The Family on Paradise Pier. Dermot Bolger

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СКАЧАТЬ she would have continued walking like this for ever, but that was a child’s wish and, glancing at Jack, she knew that she was a woman.

      

      The house was packed when they reached home and the drawing room carpet had been taken up for dancing. Mr Barnes, manager of the Royal Bank in Donegal town, had transported the Goold Verschoyle family silver from his vault despite his misgivings about taking such a risk in these times. His three sons were here and the eldest boy was playing tennis against Maud in the garden. Through the window Eva watched Maud gracefully return a volley with one hand holding down her straw hat. Thomas talked to Mr Barnes in the grown-up way which came naturally to him, while ten-year-old Brendan raced in and out of the open front door pursued by a clutch of village children in a game that Eva couldn’t fathom but would have loved to join in. Male voices came from Father’s study and Art joined the men there like poor Oliver Hawkins had been allowed to do the summer before he died. Mr Ffrench was also in there with the rector whose son always attended their musical evenings and sang I Love Thee, Come Forth Tonight.

      The kitchen would be dangerous territory, with the flustered cook complaining that in any other house the mistress would have some notion about how many were likely to arrive for dinner. Mother would be trying to soothe her, with Mrs Trench, the gardener’s wife, also there to help. Maud sometimes whispered that Art was sweet on Mrs Trench’s only daughter, but Mr Trench – a man of few words – had once announced that he would twist the neck off any boy seen near her. Art’s social position would not save him from Mr Trench’s temper if he were over-familiar with the girl. Thinking of this made Eva wonder where Beatrice Hawkins was now. The Great War had changed everything. Tonight’s gaiety would be tinged by absences. Eva and Maud often lay awake discussing the dozen young men from nearby Protestant families butchered in France and Belgium, with Mother despairing that so few eligible locals remained for her daughters to consider marrying. Eva wondered how long a boat took to reach New Zealand and what it would feel like to be a bride. The possibility would have been exciting were it not suddenly tangible.

      She went to answer the front door where two local women wearing shawls stood with a donkey cart loaded with whiting, herrings and sprats, looking to sell them at two pennies a plateful. Eva explained that tonight was a special dinner. As the women moved off, she checked the basket on her bicycle and found that only two eggs were broken. Carefully she removed them while Brendan ran through a flock of geese to offer to ride her bicycle around to the coach house.

      Eva braved the chaos of the kitchen to give Cook the eggs. The babble there was too much for her, so she slipped out to her studio where she could think.

      It was seven o’clock, five hours until midnight. It would be impossible to talk to Mother all evening and, even if she could, Eva wouldn’t know what to ask. She longed to knock at Father’s study and ask to speak to him alone because Father understood her, but Eva was too shy to seek advice from anyone about anything so personal.

      Eva’s parents were used to her wandering off for walks at night to sketch in the moonlight or simply sing with joy where she could not be overheard. With so many people arriving tonight nobody would miss her or Jack. She imagined cold water soaking into her bathing costume, the sway of dark waves, the white splash of oars. She would need to change back into her clothes when they reached the island, having to render herself naked under a bathing robe before slipping every item of apparel back on. Jack would be kindling a fire with his back to her, aware that she was briefly naked and knowing that when she sat next to him a tang of salt would still linger on her lips if he kissed her. He would definitely kiss her on the island with no one else there. If she allowed him, he would touch her through her clothes in places where Eva had never been touched. Surely it would be the most fleeting of touches because he was a gentleman who wished to marry her and would do nothing that might lessen his respect. Perhaps he would just want to talk or read her poetry.

      The coach house was deserted. The family had divided the building into separate dens. Being fascinated by science, Art and Thomas had constructed a laboratory in the part furthest from the kitchen, from which explosions were occasionally heard. Nearby Maud had set up a weaving shed, after visiting local weavers to master the loom. Maud’s den was also the editorial address of The Dunkineely News, the family newspaper established by Maud to record the advent of summer visitors. A flight of rickety steps led to the small loft that Eva used as a studio for painting. Brendan generally flitted between dens, anxious to be with his brothers but knowing he would be teased less by his sisters. He considered the back seat of the motor as his private den. This was parked in the main coach house, and Art and Thomas were summoned to discuss engine problems whenever it refused to start.

      Eva climbed the stairs to her studio where she could be alone, except for the mouse behind the skirting board whom Eva had trained to come out and accept food from her hands. Jack was the only visitor to her studio with the patience to sit still long enough for the mouse to emerge. Jack seemed content to sit for hours and watch her paint. At first Eva was too self-conscious in his presence, but she had grown so accustomed to him being there that she found it hard to paint without Jack at her shoulder.

      She picked up a paintbrush but put it back, wishing she had socks to darn because she found darning a soothing occupation. Footsteps ascended the wooden stairs and she prayed it was not Jack. It was Brendan, wearing the comical oversized hat that he loved.

      ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

      ‘Just dreaming.’

      ‘I bet you’ll be a famous artist when you grow up.’

      Eva laughed. ‘I doubt it.’

      ‘I’ll stand by the door in tails and top hat greeting the crowds pouring into your first exhibition.’

      ‘I prefer you wearing that hat. What will you be?’

      ‘A world famous traveller. Foreign correspondent for The Dunkineely News, sending dispatches from Killybegs and Kilimanjaro. I’ll recruit a tribe of pygmies to land at Bruckless Pier and march on Dunkineely to put Art and Thomas in the stocks with people ordered to empty chamber pots over their heads.’

      Eva smiled. ‘What have they done now?’

      ‘Thomas won’t let me into the attics to dress up.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘The dancing, silly. Maud has decided we should wear fancy dress tonight. She says you must go as Becky from Vanity Fair and she is dressing as a damsel from a harem, whatever that is. Will you help me to find a costume and stop the others from teasing?’

      Eva took his hand, which felt so small after Jack’s, and left the studio. She envied Brendan being the magic age of ten, just like he envied Eva her grown-up status. At ten she had seemed old compared to her brothers, but, as the youngest, Brendan would always seem young. They crossed the yard, swinging their arms and singing. She knew that the others had not really barred him from the attics, especially Art with his deep sense of justice, but Brendan was sensitive to every slight, convinced that his brothers patronised him no matter what he did. Normally Eva loved to dress up but this evening she found it hard to focus on anything except the slow approach of midnight. Maud had opened a trunk of clothes belonging to Grandpappy’s late wife who had been locked away in an asylum for the incurably insane. Grandpappy had never encouraged visitors, claiming that she recognised nobody, but Eva used to hate imagining the old woman stranded in a ward of strangers.

      Maud was dressed in bright silks, set off by a rich Persian cummerbund. She had found a pageboy outfit that Brendan only agreed to wear on condition that he could keep on his favourite hat. For Eva, Maud had a high-waisted, full-skirted pale green satin dress, which had probably not been worn for decades. Normally СКАЧАТЬ