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Black Harvest
Black Harvest
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Black Harvest

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Black Harvest
Ann Pilling

The rugged west coast of Ireland seems like the perfect place for a holiday. Then everything starts to go wrong. Colin is aware of an awful smell coming off the land, a smell of death and decay…Colin and Prill were looking forward to a holiday of fun and adventure in Ireland. It would have been perfect if only they hadn’t had to drag along their “odd” cousin Oliver. But Oliver, it turns out, isn’t their biggest problem.Almost from the moment they arrive, Colin feels sick from an awful smell, so powerful and horrible that it seems to be rising from the land of the dead. At the same time, Prill is visited by a strange creature creeping into her dreams. Who is she, and what does she want?Only Oliver seems untouched by the danger. As the hot summer days continue, their terror mounts and their baby sister becomes critically ill. Oliver links the present horror with the terrible famine in Ireland of the 1840s – and the strange occupant of the nearby caravan, whose land was lost then through eviction – and he must bring about the reconciliation to save himself and his cousins.

Black Harvest

by

Ann Pilling

illustrated by

David Wyatt

For E. I. C.

1916–1963

Contents

Cover (#u189a5e87-7fe9-567c-9618-f64f21329ade)

Title Page (#ue00f9ec3-ff48-5924-84ac-b16dab23a149)

Dedication (#u11dcfc0b-e771-54a0-a6a0-2b26b989a3c1)

Chapter One (#ub6d2c60d-0ae8-532d-aa1c-a786eb369af6)

Chapter Two (#ua8eafd49-e8dd-5e4f-b13e-c8d9e52aa0ae)

Chapter Three (#u5f34f1c7-dbe5-52f8-8469-5d9de8778333)

Chapter Four (#u14881f22-ca0f-5763-a5ff-f41ae0af508d)

Chapter Five (#u6bd0ad9e-d512-5532-bc69-c997be495270)

Chapter Six (#u1e8651ce-2a74-581e-97e1-ebaa48f9dbbe)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Postscript (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#ulink_bc90526a-3eb6-5318-a8b6-79366e56d059)

“CAN YOU STOP the car? I’m going to be sick,” moaned Oliver.

“Not again,” Prill muttered, under her breath. It was the third time since Dublin.

Mr Blakeman pulled off the road, slammed the brakes on, and jumped out, grabbing Oliver and steering him towards a clump of grass. The sudden jolt had woken the baby and she was wriggling in her mother’s arms, making the dry-throated complaining noise that was usually followed by a great bawl. By now she must be both hungry and wet. Before too long they’d have to stop yet again and get the nappies out. They were never going to reach Dr Moynihan’s bungalow at this rate.

From the front seat Colin sneaked a quick look at his cousin. This car business was getting ridiculous. Nobody could help being sick, but by now Oliver couldn’t have anything left to be sick with. It was all in his mind.

“Please would you move up?” the small boy said to Prill. There was plenty of room but she still slid over towards her mother, leaving a strip of seat between them. Oliver’s large pale eyes inspected it carefully, then he bent down and lifted a pile of books back on to his bony knees, hugging them to his chest as if to ward off blows.

Colin and Prill had looked at the books last night, in the Dublin hotel. Most of them were about bugs and beetles, and there was one about Ireland too. Mr Blakeman was impressed.

“Your cousin’s obviously been doing his homework,” he said. “Look at all these… insects… mosses… The Land and People of Ireland… This is what you two should have been doing. When you’re going to spend a month in a place like Ballimagliesh, it’s as well to know something about it.”

Prill was cross. Dad didn’t often sound like a schoolteacher, even though he was one. Anyway, she’d been too busy practising for her Gold Award down at the swimming pool to do much reading, and Colin had only just come back from the school camp.

Oliver’s books smelt peculiar. They weren’t new, with shiny coloured jackets, but musty and faded, and they all had Uncle Stanley’s name in the front. That smell had taken Colin right back into his early childhood, to a place in London, a tall, thin house, in a terrace near the River Thames. He could remember a gloomy front door with the paint peeling, and dark corridors inside, where old men and women came and went silently, like ghosts. He could remember the smell of cabbage and brisk Aunt Phyllis, who looked after elderly people, pouring tea with one arm and jiggling a squalling child with the other – Oliver, the ugliest baby he’d ever seen.

Three-year-old Prill had spent her time scowling at her aunt because she insisted on calling her Priscilla, Uncle Stanley had ticked Colin off for sliding on the hall lino, and from their flat at the top of the house that ugly baby had never stopped yelling. Now it was nearly ten years old and coming with them on holiday to Ballimagliesh.

