‘The interior?’ gasped Kevin.
Beverley could see that he had not read the right island books at all.
But Kevin was still silently calculating. How much did Beverley know?How much did any of them know? Should he say something, or would it be better just to keep quiet? There was no point in frightening them, after all. And anyway, there wasn’t really anything to be frightened of. Or was there? People were probably exaggerating.
‘If we’re back in time for lunch,’ Elizabeth was going on, ‘well and good, and I think we should aim to be here for oneish, but we’re going to need rations too, just in case.’
Elizabeth was really getting into the spirit of this exploration business. She seemed to have set aside her doubts about the whole idea. She laid out a row of sliced pan slices on a rock and deftly placed ham and luncheon meat slices on every second one. Then she zipped along the row again, tipping the uncovered slices on top of the covered slices, to make rather boring, unbuttered sandwiches. She gathered the sandwiches into piles and sliced them with sharp swoops of the knife.
‘There!’ she said, laying the neat pink-and-white layers in a lunchbox. ‘And we’ll have these too.’ She picked up the pears and a random selection of fizzy drinks cans and bundled the lot, together with two large bars of chocolate, into a small spare rucksack she’d brought inside her main one.
‘Everyone take a warm jumper,’ Beverley ordered, before Elizabeth took over this expedition completely. ‘And their personal emergency chocolate rations.’
‘Emergency!’ barked Kevin nervously. ‘What emergency?’ Maybe they did know about the woman after all. Maybe this was a sort of hunting expedition. That would be awful.
‘Oh, just any old emergency,’ said Beverley complacently, to Kevin’s great relief. ‘You never know.’
No, thought Kevin. You never did know.
‘And you, Elizabeth,’ Beverley continued, ‘put your jeans back on. And everyone take spare socks, too. Just put them in your pockets. Don’t forget the compass, Liz, and the torch and the matches. Oh, and the flares too.’
‘Is that what these yokes are?’ asked Kevin, picking up the barbecue candles.
‘Not exactly,’ said Elizabeth with a giggle. ‘They are Beverley’s idea of safety first, à la Mount Merrion.’
Beverley glared at her. Mystified, Kevin shouldered the candles. He couldn’t see what earthly use they were going to be. These kids definitely had some peculiar ideas. They probably got them from books, he decided.
Gerard picked up Fat, who yawned and blinked, but otherwise didn’t protest.
They started the climb away from the sea, wobbling a bit on the large cobbles that lined the top of the beach, demarking it from the start of the land proper. When they stepped onto the short, springy grass, sprinkled with tormentil and small, neat, glossy sheep droppings, for all the world like chocolate raisins, they turned to look back at their abandoned breakfast camp, bright and forlorn, the corner of a plastic bag flapping disconsolately under a stone, already belonging to a life they felt they were shedding as they stepped into the unknown.
‘Aha! Orchids!’ Beverley sat down with a bump to examine a fleshy specimen and write in her sum copy. The unknown would not remain unknown to her for long. She was here to record it, tame it, prove it held no mystery.
Gerard nuzzled into Fat’s side. He felt a slight wheeziness coming on, and he didn’t want anyone to notice it. Fat yawned, a fish-flavoured yawn. (He’d had pilchard cat food for breakfast.) Gerard closed his eyes and swallowed the wheezy feeling.
‘And prunella – self-heal – this bluey one is, I think.’
But no-one was listening to Beverley, crouched on the yellow-dotted, grassy floor, peering at odd streaks of red and blue. They were surveying the island. Where they stood, above the beach, was quite a high point. Most of the island seemed to be a tangle of rocks and brambles, brackens and heathers, sloping away from them, with here and there a shock of gleaming golden gorse. Off to one side, though, was some attempt at cultivation – the remains of stone-walled fields, what looked like potato ridges, some rather poor-looking pasture. Dividing them from the wilderness was a narrow, flat-bottomed trough that might have been a roadway once, but now it was grassed over and daisies blazed a yellow-eyed trail down its centre.
‘We could follow this path,’ said Elizabeth, ‘or we could cross it and go over the rocks to the other side of the island.’
