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

the river. The little brother who had tamed the crow was now six feet tall, incongruously large beside his sister. Ali unwrapped a sandwich for him and handed it over, not knowing what to say.

He offered her a drink from his can. She shook her head.

‘I’ll have some,’ said Joan.

‘You won’t,’ said Ivor. ‘God knows what kind of drugs they’ve been giving you up in that place.’

Joan looked delighted at his bossiness. Ali took out the lemonade and passed it to her.

‘I’m going to stay with Ivor.’

‘You can’t stay in this place,’ said Ali, looking at the rusting patchwork of the lean-to hut.

Joan gawked at her, like Ali was the one who was crazy.

‘No, in the village! Ivor’s got a flat above the garage. I’m going to look after it for him and cook.’

‘Do you think I look like I live in this dump?’ said Ivor.

Ali stuttered. ‘Sorry. No offence.’

‘It’s true we used to stay here the odd night when we were young. This was our granddad’s place, before the Forestry bought the land.’

‘Ivor was only ten when he put that shelter together,’ said Joan. ‘He was always good with his hands.’

‘When times got a bit wild up at our house, Joanie would take me down here. Going camping, she’d call it.’

He smiled then, a brief wave of sunshine across the dour plains of his face, revealing one gold incisor among the white of his teeth.

Ali wanted to see him smile again, just to see the flash of gold. She talked about their picnic at the river, making a fool of her own attempts at paddling and swinging, claiming she had stolen the picnic food from under her aunt’s nose. Every time he smiled, she felt she had won something.

Ivor finished the last swig of his can and threw it in the old hearth, where it joined a heap of other cans and a mess of ash and twisted wire. Ali noticed that Joan looked exhausted, and had been quiet for some time.

‘Sorry. You’ll be wanting to get on, and I’ve been prattling.’

Joan came over and hugged her, the top of her head bumping off Ali’s chin.

‘You were good to take me out. I couldn’t have done it on my own, and Ivor won’t go near the place.’

‘They might keep me in,’ he said.

‘I said to myself you coming was like a sign.’

‘I’m sorry I upset you,’ said Ali.

Joan’s eyes shifted briefly to Ivor, then back. ‘We’ll not mention it again,’ she said, then lifted her voice. ‘There’s a marquee dance on by the school tomorrow night, Ivor says. Maybe I’ll go. Maybe I’ll see you there.’

‘Oh, I’ll be there all right,’ said Ali. ‘Brendan’s doing the disco.’

Ivor rose from the windowsill and brushed invisible crumbs from the front of his thighs. He gave his sister a little smile and she returned it and lifted her sports bag. Now that Ali realised it held all that Joan had packed for her new life, it seemed terribly small.

At the doorway Ivor hesitated, waited till Joan went on, then came back to stand in front of Ali. The blazing sky cast him in silhouette, the edges of his crinkly hair on fire, his face unreadable.

‘Who’s taking you to the dance?’ he demanded.

‘I’m taking myself to the dance. It’s the twentieth century.’

He looked at her for a moment, not saying anything. She held up a hand to shade her eyes, to try and read his expression, but he was already leaving.

She listened to the van fire up and drive away, wondering why he’d been so nosy.

The lean-to was a strange little construction, a bit like a metal tent. She strolled over to an open end and saw an old mattress lying inside, smeared with mud on top, with a blue bloom of damp rising up its sides. Some animal had been chewing at a corner. She hoped it had been nicer back when Joan and Ivor used to camp here.

Ali threaded her way back to the forestry track, glad that Joan would be living in the world again, but worried about her own name lying in the register at Damascus House.

As she walked on, she found herself wondering what Joan meant when she said they took her baby away. Did she mean after its time in the box? Why did she deny that she hid it?

A gust of wind nudged her and Ali walked faster, forcing herself forward, back to Caherbawn. Crows argued above her. She told herself to stop fretting at it. It was a long time ago, and memories often differed.

18

The security guard at the back gate of Trinity College examined Swan’s ID carefully before waving them through. The university controlled the most desirable car park in the city centre, but did they have to be quite so up themselves? Those college porters with their stupid frock coats and riding hats, like they were off to a hunt, when they were from the same plebeian stock as himself. Never so much as sniffed a horse, except for the ones that pulled the knacker’s carts.

‘Boss?’ said Considine.

Swan realised he’d been muttering. He pulled into a parking space near the cricket pavilion. Sports fields spread out in front of them and, beyond, the stately quadrangles and cobbles that featured in a hundred thousand postcards.

‘Why weren’t we born to this, Gina?’

‘Did you apply, boss?’

‘Did I, biffo. My parents wouldn’t hear of such a thing, and the bishop’s ban was still in force. I hear its mostly southside types now, the cream of young Ireland.’

‘I got in. Did a year of economic and social studies. Loved it.’

Swan carried on as smoothly as he could manage. ‘Why didn’t you graduate, so?’

Considine shrugged, looked at her watch. ‘Circumstances. The need to get a job.’

‘You’re full of surprises.’

A rustle of far-off applause greeted them as they got out of the car. Young ones sat about on the steps of the pavilion, drinking, watching lean boys in whites play cricket. They couldn’t even play an Irish game