donkeys graze in her garden. A cat with yellow slanting eyes watches them from the gate post. The Strong family from Galway have already arrived. Mrs Strong is shaking mats at the door of her caravan and shouting at her husband to fetch water from the pump. Adrian Strong runs down the caravan steps to greet them. He is an only child and too spoiled for his own good, claims Aunt Josephine.
“Spare the rod and spoil the brat,” she says every time he comes to the beach with his surfboard and fancy snorkelling equipment. Lorraine’s mother says he will break hearts when he grows up. Uncle Des calls him “a nancy boy” and Lorraine’s father always has him on his team when they play beach volleyball. Soon Adrian and Edward are lost in the heart of the sand dunes. They shout and fling fistfuls of bubbling seaweed at those who dare to follow, especially small girls.
The abandoned car at the end of the field is a little more rusted than the previous year but the door opens with a shriek and the steering-wheel still turns. The tree with a branch like a sofa that serves as a swing is still standing but each year the hidey-hole hedge has a little less space in which to hide. The girls rush to Celia’s garden to greet the donkeys. She calls her donkeys The Philosophers and allows the girls to ride them bareback up and down the lane. The one with the darker coat is called Aristotle. Plato is skinnier and has a white mark on his ear. Celia’s gingerbread is fresh from the oven, cooling on a wire rack, and there is fresh milk in a bucket behind her kitchen door. In the evenings she tells them stories about banshees and fairy forts and how the rat-a-tat-tat on their caravan roofs is not from crows pecking, as the adults believe, but is actually the step of tiny dancing fairy feet. In bed at night, Virginia whispers that Celia is actually a witch with warts on her left breast. Lorraine cannot imagine the old woman in a witch’s hat riding high on a broomstick but she pretends to believe her cousin, because Virginia, being a year older and from London, knows everything.
London is much better than Trabawn, says Virginia. It has trains that run under the ground, Spangle sweets, fireworks in November, pop stars with fur coats and a queen with a crown. Once, when Virginia curtsied and handed Queen Elizabeth a bouquet of golden roses, the queen shook her hand and said, “Thank you, my most loyal subject. I will treasure these flowers forever.”
“Liar, liar! Dirty knickers on fire,” chants Edward when Virginia tells this story, which she does many times. Lorraine is not sure what to think. She is an only child, fanciful and shy, but for the next two weeks she has a make-believe sister and her world is perfect. How she envies Virginia’s self-confidence which comes, Lorraine is convinced, from being English. But she never says this aloud because when Virginia’s father drinks too much he shouts, “Up the IRA,” and sings “A Nation Once Again” with tears running down his cheeks.
Virginia swings upside down from the branches of the highest trees. On the beach she is the fastest runner. Faster even than Adrian Strong. When everyone else obeys the Golden Rule and swims parallel to shore she heads like a shark towards the rock where the cormorants perch. Once she pretends to drown, flailing her arms and shrieking “ Help! Help! ” until Adrian dives in fully clothed to rescue her. Her father slaps her afterwards. Hard, stinging slaps across her legs. But she doesn’t cry, not once, just as she never apologises for the rows and the tantrums that come without warning and swallow Lorraine like a giant rumbling wave.
At the end of the lane there is a farmhouse with a byre where Frank Donaldson milks his cows. He tilts the cows’ udders and squirts milk towards the girls, laughing loudly when they scream and dash for cover. Celia warns them not to fall in love with Frank who has turned twenty-two on his last birthday and has a
“Spare the rod and spoil the brat,” she says every time he comes to the beach with his surfboard and fancy snorkelling equipment. Lorraine’s mother says he will break hearts when he grows up. Uncle Des calls him “a nancy boy” and Lorraine’s father always has him on his team when they play beach volleyball. Soon Adrian and Edward are lost in the heart of the sand dunes. They shout and fling fistfuls of bubbling seaweed at those who dare to follow, especially small girls.
The abandoned car at the end of the field is a little more rusted than the previous year but the door opens with a shriek and the steering-wheel still turns. The tree with a branch like a sofa that serves as a swing is still standing but each year the hidey-hole hedge has a little less space in which to hide. The girls rush to Celia’s garden to greet the donkeys. She calls her donkeys The Philosophers and allows the girls to ride them bareback up and down the lane. The one with the darker coat is called Aristotle. Plato is skinnier and has a white mark on his ear. Celia’s gingerbread is fresh from the oven, cooling on a wire rack, and there is fresh milk in a bucket behind her kitchen door. In the evenings she tells them stories about banshees and fairy forts and how the rat-a-tat-tat on their caravan roofs is not from crows pecking, as the adults believe, but is actually the step of tiny dancing fairy feet. In bed at night, Virginia whispers that Celia is actually a witch with warts on her left breast. Lorraine cannot imagine the old woman in a witch’s hat riding high on a broomstick but she pretends to believe her cousin, because Virginia, being a year older and from London, knows everything.
London is much better than Trabawn, says Virginia. It has trains that run under the ground, Spangle sweets, fireworks in November, pop stars with fur coats and a queen with a crown. Once, when Virginia curtsied and handed Queen Elizabeth a bouquet of golden roses, the queen shook her hand and said, “Thank you, my most loyal subject. I will treasure these flowers forever.”
“Liar, liar! Dirty knickers on fire,” chants Edward when Virginia tells this story, which she does many times. Lorraine is not sure what to think. She is an only child, fanciful and shy, but for the next two weeks she has a make-believe sister and her world is perfect. How she envies Virginia’s self-confidence which comes, Lorraine is convinced, from being English. But she never says this aloud because when Virginia’s father drinks too much he shouts, “Up the IRA,” and sings “A Nation Once Again” with tears running down his cheeks.
Virginia swings upside down from the branches of the highest trees. On the beach she is the fastest runner. Faster even than Adrian Strong. When everyone else obeys the Golden Rule and swims parallel to shore she heads like a shark towards the rock where the cormorants perch. Once she pretends to drown, flailing her arms and shrieking “ Help! Help! ” until Adrian dives in fully clothed to rescue her. Her father slaps her afterwards. Hard, stinging slaps across her legs. But she doesn’t cry, not once, just as she never apologises for the rows and the tantrums that come without warning and swallow Lorraine like a giant rumbling wave.
At the end of the lane there is a farmhouse with a byre where Frank Donaldson milks his cows. He tilts the cows’ udders and squirts milk towards the girls, laughing loudly when they scream and dash for cover. Celia warns them not to fall in love with Frank who has turned twenty-two on his last birthday and has a
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