The Rosary Garden by Nicola White (best books to read now TXT) 📕

her chest, squinting at the light that flashed from the river.

‘I didn’t know the baby was coming. My monthlies were never regular. Then there was the pains, and I was trying to keep quiet.’

‘Was this in Caherbawn?’

‘In the kitchen. I was scared I would die.’

‘Oh, Joan. Did no one know?’

‘The dog was there for the first bit. Looking at me.’

‘What?’

‘That old dog, Brownie. I was scared he would eat it.’

‘Jesus! Why didn’t you get some help?’

‘I shouldn’t have been staying there.’

‘Didn’t you go to the hospital?’

‘It was too late for that.’

‘Why did you hide it?’

‘I didn’t – they took it away.’

‘But I found it in a box. In the back bedroom.’

‘You can’t have.’

‘I did! And my ma knew, and Una, and Joe, I think, he was there too—’

‘Shut your mouth, you.’

‘I just need to get it straight in my head.’

‘Don’t bother yourself.’

Joan took a sandwich, tore at it with her teeth. Ali tried to look like she wasn’t scared of her. She lifted one of the boiled eggs and rolled it against a flat stone, the shell crackling to mosaic.

They stayed for a while in silence. Ali concentrated on peeling the egg, bit by bit, revealing the shine. Joan threw a hard end of crust in the water. Immediately there was a ‘plop’ and a flash of silver. Joan and Ali looked at each other and rushed to the river’s edge.

Three dark torpedo shapes moved in the depths. Joan was suddenly gleeful – clenching and unclenching her hands as if she wanted to clap, urging Ali to go in and try to catch one. Ali laughed and shook her head, but to please Joan she bundled up her skirt in one hand and tiptoed back into the water, trying to move her feet as smoothly as possible. As her shadow fell over the trout, they shot off downriver, scarcely moving a fin to do so. They were there, and then they were gone. But the mood had lightened, and they returned to their picnic as if starting over.

Ali had forgotten to bring a knife, so they squashed the pink-and-yellow cake into slices with a thin driftwood stick. They passed the bottle of lemonade between them. Joan told proud stories about her three brothers – how they could tickle trout with their hands, how the youngest had tamed a crow to sit on his shoulder.

Every so often, Joan would interrupt herself to ask what time it was.

‘What does it matter?’ Ali said finally. ‘The doors don’t close until eight, you said.’

‘No, really, what time is it?’

‘Quarter to three.’

‘I’ve got to go.’

Joan went over to get her jacket and the sports bag that she had brought with her. When Ali had gone to pick her up from Damascus House she was sitting in the foyer with the bag between her feet. It was suspiciously large, but Ali reasoned that Joan might have brought some picnic things of her own. Not that she had opened it yet. Now Joan put the jacket on, picked up the bag and headed off through the field. Ali shouted after her, but she kept on going, leaving Ali to bundle the picnic things into her basket and buckle her sandals on, before setting off in pursuit. As she hurried towards the road, she thought she saw something moving behind one of the bedroom windows at Caherbawn, but when she stopped to look properly there was nothing there, just darkness.

She caught up with Joan at the field gate.

‘Wait for me!’

‘You don’t need to come with me – I’m not going back,’ Joan said.

‘But the people at the hospital … I signed my name in the book!’

Joan laughed and reached up to touch Ali’s hair. ‘You’re awful chicken for such a big girl.’

She crossed the road and walked along the verge, past the entrance to Davy’s bungalow and on towards the forestry road. Ali didn’t want to shout after her, for fear of someone hearing, so she was forced to follow.

Joan had disappeared into the trees. Entering their shade, Ali immediately felt chilly. She could see Joan ahead on the yellow clay track and tried to think of ways to talk her round, to get her back to Kinmore. Little stones kept flicking into her sandals, and she had to stop and shake them out while Joan increased the distance between them. One time she looked up and Joan was gone.

Ali called her name and listened to the shout die in the trees. There was only the creaking of boughs and the dull wave of a car engine passing on the road behind. It was tempting to go back, to leave Joan in the woods, but the moment Ali thought it she felt ashamed. She hurried on towards the spot where she had last seen Joan.

The trees thinned on one side of the track and tyre marks led off into what looked like a clearing. She could see far ahead on the forestry road, and it was empty. Joan must have turned off here. Ali followed the tyre ruts, passing a tumbled wall of mossy stones. She entered a clearing where a ruined, roofless cottage stood among rusting bracken. She could hear someone talking inside the ruin – Joan’s voice. There was a blue van parked at the back of the building. Sunshine still caught on the tops of the trees, but at ground level the air was shaded, almost foggy.

As Ali stepped through the cottage entrance her eyes took in several things at once: that there was an odd little corrugated shelter at one end of the enclosure, and that Joan was not alone and raving, but chatting happily to a young man who was sitting on the sill of a gaping window, a can of lager in his hand.

‘Ivor wouldn’t mind a sandwich, if you have one left,’ said Joan.

The boy nodded at her. She’d seen him before, outside Melody’s on Sunday; the one she thought looked like a Viking. Joan had been talking about Ivor at