Читать книгу The Tide Knot - Helen Dunmore - Страница 7

It’s daylight again. Safe, ordinary daylight where the things that seem huge and terrifying by night shrink like puddles in sunshine.

I’m down at the beach with Sadie. Mum’s already at work, but it’s Saturday, so no school. I’ve cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the living room and now I’m free.

Sadie is like daylight. When I stroke her warm golden coat, all the shadows disappear. She looks up at me questioningly, wagging her tail. We’re standing on the last of the steps that lead down to Polquidden Beach. Am I going to let her run?

I am. Dogs are allowed on to the beach after the first of October, and it’s mid November now. Sadie’s got a good memory, though, and that’s why she’s hesitating. She remembers that when we first moved to St Pirans in September, dogs were still banned from the beach. Every year from April to October, when the visitors are here, dogs have to keep away. I think it’s unfair, but Mum says you couldn’t have dog dirt on the sand where people are sunbathing.

All September I had to keep on explaining to Sadie, “I’m sorry, I know you want to run on the sand, but you can’t.” The more I get to know Sadie, the more I realise how much she understands. She doesn’t have to rely on words. Sadie can tell from the way I walk into a room what kind of a mood I’m in.

Now she’s quivering with excitement, but she still waits patiently on the step.

“Go on, Sadie girl! It’s all right, you can run where you like today.” Sadie stretches her body, gives one leap of pure pleasure, and then settles to the serious business of chasing a seagull in crazy zigzags over the sand. Sadie has never caught a gull, and I’m sure this gull knows that. It’s leading her on, teasing her, skimming low over the sand to get Sadie’s hopes high, then soaring as she rushes towards it.

I want Sadie to run and run, as far as she likes. I know she’ll come back when I call. And besides, I want her to be free.

Since we moved to St Pirans I’ve been having these dreams. Not every night, not even every week, but often enough to make me scared to go to sleep sometimes. In the dream I’m caught in a cage. At first I’m not too worried because the bars are wide apart and it will be easy to slip out. But as soon as I move towards them, the bars close up. I try to move slowly and casually so that the cage won’t know what I’m planning, but every time the bars are quicker than I am. It’s as if the cage is alive and knows that I’m trying to escape.

I still can’t believe that we are really living here in St Pirans. Can it be true that we’ve left our cottage for ever? And Senara, and our cove, and all the places we love? Conor and I were born in the cottage, for heaven’s sake, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. How can you shut the door on the place where you were born?

Mum’s promised that she’ll never, ever, sell our cottage, but she’s renting it out to strangers. The rent money pays for us to rent a house in St Pirans, where we have no memories at all.

It seems crazy to me. Completely crazy in a way that the adults all believe is completely logical.

You’ll make so many new friends when you’re living in a town!

You’ll be able to go to the cinema and the swimming pool.

They’ve got some really good shops in St Pirans, Sapphy.

Why would anyone who lives by the sea want to go to a swimming pool anyway? Swimming pools are tame and bland and fake blue and they stink of chlorine. The water is dead, because of all the chemicals they put into it. The sea is alive. Every drop in it is full of life. If you put water from a swimming pool under a microscope, there would be nothing. Or maybe some bacteria if they haven’t put enough chemicals in.

Even the sea gets crowded in St Pirans. It’s quieter now because the season’s over, but everyone keeps telling us, Wait until the summer months. You’re lucky if you can find a patch of sand to put your towel down in August. There are four beaches and a harbour, and thousands and thousands of tourists who swarm all over the town like bees. Conor and I sometimes used to come to St Pirans for a day while we were still living in Senara. Just for a change. A day was always enough. You can’t swim without getting whacked by someone’s board. Sometimes there are even fights between different groups of surfers – the ones who are local and the ones who have come here in vans from upcountry. They fight over such big issues as one surfer dropping in on another surfer’s wave. Imagine thinking that the sea belongs to you, and fighting over waves. That’s another sort of St Pirans craziness. I must tell Faro about it. It would make him laugh.

