Somewhere Beyond the Sea

by Miranda Dickinson

  ‘Okay, Class 4, Miss MacArthur has asked me if I think you could paint us some wonderful star constellation pictures. I said my class are the best painters in St Piran’s school. What do you think?’

  An hour later, Cerrie walks me back to reception, laughing as she picks dried poster-paint splatters from her forearm. ‘I’m not sure who was painted more, me or the stars!’

  ‘That was so much fun. Although toothbrushes, poster paint and excited seven-year-olds is a pretty dangerous combination.’ I’m sure I have tiny beads of white in my hair from the art session, but I don’t care. This has been the best experience and I’m so glad I did it.

  ‘You were a hit. Fancy doing this every week?’

  ‘It was fun, but I think I might need counselling if I had to do it regularly.’ I smile. ‘I have no idea how you do it for a job.’

  ‘Are you joking? I get to be a rock star five days a week. Older kids get wise to you, but my seven-year-olds are still just about at the magic stage where everything is amazing. Like you. They’re so fired up about Elinor Carne. Especially Nessie.’ She sees my confusion and rescues me. ‘The girl who was upset when you first came in, and then led the charge to remember Elinor.’

  I think of the dark-haired girl and how she’d visibly changed as I’d talked to the class. ‘She certainly rallied to Elinor’s cause. I thought she was awesome.’

  ‘She is. And probably the most important person in the class to win over. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.’ She holds the front door open for me and we head outside.

  The sun has broken through the morning cloud and a brave blue sky smiles down on us. ‘Why is Nessie important to win over?’

  Cerrie leans against my car. ‘Because her father is the one trying to destroy the parsonage.’

  ‘Bill Brotherson is her dad?’ I can’t believe someone so repulsive could create such a sweet child.

  ‘No, you idiot! Her dad is Jack Dixon.’

  What?

  And then I remember the conversation I had with Jack, after the last meeting. He told me he had a daughter – did he mention her name? I had the briefest recollection of hearing of a Nessie before when Cerrie said her name, but I didn’t make the connection. How did I miss it?

  I let it sink in. ‘No . . .’ And then, when I realise Cerrie’s master plan all along, ‘No!’

  She gives a shrug, clearly pleased with herself. ‘I mean, I love all my kids but I thought certain kids might be particularly useful to your campaign. Nessie’s a champion against injustice in Class 4. Any time there’s a dispute or somebody is wrongfully blamed for something, Nessie Dixon is the one fighting their corner. And you saw how horrified she was by Elinor’s experience. Maybe she’ll tell her dad . . .’

  I’m about to celebrate this absolutely genius masterstroke when my memory pulls me up. ‘Then Nessie lost her mum recently?’

  My friend’s smile vanishes. ‘Yeah. That was awful. She started at St Piran’s not long after it happened. We had a staff briefing before she joined us. Such a horrible way to die, too.’

  I don’t want to know, really I don’t. But I can’t stop myself from asking. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Total freak accident. She fell off a ladder at work, seemed fine, but two hours later said she had a headache and keeled over. Aneurysm, apparently. But she was so young and no time to prepare, or say goodbye to her kid. It breaks your heart.’

  ‘Does Nessie often get upset?’ The thought of the bright-eyed girl having to deal with such a life-changing event is impossible for me to comprehend. Bad enough that I lost my dad after thirty-one years, but to have it happen at such a young age is unthinkable.

  ‘Oh, you mean this morning? No, that hardly happens at all. I expected it to, but she’s a pretty resilient kid.’ She digs in her pocket for something. ‘This is what the tears were over earlier. Said the mermaids gave it to her, and it was too special to leave at home. I mean, honestly, the imagination of my kids . . .’ She pulls her hand from her pocket and opens her fingers to reveal a bracelet made of gold-wired drops of pale green and pink seaglass.

  I can hardly breathe. I remember each twist of wire, each carefully chosen sea gem from my work box, finding the antique clasp that fitted the combination perfectly – my excitement as the bracelet slowly took shape in my hands. And the risk it felt to make it, take it to Gwithian Beach and leave it at the heart of the latest star I’d completed.

