The Swan Lake Page 4

  Blackfoot, her ageing collie, senses her mood and pads slowly across the rug to sit beside her, pushing his nose against her arm. ‘Careful, boy,’ she tells him, switching the glass to her other hand. ‘Don’t you go spilling my precious drink, now.’ The dog yawns, giving a slight whine as his jaws snap shut, and edges closer until he’s leaning against the rocker with his head on her arm. Mairie’s cigarette has gone out. She drops it in the ashtray and sits stroking Blackfoot’s soft head, nodding to herself as she quietly hums snatches of a song half-remembered from her childhood.

  After a while she rises creakily and washes out the empty glass, then picks up the dish of rancid butter that she noticed in the larder early this morning. Mairie abhors waste. The lack of adequate refrigeration is noticeable in the summer heat, and she weighs the pot in her hand, thinking, then smiles to herself as an idea strikes her. She melts the butter on top of the range, and stirs in a pot of used tea-leaves that she had saved for the garden, until the mixture resembles oily glue. Then she takes the saucepan outside, glancing around furtively. Not a soul can be seen or heard. Seamus must be busy elsewhere.

  Mairie Hennessy creeps quietly to the strip of land that marks the border between her property and Seamus’. She looks around again, squinting into the distance, then steps, as lightly as her rheumatism will allow, across no-man’s-land and over to Seamus’ garden. Once there, she stands still for a moment, listening intently. Her heart, which has kept perfect earthly time for seventy-five years, speeds up and misses a few beats. Glancing from side to side, she dashes to the drain that serves the kitchen, and empties the contents of the pot over it. The mess congeals instantly, and Mairie, satisfied, nips back to her cottage.

  The next few hours are spent weeding her vegetable patch with an ear cocked for sounds from next door. She delays lunch, and her stomach complains loudly. In the middle of the afternoon she goes indoors to cut a slice of bread and some cheese, so almost misses the initial commotion. Luckily, Blackfoot barks and alerts her. She stands by the open window, cackling softly to herself as the sound of shouting rends the air. Blackfoot barks louder, and a moment later an old shoe flies past the window. It misses the dog, but catches on Mairie’s washing line and all her clean washing tumbles to the ground.

  Mairie storms outside and grabs the shoe, then hurls it towards her adversary. Seamus stands his ground, his white hair sticking up in tufts around his head like a snowy owl, his face scarlet with fury. The shoe sails past him, and decimates one of his prize cabbages. Mairie can’t help smirking, even though she will have to wash her underwear again.

  ‘You old fool!’ Seamus shrieks. ‘You’ve blocked my drain, you evil old woman!’

  ‘Sure and you must have blocked your own drain, you dirty old man,’ she yells back. ‘I wouldn’t go near that stink-hole you call a cottage if I was paid to. And look what you’ve done to my smalls!’

  Seamus points a shaking index finger at the vast bloomers that lie in the grass outside Mairie’s cottage. ‘You call those smalls! You could sail a ship with those,’ he hollers, now almost purple. At this rate, she thinks smugly, he will have a stroke. ‘I’ll have you know, you old witch, I don’t pour tea leaves down my drain. Nor butter. Not that it would be possible unless some old hag had melted it first.’

  She has to hand it to him, he’s smart enough to realise what she has done. She stands straight, hands on her hips, and glares at him.

  ‘Now why would I waste good butter on a cantankerous old billy goat like you?’ she calls, then turns to pick up her washing, wincing as she stoops. Her back isn’t holding out so well lately.

  ‘You’re trespassing, that’s what you’re doing. Sneaking over here like a thief as soon as my back’s turned. I’ll report you to the Garda!’ Seamus is jumping up and down, but Mairie ignores him, and walks sedately indoors.

  A moment later the damaged cabbage comes hurtling across to land by the back door. Mairie steps outside, picks it up, and carries it ostentatiously over to the compost heap, where she drops it on top of yesterday’s potato peelings. Walking back to her cottage she pauses at the door and looks across at Seamus, her hands on her hips again. He is standing shaking his fist at her. She nods her head sagely.

  ‘Ah, yes, Seamus O’Malley, those cabbages of yours are more suited to the compost heap than any market stall. That old shoe of yours did them a favour.’