“Sadie! Sadie!” Suddenly I see that Sadie is way over the other side of the beach, bounding towards a tiny little dog. It’s a Yorkshire terrier, I think, skittering about by the water’s edge. Sadie won’t hurt the Yorkie, of course she won’t. But all the same I begin to run. At the same moment, a girl of about my age sees what’s happening, and jumps up from where she’s digging a hole in the sand with a little kid.

“Sa-die!”

Is she going to listen? Does Sadie really believe that I’m her owner now? Yes! A few metres away from the terrier, Sadie slows and stops. You can see from her body how much she longs to rush right up to it. She glances back at me, asking why I’ve spoiled what could have been a wonderful adventure.

“Good girl. You are such a good girl, Sadie.”

I’m out of breath. I drop to my knees on the wet sand and clip on Sadie’s lead. The terrier girl picks up her dog, which is no bigger than a baby.

“I thought your dog was going to eat Sky,” says the girl. She has very short spiky blonde hair and her smile leaps across her face like sunshine.

“Sky. Weird name for a dog.”

“I know. She’s not mine. She belongs to my neighbour, but my neighbour’s got MS so I take her for walks. Not that she walks far. Sky, I mean, not my neighbour,” adds the girl quickly, as if she’s said something embarrassing. “Sorry,” she adds, “too much information.”

I don’t even know what MS is, so I just say, “Oh. I see.”

“Is this your dog?” asks the girl longingly.

“Yes.” It still feels like a lie when I say that. It’s such a cliché when people say that things are too good to be true, but each time I say that Sadie is my dog, that is exactly how it feels. Much too good to be true. I worried for weeks that Jack’s family would want her back, but they don’t. She’s yours, Jack’s mum said. Dogs know who they belong to, and Sadie’s chosen you for sure, Sapphire. Look at her wagging her tail there. I never get such a welcome.

“She’s beautiful.” The girl stretches out her hand confidently, as if she’s sure that Sadie will like her, and Sadie does. She sniffs the girl’s fingers approvingly. I give a very slight tug on Sadie’s lead.

“We’ve got to go,” I say.

“I must take Sky and River back, too. That’s River, over there at the bottom of the hole. He’s always digging holes. He’s my little brother.”

“River. Weird name for a boy,” I nearly say. I stop myself in time, but the girl smiles.

“Everyone thinks our names are a bit strange.” She looks at me expectantly. “Don’t you want to know what my name is? Or would you rather guess?”

I shake my head a bit stiffly. This girl is so friendly that it makes me feel awkward.

“Rainbow,” she says. “Rainbow Petersen. My mum called me Rainbow because she reckoned it had been raining in her life for a long time before I was born, and then the sun came out. My mum’s Danish, but she’s been living here since she was eighteen.”

There is a short silence. I try to imagine Mum saying anything remotely like that to me, and fail. The sun came out when you were born, Sapphire darling. No, I don’t think so.

The girl – Rainbow – looks as if she’s waiting for something. She picks up the terrier, and I say, “Well, bye then.”

But then she looks straight at me and says quite seriously, “You know my name and my little brother’s name and Sky’s name. Aren’t you going to tell me yours?”

I feel myself flush. “Um, it’s Sapphire.”

“That’s great,” says Rainbow warmly.

“Why?”

“I’m so glad you haven’t got a normal name like Millie or Jessica. Sapphire. Yes, I like it. What about your dog?”

“She’s called Sadie.”

The girl looks at me again in that expectant way, but whatever she’s expecting doesn’t happen. After a moment she says, “OK, see you around then, Sapphire. Bye, Sadie,” and she goes back to where River is digging his hole.

It’s only when she’s been gone for a while that I realise she wanted to know more about me. But there’s nothing I can do about that now, and besides, as old Alice Trewhidden always says, It’s not good to tell your business to strangers.

You’d have thought I was Rainbow’s friend already, the way she smiled at me.