  Cerrie nods. ‘Gorgeous, huh? I mean, you should think of doing something like this. I know yours have silver wire, but the gold works so well against the seaglass colours . . .’

  I don’t remember driving home.

  When I pull up outside Mum’s house, I sit in the car for a long time. Is Nessie Dixon the other person I’ve been creating stars with across Gwithian Beach? She couldn’t just have found the bracelet, because the note in the blue glass bottle thanked me for it. But could a seven-year-old have made something as intricate as the seaglass stars? I find it hard to believe a child that age could achieve such precision, however artistic she might be. And what about the little moss-and-driftwood house they left in return for the bracelet?

  Oh no . . .

  A house. From builder Jack Dixon’s daughter . . .

  I reach into the glove compartment and pull out the tiny house that has travelled like a talisman with me for the last few days, that has represented everything hopeful in my life. It’s beautifully made from found materials . . . I close my eyes and picture Jack addressing the last public meeting, the one where I found myself warming to his vision for the old parsonage because of how he talked about building something lasting from the land upon which it stands. Like Rectory Fields. Like this tiny house in my hands . . .

  Is Jack my secret starmaker?

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jack

  ‘It’s really great you could help with this,’ my brother says as I help him lug a great lump of rock onto his tractor’s trailer.

  We’re shifting old granite chunks from the corner of a fallow field he’s clearing for a daffodil crop next year. I came as soon as Ness went to school and I’ll be back there in less than an hour. Owen’s offered to pay me for my time. I declined, naturally. Family jobs are free. Even if the money would have been useful . . .

  ‘No problem,’ I puff, wishing my back wasn’t complaining as much as it is. The last thing I need is an injury if Rectory Fields gets the go-ahead. I think of my meeting with Brotherson tomorrow – where I’ll find out the architect’s response to my proposed change on the building – and hope I’ll be upright enough to look capable. ‘What are your plans for this lot?’

  My brother gives me a look that suggests he’s bracing for a lecture. ‘I hadn’t planned anything. Probably just lob them down the hillside or something.’

  ‘Great plan.’

  ‘Ha ha, Stink! Your face.’ He reaches across the corner of the trailer and ruffles my hair with his grubby gloves – something that never fails to wind me up. Owen’s winning move in every childhood argument was to play the big brother card: a pat on the head, a chuck under the chin, or the dreaded patronising hair-ruffle. Which is annoying enough when you’re six, but downright unfair thirty years later. ‘If you can use ’em, you can have ’em. Not sure Jeb will be too happy with this little lot piled up by the chalet, though.’

  ‘Cheap shot.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I might need them if this job comes off. Can you hold them for me?’

  ‘Sure.’ Owen chucks his gloves into the back of the trailer and claps the dust from his hands. ‘Do you reckon Brotherson will let you, though? I don’t see a lot of local stone in his builds.’

  ‘True, but he hasn’t had a build managed by me yet.’ I hope I sound this confident tomorrow. ‘Besides, this development’s a bit different from his usual projects with the moral covenant. I think it merits a more sensitive approach.’

  For a few seconds, my brother looks impressed. Then, it’s business as usual. ‘Get you,
being all master-buildery. Anyone would think you know what you’re talking about.’

  He pulls two bottles of water from the tractor cab and throws one at me. I’m grateful for it, the growl of my stomach giving away the gnawing hunger I’ve been battling all day. I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning as I was too busy dealing with a Mexican standoff with my daughter because she wanted to take that seaglass bracelet to school and I wouldn’t let her. By the time I managed to get her into the car we were already running late. It’s a good job the teacher out on playground duty this morning is sympathetic to us. He held the line for five minutes before taking the kids inside, much to the grumbles of the other parents as we dashed in. And then I came to the farm and said I’d eaten already because it was easier than having to sit in the kitchen with my sister-in-law. Chicken, I know. But it’s survival. Better to have her at arm’s length, but still officially be talking, than the alternative.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say, hoping to cover up my stomach’s performance. But it grumbles again, louder this time.

