Luke again says nothing – doesn’t like arguments or confrontation, and certainly not with his father.
‘Now, the First Principle of Magic is something a little like watching,’ says Lord Mountfathom, kneeling to pluck another book from the floor – slim, sheathed in dark leather. When he speaks he speaks to ceiling or floor or walls or anything or anywhere except Luke. ‘It is foremost about listening and learning! For a willingness to acquire more knowledge, to better understand the world, is crucial to any understanding of Magic. I know that this first Principle will be little or no trouble at all to you.’
‘Because I watch all the time!’ says Luke. ‘And listen too. Mr Hooker told me listening can be like learning.’
‘And Mr Hooker is quite right.’
Finally, father arrives beside son. Lord Mountfathom holds out the book he has selected – A Photographic Account of War.
Luke takes and opens it and lets the stiff pages flow across his fingertips – sees soldiers and landscapes scorched, sepia portraits of families with a starved look, buildings broken and heaped as rubble …
His father says, ‘Starting tomorrow, there will be some visitors coming to Mountfathom. I want you to watch them, to learn from them. But most crucially, to attempt to understand them and their place in the world. Will you do this, Luke?’
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Who are they, Father?’
Another longish pause; Lord Mountfathom smoothing his moustache, tugging his waistcoat straight and eventually saying, ‘Who are they truly? Good question! That is what you must tell me, son. That is the knowledge that you must learn.’
‘Who are those chaps?’ asks cousin Roger.
After the emergence and escape of the ghost moth, on their way back for breakfast, the children stop. Roger likes to make a game of it: ‘Quick, get down, or we shall be seen!’
They crouch by the walled garden to spy on the shingle drive: a pair of vans are parked, big brutes of things – large wheeled, bonnet and doors polished as glossy as oil, canvas-covered trailers at the rear …
‘Cannot be certain,’ says Luke, thinking of what his father told him. ‘Let us watch and see a minute.’
Less than a minute: from the gloom beneath the canvas-covered trailers, boys in uniform are expelled shouldering canvas bags, eyes with an intent look and boots black that smash shingle underfoot. They have rifles held tight to their shoulders.
‘They must be going to fight in the war!’ says Rory. ‘I want to go to war …’
‘You’re eleven,’ says Ruth. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I don’t want you to go war anyway,’ says Rose.
‘Rose, stop being such a cutie-pie,’ says Roger.
Rose inserts a clutch of her blonde curls into her jaws to chew. Luke has seen his Aunt Nancy tight-wrapping Rose’s hair in damp rags every night, but there is no stopping it – these girlish curls are going.
Luke stays silent, watching.
Mr Findlater is stationed on the front doorstep to greet the soldiers and show them inside.
‘Old Mr Sunshine looks happy to see them,’ says Rory.
‘How many are there, I wonder?’ asks cousin Ruth.
Luke counts thirteen and whispers, ‘Unlucky number.’
‘Talking to yourself again, Luke?’ says his cousin Roger. ‘Now can we please go and get breakfast – I’m starving to death here!’
But no one moves until Luke says so.
‘Yes. Let us go and see what’s happening.’
‘And there is talk of such unrest being planned!’ says Luke’s Uncle Walter. ‘Such violence has been promised by these malcontents – you know the ones? Pearse and Connolly and the like. Disgraceful! A death wish is what they have, no doubt about it.’
And Lord Mountfathom says nothing and Lady Mountfathom sucks on her cigarette and Aunt Nancy sips her coffee. And Luke watches all.
‘Brother dearest,’ says Luke’s mother, ‘just eat your sausages and pipe down. Or you’ll induce in yourself another heart attack.’
This is breakfast under the morning sun in the Temple of the Elements. Around a circular stone table split into the four elements and laid all over with platters of cured bacon and smoked salmon and fried sausages and potato, and neat porcelain bowls of strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries. And so hot for Easter! Though Mountfathom is always hotter than elsewhere – Luke has asked many times for the reason and many times been told the word by Mr Hooker: ‘micro-climate’. He sees a dark haze of midges here and there, and fat bumblebees crawling into the daffodils, and butterflies (Cabbage Whites? thinks Luke) fawning over the flowerbeds.
