A Bone From a Dry Sea

by Peter Dickinson

  Li should have gone too. Her stomach was empty, but she wanted to return to the trance of thought. A gang of young came foaming out to the rock spit to play the running game, crying to her to join in. They lined up a pace apart in the water with only their heads above the surface, while the runner climbed ashore and then tried to run out along the line, using the heads as stepping-stones. Just as the foot came down, the swimmer kicked up to take the weight, and if they all timed it right the runner reached the end of the line and dived triumphantly into deep water, then joined the line while the next runner climbed out.

  This was a good place for the game, but Li watched only a turn or two before swimming off to the other side of the spit to drift and think. Here she was in open sea, so she fell into the rhythm of shark-watch, with her head below the surface, ready for any large shadowy movement in the clear water. She kept one hand on a jag of rock and now and then eased herself up for a fresh lungful, then sank again. She did this automatically, without effort, but perhaps it was a slight distraction, or perhaps watching the game had broken the thread, or perhaps the intensity of thought itself had exhausted it, but whatever the cause Li found she couldn’t bring back the rapt, overwhelming wonder of being she had felt as she’d sat on the rocks while the sun rose.

  All that came to her were fragments, memories of how it had felt, like reflections in a pool disturbed by a splash. Now she became aware of her hunger, and was about to swim off and forage when she saw a movement in the water, not a single shape but a small shoal of fish, hurtling towards her. Something was hunting them. She clutched the rock, ready to leap to safety. To the fish, Li’s body must have seemed part of the dark rock, along which they swerved aside, their bodies almost brushing against her. Catching fish in open sea was a matter of luck, but she timed her strike right, grabbed one, gripped it in her teeth and shot herself out on to the rock.

  She shook the wet hair from her eyes with the fish still threshing in her mouth. Immediately below her a dolphin surged past, its back arching out of the calm sea. She had never seen one so close.

  Li knew about dolphins. Once the tribe had found a stranded one, dead and decaying, and had feasted on it and then been ill. They saw several hunting together, sometimes. Though dolphins came, like sharks, from the mysterious vast outer sea, they weren’t dangerous to people.

  The fish convulsed as she bit out a chunk of back-muscle and started to chew, delighted with not having to waste time foraging. Perhaps she might go and join the game – they sounded as if they were having fun . . . She bit and chewed again, wondering at herself. Why wasn’t that kind of fun so important to her now? Why had she changed since the shark-hunt? She’d been perfectly happy before . . .

  She had her right knee drawn up under her chin but her left leg dangled towards the water. Something nudged it. One of her friends must have swum round under the surface to tease her. She pretended not to notice, but at the next nudge glanced disdainfully down. It was the dolphin.

  It hung, poised in the water, its blunt nose poking at her ankle. She snatched her leg away. The dolphin half followed, sank, nosed up again. Li bit another chunk from the fish and then leaned over the water, dangling it teasingly by its tail. Effortlessly the dolphin rose and took the fish from her hand, with its gleaming pale underside showing clear before, with barely a splash, it flipped over and down.

  They were strong signals in the tribe, the giving and taking of food. They meant friendship, alliance, trust. Without hesitation Li dived into the sea and waited, tense but thrilled. The dolphin was several times her size. If it had been a shark it could have killed her outright, but it drifted slowly towards her and past, brushing its long, smooth flank against her chest. She watched it turn and come back. This time as it passed she slid her arm round its body and laid her own body trailing against its flank as it swam. It accepted her for a little, but then seemed to become alarmed and sprang violently forward. Alarmed herself she let go and rose for breath, and seeing that she was now well away from the rocks paddled quickly back, dipped below and waited again.

  She thought it had gone, but when she had risen for several more breaths she saw a vague shape moving at the limits of her underwater vision. She swam a little out from the rocks and watched it zigzag warily in till it stopped, just out of reach. They faced each other, poised in the water, until she was forced to surface for breath.

  Again they faced each other and again she was forced to surface, but this time it rose too and snorted a cloudy spout from the hole in the top of its head, its gasp echoing hers. Now it let her edge closer, until she could reach out and carefully touch its snout. As she stroked its forehead it came in and past her, brushing against her side as before, turning and coming back. This time when she reached her arm round it, she was careful to clasp it only loosely, and it seemed to decide to let her stay there until she had to let go and rise for breath. It was waiting for her when she dived.

  They swam, played, danced together in the sunlit ocean and her sense of wonder came back, but changed. This was not a thinking wonder, but a wonder like the sunlight, pure, itself and nothing else. Or it was as if she and the dolphin were themselves thoughts in the delighting mind of the sea, moving with the same exhilaration as the thoughts that moved through her mind, telling her that she was in the presence of, part of, an immense mystery. The dolphin was far more other than Ma-ma’s dreams, or the stranger’s lost baby, but it and Li shared the moment and the mystery in the rippling golden-green water.

  So it was a timeless while before she saw, rising for breath, how far their game had taken them from the shore. The dolphin rose beside her as if to ask what kept her so long out in the barren air, and she put an arm round it and gestured with her other arm towards the land, confident that it would understand what she wanted. Now she needed to clasp it close as it used its full power to surge through the water, arching clear and plunging under, while she gasped and laughed with the excitement of the ride. For a few moments she knew what it was like to be a dolphin, to share in the life of the open ocean.

