Patrick tips water into the little metal bowls. The big red’s laying has gone right off again; there are only two eggs today. He wishes that Danny wouldn’t stand in the doorway; they’re supposed to do the hens together but Danny just stands there, blocking the light.
– you going out on the boat with Dad again on Sunday?
– yeah. ’Spect so.
– and me?
– no.
– don’t care. You don’t know who I saw at Melissa’s.
– who?
– won’t tell you.
– doesn’t matter.
– I saw mummy’s boyfriend.
– so?
– he gave me chocolate. And I drove his car. So I don’t care.
– don’t care about what?
– you and Dad.
– me and Dad nothing.
– you are. You go off together.
– you’re coming with us.
– where?
– away.
– where away?
– Ireland.
– what for?
– I’ll tell you. Mummy might try to take us from Dad so you and me and him are going on the boat. It’ll be great.
– no! Won’t!
– sh. Don’t tell. Don’t say nothing.
They stare at each other for a moment over the scratching of the hens. Then Danny turns away and disappears. Patrick places the two eggs carefully into the front of his shirt, holding it up like a little hammock. He picks up the watering can and crosses the yard, his feet heavy with the weight of his heart. He pushes at the weight to keep it hidden. Now he’s betrayed the plan – did his father actually say it was a secret? No, but betrayal is a big monster and he can’t look it in the eye. His father just said: brothers can’t be separated. He can’t look that in the eye either.
_____
Danny skirts the fields on the inside of the hedge, through the land now leased to the Corbins as far as the grass bank bordering the road. Perhaps it’s not so odd for Patrick to wonder if his brother is Aunt Elsa’s son after all. The two of them are both skirters of fields and walkers of borders. Does it really matter to the nature of the child, which is the seed and which the carrying belly?
We too are watchers, following him now, this mean little dark man-child of four, nearly five. He works his way towards a wooden construction on the hedge, a simple three-sided box that serves as a market stall. On the one side, facing the road, Aunt Deborah’s strawberries are for sale. There’s a rusty cash box with a slit in the top for coins. Unfortunately for Danny the box has a small padlock now, since Deborah found that the money did not match the sales of fruit.
He crouches in the blackthorn where he is hidden from the house. He is very still and very patient. There are no voices and no cars approaching, but he remains still and patient for that is what he is good at, and he is sunk deep into himself. Now he moves to the side of the stall where the strawberries shine scarlet and squeaky fresh in the shade. He plucks one from each tray, twelve in all, drops back into the field and sets off in a curious scuttling run.
By the pump straddling the big well he tucks himself between the struts and lays his prizes on the wood. The green pips knobble the soft red skins down to each pale white base. He pulls off the calyx and eats them one by one.
_____
Thursday night is Brenda’s night off from the bar. Henry knows that a man’s drinking habits are directly linked to his wage packet and so on a Thursday he can manage The Navigator on his own.
Brenda is at home, in the bath. She smoothes her legs and rubs oil into them, twiddling the taps with her toes. There’s no hurry; Gerry is never early. They roam the island at night on a Thursday – a game of pool at the Kings, or maybe another mad fool scheme with his step-cousin, Simon. Dead boring place, Port Victoria, really, but Gerry makes it different. He gives off an electric current, you get sucked in, you sizzle in it. Brenda is sizzling now as she wraps a towel around herself and pads into the bedroom. Gerry likes black. Black skirt? Black stockings?
When she is ready she lights a cigarette and sits at the window. She hears the clattering of pans from the next door kitchen and sees Mrs Thingy from the bakery put their cat out. They’ll be going to sleep now, her and her husband, and get up at three in the morning to mix another load of dough. Brenda and Gerry will just be having it off in a field round about then – funny what keeps people busy at different times, she thinks, flicking the cigarette end out of the window. She got Wilf Pickery right on his cap once, but it didn’t catch fire and he never noticed.
There’s hardly a ghost of day left; the late evening sky seems to be boiling coal. Through a gap in the rooftops Brenda sees the lights of the harbour and the tiny red and green eyes of an approaching yacht. She pages through a magazine and tosses it down. Then she turns off the lights, picks up her bag and locks the door behind her. She’ll wait for him at the top of the steps.
There are headlights but quite a different car continues down the road. Maybe Gerry will park at the bottom of the steps? You can never be sure where he will be. She clatters down and gazes along Turkenwell. She walks to the corner and watches the traffic on Main Street and the lights from Chandra’s spilling over the pavement. There’s nothing she needs to buy. Better to go home, and not seem to be waiting for him at all. Maybe he has even arrived while she has been out, and found her door locked. He wouldn’t hang about.
Back in the flat she feeds the goldfish. Then she lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling.
At quarter past eleven she sits up again. The single striking of the town clock has broken her reverie and something snaps inside her. Right. Very well. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.