‘You wait and see,’ says Uncle Walter. He spears a sausage on the end of his fork and removes half of it with one bite. ‘Just wait and see, sister dearest. There’ll be trouble or I’m a Chinaman!’
Debate starts up amongst Luke and his cousins –
Rory: ‘Which game shall we play?’
Roger: ‘I shall pick first!’
Ruth: ‘We should all come up with a suggestion and then vote.’
Roger: ‘Don’t be a twit.’
Rory: ‘Swimming in the lagoon?’
Ruth: ‘Chase the Traces?’
But Luke is listening also to his parents and aunt and uncle; always wants to hear and understand the chat of the grown-ups.
‘How long are these soldiers to be staying?’ asks his Aunt Nancy. She and Uncle Walter sit in the element of Fire. To Luke, his aunt appears more strained than usual – takes her coffee from her cup in little sips. ‘Not too long surely? Are they not needed right away on the Front?’
‘They shall stay until they are ready,’ says Lady Mountfathom. She and Luke’s father occupy the element Earth. And Luke takes note of the difference between his mother and aunt: Mother’s grubby cigarette, clay from her morning spent in the flowerbeds still clinging to her hair and ground into the seams of corduroy trousers and encrusted to the soles of her wellingtons. And Aunt Nancy: white dress with red tulips, red lipstick, platinum hair perfectly and immovably set (though she presses a careful palm to it every other moment as though it might fall from her head). She says, ‘Well, where are these men to sleep? I have young daughters to think of.’
‘In the Upstairs Orchard,’ says Lord Mountfathom, from behind his copy of The Dublin Enquirer.
‘What?’ shouts Uncle Walter. ‘Amongst the trees, is it? Can build themselves a lovely little tree-house!’
And the man laughs, loudly.
‘Clodagh has arranged beds from Belfast,’ says Luke’s mother. ‘So the soldiers shall be quite comfortable, don’t worry.’
Some uncomfortable silence.
Uncle Walter breaks it when he prods a finger at the front page of Lord Mountfathom’s newspaper and bellows, ‘Could hardly get into Dublin earlier in the week! Bloody protests and so on!’
Luke reads only the bold headline of the Enquirer.
IRISH REBEL REVOLT SPREADS:
TENSIONS RISE AS BRITISH GOVERNMENT THREATENS MARTIAL LAW
‘I do agree,’ says Aunt Nancy, still sip-sipping at her coffee. ‘We are at war on the continent, so you would think the Irish might show a little understanding and stop this unrest.’
‘Barbarians,’ adds Uncle Walter. ‘What do you think, William?’
Luke (and all others in the Temple) watches as Lord Mountfathom emerges, slowly, from behind the headline. Watches him fold and settle the newspaper on the stone tabletop.
‘These are tough times for all,’ says Luke’s father. ‘No doubt about it. Though I think we should extend our utmost understanding to those who feel aggrieved. It is our duty always to watch, and learn, and understand. Not to judge.’
Lord Mountfathom gives his son a wink.
And Luke watches the effect of his father’s words – sees his Aunt Nancy roll her eyes, his uncle swell as though bursting with a surfeit of words but saying none. And his mother – smiling, beaming at her husband. Lady Mountfathom sees her son watching and says sud
denly, ‘Now, children – away and play! You don’t want to be sitting here listening to such dull talk! I hope to see you all at dinner tonight and not a moment before!’
Day is golden. Day is wild and full of adventure! And Luke feels perfectly happy as he and his cousins race through the grounds. To the smokehouse where they dare each other inside, seeing who can stay the longest with the smell of fish. Or the icehouse where the Traces sometimes slumber. Or the space beneath the Rise and the Temple of Ivory where some of the Errander boys say a spiteful crone has taken up residence.
They play –
‘Evade the Cailleach!’
‘Secret-and-Secluded!’
‘Catch!’
Roger concocts games with complex rules only he knows, but all involve saying tongue-twisters and selling their souls for tuppence and standing on their heads until they almost topple unconscious …
Rory: ‘I know what now – let’s play War!’
‘I am the General,’ says Roger. ‘Luke, you can be one of the filthy Irish rebel leaders!’
