The Ghost of Grania O'Malley (8 page)

Jack was still new enough to fascinate. Baseball had become all the rage – every evening down on the field. Anyone who was anyone had by now acquired a baseball hat of sorts. He had a quiet way with him that everyone liked and respected. Marion Murphy, and she wasn't alone, still hung around him all she could. Jessie overheard her one rainy playtime when they were cooped up inside. ‘I can't understand it,' Marion was saying. ‘He's Jessie's cousin, and I fancy him rotten.'

It was Marion too who did most to stoke up the furore about the Big Hill. She would do all she could to provoke frequent and often nasty confrontations with Jessie. She'd catch her alone in the playground with her back to the fence so she couldn't get away, and she'd start yelling at her, nose to nose. Jack would intervene, always just in time. ‘Getting mad won't help,' he'd say. ‘Let's just cool it.' And Marion would back off, just like that. He had a way with Marion that no one else had.

But Jack couldn't be with Jessie all the time. It was the end of school one afternoon, and it was hot. Jessie was tired. Her legs had been hurting all day, and she just wanted to go home. Suddenly they were all around her, Marion Murphy and her pack. They were on about the Big Hill again and how Jessie's mother was the only one against it. She felt battered and bruised by their angry, scathing looks and their vicious words. She just wanted to run. But there was no way out. Suddenly, inexplicably, she felt a new power, a new courage rising within her, a new kind of strength; and she knew as she spoke, that the words that came out were not hers. She had become the face in the mirror, the voice on the Big Hill. She knew it was Grania O'Malley talking through her, she was quite sure of it. Where else could she have found the nerve? The words flowed out fluently, without her even having to think about them.

‘Will you let me speak or not?' She waited till they were quiet, and then went on. ‘Let's say you get your share of the gold – which you won't – what will you do with it? You can't eat it, you can't drink it.'

‘Get rich, stupid!' Marion Murphy shouted into her face, and they all roared their support.

‘Oh yes?' Jessie was quite undaunted. ‘And meanwhile, they'll have torn a great hole in the Big Hill with their machines, so none of us will ever be able to stand up there again and look out to the Islands in Clew Bay. You'd like that, would you? Oh, and of course Mister Barney's in the way, isn't he? So we'll just kick him out and move him on. No problem. And the water in the wells will all be poisoned. But who cares? It won't matter, will it, because we'll all of us be eating off solid gold plates, and that'll make us as happy as pie, won't it? That hill has been there, Marion Murphy, since the beginning of time. Didn't St Patrick himself pray on it? Didn't Grania O'Malley keep watch on it against the English?'

Before the words came out, Jessie had never even known that St Patrick had prayed on the Big Hill, nor that Grania O'Malley had kept watch on it. Her speech silenced them, but only for a few moments. Then Marion was railing again. ‘Don't listen to her. It's a lot of bull. Stuff St Patrick. Stuff Grania O'Malley. It'll be jobs for everyone, money for everyone – that's what my dad says. And anyway, it doesn't matter what you say, or your stupid mum says, 'cos she can't stop it now and neither can you. They're coming. The bulldozers are coming. What are you going to do, ask them nicely to stop?'

There was no way out for Jessie. She was in too deep to back away now. ‘I'll lie down in front of them,' Jess said quietly. ‘You see if I don't.' They all scoffed at her, hurled a few more insults, and at last went away and left her in peace.

She told Jack about it afterwards, when they were alone. ‘You wouldn't really do it though, would you?' he said.

‘If I have to. If I have to, I will. Now I've said it, I've got to, haven't I?'

‘Then we'll do it together,' he said firmly.

‘Honest?'

‘We're family, right?'

It was that evening that Jessie and her mother found the newborn lamb dead beside the ruined cottage in the bog-oak field, the ewe still nuzzling it. The lamb was covered in black flies. ‘Poor thing,' said her mother, waving the flies away. ‘Born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Bit like me, I think.' They dug a hole in the corner of the field, laid the lamb out and covered it up. Jessie looked away. She saw tears in her mother's eyes, but she said nothing. ‘I saw Liam's mum. She told me about school,' said her mother, as they walked away.

