A Map of the Sky

by Claire Wong

  “He does,” his mum answered for him, and the women smiled.

  “Well, we had better go. We’ve got a few more miles to walk before it gets dark.” They left chattering together about mutual friends.

  “If I have the energy to be walking miles when I’m that age, I’ll be quite happy,” said Catherine.

  “I guess I’m a bit like Dad,” Kit said aloud. “I like books, like you do, but I like making things with him. We both like running too. I wish he was here; it would be more fun with Dad.”

  “Well, let’s hope you haven’t inherited his uselessness in a crisis,” his mother laughed darkly. Silence fell, full and uncomfortable. Juliet looked down and seemed to be chewing her lower lip instead of the scone on her plate.

  “What do you mean?” Kit asked.

  His mother’s eyes darted around. “Nothing, love. Finish your juice and we can go down to the sea.”

  “Do you mean the time when he left the potatoes in the oven too long and it set off all the fire alarms and there was loads of smoke everywhere?”

  “Never mind that now.”

  “Because he didn’t mean to. Mr Kendrick next door came round to ask to borrow a ladder because he’d locked himself out of the house and needed to climb in through the window, but then he got stuck halfway and Dad spent so long standing outside laughing about it that he forgot all about Sunday lunch and that’s why the potatoes got burned.”

  “Come on, I said drink up. Let’s go now.” She stood up and put her arms into the sleeves of her coat.

  Kit studied her face, and then tried to get a look at Juliet’s, but she still had not raised her head. He had the distinct impression that his mother had said more than she meant to, and more even than he had understood.

  They left the tearoom, Juliet leading the way this time, marching ahead of them down the slope and through the archway. Their mother half ran in an effort to catch up with her, and Kit wondered if the two of them would lose their footing on the steep road and tumble to the coast. He pictured them rolling down, a comical and undignified whirlwind of shoes and handbags flailing.

  When they reached flatter ground, it was on the harbour front. Small, brightly coloured fishing boats were moored in neat rows. Kit moved to the edge of the walkway so that he could read the names painted on their sides: Stickleback, Daybreak, Amphitrite. He wondered what Maddie would have called her boat, if she had not given up on it. A white-haired man with sun-scorched skin that reminded Kit of the texture of a raisin was sitting on the deck of one of these, winding a long coil of rope in his ancient hands. He fixed Kit with a stare but said nothing. He looks like he knows as much as the sea itself, Kit thought.

  “Look at those,” Kit’s mum said, pointing to a stack of small cages with wooden bases and sides made of blue netting. “Do you know what they’re for?”

  “Um… for keeping gulls in?” he guessed. Being by the sea, he would have hazarded fish as an answer, but he could not picture the kind of fish that you could put in a cage.

  “Not quite. Fishermen use them to catch lobsters on the seabed.”

  “I read that some chefs cook lobsters while they’re still alive,” said Juliet. “I think that’s horrible.”

  Their mother marched them on swiftly. It had been a year since Juliet’s last threat to become a vegetarian, and Catherine had combated this predominantly by changing the subject every time it came up in conversation. Beyond the harbour, past the stalls selling chips and sticks of rock and tea in paper cups, was the bay. The tide was out, and from here to the cliffs on the south end was nearly half a mile of exposed sand and pools of saltwater. The seaweed draped over the rocks was lime green and stringy in some places, dark and leafy in others. Glistening water dripped from its fronds down to the grey sands. Behind them was a high wall, and above it a row of beach huts with doors in bold primary colours. A few had deckchairs arranged outside them, whose occupants were reading paperback novels or unpacking picnic hampers.

  “‘Tell him to find me an acre of land…’”

  It took Kit a moment to recognize where the sound was coming from. “What are you singing?” he asked his mother. Back in their old house, he had been used to hearing her sing to herself while she cooked or rearranged her files in the study, but since moving here, she had stopped.

  “‘…between the salt shore and the sea strand.’ Oh, it’s an old song called ‘Scarborough Fair’. It seemed appropriate. Do you know it?”

  Kit shook his head. The wind was blowing in off the North Sea so he unzipped his coat and spread his arms wide. The material flapped about him like wings or sails. I wonder how big a coat I’d need for the wind to carry me away.

  “I wish we had a kite,” he said. A man some hundred metres down the beach shouted an apology as his terrier ran past them in pursuit of a tennis ball and narrowly missed colliding with Juliet. She jumped back in alarm.

  “Stay here with your sister,” said his mother. “I won’t be long.”

  She walked off back towards the road behind the bay, still singing to herself. Kit obediently stood near his sister, who was staring out to sea.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, because it was clear he would have to start the conversation. Juliet rolled her eyes, but he persisted. “All the people who’ve come to Askfeld this summer – they’re all there to escape something, aren’t they? That’s what Maddie was trying to say the other day when she couldn’t fix the boat.”

  Juliet said nothing, so Kit continued.

  “Bert was getting away from all his colleagues laughing at him for his mistake. Maddie went on her pilgrimage to stop having to think about her old job all the time. Do you remember on our first day here, how Sean told us what Askfeld used to be called? He said the previous owner called it The Last Resort. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad name for the place after all. People go there when they’re out of options. And it got me thinking about whether that’s why we’re here too.”

