Ingo

by Helen Dunmore

  “It’s not for me to know if you had your answer. But I can tell the bees liked you.”

  Conor grins. “I liked them. I want to keep bees one day.”

  “You work on that then. Anything you want will happen if you work on it. Sapphire’ll only get that dog if she makes it happen.”

  “Did she mean I will get Sadie?” I burst out as soon as we’re far enough from the cottage. “Was it like a prophecy, when she sees into the future?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it was just a piece of advice.”

  “Oh. That’s no good then.” My curiosity gets the better of me. “Go on, Conor, tell me what you asked the bees.”

  “I asked them if Dad was still alive.”

  “What?”

  “You heard. I asked them—”

  “But why? How would they know?”

  “You remember what I said about Dad coming up here last year? I thought that maybe Granny Carne had talked to the bees about Dad. Or even that Dad had talked to them. Maybe that’s how it works. Maybe the bees help her to see into the future.”

  “You’d have noticed if Dad had gone up to the hive with her.”

  “I might not have done. I was round the back, remember, watching the frogs. Anyway, when Granny Carne said that the bees have to be told about births and deaths, suddenly I thought that maybe they would know about Dad. And they would remember, because they keep their memories in the hive.”

  I stare at Conor in dread. What have the bees told him? But surely he couldn’t look so normal if they’d said Dad was…not alive anymore.

  “So? What did they say?”

  “Nothing,” says Conor. “I was an eejit to think they would. But there was something all the same….”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t describe it. A warm feeling. A good feeling. I think they did listen to me. They didn’t mind me being there.”

  “Conor, do you still really think Dad’s alive?” There. I’ve dared to say it at last. Sometimes I’m so scared that we’re just pretending to ourselves, month after month after month.

  “Yes,” says Conor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “MUM, WHAT ARE you doing home already? It’s only two o’clock!”

  “Are you all right, Mum?”

  Mum blushes. “I thought you two were out for the day,” is all she can think of saying. There on the table is a pile of chicken-and-tomato sandwiches. Mum’s got the bread knife in her hand, ready to slice them. But what a huge pile, far more than Mum could ever eat. She must have made them for all of us.

  I thought you two were out for the day.

  No. Not for us then. Thoughts whiz about in my head. The sandwiches are not the only food on the table. There’s a jar of olives, a straw basket of cherry tomatoes, a bag of cherries, a packet of my favorite potato chips, which we hardly ever buy because they cost so much, and a bottle of wine. The kind of expensive stuff that doesn’t come into our house unless it’s left over from the restaurant. But these don’t look like leftovers.

  Conor’s hand snakes into the cherry bag. Mum slaps it away.

  “Get off! Those aren’t for you.”

  “Who are they for, then?” asks Conor, but both of us have already guessed the answer. Roger. Roger has come home with Mum, while we were up at Granny Carne’s. Mum thought we were out of the way, so she said, Dear, darling Roger, do come to my beautiful cottage. My horrible children won’t be there.

  “Won’t you lose your job if you just go home whenever you feel like it, Mum?” I ask her.

  “Saph,” says Conor in a quiet, watch-what-you’re-saying voice, but I take no notice of him.

  “So where’s Roger then?” I ask.

  “Right,” says Mum, dropping her knife with a clatter. “That’s it. I’ve finally had enough. You don’t want me to have any life at all, do you, Sapphire? As long as I’m working all the hours God sends and looking after you the rest of the time, you’re happy. But if I try to go out—or have a friend—oh, no, that’s not allowed. Well, I’ve got news for you, my lady—”

  Don’t say it, Mum, I beg inside myself. Don’t tell me you’re going to marry Roger.

  “—I’ve got news for you.” Mum’s finger stabs the air. “I have got a life, not much I grant you, and just for once I’m going to do something for myself. Yes, I know those are your favorite chips, but just for once you’re not having them, and Conor’s not having those cherries either. I’m going on a picnic, and it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS,” yells Mum, and now her finger is stabbing right in my face. I jump back. The pile of sandwiches wobbles and begins to collapse. Conor leaps forward, but he’s too late. Chicken-and-tomato filling spatters over the floor.