Conor’s gone fishing off the rocks at Porthchapel with Mal. Mum was right: Conor has got to know loads of people in St Pirans already. I suppose it’s partly because he goes to school here, but it’s also just the way Conor is. I don’t know all his friends’ names, but they’re mostly surfers. Conor speaks surfer talk when he’s with them. He and Mum and Roger all keep telling me I should surf, but I don’t want to any more. If you’ve surfed the currents of Ingo, why would you want to surf on Polquidden Beach, or even up at Gwithian? It would be like being told that you’re only allowed one sip of water when you’re dying of thirst.

Conor doesn’t feel the same. I tried to talk to him about it once, not long after we came to St Pirans.

“Saph, you’re not giving St Pirans a chance,” he said. “There’s great surfing here. You used to like body-boarding at the cove.”

“That was before we went to Ingo,” I said. Conor looked at me uneasily.

He doesn’t talk much about Ingo now we’re in St Pirans. It’s as if he thinks we’ve left Ingo behind, along with the cottage and everything we’ve known since we were born. Or maybe there’s some other reason. I have the feeling that Conor is keeping something from me. Mum says he’s growing up, and that I can’t expect Conor to tell me everything now, the way he did when we were younger.

“Don’t you feel it’s pointless, this kind of surfing?” I asked. I wanted to probe what Conor was really thinking. “I mean, compared to surfing the currents, it’s nothing. Once you’ve been in Ingo, you can’t be satisfied with messing around on the surface of the water.”

Conor’s face was clouded. “I can’t live like that, Saph, neither properly belonging in one place or another,” he said. He sounded angry, but I don’t think he was angry with me. “I’ve got to try to belong where I am. It’s no good to keep on wanting things you can’t have—”

He broke off. I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“I know you miss Senara,” he went on.

“Home, you mean.”

“All right, home.”

“So, I miss home. That’s normal, Con!”

“But other people are living in our cottage now. We can’t go back there, so it’s no use hankering.”

“We could go back if we wanted. Mum could give the tenants notice.”

“But, Saph, Mum doesn’t want to. Can’t you see that? She was glad to get away from the cottage and the cove and everything that reminds her of Dad. Mum’s much happier here.”

I know that really. I’ve known it for weeks, but I haven’t wanted to put it into words.

“And there’s something else, too,” Conor goes on. “She wanted to get us away from Ingo.”

“Mum doesn’t know anything about Ingo! She doesn’t even know it exists.”

“We haven’t told her anything. But Mum’s not stupid. She picked up that something strange was going on down at the cove. She was frightened for us – especially for you. She even asked me if I knew why you were behaving so strangely.”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“Saph, why are you so suspicious all the time? Of course I didn’t. Mum doesn’t know about Ingo, but she senses something, and since Dad disappeared she’s not taking any chances. Maybe she’s right,” Conor adds, sounding thoughtful.

“Mum’s right? Right to take us away from everything? Adults know they can get away with doing what they want, but that doesn’t make it right! Conor, how can you say that? It’s like – it’s like betraying Ingo.”

“But if you are always on the side of Ingo, Saph, then you’re betraying something too. Granny Carne said you had Mer blood, but she didn’t tell you to forget that you’re human.”

I went up to my room. I didn’t want to talk about Ingo any more. I was afraid that Conor might say, “Forget about Ingo, Saph. Put it all behind you, and get on with real life.”

Yes, I do miss home. I only let myself think about it at night, before I go to sleep. I miss our cottage, the cove, the Downs, Jack’s farm. I miss watching the lights of the cottages shine out at night and knowing who lives in every one of them. I miss Dad even more in St Pirans, because not many people here ever knew him. They think Mum’s a single parent because she’s divorced, until we explain. Everyone in Senara knew Dad, right back to when he was a little boy, and they knew all our family. Even if Dad wasn’t there, he was still present in people’s memories.

At least I still go to the same school. Conor’s transferred to St Pirans school, but I didn’t want to. I don’t mind going on the school bus to my old school. I had to fight hard, though. Mum said that I should go to school here in St Pirans so that I’d make friends locally and “settle in”. Strangely enough it was Roger, Mum’s boyfriend, who supported me. He said, “Sapphire’s had a lot of changes. She needs some continuity in her life.” Mum listens to what Roger says, and to be honest, Roger never talks without thinking first.

