To The Lighthouse
Judith Jones
‘Oh, come on Julian,’ Anne pulled her rubber boots on, ‘it’s only a bit of rain. Show some gumption.’
She glared at her brother.
‘Well done Anne,’ Aunt Fanny smiled and lit a cigarette, ‘you children run off and find an adventure. There’s bound to be one around here with all these wild cliffs to explore. Kinsale is full of mystery. Go see Mrs O’Shea. She’ll tell you where to look and give you some slabs of that wonderful seed cake.’
The children trooped down to the kitchens of the old farmhouse. The housekeeper was bustling about clearing the lunch dishes and preparing a tray for afternoon tea.
‘Does it always rain so much?’ George buttoned up her gabardine mac and thrust her sockless feet in to black wellingtons.
‘My goodness you young ‘uns, it’ll be clear in half an hour. Tis always the way in this part of County Cork in late August, tis why tis so green. Come back in winter to see the real storms. My, they lash that lighthouse out on Old Head; the waves almost best the cliffs,’ she folded her arms under her comfortable bosom, ‘suppose you’ll be needing a bit of cake to take exploring and a bone for that dog?’
‘Oh gosh yes please Mrs O’Shea, that would be super,’ the children chorused.
‘Now you mind them cliff paths and don’t get cut off by the tide. Tis a tidy scramble up the cliffs or you’d be waiting all night for the tide to go down to get out of those there caves,’ she folded greaseproof paper around four slabs of cake, added a bottle of homemade ginger beer and put it all into an old knapsack.
‘I’ll have that one,’ Julian said, ‘I’m the oldest.’
‘For sure you are and a fine tall boy you be,’ she handed it over whilst his sister glowered. It wasn’t always easy being the youngest, especially with a brother who thought he knew everything.
They set off from the farm, across the paddock and rough stone wall of the orchard to pick a bright red apple each for their pockets.
‘Why do apples always taste so much better off a tree than from a shop?’ Dick asked.
‘Fresher,’ Julian began in his best school master tones and launched off into a lengthy monologue about apple storage.
‘Oh, do shut up Julian, don’t be such a bore. It was a rhetorical question,’ Anne laughed and picked up the pace, ‘where’s Timmy got to George?’
‘He’ll be about sniffing for rabbits, exploring I bet. He’ll turn up he always does. Ma will have turfed him out of the sitting room. She hates being disturbed when she’s painting.’
‘What’s Uncle Quentin doing?’ Dick walked beside his cousin admiring her complete disregard for a sou’wester or cap. Her black curls, ruffled by the strong breeze, gleamed in the drizzle.
‘Pa? He’ll be asleep by now, paper over his face snoring. He always does after luncheon, especially when the pie was so good.’
The children laughed; Uncle Quentin was well known for his ability to sleep. His job, as a scientist, was very demanding and he’d come away for a period of rest and recuperation. He’d sleep for hours especially on the first full day of the holidays.
‘Where shall we go? George climbed over a granite stile and scanned the horizon, ‘gosh everyone you can see for miles up here, hardly a tree in sight. I can see the village back there and all the little houses.’
Anne climbed up beside her, her hood blown back, fine blonde hair blowing madly, ‘I say what about over there, to the lighthouse?’
At that moment the sun broke through a gap in the scudding clouds, illuminating a tall black and white striped tower, perched on the cliff edge, at the end of the headland. It appeared to touch the sky, pushing the clouds apart with its sparkling glass dome.
‘Super idea Anne, let’s explore,’ George jumped off the style and set off at a run, whistling for Timmy, the dog, ‘I say you lot keep up.’
Anne scrambled after her, gum boots flapping, striding after her cousin with Dick close behind. Julian followed, he’d been going to suggest that, and as the eldest it really was his job to decide what they were going to do. Younger sisters should know their place. He hunched his shoulders against the wind, pulling his cap on tighter in a very bad mood.
A streak of brown raced past him, absurdly long tail streaming behind, ears blown inside out by the wind.
‘Timmy,’ George greeted the scruffy mongrel by rolling across the tussocky grass and prickly heather with him ignoring the scratches to her bare legs, ‘find any rabbits?’
Timmy sat up panting, tongue lolling, head on one side listening to his beloved mistress, looking as if he understood every word she said.
Dick hauled her to her feet pulling a clump of bracken out of her hair, ‘you’ll break your neck one of these days, George, old girl.’
‘God, I wish I was a boy then you wouldn’t make such patronising comments,’ she glared at him, ‘old boy.’
‘Don’t squabble we’re almost there,’ Anne pointed ahead as they crested the rise up from the farm. In front of them lay a huddle of low, stone buildings, painted white, where the three keepers lived.
‘Gosh doesn’t it look exciting,’ she said hugging herself, ‘imagine having to climb all the way up there every day to light the lamps. Bet you can see for miles.’
