The Ghost of Grania O'Malley (3 page)

‘Didn't you see me, Dad?' she said.

He stared at her in horror. ‘There's blood all over you, Jess,' he said, running over to her. ‘What have you been up to?'

‘I did it, Dad. I climbed the Big Hill! Mole brought me back, but I did the rest all on my own.'

‘I thought you'd climbed it already,' said her father. In her excitement, Jessie had even forgotten her own lies.

‘I did,' she said, recovering quickly, ‘I did, but I did it again, faster this time.'

Her father carried her inside and sat her down in the kitchen. ‘What do you want to go and do a crazy thing like that for?' he said, dabbing her grazed knees with wet cotton wool. It should have stung, but it didn't. ‘Your mother will kill me, letting you go off like that. Don't you say a word about it when she gets back, you hear me? And just look at the lump on your head!'

Jessie clutched the earring tight in her fist. The sheepdog was sniffing at it. ‘Get off, Panda,' she said, pushing him away. Panda gazed up at her out of his two white eyes and rested his wet chin on her knee. He'd been rolling in something nasty again. ‘When's Mum back?' Jessie went on.

‘This evening, if the weather holds,' said her father, pressing a cool tea towel on her head. ‘Here, hold that. It'll get the swelling down. He's arrived. Your cousin, Jack. Your mum rang from the airport at Shannon.'

‘What's he like?' Jessie said. Panda was trying to lick his way into her fist. She pushed him away again.

‘Quiet, doesn't say very much. Make a change from you, won't it?'

‘All summer!' Jessie protested. ‘Why does he have to come all summer?'

‘Because he's a relation, your Uncle Sean's son, your cousin.'

‘But I've never even met Uncle Sean.' Her father lifted up her arm to examine her elbow. She pulled away. ‘I'll wash it myself,' she snapped.

‘What's the matter, Jess?' he asked, crouching down beside her.

‘I wish he didn't have to come, Dad,' she said. ‘I like it like it is, with just the three of us.'

‘Me too,' said her father. ‘But we'll be three again after he's gone, won't we? Now get upstairs and wash that elbow of yours. We don't want it going poisonous on us. Your mum'll have fifty fits.'

Jessie had already thought where she would hide the earring before she even reached her room. The goldfish bowl. She'd hide it in the stones at the bottom of Barry's bowl. Barry went mad while she was doing it. He always hated her putting her hand in his bowl. ‘Look after it for me, Barry,' she said, and the goldfish mouthed at her from under his wispy weed and then turned his tail on her. ‘Please yourself then,' she said. All the while, Panda was on her bed and watching her intently. ‘Secret,' she said, putting her finger to her lips. ‘No one must ever know, just you and me and Barry. He's not telling anyone and neither are you, are you? You stink, Panda, you know that?'

3
THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

CLATTERBANG WOULDN'T START. SHE NEVER did when there was mist about, and there was often mist about. Clatterbang was a rusty old black taxicab that had seen better days on the streets of London and Belfast, but she was perfect for the island – when she worked. You could carry up to six sheep in the back, or twelve bales of hay, or a ‘creature' sculpture. But today it was just Jessie, with Panda curled up beside her on the back seat. Her father had his head under the bonnet, and said something that he would never have dared say if her mother had been home. He tried whatever he was trying again and suddenly the engine started. He slammed the bonnet down and jumped in.

‘We'll be late,' he said. ‘Hold tight.' They bumped and rattled down the farm track, out on to the road, past the abbey ruins and along the coast road towards the quay. They weren't late. The ferry was just tying up. Her father stopped the car and turned to her. ‘Once more, Jess, how'd you get the bump?'

‘I fell over.'

‘Where?'

‘In the garden.'

‘Good. And you stick to that story, no matter what, understand?'

They could see her mother now, tying her scarf over her head. She was standing at the end of the quay, and beside her was a tall boy, almost as tall as she was, with a white baseball hat on, sideways. He was gazing around him, hands thrust deep into his pockets. ‘Will you look at that beanpole of a boy!' said Jessie's father, opening the car door. ‘I'll give her a hand with those bags. You wait here.' And he was gone.

