagined, and whiter in this dead light, against the black of the sand beneath her, and the black of the back of Gino’s head; on top of her, naked, his buttocks pulsing to a rhythm as ancient as the pull of the moon and the answering of the tides.
The pain that wrenched Colin’s gut was older still, so he didn’t think about the rules, he just cried out her name.
‘Veronica!’
‘Colin, Jesus, you weren’t meant to say anything.’
Dougal tugged at his sleeve but Colin was clinging to the edge now and he wouldn’t let go.
‘I’ll go without you then. And I was never here.’
Colin was only vaguely aware of his friend’s sliding retreat, his attention had been sucked into the chasm. Veronica looking up, surely not recognising the dark outline of his head, but knowing his voice, because even at that distance he saw her face change. And Gino, the movement grinding to a halt, turning, demanding, ‘Who is that?’ in a voice Colin had never heard before.
Colin slid back then, into the darkness; descending recklessly, luck and the balance of not caring bringing him to the bottom without lost skin or broken bones. There were voices from within the rock; one male, one female; one soothing, one resolute. Colin turned to run, any direction would do, his eyes full of tears, his desire to cry lost in the need to breathe more deeply. She emerged just ahead of him, before he could escape the memory of her. Dressed now, but her face still with the same startled expression, her hair wild and confused.
‘Colin,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t tell Mary.’
He turned to find a new direction, and hide his crying from her.
‘Sorry Colin, I’m sorry.’ In the voice of a little girl, the kind who might tell you secrets and share her sandwiches.
Colin didn’t go back to the bach. Gino would be waiting there, and Dougal; and even if nothing was said, it would still be too much to bear. So he ran on, to the south, and when the running had left him, put his head down and walked hard. It was enough, the movement, the sense of doing something, to keep his mind blank. With nowhere to head he was drawn to the lighthouse, a slow sweeping beam splitting the night from its position halfway up the cliff face. There was a path leading to it, a steep careful ascent in the dark, and Colin went slowly; wishing it was longer and steeper still, so that the simpler pain of climbing might last.
At the top Colin sat with his back against the cold of the lighthouse and watched the broken line of surf below. He followed the ray of light across the sweep of the cliffs, illuminating some features, making shadows of others, hiding as much as it uncovered. A reliable, monotonous warning to anyone who approached. Stay away. There is danger here. Stay away.
‘I hate her,’ Colin said to the night. ‘I hate him too. I hate Dougal for bringing me here. I hate the people who put me on the ship. I hate Dad for not stopping them. I hate the Sowbys and I hate Mary and I hate Father McBride. And I hate her. I hate her. I want to go back home. I hate her.’
Some of it was true, and some of it was just words, and the thing he hated most, he didn’t say. He hated being alone.
‘Colin?’
It was Veronica, standing with one foot still below the concreted plateau, as if she was uncertain whether to approach any further. She had followed him. She must have run as hard as he had, to keep sight of him. Colin looked up and he knew he didn’t hate her. He wanted to, but he didn’t.
‘What do you want?’
‘I just, I wanted to see you were all right.’ Still she didn’t come forward.
‘
Are you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I sit down with you?’
‘If you want.’
Colin wriggled to the side, feeling the numbness in his backside, and Veronica sat beside him. He felt the warmth of her body where it touched his, at the thigh and at the shoulder, and he felt his resolve to stay angry melt away.
‘I come here too sometimes, when I want to be by myself,’ Veronica finally said, after the light had completed four full sweeps of the bay. Colin didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say. If she had followed him, she knew how he felt. And there was no point talking about that, because she didn’t feel the same. Gino was a man and he was just a boy, and the next time the two of them were together they would laugh about him. So there was no point talking.
‘What were you doing there?’ Veronica asked.
‘Just following Gino. I wanted to know where he went, when he went out at night, but he wouldn’t tell me. I thought they would be gambling or something. I wanted to join in. That’s all.’
‘You must have been surprised.’ Veronica smiled, but not like she thought it was funny.
‘You must have been too.’
‘I was.’
‘Did Gino know it was me?’
‘He will now.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you’re not back at your bach are you?’
‘I don’t care anyway,’ Colin said, and he wanted it to be true. Then she said something that surprised him.
‘He won’t either. As long as you don’t tell anyone.’
Not surprising in the words, but surprising in the way she said them. Like she didn’t care for him at all. But she must. He’d seen her. Colin concentrated on the bright froth of surf far below them. Next to him, touching him, breathing in time, carefully guarding her own confusions, Veronica stayed silent.
‘I don’t like him you know. I don’t like any of them.’
‘I do,’ Colin told her, just needing to disagree. ‘Gino’s my friend.’
‘You don’t know him,’ Veronica replied. Slow, certain words.
‘I’ve known him longer than you have.’
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