went from under him and he crashed down between the shafts. There was a tearing sound of splintering wood and the trap shuddered, then lurched forward and hit the road with a jolting thud, and Nora found herself flung forward with great force. Then she was swimming through darkness.
Chapter Four
A LL HER BODY was hurting. She tried to struggle out of the darkness that was stifling her, but it was too strong and kept sucking her down. From far away she could hear Paddy grunting in distress.
Then the grey fog cleared and she saw him lying on the side of the road tangled up in harness and broken shafts and from a long way off she heard Peter’s voice trying to soothe him and straighten him up. Did Peter think that she was under the trap? Where was Dad that he was not helping Paddy? She crawled on her hands and knees around the back of the trap. She tried to stand but her legs had turned into wobbling jelly and she kept falling. Then she saw her mother through the mist that was swirling before her eyes. Her mother was kneeling in the middle of the road and was bending over something. Her long black hair had come loose and had fallen forward forming a curtain between them.
“Mom.” Nora said the word in her mind but it never reached her tongue. Something had gone wrong with her voice.
The grey fog engulfed her again and when it cleared her mother had raised her head and was looking at her. Her eyes were like two black holes in grey shrivelled paper. Then she saw what her mother was holding. Mom’s lap seemed to be full of blood, and it was when she saw the blonde hair that she realised that it was her father head. Then she felt Peter’s arms around her.
“Norry, Norry, don’t look, don’t look. Oh God, don’t look, don’t look.”
“Dada, Dada!” she screamed, struggling to get to him, but Peter held her firmly. “Peter! Oh, Peter, Dada, Dada,” she cried, looking beseechingly up into his face.
“Paddy’s hooves got him. He fell the wrong way. He was standing.” Peter’s voice came in gasps as if he had to tear the words out of the back of his throat.
The blackness came back in a swirling cloud and this time she went with it.
When she woke up she was back in her own bed and she was so cold that she felt frozen on to the sheets. It was almost dark and at first she thought that there was nobody in the room, but then she saw a movement by the window.
“Peter,” she whispered.
He moved slowly across the room. It was almost as if he had lost the ability to walk properly. She could not see his face in the darkness, but everything about him had slowed down.
“Dada?” she asked.
“Norry,” he told her, “Dada is dead.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window into the gathering darkness.
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he sobbed. “I wish that we were all dead.”
“Oh, Peter,” she gasped. “I’m so frightened.”
“So am I,” he said, and when she put up her hand to his face she could feel the tears.
“Where’s Mom?” she asked tearfully.
“Downstairs,” he answered, and then she became aware of the sound of voices coming from below.
“Who’s below in the kitchen?” she asked.
“Nana Lehane is here, and Jack and Aunty Kate and the Master is here, and Miss Buckley and the Nolans and smelly old Mrs Conway and a lot of others.” Peter listed out names in a monotonous tone and then added with a sob, “I wish that half of them would go home. They’re down there talking stupid talk. That old lump of a Mrs Conway told Mom that it could be worse. Imagine, that it could be worse! And then she kissed me and said that now I’m the man of the house. I don’t want to be the man of the house.”
He put his face down on the pillow beside her and sobbed into it. “At least we can cry up here,” his muffled voice came out of the pillow.
Nora cried with him. She had not seen Peter cry for a long time. Grown-ups did not cry as much