Black Lake (8 page)

The path was overgrown, and some of the flagstones had broken in two where the roots pushed up underneath. The church had been built right in the center of the island, but now it was imperceptibly nearer the far end, as the waves that crashed against the seaward side slowly eroded the rocks. Through neglect, and because of the battering it got from the wind and rain, the church had fallen derelict. The roof was long gone, and grass grew amongst the rotting carcasses that were the pews, pushing up through the cracks in the floor. There had been a stained glass window at the landward end of the church, but the glass had never been there in Philip’s time. His father said that he barely remembered it himself, that it had blown out in a big storm when he was a little boy. The family had been quite glad of it, actually. They had grown tired of taking the boat out on Sunday mornings, and the local minister really hadn’t the time to fit such a small, inaccessible congregation into his rounds.

The only object that had stayed perfectly unchanged was the white marble altar, which had been planted parallel to the shore, at the top of the aisle. Philip stood in front of it now, holding his shovel. He was wondering where to build his hut. If he built it inside the church, he would have the advantage of having one ready-made wall—two, if it was in a corner. But he wasn’t sure about the idea. He wasn’t sure if it was right to build a hut in a church, even a derelict one, and it would be more difficult to hide it if anyone should come out to the island. No, he would have to make it at the far end, where not even Francis would go.

He went out through the door shaped like a bishop’s hat and into the churchyard. It was still used by the family. Though one of Francis’s jobs was to pull the weeds away from the graves, they grew with a ferocity that no one could keep pace with. Philip’s father had suggested that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let Owen Mór’s sheep loose out there for a while, but Francis refused to entertain that notion either.

The place was wild with grass; it was knee-high on the path, it grew in clumps at the foot of the headstones, it sprouted from the granite slabs on top of the graves, though there was no soil to sustain it there. Moss and lichen covered the headstones, so that the lettering had become barely legible. This Philip’s father said that one of these days they should bring out paper and charcoal to do a rubbing, before the words were lost forever.

A ring of yew trees encircled the churchyard, a sign that his family believed they were going to heaven. But the trees had the opposite effect. It was dark under their canopy, even in the middle of the day. The roots curled themselves into the graves and the branches twisted into the contortions of the wind. Philip had been told to never, ever eat their berries, that he’d be dead in minutes. He wasn’t quite sure he believed it.

He wandered amongst the stones, running a hand along the lettering, the lichen rough and staining his fingers. The churchyard wasn’t even a quarter full. Though his family had been buried there for a century and a half, there was room, by his calculations, for another four hundred and fifty years’ worth of Campbells. He wondered whether the island would still be here then. He had learnt in geography that it had been created millennia ago, and that it would probably be around for at least another thousand years. In that case, there wasn’t enough room for all the Campbells who would live at Dulough after this Philip. He walked over to his grandparents’ grave; they were buried by the low drystone wall that marked the divide between holy and unholy ground. His father had tried to explain the difference between places you could bury people and places you couldn’t. For example, you couldn’t just bury someone in the garden, you had to put them in ground that had been consecrated by the church. His grandparents’ grave was the newest and best looked after; they had the same headstone. His other grandparents were still alive; they lived in Dublin.

Sticking the spade into the ground, he looked out to sea. It was a gesture he’d seen Francis perform many times on the mainland. He was glad to be rid of the weight of the shovel, the awkwardness of it. He looked about for a good place to start building. It was difficult to find a level piece of ground, and one that had a decent view of the house; he wanted to be able to watch the comings and goings when the tourists arrived. Finally, he began clearing a patch of brambles and thistles; their roots went deep into the earth and he had to be content with lopping them off at ground level rather than pulling them out altogether.

He stamped the remaining roots down and threw out the small stones littering his den, clearing a space roughly the size of his old window ledge. Were any of the government people in his room now? he wondered. Looking up at the house, he couldn’t see any activity from here, but his room was at the back anyway. He told himself that he’d have this to come to instead, when it was properly finished. But he wasn’t sure how to go about constructing a hut that would withstand the elements; the sea winds and the Donegal rain beat the island hardest of all. The walls would have to be stone, there was no doubt about that; if he built them out of anything else—wood, say, or clods of earth—there’d be nothing left the next time he came. There were enough drystone walls on the island, built in Philip the First’s time, for him to plunder. He knew that he shouldn’t do that; his father had told him that drystone wall making was an ancient art. But if his father hadn’t decided to open Dulough to the public, he wouldn’t have needed to take the stones.

Philip wondered what time it was and whether the green car and the white van had arrived yet. What did they do every day, the people from the government? He imagined them sitting around, drinking endless cups of tea on the camp chairs in the drawing room, and Mrs. Connolly in the kitchen, exasperated. When they introduced themselves around the place, the man with the moss-colored suit said that they were “overseeing the transition from private to public.” Philip understood each word, but he wasn’t quite sure what they meant together.

He began dismantling the wall furthest away from the church, the one he thought would be missed least. The stones were lighter than he expected, and he lifted them easily into a pile where the hut was going to be. He had watched the men digging foundations for the cottage and wondered whether he should dig them here too. But he could barely pull the roots out of the ground, let alone get a spade into it. Instead, he laid the bigger stones around the edge of the space he’d cleared so that they fitted together like a puzzle. It took a while; he was getting hungry. The sun was well up; it must have been breakfast time or later. He wished he had brought something to eat. Digging around in the pockets of his anorak, he found a Fox’s Glacier Mint that his father had given him on one of their walks. The wrapper was stuck to the sweet and it took him a while to peel it off. But he was glad of the feeling of something in his mouth—it was certainly better than those cold meat sandwiches. He wondered if that was the way things would be now that Mrs. Connolly had no time to cook for them. These days, she was always up at the house, getting things ready for the visitors. She would be making afternoon teas with scones and cream and jam for them. And there’d be Coke. Usually they weren’t allowed Coke, but now he would be able to have it whenever he liked. Aside from living next door to Francis, that was the other good thing to come out of all this.

Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, the mint finished, he went on with the wall. He realized that he would only be able to build it as big as he was; he had no ladder to go any higher. Tomorrow he’d bring out books, a torch, and some food. He would need to find a tin to keep his things dry. And he wondered where he might find a piece of old carpet to cover the earth.

There was some warmth in the sun now; he decided that it must be late morning. He would need to get back before the tide cut him off completely. The water was still quite far away, but he knew that this was deceptive; you thought you’d lots of time and then suddenly the sea was knee-deep and you had to sling your shoes over your shoulders to wade back. The hut would have to be finished tomorrow, but he was happy with the progress he’d made. The wall was at least waist-high. He shoved little stones into the cracks to make it even sturdier. It was almost as good as one of Francis’s.

His eye caught a movement on the mainland. Someone had come to the end of the garden. Philip tried to make out who it was. It had to be either his father or his mother—or Francis; Mrs. Connolly would not leave the kitchen for a walk at this hour. He supposed it could be one of the gardeners or the people from the government, but they always traveled in packs. It was impossible to make out from this distance whether the figure was male or female. The only thing he could tell for sure was that they were looking out to sea; he could see the smear of paleness that was the face. He considered waving. He had had enough now and was eager to come back. But the hut was to be a secret, and he knew that whoever it was would want to know what he’d been doing on the island since very early that morning. Instead, he stayed still, hoping he blended into the darkness of the sea behind him. Soon the figure turned and vanished back into the trees.

As Philip emerged at the top of the cliff, carrying Francis’s spade, he was thinking about his hut and the things he would do to it tomorrow, what he would need to bring out with him at low tide. He wouldn’t want the shovel anymore, but he could do with a hammer and some nails if he was to make the roof out of wood. He wondered if Francis was noticing his tools going missing. Where would he find some decent, wide planks, ones with varnish on them so that they wouldn’t rot?

He had intended to wash off the spade, which was caked in earth and sand, in the stream he’d mended. But when he went to dip the blade in the water at the bottom of the cliff, it was dirty again. The same men as before, the ones whose cigarettes he’d taken, were placing large concrete blocks over his stream, like a bridge. A small cement mixer stood, churning, and sinking into the lawn, a few feet away from them. Both had their backs to him as they maneuvered a particularly large block into place. He was too close to turn around without being seen, so he sauntered past with the shovel, as if he was on his way to do some work of his own. The men dropped the block and turned to look. The one with the sailor’s cap said, “They’re searching for you up at the house,” as he pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. They were John Player Blues. Philip remembered the damp, smoky taste in his mouth. Who was looking for him up at the house? The people from the government? Had they found out that he’d been in his old room? He thought about the man who hadn’t flinched when Mrs. Connolly poured tea on the back of his hand. He wouldn’t have much tolerance for children who didn’t do what they were told. Philip imagined the man pouring teapot after teapot onto his outstretched hands. And him not being allowed to flinch, either.

“Your mother thinks you’ve been eaten by the sharks,” the other man added.

Both men grinned, as if they too had had mothers who’d fussed over their whereabouts at one time or another. Philip smiled shyly at them, relieved that it was only his mother and not the man in the green suit who was looking for him.

But she had been watching from the upstairs drawing room and had seen him emerge through the trees at the end of the lawn. Now, as he stood by the two workmen, he saw her striding across the grass. He thought about the figure who had come to the edge of the cliff and looked out to sea; he matched it now to his mother in her old coat and gardening trousers. The pale smear in the distance had been her face, scanning the horizon for his. The men slid their cigarettes back into their pockets again and busied themselves with another one of the massive blocks. She smiled at them and nodded, but Philip noted that it was not one of her better smiles.

“I was digging for worms.” He stuck close to the men.

“Since the crack of dawn?” Her voice rose at the end, frightening him.

He could see that she was very angry, much angrier than she’d been when she discovered the lawn ruined. She put a lock of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear. Her hair, Philip thought, was like pigeon’s feathers, silvery at the front and dark at the back. She took him by the shoulder and moved him away from the men. Bending down to look into his face, she said, “Where are they then?”

For a moment, Philip couldn’t think what she was talking about, and then he realized that she meant the worms. “I let them go.”

He knew that it was an absurd response, that no one went digging for lugworms and then put them back. His mother looked at him intently and he saw himself reflected in her eyes, small and puny, as he’d been in the upstairs drawing room mirror on the day of the move. Her right hand, extended, gripped his shoulder so that her nails dug in. He could see that she didn’t realize that she was hurting him; all her concentration rested on his face, on trying to read where he had really been. But she gave up and rose slowly, as if she were an old woman, older than Mrs. Connolly.

Later, when he’d locked her out of his new room, he took off his shirt; there was a nick in the hollow of his collarbone, where her thumb had pushed in too hard. He got into bed with his shoes on, the mud dirtying the sheets. It would serve her right.

John

John’s
study was a round room in the turret, the hinge to Dulough’s wings; besides the kitchen, it was the only room to have kept its furniture through the move. The first Philip’s tartan, a predictable dark forest green inlaid with blue, lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Above the fireplace was a set of deer antlers and on the mantelpiece, a King James Bible, brought over from Scotland. It was almost a foot thick. The Campbell births and deaths were recorded on the flyleaf. John had dutifully added Kate’s and Philip’s names when they were born.