She had begged to be allowed to go up the Big Hill with the others, but Mrs Burke wouldn’t even hear of it. ‘You’d slow us down, Jessie,’ she’d said. ‘And besides, you know you’d never reach the top.’ And then she’d laughed. ‘And I’m afraid you’re far too big to carry.’ That was the moment Jessie had decided she would climb the Big Hill, cerebral lousy palsy or not. Somehow or other she would do it, she’d drag herself up there if necessary.
She opened her eyes. Here she was, after two months of trying, within a stone’s throw of the summit. This time there’d be no stopping her. ‘Here I come!’ she cried. ‘Here I come!’ And she launched herself up the hill. Several times her legs refused to do what she told them and threatened to buckle beneath her. Time and again, she felt herself reeling. She longed just to sit down and rest; but again and again she heard the voice in her head. ‘You can do it, girl, you can do it.’
Where the words came from, or who spoke them, she neither knew nor cared any more. Nothing mattered but getting to the top. She was almost there when her legs simply folded on her, and she found herself on her knees. She crawled the last metre or so over mounds of soft thrift and then collapsed. Mole came over to her and nuzzled her neck with his warm whiskery nose. She clung to Mole’s mane and hauled herself up on to her feet.
There below her lay the whole of Clare Island, and all around the grey-green sea, with the island of Inishturk far to the south. And when she turned her face into the wind, there was the mainland and the islands of Clew Bay floating in the sea like distant dumplings. She was on top of the world. She lifted her hands to the sky and laughed out loud and into the wind, the tears running down her face. Mole looked on, each of his ears turning independently. Jessie’s legs collapsed and she sat down with a sudden jolt that knocked the breath out of her for a moment, and stunned her into sanity.
Only then did she begin to reflect on all that had happened to her on the Big Hill that morning. There could be no doubt that she had made it to the top, unless of course she was still in the middle of some wonderful dream. But the more she thought about it, the more she began to doubt her memory of the climb, the fall in the stream, the disembodied voice that had spoken to her, the arms that had helped her to her feet, the words in her head that had urged her on to the top. It could all have been some extraordinary hallucination. That would make sense of it. But then, what about the bump on her head? And there was something else she couldn’t understand. Someone must have rescued her from the stream. But who? Maybe it was all the bump on the head, maybe that was why she was hearing voices. And maybe that was why her memory was deceiving her. She had to be sure, really sure. She had to test it.
‘Hello?’ she ventured softly. ‘Are you still there? I did it, didn’t I? I won your bet for you. Are you there?’ There was no one, nothing, except a solitary humming bumble-bee, a pair of gulls wheeling overhead and Mole munching nearby. Jessie went on, ‘Are you anyone? Are you someone? Are you just a bump on the head or what? Are you real? Say something, please.’ But no one said anything. Something rustled behind her. Jessie swung round and saw a rabbit scuttling away into the bracken, white tail bobbing. She noticed there were rabbit droppings all over the summit. She flicked at one of them and it bounced off the side of a rock, a giant granite rock shaped by the wind and weather into a perfect bowl, and in the bowl was a pool of shining water fed by a spring from above it.
Jessie hadn’t been thirsty until now. She crawled over, grasped the lip of the rock and hauled herself up. She put her mouth into the water like Mole did and drank deep. Water had never been so welcome to her as it was that morning on the summit of the Big Hill. She was wiping her mouth when she saw something glinting at the bottom of the pool. It looked like a large ring, brass maybe, like one of the curtain rings they had at home in the sitting room. She reached down into the water and picked it out.
‘I am a woman of my word.’ The same voice, from behind her somewhere. ‘Didn’t I say I’d leave a little something for you?’ In her exhaustion, in her triumph, Jessie had quite forgotten all about the promised ‘little something’. She backed herself up against the rock. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Jessie, I’ll not hurt you. I’ve never hurt a single soul that didn’t deserve it. You did a fine thing today, Jessie, a fine thing; and what’s better still, you won me my wager. I’m five gold doubloons richer, not that I’ve a lot to spend it on, mind. None of us have, but that’s by the by. None of the boys thought you could do it, but I did. And I like to be right. It’s a family failing of ours. “Her mother’s an O’Malley,” I told them. “So Jessie’s half an O’Malley. She’ll do it, just watch.” And we did watch and you did do it. The earring’s yours, girl. To be honest with you I’ve not a lot of use for such things these days. Look after it, won’t you?’
