Inside Grandad

by Peter Dickinson

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  For all at Maisly, including Shaggy

  oavin and Grandad were fishing for mackerel from the harbor wall when the seal popped its head out of the water. For a moment Gavin thought it was a loose net-float bobbing about. Then he saw the two eyes, large, round, and glistening black, staring straight at him. The thing rose a bit more and he saw the whiskery muzzle and knew what he was looking at.

  He'd never seen a seal that close. They often came to Stonehaven but usually stayed farther out. What's more, though it must have seen Gavin, it didn't duck out of sight but stayed where it was, staring. Gavin stared straight back.

  "It looks like Dodgem begging for handouts," he said.

  (Dodgem was Gran's dog, a sort-of-bulldog. He looked tough, but was really a total wimp, and lazy and greedy with it. You couldn't imagine him dodging anything. Gavin's elder brother, Donald, swore he'd once seen him collide with an old woman with a walker, though he'd been moving slower than she had. Grandad and Gavin didn't pay much attention to him. He was just there.)

  Grandad hadn't seen the seal because he was putting his tackle away. The harbor wasn't the best place to fish, but there wasn't time to go anywhere else between Gavin coming out of school and getting home to cook tea. Still, they'd been lucky that afternoon. Gavin had hooked into a half-size mackerel almost at once. Perhaps he should have thrown it back, but he'd kept it because they mightn't get anything else, and by Now Grandad looked up, grunted, and picked the half-size fish out of his creel. Gavin took it and tossed it to the seal.

  The seal wasn't a trained seal in an aquarium, so it didn't reach up and catch the fish in midair but snapped it up just as it hit the water, and dived out of sight.

  Tacky Steward, fishing twenty yards off along the wall, shouted at Grandad for encouraging seals to come to the harbor. They scared the fish off, he said.

  "Plenty to go round," said Grandad mildly. Nothing fazed Grandad. That made Tacky even madder. He hadn't caught much. He never did, and it was always someone else's fault. He shouted some more and the seal popped its head out of the water as if it wanted to see what the fuss was about. The mackerel's tail was sticking out of the corner of its mouth until the seal threw its head back and sort of gargled it down.

  "You're welcome," said Gavin.

  The seal blinked, as if it hadn't expected to be spoken to like that.

  "See you soon," said Gavin. The seal seemed to nod before it dived out of sight.

  "Mr. Steward's right, though, isn't he?" Gavin said as they trudged up the hill. "If you feed the seals they'll come for more."

  "Maybe," said Grandad. "But Tacky's got no cause to go yelling at me like that. There's ways of making your point, and ways of not."

  "I liked the seal," said Gavin. "It looked like it knew what I was saying to it."

  "Could be," said Grandad.

  "What do you mean?"

  "There's more to seals than they show you on the telly. Know what a selkie is, boy?"

  "A selkie?"

  "They're seal-people, selkies. See them in the water, and they're seals all right. But come ashore, and you wouldn't know them from people. There's stories of selkie women falling in love with farmers, and marrying them, and living on land for a while and raising a family, until the pull of the sea got too strong for them and they went back and turned themselves into seals again."

  "You don't really believe that."

  "Tacky doesn't. No imagination."

  You didn't always get a straight answer out of Grandad. Gavin tried somewhere else.

  "Did they have children—the selkie women who married the farmers?"

  "Says so in the stories."

  "Some of them would have been selkies too, wouldn't they? Half selkies, anyway?"

  "Stands to reason."

  "Do you think we've had any of them in our family? We can't keep away from the sea either."

  (Far back as anybody knew, the Robinson men had always been sailors, fishermen or seamen on merchant ships, mostly.

  Grandad had been a ship's engineer. Dad was first mate on a big container ship. He was in the Caribbean right now. Donald was in Edinburgh, training to be a doctor, but chances were he'd finish up doctoring people on a ship.)

  "Don't see why not," said Grandad.

  They fell silent and trudged on up the hill to Arduthie Road. Stonehaven was a steep, dark gray town nestling round its bay. It was always uphill going home.

  Grandad was the most important person in Gavin's life. Once, when Gavin was smaller, his teacher had told her class to draw their mums, or whoever else looked after them. Gavin had drawn Grandad. It was a small kid's picture, of course, all wrong, but you could still see it was Grandad, short and square, with a shiny bald head, brown and mottled, and with spectacles and a bushy gray mustache. In Gavin's picture the mustache was almost as big as Grandad's head.

  Gavin had a perfectly good mum, and she lived in the same house. So did Gran, and Dad too, when he was home, but most of the time he wasn't, and Mum and Gran both worked. Mum was an estate agent, helping people buy and sell houses, and Gran sold things at Hankin's, the big hardware store down in the square. Grandad was eighteen years older than Gran, so he'd retired when Gavin had still been small, and soon after that the family had sold their two separate houses and bought the one in Arduthie Road. The idea was that Gran would look after Gavin so that Mum could go back to her job, because they needed the extra money; but almost at once Gran had got bored with that arrangement—she needed people to talk to,even if it was only about size-ten countersunk screws and stuff—so she went back to work too and Grandad started doing the looking after.

