Marion Lennox - Summer Of Love

‘Where are you?’ she demanded in a voice that didn’t sound her own.

‘Where am I where?’

‘In the pictures.’

‘You know I don’t belong here.’

‘No, but your great-great-grandfather...’

‘I’m thinking he might be this one,’ Finn said, pointing to a portrait of a little boy in smock and pantaloons and the same self-satisfied smirk.

‘And his son’s next to him. Where’s your great-grandfather? My great-grandpa’s brother?’

‘He was a younger son,’ Finn said. ‘I guess he didn’t get to ride the horse.’

‘So he left and had kids who faced the potato famine instead,’ Jo whispered. ‘Can we burn it?’

‘What, the horse?’

‘It’s nasty.’

Finn stood back and surveyed the horse. It was indeed...nasty. It looked glossy, black and arrogant. Its eyes were too small. It looked as if it was staring at them with disdain. The poor relations.

‘I’m the Lord of Glenconaill,’ Finn said mildly. ‘I could ride this nag if I wanted.’

‘You’d squash it.’

‘Then you could take my photograph standing over a squashed stuffed horse. Sort of a last hurrah.’

She tried to smile but she was too angry. Too full of emotion.

‘How can one family have four sets of Monopoly?’ Finn asked, gazing at the stacks of board games. ‘And an Irish family at that? And what were we doing selling Bond Street?’

‘They,’ she snapped. ‘Not we. This is not us.’

‘It was our great-great-grandpa.’

‘Monopoly wasn’t invented then. By the time it was, you were the poor relation.’

‘That’s right, so I was,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But you’d have thought they could have shared at least one set of Monopoly.’

‘They didn’t share. Not this family.’ She fell silent, gazing around the room, taking in the piles of...stuff. ‘All the time I was growing up,’ she whispered. ‘These toys were here. Unused. They were left to rot rather than shared. Of all the selfish...’ She was shaking, she discovered. Anger that must have been suppressed for years seemed threatening to overwhelm her. ‘I hate them,’ she managed and she couldn’t keep the loathing from her voice. ‘I hate it all.’

‘Even the dolls?’ he asked, startled.

‘All of it.’

‘They’ll sell.’

‘I’d rather burn them.’

‘What, even the horse?’ he asked, startled.

‘Everything,’ she said and she couldn’t keep loathing from her voice. ‘All these toys... All this sense of entitlement... Every child who’s sat on this horse, who’s played with these toys, has known their place in the world. But not me. Not us. Unless your family wants them, I’d burn the lot.’

‘My brothers have all turned into successful businessmen. My nieces and nephews have toys coming out their ears,’ Finn said, a smile starting behind his eyes. There was also a tinge of understanding. ‘So? A bonfire? Excellent. Let’s do it. Help me carry the horse downstairs.’

She stared, shocked. He sounded as if her suggestion was totally reasonable. ‘What, now?’

‘Why not? What’s the use of having a title like mine if I can’t use some of the authority that comes with it? Back at my farm the cows won’t so much as bow when I walk past. I need to learn to be lordly and this is a start.’ He looked at the horse with dislike. ‘I think that coat’s been slicked with oils anyway. He’ll go up like a firecracker.’

‘How can we?’

‘Never suggest a bonfire if you don’t mean it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing we Lords of Glenconaill like more than a good burning.’ He turned and stared around at the assortment of expensive toys designed for favoured children and he grimaced. ‘Selling any one of these could have kept a family alive for a month during the famine. If there was a fire engine here I’d say save it but there’s not. Our ancestors were clearly people with dubious taste. Off with their heads, I say. Let’s do it.’

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NURSERY WAS on the top floor and the stairway was narrow. The horse went first, manoeuvred around the bends with Finn at the head and Jo at the tail. Once downstairs, Finn headed for the stables and came back with crumbling timber while Jo carted more toys.

While they carried the horse down she was still shaking with anger. Her anger carried her through the first few armfuls of assorted toys but as Finn finished creating the bonfire and started helping her carry toys she felt her anger start to dissipate.

He was just too cheerful.

‘This teddy looks like he’s been in a tug of war or six,’ Finn told her, placing the teddy halfway up the pyre. ‘It’s well time for him to go up in flames.’

It was a scruffy bear, small, rubbed bare in spots, one arm missing. One ear was torn off and his grin was sort of lopsided.

She thought of unknown ancestors hugging this bear. Then she thought of her mother and hardened her heart. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly and Finn cast her a questioning glance but headed upstairs for another load.

She followed, carting down a giraffe, two decrepit sets of wooden railway tracks and a box of blocks.

The giraffe was lacking a bit of stuffing. He was lopsided.

He was sort of looking at her.

‘It’s like the French Revolution,’ Finn told her, stacking them neatly on his ever-growing pyre. ‘All the aristocracy off to the Guillotine. I can just imagine these guys saying, “Let them eat cake”.’

But she couldn’t. Not quite.

The horse was sitting right on top of the pile, still looking aristocratic and nasty. The teddy was just underneath him. It was an old teddy. No one would want that teddy.

She was vaguely aware of Mrs O’Reilly watching from the kitchen window. She looked bemused. She wasn’t saying anything, though.

These toys were theirs now, to do with as they wanted, Jo thought with a sudden stab of clarity. Hers and Finn’s. They represented generations of favoured children, but now...were she and Finn the favoured two?

She glanced at Finn, looking for acknowledgement that he was feeling something like she was—anger, resentment, sadness.

Guilt?

All she saw was a guy revelling in the prospect of a truly excellent bonfire. He was doing guy stuff, fiddling with toys so they made a sweeping pyre, putting the most flammable stuff at the bottom, the horse balanced triumphantly at the top.

He was a guy having fun.

‘Ready?’ he asked and she realised he had matches poised.

‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice and Finn shook his head.

‘You’ll have to do better than that. You’re the lady of the castle, remember. It’s an autocratic “Off with their heads”, or the peasants will sense weakness. Strength, My Lady.’

‘Off with their heads,’ she managed but it was pretty weak.

But still, she’d said it and Finn looked at her for a long moment, then gave a decisive nod and bent and applied match to kindling.

It took a few moments for the wood to catch. Finn could have put a couple of the more flammable toys at the base, she thought. That would have made it go up faster. Instead he’d left a bare spot so the fire would have to be strongly alight before it reached its target.

The teddy would be one of the first things to catch, she thought. The teddy with the missing ear and no arm. And an eye that needed a stitch to make his smile less wonky.

She could...

No. These were favoured toys of favoured people. They’d belonged to people who’d rejected her. People who’d given her their name but nothing else. People who’d made sure she had nothing, and done it for their own selfish ends.

The teddy... One stitch...

The flames were licking upward.

The giraffe was propped beside the teddy. There was a bit of stuffing oozing out from his neck. She could...