That’s the trouble with Roger. It would be easier if I could just dislike him. Hate him, even. But he won’t let me. He keeps doing things which trick me into liking him, until I remember that I mustn’t like him because it is so disloyal to Dad. But it was Roger who made sure I got Sadie. And it’s Mum who talks about “settling in” all the time, not Roger. Roger says you have to give everything time, and that we’ve all got to cut each other some slack, take it easy and let things fall into place. Roger is very laid-back about most things, but he can be tough, too.

Settling in. I hate that phrase so much. Even worse are the adults who tell Mum that children are very adaptable and soon forget the past.

“Not Sapphire,” says Mum grimly when people tell her how quickly we’ll get used to our new life. “Her mind is closed.”

Is my mind closed? No. It’s wide open. I’m always waiting.

Every day I go down to the beach, to the water’s edge, and listen. When we first got here in September, there were still tourists on the beach. Naturally, Faro kept away. I didn’t really expect to see him. But if I was going to see him on any of the St Pirans beaches, it would be at Polquidden – the wildest beach. The storms crash in here from the southwest, and at low tide you can see the remains of a steam-ship wreck. I think Polquidden Beach is the closest that St Pirans comes to Ingo. The rocks at the side of the beach are black, heaped up into shapes like the head and shoulders of a man. Sometimes when I’m down there with Sadie, I catch myself scanning those rocks, looking for a shape like a boy with his wetsuit pulled down to his waist. A shape that is half-human, half-seal, but not quite like either of these.

Faro. He came last night. If my mind had been closed I would never have heard the voice of Ingo. That’s why I can’t settle into St Pirans. I mustn’t. I’ve got too much to lose.

“Saph! Saa-aaphh!”

I spin round. Sadie bounds forward. It’s Conor, running down the beach.

“There you are, Saph. I’ve been looking all over for you. Come on.”

“What’s happened?”

“Something amazing. Come quick—”

My heart leaps. I know what Conor’s going to tell me. We’re going back to Senara. Mum’s tired of St Pirans. Maybe… maybe she’s splitting up with Roger. We’re going home!

“There’s a pod of dolphins in the bay. They’re playing off Porthchapel, close in. Mal’s dad is taking the boat out, and he says we can both come if we get there quick.”

“What about Sadie?”

“We’ll drop her at the house on the way.”

Our house is in a street close to Polquidden, tucked away behind the row of cottages and studios which faces the beach. We leave Sadie there and race through the narrow streets. Even Conor’s out of breath. He ran all the way from Porthchapel so that I could get the chance of going out in the boat too.

“Thanks, Conor!”

“What?”

“For not just going out – in the boat – without me…”

“I wouldn’t go without you.”

We cross the square, go down the Mazey and we’re nearly there. Porthchapel Beach stretches ahead. There’s a little crowd of people, and a bright orange inflatable boat in the water.

“Come on, Saph! They’re ready to go.”

Mal’s Dad gives us a lifejacket each, and we fix them on while he starts the engine. Mal splashes thigh-deep in water, pushing the boat out.

“We’ll take her out in the bay a bit, then I’ll kill the engine so we don’t scare them,” says Mal’s dad. “Mind, they like boats. I reckon there’s about twelve of them in the pod, could be more. November – it’s late in the year to see them here.”

There are a dozen or more people at the water’s edge. More are hurrying down the slope from the putting green. I shade my eyes and scan the water. Porthchapel Beach is sheltered and the sea is always calmer here than on Polquidden. Suddenly I see what I’m looking for. The water breaks, and a dark, glistening shape breaches the water. The back of a dolphin, streaming with water as it leaps and then dives back into the sea. Another dolphin breaches, and then another. They swim in a half-circle, in tight formation. Suddenly five of them leap at once, as if the same thought came to them all at the same instant.

One dolphin is much smaller than the others. A young one, probably a calf born in the spring. It’s almost a baby, even in dolphin terms.