‘I don’t want to follow any old trail,’ said Beverley’s voice, at knee-level. A trail sounded far too tame. ‘Let’s cross to the other side.’
‘Right you be,’ said Kevin quickly, relieved that they were keeping off the trail. No prizes for guessing where that led to. They’d really be better keeping right out of her way. No point in looking for trouble. They could have a lovely walk right across the island, and maybe there’d be a nice beach on the other side, and then they could all go home again, and no harm done. Yes, that would be fine.
‘No,’ said Elizabeth, in her dreamy voice, ‘I think I’d rather follow the trail. I bet this island was inhabited once. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a trail. We might find the ruins of a church or graveyard or something.’
‘I think maybe we should all stick together, Elizabeth,’ said Kevin.
‘Oh, I hope not,’ said Beverley, standing up and waving each leg in turn to shake off the pins-and-needles that had developed in her feet. She meant she hoped there wasn’t a church or graveyard. She didn’t want the island – her island – to have signs of human habitation. She wanted it to be wild. She wanted them to be the first people ever to have set foot here. Of course, there was the matter of the trail, but she chose to ignore that.
‘Why don’t you cross the island, Bev, if that’s what you want to do,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and Kevin can go with you if he likes. I’m sure Gerard will come with me along the trail. And we can all meet up again later.’
‘No,’ said Kevin, with surprising vehemence. ‘Let ye not do that at all. I think–’
‘I don’t think Kevin wants to come with me,’ said Beverley quickly. ‘Gerard, you’d rather come with me, wouldn’t you?’ The last thing she wanted was that Kevin coming with her.
‘No, that’s not what I mean –’ Kevin started to explain, but then stopped, not sure how much to say.
Gerard looked up at Beverley – she was a good head and a half taller – over the warm lump that was Fat. ‘I’d love to go with you, Beverley,’ he said, truthfully.
‘There!’ said Beverley.
‘Only …’ went on Gerard, ‘only, I don’t think I could manage Fat over that terrain. I think I better stick to the trail.’
‘Well, I don’t mind going by myself,’ said Beverley huffily, avoiding Kevin’s eyes, ‘if you lot all want to follow the trail.’
‘That’s not the way it is at all, Beverley,’ said Kevin. ‘I’m only thinking we’d be better off if we all stayed together. I’ll tell you what, why don’t we all cross the island? Here, I’ll take the blessed cat for you, Gerard.’
Beverley fumed silently. There they went again, first Elizabeth, and now that Kevin. Taking over her expedition on her island. Had they all forgotten that this had been her idea in the first place?
‘No!’ she said firmly. ‘If Elizabeth wants to go by the trail, let her off. And Gerard’s right about the stupid cat. You go with them as well, Kevin. I’ll be fine on my own.’
Now what was Kevin to do? If Gerard and Elizabeth followed the trail, the chances were they’d meet the island woman. And if Beverley went wandering off on her own across the island, that mightn’t be such a great plan either. Should he go with Gerard and Elizabeth and do what he could to head off trouble if they met the island woman, or should he go with Beverley on the principle that none of them should be alone? While he dithered, the others started to make their plans.
‘Let’s see,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Who has a watch?’
‘I have,’ said Gerard.
‘So’ve I,’ s
aid Beverley sullenly. ‘It’s nearly eleven.’
‘OK,’ said Elizabeth, ‘I vote you two – Kevin and Beverley – cross in a straight line and we’ll follow the trail around and let’s see if our paths cross. If we don’t make it by – oh, let’s say half-twelve, you can assume that the trail ran out or something has gone wrong. In that case, head back to the beach. And we’ll do the same. Here, you’d better take the emergency provisions. You’re more likely to get into trouble than we are. We can’t go far wrong on the trail.’
‘OK,’ said Gerard, glad a decision had been made, and he started to pick his way along the trail, coughing quietly, and looking back over his shoulder occasionally to see if Elizabeth was coming too.
‘I think we’d be better keeping together,’ said Kevin, desperately, looking after Gerard, and then after Beverley, as they set off in different directions.