‘Twenty-one to be exact, and the tower is exactly two hundred and thirty-four feet high.’ Julian arrived puffing, a little, ‘I read it in a guide book.’
‘Gosh,’ Ann said again.
‘The light has a double flash and is powered by paraffin. There’s been a light of some sort here since,’ he took a book from his pocket and thumbed through it, ‘here it is,’ he said importantly, ‘there’s been a light here since pre-Christian times but the first proper light house was built in 1665. It was a cottage lighthouse, unique too.’
‘Think they’ll let us climb up and walk round the outside,’ George interrupted, she knew Julian would read them the whole book if not stopped, ‘let’s get over there and ask. Race you, last one there’s a ninny.’
Anne, Dick and George took off across the moorland with Timmy beside them leaving a disgruntled Julian behind. He’d had loads to tell them about the rebuilding of it all and the fog horns and it being repainted in 1930. They were so childish sometimes and very annoying.
‘That was so exciting,’ Dick took a huge bite of cake and a swig of ginger beer before passing the bottle to George, ‘I never thought that old boy, Dara, would take us up there, show us the machinery and everything. Shall we go once it’s dark to see it light up the sea like he said?’
‘Of course,’ Anne grinned, ‘we could take torches and have an adventure.’
‘I’m not sure aunty Fanny would approve, wandering about in the dark with such high cliffs isn’t very sensible,’ Julian began.
‘Oh, shut up you spoilsport,’ the others chorused.
‘Plus, mother won’t mind as long we don’t disturb her painting and Pa won’t even notice.’
‘Good, that’s settled,’ said Dick, ‘I’m starving. Who’s ready for tea? Think Mrs O’Shea will have made buns?’
They set back towards the farmhouse arms swinging, enjoying the sun against their backs. Gulls rested on the thermals high above, their thin cries competing with the crashing of the waves far below.
‘We’ll have to explore the caves that keeper told us about. Bet Mrs O’Shea will know the tide times,’ George hopped and jumped across the rough grass, Timmy bounding along beside her.
‘Well actually there’s a book of tide times on the hall table under the barometer,’ Julian said looking very pleased with his suggestion, ‘we should consult that first. I expect Mrs O’Shea will be busy peeling potatoes for dinner or whatever housekeepers do.’
‘Julian, you’re such a pompous ass,’ they all chorused racing off across the headland.
‘May we go Mother?’ George put on her very best smile and tried to look particularly good, ‘we’ll have Julian with us and he’s ever so sensible and never does dangerous things.’
‘Please Aunt Fanny,’ Anne’s fair locks had been carefully brushed, ‘Mrs O’Shea says she’ll give us a flask of cocoa and warm barm brac to take with us’.
‘I’ll keep a close eye on them all Aunt Fanny, I promise,’ Julian stood as tall as he could to look more grown up.
‘Shall we go too Quentin? Be exciting seeing the sea at night.’
Uncle Quentin harrumphed from behind his paper, ‘I think they can manage fine by themselves Fanny. Back by ten though children,’ he shook the paper down and regarded them sternly over the top of his half-moon specs, ‘and no getting in to mischief.’
The children whooped quietly and trooped out in search of their supplies.
‘Now, I’ve buttered two pieces each of you, churned the butter myself this very morning. Take an extra loaf for old Dara, he likes a slice with his tea,’ Mrs O’Shea bustled about filling a knapsack, ‘mind you don’t go near those cliffs in the dark and take the torches.’
She sent them off with a smile and settled down beside the old range with a cup of strong tea and a thick slice of buttered barm brac.
Old Dara met them by his cottage, storm lantern swinging brightly in the darkness.
‘You’ll no need them,’ pointing to their torches, ‘bright night and moon up now, see for miles.’
Following him around the thick wall of the old light house, the four children and Timmy felt like intrepid explorers in an unknown land.
‘I say, gosh this is so exciting,’ Dick said, ‘and we get to climb right to the top again. When I grow, I’m going to be a light house keeper and polish the lamps every day.’
‘Whizzy plan Dick, what fun,’ Anne skipped along beside her brother, ‘and I could live next door as a lighthouse keeper too.
Julian was about to point out that a girl couldn’t do that job but caught his sister’s eye and thought better of it.
Up on the walkway encircling the lamp, over two hundred feet up, the children clustered together waiting for the machinery to swing the lamp’s beam across the dark sea.
A shaft of silver lit the water for a second or two and was gone; a low grumble of cogs told them it would return in a few seconds more.
‘Seen enough now?’ Old Dara blew on his hands after five minutes, a chill breeze could be felt this high up. Taking the hint reluctantly, they filed slowly down the narrow, stone steps spiralling tightly past small sparsely furnished rooms. Dara’s storm lantern threw huge shadows over the curved walls that swung in time to their footsteps.
