Cuttlefish Read Free

“We're too obvious with our blonde heads.”
    Clara was shocked. “We'll look like gypsies, Mother!” Being blonde in Ireland announced that you were possibly English or German. No one would hide that! Otherwise you might be thought to be merely Irish.
    â€œGood. They're not looking for gypsies,” her mother answered, tying the kerchief in place. “I wish I'd thought of shawls.”
    They made their way down the narrow stair and along the weedy edge of the third-team camogie field. There was a gap in the privet hedge at the far end of the field that girls who wanted to avoid camogie practice used to slip away through.
    Clara knew it well.
    It appeared that her mother must have known it too. It had proved to be quite a day for ruining the ideas she'd had about her parent.
    They were squeezing through the gap when someone yelled behind them. It didn't sound like the King's English. “They're onto us,” said Mother, pushing her forward. Clara had been trying to avoid ripping her school skirt, up to that point. It was obvious that her mother, who normally would have had words with her about tears or stains, didn't care right now.
    There was a coal barge heading away from the Blackwater toward Factory Town, with its smokestack dribbling dirty smoke from the cheap brown coal.
    â€œThank heavens,” said her mother. “Run Clara. Jump onto her. Tell Padraig to hide you. I'll try and head them off. I'll find you later.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œJust go!” Clara saw, to her horror, that her mother, a lifelong pacifist, was taking a gun out of her purse.
    Clara recognised it. It was her father's. She remembered the fight between her parents—because he'd dared to bring such a thing into the house—far too well to ever forget it. But surely he'd…he'd had it with him when he'd been arrested?
    Mother's hands were shaking. “Go, Clara. Please!”
    Biting her lip, Clara backed away. But she did not run. She wasn't sure why she didn't. Her mother had obviously gone mad, and was aiming the gun back through the scraggly privet. There was a bang. Her mother turned—even whiter in the face than before. “I thought I told you to run. Go. Now !”
    â€œCome with me. Please. Please!”
    Then there was the sound of several shots from back near the school, and a sudden crack of branches and a scattering of leaves.
    And then a shrill whistle sounded, and someone shouted, “Stand! In the name of the King. Hold your fire!”
    More shots were fired in answer to that, as her mother snatched her hand. “Hopefully they'll keep each other busy. Let's run. Next time please do what I tell you, Clara. This is not the time or place to argue.”
    They ran. The unfamiliar barge was already picking up speed, running barely a yard off the canal margin. A black-faced bargee beckoned furiously, and they jumped aboard. “Get down among the coal, like. Be quick about it,” he said hastily. “Mad girl. Shooting! There be trouble about this.”
    Following her mother's lead, Clara burrowed down into the small lumps of coal, trying to dig her way into it.
    It was black, dirty coal, and then the bargee took a shovel and poured it over them. And then more. And more. He was not that gentle about it. “Black your face,” said the mother who normally told her to wash it.
    The canal was a busy place, with barges pushing along both ways, as they slowly moved further from the school. “Squirm down as much as you can. And then keep still,” hissed her mother.
    The thumping of the engine's pistons slowed. “Face down. Keep dead still,” said the bargee quietly.
    Clara heard an angry English-accented voice, panting. “Why didn't you stop immediately?”
    â€œWell, I'd like to have stopped immediately for you, sorr,” said the bargee, in a slow drawl, his accent so thick as to make him hard to understand. “But t'irty-foive