‘What about it?'

‘About you, about Marion Murphy, about lying down in front of the machines when they come.'

‘Jack says he'll do it with me,' said Jessie.

‘Did he now? Well, he's a fine boy. I like him more every day, and so does your dad, but no one's going to lie down in front of anything. No one's going to get hurt. I'll find a way without that. I'm not going to give up, that's for sure.' They walked on in silence for a while. ‘I'm so proud of you, Jess, you know that?' she said. ‘So pleased you're on my side.'

‘What about Dad?'

‘Oh, he'll come round.' She smiled and put her arm round Jessie's shoulders. ‘Give him time.'

‘Only if you talk to him, Mum,' said Jessie. ‘You've got to talk. Jack's mum and dad – he says it all started with shouting first of all, and then no one talked. And she just went off.'

‘Listen, Jess, I'm not leaving. And your dad's not leaving either. He's dug his heels in over this, and so have I, that's all. We're both just doing what we think is right. I don't love him any the less, I promise. What he doesn't seem to understand just yet, is that I'm right. He still thinks he is. I have to persuade him that he's wrong, and that's never easy with anyone. I can promise you this though, Jess: there'll be no blood on the carpet when it's over. Believe me?'

Jessie said she did, but there was still an aching worry inside her that would not go away.

Jack came back at dusk, happy as a sandboy. He'd spent half the day with his head and hands deep inside Clatterbang's engine, and the rest of the time he'd been coaching the ‘Pirates' – that was what the Clare Island baseball team now grandly called themselves. He was full of smiles as he threw himself breathless on to the sofa. ‘The guys want some gloves and a real ball. I'm going to get Dad to send them over. They want Yankee caps like mine, too. What do you think? Can I call home?'

When he came back into the room some minutes later, all the light had gone from his eyes. He barely touched his peanut butter sandwiches. Jessie found herself talking nineteen to the dozen, just to cover up the silence round the table. In the end she ran out of things to say, so she asked Jack about the phone call.

‘Is your dad sending them then, the gloves and things?' Jack nodded, but he didn't even look up.

At last her father spoke up. ‘I tell you what, how would you two like to come fishing tomorrow? Bit too much of a swell for the boat. We'll try the rocks. There's mackerel about and bass. Have you ever done any fishing, Jack?'

‘Some.'

‘That's settled then. After school tomorrow. I'll pick you up.'

All through school the next day, Jack hardly spoke to anyone. In playtime, in spite of all Marion's begging and badgering, he left Marion and Liam and the Pirates to their training, and went to sit by himself on the wall. Jessie joined him.

‘You all right?' Jessie asked.

‘My Dad's sick, really sick,' Jack said quietly. ‘He sounded really bad on the phone. He's going to have surgery. It's because I lost my arrowhead. I know it.'

‘What's he got?' Jessie asked.

‘Something's wrong with his heart. He said he needs a new valve.'

‘That's nothing,' said Jessie. ‘My gran had that, and she's fine now, honest.'

‘You sure?' Jack said, the life in his voice again.

‘Course I am.'

Just before the end of playtime, Marion Murphy came over to them, swinging her baseball bat. As usual she had her whole pack with her. ‘You changed your mind yet, Jessie Parsons?' she demanded. Jessie shook her head. ‘Well, we've all decided. We're not speaking to you till you do, not a word. None of us.'

Jack jumped down off the wall and put himself between them and Jessie. ‘Why don't you guys get lost!' he shouted. No one had ever heard him like this before. ‘Why don't you just leave her alone?' And he pushed through them and walked away. But Marion was as good as her word. No one spoke to Jessie. They'd just look at her and smile amongst themselves. It was the longest school day she'd ever lived through.

Her father met them in Clatterbang at the school gates and drove them across the island to Portlea. He was prattling on about the last bass he'd caught off the rocks at Portlea. ‘Ten pounds it was, and not a word of a lie,' he said. He looked at them in the rearview mirror. ‘Not the happiest pair I've ever seen,' he said. ‘What's going on?'

‘Nothing,' said Jessie.