Emerging from the dark stairwell the children blinked at the brightness of the moon. Far below the sea crashed and boomed against the cliffs of the headland. Thanking their guide, they set off back across the headland, torches throwing pools of light ahead of them, looking for a sheltered spot to drink the cocoa. The path swung off to the left near the cliff edge and Anne stopped suddenly.
‘What’s that?’ she pointed her torch at two lights that could be seen bobbing up and down on the sea.
‘Mooring lights, see the red and green,’ Julian declared squinting in to the night air, ‘it’ll be a fishing boat out night fishing, they have to have them,’ he turned to go, mystery solved.
‘Wait,’ Dick tugged his sleeve, ‘hear that?’
A soft phut, phut of an out-board motor rose over the roar of the sea followed by the noise of wood being scrapped across stone.
Dousing her torch then dropping flat, George began inching across the grass to peer over the cliff edge. The others copied and soon all five of them were staring down at the shadowy beach below.
A group of figures could be seen hauling a small boat on to the pebbles, voices floated up to the listeners above.
‘Take ‘em up above tide line, there’s a ledge at the back of the cave wide enough. Be quick, tide turned a while back, or you’ll get cut off.’
‘Aye, aye sir.’
Three of the figures detached themselves, reaching in to the boat to lift objects out. Staggering a little the first person hefted something squat on to his shoulder and set off over the beach, the others followed carrying long, flat boxes and barrels.
The children, lay as quiet as mice on the rough cliff edge, watching the scene below.
Eventually all the figures returned to the boat, ‘tis all done sir,’ one man said, ‘all up above high water now. Be fine till the ‘tomorrow night.’
‘Good, no moon rise till very late, perfect to move it. Let’s be getting back I need to report back.’
‘Aye, aye sir,’ a splash of boots entering the water told the children the men were leaving. Julian leaning out further, trying to see their faces dislodged a small boulder. With a rattle and a clatter, it bounced off a rock and hit the pebbles with a crash.
‘Hear that?’ one of the men looked up scanning the cliffs. The children flattened themselves in to the prickly grass,
‘Think someone be up there?’ a second figure stopped.
‘No, be fine, just rocks slipping. T’was a land slide only last week, not far out of Kinsale harbour.’
‘Should we go up, check it out sir? Don’t want no nosey parkers spoiling our plans now. One more day and we’ll have it.’
Timmy and the children looked at each other, this was serious.
‘No time, let’s get out of here and back to the harbour.’
‘I thought they’d catch us,’ George rolled on to her back, panting as if she’d run a mile, ‘Timmy’s hackles were up, I could feel them.’
They heard the phut, phut of the motor receding out to sea followed by the sound of an anchor being weighed and the chug of a large diesel engine starting up.
‘They’re going,’ Dick raised his head and watched the riding lights heading out to sea, ‘my heart was bouncing in my chest. What were they up to?’
‘Smuggling possibly,’ Julian ventured a guess, ‘but what are they going to have in one day’s time?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ Ann sat up pulling grass out of her hair, ‘we come back and find their hiding place in the morning. Let’s have the provisions now, I need the sugar my legs are like jelly.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Julian pulled off the knapsack, ‘good idea Anne.’
Bright sunlight flooded the old farmhouse kitchen as the children attacked their lightly boiled eggs, a stack of toasted soda bread oozing butter lay ready to mop up it all up.
They’d all woken early and piled down for breakfast.
‘We want to go exploring,’ Dick explained to Mrs O’Shea, ‘along the bottom of the cliffs, we think there might be caves.’
‘Plenty of them all along, supposedly secret passages too up to the lighthouse by all account. Reckon them are long gone now, fallen in centuries back,’ she smiled at their crest fallen faces, ‘no need to look so glum lots to keep you busy down there but not until much later my chicks. Was low tide an hour back, best wait till early afternoon once tide’s turned.’
‘Oh bother,’ said George, ‘we got up early especially.’ She didn’t say they’d been awake half the night with excitement.
‘Well how about you do me a small favour down in the village and by the time you’re back I’ll have a picnic ready. How do ham sandwiches, sausage rolls, tomatoes, apples and the last of the barm brac sound? I’ll be making fresh lemonade too.’
‘Perfect Mrs O’Shea, what would you like us to do?’
Timmy barked his approval.
A bell tinged as the children pushed open the door to the grocers. Whiffs of bees’ wax, soap and new wood greeted them. The place was an Aladdin’s cave hung with pots, pans and brooms whilst sacks of rice, flours, dried fruits and sugar were stacked neatly over the floor.
They handed the list over to the elderly man in a smart brown shop coat, ‘Mrs O’Shea sent us,’ Anne said politely.
