Dermot Bolger - The Family on Paradise Pier

By a miracle they all fitted at the table. Some neighbours disapproved of such mayhem but Eva loved the informality where Cook was applauded and people struggled to make themselves heard. Across the table Jack caught her eye and Eva knew that he thought she looked beautiful. Normally she would have brought down her autograph book to ensure that everyone inscribed a clever remark or fragment of poetry. At last year’s regatta party Mr Barnes’s eldest son had inscribed a poem:

If the wicked old world was swept away

Like dust from your studio floor ,

And only those parts of it made again

That were good and fair and pure;

And if the re-making was given to me ,

I’d begin with Donegal ,

And your studio out in the stables

Would be the first of all.

But the treasured autograph book belonged to her old life and she would have felt childish bringing it to the table now.

As befitted dangerous times, there was no talk of politics, with even Mr Ffrench and Art respecting Father’s wish. Afterwards people crowded into the drawing room, where the rector’s son produced a fiddle to accompany Father on the piano. They launched into old-time waltzes, English folk dances like Sir Roger de Coverley and then, when the room was warmed up, riotous Irish set dances like The Walls of Limerick , with people eager to teach Jack the steps. Eva noticed that he never danced with her, anxious not to spoil the moment when they would finally be alone in the boat. At eleven o’clock, the dancing halted to let people deliver their party pieces. Maud was first, singing the Skye Boat Song. Eva saw Jack slip away and knew that he was about to cycle to Bruckless House to untie the small boat by the pier.

Maud’s song finished and old Dr O’Donnell sang Eileen Alannah , with eyes only for his smiling arthritic wife. The minute hand on the mantelpiece clock picked up speed as more songs followed. Father played a piece by Liszt and Mother who was tone-deaf said, ‘That’s lovely, Tim,’ as she always did whether he played Beethoven or Pop Goes the Weasel. Mr Barnes insisted that Father play a composition of his own and the room was still as he began to sing:

‘ Far, far away, across the sea

There lies an island divinely fair

Where spirits blest forever dwell

And breathe its radiant enchanted air. ’

The familiar words followed Eva as she slipped unnoticed upstairs. Her room was moonlit, her bathing costume in the drawer. She chose a robe and long white towel, took the band of silk rosebuds from her hair which tumbled down, and then, as an afterthought, washed the rouge from her face. The kitchen was empty when she desperately wanted someone to find her. But nobody came to stop her lifting the latch and slipping into the yard, past her dark studio and around onto the main street. She stopped across the road to look at the open drawing room window where family and neighbours were gathered. The dancing would soon recommence. The noise of a Crossley Tender’s engine in the distance suggested troops were about. The street was deserted, with locals cautious of venturing out. Jack would be waiting at the Bunlacky shore. It was dangerous to leave him alone, in case patrolling auxiliaries mistook him for a rebel. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move from the scene in the window. Footsteps came down the lane she had just left. Eva recognised the hat before hearing Brendan’s lilt: ‘ Who goes there? A grenadier. What do you want? A pint of beer… ’

He spied her and stopped. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Swimming.’

‘It’s midnight.’

‘I know. Do you want to come?’

‘I’ve no costume.’

‘You can stay in the boat and explore the island?’

‘What boat?’

‘It will be an adventure, our secret.’

Even as she held out her hand Eva knew that she was making a terrible mistake. But she couldn’t stop herself. All the way down the Bunlacky road she kept intending to send Brendan back at the next bend, but she swung his arm and let him sing, until on the final bend she hushed him.

‘What’s wrong?’ the boy whispered, sensing her tension.

Eva didn’t reply, but walked on, clutching her bathing costume to her breast, feeling so small in the moonlight as she struggled to decide what she wanted. She reached the rocks and spied the boat below, with Jack smoking as he waited. He stood up, tossed the cigarette into the waves and held out a hand which halted in midair as the boy appeared behind her.

‘Hello, Jack,’ Brendan called. ‘Are we going on an adventure?’

Jack didn’t reply. He looked across the dark waves and Eva knew that he simply wanted to row away. But the boy had already run down the crude stone steps and Jack swung the boat around so that he could clamber on board. The young officer put a hand out to help Eva get in, then immediately released his grip. He seemed taut like a coiled spring, saying nothing. Yet Eva knew that he was not angry, merely disappointed and more annoyed with himself than with her. Without Brendan she would never have come this far. She would have hesitated on a bend on the Bunlacky road, lacking the courage to continue. Yet now she was here Eva wished that the boy was gone. She wanted them to sail alone to the island, with Jack’s back turned as she stripped out of this ridiculous Victorian dress to don her bathing suit. She wanted all this when it was safely out of reach, because Eva knew that they could not simply let the child off. Jack had set her a test which she failed. Brendan’s clear voice filled the air: ‘… Where’s your money? In my pocket. Where’s your pocket? I forgot it. ’

The child lay back, trailing his hand in the water. ‘This is more fun than the party. Can we do it again tomorrow, Jack?’

‘Not with me, sonny. I’m New Zealand bound. I’ll swing this boat around now and leave you both on dry land.’

‘But it’s great fun having you here,’ the boy protested. ‘Must you really leave?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Jack altered course effortlessly to steer them towards the shore. He was a superb sailor. Eva imagined the pair of them sailing across a New Zealand lake. Only in this fantasy she was older and wiser and he had built a cabin with high windows to allow her to paint by the lakeside. She closed her eyes and tried to keep imagining these things, because she knew that when she opened them he would be regarding her with quiet disappointment. ‘I’m off in the morning,’ Jack added. ‘I was never one for long farewells.’

Eva opened her eyes and stared at him. She wanted to say so many things that she didn’t possess words for. She wanted to explain that she was just not ready. She wanted to be someone older than herself, yet she longed to be ten years of age again.

With a thud the boat bumped against the jetty. Eva wanted the comforting touch of a hand. She reached out in the moonlight and held one tight, never wanting to let go. Brendan glanced at his sister and whispered, ‘You’re hurting my fingers.’

With great courtesy, Jack held the boat steady while she got out.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told him.

‘Don’t be. The fault is mine.’

Eva longed to say more but the young officer had already set his back to her and began to row away along the dark shoreline towards Bruckless Pier.

London, August 1922

All night Art had been arguing with university friends about Italian politics in Fletcher’s rooms near Blackfriars. Fletcher was not of like mind to the others: he saw nothing wrong in truckloads of Il Duce’s fascists storming into Milan to end the communist-led strike there with the black-shirted thugs tearing down the Bolshevik flags hanging from the town hall. Fletcher could not understand why Art took such matters so seriously. To him, Mussolini was a clown who would never achieve power, just as Lenin would not hold onto it for long with famine in Russia. Fletcher would have been happier discussing Johnny Weissmuller’s new world swimming record or playing I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate on his gramophone, because, to him, university was merely a lark. Tragedy had set Fletcher’s future in stone, no matter what he studied. With the death of his eldest brother on the Somme, he was set to inherit the family estate. University was a chance to escape from home and discreetly make hay in this unburdened limbo before he came into his inheritance.