Elizabeth looked at Kevin, and all her old misgivings about this whole enterprise came flooding back. There was something about this island. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was. The local people never came here, which was strange to start with. She’d known before they left the mainland that they shouldn’t have come without telling anyone, and she couldn’t figure out what had possessed her to keep it all a secret. Anything could happen – they could get hurt or stranded or something – and nobody would know where they were. And then, she’d had a funny feeling since she’d got here. A feeling that they were not alone.
‘That’s the third time you’ve said that, Kevin,’ she said quietly. ‘What’s the story?’ As she spoke, she gave Gerard (who was looking at her over his shoulder again) an irritable little wave to indicate that he should carry on – she’d be along in a minute.
Kevin shifted his feet about and looked at the ground. ‘Story?’ he said. ‘How do you mean, story?’
‘Look, you said yourself there weren’t any Dobermans or anything. So that means the wildest thing we’re likely to meet is an otter – right?’
‘Ye-es.’ Kevin hesitated to agree.
‘Kevin,’ Elizabeth asked, ‘does somebody live on this island?’
Kevin nodded miserably.
‘Oh,’ said Elizabeth, and paused for a minute. ‘Is it a criminal or a big wild man with a gun or something?’
‘Not at all, not at all. No, no. Nothing like that at all.’
‘Well, then?’
‘’Tis just – just a woman, really.’
‘An ordinary woman?’
‘Ordinary? Well now …’
‘Let’s say a woman who wouldn’t like to be disturbed?’
‘Yes, there you have it, now, exactly. You’re after putting your finger on it, so you are.’ Relief flooded through Kevin. ‘She likes to keep herself to herself, you could say.’
Elizabeth thought for a moment. Maybe Kevin was right. Maybe they should all stick together. She turned to call Gerard back, but he was way out of earshot by now. Oh well. What could she do? It was too late now to try to keep the little group together.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘we’ll try to keep out of her way, but if we do meet her, we’ll be nice and friendly and just say we’re on a visit from the mainland. Will that be OK do you think?’
‘Yeh, that’ll be grand, that’s fine,’ agreed Kevin, but he didn’t sound all that convinced.
Elizabeth shrugged. After all, they’d come to the island for adventure. Now that they’d got here, there was no point in creeping about trying to avoid it.
‘Here, give us one of those flare things,’ she said. ‘We’ll send a distress signal if we meet the witch.’
‘The witch!’ Kevin gasped.
‘I was only joking,’ said Elizabeth, peering into his face.
‘Oh yeh. Heh-heh.’ Kevin forced a feeble laugh.
Elizabeth shook her head. She couldn’t quite make this Kevin out. Then she smiled at him, and suddenly she was off along the trail, the flare over her shoulder like a rifle.
Kevin watched her marching away from him. She stopped once and turned back to wave at him. He raised his hand in salute. Then he turned and started to climb over the rocks after Beverley.
The rocks were smooth, like huge paving stones with deep cracks in between, from which brambles and flowering plants raised their prickly tentacles and smiling faces, and they shone in the morning sun. The clouds had started a lazy shift across the sky, leaving large splashes of innocent blue, promising a sunny, maybe even a warm day ahead.
Beverley walked ahead of Kevin, even though, not being on a path, they had plenty of room to walk abreast. Every time Kevin tried to catch her up, Beverley put on a spurt to keep ahead of him. She didn’t want to have to make conversation with this person.
They marched along like this for some time, Beverley concentrating on keeping in front, Kevin giving up on the effort to outstrip her. Suddenly a bird flew up in front of Beverley as if out of a crack in the ground and straight up into the air like a helicopter taking off in a flurry of twitters.
‘Skylark!’ called out Kevin.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ asked Beverley, turning to him in spite of herself.
‘Oh, yeh, I’m positive, so I am. Look how high up it’s after rising.’ Kevin had his head flung back in a characteristic gesture of his, his hair hanging down between his shoulder blades again.
‘I didn’t know you knew about birdlife.’
Beverley sat down on a rock, which had lost the cool touch of morning though it wasn’t exactly what you could call warm, and took out her sum copy to note the skylark down.
