Читать книгу The Tide Knot - Helen Dunmore - Страница 8

“I’m just taking Sadie out, Mum!” I call up the stairs. It’s Sunday night. Mum and Roger are painting the skirting boards in Mum’s bedroom. They have stripped off the dingy cabbage-rose wallpaper, and now the bedroom walls are bare to the plaster. Our landlady says we can decorate as much as we like, and I’m not surprised. Her paint and wallpaper are not only hideous, but also old and covered in marks. When we got here, Mum wanted to paint all the rooms white.

“It’s a new start for all of us, Sapphy!”

I’ve painted my room blue and green, so that it looks like the inside of a wave. Our landlady, Mrs Eagle, has been up to see it, and she says it is ’andsome. Mrs Eagle is old. Her name doesn’t sound at all Cornish, but that’s because she married a man who came to St Pirans from upcountry during the War, she says. He died long ago. She must be about eighty, and she owns six houses in St Pirans, all of them full of cabbagey wallpaper, I expect. But the rent is low, Mum says, and that’s all that matters. Rents in St Pirans are terrible.

Mum appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s late, Sapphy. Can’t Conor take Sadie out?”

“He’s doing his maths homework.”

This is strictly true, but I haven’t asked him anyway, because I want to go out on my own. St Pirans is different when the streets are empty, and it’s dark, and there’s no one at all on the wide stretch of Polquidden Beach. I feel as if I can breathe then.

“All right, but don’t be long. Let me know when you’re back.”

Lucky it’s Mum, not Roger. Although he hasn’t known me very long, Roger is disturbingly quick to grasp when he is being told only a part of the truth, or indeed none of the truth at all.

The wind has died down over the weekend. It’s a cold, still night and the air smells of salt and seaweed. The moon is almost full, and it is riding clear of a thick shoal of clouds. I decide to take Sadie away from the streetlights on to the beach, where she can chase moon shadows.

I head down to Polquidden. The bay is full. It’s high tide. An exceptionally high tide. It’s not due to turn until eleven tonight, but look how far it’s come up the beach already. It reminds me of the autumn equinox, when the water came up right over the slipway and the harbour road.

There is still a strip of white sand left, but the water is rising quickly, like a cat putting out one paw and the next. Something else that surprises me is how quickly the sea has calmed. Surely the water should be much rougher than this after all the wind yesterday and today? The stillness is eerie.

Sadie doesn’t want to go down the steps. She puts her head down, with her legs braced apart.

“It’s all right, Sadie, you’re allowed on the beach now, remember?” I give a gentle tug on her lead, but she won’t budge.

“Sadie, you’re being very annoying…”

I am longing to be down on the sand. I pull a little harder, but she digs in her claws. I don’t want to force her.

“All right, then, Sadie. Wait here a minute.”

I loop her leash around a metal post. Sadie whines. There’s enough moonlight for me to see her face. She is pleading with me to stay, but I’m going to harden my heart this time. I’ve got to go down to the beach. The urge is so powerful that I ignore Sadie’s voice, give her a quick hug and say, “Stay, Sadie!” and then hurry down the steps.

There’s a sound of running water on my right. It’s the stream that tumbles down the rocks on to the beach. Children play in it and make dams in summer. The water glints in the moonlight as it pours over the inky-black rock. The sea is still rising. Why does it look so powerful tonight, even though there are no wild waves, no foam, no pounding of surf?

There’s not much beach left. I walk to my right, towards a spine of rocks that juts from the glistening sand. A wave flows forward, and I leap up on to the rocks to keep my trainers dry. But I’m still not quite high enough, because now the water is swirling at my heels. I scramble up again on to dry rock, and look back. The bay is full of moonlight and water. The sea is lapping around my rock already.

Sapphire, you idiot, you’re cut off! But it’s not very deep yet. Even in the dark I’ll be able to wade back easily before the tide comes in any farther. I’ll just take my trainers off. But I’d better be quick; look how the water’s rising—

“You’ll have to swim,” says a voice behind me. I start so violently that I almost fall off the rock. A strong hand grasps my wrist.

“It’s me, Sapphire.”