Dad taught me about dolphins. He loved them. He took loads of photographs of them. He knew the ones that came back year after year, but he said it was wrong to give dolphins human names and human characteristics. They know what their names are, he always said. They have their own language. They’re better communicators than we are.

The dolphin calf is swimming close to its mother. She’ll be taking him south soon, to warmer waters. Wherever the dolphins are, Ingo is there too, I remember that. Even when they show their backs above the water, or leap right through the skin into the Air, they still carry Ingo with them. So Ingo must be very close…

A pod is like a family of dolphins, and here they are, playing in full view of the humans whom they ought to fear. I count them. Six – eight – eleven – yes, Mal’s dad is right, there are twelve dolphins here. They don’t seem at all afraid of us. But they should be afraid. Why should they trust a boatload of humans?

They’re coming closer and closer inshore. People on the beach are waving and clapping. Mal’s father switches off the engine and lets the boat rock. A long swell moves under the water’s surface. Little waves slap the side of our boat. I sit forward, tense, waiting. Something is about to happen. Every sound seems to die away, even the noises of the sea and the people cheering the dolphins.

One of the dolphins leaps high out of the water.

“She’s seen us. She wants to talk to us,” I say under my breath to Conor. Mal glances at me.

Conor turns casually and murmurs in my ear. “Be careful, Saph.”

Mal’s dad stands up, legs braced for balance, camera in hand. “Should be able to get some good shots from here,” he says.

I was wrong. It isn’t quiet at all. Sound floods across the water in a wave. The dolphins are talking to each other. There are more than a dozen voices, weaving together, clicking and whistling, filling the sea with a net of sound. Cautiously, so that my weight balances that of Mal’s dad, I stand up too.

“Careful, Saph,” says Conor again.

They want to come to the surface. They want to talk to us. What is it? What’s happening?

“Beautiful,” says Mal’s dad. He has got his shots. “I’m going to blow up these images into posters.”

“Hush. Listen.”

“What is it?” asks Mal.

“Don’t talk. I can’t hear what they’re saying if you talk.”

“They do say dolphins have their own language,” agrees Mal’s dad.

And now I hear it. It’s like tuning into radio stations on an old-fashioned radio. The air waves wheeze and crackle. There’s a snatch of music, then something that might be words in a foreign language. One of the dolphins leaps so close to the boat that its wake catches us, our boat rocks and Mal’s dad has to struggle to keep his balance.

“This – is – amazing,” says Mal in a low, awestruck voice. “I never seen them come in so close. Look at him there.”

It’s not a male, it’s a female. An adult female with broad, shining sides and small, dark, intelligent eyes that look at me with recognition. Of course. Of course. I know her. I know the shape of her – her powerful fluke that drives her through the water, and her dorsal fin. I know what her skin feels like when I’m riding on her back with the sea rushing past me. I know her voice, and the power of the muscles beneath her skin.

“Hello,” I say. My voice makes only the feeblest click and whistle, like a baby trying to talk dolphin. She turns, swims away from the boat fast then turns again and rushes the boat. Three metres from us, she stops dead. Water surges and her eyes gleam, catching mine.

“That is just so am-az-ing,” says Mal again. Even though he’s Cornish, Mal likes to sound American, or maybe it’s meant to be Australian. He thinks it’s cool.

“I reckon she’s having a game with us,” says his father. “They’re playful creatures, dolphins.”

She’s not playing. You can tell that from her voice. Lots of other voices are breaking in, all of them dolphin voices, some close, some far away. They weave a net of urgent sound, but her voice rises above them all.

kommolek arvor trist arvor

truedhek arvor

arvor

kommolek

lowenek moryow

Ingo lowenek

The dolphin language weaves like music. I hear some of it, and then it slides away. It rushes over my mind, teasing and tickling. I can’t grasp it.

“Please help me. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

She is very close to the boat now. Her eyes look directly into mine, powering their intelligence into me. But I can’t decode it; I can’t get there. My brain fizzes with irritation, just as it does when I’m on the point of solving a puzzle in maths.