  So it had been Grandad who'd taken Gavin to his first school and fetched him back and done things with him after and cooked his tea and put him to bed like as not, because Mum often worked late, showing houses to clients, while Gran cooked grown-up tea. Nowadays, when Gavin didn't go to bed much earlier than anyone else, he and Grandad cooked what Grandad still called tea and Mum called supper. Sometimes Gavin wondered a bit guiltily if it would make a lot of difference if Mum and Gran just vanished one day and never came back. Not much, he decided, except that the house would be a lot quieter in the times when they used to be there. (Gran liked to talk. She did it like breathing—all the time. Mum wasn't so bad, unless there were plans and arrangements to be made. She could out-talk Gran then, no problem.)

  But if Grandad vanished … He was seventy-four already…. He was bound to die one day…. Gavin couldn't bear to think about it.

  The great thing about Grandad was that he understood what it was like being Gavin. He always had, even when Gavin was small—understood what made him miserable or happy or angry or afraid, even things that Gavin was ashamed t
o talk about to anyone. Like when Dave Murray had been giving him a hard time in his fourth year and he didn't want anyone to know how scared he was of going to school each morning, but Grandad had noticed and got it out of him and told him how to deal with it. He'd let Gavin think he'd done it all on his own too, but later on Gavin guessed that he'd gone round and seen Mrs. Whebbery after school and sorted it out with her.

  They had the mackerel for tea. Gavin split and filleted them and brushed them with egg and then rolled them in oatmeal, while Grandad peeled the spuds and put them to steam and sliced the beans. It was his turn for the boring jobs, except that he got to make the mustard-and-onion sauce. When the pinger went Gavin fried the mackerel while Grandad put the beans to steam and set the table. That way everything was ready, as good as it could be got, all at exactly half past six— except that Mum was still out selling a house and Gran was on the phone to Sissie Frazer, and good for another half hour at least. That meant Gavin and Grandad could have their tea in peace and quiet. Grandad read his Model Boats and Gavin did the reading part of his homework.

  "What does ‘punctilious’ mean?" he asked at one point.

  Grandad reached back and took the dictionary off the window-sill and passed it across.

  "Thanks," said Gavin.

  Those were the only words they spoke all through the meal. Dodgem made up for their silence by whimpering with anxiety, and from time to time heaving himself out of his basket and plodding off to the hall to check if Gran was anything like finished on the telephone. He got to lick her plate when she'd eaten.

  ext day was Saturday, and wet. Gavin was in Grandad's room at the top of the house, getting his homework finished so as to free up the rest of the weekend. Grandad was working on his boat. He built the most beautiful model boats, better than anything Gavin had ever seen in a shop. They weren't just models to stand on a shelf. You could set their self-steering gear and put them in the water and they'd sail themselves, or you could control them by radio.

  This one was a trawler, of the kind Grandad's own grandfather had worked on until he'd been drowned in a North Sea storm. You could see she was an old boat, which had fished in all weathers and brought her catch home to harbor again and again and again. Her paint was fresh, but she had a used and battered look and a patched rusty-red sail, and the coils of rope and piles of net on her deck were pale gray with soaking in salt water and drying out in the sun—Grandad had experimented for weeks, soaking cord in different mixtures to get them right. It usually took Grandad several months to build a boat. People ordered them from him and paid thousands of pounds for them, and even then they'd have to wait a year or two before they got theirs.

  But this one was for Gavin, for his eleventh birthday next month. It was almost finished.

  "Couple more days should do it," said Grandad as he started to clean his brushes. "Another coat on the wheelhouse and a bit of filling and touching up on the stand. Thought of a name for her yet, boy?"

  Gavin had been worrying about this almost since Grandad had started. None of the names he'd dreamed up had seemed quite right. Now a new one seemed to leap off his tongue without his having to think at all.

  "Selkie," he said.

  "Good enough," said Grandad. "No harm in having the selkies on your side—they'll give you a hand if you're in trouble. But they can be touchy too, if the stories have them right. You'd best go down to the bay and ask them if they mind."

  He twisted his chair round and started to stand up. That was when it happened. His whole body gave a violent jerk. His left arm flailed out, knocking his jar of brushes over and spilling painty turpentine across his workbench. His face twisted, with his mouth wide open and pulled sideways as if he were trying to scream, but all that came out was a ghastly croaking sound. He jerked again and fell forward. Gavin rushed to catch him, but he was knocked aside and Grandad hit the floor with a thud that shook the house.

  Gavin was half winded but he forced himself to his knees beside Grandad's body.

  "Grandad! Grandad!" he croaked, and shook him by the shoulder.

  The shoulder felt wrong. The arm flopped about. The other arm was jerking around, the hand grabbing at empty air. Grandad's face seemed lopsided. His blue eyes were wide open, staring. There was a horrible rasp in his breathing, with a gulping sound between breaths. Gavin called again, twice, and then raced down the stairs to the hall. He realized Grandad had had a heart attack or something, and knew from the telly that there was no time to lose. He picked up the phone and dialed 999. A man answered second ring.