It was the first time Oliver had been away from home without his parents. He’d had glandular fever and missed two months of school. He was extremely thin. He moved slowly and his eyes watered. “Don’t forget to wear a vest,” his mother had reminded him, shutting the car door. The Blakemans didn’t have a vest between them, and who wore one in August anyway? Oliver had carefully arranged his beetle books on his knees and stared at them with cold suspicion. In their bones Colin and Prill knew that it wasn’t going to work, bringing him on holiday.

Their mother changed Alison in sight and sound of the sea. She spread an old bath towel out on the grass, and the baby kicked its chubby legs and gurgled while the Atlantic shimmered at them in a blue haze, only fields away.

“What a spot to choose!” Dad said. “Could we borrow your binoculars, Oliver? I think we can see the bungalow from here.”

Colin was the first to locate it. He focused on a group of farm buildings then followed a track past a huddle of stunted trees out of which smoke was curling. Between this and the sea’s edge was a long, low building, glaring white.

“It’s terribly new,” Prill said, disappointed. On the way down from Dublin they had driven past so many old cottages, some of them thatched, with wild gardens and hens scratching about, and cats lying on the roof. She didn’t fancy a month in a brand-new house.

“It was finished quite recently, I think. Dr Moynihan’s only stayed in it once himself, and they’re still digging into the hill to make a garage.”

Colin still had the binoculars. “Yes, I can see a concrete mixer and a pile of sand.”

“I wish you were staying too, Dad,” Prill said, feeling unsettled suddenly. “I wish you weren’t going straight back.”

“If the painting goes well I’ll come and join you, but I must make the most of the time with Dr Moynihan. I dare say he’ll be going back to America in a few weeks anyway, he never stays in one place for very long.”

David Blakeman was an art teacher who really wanted to paint. Colin couldn’t actually remember a time when he’d not painted, in the ramshackle sun-room built on to the back of the house. Those were the times he was happy, shut away for hours at weekends and emerging for the odd cup of tea, humming to himself. He liked painting people best. He’d done several drawings of friends’ children, but nobody had paid him very much for them.

“You’re too soft,” his wife was always telling him. “Your work’s really good.” But he usually shrugged and said nothing. Then, last summer term, he’d had a blazing row with the headmaster at school. It was all to do with timetables. He stormed home and said he was throwing his job up. He hadn’t, of course. The Blakemans were short of money and Mum was having a baby. But when the holidays started he cleared out the sun-room, prepared a large canvas, and started an oil painting of Colin and Prill.

Everyone who saw it said it was the best thing he’d ever done. The chairman of the local art group persuaded him to send it to London, and it was hung in an important exhibition. They were all pleased and for a while Dad was more cheerful than he had been for ages. But eventually the excitement fizzled out. He started to think about the new term at Horwood Comprehensive, and gloom settled down on him again.

Then, just before Christmas, a man came to see him on behalf of a Dr Peter Moynihan, an American industrialist with offices in New York and Amsterdam, and a home in Dublin. He’d seen the portrait of Colin and Prill in London and made enquiries about the artist. A month later, at a meeting of his directors, it was agreed that David Blakeman should be commissioned to paint Dr Moynihan and the portrait was to hang in the company’s main office, in New York.

Dad said it was a minor miracle. He resisted the temptation to give his job up but he privately hoped that in a couple of years he might be able to paint full-time. The summer was to be spent in Dublin, working on the portrait, and meanwhile Dr Moynihan had offered the rest of the family the use of his second home.

“It’s barely finished,” he explained on the phone. “But I’d like it lived in. It’s near the sea and I think they’d find it comfortable. If you would like to think about it…”

Would they! Money was tight and the Blakemans hadn’t had a holiday for three years. The sun beat down as Dad steered slowly down a bumpy track that left the main road and plunged through a patchwork of tiny fields towards the sea.

It was a superb position for a house and they all poked their heads out of the windows for a better view. Everyone was excited, except Oliver. Jessie, the Blakemans’ dog, was barking wildly in the back, and Alison had started whimpering again. Oliver didn’t like dogs or babies. Both were noisy and had strange smells. In fact, he was definitely unsure about the whole thing. And that made three of them.

The bungalow was the lightest place Prill had ever been in. Large windows on all sides looked out over the cliffs and the sea, and on the small fields behind. All the paint was white, the colours cool, the bedspreads and curtains sandy browns and fawns.

Colin and Prill went from room to room, peering in at the shining interiors. Nearly everything looked and smelt brand new, though the chairs and sofas were rather angular and uncomfortable. The pale walls were hung with very modern paintings; there was a locked glass cabinet in the main sitting-room, full of porcelain figures, and a collection of old snuff-boxes on a glass-topped table in the hall.

It was the most luxurious house they had ever set foot in, like a film-set or something featured in a magazine. No wonder Dr Moynihan had fussed about everything being locked up when they went out. Mum plonked the grizzling baby down on a thick, cream-coloured carpet, then thought better of it and carried her off to the kitchen.