And then the connection breaks.

“Hey, Sapphire, that was fantastic fake dolphin language you were talking!” says Mal, and the dolphin turns and dives back to the pod. I think it’s Mal’s appreciation which is fake, but I say nothing. Conor is watching me, silently willing me to shut up and not draw any more attention to myself. And I certainly don’t want everyone in St Pirans to think that I’m a crazy girl who converses with dolphins.

I haven’t conversed with the dolphin. I didn’t understand her and I don’t think she understood me. My brain and tongue couldn’t break the barrier this time, into Mer. The dolphin was so close, struggling to make me hear her, but I couldn’t. Maybe moving to St Pirans has taken me farther from Ingo altogether. I’m losing what I used to know. At this rate I will never, ever speak full Mer. A wave of despair washes over me, and I huddle down into the bottom of the boat.

Mal tags along all the way back to our house. Conor asks him in, but I say nothing. Leave us alone, go away, I think. As if he picks up my thoughts, Mal says, “All right then, I’ll be getting along. See you, Conor. Um… see you, Sapphire.”

“Bye.”

As soon as we’re inside the house, Conor says, “You might be more friendly to Mal. He likes you.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“OK, he only thinks he likes you. But you don’t have to be so hard on him. You don’t have to dive away when anyone comes near you.”

I hug Sadie so I can hide my face in her neck. Conor isn’t going to be deflected.

“That dolphin, Saph.”

“Which dolphin?”

“You know which dolphin. The one you were talking to.”

“I couldn’t talk to her properly. I was trying really hard, but I couldn’t. I think it might have been because I was in the Air and she was in Ingo. Even when dolphins leap out of the water, they are still in Ingo, Faro told me that. Or maybe I’m just forgetting everything.”

It’s the first time Faro’s name has passed between us for weeks. Conor frowns.

“Why did the dolphins come? Was it a message from Faro?”

“No. It wasn’t anything to do with Faro, I’m sure of that. It wasn’t exactly a message from Ingo – it was about Ingo. The dolphins were trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quick enough. I couldn’t pick it up.”

“Did you want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I just said. Did you want to pick up their message?”

“Of course I did. It was Ingo, Conor, trying to communicate with me. With us,” I add hastily.

“You don’t have to pretend. It was you the dolphin was talking to. But what I want to know is, do you want to listen? Do you really want all that to begin again?”

“Conor, how could I not want it? It’s Ingo.”

Conor’s eyes search my face. A strange thought strikes me. Conor is trying to decode me, in the same way as I was trying to decode the language of the dolphins. But Conor and I belong to the same species. We’re brother and sister, for heaven’s sake. After a while, Conor says very quietly, “You could if you tried. But you don’t try, Saph.”

I struggle to explain. “It’s not like that. I don’t have a choice. I feel as if I’m only half here. Only half-alive. Our life here in St Pirans is all wrong for me. I feel as if I’m watching it on TV, not living it. Oh, Conor, I wish I was away in Ingo—”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s true.”

“I know,” says Conor slowly and heavily. “You can’t help wanting what you want. I don’t blame you, Saph. I do know how you feel. It’s so powerful, so magical. It draws you. It draws me, too… But I think that if you try as hard as you can – if you really struggle – you can stop yourself taking the next step.”

“What next step?”

Conor shrugs. “I don’t know. I was thinking aloud.” His voice changes and becomes teasing instead of deadly serious. “But there’s something you haven’t thought of, Saph. You’re so keen to talk to dolphins that you’re forgetting Sadie.”

“What?”

“They don’t have dogs in Ingo, Saph.”

As if she’s heard him, Sadie pushes up close to me, nuzzling in. She always knows when things are wrong, and tries to make them better. Her brown eyes are fixed on my face. How could I have forgotten Sadie, even for a minute? They don’t have dogs in Ingo.