  Ignoring his howls, she calls Blackfoot, who follows her into the kitchen. She quietly closes the door, then sits in her rocking chair and laughs until tears run down her face and form rivulets in the web of creases. When she calms down, Mairie treats herself to a larger glass of whiskey, then sits, grinning to herself as she runs the day over and over in her mind. However hard he tries, Seamus rarely manages to best her. The feud between their families goes back a long, long way, and Mairie has her own justifications for continuing it, reasons that go back a mere sixty years. Leaning back, she closes her eyes and sighs deeply. It has been a good day indeed.

  Chapter Seven

  The journey back to John’s house passes quietly. Astarte looks out of the window, ignoring the small voice of reason that whispers at the back of her mind, insisting that she has fallen for a romantic dream. She has no intention of listening, and occupies herself instead with mentally listing the practicalities of what needs to be done. She has never been easily intimidated, and feels confident that she can transform what John insists on calling ‘a pile of stones’ into a home.

  They pass two cottages set widely apart amidst farmland not far from the cottage that Astarte now considers to be hers. Glimpses of the lake are still visible between the trees that edge the road, and she strains to catch one more bright moment of sunlight on water. An old lady with a double spiral of white plaits wound around her head is pegging out washing, and she raises a hand in greeting as they pass. Astarte turns around and stares at the receding figure, her heart lurching. A wave of nostalgia pricks the back of her eyes, making her blink rapidly. The woman reminds her of Millie, her maternal grandmother, who brought her up after she ran away from her parents at the age of fourteen. Millie died just after Astarte qualified as a nurse, as if she’d been holding on until she could be sure her granddaughter could cope with being alone.

  Astarte met Millie for the first time when she was four years old. Her mother, Charlotte, had run away from home with a hippy called Leaf, and the only contact was a postcard that arrived a year later, stating that her name was now Rainbow. When Millie heard five years later through a friend that Rainbow and Leaf had been sighted in Somerset with a small, grubby child whose hair had patently never seen a brush or comb, she guessed they may be heading for Glastonbury, then an up-and-coming hippy Mecca. She jumped in her car and drove from Portsmouth without a second thought, scouring the streets of the small town until she found them by the Red Spring, and demanded access to the little girl who grasped her hand and refused to let go from the moment they met. From then on, Astarte was allowed to spend a month each year with Millie and, in between, counted the days until August, until she hitched a ride there on her fourteenth birthday and refused to leave.

  She loved her grandmother’s insistence on regular mealtimes, with not a lentil in sight. She adored the mangy rescue cats that Millie and her friend Ethel cared for. At night she slept with at least ten cats covering her bed like an extra blanket. Each time she moved her skin would encounter soft fur, and the sound of purring lulled her to sleep. Millie sent her to school, where other teenagers envied her for living so free a life that she had never before set foot within a classroom. Seeing the look of intense joy and pride on Millie’s face when she heard that Astarte had passed her final nursing exams was the high point of Astarte’s life. She will never forget it.

  When her grandmother died, Astarte cried for weeks. She still finds herself thinking ‘I must tell Millie this,’ before she remembers and feels the loss all over again. Rainbow and Leaf arrived at the funeral wearing raven feathers in their dreadlocks, and outrag
ed Millie’s few surviving friends by scattering dried sage leaves into the grave before the coffin was lowered. Astarte half-expected Millie to rise up and chase them off, but no wraith appeared. Instead, the air suddenly became unusually cold for September and a few flakes of snow fell on the mourners. By the time the last clod of earth was in place, the ground was white with unseasonal frost, and everyone was shivering.

  As Rainbow and Leaf refused to touch their portion of the inheritance, Astarte set it aside in a separate bank account for them. The house and cattery were bequeathed to Ethel, who lives there still at the age of ninety-three, with as many cats as she has years behind her. Astarte bought the small house she is now so keen to leave, and invested the rest of her inheritance. She would gladly exchange it all for one more day with her grandmother.

  John has been wrapped up in his own thoughts, and has interpreted Astarte’s silence as an indication that she will change her mind about the cottage. He hopes that by the next day she will see sense and decide to look for a more suitable home. Astarte’s reverie is broken by a jolt as the Land Rover pulls up at John’s house. A car is parked outside and the back door is open.

