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      ‘You’re quiet,’ Maud observed, finishing Eva’s hair. ‘Did anything happen on the cycle back from Killybegs?’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘You tell me.’ Maud looked down. ‘You’re blushing.’

      ‘Am I?’

      ‘Jack is daft about you. I heard him tell Father and Mother.’

      ‘What did they say?’

      ‘That you couldn’t be rushed, you didn’t really understand such things yet. But you do, don’t you? You must do what you alone want in your heart. But a man cannot be put off for ever either. You could lose him.’

      Eva knew this. But there was so much else she could lose. She felt safe in Donegal where she understood this peaceful world and it understood her. Jack didn’t just bring the horror of war into their lives by occasionally shouting in his sleep, making Eva long to comfort him, he also brought home the encroachment of adulthood. There was no doubt but they made a wonderful couple, matched in everything except experience. He loved nature like she did and would happily lie out in the fields while Eva recited Tennyson or Whitman. But change was everywhere. This autumn Art would enter the University of London. A suitor could snatch away Maud at any moment. Watching Father check the windows at night Eva knew in her heart that they could wake to find the house in flames. That was why she loved to stop time in paintings. But life refused to work like that.

      The maid’s voice called from the landing that Maud was urgently needed to sort out seating arrangements. Left alone, Eva examined herself in the mirror. The Victorian dress made her seem older, the piled up hair emphasising her slender neck. She closed her eyes to imagine Jack’s hand caressing it. Then the dinner gong broke her reverie. At Maud’s chest of drawers she put rouge on her face, then walked downstairs to greet people, sensing Jack watching her every step.

      By a miracle they all fitted at the table. Some neighbours disapproved of such mayhem but Eva loved the informality where Cook was applauded and people struggled to make themselves heard. Across the table Jack caught her eye and Eva knew that he thought she looked beautiful. Normally she would have brought down her autograph book to ensure that everyone inscribed a clever remark or fragment of poetry. At last year’s regatta party Mr Barnes’s eldest son had inscribed a poem:

      If the wicked old world was swept away

      Like dust from your studio floor,

      And only those parts of it made again

      That were good and fair and pure;

      And if the re-making was given to me,

      I’d begin with Donegal,

      And your studio out in the stables

      Would be the first of all.

      But the treasured autograph book belonged to her old life and she would have felt childish bringing it to the table now.

      As befitted dangerous times, there was no talk of politics, with even Mr Ffrench and Art respecting Father’s wish. Afterwards people crowded into the drawing room, where the rector’s son produced a fiddle to accompany Father on the piano. They launched into old-time waltzes, English folk dances like Sir Roger de Coverley and then, when the room was warmed up, riotous Irish set dances like The Walls of Limerick, with people eager to teach Jack the steps. Eva noticed that he never danced with her, anxious not to spoil the moment when they would finally be alone in the boat. At eleven o’clock, the dancing halted to let people deliver their party pieces. Maud was first, singing the Skye Boat Song. Eva saw Jack slip away and knew that he was about to cycle to Bruckless House to untie the small boat by the pier.

      Maud’s song finished and old Dr O’Donnell sang Eileen Alannah, with eyes only for his smiling arthritic wife. The minute hand on the mantelpiece clock picked up speed as more songs followed. Father played a piece by Liszt and Mother who was tone-deaf said, ‘That’s lovely, Tim,’ as she always did whether he played Beethoven or Pop Goes the Weasel. Mr Barnes insisted that Father play a composition of his own and the room was still as he began to sing:

      ‘Far, far away, across the sea

      There lies an island divinely fair

      Where spirits blest forever dwell

      And breathe its radiant enchanted air.’

      The familiar words followed Eva as she slipped unnoticed upstairs. Her room was moonlit, her bathing costume in the drawer. She chose a robe and long white towel, took the band of silk rosebuds from her hair which tumbled down, and then, as an afterthought, washed the rouge from her face. The kitchen was empty when she desperately wanted someone to find her. But nobody came to stop her lifting the latch and slipping into the yard, past her dark studio and around onto the main street. She stopped across the road to look at the open drawing room window where family and neighbours were gathered. The dancing would soon recommence. The noise of a Crossley Tender’s engine in the distance suggested troops were about. The street was deserted, with locals cautious of venturing out. Jack would be waiting at the Bunlacky shore. It was dangerous to leave him alone, in case patrolling auxiliaries mistook him for a rebel. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move from the scene in the window. Footsteps came down the lane she had just left. Eva recognised the hat before hearing Brendan’s lilt: ‘Who goes there? A grenadier. What do you want? A pint of beer…’

      He spied her and stopped. ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘Swimming.’

      ‘It’s midnight.’

      ‘I know. Do you want to come?’

      ‘I’ve no costume.’

      ‘You can stay in the boat and explore the island?’

      ‘What boat?’

      ‘It will be an adventure, our secret.’

      Even as she held out her hand Eva knew that she was making a terrible mistake. But she couldn’t stop herself. All the way down the Bunlacky road she kept intending to send Brendan back at the next bend, but she swung his arm and let him sing, until on the final bend she hushed him.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ the boy whispered, sensing her tension.

      Eva didn’t reply, but walked on, clutching her bathing costume to her breast, feeling so small in the moonlight as she struggled to decide what she wanted. She reached the rocks and spied the boat below, with Jack smoking as he waited. He stood up, tossed the cigarette into the waves and held out a hand which halted in midair as the boy appeared behind her.

      ‘Hello, Jack,’ Brendan called. ‘Are we going on an adventure?’

      Jack didn’t reply. He looked across the dark waves and Eva knew that he simply wanted to row away. But the boy had already run down the crude stone steps and Jack swung the boat around so that he could clamber on board. The young officer put a hand out to help Eva get in, then immediately released his grip. He seemed taut like a coiled spring, saying nothing. Yet Eva knew that he was not angry, merely disappointed and more annoyed with himself than with her. Without Brendan she would never have come this far. She would have hesitated on a bend on the Bunlacky road, lacking the СКАЧАТЬ