When Jessie spoke at last, her voice was more of a whisper than she had intended it to be. ‘Where are you? Can’t I see you? You can’t be just a voice.’ But there was no reply. She tried again and again, until she knew that whoever had been there either didn’t want to answer or had gone away. ‘Thanks for the earring,’ Jessie called out. ‘I won’t lose it, I promise.’
It should have sounded silly talking to no one like she was, but somehow it didn’t. Talking to Mole was silly and she knew it, but there was no one else and she had to talk to someone. ‘See what she gave me, Mole? It’s an earring. It’s because I climbed the Big Hill and she won her bet.’ The donkey lifted his upper lip, showed his yellow teeth and sniffed suspiciously at the ring in the flat of Jessie’s hand. He decided it wasn’t worth eating.
Jessie looked back down the Big Hill. It was a very long way back down again. She had never given a single thought as to how she would get down if ever she got to the top, probably because in her heart of hearts she had never really believed she would get to the top. She knew well enough that, for her, climbing down the stairs at home was always a more difficult proposition than climbing up. She’d never manage it, not all the way to the bottom. It was impossible. Then she had an idea, an obvious idea, but a good one. Mole would take her down. She would use the rock as a mounting block, lie over Mole’s back and hitch a ride all the way back home. Easy.
It did not prove as easy as she had imagined. First of all, Mole wouldn’t come to the rock and had to be dragged there by his mane. Then he wouldn’t stand still, not at first. Mole wasn’t at all used to being ridden and shifted nervously under Jessie’s weight; but eventually he seemed to get the idea and walked away, taking Jessie down the Big Hill and all the way back home, Jessie clinging on like a limpet, desperate not to slide off. She waited until Mole was grazing the grass on the lawn in amongst her father’s ‘creatures’, and then just dropped off. It was a fairly painless landing. That was where her father found her when he came back from the sheep field a short time later.
‘Didn’t you see me, Dad?’ she said.
He stared at her in horror. ‘There’s blood all over you, Jess,’ he said, running over to her. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘I did it, Dad. I climbed the Big Hill! Mole brought me back, but I did the rest all on my own.’
‘I thought you’d climbed it already,’ said her father. In her excitement, Jessie had even forgotten her own lies.
‘I did,’ she said, recovering quickly, ‘I did, but I did it again, faster this time.’
Her father carried her inside and sat her down in the kitchen. ‘What do you want to go and do a crazy thing like that for?’ he said, dabbing her grazed knees with wet cotton wool. It should have stung, but it didn’t. ‘Your mother will kill me, letting you go off like that. Don’t you say a word about it when she gets back, you hear me? And just look at the lump on your head!’
Jessie clutched the earring tight in her fist. The sheepdog was sniffing at it. ‘Get off, Panda,’ she said, pushing him away. Panda gazed up at her out of his two white eyes and rested his wet chin on her knee. He’d been rolling in something nasty again. ‘When’s Mum back?’ Jessie went on.
/> ‘This evening, if the weather holds,’ said her father, pressing a cool tea towel on her head. ‘Here, hold that. It’ll get the swelling down. He’s arrived. Your cousin, Jack. Your mum rang from the airport at Shannon.’
‘What’s he like?’ Jessie said. Panda was trying to lick his way into her fist. She pushed him away again.
‘Quiet, doesn’t say very much. Make a change from you, won’t it?’
‘All summer!’ Jessie protested. ‘Why does he have to come all summer?’
‘Because he’s a relation, your Uncle Sean’s son, your cousin.’
‘But I’ve never even met Uncle Sean.’ Her father lifted up her arm to examine her elbow. She pulled away. ‘I’ll wash it myself,’ she snapped.
‘What’s the matter, Jess?’ he asked, crouching down beside her.
‘I wish he didn’t have to come, Dad,’ she said. ‘I like it like it is, with just the three of us.’
‘Me too,’ said her father. ‘But we’ll be three again after he’s gone, won’t we? Now get upstairs and wash that elbow of yours. We don’t want it going poisonous on us. Your mum’ll have fifty fits.’
