Unhappy

Emmet sensed the odd silence. "Mummy … " he began, but he couldn't get beyond the first M.

Clio looked at him sympathetically. "Oh Emmet, your stammer has come back." she said. Philip stood up.

"There's probably enough people here, Clio. Could you go home now." he said.

Clio snapped at him.

"He's right, Clio." Kit found her voice very calm and clear. "Thank you very much for coming, but Philip was asked to keep the place sort of clear, for when everyone's coming back."

"I want to be here when everyone come back." Clio seemed like a spoiled child.

There was the I again, Kit noticed. "You're a wonderful friend. I knew you'd understand." Kit said. And Clio went down the stairs. The clock ticked on with its new whir, and none of them said anything at all.

"There's not going to be anything until the light of day." said Sergeant O'Connor, shaking his head.

"We just can't leave it and go home." Peter Kelly's face ran with sweat, or tears, or rain, it was impossible to tell.

"Be sensible, man. You'll have half the people here as your patients and the other half up the graveyard if they go on. There's nothing to be found, I tell you. Go on, tell the tinkers to go home, will you."

"Don't call them tinkers, Sean." But Peter Kelly knew it was neither the time nor the place to try to impose some sensitivity on to Sergeant Sean O'Connor.

"What'll I call them, Household Cavalry? Apache Indians?"

"Come on, they've been a great help.. they've no reason to be friends to any of us… they're doing their best.. "

"They look like savages with those torches. They make my flesh creep."

"If it helped to find her.. " Peter began.

"Oh she'll be found all right, but it won't make any difference to anyone whether it's tonight or next Tuesday week."

"You're very sure?" Peter said.

Sean O'Connor had a simple direct way of getting to the truth of things, and tonight it left no area for doubt or hope.

"Sure, wasn't the poor woman out of her wits?" the sergeant said.

"Didn't you see her night and day, wandering around here, half talking to herself? It's only a mystery that she didn't do it sooner."

A tall dark woman brought Martin McMahon a cup from her caravan.

"Drink this." she said. It was like an order.

He sipped it and made a face.

"What is it? I thought it was tea." he said.

"I wouldn't give you anything to harm you." she said. Her voice was low; he barely heard it above the wind, and the calling all around the lake's edge.

"Thank you indeed." he said, and drank what tasted like Bovril with something sharp in it. It could have been anything; he didn't care.

"Be calm." the woman said to him.

"Try not to shake and tremble, it may well be all right."

"They think my wife… " he said.

"I know, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't go anywhere without telling you." said the woman in her low voice that he had to strain to hear.

He turned to thank her, to tell her that he knew this was true, but she had slipped back into the shadows. He heard Sergeant O'Connor calling off the search for the night. He saw his friend Peter coming to take him home. Martin McMahon knew he must be strong for their children.

Helen would have wanted that.

Rita heard them coming. She knew by the shufflings and low voices down at the hall door there was no good news to tell. She ran into the kitchen to put on the kettle. Philip O'Brien stood up. It wasn't often he was in charge, but he knew he was in charge now.

"Your father will be all wet from the rain." he said. Kit was wordless.

"Is there an electric fire in their bedroom? He might want to change."

"In whose bedroom?" she spoke from far away.

"In your parents' room."

"They have different rooms."

"Well, in his room then."

She flashed Philip a grateful look. Clio would always use an opportunity like this comment on how strange it was that Kit's mother and father did not sleep in the same bed. Philip was being a great help.

"I'll go and plug it in." she said. It took her away from the top of the stairs; she didn't have to see her father's face when he came up. She didn't want to have to look at it.

Emmet wouldn't know how bad things were. He wouldn't know that Mother and Father were unhappy, and that Mother might not be coming back. Might be gone. She wanted the moment on her own.