  I dive down to help, but Mum shouts, “Leave them! I’m not giving anyone sandwiches that have been on this floor. Look at the state of it. I’ve asked you a dozen times to clean it, Sapphire.”

  An evil spirit jumps into my mouth. “If we had a dog, the sandwiches wouldn’t be wasted,” I say. Mum’s hand slaps down on the table.

  “Saph, go out. Just go outside,” urges Conor. But I can’t. I can’t even find the door, I’m crying so much.

  “Oh, Sapphy.” The next moment Mum’s arms are around me, and I can feel that she’s starting to cry too. “Why do you do it? Why do you always make things so hard for everyone?”

  “I don’t, it’s you that does—”

  “It’s both of you,” says Conor flatly. “You’re both just as bad as each other.”

  Mum pushes my tangly hair back and holds my face between her hands so that I’ve got to look at her.

  “Listen to me. I wasn’t planning to come back; that’s why I didn’t tell you. What happened is that Roger came in while we were setting up for lunches and said he was going to do his first dive today,” she says, in a voice that I know is meant to be soothing. “The weather’s perfect for it, and the tide. Gray was there too—he’s Roger’s dive buddy for this trip. They’re going to do an exploratory dive out by the Bawns. And Roger said he’d already asked Alissa at work if she’d swap shifts with me, and she was okay about it. So I’m going in to work tomorrow, on Alissa’s shift, instead of having my day off then.”

  If Mum thinks I’m going to be distracted by details of her shifts, she’s mistaken. “But you don’t ever come down to the cove, Mum. You hate the sea.”

  I feel as if Mum’s betraying everything. She’s turning into a different person. Dad always wanted her to come down to the water, and she never would. We never went out in the boat together. But now, because of Roger, suddenly everything’s changed, and Mum’s longing to go for a seaside picnic.

  “You won’t really go down to the cove, will you?” I ask disbelievingly.

  “Oh, yes, I will,” says Mum. “It’s all gone on long enough. It’s time to open up my life a bit.”

  “You’re never going out in the boat with Roger and Gray!”

  “No,” says Mum. “I can’t push myself as far as that yet. But maybe one day I will. Roger’ll help me.”

  “Roger,” I say, trying to put everything I feel into the name.

  “You shouldn’t be so dead against him,” says Mum.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t know what he’s like. You don’t even want to find out. He’s a good man. He cares about both of you. He even—”

  “Even what?”

  “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Mum! What shouldn’t you have said anything about?”

  Mum glances at Conor for help, but Conor’s not saying anything.

  “All right, then. Roger thinks—for some unknown reason—that I’m not being fair to you about the dog business. He reckons you’re old enough and responsible enough to have a dog. But if he’d seen today’s performance, he might change his mind.”

  “Mum!” My thoughts are not just whizzing around now; they are performing loops and swoops and dives and turning back on themselves. Roger—Roger—thinks
Mum’s not being fair about Sadie. And he’s trying to get her to change her mind. Trying to persuade her that we can have a dog…

  Pictures crowd into my head. Sadie, in our house, in her own basket. Sadie, padding upstairs to my room to wake me in the mornings—or maybe even sleeping in my room. Me taking Sadie for long walks whenever I want. Taking Sadie on the coast path, up on the Downs, checking her paws for thorns, brushing her coat, giving her a bath outside, taking her to the vet, whistling for her when she’s roaming around outside…

  Come on in, Sadie girl, Conor’s gone up to Jack’s, so it’s just you and me this evening, but we don’t mind, do we? We’ve got each other.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Sapphy. It’s not decided yet.”

  “Oh, Mum.”

  “I’m still thinking about it. Mary Thomas says she’d keep an eye on the dog during the day, when you were back at school.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Take it easy, Saph,” says Conor.

  “We won’t say any more about it now,” says Mum. “I must get on with this picnic. They’ll be here soon.”