  ‘Blimmin’ Nora, Jack, you need a decent meal. Let’s go back to the house and Sarah can . . .’

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  I replied too quickly. He’s sussed me in seconds. ‘She said she was sorry.’

  ‘I know she did. And I’ve accepted her apology.’

  ‘But you won’t eat her food.’

  ‘It isn’t like that.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Looks that way from where I’m standing. She just wanted to help, Jack.’

  ‘By taking my kid . . .’

  He swears and looks up at the threatening rainclouds, as if they might help him. ‘Come and have some food and stop being so precious. You’re in a tough spot, I get that. Trust me, Jack, we all get it. So if the only thing we can do to help you right now is feed you, then bloody well suck up your pride and let us. A free meal is a gift, not a defeat.’

  I wish that conversation had never happened. But I can’t forget it. And I’ve tried, believe me. Something changed when Sarah suggested taking Nessie. She crossed a line. What’s worse is that despite her apology, I still think she and Owen might bring it up again. I can’t shake the feeling that they still think they were right to offer to take Ness. However much I want to put it behind me, I can’t for now. ‘Just give me time, yeah? I need to get my head around everything else first.’

  I don’t like disappointing Owen. He’s been my hero for as long as I could toddle after him and he always will be. And Sarah is a good person, I know that. She’s good for him and a great auntie for Ness. But she still disagrees with me and I don’t have the energy to address that yet. I can live with her disapproval for the time being.

  Nevertheless, I’m now parked outside Nessie’s school with a basket of home-baked supplies on the passenger seat that Owen fetched from the farmhouse kitchen. I’m secretly grateful that he didn’t push me more. And hidden in the bottom of the basket I’ve just found £100 in a sandwich bag, so it seems my brother was determined to provide for our monetary needs as well as our dietary ones.

  Nessie is first out of the school, but I see her stop midway to the gates and turn back. Her teacher appears and I watch my daughter slope back to her. Miss Austin seems nice enough, from what I’ve seen and what Nessie’s told me, but the conversation they are having seems to be serious. Ness hangs her head and nods slowly, then takes something from Miss Austin’s outstretched hand and shoves it quickly in her coat pocket. What’s been going on there?

  As soon as she sees me, Nessie turns on her thousand-kilowatt smile and skips to my side as though nothing has happened. Now I’m worried . . .

  ‘Dad!’ she yells, running into my arms for a hug and holding onto my back a bit longer than usual.

  I kiss the warmth of the top of her head. ‘Hey you.’

  Ness risks a look over her shoulder then grins at me. ‘Let’s go.’

  Miss Austin has disappeared from the school entrance and I note the relief in my daughter. I want to ask her what happened straight away, but then I remember Auntie Sarah’s baked goods bonanza waiting in the car and decide to leave it a while. After our all-out war before school this morning, I half-expected the silent treatment on the way home, so a smiling daughter is a much better discovery after a hard day. We’ll talk about whatever it was later.

  ‘. . . And Ellie found the star and she told people but the people thought she was just a silly girl and they didn’t listen and she had to go away and not be a scientist even though she wanted to be one and . . .’ My daughter pauses long enough to draw breath and take another bite of Sarah’s Cornish pasty, flakes of pastry cascading down her school jumper as she continues. ‘And it’s just wrong, don’t you think?’

  I’m lost, to be honest. All I’ve managed to get from the deluge of crumb-filled information flooding from the back seat of the car is that Nessie’s school had a visitor today and a girl called Ellie couldn’t be a scientist. I try to remember if one of the stash of school letters behind the weird-looking cuckoo clock on the mantelpiece in the chalet mentioned a visitor, but I can’t recall seeing one. It could be hibernating in the murky depths of Nessie’s school bag, of course, in which case it’s lost forever . . .