Luke is dubious. But he is saved from disagreeing: sudden shadow covers them, bruised sky as though someone is Storm-Breaching, and the voice of Nanny Bogram calls to them, ‘Come on in, children, or else you’ll be soaked! Hurry up, now!’
And so inside. But still they find things to do.
Luke shows the cousins his newest finds in his collection of animal bones – complete skeletons of rabbit and hare and magpie and fox, the jawbone of a badger. He has all labelled with times and dates of discovery, names inked in English and Latin on small parchment slips of paper.
Ruth: ‘How interesting.’
Rose: ‘I don’t like these skeletons. They’re scary.’
Roger: ‘This is rather boring. I still want to be the General …’
And the cousins get their game of War: Luke finds his father in the library and asks him to set the Spell on the marble staircase in the entrance hall to make it unending. So under the glass dome at the top of Mountfathom and its cerulean light, Luke and his cousins can run up and up and up and never reach the first floor – attempt to scale the staircase as though it is a mountain with Roger seated above them shouting orders, the others all battling one another and tugging at each other’s shoes and tossing them down the steps with Roger telling them, ‘You rebels will never conquer this mountain! Not ever be victorious so long as I have breath in my body! Never!’
And soon somehow it is six o’clock: Lord Mountfathom arrives to Dismiss the Spell and tell them it is time for dinner in The World.
‘Tell us now, lads – looking forward to serving queen and country?’ asks Uncle Walter.
The soldiers look at one another.
One says with a half-smirk, ‘We’re rightly looking forward to doing our bit, Mister. Oh yes. How about you?’
Uncle Walter shifts in his seat. ‘I have a gammy leg,’ he says, ‘so no fighting for me. More’s the pity!’
Luke sips his vegetable soup. Never has he sat at such a tense meal – there has always been such fun and chat and laughter in The World! Never a silence like this, broken only by so many sharpened words and the too-loud sound of spoons scraping bowls or being abruptly settled.
So many closed mouths around the table – not just soldiers and Lord and Lady Mountfathom and Luke and his cousins and Uncle Walter and Aunt Nancy, but also three members of the Driochta: Mr Lawrence Devine from his farm down the shore road, Lady Vane-Tempest and Mr Flann Dorrick from Dublin.
‘We do greatly appreciate your efforts,’ says Lord Mountfathom, and raises a goblet of claret to the soldiers.
‘Hear, hear!’ says Mr Dorrick.
‘Quite so!’ says Lady Vane-Tempest.
‘A brave thing you do,’ says Mr Devine.
Luke feels cousin Roger kick him under the table – painfully, on the shin. Knows well why: Rory is smirking and Rose is looking baffled and Ruth is keeping her head down and it is because the soldiers sound odd to them. They say things like, ‘What’s the story?’ But the word ‘story’ comes out like ‘storeee’. And when they say ‘think’ it sounds like ‘tink’.
From Dublin, Luke decides. And he sits and whispers the words ‘storeee’ and ‘tink’ to himself, testing the sounds in his own mouth.
Roger gives him another kick.
One of the soldiers is lighting a cigarette at the table.
‘I think I have had quite enough,’ says Aunt Nancy, and she crumples her napkin up and drops it on the plate and stands. ‘I have rather lost my appetite this evening.’
She leaves – heels sharp as pistol-shots on the floor as she moves fast towards the door, heaving it open and letting it slam shut with a sound like a cannon blast.
‘I must tell you,’ says Mr Dorrick, pouring himself a glass of claret, ‘that you are much braver men than I. But I can assure you all that you are quite welcome at Mountfathom, and I am sure you shall have your every need catered for!’
Luke sees his father giving his mother a look.
Lady Vane-Tempest says loudly, ‘Oh, you can always count on Flann here to volunteer the hospitality of another’s House!’
Soldiers laugh, and Luke relaxes a little.
Main course comes – pigeon with a sticky sauce, roast potatoes, peas and carrots and green beans in tureens with plenty of butter.
The soldier who lit the cigarette during soup (now smoking another) asks Lady Vane-Tempest suddenly, ‘Are you married, Missus?’