‘Ah you’re the new family renting Lighthouse Farm this summer, I expect. Tell her I’ll send it all up,’ he read down the list, ‘except for the Lyle, that’ll be on the morrow. Not come in yet,’ he reached in to a tall sweet jar and extracted a long piece of barley sugar, ‘think you might be a needing this for the walk back, tis a fair step.’
Thanking him, the children were about to leave when the door sprung open, bell jangling madly. A bearded stranger, wearing a donkey jacket, strode in. Timmy’s hackles rose and he began to growl.
‘I need that rope,’ the stranger said ignoring the children.
‘Ah O’Malley, that you do indeed but as I was explaining earlier that’ll be in on the morrow.’
With a curse the man flung himself back out of the shop, door slamming in his wake.
‘What a rude man,’ Anne said.
‘And one you should avoid, very unpleasant and always up to no good is O’Malley,’ the shop keeper said darkly, ‘now I wonder what he wants all that oiled hemp for?’
‘I think he was one of those men from last night,’ George said, ‘Timmy didn’t like him. Bet he recognised his smell.’
‘Gosh if he’s involved then we’d better be extra careful,’ Dick stared around the beach they’d scrambled down to. They’d been waiting for the tide to drop enough get into the caves.
‘I reckon the tide’s low enough now,’ Anne brushed crumbs of bread and cake off her lap and carefully stowed the grease proof wrappings in her knapsack.
‘Better watch out the bladderwrack will be treacherous,’ Julian pointed out, ‘I’ll go first.’
They had to search three caves before they found one that went far enough back to hide anything in. Damp and dripping, the cave walls had a series of ledges on one side. Climbing up to them the children inched along, Timmy bounding ahead, until the narrow space turned a corner and widened out. With torches lighting up the dim interior they saw the boxes and barrels from the night before.
‘They’re definitely up to no good,’ Julian tried to prise the rough wooden lid up with a pen knife, it stayed stubbornly down.
‘These barrels weigh a ton,’ George moved one with her foot, ‘says keep dry, danger of explosion. Golly gosh, perhaps its gunpowder?’
Timmy growled and yipped alerting them to the sound of voices growing clearer.
‘Quick,’ Anne hissed spotting a gap further up, ‘let’s hide up there.’
‘I said we should have posted a watch, footprints all over the place. We’d better check no one’s been snooping,’ a rough voice echoed round the cave.
‘No foot prints past here boss,’ said a second voice and the children breathed a sigh of relief; their plimsolls hadn’t left a trail.
A powerful beam of light filled the cave and the children saw O’Malley and another bending over the boxes.
‘Seem fine, must have been day trippers down here exploring the beach, I saw some earlier, with a dog, having a picnic.’
George held Timmy tight she could feel him tense, ready to spring.
The light flashed round the cave and O’Malley growled menacingly, ‘we’re in deep trouble if anyone finds this. Back here tonight to shift it to below the lighthouse. You know which cave has the secret passage?’
‘Aye boss, last one before the sentinel rocks, my grandad used it to bring all sorts in during prohibition.’
O’Malley laughed, ‘well once that light’s out and the ship on the rocks we’ll not need it again. I’ll blow it before we leave. Twelve hours Seamus, our share will make us rich as Croesus.’
Footsteps echoed slowly away and the children crouched in the darkness trying to make sense of it all.
‘Where’s Timmy?’ George shone her torch around. A low bark made her look further and he re-appeared, tail wagging. He turned away, plodded off then waited for them, ‘quick he must have found a way out.’
‘Steady on,’ Julian peered at the gap, ‘we might get stuck or lost.’
‘No, our Timmy won’t take us into danger,’ George pushed past him and set off, ‘buck up you lot those men might post a guard on the beach, this might be the only way out.’
Timmy lead them up through walls of solid rock until, all most too narrow to fit through they pulled themselves up in to the afternoon sunshine in to a thicket of low stunted trees.
‘Well done Timmy,’ Anne gave him her last small piece of barley sugar which he wolfed down.
‘What do we do now?’ Dick peered through the tangle of branches, ‘the lighthouse is over there. Should we tell Dara?’
‘No, Mrs O’Shea, she’ll know what to do and who to tell,’ Anne said emphatically, ‘but we must go now.’
Mrs O’Shea had listened carefully, asked questions then reaching for her hat had beckoned the children to follow her, ‘I’ll ring my brother, he works in London at the foreign office. Counter intelligence during the war,’ she’d said grimly, ‘that O’Malley’s gone too far this time.’
She’d shooed the postmistress out of her office, ‘you don’t need to be a listening in to this Brigid. Put the closed sign up and make a cup of tea. Not a word to a soul or I’ll be the knowing of it.’
Crowded into the tiny room they’d waited for the clicks and whirs to connect them hundreds of miles away to London and a phone to be answered on the third ring.