“How fabulous!” Dad said, looking at the enormous fridge, and the dishwasher, and the automatic washing machine. “You can sit at this table, eating your cornflakes, looking at the sea, with all these machines whizzing round…”

“I suppose this is what people mean by a dream kitchen?” Prill said flatly, thinking about their own small, dark one at home.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But I thought it was going to be an old house.” She rubbed at her neck. She was feeling itchy, and sticky all over. “It’s awfully hot, Dad. Have they left the central heating on, by mistake?”

He was leaning against a radiator. “No. This is quite cold. It’s a hot day. Why don’t you go and have a look round outside?”

As Prill trailed off through the back door, Dad noticed how red the baby was. “Is she all right, Jeannie?” he said. “Do you think she’s running a temperature? Hope she’s not going to play up while I’m away.”

“Oh, it’s the car journey. She’ll settle down.”

Mrs Blakeman felt the baby’s forehead. “Mm. She is hot, you’re right. Still, it’s a warm day. I thought it was always supposed to rain in Ireland? Look at that sky! I think we’re in for a heatwave.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_e37227ab-8435-5b83-bf50-9ab5e34049a3)

OLIVER WAS TO share a bedroom with Colin. Without consulting anybody he got his case out of the car, lugged it inside, and started to unpack. Jessie kept leaping up at him and barking. He flapped his hands at her nervously.

“She’s a stupid dog,” Colin explained, realizing he was quite frightened. Jessie was nearly as big as Oliver. “She just wants to play. When people don’t want her she never seems to get the message. It just makes her worse.”

“Do you think she’s educationally subnormal?” Oliver said solemnly, pronouncing the long words very slowly.

“Dunno. Don’t think she’d get any O levels. Well, that’s what my dad says.”

Then the dog crashed into a table and sent a lamp flying. ‘Jessie!” Colin shouted. The snuff-boxes would have to be put vay or the whole lot would be dashed to smithereens. He took her outside and tied her to the concrete mixer. “Stay there, daft dog, till I’ve unpacked. Then I’ll take you for a walk.”

Oliver’s side of the bedroom was soon beautifully neat and tidy. His books were arranged on a shelf, his bed was made, a pair of winceyette pyjamas lay neatly folded on his pillow.

“Shouldn’t think you’d need those, Oliver, it’s so hot.”

Colin was sweating. He’d already stripped down to his shorts and kicked his sneakers off, and even the carpet felt warm. Oliver looked distastefully at his bare feet. “I’m not hot.”

He went on reading his book. He was wearing both socks and shoes, thick trousers and a shirt with a light sweater over it. Underneath that lot he no doubt wore thermal underwear. Colin was irritated. Oliver looked so cool, while he had a raging thirst and was sweating like a pig.

Then somebody tapped on the window. Oliver spun round and Colin nearly dropped his precious camera. A big red face was looking in at them and smiling.

Colin tried to open one of the panes but it was stuck. The person outside, a very fat man, with a clerical collar and a dusty black suit, pointed a plump finger and mouthed, “Front door. I couldn’t make anyone hear.”

“Oh, OK. Hang on,” Colin mouthed back, and went out into the hall. Oliver slipped a marker carefully into his book, placed it on top of the pyjamas, and followed silently.

“You just have the two boys, then?” the priest was saying, perched precariously on a kitchen stool. Mrs Blakeman was opening cupboard doors, looking for cups and saucers so she could make a cup of tea.

“Oh no, this one’s ours,” Dad explained. “Oliver’s a cousin.”

“Second cousin,” the small clear voice said emphatically. “By adoption.” He was staring at the fat clergyman, thinking he looked like Friar Tuck.

“Yes, yes of course,” the man said hurriedly. There was so little resemblance. The older boy had coarse ginger curls, green eyes and skin like a speckled brown egg. He was tall and well built and looked like a footballer. The cousin was small and scrawny with lank black hair and rather bulging blue eyes that stared at him out of a thin white face.

Father Hagan returned the stare, then smiled, before dropping his eyes. Something in the boy’s face made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t for the life of him say what it was.

“There are two more,” Dad was saying. “Our daughter Priscilla and a baby. She’s just six months old. They’ve gone down to the sea for a bit of air, Prill wasn’t feeling too good. It’s the long car journey, I expect.”

“You won’t have met old Donal yet, will you?”

“Donal? Er, no. We’ve only been here a couple of hours.”

“Well, you’ll see him around. But it’s as well to be warned. Sure he’s a good soul, Donal Morrissey, salt of the earth. But he’s got to that stage when the smallest change upsets him.”

“Does he live nearby then?”