  "Emergency services. How can we help?"

  "I think my grandfather's had a heart attack. He's fallen down and he can't hear me. There's no one else in the house."

  "Hold the line. I'll put you through."

  A woman this time. He gave the same message, then the address and telephone number. She told him to hold the line and some music came on. He thought of something else while he was waiting. The woman came back.

  "The ambulance is on its way from the Kincardine Hospital," she said. "It shouldn't be more than ten minutes. Will you be ready to let them in?"

  "Okay," he said. "Can you tell them he's at the top of the house? The stairs are pretty steep."

  "They'll manage," she said. "Don't worry. He'll be all right."

  Gavin's hands started to shake as soon as he rang off but he managed to call Mum's mobile. She couldn't answer while she was with a client, so he left a message. He tried to call Gran at Hankin's, but they were engaged. He couldn't bear to be away from Grandad much longer—what would happen if he suddenly came round?—so he propped the front door open with a wellie and scrawled a note on the telephone pad saying "Ambulance men. Come right upstairs" and put it on the doormat. He didn't know if he'd spelled "ambulance" right, but it didn't matter. He tried Hankin's again, but they were still engaged so he raced back up.

  Grandad was lying as Gavin had left him. He was still breathing with the same horrible rasp and gulp. His face was blotchy.

  Gavin didn't dare move him, so he covered him with the old rug Grandad used to wrap round his legs when he was working on a boat in the winter. His spectacles had come off in the fall and were lying beside him, so Gavin picked them up and put them in his own shirt pocket. Grandad's right hand had got hold of the edge of the rug and was twitching it about as if it was worrying him. Gavin eased the rug away and put his hand into Grandad's and held it, winding their fingers together. He'd expected the hand to feel different, strange, half dead, but it was firm and warm, with rough places on the palm. Grandad's hand, except for the way it fidgeted about. But alive.

  And the woman had said he'd be all right. Of course, she had to say that. She couldn't know.

  "You'll be all right, Grandad," he croaked. "You'll be all right."

  A man's voice shouted, down below.

  "Up here," Gavin called.

  Feet thumped on the stairs. Two men came hurrying in with a folding stretcher. The one behind was Garry Toller's dad. When he wasn't on duty, he sometimes came down to the Leisure Center to referee the football. He knew Grandad.

  Gavin started to get up.

  "No, stay where you are for the mo," said the first man. "You're doing no harm."

  He knelt and pulled the rug aside.

  "Old Robbie Robinson!" said Mr. Toller, recognizing him now. "And young Gavin, of course. Where's your mam, Gavin?"

  "Working. I've left a message on her mobile. Gran's working too, but they're engaged."

  "Why don't you go and have another try while we're getting your grampa down the stairs," said the other man. "It'll take a wee while. Places some people choose."

  He started to unroll the stretcher. The other man was getting something out of his pack. It looked like an oxygen mask.

  "If I get her shall I tell her to come to the Kincardine?" said Gavin. "Is that where you're going?"

  "First off, so the doctors can take a look at him," said Mr. Toller. "But they'll be sending him on to the Royal Vic, if
I know anything. Or maybe Perth. Off you go now."

  Gavin hurried down the stairs. The Royal Vic was the big hospital in Aberdeen. He hoped they didn't take Grandad there. It was too far to get to every day. Perth was even farther. The Kincardine was actually in Arduthie Road, right up at the other end, but still only ten minutes' walk.

  The telephone rang and rang. The ambulance men had done the difficult bit from the attic and were starting down the main stairs before a man answered. Gavin started to give him a message for Gran.

  "Hold it," said the man. "I'll get her."

  "No, wait!" said Gavin desperately. He didn't want to talk to Gran. It would take forever, and the ambulance would be gone. The men were already passing him, reaching the hall. The oxygen mask covered most of Grandad's face, with bits of mustache sticking out round the rim. His eyes were still open.

  "Just tell her Grandad's had a heart attack or something," Gavin said. "They're taking him to the Kincardine. I've got to go. Thanks."

  He put the phone down and rushed out into the road. The men were just finishing loading Grandad into the ambulance. Despite the rain, half a dozen people were out on the pavement, watching.

  "Can I come too?" he said. "I was with him when it happened. I can tell the doctors. Or I'll walk."

  "May as well come," said Mr. Toller. "We're not supposed to leave you alone in the house, anyway."

  So Gavin sat beside the driver while the ambulance sped whooping off through the rain. They swung in at the hospital in less than a minute. He followed the stretcher in, but at the reception desk the clerk asked him to stop and tell her stuff like Grandad's name and address and date of birth and so on. He knew the birthday, the second of March, and he worked out the year by subtracting seventy-four from two thousand and three. When he'd finished he asked the clerk to ring Mum's mobile again and tell her what was happening, and she told him where to go next.

  He went through two lots of swing doors and found Grandad, still on the stretcher, lying on a sort of table in a small room with a woman in a white coat bending over him and looking into one of his eyes through a sort of torch thing. A nurse who was there collared Gavin and took him into an office and started to ask him a lot more questions about what had happened, making notes as she went on.