“Faro.”

“Yes.”

Suddenly I’m angry with him. “Why don’t you and Elvira come and see us in daylight, like you used to?” I ask sharply. “Conor keeps looking for Elvira. Where is she?”

“Here and there,” he says, with a gleam of laughter in his voice. “Around and about. Just like me.”

“Don’t laugh at me!” I say angrily. “I hate it when people are here one moment and then they just—”

I swallow the words I was going to say.

“I didn’t disappear,” says Faro seriously. “I won’t ever disappear. I promise you. But in St Pirans it’s more difficult for you to see us. Even at night it’s not easy. There are so many people. And besides, St Pirans is not our place.”

“I know that,” I say gloomily. “It’s not mine, either.”

“But you’re human. That’s what humans do, isn’t it? They crowd together in towns and cities. They love it when everything is covered over with concrete and Tarmac.”

Faro brings out the word Tarmac with pride. He loves to impress me with his knowledge of the human world.

“You’ve been talking to the gulls again. Do you even know what Tarmac is, Faro? Or concrete?”

“Of course I do. It’s stuff that humans pour on the earth to stop it breathing.”

The moonlight is strong enough for me to see his face clearly. “Faro, have you grown older?”

I know that their time runs differently from ours. Is it possible that Faro has grown a year, when I’ve only grown a few months? Or maybe he only looks older because of the expression on his face.

“You can enter Ingo in darkness, even from here, Sapphire. You already know that.”

A tremor of fear and anticipation runs through me. “But I can’t come to Ingo now, Faro. Mum’s expecting me back with Sadie. If I’m away more than half an hour at most, she’ll go crazy.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Time is hardly moving at all tonight.” He says it casually, as if saying that a boat is hardly moving across the water.

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. It’s a fortunate night, Sapphire. Come to Ingo now, and you’ll be back almost before you’ve gone. Look up at the moon.”

I stare up at the moon. The clouds look as if they are flying away from its bright surface. Moonlight bathes my face with silver.

“You’re already in Ingo, Sapphire,” says Faro.

He is right. Deep in my heart, I’ve already left the Air. The powerful, silent swell of the tide is covering my feet, my knees, my waist. The next pulse of water lifts me from the rock, and swallows me into the sea.

Into Ingo. I let out my breath, and it hardly hurts at all. I am breathing without breathing, my body absorbing oxygen from the rich water. My hair flows upward, then swirls down around my face. I push it aside. Ingo. I am in Ingo again, just as I was two nights ago. There’s a path of moonlight striking down deep into the water. I plunge forward and follow it.

How strongly I can swim in Ingo. My strokes are far more powerful than anything I can do in the Air. Below me, moonlight catches the glisten of the white sand on the sea bed. The water doesn’t feel cold. It feels like – it feels like…

Like home. Like the place where I am meant to be. I open my eyes wide and turn my head, and there is Faro swimming alongside me. The underwater moonlight shines on his tail.

“Look!” He points down. There’s a shadowy hulk, half buried in the sea bed. It’s not a reef, or a dead whale, or anything that belongs to Ingo. It’s something that belongs to Air. Metal. Yes, that’s what it is. A metal ship, half rotted away with rust, sailing to nowhere.

“I know what that is,” I say. “It’s the wreck of the Ballantine. You can see her funnels from the beach at low tide.”

“The wind drove her onshore and she was broken up,” says Faro. “We called and called to warn the sailors, but they couldn’t hear us.”

“Faro, the wreck happened seventy years ago. Why do you always talk about history as if you were there?”

“Open your mind, Sapphire. Let’s talk to each other like we did last summer.” He saw my memories, and I saw his. That’s what the Mer can do, because Mer minds are not quite separate from one another, as human minds are.

“Do you want to see what happened?” asks Faro. He floats close to me. “Look at the Ballantine, Sapphire.”

I gaze into the shadowy depths. We could swim down with a few strong strokes, and touch the jagged metal sides of the drowned ship.

I don’t want to. The wreck scares me. It must be terrifying to be driven ashore, helpless, caught by storm and tide. To know that your ship is going to smash on the rocks and break up, and that the water is too deep and wild to swim for shore.