  ‘Come in and meet Siobhan,’ he says.

  His wife is sitting at the kitchen table, reading through a pile of paperwork. She shakes Astarte’s hand when John introduces them, then moves aside to make space, and asks ‘Any luck?’ It’s apparent by their expressions that Astarte has found her place, and that John is less than enthusiastic about it, and this amuses her. In Siobhan’s opinion, her husband takes his work too seriously.

  ‘I’m buying the ruined cottage by the lake,’ Astarte tells her, beaming. Siobhan smiles and nods.

  ‘Ah, ’tis a lovely spot, and you’ll get all the help you need.’ John glances quickly at her as he sits down, and she winks at him. ‘Don’t mind him,’ she tells Astarte. ‘He likes to think he knows the perfect place for everyone, and I would say you’ve put his nose quite out of joint. Well, you’ll be needing a builder. Best go and catch him.’

  John stands up, swiftly followed by Astarte, who heads straight for the door. ‘I said I’d collect Jamie,’ he says.

  ‘He’s gone out fishing with Bran,’ Siobhan tells him. ‘I’ll fetch them both from Bran’s later. Off you go, and get things organised for Astarte. ’Tis a beautiful name,’ she muses, turning to Astarte, who ruefully admits that it’s been the bane of her life. She feels touched by this sparky Irishwoman, and has a feeling that they will be friends. Siobhan grins, showing sharp incisors. ‘’Tis good luck to be named after a Goddess,’ she insists.

  John kisses his wife briefly, and ruffles her hair. ‘Go with this, John, and no fretting,’ she whispers. Astarte is already outside, opening her car door. She’s decided to go straight to the guest house afterwards; it makes sense not to keep doing detours, and she’s growing tired. John climbs into the Land Rover. He trusts Siobhan’s judgement, and a weight lifts from his shoulders. As they are about to drive off, Siobhan pokes her head out of the doorway and calls out ‘Make sure you’re free for dinner tomorrow evening, Astarte. I want you to meet your new neighbours.’

  Chapter Eight

  Jamie Langford and Bran Dempsey share the same birthday, and have been best friends ever since Jamie pushed Bran against the wall at nursery school and insisted he hand over the final piece of the jigsaw he had filched. In those days Jamie liked neat endings, with no gaps for the unexpected, although nowadays he’s more open to surprises, especially if they come from him. It’s only been two months since they both turned sixteen, but this year Jamie has grown several inches in height, leaving Bran a full head shorter than him. They have been shaving for some time, proudly covering their cheeks and jaws with foam then scraping off the new growth that still, to their chagrin, comes through soft and silky. They can’t wait to have coarse stubble and a five o’clock shadow. They want to grow up as fast as possible, leave school behind, take leaps out into the world that they’re convinced is holding its breath, waiting for them to make their mark on it. This spring, Jamie decided to grow a goatee. He’s been nurturing it for months, shaving carefully around the wisps that droop down from his chin. John casually showed him a photograph of an ancient Chinese man whose beard reached his chest, and asked Jamie whether this is the look of the future. Jamie was not amused in the slightest.

  With the bodily changes have come confusing mood-swings. What seems funny in one moment provokes fury the next. Life feels like a cage, inhabited by a mess of senseless rules that exist only in order to be broken. Then suddenly a bright portal opens and briefly offers a glimpse of wonder, a cornucopia of possibilities, before it slams shut, leaving them in the dark again, always wanting more.

  Over the past year they have discovered that the girls they scorned as boring and silly a mere year ago are now the focus of unspoken yearnings. Up until now the boys have shared every thought, but the difference in their growth rate has set a wedge between them that will only disappear when they have equalised once more. Both of them are aware of this, though they choose not to acknowledge it openly. And thoughts of love are the most sacred, not to be shared even with each other.