  ‘And it’s just not fair,’ Ness concludes.

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘People telling people they can’t do things, when they really want to.’

  ‘O-kay . . .’

  ‘Because if you really want to do something with all of your heart you should just do it.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Like you, Dad.’

  ‘Like me what?’

  ‘You absolutely always wanted to build things. So that’s what you do. And nobody can tell you that you shouldn’t be a builder. Just because they think you shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Well, no. Obviously not . . .’

  ‘But the thing is, Dad, at least you’re a boy.’

  I’m pretty sure there isn’t a chapter in the parenting books I couldn’t bring myself to read about navigating this kind of conversation. ‘Why should that make a difference?’

  ‘Because at least people don’t think you shouldn’t be a builder just because you have a willy.’

  ‘Ness!’

  ‘That’s what Flo’s mum says.’

  ‘I don’t care what – where on earth did you learn about . . . ?’ Too late, I see the traffic light ahead changing to red and I slam on the brakes.

  Ness fixes me with a look from the back seat. ‘Flo’s mum says that some people only let boys have important jobs because they have a willy and not a . . .’

  ‘Okay, I get the picture.’ I check her reaction in the rearview mirror. ‘You know that isn’t right, though, don’t you? Boys and girls can do whatever jobs they like.’

  ‘I know that. But Ellie’s people weren’t as clever as us and they didn’t know. So William got to name the star even though Ellie found it first.’

  I’m still confused when we get home and Nessie dashes inside to change to go down on the beach. I’m hoping the act of making a new star will distract her long enough for me to make sense of this conversation.

  As I wait on the small wooden veranda that runs the length of the chalet, I look out across the caravan park to the dunes beyond. With everything that’s happened today, I’ve been looking forward to our evening starmaking. It’s a relief to have something simple and positive to do. I’ve noticed I sleep better when we’ve been on the beach. It’s calming finding the seaglass pieces and laying them out one by one. As if every other concern of the day dulls for a while. And it’s become our thing – something only Ness and I share. A new thing, not something she once used to do with Tash. I like how it unites us.

  The impending meeting with Brotherson can wait. Money worries can wait. The situation with Sarah and Owen can wait, too. For the next couple of hours, all that matters is being with my girl, seeking tiny pieces of smooth glass to almost-make a star on a wide, empty beach.

  Cha
pter Forty-Three

  Seren

  I’ve been thinking about this for hours. There’s no way around it – Nessie Dixon has the seaglass bracelet I made, and I have the house made by someone who understands building. Like her father. There are too many coincidences for it to be a mistake. But if it’s true, what happens now?

  I like Jack, I really do. But until the vote happens, he’s the enemy. The opposition. I have to look him in the eyes at the next meeting a week today and imagine Bill Brotherson sneering back at me. Because if I allow myself to see Jack Dixon there . . .

  I can’t ignore this now. I have to know.

  Mum’s out for the day walking Molly with a friend, so she won’t miss me. And the shop won’t reopen until tomorrow. If I don’t go back there, this will drive me insane.

  I head back around the coast road to Gwithian, not letting myself think better of it. I don’t even know when the other starmaker goes to the beach – I may already be too late. But I’m banking on their visit being after school, if it is Jack and Nessie together. I don’t think the seaglass stars could be made in the dark, and I’m at the beach so early in the mornings that they have to have been created the day before.

  I reach Gwithian Beach a little before four p.m. and sit in my car watching the gulls weave and wheel over the dunes. Part of me wants to stay here, to feel safe, to try to calm the squall of questions in my head. But unless I venture outside, I’ll never know for sure.

  I pull on my oversized hoodie and beanie hat, drawing the cord tight to keep the wind from my neck. I have Molly’s old travel rug with me and it catches the wind as I climb the dune a safe distance from the main path down to the beach, lifting like a sail at my side. When I reach the part of the cliff above where we make the stars, I spread Molly’s rug over the hummocky grass as best I can in the strengthening breeze and half-kneel, half-crouch to watch.