‘Well, you could have fooled me,' said her father. ‘Whatever it is, the fishing will help. A great healer is fishing. You haven't quarrelled, have you?'

‘No,' said Jessie firmly. But she said no more.

Her father was right about the fishing. There was the heart-stopping clamber down the rocks clutching her father's hand. There was the wind and spray on her face, and the great grey sea heaving in towards her. All her troubles were soon forgotten. And Jack was his old self again. Jessie's father fixed up a rod and line for him and helped him with his first cast. He didn't need any more help than that. Jessie watched him. Each cast was more expert than the one before. He knew what he was doing. Jessie always loved this place. She couldn't hold a rod, not to fish with; but she didn't mind. She was happy enough just watching them both, and listening to them wittering on about engines and turbos, pistons and filters and suchlike. And when she tired of that, there were the cormorants and shags to look at, standing like black sentinels on their rock below her, wings outspread and drying in the sun; and there were the gulls too, and the fulmars and the terns swooping and screaming overhead.

A mist was creeping in over the sea and Jessie wondered if there was any real difference between clouds and mist. She was already cold, and her legs ached, but she didn't mind. She was just thinking about Grania O'Malley again when she heard her father curse loudly.

‘Lousy reel's jammed again,' he said. ‘It's never been any good. And there's fish about too, I can smell them. Listen, can you two look after yourselves for a while? I'll just pop back home for my old one. Old-fashioned it may be, but at least it never lets me down, not like this beggar. You stay where you are, Jess, and you too, Jack, y'hear me? No climbing down. There's a wicked-looking swell out there today. Stay put. I shan't be long.' And he took his rod and was gone, up over the rocks to the cliff path. Jessie heard Clatterbang starting up.

‘Hear that?' Jack called out. ‘Starts better already. I'm a genius with engines, a real genius.'

‘Any luck with the fish, genius?' she called back. Jack never answered. He just reeled in and cast again. In her armchair of rock, Jessie was too far away from him to talk properly. They had hardly said a word to each other since the incident in the playground. She wanted to talk. So she left her rock and sidled towards him on her bottom, until she was sitting right beside him and looking down into a cauldron of surging sea. ‘I don't care, you know,' she said. ‘I don't care if they never speak to me ever again. I don't care. They can stuff themselves.'

That was the moment the fish caught on and Jack shouted, ‘I've got one! I've got one!' He braced his legs and began to reel in furiously. Then he slipped. His legs went from under him and he was sliding past her towards the edge.

Instinctively, Jessie reached out for him. For a fleeting moment she had hold of his jeans, just long enough for Jack to cling on to a rock and stop his slide. But then Jessie herself was slipping, rolling over and over and over, trying to find something to clutch at, anything. But there was nothing, no way she could stop herself. She caught a glimpse of Jack throwing himself full-stretch on the rock to save her. Then she was over the edge and falling through the air. The sea smothered her before she could scream. The water came into her mouth and into her ears and she was sinking deeper and deeper and could do nothing about it.

She looked up. There was light up above her, light she knew she had to reach if she was to live, but her legs wouldn't kick and her flailing arms seemed incapable of helping her. She had often thought about how drowning would be, when she was out in her father's boat or crossing over from the mainland on the ferry. And now she was drowning. This was how it was. Her eyes were stinging, so she closed them. She closed her mouth too, so she wouldn't swallow any more seawater. But she had to breathe – she couldn't help herself. She gasped and the seawater came in again and she began to choke.

Then something was holding her down. She fought, but the grip tightened about her waist and would not let go. Her head broke water, and suddenly there was air, wonderful air to breathe. She was spluttering and coughing. Someone was shouting at her. It was Jack and he was holding her. ‘It's me! It's me! Hang on, just hang on to me. You'll be OK.' His face was near hers. ‘Can you swim?' She shook her head. ‘Just try to keep your mouth closed. Someone'll see us. We'll be OK. We'll be fine.'

Jessie looked beyond him. The shore was already a long way off and they were being carried away from it all the time. She looked the other way. Whenever they came up to the top of a wave she could see the bank of mist rolling over the sea towards them. One more wave and the mist would swallow them and then no one would ever see them.