  “You’re really going down there, then, Mum?” Conor asks. He sounds like an adult, not a boy. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “Maybe she’ll take up diving,” I say before I can stop myself. Mum shudders.

  “One day at a time,” she says. She lets go of me, and I step back.

  “‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus,’” I sing; then I continue, because Dad always did, “‘One drink at a time, sweet Jesus.’”

  “I’d be angry if I thought you knew what you were singing, Sapphire,” says Mum severely. “Making mock like that.”

  “She’s only singing what Dad used to sing,” says Conor. Dad’s name falls awkwardly, and conversation stops. Mum looks from one of us to the other.

  “I’d better get on,” she says at last. “Roger and Gray are bringing the boat around,” and she begins to butter more bread.

  Conor and I look at each other. For the first time, what’s about to happen seems real. I’d rather keep on thinking about Sadie, but I can’t. Roger and Gray are coming here. They’re going to dive. An exploratory dive by the Bawns, Mum said.

  Roger thinks it’s an ordinary dive, like he’s done a hundred times before. Him and his dive buddy and his powerful boat and his wonderful equipment. Roger, Mr. Experienced Diver.

  But Faro’s there. The Mer. All of it. The tiny bit of Ingo that I’ve seen and everything else that lies hidden. It’s hidden because it wants to be hidden. The Mer don’t want Air People there. The Bawns mean something that I don’t understand. Faro said so. It was when we were talking about the Bawns that he got so angry. Faro said that Roger would never go there. All of Ingo will prevent it—was that what he said? Or was it something about protecting the Bawns? All of Ingo will protect them. Whatever his exact words were, Faro meant every one of them. His face was like the sea when a storm’s whipping up on it.

  “Me and Saph’ll go on down to the cove then, Mum, unless you need us here,” says Conor. “Sure you’ll be all right climbing down?”

  “I can manage,” says Mum. “It’s not the climb down that worries me.” She makes herself smile, and I know how afraid of the sea she still is. How hard she’s trying, because of Roger. “I’ve got to do it on my own.”

  “Be careful. The rocks are slippery,” warns Conor. “Let me help you, Mum.”

  “Do you think I don’t know by now what the sea can do?” asks Mum quietly. “You two go off now and let me finish this in peace. I’ll see you down there later. Roger’ll be glad to show you the diving equipment, Con. He says there’s a starter diving course you can take, at the dive school in St. Pirans. It’s just a week, to give you a taste of what diving’s like. He’s going to fix it up with that friend he told you about.”

  As soon as we are out of the cottage, we start to run.

  “Conor, they hate divers. Faro told me—”

  “I know. Air People with air on their backs—”

  “Taking Air into Ingo. Did Elvira tell you that as well?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he’s going to the Bawns. He doesn’t know—”

  “What about the Bawns? What doesn’t Roger know?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s something serious. Faro said there was something out at the Bawns so important that the whole of Ingo would defend it. He wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

  “And Roger’s going to dive there. That’s all we need.”

  Down the track, down the path, over the lip of the cliff, and down, down, hearts pounding, hands slippery with sweat, stumbling on loose stones and catching hold of the rock. Down and down, sliding on seaweed, jumping from rock to rock, past limpets and mussels and dead dogfish and dark damp crevices where the sun never goes and there are piles of driftwood and bleached rope and plastic net buoys.

  And down onto the firm white sand. Everything is calm and sunny and beautiful. The sea is like a piece of wrinkled silk. The beach is empty. Little waves curl and flop onto the shore. We shield our eyes from the light and squint toward the rocks at the entrance of the cove. Nothing. No sign of a boat.

  “They must be out there.”

  “How long would it take to come round by boat from St. Pirans?”

  “I don’t know. Not that long. Roger’s boat has a powerful engine.”

  “Maybe it’ll break down,” I say hopefully.

  “It’s new. Anyway, dive boats usually carry backup parts,” says Conor.