Jessie got out of the car and tottered along after him as fast as she could, which wasn't fast at all. Her legs were still tired from the climb up the Big Hill. She glanced up at the Big Hill, but it was no longer there. The mist had cut off its top again. She thought then of the voice and heard it again in her head. The more she thought about it, the more she believed it must be the first sign of madness. Maybe she had cerebal palsy of the brain as well as the body. Or maybe it was the voice of a saint she had heard. She hoped it was that. She'd heard the stories of St Patrick talking to folk as they climbed up Crough Patrick just over the water on the mainland. If it could happen there, it could happen here. It wasn't impossible. But then she thought that the voice hadn't sounded at all like a saint, not Jessie's idea of a saint anyway.

They were all three coming towards her now, her father carrying the bags, her mother striding out ahead, almost running as she reached her. ‘What do you mean, she fell over?' she said. Then she was crouching down in front of her and holding her by the shoulders. ‘Are you all right, Jess?'

‘Fine, Mum.'

‘What happened?'

‘I just tripped, that's all.'

‘Where?'

‘In the garden.' Jessie didn't dare look up in case she caught her father's eye. Her mother was examining the lump on her head. ‘One week,' she went on, ‘I go away one week. Have you seen the doctor?'

‘No.'

‘Dizzy?'

‘No.'

Then the boy was standing there. He had a silver brace on his teeth – more brace than teeth, Jessie thought.

‘This is your cousin Jack,' said her mother, smiling now. ‘All the way from Long Island, New York, America, to Clare Island, County Mayo, Ireland, isn't that right, Jack?' The boy was staring at her, and frowning at the same time. It was a normal reaction, when people saw her first. It was the way she stood, a little lopsided, as if she was disjointed somehow.

‘Hi,' said the boy. He was still scrutinising her. ‘How are you?'

‘Fine,' said Jessie. ‘Why wouldn't I be?'

‘She's not fine at all,' said her mother, and she smoothed Jessie's hair out of her face. ‘She's a terrible lump on her head.' Panda jumped up at Jack, and the boy backed away in alarm.

‘He won't hurt you,' said Jessie. ‘Only a sheepdog, not a wolf, y'know.' Jack laughed, a little nervously, Jessie thought.

‘We've got bigger ones back home,' he said, recovering himself. ‘We've got wolfhounds, Irish wolfhounds, three of them.'

‘Well, one's good enough for us,' Jessie said. ‘He's called Panda.'

‘On account of his eyes, I guess,' said Jack.

‘Not necessarily,' said Jessie, unwilling to hide her irritation.

‘We'll be home in a few minutes, Jack,' said Jessie's father. ‘Nowhere's far on Clare Island. Four miles end to end.' He put the bags down, and flexed his fingers. ‘You can walk the whole island in a couple of hours. I've got Clatterbang down the end of the quay, by the castle there.'

Jessie felt the boy watching her walk. She looked up quickly to catch him at it. She was right. He was watching. ‘You play American football?' she asked. It was just something to say.

‘Some.'

‘I've seen it on the telly. You any good at it?'

‘Not that good.'

‘Makes two of us then, doesn't it?' she said. She smiled at him and got a ghost of a smile back. Perhaps she liked him a little better now than she had at first, but she still wasn't sure of him. She eyed him warily as he walked along beside her in his spongy trainers, shoulders hunched. His hair was cut close. It was so close and so fair she could see every contour of his head, and he had more freckles on him than Jessie had ever seen on anyone. He was thin too, so that his blue jeans and his New York Yankees pinstripe sweatshirt hung loose on him. He was pointing up at the castle now. ‘Who lives up there?' he said. ‘Looks kind of old.'

‘It is. No one lives there, not any more.'

Jessie's father had stopped by the car and was opening the door. ‘Jeez, that's some car,' Jack said, running his hand along the bonnet. ‘Diesel, right? Three-litre engine? Old, I guess.'

‘It goes,' Jessie snapped. ‘And that's all a car's got to do, isn't it?' Now she had quite definitely made up her mind. She did not like this boy. She would not like this boy, she wouldn't ever like this boy. This was going to be the longest month of her life. Her mother was giving her one of her pointed looks.

‘You two cousins getting on, are you?' she said.

‘Perfect,' said Jessie, and she got in the car and slammed the door, leaving Jack to walk round the other side.

Clatterbang spluttered a few times and then started up reluctantly. No one spoke until they were well along the coast road.

‘Miss me?' said Jessie's mother.