Huddled together, in the lea of the first keeper’s cottage, the children and Timmy waited. Mrs O’Shea had announced she was taking the children to see the moon rise later and stop for a cuppa with Old Dara, ‘he likes their company,’ she’d told Aunt Fanny, ‘we won’t be too late.’
‘Hard to believe there’s soldiers out there hidden and ready,’ Dick whispered, ‘and so fast it’s almost as if they knew something was going to happen.’
An hour passed and the children, wrapped in thick jerseys and gabardine raincoats, had begun to doze, the moon had still to rise and the darkness was inky. Suddenly the growl of a diesel engine roused them with the phut, phut of a smaller boat echoing up the cliffs. The sea was calm and every sound seemed magnified from the rattle of the anchor chain to the splash of feet jumping in to water.
The children held their breaths in terrified excitement.
‘Shove it harder,’ said a voice, ‘it’ll give, then pass the guns up.’
They heard metal grating and in front of them a rusting manhole cover rose up and a figure heaved itself into view followed by two more. Anne shrank back in to the shadows her heart pounding, she’d recognised O’Malley’s voice. Where were the soldiers?
‘Drop your weapons, raise your hands slowly above your heads,’ light flooded the area and the children blinked, surrounding them were dozens of black clad men armed to the teeth.
O’Malley spluttered a string of oaths and began to run towards the keeper’s house. A shout went up and the soldiers sprang in to action.
Pounding over the uneven ground, breath ragged, swerving left and right O’Malley tried to evade his captors. He careered towards the cottages and as he passed, Anne stuck her foot out and down he went. Timmy pounced, growling menacingly.
‘You see Sir, we had intelligence to suggest an attempt would be made on the HMS Emerald,’ the commander explained to Uncle Quentin as the exhausted children sat round the kitchen table drinking mugs of Horlicks, ‘but no idea where or when. Thankfully the children saved the day and stopped a daring attempt to steal millions of pounds.’
‘And you say there was £10 million in gold bullion on board?’ Uncle Quentin looked mystified, ‘why on earth was it on a ship off the coast of Ireland?’
‘Part of Operation Fish, Sir. It’s a long story and top secret. In 1939 the first shipment was made from our Bank of England to a specially constructed bank in Canada. It was hidden during a Royal visit by his majesty King George to Canada. Our entire gold reserves were eventually shipped across the Atlantic, millions of pounds worth of gold bars and securities, no one ever knew about it except for a handful of people. Now we are in the process of bringing it all back. Not a word had leaked out we believed then a wire was intercepted and we realised a plot had been hatched to force the Emerald on to the rocks further up the coast with false lights when the lighthouse was attacked.’
Uncle Quentin scratched his head trying to take it all in.
‘I have to inform you sir and your family that not a word of this can ever be shared. The story in the village is smuggling and O’Malley involved. Thanks to my sister’s quick thinking we were able to foil this dastardly plot,’ Commander O’Shea smiled at his sister, ‘and of course these wonderful children.’
Aunt Fanny beamed at them all, ‘it’s very strange how adventures seem to follow you children everywhere. What will you get up to next time?’
Operation Fish actually happened. It remained top secret for decades. No attempt was ever made on the HMS Emerald. The link below is all about it.
https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/business-industry/guarding-the-gold
THE LIGHT OF REDEMPTION
Ronnie Puttock
Oliver sat down and made himself comfortable, crossing his legs and resting his arms lightly on the sides of the chair. Once settled, he looked across to Martha Green. He had liked her from the start. She was a little bit older than him, her early forties, he reckoned, her face was relaxed, her brown eyes were kind and her almost black hair was naturally curled and flecked with silver. She was attractive, he admitted to himself, and they had developed a good relationship; an easy and trusting relationship between client and therapist.
“Last week,” Martha started, “we talked about how the loss of your sister affected your relationship with your mother.”
“Yes,” Oliver said, “and I felt, and still do even though my mother is dead, that she blamed me for Emma’s accident.”
“How did she do that? Did she say so openly?”
“Not in so many words,” Oliver replied. “It was more a feeling I had that she held me responsible.”
“Can you describe what you were feeling?” Martha asked.
Oliver was quiet for a while. Martha could see from the different emotions that played across his face and the way he shifted in his seat that there was significant inner turmoil. Sensing his struggle to articulate, Martha suggested, gently,
“Tell me what your mother said or did when she heard about Emma’s accident.”
Oliver looked at the floor to gather his thoughts,
“I remember I was really scared and confused about what to do or say. I think I just blurted out something like, ‘Emma’s fallen over the cliff’. My mother didn’t believe me at first. I don’t know if I was crying but I remember crying when my mother refused to believe me and that’s when it dawned on her. It’s all a bit jumbled and confused after that; the way things happened; the order of things. It’s almost twenty-five years ago now.”
