liked the midnight picnic last week when we all sailed out to the Green Island,’ Eva admitted shyly. ‘I liked it when I decided to swim alongside the boat and you dived in and swam beside me. Just us two in the water.’
She wanted to add how she had liked touching his bare shoulder on the night the IRA came. She liked how he shook his wet hair when climbing from the water at Bruckless Pier. She liked the accidental glimpse she had caught of him drying his naked body by the shore, unaware that she could see through the trees.
‘I liked us being in the water too,’ Jack said. ‘Just a few inches between us and nobody able to see in the moonlight. That sort of moment might make a man not wish to return to New Zealand or make him bring somebody with him. You’d love New Zealand, Eva. It’s bigger and more beautiful than here. And there’s no trouble, no armed gangs, just people getting on with life. Childhood doesn’t last for ever. What do you want?’
‘I don’t know,’ Eva replied, scared. Mother frequently scolded her for spending too long in her studio, dreaming about the future instead of actually planning it. Jack sighed.
‘None of your family know what they want. Look at Art.’
‘What about him?’
‘This place is like the Garden of Eden and he will inherit it all, but instead you’d swear he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. Especially with that renegade Ffrench filling his head with nonsense.’
‘Mr Ffrench is nice,’ Eva protested.
‘It’s easy for Ffrench to entertain notions without children to pass his wealth on to. I want children and want to work hard for them. Do you want children, Eva? I don’t mean this year or next, with you being so young and having seen so little. I mean in time.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, because he had qualified the question so it did not threaten her. But she hated Mr Ffrench being criticised, like she hated the arguments always simmering now at family gatherings.
‘I’m glad you said that.’ Jack’s hand moved from the handlebar to grip her fingers alarmingly. ‘Give me hope and I’ll stay. I’ll have the slowest recuperation in medical history. Even at the risk of an IRA bullet I’d walk barechested across Donegal if I stood a chance with you. Do I?’
‘I’ve said I like you,’ Eva replied.
‘What does that mean?’ Jack pressed.
‘Art will be wondering what’s keeping us.’
‘He knows damn well. He may be an apprentice saint, but he’s no fool.’
‘What do you want from me?’ Eva was desperate to escape, yet made no effort to free her hand.
Jack took a deep breath, trying to be patient. ‘Nothing you don’t want to give. Your mother says you’re not ready and I know it would be better if we met in a few years’ time, but we haven’t got that luxury. I don’t know where I’ll be then and you don’t know what type of country you’ll be living in if the house isn’t burnt over your heads.’
‘They wouldn’t burn our house,’ Eva protested. ‘They know us.’
‘You don’t know them.’ He paused. ‘Listen, we can’t talk with a chaperone waiting over the hill. You loved swimming out to the island, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then do it again tonight. I’ll borrow Ffrench’s boat. He doesn’t believe in private property any more anyway. Meet me on the Bunlacky shore at midnight and we’ll have our own picnic on the island.’
‘That sounds magical,’ Eva said. ‘Can I bring Art?’
‘For God’s sake, Eva.’ Jack put his hand to her cheek and made her stare into his face. ‘Stop playing at being a child. I want us to visit the island alone as man and woman, if you want that too. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’ But Eva didn’t want to understand. She wanted to remain poised on the cusp of this new world without having to leave the safety of her old one.
‘Not that I’d do anything improper,’ he added. ‘You know I’m a gentleman. I just need us to talk alone with none of your family having seances or political debates or playing polkas or simply being so damned cheerful. I need a sign that you understand and return my feelings. I’m willing to wait if there is hope but I’ll not be played as a fool.’
A shout disturbed them. Art had grown impatient and come to check on them. Jack quickly released her hand. His fingers had not been rough but Eva still felt their touch and knew that she was blushing. She waved to Art, with a gaiety she didn’t feel.
‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked quietly.
‘I’m fine,’ she whispered.
‘So, should I steal Ffrench’s boat or not?’
‘I’ll bring my bathing costume. You can sail and I’ll swim the last stretch.’
Eva mounted her bicycle to pedal up the slope towards the safety of her brother. Jack followed more slowly. Both dismounted when they reached Art so that they could unhurriedly walk home together with Eva in the middle, between the two men she liked most in the world after Father. Jack was less frightening in company. He was in wonderful form as they sang and swapped snatches of poetry. If Eva had a choice she would have continued walking like this for ever, but that was a child’s wish and, glancing at Jack, she knew that she was a woman.
The house was packed when they reached home and the drawing room carpet had been taken up for dancing. Mr Barnes, manager of the Royal Bank in Donegal town, had transported the Goold Verschoyle family silver from his vault despite his misgivings about taking such a risk in these times. His three sons were here and the eldest boy was playing tennis against Maud in the garden. Through the window Eva watched Maud gracefully return a volley with one hand holding down her straw hat. Thomas talked to Mr Barnes in the grown-up way which came naturally to him, while ten-year-old Brendan raced in and out of the open front door pursued by a clutch of village children in a game that Eva couldn’t fathom but would have loved to join in. Male voices came from Father’s study and Art joined the men there like poor Oliver Hawkins had been allowed to do the summer before he died. Mr Ffrench was also in there with the rector whose son always attended their musical evenings and sang I Love Thee, Come Forth Tonight.
The kitchen would be dangerous territory, with the flustered cook complaining that in any other house the mistress would have some notion about how many were likely to arrive for dinner. Mother would be trying to soothe her, with Mrs Trench, the gardener’s wife, also there to help. Maud sometimes whispered that Art was sweet on Mrs Trench’s only daughter, but Mr Trench – a man of few words – had once announced that he would twist the neck off any boy seen near her. Art’s social position would not save him from Mr Trench’s temper if he were over-familiar with the girl. Thinking of this made Eva wonder where Beatrice Hawkins was now. The Great War had changed everything. Tonight’s gaiety would be tinged by absences. Eva and Maud often lay awake discussing the dozen young men from nearby Protestant families butchered in France and Belgium, with Mother despairing that so few eligible locals remained for her daughters to consider marrying. Eva wondered how long a boat took to reach New Zealand and what it would feel like to be a bride. The possibility would have been exciting were it not suddenly tangible.
She went to answer the front door where two local women wearing shawls stood with a donkey cart loaded with whiting, herrings and sprats, looking to sell them at two pennies a plateful. Eva explained that tonight was a special dinner. As the women moved off, she checked the basket on her bicycle and found that only two eggs were broken. Carefully she removed them while Brendan ran through a flock of geese to offer to ride her bicycle around to the coach house.
Eva braved the chaos of the kitchen to give Cook the eggs. The babble there was too much for her, so she slipped out to her studio where she could think.
It was seven o’clock, five hours until