Maybe they do. Maybe they could. Sadie’s not like an ordinary dog. Could she come with me through the skin of the water, and dive into Ingo? I don’t know. I try to picture Sadie’s golden body swimming free, deep in Ingo, with her nostrils closed so that the water won’t enter them. But it doesn’t work: the picture I create in my mind looks like a seal swimming, not like Sadie at all.

Sadie whines. It’s a pleading, plaintive sound from deep in her throat. She puts her front paws up in my lap until her whiskers tickle my face.

“You’d never have got Sadie without Roger,” Conor goes on.” He really pressured Mum.”

I know that’s true, but I don’t feel like agreeing with Conor just now. Besides, why bring up Roger? Roger may have been the one who made sure I got Sadie, but he’s also taken Mum and split my family apart.

Sadie gazes at me reproachfully, as if begging me to admit that my version isn’t quite true. Who split your family apart, Sapphire? Was it Roger, or was it your own father, who loved you and Conor so much that he left you both without a backward look or even a note to let you know where he was going?

Your father, who has never seen you or spoken to you since.

Angry, bitter thoughts rise in my mind. I’m so used to loving Dad, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s also possible to hate him. Why did he go? What father who cared about his children would take his boat out in the middle of the night and never return? I can taste the bitterness in my mouth.

No, I’m not going to let that wave of anger drown me. I’m going to ride it. Dad disappeared for a reason. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to explain it to us yet.

Suddenly an upstairs window bangs. Our house here in St Pirans is tiny, even smaller than the cottage. Downstairs there’s one large living room, with the kitchen built into one end. Upstairs is larger because the house has something called a “flying freehold”. This sounds more exciting than it is. All it means is that part of this house is built above the house next door. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom. My room is so tiny that a single bed only just fits into it, but I don’t mind that at all because the room also has a round porthole window which hinges in the middle and swings open exactly like a real porthole on a ship.

Mine is the only window in the house from which you can see the sea. My bedroom is part of the flying freehold. I like it because it feels so separate from the rest of the house. I can’t hear Mum and Roger talking. I’m independent. When I kneel up on my bed and stare out to sea, I can imagine I’m on a ship sailing northeast out of Polquidden, out of the bay altogether, and into deep water—

The window bangs again, harder. The wind’s getting up. This is the season for storms. When storms come, salt spray will blow right over the top of the houses. I can’t wait to hear the sea roaring in the bay like a lion.

“Better shut your window, Saph.”

“Are you sure it’s my window that’s banging?”

“Yeah. No one else’s bangs like that. Your porthole’s much heavier than the other windows.”

Conor was right. The porthole has blown wide open. I kneel up on my bed and peer out. Beyond the jumble of slate roofs, there’s a gap in the row of studios and cottages through which I can glimpse the sea. The wind is whipping white foam off the tops of waves. Gulls soar on the thermals, screaming to each other. We’re very close to the water here. I’m used to living up on the cliff at Senara, and it still seems strange to live at sea level.

“I’m going down to the beach,” Conor shouts up the stairs.

“I’ll come with you.”

The wind’s really blowing up now. It pushes against us as we come round the corner of the houses and on to the steps.

“Do you think there’ll be a storm?”

Conor shakes his head. “No. The barometer’s fallen since this morning but it’s steady now. It’ll be a blow, that’s all.”

We jump down on to the sand. The cottages and studios are built in a line, right on the edge of the beach. The ground floor windows have big storm shutters that were hinged back when we first arrived, but now they are shut and barred. Some of the shutters are already half buried in sand that was swept up in the storms we had around the equinox, in late September

Sand could easily bury these houses. Imagine waking up one morning and finding the room dark because sand had blown right up to the top of your windows. Or maybe it wouldn’t be sand at all, but water. You could be looking at the inside of the waves breaking on the other side of the glass. And then the glass would break under the pressure, and the sea would rush in.

“I wonder how the sea always knows just how far to come, and no farther,” I say to Conor. “It’s so huge and powerful, and it rolls in over so many miles. But it stops at the same point every tide.”

“Not quite at the same point. Every tide’s different.”