Jessie had already thought where she would hide the earring before she even reached her room. The goldfish bowl. She’d hide it in the stones at the bottom of Barry’s bowl. Barry went mad while she was doing it. He always hated her putting her hand in his bowl. ‘Look after it for me, Barry,’ she said, and the goldfish mouthed at her from under his wispy weed and then turned his tail on her. ‘Please yourself then,’ she said. All the while, Panda was on her bed and watching her intently. ‘Secret,’ she said, putting her finger to her lips. ‘No one must ever know, just you and me and Barry. He’s not telling anyone and neither are you, are you? You stink, Panda, you know that?’
3 THE FACE IN THE MIRROR
CLATTERBANG WOULDN'T START. SHE NEVER did when there was mist about, and there was often mist about. Clatterbang was a rusty old black taxicab that had seen better days on the streets of London and Belfast, but she was perfect for the island – when she worked. You could carry up to six sheep in the back, or twelve bales of hay, or a ‘creature’ sculpture. But today it was just Jessie, with Panda curled up beside her on the back seat. Her father had his head under the bonnet, and said something that he would never have dared say if her mother had been home. He tried whatever he was trying again and suddenly the engine started. He slammed the bonnet down and jumped in.
‘We’ll be late,’ he said. ‘Hold tight.’ They bumped and rattled down the farm track, out on to the road, past the abbey ruins and along the coast road towards the quay. They weren’t late. The ferry was just tying up. Her father stopped the car and turned to her. ‘Once more, Jess, how’d you get the bump?’
‘I fell over.’
‘Where?’
‘In the garden.’
‘Good. And you stick to that story, no matter what, understand?’
They could see her mother now, tying her scarf over her head. She was standing at the end of the quay, and beside her was a tall boy, almost as tall as she was, with a white baseball hat on, sideways. He was gazing around him, hands thrust deep into his pockets. ‘Will you look at that beanpole of a boy!’ said Jessie’s father, opening the car door. ‘I’ll give her a hand with those bags. You wait here.’ And he was gone.
Jessie got out of the car and tottered along after him as fast as she could, which wasn’t fast at all. Her legs were still tired from the climb up the Big Hill. She glanced up at the Big Hill, but it was no longer there. The mist had cut off its top again. She thought then of the voice and heard it again in her head. The more she thought about it, the more she believed it must be the first sign of madness. Maybe she had cerebal palsy of the brain as well as the body. Or maybe it was the voice of a saint she had heard. She hoped it was that. She’d heard the stories of St Patrick talking to folk as they climbed up Crough Patrick just over the water on the mainland. If it could happen there, it could happen here. It wasn’t impossible. But then she thought that the voice hadn’t sounded at all like a saint, not Jessie’s idea of a saint anyway.
They were all three coming towards her now, her father carrying the bags, her mother striding out ahead, almost running as she reached her. ‘What do you mean, she fell over?’ she said. Then she was crouching down in front of her and holding her by the shoulders. ‘Are you all right, Jess?’
‘Fine, Mum.’
‘What happened?’
‘I just tripped, that’s all.’
‘Where?’
‘In the garden.’ Jessie didn’t dare look up in case she caught her father’s eye. Her mother was examining the lump on her head. ‘One week,’ she went on, ‘I go away one week. Have you seen the doctor?’
‘No.’
‘Dizzy?’
‘No.’
Then the boy was standing there. He had a silver brace on his teeth – more brace than teeth, Jessie thought.
‘This is your cousin Jack,’ said her mother, smiling now. ‘All the way from Long Island, New York, America, to Clare Island, County Mayo, Ireland, isn’t that right, Jack?’ The boy was staring at her, and frowning at the same time. It was a normal reaction, when people saw her first. It was the way she stood, a little lopsided, as if she was disjointed somehow.
‘Hi,’ said the boy. He was still scrutinising her. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Jessie. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘She’s not fine at all,’ said her mother, and she smoothed Jessie’s hair out of her face. ‘She’s a terrible lump on her head.’ Panda jumped up at Jack, and the boy backed away in alarm.