“That’s OK,” Martha said encouragingly. “Just tell me what you remember as it comes to you.”
“I do remember my mother being really angry with me. That sticks in my mind and it must have been later, because we were at home and not at the cottage. She said I should have been looking after Emma because I was her big brother and was responsible for her. It was my duty to look after her. I know she hit me at one stage but I’m not sure when, but I do remember lying on my bed and really, really crying so much that I had to gasp for breath.”
He paused to take a drink and pick up a tissue which he crumpled in his fist.
“After that,” he continued, almost as a sigh, “things were never the same. She became withdrawn and never showed me any affection or interest. To be fair, I wasn’t the best-behaved child then. I was getting into my teens and perhaps we would have clashed anyway, but then, maybe I wouldn’t have been so awkward had I felt more appreciated, or loved, even.”
“What about your father? Where does he figure?”
“Nowhere, really,” Oliver answered with little hesitation. “He was always a fairly remote figure. After Emma’s accident he seemed to spend less time on me and far more with my mother. Looking back, it’s obvious my mother was badly affected and depressed by what had happened and he probably decided that she needed his support more than I did.”
He stopped and Martha picked up the conversation,
“So, let’s get the picture. You’re thirteen, approaching puberty, your sister has died in a tragic way and your parents have apparently withdrawn their affection from you and you believe this was punishment for not looking after Emma and, directly or indirectly, causing her death.”
“Yes, that sound about right,” Oliver said. “I just felt that I was on my own from then. I felt I couldn’t turn to or count on my parents for anything,”
Martha was quiet for a moment, then shifting her position, she said,
“OK, Oliver, we’ll come back to this later, but tell me about Emma. I’d like to build a picture of her and your relationship with her.”
Oliver shifted his position, too. Before he started talking, Martha noticed a little smile cross his face.
“We were always close,” Oliver began. “I know it’s not usual for a brother and sister to remain close as boys are supposed to dislike girls and vice versa. I suppose it’s because there was less than eighteen months between us and she was always a bit of a tomboy. We played together a lot and she was accepted by my friends as one of the gang, so to speak.”
“How were things between you at the time of the accident?”
Oliver had another drink and looked out of the window. He changed position in his chair, again and looked as if he was drawing in on himself. Finally, he managed to say,
“Well, I suppose things had changed, in a way.”
He paused again, looking uneasy. Martha nodded encouragement and he carried on,
“Well, she’d grown. She was nearly as tall as me and we weren’t playing rough and tumble sort of games the way we used to.”
“Why do you think that was?” probed Martha.
Oliver looked awkward and fidgeted once more.
“Er..well, she’d grown in other ways, too, if you know what I mean?”
“You mean she’d reached puberty and was developing into a woman? Martha asked, bluntly. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, exactly,” Oliver replied, somewhat relieved. “She was only eleven and a half but she could pass as much older. I have some photos of her dressed up and she looks around fourteen or fifteen.”
“So, as Emma’s body developed your relationship changed?”
“No, it didn’t,” Oliver said, without hesitation, “Well, I wasn’t that aware of the physical changes in Emma, but I suppose something subconsciously told me that our play had to change; the physicality and play-fighting stopped, and she didn’t join in with the rest of the gang so often, but then the gang was beginning to break up as the boys found other interests. I still felt as close to her and sensed that she felt the same way. We still got on really well.”
“To sum up, then, as far as you were concerned, she was still your little sister even though she had grown and changed physically?”
“Yes, I guess that’s right. Our relationship, my feelings towards her were still the same as they’d ever been,”
“OK, Oliver, that’s good,” Martha said after a brief pause. “I know we’ve been over these issues several times before in our sessions but I’m trying to get a clear idea of what your childhood was like and talking about it over again, I find helps my clients remember events or feelings they may have forgotten and with each session I get a wider and clearer picture. It helps me understand you and help you overcome those feelings of worthlessness and failure that have been troubling you.”
Oliver nodded and Martha continued,
“There is one issue we’ve not talked about much and that’s Emma’s accident; how it happened.”
Oliver nodded, again and Martha carried on,
“I know you’ll have told this over and over again, to your parents, to the police and it’s played out in your head, but I would like you to tell me, in your own words and in your own time, how it happened. Can you do that?”
Oliver took a deep breath. Through the window he could see the fields in the distance rising up to the trees at the top of the hill. He looked away and then studied the floor again.
“I don’t really know where to start,” he said, quietly, as if asking for help.
Trying to help him, Martha said,
“Where did it happen, for instance?”
Oliver was on easier ground with this straight-forward, factual question.
“We were staying in a cottage on the Lizard. We had a second home there at the time. It’s been sold, now, by the way. It was the end of May and half-term.”