  You can’t see the Bawns from here. The rocks at the mouth of the cove hide them. Maybe Roger and Gray are out there now, preparing to dive. They don’t know what the Bawns mean to the Mer. They’ll trespass without knowing what they’re doing, and all the force of Ingo will be against them.

  “If only we had a boat,” mutters Conor.

  “We’ve got to get out there somehow, before they do!”

  “We can’t,” says Conor. “We’ll just have to wait. It’ll be okay, Sapphy. Roger knows what he’s doing. He’s a dive leader.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He’s got loads of experience. He’s passed exams and stuff. He’ll be all right.”

  But Conor doesn’t sound as if he believes it, nor do I.

  “Conor, we can’t just stand here waiting. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Swim?” asks Conor sarcastically. He knows as well as I do why we mustn’t swim out of the cove. We know how dangerous it is. There’s always the rip waiting to take you. The water’s deep and cold and wild, and a swimmer who gets swept away doesn’t last long.

  “But I’ve got to do something, Conor. It’s my fault. It was me who told Faro about Roger.”

  “You didn’t mean any harm.”

  “I did. You don’t understand.” I pause and think. Maybe, at the same time that I was telling Faro about Roger diving near the Bawns, Roger was telling Mum that she ought to think about letting us have Sadie. “I wanted Roger to get hurt,” I whisper. “Oh, Conor, why have I got so much badness in me?”

  As I say these words, a gull plunges, screaming, from the cliff. We both turn. It’s coming straight for us, diving, wings sleek against the air currents. Its beak is open. Down it comes, crying out in its fierce gull voice. It swerves above our heads, so close that my hair lifts in the wake of its claws. Up it soars, high into the blue; then it turns and positions itself for a second dive. Again it screams out in its wild language as it balances on the air. And down it comes again, passing my ear with a shriek.

  “It’s trying to tell us something.”

  “What?”

  “If only I could understand it.”

  But maybe…maybe…if I really try…I could make out what the gull is saying. It wants me to know; that’s why it’s diving so close. Here it comes again.

  “I can’t hear what you’re saying,” I shout above the gull’s shrieks. “Please, please try to say it so that I can understand—”


  The gull’s screams batter my ears again, but all I get from it is noise.

  “Please try, please. I know you’re trying to tell me something important.”

  And then it happens. I am through the skin of English and into another language. Suddenly the new language is all around me. The jumble of wild shrieks changes to syllables, then words. The gull brakes in the air and hovers just above us. His wings beat furiously, and his claws dig into the air for balance. He fixes me with a cold yellow eye.

  “Go to Ingo. Go to Ingo now.”

  And he spreads his wings and swoops low over the water, out to sea.

  “He was going crazy about something, wasn’t he?” says Conor. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could understand what birds are saying.”

  “He wants us to go into Ingo,” I say.

  Conor stares. “You’re making it up.”

  “You know I’m not. Look at me. Am I lying?”

  Conor scrutinizes me. At last he says reluctantly, “No. But you could be crazy too.”

  “The gull said, ‘Go to Ingo now.’”

  “Then it’s definitely mad. We can’t go into Ingo on our own.”

  “I think we can. I think it’s the same as understanding what the gulls say. If you want to enough, you can. And as soon as we’re in Ingo, we can get out to the Bawns. The rips won’t hurt us. You can’t drown when you’re in Ingo.”

  “You could understand the gull, Saph. It just sounded like a gull screeching to me. I’ve only ever been in Ingo with Elvira. Holding her wrist all the time.”

  “You mean—do you mean that maybe I could get into Ingo without help from any of the Mer, but you couldn’t?”

  Conor’s eyes flash with anger. “You don’t think I’d let you go into danger on your own, do you? If you go, Saph, I’m going too.”

  Everything is turning around. All our lives it’s been Conor who does everything first and best. Riding a bike, riding a horse, swimming, surfing, going out in the boat with Dad, climbing to the top of the cliffs. I’ve always been coming along behind, with Conor turning back to help me. And now, for the first time, there’s something that’s easier for me than it is for Conor.