‘He won’t hurt you,’ said Jessie. ‘Only a sheepdog, not a wolf, y’know.’ Jack laughed, a little nervously, Jessie thought.
‘We’ve got bigger ones back home,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘We’ve got wolfhounds, Irish wolfhounds, three of them.’
‘Well, one’s good enough for us,’ Jessie said. ‘He’s called Panda.’
‘On account of his eyes, I guess,’ said Jack.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Jessie, unwilling to hide her irritation.
‘We’ll be home in a few minutes, Jack,’ said Jessie’s father. ‘Nowhere’s far on Clare Island. Four miles end to end.’ He put the bags down, and flexed his fingers. ‘You can walk the whole island in a couple of hours. I’ve got Clatterbang down the end of the quay, by the castle there.’
Jessie felt the boy watching her walk. She looked up quickly to catch him at it. She was right. He was watching. ‘You play American football?’ she asked. It was just something to say.
‘Some.’
‘I’ve seen it on the telly. You any good at it?’
‘Not that good.’
‘Makes two of us then, doesn’t it?’ she said. She smiled at him and got a ghost of a smile back. Perhaps she liked him a little better now than she had at first, but she still wasn’t sure of him. She eyed him warily as he walked along beside her in his spongy trainers, shoulders hunched. His hair was cut close. It was so close and so fair she could see every contour of his head, and he had more freckles on him than Jessie had ever seen on anyone. He was thin too, so that his blue jeans and his New York Yankees pinstripe sweatshirt hung loose on him. He was pointing up at the castle now. ‘Who lives up there?’ he said. ‘Looks kind of old.’
‘It is. No one lives there, not any more.’
Jessie’s father had stopped by the car and was opening the door. ‘Jeez, that’s some car,’ Jack said, running his hand along the bonnet. ‘Diesel, right? Three-litre engine? Old, I guess.’
‘It goes,’ Jessie snapped. ‘And that’s all a car’s got to do, isn’t it?’ Now she had quite definitely made up her mind. She did not like this boy. She would not like this boy, she wouldn’t ever like this boy. This was going to be the longest month of her life. Her mother was giving her one of her pointed looks.
‘You two cousins getting on, are you?’ she said.
‘Perfect,’ said Jessie, a
nd she got in the car and slammed the door, leaving Jack to walk round the other side.
Clatterbang spluttered a few times and then started up reluctantly. No one spoke until they were well along the coast road.
‘Miss me?’ said Jessie’s mother.
‘Missed you,’ her father replied. ‘We both did, didn’t we, Jess?’ He turned to her. ‘And how was Dublin?’
‘Don’t ask.’ She spoke so quietly that Jessie could hardly hear.
On the back seat, cousin Jack and cousin Jessie sat side by side in silence. Panda looked first at one and then the other. At supper, Jack hardly touched a thing. He chewed on a piece of bread and said it wasn’t the same as the bread ‘back home’. The water, he said, tasted ‘kind of funny’ and he screwed up his nose when Jessie’s father offered him some of his home-made sheep’s cheese.
‘You got peanut butter?’ Jack asked. ‘I usually have peanut butter sandwiches and a Coke.’
‘What, every meal?’ Jessie’s father said.
Jack nodded. ‘Except breakfast. I have cornflakes for breakfast, and Coke.’
‘I’ll get some peanut butter in tomorrow,’ Jessie’s mother said, patting his arm. ‘Now you’d better get yourself to bed. A good night’s sleep, that’s what you need. Got to be up early. School tomorrow.’
‘School?’
‘That’s what your father said,’ Jessie’s mother went on. ‘“Treat him no different,” he told me. “What Jessie does, he does.” Your dad’s my older brother, remember? I always did what he said when I was little – almost always anyway – and where you’re concerned, what your dad says goes. So it’s school for you tomorrow. Jess will be with you. You’ll look after him, won’t you, Jess? You need any help unpacking, Jack?’ Jack shook his head. Then, without saying a word, he stood up, pushed back his chair and went out. The three of them looked at each other, the clock ticking behind them in the silence of the kitchen. They heard Jack’s bedroom door shut at the end of the passage upstairs.
‘He’s got his troubles,’ Jessie’s mother said. ‘He’ll be fine, he’ll settle.’