The Lost Garden by Kate Kerrigan Read Free Book Online Page B

the steps, the engines started and the two of them hung over the railing as the large boat ploughed through the water, creating vast troughs of white on either side.
    ‘I should like to be down there,’ said Jimmy. ‘There will be some action underwater surely.’
    ‘You’re an awful eejit – you know that?’ said Aileen. ‘You’d be killed stone dead if you were down there.’
    ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I’m invincible.’
    She could not help but smile, and when she did, he smiled too. With the wind in her hair and the cold spray from the water misting her face, Aileen knew her suitor was thinking how beautiful she was but was too afraid to say it in case she bit his head off and sent him away again. Despite herself, Aileen realized that she no longer cared so much about her troubles with the women because she had this boy by her side.
    After a short while, the waves grew and the boat began to plunge and skip across the water, and with the engines directly below them, Aileen began to feel sick. She quickly moved and put her head over the side of the boat but swallowed back the bile for shame of being sick in front of Jimmy.
    He put his arms around her and helped her back down the stairwell to find somewhere to settle herself in the cabin, but the place held no comfort. Every inch where you might sit down was already taken, and as they reached the bottom step, there was a man being sick into a bag. Aileen almost retched, but Jimmy kept his arms around her and led her gently through the cabin to another large door off the main corridor. He looked about before opening it quickly and sneaking them in. The cabin was large and comprised what Aileen could clearly see were cattle stalls, with the smell of hay and cow dung in the air. At the far end, a calf was in one of the stalls; the rest were empty.
    ‘On the way in, I saw a man bring in that little lad down there. All the cattle came over on the boat last night save this one wee lad who they squeezed on today. When I saw them drive him in, I knew the cattle cabin would be all but empty.’
    He reached over to a pile of hay just inside the first stall and dragged out a bag.
    ‘How did you know the boat would be full?’
    ‘Did you see the crowds?’ he said. ‘Sure I’ve never been on aboat before, but I could see from the amount waiting on the quay that it would be jammed. Anyway, my da worked in Scotland before he got married. He told me the boat journey was terrible back then and the only hope you had was to bed down on a bit of hay and sleep it off. I think he thought it’d be better now.’
    He stood looking at her nervously as if he may have said or done something out of turn. Aileen was struck dumb with his ingenuity – his sheer cleverness. Jimmy shuffled from foot to foot and added, ‘The train across was fantastic – we couldn’t get over it. It had toilets and everything.’
    The boat lurched forward and Aileen clutched at her stomach – Jimmy gave her a bucket quickly and left her alone while she brought up her meagre breakfast.
    ‘Will I go and get one of your brothers?’ Jimmy asked.
    ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘They’ll only be mad at us sneaking off.’ In any case, she was happy with the company she had, although she could not help but add, ‘And anyway, they will kill you stone dead for annoying their sister.’ As punishment for her teasing, the boat lumbered forward, then sank back and Aileen got sick again.
    When she was finished, she turned and saw that Jimmy had made her a mattress, fashioning a raised pillow out of the soft yellow straw and laying his own coat on top of it. Tired and sick, she took his hand and let him settle her, arranging her skirts over her woollen-stockinged legs and loosening the laces of her good boots to allow her more comfort. Then he closed the wooden gate of the stall and sat down on the hard floor to guard her while she slept.
    The awareness that she was alone, in this place, with this boy filled her