His eyes were lit with an intensity I hadn’t noticed before. I seemed to have hit a raw nerve. I wondered if he wished he hadn’t inherited the title. If, like me, he longed to reinvent himself, to shed a skin that had become too tight.
“It’s just that I . . . I don’t know what to call you,” I mumbled.
“You can call me what you like.” There was a hard edge to his voice now. “It really doesn’t matter. By the way, I’ve brought you these.” He tipped up the knapsack he was carrying. Shoes, Wellingtons, a gas mask, and a little alarm clock tumbled onto the floor. “I hope those boots will fit—you’ll need them when you come up to the farm. And you’ll need to carry the gas mask with you whenever you go out.”
I nodded. “We had them on the ship,” I said.
He reached inside his jacket. “This is a ration book,” he said, tossing it onto the bed. “We’ll need your coupons up at the house for buying what we don’t produce ourselves. I must get back now. Come on, Brock!”
His whole demeanor seemed different from before. I wondered what had happened since our last meeting to change his mood. The life I’d led had not equipped me to be the best judge of men, but to me, he seemed to carry his own climate with him. And today that atmosphere was dark and dangerous.
Chapter 6
My first day at the farm was Maundy Thursday. At the mission hospital that would have been a day of minimal duties and maximum prayer—the start of the holiest festival in the Christian calendar. But to the cows, it was a day like any other. They still needed milking. And when that was done, there were eggs to be collected, there was butter to be churned, and, Jack assured me, there was endless weeding and hoeing to do for the vegetables being raised on every available patch of earth.
I’d set the alarm clock to go off at six o’clock. I was ready, in my dungarees, with the emerald scarf knotted around my head, when Jack came with Brock to show me the way up through the valley. The path followed a stream that trickled out onto the beach. The trees that fringed the cove were tamarisk and pine. They gave way to copper beech, alder, and elm. But as we climbed higher, I found myself in a landscape that was more like a tropical jungle than an English woodland. Everything was giant sized. There were massive tree ferns and towering palms; great stands of bamboo rose forty feet high, some of the canes thicker than a man’s arm. Monster rhododendrons and camellias made splashes of color in the sea of green: vivid pink, burnt orange, saffron yellow, and delicate creamy white.
Native British plants fought for space with the tropical ones. Edging the stream that ran down to the cove were carpets of bluebells and wild garlic. Red campions, buttercups, and daisies sprouted in open patches between the trees. Tiny violets clung to the mossy banks of the path.
I paused to examine a strange group of plants that were stunted and brown, like an army of dwarfs. The tips of green leaves were beginning to protrude from the stumpy stalks, unfurling from their winter slumber. I’d never seen anything like them in Dublin.
“Giant rhubarb,” Jack called over his shoulder. “From South America. It’ll be six feet tall by June.”
As I hurried to catch up, I brushed against a branch, bringing a shower of petals down on my head. I caught the scent of them—something like vanilla with a hint of pepper. It reminded me of walking under the jacaranda trees in Katanga. In the Congo, spring came in September, and the lilac-blue jacaranda blossoms heralded the beginning of that season. Here it was camellias and rhododendrons—which I’d seen in Irish gardens, but never the size of these.
After a few minutes of walking I could no longer hear the gentle lap of the waves breaking in the cove. Instead I heard the splash of waterfalls and the calls of birds—wood pigeons, rooks, robins, blackbirds—nesting in the trees and bushes. I caught the bright flash of a jay as it darted through the branches. And from somewhere in the green canopy above my head came the sound of a woodpecker rapping on a tree trunk.
It gave me a giddy feeling, being able to see things without having to turn my head. Being without my nun’s wimple and veil was like seeing the world through a wide-angle lens.
“Are you all right? Foot not hurting?” Jack smiled as he turned to me. His mood seemed altogether better today.
“I’m fine, thanks.” I paused, breathing hard. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d walked uphill. My journeys in Africa had mostly been by car or by boat, with very little walking involved. “It’s so beautiful,” I said between breaths. “So peaceful.”