‘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