The Unlikely Spy(41)
By the time Dogherty reached the top of the dunes Mary was gone. He followed the path to the spot where he had left the bicycle. Mary had taken it. Dogherty thought, Another round in our silent war. He turned up his collar against the wind and walked back to the cottage.
Jenny Colville had discovered the spot when she was ten years old--a small depression in the pine trees, several hundred yards from the roadway, sheltered from the wind by a pair of large rocks. A perfect hiding place. She had constructed a crude camp stove by stacking stones in a circle and placing a small metal grill on top. Now she laid the makings of a fire--pine needles, dried dune grass, small lengths of fallen tree limbs--and touched a match to it. She blew on it gently, and a moment later the fire crackled into life.
She kept a small case hidden beneath the rocks, covered with a layer of pine needles. She brushed away the needles and pulled it out. Opening the lid, Jenny removed the contents: a worn woolen blanket, a small metal pot, a chipped enamel mug, and a tin of dry, dusty tea. Jenny unfolded the blanket and spread it next to the fire. She sat down and warmed her hands against the flames.
Two years ago a villager had found her things and concluded a tinker was living on the beach. It caused the most excitement in Hampton Sands since the fire at St. John's in 1912. For a time Jenny stayed away. But the scandal quickly calmed and she was able to return.
The flames died, leaving a bed of glowing red embers. Jenny filled the pot with water from a canteen she had carried from home. She set the pot on the grill and waited for it to boil, listening to the sound of the sea and the wind hissing through the pines.
As always, the place worked its magic.
She began to forget about her problems--her father.
Earlier that afternoon, when she arrived home from school, he had been sitting at the kitchen table, drunk. Soon he would become belligerent, then angry, then violent. He would take it out on the person nearest him; inevitably that would be Jenny. She decided to head off the beating before it could take place. She made him a plate of meager sandwiches and a pot of tea and set them on the table. He had said nothing--expressed no concern about where she was going--as Jenny put on her coat and slipped out the door.
The water boiled. Jenny added the tea, covered it, removed it from the fire. She thought of the other girls from the village. They would be home now, sitting down with their parents for supper, talking over the events of the day, not hiding in the trees near the beach with nothing but the sound of breaking waves and a cup of tea for company. It had made her different, older, more clever. She had been stripped of her childhood, her time of innocence, forced to confront the fact very early in life that the world could be an evil place.
God, why does he hate me so much? What have I ever done to hurt him?
Mary had done her best to explain Martin Colville's behavior. He loves you, Mary had said countless times, but he's just hurt and angry and unhappy, and he takes it out on the person he cares about most.
Jenny had tried to put herself in her father's place. She vaguely remembered the day her mother packed her things and left. She remembered her father begging and pleading with her to stay. She remembered the look on his face when she refused, remembered the sound of shattering glass, breaking dishes, the horrid things they said to each other. For many years she was not told where her mother had gone; it was simply not discussed. When Jenny asked her father, he would stalk off in a stormy silence. Mary was the one who finally told her. Her mother had fallen in love with a man from Birmingham, had an affair with him, and was living with him there now. When Jenny asked why her mother had never tried to contact her, Mary could supply no answer. To make matters worse, Mary said Jenny had become her mirror image. Jenny had no proof of this--the last memory she had of her mother was of a desperate and angry woman, eyes swollen and red from crying--and her father had destroyed all photographs of her long ago.
Jenny poured tea, holding the enamel mug close for warmth. The wind gusted, stirring the canopy of pine trees over her head. The moon appeared, followed by the first stars. Jenny could tell it would be a very cold night. She wouldn't be able to stay too long. She laid two larger pieces of wood on the fire and watched the shadows dancing on the rocks. She finished her tea and curled up in a ball, pillowing her head on her hands.
She pictured herself somewhere else, anywhere but Hampton Sands. She wanted to do something great and never come back. She was sixteen years old. Some of the older girls from the surrounding villages had gone to London and other big cities to take over the jobs left behind by the men. She could find work in a factory, wait tables in a cafe, anything. . . .
She was beginning to drift off to sleep when she thought she heard a sound from somewhere near the water. For a moment she wondered if there really were tinkers living on the beach. Startled, Jenny got to her feet. The pine trees ended at the dunes. She walked carefully through the grove, for it had grown dark rapidly, and started up the slope of sand. She paused at the top, dune grass dancing in the wind at her feet, staring in the direction of the sound. She saw a figure dressed in an oilskin, sea boots, and a sou'wester.
Sean Dogherty.
He seemed to be stacking wood, pacing, calculating some distance. Maybe Mary was right. Maybe Sean was going crazy.
Then Jenny spotted another figure at the top of the dunes. It was Mary, just standing there in the wind, arms folded, gazing at Sean silently. Then Mary turned and quietly left without waiting for Sean.
When Sean was out of sight Jenny doused the embers, put away her things, and pedaled her bicycle home. The cottage was empty, cold, and dark when she arrived. Her father was gone, the fire long dead. There was no note explaining his whereabouts. She lay awake in bed for some time, listening to the wind, replaying the scene she had witnessed on the beach. There was something very wrong about it, she concluded. Something very wrong indeed.