The wind is beginning to whistle. I hear voices, crying out in terror. The Ballantine surges forward on a huge wave, and crashes on to the hidden reef. The entire ship judders with the shock. Metal shrieks and rips and grinds as the side of the Ballantine is torn open and the sea pours into her belly. Then the jumble of sound is pierced by human screams.

“No, Faro! No! I don’t want to hear any more!”

Immediately, the window of memory closes. I’m back in the calm moonlit water, with Faro.

“You saw it, little sister,” he says with satisfaction.“I wasn’t sure if you would have lost your power, living in the town.”

I shudder. “How could that wreck be in your memory, Faro? You’re not old enough to remember it.”

“The memory was passed to me by my ancestors, and so I can pass it on to you.”

“I wish you hadn’t. I don’t want those memories in my mind. Let’s get away from the wreck.”

“We can go right away if you want. Will you come deeper into Ingo with me, Sapphire? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?” My heart leaps. Perhaps – perhaps – could Faro possibly know someone who knows where Dad is?

“My teacher.”

“Oh.” I try hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but Faro picks it up at once.

“He is a great teacher,” he says, his voice proud, ready to take offence.

“I’m sure he is. Um… What’s his name?”

“Saldowr.”

“I can’t imagine going to school under the sea. What’s it like?”

Faro laughs. “We don’t go to school. We learn things when we need to learn them.”

“I see…” Faro sounds so sure that his way is the right way “…but wouldn’t it be easier just to go to school and learn everything in one place?”

“I’ve heard about ‘schools’. Thirty of you young humans together, with only one old human to teach you. All day long in one room.”

“We move to different classrooms for different lessons,” I point out.

“Hmm,” says Faro.

“We go outside at break and dinner time.”

“Human life is very strange,” says Faro slowly and meditatively. “All the young ones together, out of sight in these ‘schools’. Do you like it, Sapphire?”

“We have to do it. It’s the law.”

Faro nods thoughtfully. “I would like to see it. I expect the rooms are very beautiful, or none of you would stay. But, Sapphire, come with me to visit my teacher. He wants to meet you.”

“How far is it?”

“Not far,” says Faro carelessly. “A little beyond the Lost Islands, that’s all. We can be there and back by morning.”

“Morning!” All of a sudden the image of Sadie floods into my mind. Sadie, tied to an iron pole. She thinks I’m coming back in a few minutes. She’ll be worried already, pointing her nose towards the beach and rising tide, whining anxiously. I see her as clearly as I saw the inside of Faro’s memory. Usually the human world is cloudy when you‘re in Ingo, but Sadie’s image is bright and sharp. “I’ve got to get back, Faro.”

“Don’t worry about the time, Sapphire. Ingo is strong tonight. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You felt it. You slipped into Ingo almost before you knew it, and it didn’t hurt at all. Your Mer blood knows that Ingo is strong. Not only strong but happy. Listen, listen, Sapphire. You can hear that Ingo is lowenek.”

The word beats in my memory. Who said that to me? Of course, it was the dolphins. But they didn’t sound as if they were talking about happiness. It sounded urgent, dangerous. Like a warning.

“I have to go,” I say. “I must get back to Sadie. I left her tied to a pole by her leash.”

Faro somersaults through the moonlit water. His body spins in a pattern of light and shadow. When he’s the right way up again he says, “It seems to me that the one who is tied by a leash is you.”

“Me!”

“Yes. You’ve always got to go home. You stay in the shallows. You want to come to Ingo, but as soon as you’re here you want to go back again. Saldowr needs to speak to you. He has something to tell you.”

I’m about to snap back, when I realise that Faro is sharp because he is hurt. He offered to take me to his teacher and I refused. The offer must have been important to him. Faro has never spoken to me about his father or his mother. Perhaps he has no parents, and this teacher means a great deal to him.

“I’m sorry, Faro. I’d like to meet your teacher very much,” I say, “but I can’t tonight, not when I’ve left Sadie tied up.”