  In his head, this had been the moment when Juliet would turn to him and say, “Well done, Kit. You figured it all out. I’ll explain everything now, and then Dad can move up here and live with us again.” But she did not move or make a sound.

  “Are you OK?” he asked, because he was unsure if her eyes were glistening because of the fierceness of the wind on her face or from trying not to cry.

  “Of course I am. I was just thinking how I wish I could escape you talking all the time.”

  He was about to take the bait and retort with an insult, but something made him stop. Instead, he waited. And after a pause, she continued.

  “For such a mind-numbingly quiet place, there’s so much chatter. I wish I could get away from it all sometimes. Not just other people, like you and those old ladies in the café, but the noise of thinking all the time. Turn off the part of my brain that revises French verbs when I’m trying to sleep.”

  Was it possible to stop your mind in its tracks? He had no idea. It was not a skill he had ever thought might be useful.

  “We could look for grey seals,” he offered. That had cheered him up the day he had gone searching for an albatross. “I saw some near the guest house once. And Sean said there are sharks and whales out there, though I’m not sure if I believe him.” He had little enough reason to trust anything Sean said after what he had overheard him say about Beth. Thinking about the Garsdales and Askfeld reminded him of the map. He wondered if Beth would have made any additions to it, or if she was stuck without his help. He felt a strange pang of guilt whenever he thought of it: that he had let people down by not seeing it completed before they left for their new home in Utterscar. It was not entirely his fault, since the move had been sprung on him at a few hours’ notice, but nonetheless he felt that he should have completed his quest.

  “If we wander off, Mum won’t know where to find us when she gets back. You’re so easily distracted, I’m amazed you haven’t got lost or fallen off a cliff yet!”

  Kit shrugged and resigned himself to waiting.
r />   When their mother returned, it was with a brown paper bag under her arm.

  “What’s that?” he asked eagerly.

  The paper rustled as she held it out to show them a diamond of blue canvas, thin white wires, and a reel of thread.

  “I saw a stall selling kites on the way over here,” Catherine explained. This was not the sort of impulsive behaviour Kit expected from his mother. His dad was the fun one – that was how things were. But his mum opened up the packaging and unfolded the kite, smoothed out the crêpe-paper streamers of its tail, and tied the string to the supporting bars, all as if she were completely oblivious to the way she had strayed outside her normal territory.

  “Now then, Juliet, would you like to hold the string? There you go. Kit, you take the kite now and run over to those rocks. Hold it high above your head. You’ll need to wait for a good gust of wind. When you feel it, let go!”

  He took the kite and ran as instructed, while Juliet let out the string. At the rocks, which were still slippery from the retreating tide, he found a place to stand and lifted the kite up on outstretched arms. As the wind blew in, it filled out like a ship’s sail and the cord became taut. Kit jumped into the air and let go of the kite as he did. It swooped up, carried high by the breeze and then began to circle back downwards. Kit heard his mum telling Juliet to pull in the string, and as she did, the kite stopped its descent and rose up again.

  “It’s flying!” Kit cheered, watching the bright blue shape flutter, with lilac streamers dancing behind it.

  When the wind dropped and the kite fell to the sand, Kit ran to fetch it and bring it back in.

  “Can I hold the string this time?” he asked. Juliet handed it over to him.

  “Juliet, do you want to take the kite?” She did not, so their mother carried it away while Kit tried not to let the string tangle as he rolled it back out. Juliet stood behind him as he tugged at the string to try to keep the kite airborne. A seagull flying in to land had to make a swift detour as the kite charged towards it, and the two of them laughed.

  “You nearly hit that bird!” said Juliet.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “See if you can aim for the next one that comes in.” She smiled mischievously, and Kit knew she did not mean it. He found it was too hard to control the direction of the kite; it depended too much on what the wind was doing and he could not send it towards a target.

  “This is good. I’ve missed this,” he said.

  “Missed what? Kite-flying?”

  “No, you being fun Juliet again, not boring, serious, too-much-work-to-do, too-many-friends-to-see Juliet.”

  “Oh.” Juliet was silent for a while. “We used to get on all right, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, before you moved schools.”

  “Well, we’ll both be at St Jude’s together from September. It’s really weird that you’re old enough to be in secondary school already.”

  “There you go! You talk like a grown up all the time now. You sound just like Mum, or one of those old ladies from the café.”

  “Well, I’m not a kid any more. People grow up. And what’s expected of you changes.”

  “Like what? You mean your exams, or having friends who say nasty things behind each other’s backs?” These things were obviously bad, but he could not shake the feeling there was something else she had neglected to tell him.

  She looked away. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “When I’m your age, I’m going to make sure I still read good books and play football on Saturdays and fly kites at the beach.”

  Juliet made a “hmm” noise and watched the kite soaring above them. “When you start at our new school, just be careful when choosing your friends, OK? The people you hang out with at school have a way of shaping you and getting under your skin. So pick the right people.”