“I know that. But the sea doesn’t ever decide to roll a mile inland. And it could if it wanted, couldn’t it? With all the power that’s in the sea, why does it stop here when it could swallow up the whole town?”

“Like Noah’s Flood.”

“What?”

“You remember. God sent a flood to drown the whole world and everything in it, because people were so evil. But Noah built his ark and he survived. And when the flood was over, God promised he’d never do it again.”

“Do you believe in God, Conor?”

“I don’t know. I tried praying once, but it didn’t work.”

“What did you pray about?” But I already know. Conor would have prayed for Dad to come back. I know, because I did the same. I prayed night after night for Dad to come back, after he disappeared. But he never did.

“You know, Saph.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Did you pray as well?”

“Yes. Every night for a long time.”

“But nothing happened.”

“No.”

“You know what the story says that the rainbow is? The Noah story, I mean.”

“No.”

“It’s a sign that there’ll never be another flood like the one that drowned the world.”

“Hey, Con, I forgot to tell you. I met a girl called Rainbow.”

But Conor isn’t listening. He’s shading his eyes and staring into the distance, out to sea. At first I think he’s looking for surfers, but then he grabs my arm. “There! Over there by the rock! Did you see her?”

“Who? Rainbow?” I ask, like an idiot.

“Elvira,” he says, as if that’s the obvious, only answer. As if the one person anyone could be looking for is Elvira.

He never talks about her. Never even says her name. But she must have been in his mind all the time, since the last time he spoke to her. That was just after Roger and his dive buddy Gray were almost killed, when they were diving at the Bawns.

I remember how Conor and Elvira talked to each other, once we’d got Roger and Gray safely into the boat. Conor was in the boat, leaning over the side, and Elvira was in the water. They looked as if there wasn’t anyone else in the world. So intent on each other. And then Elvira sank back into the water and vanished, and we took the boat back to land.

“I can’t see Elvira,” I say. “I can’t see anything.”

“There. Follow where I’m pointing. Not there – there. No, you’re too late. She’s gone.”

“Are you sure, though, Conor? Was it really Elvira?”

“It was her. I know it was her.”

“It could have been part of a rock.”

“It wasn’t a rock. It was her.”

“Or maybe a surfer—”

“Saph, believe me, it was Elvira. I couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.”

I still don’t think it was. I have no sense that the Mer are close. Neither Faro, nor his sister, nor any of the Mer. But in Conor’s mind, a glimpse of a rock or a seal or a buoy turns into a glimpse of Elvira.

“I keep nearly seeing her,” says Conor in frustration, “but then she always vanishes. I’m sure it was her this time.”

“You can’t be sure, Conor.”

“She was out in the bay earlier on, when the dolphins came.”

“Are you certain? I didn’t see anything.”

“She was there; I know she was. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned she was gone. I expect it was because Mal and his dad were there. Elvira wouldn’t risk them seeing her.”

“Do you think they could?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s only us who can see the Mer. Because of what Granny Carne said, you remember, about our blood being partly Mer. Maybe even if Faro or Elvira swam right up to the boat, Mal and his dad still wouldn’t see them.”

I remember the words Faro said to me: Open your eyes. Maybe that doesn’t just mean opening your eyelids and focusing. Maybe it’s to do with being willing to see things, even if your mind is telling you that they can’t possibly be real—

“Of course they’d see Elvira if she was there,” Conor argues. “You’re making the Mer sound like something we’ve imagined. Elvira’s as real as… as real as… Saph, why do you think she’s hiding? Why won’t she talk to me?”

“I don’t know.”

I don’t think I should say any more. Our roles seem to be reversing. Suddenly I’m the sensible, practical one, and Conor is the dreamer, longing for Ingo. No. Be honest, Sapphire. It’s not Ingo he’s longing for; it’s her. And maybe that’s what is making me so sensible and practical—

“We’d better go home, Conor. It’s starting to rain.”

“Saph, you said it!” Conor swings round to face me, smiling broadly.“You said it at last. I had a bet with myself how long it would be before you did.”

“Said what? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear yourself? You said, ‘home’.”