“Hm,” says Faro, sounding a little mollified by my apology. “We’ll see. Saldowr is not like a tame dog, Sapphire. You can’t leave him tied up and return when you feel like it.”

I stumble out of the water, dripping wet, into the chill of the night. The sea is slapping up to the very top step. As I watch, another wave pounces and the steps are completely submerged.

I shiver again, uncontrollably. Quick, quick, I must get home. My fingers shake violently as I untie Sadie. She presses against me, her body warm against mine, and her rough tongue licks my hands. But Sadie is trembling too. She’s afraid. Cold makes my voice stammer as I try to reassure her.

“I’m ssssorry I left you sssuch a long time… I didn’t mean to ssscare you, Sadie… Please, Sadie darling, stop shaking like that.”

I slide my key into the front door lock, creep up the stairs and dive into the bathroom. I strip off my wet clothes, jump into the shower and turn it on full. The hot water prickles like needles on my cold skin. I stand there, eyes shut, soaking up the steamy heat. In Ingo I’m never cold. I’ll put my clothes in the washing machine, stuff my trainers with newspaper and leave them by the boiler so that they’re dry by morning—

“Sapphy! Sapphire! Is that you in there?”

“Yes, Mum!”

“You were quick. I hope Sadie got a proper walk. Don’t use all the hot water, now.”

I was quick, was I? So Faro was right. Time is hardly moving at all in Ingo tonight.

“Out in a minute, Mum!” I call.

The next morning I come down to find Sadie lying full-length on the living room rug. Mum’s making coffee at the kitchen end of the room. She looks up quickly as I come in.

“Sapphy, I don’t want you to worry, but Sadie doesn’t look too good.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. She’s not herself.”

I kneel beside Sadie, and she thumps her tail languidly against the floor. Her eyes are dull. Even her coat seems to have lost its shine. But she was fine last night. I’m sure she was…

A cold feeling of dread steals into my heart, mixed with responsibility and guilt. I left Sadie tied up to a post. I went into Ingo without thinking about her. I might have been gone hours. But I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I was back almost before she had time to miss me.

Time. Is dog time the same as human time? Maybe my absence seemed endless to Sadie. Maybe she was afraid I’d drowned. Could Sadie possibly have guessed where I was? If she sensed that I’d left her behind, along with everything in the Air, to plunge into a strange world where Sadie couldn’t survive for more than a minute, how frightened she must have been. She must have thought I’d abandoned her.

“Shall we go for a walk, Sadie?” I say, testing her. But she doesn’t rise to the challenge. There’s no joyous leap to her feet, no skittering of paws on the wooden floor, no gleam of delight in her eyes. Sadie stares at me sadly, as if to say, “Why do you ask me now, when you know I can’t come?”

“She’s ill, Mum. She’s really ill.” I can’t help panic breaking into my voice, even though I don’t want to alarm Sadie.

Mum leaves the stove, comes over and stares down at Sadie, frowning. “No, she’s not right, is she?” she says at last. “I wish Roger was here. He’d know what to do. But he’s up at Newquay today.”

“I’ll take her to the vet.”

“The vet? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that bad, Sapphy. She’s only just become ill. We’ll let it wait a day or so, and see how she gets on.”

“You’re only saying that because the vet is expensive!” I burst out. “I’ll pay for it. I’ve still got most of my birthday money. That’ll be enough.”

“Sapphy, do you really think I’m the sort of mother who’d make you spend your birthday money on taking the dog to the vet? Do you?”

Mum sounds really upset.

“I don’t care. There’s nothing else I want to spend it on.” But I know I’m being unfair. Mum doesn’t see the danger, because she doesn’t know what Sadie experienced last night.

“Listen,” says Mum soothingly, “stop worrying, Sapphy. If Sadie needs a vet, then she’ll go to a vet. But we’ll wait and see until tomorrow.”

“But she’s ill, Mum. Look at her. She looks as if all her life’s gone out of her.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” says Mum briskly. “You do exaggerate, Sapphire. There’s Conor coming down now. Maybe he’ll be able to convince you.”

