On the Edge of Darkness. Barbara Erskine
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They stared at each other helplessly, both wanting to say more, both knowing there was no point. Until they found a way of communicating they were impotent. At last, on inspiration, Adam dived into his bag and cursing the fact that he had eaten the cake himself he brought out the shortbread. Breaking off a piece he handed it to her shyly. She took it and sniffed it cautiously, then she bit it.
‘Shortbread.’ Adam repeated the word clearly.
She looked at him, head slightly to one side, eyes bright, and she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Shortbread,’ she said after him.
‘Good?’ he asked. He mimed good.
She giggled. ‘Good?’ she said.
‘Gartnait?’ he asked. He had a piece for her brother.
She pointed to the cross-slab. ‘Gartnait,’ she said. It sounded like a confirmation. Jumping up, she tugged at Adam’s hand.
He followed her, aware that with the sunrise had come the mist, wreathing through the trees and up the hillside. It had already reached the stone. He shivered, feeling it hit him like a physical blow as he walked after the girl. She glanced over her shoulder and he saw for a moment the look of doubt in her eyes, then it was gone, the mist was sucked up in the heat of the sun and Gartnait was there, sitting close to the cross. In his hand he had a hammer and in the other a punch.
‘Oh, I say, you can’t do that!’ Adam was shocked.
Gartnait looked up and grinned.
‘Tell him he can’t. That cross is special. It’s hundreds – thousands – of years old. He mustn’t touch it! It’s part of history,’ Adam appealed to her, but she ignored him. She was holding out a piece of shortbread to her brother.
‘Shortbread,’ she repeated fluently.
Adam was staring at the back of the cross. Instead of the sequence of weathered patterns he was used to seeing – the incised circles, the Z-shaped broken spear, the serpent, the mirror, the crescent moon – the face of the stone looked new. It was untouched, with only a small part of one of the designs begun in one corner, the punch-marks fresh and sharp.
Adam ran his fingers over the raw clean edges and he heard Brid draw in her breath sharply. She shook her head and pulled his hand away. Don’t touch. Her meaning was clear. She glanced over her shoulder as though she were afraid.
Adam was confused for a moment. The cross – the proper, old cross – must be there in the mist and Gartnait was copying it. He looked again at the young man’s handiwork and he was impressed.
They sat together and ate the shortbread, then Gartnait picked up his chisel again. It was as he was working away at the intricate shape of the crescent moon, with Brid watching, giggling as Adam taught her the names of the plants and trees around them, that Gartnait suddenly paused in his chipping and listened. Brid fell silent at once. She looked round, frightened.
‘What is it?’ Adam glanced from one to the other.
She put her finger to her lips, her eyes on her brother’s face.
Adam strained his ears. He could hear nothing but the faint whisper of the wind through the dry heather stems.
Abruptly Gartnait gave Brid an order which galvanised her into action. She leaped to her feet and grabbed Adam’s wrist. ‘Come. Quick.’ They were words he had taught her already.
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ He was bewildered.
‘Come.’ She was dragging him away from her brother towards the trees.
‘Brid!’ Gartnait called after her. He gabbled some quick instructions and she nodded, still clutching Adam’s hand. The mist had drifted back across the hill and they dived into it as Adam saw two figures approaching in the distance. Clearly Brid did not intend him to meet them. In seconds he and Brid were concealed in the mist and their visitors were out of sight.
She led the way, confidently recognising landmarks he couldn’t see and almost at once they were emerging near the spot where he had first seen her.
He looked round nervously. Surely Gartnait and the two strangers were only a few paces away behind the stone? He glanced back, seeing its shape looming out of the murk, touched now by the early morning sun. There was no sign of Gartnait or his unwelcome visitors.
‘Who are they?’ Adam mimed his question.
Brid shrugged. To explain was too complicated, clearly, and she was still afraid. She tugged his hand and, her finger to her lips, again headed down the hillside. Of Gartnait there was no sign.
The day was spoiled. She was clearly afraid and although she sat down near him when he beckoned her towards a sheltered rock from where they could survey the valley, which was still bathed in sunshine, in only a few minutes she had risen to her feet.
‘Goodbye, A-dam.’ She took his hand and gave it a little tug.
‘Can I come again tomorrow?’ He couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his voice.
She smiled and shrugged. ‘Tomorrow?’
How do you mime tomorrow? He shrugged too, defeated.
She shook her head and with a little wave of her hand turned and ran back up the hill on silent feet. He slumped back against the rock, disappointed.
She wasn’t there tomorrow or the next day. Twice he went up the hill again and twice he searched all day for their cottage and for Gartnait’s stone, but there was no sign of either. Both times he returned home feeling let down and puzzled.
‘Where have you been all day?’ His father was sitting opposite him in the cold dining room.
‘Walking, Father.’ The boy’s hands tightened nervously on his knife and fork and he put them down on his plate.
‘I saw Mistress Gillespie at the post office today. She said you hadn’t been down to play with the boys.’
‘No, Father.’
How could he explain the side-long looks, the sniggers?
He studied the pattern on his plate with furious concentration as if imprinting the delicate ivy-leaf design around the rim on his retinas.
‘Are you looking forward to starting school again?’ The minister was trying hard. His own eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his hands shaking slightly. When his plate was only half empty he pushed the food aside and gave up. Adam couldn’t keep his eyes off the remains of his father’s supper. If he himself left anything he was normally the recipient of a lecture on waste and was told to sit there until he had eaten it. Seething with sudden resentment, he wished he dare say something, but he remained silent. The atmosphere in the room was tense. He hated it and, he realised it at last, he hated his father.
Miserably he shook his head as his father offered him a helping from the cold trifle left on the sideboard and he sat with bowed head whilst Thomas, clearly relieved that the meal was over, said a quick prayer of thanks and stood up. ‘I have a sermon to write.’ It was said almost apologetically.
Adam looked up. For a brief moment he felt an unexpected wave of compassion sweep over him as he met his father’s eyes. The next he had looked away coldly. Their unhappiness was, after all, his father’s fault.
‘A-dam!’ She had crept up beside him as he lay on the grass, his arm across his eyes to block off the glare from the sun.
He removed his arm and smiled without sitting up. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Hello, A-dam.’ She knelt beside him and dropped a handful of grass-seed heads on his face. ‘A-dam, shortbread?’ She pointed to the knapsack which lay beside him.
He laughed. ‘You’re a greedy miss, that’s what you are.’ He unfastened it and brought out the tin of shortbread. He was pleased she had remembered the word. He glanced round. ‘Gartnait?’
She