Kevin didn’t reply for a moment, just stood there with his head thrown back, watching the bird soaring until it was just a moving speck against the blue of the sky.
‘Ah well, I know you think I’m all rock music and motorbikes,’ he said, ‘but you can’t miss knowing about these things when you live in the country, sure they’re all around us.’
Beverley bit her lip. She hoped he wasn’t going to say something embarrassing.
But he didn’t say any more. She closed her notebook, stood up and started to march forward again. This time she slowed her pace, though, so Kevin could fall into step with her.
‘The morning time is sort of clean, isn’t it?’ Kevin remarked after a little while, looking sideways at Beverley to see how she was taking this attempt at conversation. ‘That’s what I always think anyways.’
Beverley knew exactly what he meant, but she didn’t know anyone had ever had this thought before, apart from herself. She shot him a surprised look.
Kevin caught the look, like a beach ball, and threw it back at her with a laugh.
‘You’re right. I am into motorbikes. But I’m not a complete yobbo all the same.’
‘I never said–’
‘Arrah, you don’t have to say a word at all. If looks could kill, Beverley Wilson, you’d be a mass murderer.’
Beverley laughed, and pulled unconsciously at her corkscrew curls, as if trying to straighten them against the odds.
Chapter 7
ELIZABETH APPEARS TO SWIM THROUGH A HEDGE
ELIZABETH SOON CAUGHT UP WITH GERARD. He stood back and let her pass him out – there was no room here for them to walk side by side – out of a sort of natural politeness that Elizabeth just took for granted.
As soon as they left the beach area, the trail started to close in, with greenery invading it from both sides. The path was so narrow, they kept getting lashed in the face by high-growing bramble branches that reached out across their path, just at head height. Everywhere, May blossom was rotting in the hawthorn hedges with a thick, brown stench, and fuchsia nodded its cardinal-coloured heads. There was a low stone wall on the landward side, overgrown with hedgerow plants most of the time, and what seemed to be a ditch on the seaward. Insects were about their buzzy morning business in the undergrowth.
‘There have to be sheep,’ Elizabeth called over her shoulder, using the paper-wrapped garden candle as a fencing sword to ward off a vindictive bramble.
> ‘Why?’ asked Gerard, wheezing and puffing along behind her and stopping to gulp in lungfuls of air every now and then.
‘Because of the droppings, nitwit.’
‘Oh.’ Gerard was used to being insulted by Elizabeth. He didn’t even notice any more.
‘If there are sheep, there must be a farmer,’ she said, half to herself, wondering if that was what the mysterious woman did for a living.
‘Why?’ asked Gerard again.
‘Because sheep are farm animals, of course.’
‘Could they not be wild ones?’ asked Gerard.
‘I suppose so. Maybe.’
‘Maa-aa!’ said a surprised, sheepy voice, almost in Elizabeth’s ear, or so it seemed. She started.
Gerard had heard the sound too, and he was parting the high cow-parsley that lined the trail at this point and waved its fresh-scented creamy heads on a level with their shoulders. Through the gap he created, he could see a sheep, standing half-undressed on a grassy knoll, its coat-tails flapping in the breeze.
‘Wow!’ said Elizabeth, feeling a bit peculiar. She had the feeling that her talking about sheep had somehow conjured this one up.
‘Why is its fur falling off?’ asked Gerard.
‘Fleece, idiot,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Because it’s summer time. They don’t need all that wool in the summer, I suppose.’
‘But I thought people shore them,’ said Gerard, puzzled.
‘Sheared,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Yes, they do, but if there are no people to do the shearing, then the sheep must shed their wool themselves, I suppose. Maybe there’s no farmer, or maybe it’s a lazy farmer.’
Elizabeth thought she heard a snorting sound as soon as she’d said this. Surely the sheep couldn’t be insulted! What a daft idea! And yet she couldn’t get the idea out of her head that it was an offended sort of a sound that she’d heard.
‘Are you all right, Gerard?’ she asked, remembering his asthma.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said, though he wasn’t really.
Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (Maybe) Page 5