Beneath the Earth Read Online Free Page B

around when she heard him. ‘What are you doing up?’
    His mother was wearing her nightdress and her hair hung down loosely around her shoulders. He hated seeing her like this. Marie usually wore her hair up in a tight bun and even though she didn’t own many clothes she always made an effort to look elegant. Stephen, Émile’s father, put it down to her French upbringing. He said women looked after themselves over there, not like Irish women who’d go around in a potato sack every day except Sunday if they could. But seeing her like this, in the middle of the night, she looked old and tired and not Marie-like at all.
    â€˜I heard a noise,’ he said. ‘It woke me up.’
    â€˜Don’t come over here in your bare feet, son,’ said Stephen, who had taken yesterday’s newspaper off the table and was using a brush to sweep the broken glass from the window on to the front page.
    â€˜The window!’ said Émile, pointing across the room. A breeze was blowing through, making the net curtains on either side dance in the early-morning air like a pair of young girls waltzing in their nightclothes. ‘What happened?’
    â€˜Someone put a brick through it,’ said Stephen.
    â€˜But why?’
    â€˜Ã‰mile, step back,’ said Marie, putting her hands on his shoulders and pulling him away from the fragments of glass. ‘Just until your father is finished.’
    â€˜Why would someone put a brick through our window?’ asked Émile, looking up at her.
    â€˜It was an accident,’ said Stephen.
    â€˜How can a brick fly through a window by accident?’
    â€˜Ã‰mile, go back to bed,’ said Marie, raising her voice now. ‘Stephen, should I look outside to see if they’re still there?’
    â€˜No, I’ll do it.’
    He folded the newspaper into a neat package, the broken glass wrapped carefully inside, and placed it on top of the table before reaching for the latch on the front door.
    â€˜Wait,’ cried Marie, running into the kitchen and returning with the heavy copper saucepan that she used to make soup.
    â€˜What’s this for?’ asked Stephen, staring at it with a confused smile on his face, the kind of smile he always wore when Marie did something that both baffled and amused him.
    â€˜To hit him with,’ said Marie.
    â€˜To hit who with?’
    â€˜Whoever threw the brick.’
    Ã‰mile looked around the floor and saw a rectangular shape lying beneath the table, brick-like for certain, but it was enclosed in paper and the whole parcel was held together by string, like a Christmas present. His mind raced with possibilities for who might have done such a thing. He was currently engaged in a war with Donal Higgins who lived two doors down and their acts of retaliation had grown over the last few days. But it was hard to imagine Donal doing something as bad as this and, anyway, he was probably in bed since he had to go to sleep at eight o’clock every night while Émile was allowed to stay up until half past.
    â€˜I don’t think whoever it was will be waiting outside for me, do you?’ asked Stephen, opening the front door while Marie stood behind him, holding the saucepan on high as he stepped out on to the street. Émile picked up the brick and began to untie the twine. It came loose easily enough and as the paper unfurled he was surprised to realize that he recognized it. He smoothed out the creases now, pressing it flat against the kitchen table, and examined it carefully. Green, white and orange, the colours of the Tricolour itself, the poster bore a picture of a serious-looking man sporting a big white moustache. The words ‘Tyneside Irish Battalion’ were written across the top with ‘Irishmen – To Arms’ inscribed beneath a harp in the centre of a shamrock. ‘Join To-Day’ was its closing demand.
    â€˜What’s that?’ asked Marie, coming back into