‘Missed you,' her father replied. ‘We both did, didn't we, Jess?' He turned to her. ‘And how was Dublin?'

‘Don't ask.' She spoke so quietly that Jessie could hardly hear.

On the back seat, cousin Jack and cousin Jessie sat side by side in silence. Panda looked first at one and then the other. At supper, Jack hardly touched a thing. He chewed on a piece of bread and said it wasn't the same as the bread ‘back home'. The water, he said, tasted ‘kind of funny' and he screwed up his nose when Jessie's father offered him some of his home-made sheep's cheese.

‘You got peanut butter?' Jack asked. ‘I usually have peanut butter sandwiches and a Coke.'

‘What, every meal?' Jessie's father said.

Jack nodded. ‘Except breakfast. I have cornflakes for breakfast, and Coke.'

‘I'll get some peanut butter in tomorrow,' Jessie's mother said, patting his arm. ‘Now you'd better get yourself to bed. A good night's sleep, that's what you need. Got to be up early. School tomorrow.'

‘School?'

‘That's what your father said,' Jessie's mother went on. ‘“Treat him no different,” he told me. “What Jessie does, he does.” Your dad's my older brother, remember? I always did what he said when I was little – almost always anyway – and where you're concerned, what your dad says goes. So it's school for you tomorrow. Jess will be with you. You'll look after him, won't you, Jess? You need any help unpacking, Jack?' Jack shook his head. Then, without saying a word, he stood up, pushed back his chair and went out. The three of them looked at each other, the clock ticking behind them in the silence of the kitchen. They heard Jack's bedroom door shut at the end of the passage upstairs.

‘He's got his troubles,' Jessie's mother said. ‘He'll be fine, he'll settle.'

‘What kind of troubles?' Jessie asked.

‘Never you mind,' and she tapped Jessie's plate. ‘Waste not, want not. Eat. And by the way, Jess, will you tell me how come your trousers are all torn and covered in mud?'

‘I told you. I fell over, I tripped,' Jessie said, suddenly busying herself with her eating so she didn't have to look up.

‘In the garden,' her father added, rather too hurriedly.

‘So you said, so you said.' It was quite clear she didn't believe a word of it.

Jessie's bedroom was right above the kitchen. She could always hear what was being said downstairs, even if sometimes she didn't want to. But tonight she did. She knew – everyone on the island knew – the real reason her mother had been over to the mainland. It wasn't just to fetch cousin Jack from the airport. That was just part of it. She'd been a whole week in Dublin, trying to see the bigwigs in the Dáil, the parliament, about the Big Hill.

Her mother and father rarely talked about the Big Hill in front of her, and Jessie knew why. There wasn't another thing in the world they ever argued about, just the Big Hill. They would tease one another from time to time, but they would never really argue – not in Jessie's hearing anyway. They had spats of course, like anyone. Interrupt her father when he was making one of his ‘creatures' in his shed and there was always trouble. But her mother never dug her heels in, never lost her temper, except when she was defending the Big Hill.

Catherine O'Malley – her mother's name before she married – was without doubt the most beautiful woman on the island, and therefore the cause of much admiration and envy. She had a mass of shining dark hair and eyes to match. Jessie knew the story well, and she loved to think of it, often. There was hardly a man who hadn't wanted to marry her mother. She was engaged to Michael Murphy, who owned the salmon farm now and the Big Hill too, when Jimmy Parsons, this ‘blow-in' from England, this foreigner, this sculptor, came to stay for a summer holiday. He set eyes on Catherine O'Malley, took her fishing one day, married her and never went away.

Everyone knew Michael Murphy was still in high dudgeon about it even all these years later. He was a squat little man and rich as Croesus – the very opposite of her father, who stood nearly two metres in his boots, and hadn't a penny to his name. He was almost always in his boots too, either out in the fields shepherding his flock or in his shed carving his beloved ‘creatures' that no one ever seemed to want to buy. He didn't seem to mind too much, and Jessie didn't mind at all. They were like family to her. She had given every one of them a name, and when she was little he would tell her stories about them in the dark before she went off to sleep. Her father only took his boots off in the evenings and then his dirty toes would be sticking out of his socks, and he'd be scratching them. He wasn't perfect, but as a father he was a whole lot better than Michael Murphy would ever have been.