Now that he’d started, Oliver found it easier to talk. “We’d stayed there many times, of course, and Emma and I had explored all the local lanes and paths. Our favourite was to take the path past the lighthouse to the coast path, follow that and then go back to the house along another path.”
He paused, gazed through the window again as if gathering his memories and thoughts together. He sipped his water and continued.
“It was a sunny day, I remember that, and Emma had her sunhat on. She had fair skin and burned easily. She was wearing her green shorts and a pale green blouse with little white daisies on it. I don’t know why, but that sticks in my mind. She was running down the path towards the lighthouse, holding onto her hat; her hair was tied in a pony tail, as she always had it, and it bounced across her back as she ran. I remember her waiting for me at the coast path and then we walked past the lighthouse on the hill above us, probably trying to name the flowers along the way and looking out for choughs which we knew nested nearby. There was a place, we called it our ‘secret place’, but it wasn’t really secret as it was just a grassy area off the path. We used to lie there and make animals and faces out of the clouds. The ground sloped up towards the top of the hill and we could see the sea even when lying down. Over us was an old and gnarled hawthorn tree, bent almost horizontal by the winds.”
He stopped and, uncrumpling the tissue, he dabbed his eyes and blew his nose. He pulled out another tissue.
“Do you want to stop?” Martha asked.
“No, I’m OK,” Oliver replied and said, “We were there; I’m not sure what we were doing, probably looking at the flowers, because I found a caterpillar. I told her I’d found one and I was going to put it down her neck. I wasn’t going to, of course, but it was the sort of thing we teased each other with and I knew she hated creepy-crawlies. She ran off down the path screaming and laughing. I wish to God I hadn’t said it.”
Oliver broke off while Martha watched him and waited. He was crying now but carried on through the tears,
“She was running down the path and I was running after her and then she tripped on a rock or a root or something and she just disappeared. Just her hat on the path.”
Oliver broke down again,
“That’s how it happened,” he managed to say.
Martha waited until Oliver had regained some composure and then said gently,
“We’ll end the session now, I think. You’ve done really well, Oliver. I’m really pleased with the way this session has gone. We can certainly make more progress next week.”
Oliver never went back to Martha Green. Since the initial police investigation and certainly since both his parents had died, he’d managed to rationalise and compartmentalise Emma’s accident. It had been safely locked away. Now and again a word here or a picture there or the occasional dream would raise it to the forefront of his memory but he had always been able to return it to its place. It happened so long ago and seemed like it happened in another world to other people that he believed it was all under control and he could talk about it to Martha. How wrong he was. This time it was out and no matter what he did it couldn’t be re-packed and hidden away. For the weeks following his last session with Martha, he could think of little else. The events churned over and over in his head, haunting him day and night. He went to the doctor who gave him anti-depressants. They didn’t work. He didn’t think they would. He knew pills couldn’t solve it. On the day before the anniversary of Emma’s death he decided he had to go back. He’d not set foot in the village for twenty-five years but it was the only thing he could think of that might help.
He drove through the night and arrived at the Lizard as the sun was rising to what promised to be a beautiful late Spring day. He parked in the centre of the village and walked. He went to the cottage where they’d holidayed. In essence it was still the same but its face had changed. Spruced up, new windows and maybe a new roof but it looked soulless and empty. Not how he remembered it with the doors and windows wide open, curtains flapping in the breeze and all the stuff he and Emma had dumped in the front garden. The cottage looked all dressed up with nowhere to go, he thought. Maybe that’s what it looked like when the family wasn’t there; a house waiting to be a home, even if only a second home. The village itself hadn’t changed much, either, except superficially. There were more gift and “craft” shops than he remembered but that was about all.
The path was still there and so was the lighthouse, which gleamed white, as usual, in the morning sun. The coast path felt narrower, however. Maybe it was because he was bigger or maybe because the bushes and shrubs on either side of the path were taller and more luxuriant than they were then.
He looked up at the lighthouse. The sun glinted off its lantern as if it was flashing out its warning.
A voice made him jump.
“Hello, Ollie,” it said.
Only one person was ever allowed to call him that. He swung round and saw a figure standing on the path ahead of him, the early sun giving her outline a golden glow.
“I knew you’d come back one day,” said Emma.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the sun’s glare, he could see it was, indeed, his little sister, looking just as she was on the last day he saw her; her pony-tail draped over her left shoulder and wearing the same green shorts and the blouse with the little white daisies. She wasn’t wearing her hat. The light morning wind wafted the scent of roses towards him. Emma always loved to spray herself, sometimes over-exuberantly, with mother’s rose water.
Oliver was tongue tied; all he could manage was,
“Emma?”
He reached out to touch her but she stepped back, saying,
“No, not now. But come, I’ve something to show you.”