  For Bran, it is Caitlin Templeton, the daughter of his closest neighbour, who he follows around like a puppy even though she doesn’t even seem to have noticed that he exists. Jamie dreams nightly of Sinead Hennessy, the swiftest runner in their school, whose name is spoken almost with reverence. He always wakes afterwards to damp sheets and a sensation of shame and frustration that makes him surly. However, neither boy is prepared to admit to the other the name of the object of their affection. Instead, they talk about music and computer games, football and fishing, and how boring their parents are. They save up their lunch money to buy beer, and smuggle it into the tent that they camp out in on warm nights.

  Today they told their parents they were going fishing, but the rods rest beside them on the grass, unused, and the tackle and bait stay unpacked in plastic boxes, the maggots slowly cooking in the hot sun. Jamie and Bran lie on their backs, turning cumulonimbus and cirrus clouds into dragons and spaceships, castles and alien faces. Jamie raises his right hand slowly above his eyes, squints upwards at the joint he’s holding between thumb and index finger, then brings it to his lips and inhales deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible before blowing it out in a thin stream. He can feel himself growing lighter. Soon he may just float upwards into those clouds and disappear into the blue sky above them.

  He passes the joint to Bran, who takes a drag and stifles a cough; he has less experience, and it shows. The air is alive with midges but the boys pay the tiny vicious insects no attention. Tonight they will be plagued by scarlet bumps that itch and keep them awake, but just now there is only the white-flecked cerulean dome above them, and the sound of birds and bees attending to their own business.

  Bran is feeling dizzy. He sits up slowly and reaches into his rucksack for the bottle of warm beer that tastes flat and sour when he tips all of its contents down his throat in one long swallow. He picks up a stone and aims it carefully at the water, watching the ripples spread out as it lands with a satisfactory splash and sinks beneath the surface.

  Jamie rolls onto his stomach and pulls his own rucksack closer, emptying the contents over the grass. A bottle of orange juice, packed by Siobhan, skitters away, and he rescues it before it can slip into the lake. He tears open a packet of biscuits and the boys cram them into their mouths whole, dropping crumbs onto their T-shirts. The ants meandering through the grass immediately smell the sugar and form an army that marches all over them until the boys brush them away. When every biscuit is gone, Jamie sits upright and takes a small tin, decorated with a triple spiral, from his pocket. It contains enough grass for one more joint, and he rolls it carefully, focusing on sticking the thin cigarette papers together as if concentrating on a complex geometric problem. Bran hands over the matches and Jamie deftly twists the end and sets it alight. A flame burns momentarily and sparks of ho
t paper drop onto his leg, then the joint settles down and they both lean back, savouring the smell as the smoke drifts upward and quickly disperses.

  ‘This is good stuff, man,’ says Bran. He’s been watching a lot of American movies lately, and is working hard on cultivating the accent, although it rarely works effectively. What he’d like to say is that this grass is way too strong for him, and he’d much rather stick with beer, but he doesn’t want to lose face. Jamie’s being very secretive about where he gets it, and Bran knows that if he can only find out, his income, and possibly his kudos, will increase in leaps and bounds. He’s tired of being left behind, still stuck on the fringes of adolescence while Jamie has suddenly metamorphosed into a bearded beanpole.

  The summer holidays yawn ahead lazily. Plans have already been made to avoid having to take jobs. They’re going to pretend to be doing extra studies; their parents will be so impressed that they won’t think of checking up on them. Time is mapped out in neat parcels, divided between the lake and the tree house they built the previous summer, used as a secret den by the youth of the area privileged to know of its location.

  A twig snaps nearby, then another. Quick as lightning, Jamie throws the joint on the ground and hides it under the empty biscuit wrapping. They turn in the direction of the sound, and Bran sighs with audible relief when the figure of a young girl appears. Jamie’s feelings are more mixed, as the girl is Sinead Hennessy. He doesn’t know whether to run fast in the opposite direction or call a greeting, so he stays quiet, watching as she approaches.

  In Jamie’s eyes Sinead is the most beautiful girl in the world, though he would never admit this to anyone, not even under threat of torture. He feels his cheeks growing red, and is horrified at the heat in his belly at the sight of her bare legs. Quickly he looks away, wishing she would walk right past them, and hoping she will stay. Bran raises a hand lethargically, and calls to her to join them. She strolls over and sits between them, her grey eyes bright as she looks directly at Jamie, catching his guilty expression.