On the Edge of Darkness. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ them, that Gartnait suddenly paused in his chipping and listened. Brid fell silent at once. She looked round, frightened.

      ‘What is it?’ Adam glanced from one to the other.

      She put her finger to her lips, her eyes on her brother’s face.

      Adam strained his ears. He could hear nothing but the faint whisper of the wind through the dry heather stems.

      Abruptly Gartnait gave Brid an order which galvanised her into action. She leaped to her feet and grabbed Adam’s wrist. ‘Come. Quick.’ They were words he had taught her already.

      ‘Why? What’s wrong?’ He was bewildered.

      ‘Come.’ She was dragging him away from her brother towards the trees.

      ‘Brid!’ Gartnait called after her. He gabbled some quick instructions and she nodded, still clutching Adam’s hand. The mist had drifted back across the hill and they dived into it as Adam saw two figures approaching in the distance. Clearly Brid did not intend him to meet them. In seconds he and Brid were concealed in the mist and their visitors were out of sight.

      She led the way, confidently recognising landmarks he couldn’t see and almost at once they were emerging near the spot where he had first seen her.

      He looked round nervously. Surely Gartnait and the two strangers were only a few paces away behind the stone? He glanced back, seeing its shape looming out of the murk, touched now by the early morning sun. There was no sign of Gartnait or his unwelcome visitors.

      ‘Who are they?’ Adam mimed his question.

      Brid shrugged. To explain was too complicated, clearly, and she was still afraid. She tugged his hand and, her finger to her lips, again headed down the hillside. Of Gartnait there was no sign.

      The day was spoiled. She was clearly afraid and although she sat down near him when he beckoned her towards a sheltered rock from where they could survey the valley, which was still bathed in sunshine, in only a few minutes she had risen to her feet.

      ‘Goodbye, A-dam.’ She took his hand and gave it a little tug.

      ‘Can I come again tomorrow?’ He couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his voice.

      She smiled and shrugged. ‘Tomorrow?’

      How do you mime tomorrow? He shrugged too, defeated.

      She shook her head and with a little wave of her hand turned and ran back up the hill on silent feet. He slumped back against the rock, disappointed.

      She wasn’t there tomorrow or the next day. Twice he went up the hill again and twice he searched all day for their cottage and for Gartnait’s stone, but there was no sign of either. Both times he returned home feeling let down and puzzled.

      ‘Where have you been all day?’ His father was sitting opposite him in the cold dining room.

      ‘Walking, Father.’ The boy’s hands tightened nervously on his knife and fork and he put them down on his plate.

      ‘I saw Mistress Gillespie at the post office today. She said you hadn’t been down to play with the boys.’

      ‘No, Father.’

      How could he explain the side-long looks, the sniggers?

      He studied the pattern on his plate with furious concentration as if imprinting the delicate ivy-leaf design around the rim on his retinas.

      ‘Are you looking forward to starting school again?’ The minister was trying hard. His own eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his hands shaking slightly. When his plate was only half empty he pushed the food aside and gave up. Adam couldn’t keep his eyes off the remains of his father’s supper. If he himself left anything he was normally the recipient of a lecture on waste and was told to sit there until he had eaten it. Seething with sudden resentment, he wished he dare say something, but he remained silent. The atmosphere in the room was tense. He hated it and, he realised it at last, he hated his father.

      Miserably he shook his head as his father offered him a helping from the cold trifle left on the sideboard and he sat with bowed head whilst Thomas, clearly relieved that the meal was over, said a quick prayer of thanks and stood up. ‘I have a sermon to write.’ It was said almost apologetically.

      Adam looked up. For a brief moment he felt an unexpected wave of compassion sweep over him as he met his father’s eyes. The next he had looked away coldly. Their unhappiness was, after all, his father’s fault.

      ‘A-dam!’ She had crept up beside him as he lay on the grass, his arm across his eyes to block off the glare from the sun.

      He removed his arm and smiled without sitting up. ‘Where have you been?’

      ‘Hello, A-dam.’ She knelt beside him and dropped a handful of grass-seed heads on his face. ‘A-dam, shortbread?’ She pointed to the knapsack which lay beside him.

      He laughed. ‘You’re a greedy miss, that’s what you are.’ He unfastened it and brought out the tin of shortbread. He was pleased she had remembered the word. He glanced round. ‘Gartnait?’

      She shook her head.

      As he peered round the cross-slab to see if her brother was there she wagged her finger. ‘No, A-dam. No go there.’

      ‘Why not? Where have you been? Why couldn’t I find you?’ He was growing increasingly frustrated at this inability to communicate with her properly.

      She sat down beside him and began to pull the lid off the shortbread tin. She seemed uninterested in further conversation, leaning back on her elbows, sucking at the soft buttery biscuit, licking her lips. The sun came out from behind a cloud, throwing a bright beam across her face and she closed her eyes. He studied her for a moment. She had dark hair and strong regular features. When the bright, grey eyes, slightly slanted, were closed, as now, her face was tranquil yet still full of character, but when those eyes were open her whole expression came alive, vivacious and enquiring. Silver lights danced in her eyes and her firm, quirky mouth twitched with humour. She was peeping at him beneath her long dark lashes, conscious of his scrutiny, reacting with an instinctive coquetry that had not been there before. Abruptly she sat up.

      ‘A-dam.’ She was saying his name more fluently now, more softly, but with the same intonation which he found so beguiling.

      He ceased his scrutiny abruptly, feeling himself blush. ‘It’s time we learned each other’s language,’ he said firmly. ‘Then we can all talk together.’

      She moved, with a graceful wiggle of her hips, onto her knees and pointed down the valley the way he had come. ‘A-dam, big shortbread?’ she said coaxingly.

      He burst out laughing. ‘All right. More shortbread. Next time I come.’

      He hadn’t planned to follow her. He just couldn’t stop himself. He had spent the afternoon teaching her words, astonished by the phenomenal memory which retained faultlessly everything he told her. He taught her more trees and flowers and birds; he taught her the names of their clothes; he taught her arms and legs and heads and eyes and hair and all the items in his knapsack; he taught her walk and sit and run. He taught her the sky and the sun, the wind and the words for laugh and cry, and they had СКАЧАТЬ