With that she set off along the path. After a short distance she stopped and pointed.
“What do you see?” she asked.
Oliver could see immediately that it was their ‘secret space’, but surely it was further along the path than this. How the passage of time can change things, he thought. But there was the old hawthorn, still bent double but full of blossom exactly as it had been twenty-five years previously. He’d forgotten about that. And how small the patch of grass was but that could have been due to the encroachment of the vegetation. The view hadn’t changed, though. The sea was as blue and sparkly as ever and had there been clouds, he could have still looked up and make shapes.
“What do you really see?” Emma asked again, rousing Oliver from his reverie and noticing an edge to her voice. “Look closely, Oliver.” She never called him that unless she was truly annoyed or angry with him.
He looked at the grass and he could see himself and Emma lying there in the dappled shade of the tree. Every now and then hawthorn blossom would fall to the ground.
He’d raised himself on one elbow and looked down on his sister lying next to him with her eyes closed. Gently, so as not to disturb her, he removed two hawthorn petals that had fallen into her hair. As he did so he had this feeling that she was, actually, quite pretty. He’d never noticed that before and he bent down and kissed her, lightly, on the lips.
She immediately opened her eyes, startled but not saying or doing anything. He undid the top buttons of her blouse and slid his hand inside her bra. For a moment she stared at him, shocked, puzzled and then angry.
“Don’t!” she shouted at him. “Don’t do that!”
She jumped up and ran away from him down the coast path. Shaken by what had happened, he stumbled to his feet, grabbed her hat, which she’d left behind, and chased after her. He realised the awful thing he’d done.
“Emma! Stop!” he called as he ran. “Come back! I’m really sorry. Truly I am!”
But she didn’t stop nor come back. She kept on running until she tripped and fell.
“Be careful!” Oliver shouted.
“You remember now, don’t you, Oliver?” Emma’s voice brought him back to the present. The rage in her voice threw him aback, he’d never heard her speak to him like that. “How could you do that to me?” she carried on, “I was your baby sister. I looked up to you. I adored you. I trusted you to look after me and protect me. And then you did that!”
“I’m sorry, Emma, so sorry, but I…”
“…didn’t think, is what you mean to say. You didn’t think how I would feel, did you? But I’ll tell you now, I was hurt, betrayed by you. I even felt ashamed, even though I’d done nothing wrong. I hated you and there was something else I couldn’t put a word to then but I can now; I felt dirty, tainted, besmirched. For Christ’s sake, Oliver, I was only eleven! I may have had the growing body and feelings of a young woman but I only had the mind of a child. I was frightened and confused not just by what you did but by the way I felt about it.”
Oliver bowed his head.
“You’re right. I just didn’t think what I was doing. I’m so sorry, Emma. Do you still hate me?”
“There you go again,” said Emma but more in her normal voice, “thinking only of yourself. But if you really want to know, then, no, I don’t hate you. I wouldn’t be here if I did. I know why you did it and I can understand why you did it, but it in no way excuses you for doing it.”
“I know why I did it, too,” said Oliver. “It was as if something had taken over control of my body. But, you’re perfectly right, it doesn’t excuse me.”
“You know what happened next, don’t you, Ollie? Come.”
He followed her to the spot on the path where she had fallen, twenty-five years ago.
The gorse and bracken on the seaward side of the path had grown, though he could still see the short rocky slope beyond before it plunged over the cliff. Back then, there was no fence and the bushes were lower.
He closed his eyes and saw himself running up to her, picking her off the ground and putting her hat on her head.
“Are you alright?” he asked, trembling and holding her by the shoulders.
“Get off me! Let me go!” screamed Emma, struggling to free herself.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it,” he protested, not letting her go.
“I hate you!” she shouted. “I’m going to tell mum what you did!”
The last thing he wanted was his parents to know. He was frightened by her threat and momentarily relaxed his grip and Emma squirmed away from him. He just managed to grab her hand and roughly pulled her back.
“Don’t you dare!” he yelled at her. “Promise me you won’t or I’ll…I’ll throw you off the cliff!”
He turned to look back along the path. It was alright, there was nobody there; just the lighthouse, watchful. The sunlight still reflected from its lantern, still shining out its warning. In the instant that he turned he felt a jolt and Emma had escaped from his grasp again. He turned back and she was nowhere to be seen. Only her sunhat lying on the ground.
Oliver opened his eyes and the golden vision of Emma had vanished. He fell to his knees crying uncontrollably and calling to her.
“Emma, Emma, I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you so much.”
The smell of roses wafted over him and he felt himself being lifted up and a soft voice whispered,
“I forgive you, Ollie.”
He raised his eyes and the lighthouse seemed to wink at him. The glinting sunlight no longer a warning but a beacon guiding him home.
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