The Lost Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

Scotland.
    ‘I slept next to a bullock last year,’ Martin told her. ‘I swear to God I thought he was going to eat me.’
    ‘Or worse,’ said Paddy Junior, laughing, although Aileen wasn’t sure what could be worse than being eaten by a bull.
    Martin landed him a wallop on the arm. ‘Still, it was better than bunking down with your brother and him getting sick all over his shoes.’
    ‘I did not!’
    ‘Did so, you big alp!’
    As her two idiot brothers locked themselves in an angry clinch, Aileen wandered away from them. There was a wind coming up, and although the steamer seemed like a large, solid vessel, she was not relishing spending the next twelve hours aboard it. She walked towards the edge of the dock and stoodpeering down into the narrow gap between the vast flat edge of the boat and the low sea wall. That was the sea down there. That deep, dirty expanse like a massive bog hole. In Illaunmor, the sea looked so different at its edge. On a still day, small simpering waves bubbled white and nibbled the sand. When God’s anger was up, the waves tore at the rocks and peeled back across them with an angry hiss.
    The engines on the steamer were firing up, making a huge racket. A gust of steamy wind blew up through the dark, water-floored tunnel and Aileen leaned into it, pushing her hair back from her face to catch the breeze on her neck.
    ‘You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen!’
    She had not noticed the boy creeping up behind her and his loud words gave her such a fright that she almost fell into the water. She would have, in fact, if the wiry young man had not caught her arm and pulled her away from the edge just in time.
    She turned and, even though he had been the cause of her almost falling in, even though she had got a fright, in the moment that she saw this stranger’s face she felt something peculiar happen inside her. It was as if her heart, which had kicked with the shock of almost falling in the water, had taken a second to turn itself to one side, as if about to ask a question.
    Aileen noticed how close her feet were to the edge and her heart started thumping again. What had she been doing leaning towards the dark water like that?
    The nearness of her fall hit her and she shouted, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ at the idiot who had shouted and nearly caused her to fall. Who was this boy who had sneaked up on her? She looked at him but found his searing blue eyes unsettling and had to look away again.
    ‘Saving your life,’ he said in a northern Irish accent.
    ‘By nearly killing me!’ she replied, incredulous at his stupidity.She held on to the feeling of being annoyed. She was afraid if she let it go, she might drown. Not in the water but some other way.
    ‘You shouldn’t have been standing so close to the edge.’
    ‘I wasn’t expecting somebody to shout in my ear !’ she screamed at him. The steamer was very loud.
    ‘I had to shout so you would hear me tell you that you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen!’ he shouted in return.
    She began to walk quickly back towards where her father and brothers were, but the boy stuck to her side.
    ‘You can’t have seen many girls, so . . .’
    ‘Maybe not,’ he said.
    Aileen was cross to find herself feeling strangely disappointed at his concession, until he added, ‘Although I’ve seen enough to know you are one in a million.’
    ‘You’re stone mad,’ she said, although inwardly she felt weakened by the compliment. Nobody had ever spoken to her in that way before.
    ‘Were you going to jump in?’ he asked.
    ‘No, don’t be stupid. Why would I do that?’ she said.
    ‘If you had, I would have jumped in and saved you – I can swim.’
    This boy was a worse fool than Michael Kelly! What kind of a soft idiot was she, having these silly warm feelings towards him? He would not shut up either, asking questions without giving her the chance to answer him: ‘What’s your name? Where are you from? No, wait –