  Kit thought this advice was a bit rich coming from Juliet, whose friends had always seemed melodramatic and selfish, as far as he could see.

  The kite danced and twirled overhead, its streamers performing pirouettes in the air.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE CONSPIRACY

  DAY TWENTY-NINE

  The best things about my family are:

  1. Dad – he’s fun, and knows how to make stuff and always has time for games. And I don’t know why he isn’t here, but even if he isn’t, I bet he misses us.

  2. Juliet – she’s really clever, which is sometimes annoying because Mum and Dad go on about it all the time, but it’s helpful when I don’t know the answer to something and I can just ask her. Also, I don’t think she’s completely lost her fun side, even if she has been really gloomy all year.

  3. Mum – she’s not as much fun as Dad, but she spends more time with us, and she never forgets to say well done when I do well in a test at school. Also, she reminds me that I need to be helpful to others, which is the sort of thing a hero should never forget.

  The next opportunity to visit Askfeld did not arise for a few days. Eventually, Catherine had to spend a morning driving to the next town, leaving the other two at home. Juliet had seemed resigned to the fact that Kit would want to walk to the guest house, almost before he suggested it.

  When they arrived, Juliet sat outside on the bench Sean had set in the garden, hammered together from weathered pieces of grey wood brought in by the tide. Here she could gaze out to sea. It surprised Kit that she was content to sit like this, but he didn’t challenge her, since it meant he was free to speak to Beth. The waves were playing against the rocks today, a curious deep blue that one moment seemed murky and foreboding and the next looked perfect for a summer swim. It reminded him of how Maddie had described the North Sea: gentle and yet so dramatic all at once.

  On clear days like this, Askfeld owned its cliff-top location with a sense of presiding over the coast. Its white walls gleamed in the sunlight and Kit knew the front door would stand wide open in welcome. He had meant to go indoors straight away, but as he crossed the garden and rounded the corner of one of the dilapidated old farm buildings, he stopped and ducked back out of sight. Sean was there, his back to Kit, and he was talking to the stranger with the false smile who had come to Askfeld looking for the Garsdales before. From here, Kit could not make out what they were saying, but Sean kept glancing back to the house and holding up his hands. The stranger was not smiling today. He jabbed an accusatory finger at Sean’s chest and then moved as if to walk right past him towards the guest house. Faster than Kit had ever seen him move, Sean jumped to block the stranger’s path. Then his shoulders sank and his head fell forward as he reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He produced a handful of crumpled notes and counted them out into the stranger’s hand. The other man still looked angry, but he seemed a little mollified. The stranger left, and Sean went back into the house.

  What could Sean be paying this man for? Kit was quite certain he wasn’t one of the usual suppliers to Askfeld, because he had spent so much time watching them come and go when he had stayed here. So it had to be something out of the ordinary, and nothing good if that man’s lifeless smile was any indication of his character.

  The words Nick had spoken to Sean weeks ago in an empty corridor of Askfeld returned to him. “Get her out of here somehow before the situation drags you even lower.”

  It would certainly explain Sean’s anxiety about being seen with the stranger, if this man was part of the plot to remove Beth. If money was exchanging hands, the conspiracy must be progressing faster now. It was time to warn her, before it was too late. With a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, Kit ran inside to find her.

  At once, he knew something was not right. The door to Beth’s room was wide open, revealing her empty chair and the map. But he could hear raised voices coming from the office where she kept the finance records.

  “It’s not complicated. We can’t go on like this,” Beth was saying. Kit breathed a sigh of relief: she was still here, at least. Sean had not got rid of his wife yet.


  “You say that like it’s news to me.” Sean’s voice was loud and clear through the closed door. “What do you think I’ve been working so hard for, all this time?”

  “I’m just saying maybe we need to look at some other options.”

  “You mean I do. We’re not having this conversation again.”

  “Well, what better ideas do you have?” It surprised Kit to hear Beth shout.

  “At least keep your voice down. The guests don’t want to hear you. It’s unprofessional.”

  “Unprofessional! What about letting this place fall apart because you’re too proud to ask for help? Is that your idea of professional?”

  “You talk like I’ve not done everything I can to keep us afloat.”

  “For goodness’ sake, stop trying to be a hero or a martyr and accept you can’t do it all by yourself!”

  “I never set out to, but that’s just how things have turned out. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  The shouting suddenly stopped. Silence fell in its place. It was such a stark contrast that Kit tiptoed towards the office door to listen more closely, just to be sure they were still there. Through the wall he could hear the soft sound of someone crying.

  “I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean that.” Sean was speaking at a normal level again.

  “But you did. And it’s true. It wasn’t meant to be like this. The dream was always the two of us, running our own place. You didn’t sign up for a back-breaking workload alongside caring for me.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t have the imagination to see it coming. But if you’d told me back then it would be like this, I wouldn’t have walked away.”

  The voices grew quieter now, and though Kit strained, he could not hear what they were saying. After a minute he heard someone moving inside the room, and ran back around the corner into the guest lounge just in time to avoid being spotted by Sean as he closed the door behind him. Nick must have come out of the kitchen shortly after, because Kit heard him speak next.