But Conor is in no mood for long discussions about Sadie’s welfare. He is giving an IT presentation at school today, and mentally he is already there, standing in front of the class. He barely glances at Sadie. “Calm down, Saph. Sadie’s tired, that’s all.”

“Tired!”

“Got to go, Mum. Later, Saph.”

“Is that the time?” Mum exclaims. “Oh, no! Why do I keep getting these breakfast shifts?”

Conor grabs his bag, guitar, IT folder, bottle of water and is out of the door.

“The bus, Sapphire! You’re going to miss the school bus!”

“It’s OK, Mum, you go to work. I’ve still got to make my packed lunch. The bus doesn’t leave for ten minutes.”

The door slams, and Mum’s gone.

Ten minutes. I open the fridge door and look inside. Milk, eggs, yoghurt… I stare at them. What did I open the fridge for?

Wake up, Sapphire, you’re supposed to be making your packed lunch. But just then Sadie whines, very quietly and pitifully. I slam the fridge door and hurry to her side. In a second, the decision is made. I’m not going to school. I am taking Sadie to the vet. I know where his surgery is – on Geevor Hill. My birthday money is in the chest under my bed. Forty pounds. If the vet sees that Sadie’s sick, surely he can do something for forty pounds?

“Come on, Sadie. Come on, now, good girl. We’re going to see someone who’ll make you feel better.”

I clip on Sadie’s collar and tug gently. She clambers awkwardly to her feet, and pads slowly across the floor to the front door.

I look up and down the street. No one’s about. “Come on, Sadie.” We make our way very slowly along the beach road and then up to the corner by the graveyard, where Geevor Hill begins. The vet’s surgery is halfway up. Sadie pants like a dog ten times her age. Her head droops to her chest.

“Why ent you at school, my girl?”

Oh, no, it’s Mrs Eagle. She’ll tell Mum.

“Inset day,” I say quickly.

“Never had they in my day,” says Mrs Eagle critically. “You belong to be at school on a working day.”

I smile brightly, and slip past her. “Just taking Sadie for a walk, Mrs Eagle.”

“Don’t look to me like she wants to walk up Geevor; looks to me like she wants to go back downlong,” grumbles Mrs Eagle. I escape as fast as I can, almost dragging Sadie.

The vet’s surgery is the one with the blue door. But on the blue door there is a laminated notice: SURGERY HOURS, ST PIRANS: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS ONLY. 10 A.M. – 5 P.M.

It is Monday. No surgery. Sadie looks up at me in mournful exhaustion. All at once I know in every fibre of my body that Mum and Conor are wrong. Sadie’s condition is serious. There isn’t time to wait for tomorrow’s surgery. Sadie needs help now, and there’s only one person who might be able to give it. Granny Carne. Everyone round Senara goes to Granny Carne when they have a trouble they can’t solve. I think of Granny Carne’s amber, piercing eyes, and the power in her. She’ll know what’s wrong with Sadie. She’ll help her, if anyone can.

At the same moment I hear the growl of a bus engine, changing gear at the bottom of the hill. I look back and there is a shabby blue bus with SENARA CHURCHTOWN on the destination board. Home. I stick out my hand.

The bus lumbers past without stopping. The driver turns to me and yells something I can’t hear, then as he gets towards the top of the hill I see he’s indicating left, pulling in at the bus stop to wait for me.

“Can’t stop on the hill, see,” he explains as I climb up the steps, pushing Sadie ahead of me. “Lucky for you I’m ahead of myself this morning.”

“Thanks for waiting.”

“I could see that poor old dog couldn’t hardly get up Geevor.”

I find my fare, and go to the back of the bus. He thought Sadie was old. That must be because she looks so weak.

I flop down on the back seat, with Sadie at my feet. The driver pulls out on to the road again, and picks up speed. On we go past the grey stone houses, past the rugby ground and the caravan site, past the farm at the edge of town and to the crossroads where the school bus turns left. But this bus turns right, on to the open road that leads across the moors to Senara. A streak of pale, wintry sun lights up the hills. The landscape opens wide and beautiful around us. I take a deep breath of freedom. No crowds, no busy streets. Just a narrow grey road rising over the wild country towards home.