Colin shouted, but Jessie was almost throttling herself in her efforts to break free. The collie stood up, cringing and whining, then it took a step forward and showed its teeth. Bedlam followed. The two dogs made for each other in a tangle of hair, tongues, and frenzied barking. Oliver backed away and clutched nervously at Prill’s arm. “Sit, can’t you, sit! Gedoff, will you!” Colin was bellowing, and in the racket someone appeared in the doorway.
Donal Morrissey was thin and extremely tall, and stood glowering at them, his knotted hands shaking. The wispy remains of his hair blew about in the wind, silver-white but still reddish at the edges, and his bald, domed head was splodged with big freckles. He must once have had auburn hair, like Colin and me, thought Prill.
His face was so wrinkled it looked like a piece of paper someone had screwed up very tight then smoothed out again, leaving hundreds of tiny lines. There was so little flesh on it the skin was stretched over the bones like thin rubber, and every single one poked out. It was the kind of face you see in religious paintings.
But the voice that came from it was shrill and harsh. They couldn’t tell whether he was speaking Irish or just making horrible noises at them to scare them off. They backed away as he came down the steps, waving his arms about and yelling.
Prill’s stomach heaved. The old man stank. It was the smell of someone who never washed his hair, or his clothes, or had a bath. How could that Father Hagan come visiting him here, week after week? She’d be sick.
His dog had slunk off and was lying under the van, peering out at them. “Go on! Go on!” he was shouting. “There’s been enough of it, I’m telling you. Leave a soul in peace will you, coming round here. God help me.”
Jessie, always slow on the uptake, leapt at the old man and tried to lick his face. He lost his balance, swayed about, then fell heavily, crashing back against the side of the caravan. Prill gasped, he was so old, and Colin let go of Jessie and went to help him. But he was back on his feet almost at once, towering over them and letting out a stream of foul Irish as he pushed them back down the path, spitting the words out and slavering, his parchment cheeks turning a slow, bright red with pure rage.
As they reached the trees he picked up a handful of stones and flung them hard. Half a brick followed. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight. It caught Jessie in the middle of the back and she yelped with pain.
“Serves you right,” Colin told the dog angrily when they were safely out of sight. Prill had found a handkerchief, licked it, and was dabbing gingerly at the gash on Jessie’s back. The dog whined and twisted away, flattening its ears and flopping down in the grass. It knew quite well it was in disgrace.
“Poor old thing. She was only being friendly. That old man’s mad. It wasn’t just gravel you know, it was a brick.” She went on stroking Jessie.
“Well, we were warned,” Colin pointed out. “He’s obviously got a thing about strangers. The builders must have really upset him, then a great red setter comes out of the blue and knocks him flying. Dad’s right about Jessie, she has got a screw loose.”
“A dog like that should have been painfully destroyed at birth,” Oliver said suddenly. There was a dreadful silence. Colin looked at him in disbelief and Prill’s mouth dropped open.
“That’s a cruel thing to say… a really terrible thing.” She wanted to cry, and Colin felt like hitting him. The two children loved Jessie; she was their best friend.
“It’s a joke… only a joke…” Oliver stammered. “It’s what my father says sometimes, about really awful pupils, you know.”
They could imagine. Uncle Stanley was a teacher too. According to Dad he had a dry, sarcastic sense of humour, and sometimes reduced the boys in his school to tears. Colin stood up and said firmly, “Come here, Jessie.” The dog came, like a lamb, and he fastened the lead on.
“If it hadn’t been for you it would never have happened,” Prill said. “You knew perfectly well that wasn’t the way down to the beach. You just wanted to spy on him. I’d have thought you’d have had enough of old people, living with them all the time.”
“Oh, let’s get moving,” Colin snapped. “I want a swim.”
They set off down the track, but Oliver stayed where he was, staring after them.
“Hurry up, can’t you?”
“I’m not coming. I’m going back to the bungalow.”
“Mum did say we had to keep an eye on him,” Prill whispered, then she shouted back, “Oh, come on, Oll, don’t sulk.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“Leave him,” Colin said impatiently. “Even he can’t get lost between here and the house. We’ll have a better morning without him, anyway.”
Oliver had no intention of going home. As soon as the other two had dropped out of sight he walked quickly back along the path, into the trees. His watch said twelve noon, the time the old man went for his daily think at Danny’s Bar in Ballimagliesh. He’d heard that priest telling Uncle David. “Never misses a day, regular as clockwork,” he’d said.
From his hiding place he watched Donal Morrissey leave the van and walk off up the field with his dog at his heels. He moved quite quickly for such an old man, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a ragged overcoat, a squashed green hat on his head. Oliver could hear him muttering as he walked past the neat little pyramids of peat blocks, stacked up to dry all along the track.
When he was out of sight the boy crept out and went up to the van. He pushed at the door and it swung inwards slowly. Oliver went in.
It was dark and hot inside the caravan, and very smelly. He detected a dog, and dirty clothes, and food that should have been thrown away. Something else too, a sharp scent, slightly sweet, the peat the old man was burning on his stove. Mother had said you never forgot the smell of it. She’d lived in Ireland once.
In the middle of the floor was a table, a chair, and a filthy dog blanket. All round him cardboard cartons were stacked up to the roof, and he could see junk heaped in corners, broken furniture and bags of rubbish, old biscuit tins, rusty tools. It looked like a rag-and-bone man’s yard.
The mess didn’t surprise Oliver. At home his favourite resident, Mr Catchpole, lived in a room just like this, with a kind of nest in the middle for his bed and television set. Everywhere else was stuffed with rubbish, except that Oliver and Mr Catchpole knew it wasn’t rubbish. It was the story of his life. All his eighty-three years were stacked up in boxes in that bedroom on the second floor. Memories mattered to old people, that’s why they kept things.
The smell in the van was making him feel ill. He was dying to have a look in the biscuit tins but he felt queasy, so he climbed down the van steps again and took a few breaths of fresh air.
On the sea side of the van there was a tiny patch of garden. The neat rows of vegetables were a strange contrast with the mess inside. Perhaps someone from the farm helped him. According to that priest, the O’Malleys thought a lot of Donal Morrissey. He had worked for the family for years and years.
Suddenly Oliver noticed something moving on the bright green potato leaves and bent down for a closer look. One of the plants was a mass of small stripy insects. He felt in his pocket for his little magnifying glass then remembered he’d left it in the bedroom. But