‘Bit of a forward question to be asking a Lady,’ says Lawrence Devine – a man that Luke’s mother always describes as ‘the salt of the earth’.
But Lady Vane-Tempest tells the soldier, calm as anything, ‘Young man, I have no more need of a husband than a fish would have need of a bicycle.’
Laughter from everyone at the table and Luke is doing as his father told him: intensely watching and listening and examining these soldiers … and it happens very suddenly –
‘Doesn’t say much this one. Is he the son? Is he a mute or just dumb?’
Takes moments before everyone around the table realises – the person speaking is the soldier with his coffin nail of a cigarette and the person he is speaking about is Luke. No one says anything till Uncle Walter says, ‘Children, I think it best you skip the sweet and go upstairs.’
But Luke and his cousins do not move – will not leave unless Lord or Lady Mountfathom asks them to.
The soldier keeps glaring at Luke.
And Luke glares back without wavering. Know him, he thinks. See who he really is.
It is Lawrence Devine who speaks. ‘He is a quiet lad sometimes. But it’s often better to say nothing than to talk for the sake of talking and cause ructions, don’t you think?’
Takes a long time for the soldier to reply. To stab his cigarette dead into a side plate and say, ‘Aye. I suppose so.’
Mr Dorrick tries to help the conversation along. ‘Shall we partake in a cigar or two, lads? And afterwards perhaps the Lord and Lady Mountfathom will be kind enough to allow a spot of Conducting! My special brand of Smoke-Spinning is always very well received!’
Lady Vane-Tempest says with some enthusiasm, ‘Yes, I’d say that sounds very agreeable.’
But the soldier who made such a judgment about Luke is up out of his seat and wandering The World – staring at the gilt ceiling, at the lacquered Chinese cabinets, arriving at the wall and with one hand exploring the vast map, walking his fingertips across the surface until he finds Ireland. He taps the tiny green island with two thick fingers.
‘This place is changing,’ says the soldier. ‘No doubt about it – won’t be the same for long.’
‘Oh, I daresay some things will stay just the same!’ says Dorrick, and tries to smile.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ says the soldier, turning to face the table. ‘You’ll all be grand here. All sitting pretty with your money and fancy food, all hiding away from the real world in these big piles.’
Luke wishes he could leave. Has never
heard anyone talk this way.
Mr Devine says, ‘Sit down, son. There’s no sense in being bitter.’
Soldier says, ‘I’m not a bit bitter. And I’m not your son.’
And so much silence that Luke knows now must be the time for his parents to speak –
‘We invited you here in order to help you,’ says Lord Mountfathom. ‘I made that invitation because I sympathise with your feelings – being Irish, wanting to fight, but yet not knowing which side to take.’
‘The Driochta have had that experience too in the past,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘Trying to keep a balance between what we feel is right and what must be done by necessity.’
Soldier looks to his boots.
‘I am sure you are trying to do your best,’ says Lady Vane-Tempest, and her voice for once is soft. A softness that seems to assuage some worry in the mind of the soldier – he returns to the oval table, slowly, and sinks back into his seat.
Relief, thinks Luke. Pure relief in everyone seated!
Small amount of chatter slowly starts up.
But Luke keeps his eyes on the soldier – watches until he is seen watching, until the soldier whispers for only Luke to hear: ‘I know what’s for the best of this country. Just you wait and see.’
Luke is woken – a kick from his cousin Roger and a hiss of, ‘Listen!’
It is cold and not quite light; bedroom still harbours some shadow.
Luke is wondering what time it is when Roger kicks him again and says, ‘Do you hear them? Those soldiers are on the march!’
Luke listens, and he hears true enough the tramp of boots going by the bedroom door. Hears some whispers –
‘We can’t be late.’
‘Element of surprise – that’s what’ll get to them.’
‘Get them when they tink it’s all quiet – before the sun is hardly up!’
Luke sees Rose and Ruth and Rory all tangled in blanket and breathing slowly – lost in dreams. He whispers to Roger, ‘I think we should go back to sleep.’
But his cousin Roger whispers back, ‘Look, there is something more going on here, so I say let us make it our mission to follow these soldiers and see what they are up to. I need to practise if I am to become the very best spy!’
The House of Mountfathom Page 3