Black Lake by Johanna Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

to say to himself, “Mummy is in the drawing room, Daddy is in his study, Kate is in the kitchen with Mrs. Connolly…” They had revolved around each other like planets on preset courses. But now there might be a chance encounter with a stranger as he went up to his room, a stranger who would tell him that he shouldn’t be there.
    He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, glad of his stocking feet, and into his bedroom. It was the first time he’d come back since the move and it was exactly how he’d left it, except that it was colder than before. He went over to the window and jumped up onto the ledge, his socks slipping on the slick paint. Muckish and Dooish were there, their summits covered in white cloud that spilled over the top and down the sides, like cream on a Christmas pudding.
      
    Philip got back to the cottage in the late afternoon, when the hills were beginning to get dark. He had missed lunch and it was not yet time for supper. A cold roast beef sandwich sat on the kitchen table with a note beside it from his mother. It seemed relatively cheerful: Gone for a walk. Back later. Mummy, x x x. He sat down at the table and lifted up the corners of the brown bread. He did not like roast beef, and he especially did not like cold roast beef, the way it hardened and you had to tear at it with your teeth if you wanted to bite some off. He got up and went to the fridge to see if there was anything else to eat, but there was only milk and butter, and a plate with more cold meat on it.
    As he sat back down at the table, his father came in. Taking off his coat, he hung it on the hook behind the back door and smoothed down his hair. His father was always more smartly dressed than his mother. He wore ties every day, even to go on their walks. When they’d gone a particularly long way or climbed a very steep hill, he would stop, undo the top button of his shirt, and loosen the knot of his tie, turning to survey how far they’d come.
    “Oh, hello there,” he said. Like Philip’s mother, he too looked surprised to see his son in their new little house.
    “I don’t like roast beef sandwiches,” Philip said, “but there isn’t anything else.”
    “Really?” His father smiled.
    “Yes.” Philip paused for a moment, and then, as a wave of disgust rose in him at the stringy meat, he added, “Mummy was upset today because the men from the government ruined the garden.”
    “Where’s Mummy now?” His father’s face twisted, for a moment, into a look Philip hadn’t seen before.
    “Gone for a walk.” Philip handed him the note. And before he could show him his drawing of the valley or tell him about damming the stream, his father went back through the door without even bothering to take his coat.

John
    As the children swam in the icy pool, John was on his way to an appointment with the county councillor. When he arrived in town, the bells were tolling for mass. The Catholic church towered over the main street, an ugly building with hulking flying buttresses, too many statues, and an overcrowded graveyard. John liked Father Damien, though, a priest who was not afraid to creep up behind his parishioners in the newsagent’s and ask why they hadn’t been to confession lately. It was because John didn’t come under Father Damien’s jurisdiction that they got on so well.
    He parked the car on the bridge over the river that cut the town in two. Malachy’s pub was the closest building to the water and it did well in seafood and Guinness when the tourists came. It must seem terribly authentic to them, John thought, an old whitewashed Donegal farmhouse, with family photographs on the windowsills, watching as you ate. It made him wonder what the tourists would make of Dulough. It would be quite a different experience altogether.
    The town was quiet. A few people scurried between the butcher’s, the hardware shop, and the Spar, clutching bags. They paid John no attention and he was glad of this as he walked up the