  Kerif on shark-watch saw them coming without understanding what he was seeing. At his shout of Shark! the dolphin swerved aside, so Li let go and swam on alone. Reaching Kerif she gave him the respectful triple hoot which a she-child used on meeting an adult male, but he stared at her with his mouth hanging open and forgot to answer.

  NOW: MONDAY MORNING

  VINNY WOKE IN the dark and, using the torch Dad had lent her, found it was half-past five. She desperately needed a pee, but she knew she mustn’t go till it was light. At home the bathroom was right next door to her own room, and she could find her way there with her eyes shut, almost without waking up. Here it was way down the hill, and there might be leopards, and she had to wait till it was light. Homesickness had suddenly ambushed her. It was stupid. She was thrilled to be here, but why couldn’t they have a bathroom next door?

  Dad was breathing snortily on the other side of the room, which was half of a neat round hut with a grass roof. She had a mosquito net over her bed, but something had bitten her left arm all the same. It was all right – once Mum had accepted that Vinny was really going to Africa, she’d taken charge and made sure she had all the right injections and took all the right pills. She’d even gone up to London and got special stuff from the British Airways shop in Regent Street. She’d been a real help, not just bossy. Now, lying in the dark, feeling homesick, Vinny was conscious that she hadn’t been quite fair when she’d talked to Dad about Mum yesterday. She hadn’t wanted to put him off. But Mum wasn’t just your average decent parent, she was A1 most of the time, brimming with interest and love and energy. Fun. Of course she went over the top sometimes, but it was worth it, especially with Colin around to laugh her out of her wilder ideas. Vinny guessed that Dad wouldn’t have known how to do that. He’d have just closed down, gone silent, and Mum would have got wilder and wilder to compensate. Perhaps that had been what went wrong.

  As soon as it was light she slid out o
f the narrow bed, tapped out her slippers in case scorpions had decided they’d make a cosy lair (Dad had warned her about that), wrapped her anorak round her and crept out. Day came as fast as it had gone. On the way up the path from the latrines she found that Africa had its own smell, which the dawn dew brought out, faint and sharp, like cold wet iron, plus an animal smell – not death or dung or urine because the sun dried things out before they could rot, but the living hide. She felt as if the whole continent might be a single sleeping animal, with its own special odour. You didn’t get that on TV.

  Not wanting to wake Dad – he’d seemed really tired last night, with the long drive, or perhaps with his own anger – she drifted round the camp, exploring. One of the awnings covered rows of fossils, laid out with numbered cards in places. She decided they must all be bits of jaw, or single teeth. The numbers read 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and so on up to 4.8. These must be Dr Wessler’s pigs, she thought, and the numbers would be millions of years. More than half the fossils seemed to be somewhere round the four-million-year mark. All those pigs! There must have been thousands and thousands of them, rootling and snuffling. What did pigs like? Boggy sorts of places, reeds, marshes, wallows. Or had pigs been different then? If we’d evolved out of pigs instead of monkeys, what would we be like? Try that on Dad.

  The camp began to stir. Someone was cooking. An African came in under the awning. She remembered his face from last night, long and narrow with rather protruding teeth, but not his name. He smiled and answered when she said ‘Good morning,’ then went to a particular place in the lines of fossils, picked one of them up and took it out into the open, where he stood studying it, turning it this way and that. Beyond him, Vinny saw Dad at the door of the hut, gazing blearily out as if he was looking for her. She ran across.

  ‘You’re an early bird,’ he said. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Do Dads get kissed good morning in our family?’

  ‘No harm in trying.’

  He seemed in a much better humour than yesterday. He fetched a bowl of warm water so that she could wash and dress while he went down to the latrines, and then another bowl for himself.

  ‘Hang on a mo. I’m just doing my laces.’

  ‘No hurry.’

  By the time Vinny looked up, he had stripped off his pyjama top and was brushing his teeth. He had the most incredibly hairy chest. It was difficult not to stare. Funny that Mum, who sometimes used to tell anyone listening about things to do with Dad that had niggled her, had never mentioned it. He saw her looking, and with his toothbrush sticking sideways out of his mouth stretched and beat his chest like a gorilla. She laughed.

  ‘That reminds me,’ she said. ‘This book I read – it wasn’t one of the ones you said, but it was on the same shelf. It said the reason we don’t have fur like chimps and gorillas . . .’

  ‘Some of us don’t,’ he mumbled, still brushing.

  ‘. . . is that we’re really half sea-animals.’

  He rinsed his mouth and spat as if the toothpaste had suddenly tasted wrong.

  ‘It was really interesting, Dad. The sea rose and there must have been an island which got cut off with a few apes on it, and they had to get most of their food out of the sea, so they learnt to walk on their hind legs and they lost their fur and used stones to crack shells open, oh, and all sorts of other things. Language. And did you know if you put your face under water your heart slows down to help you hold your breath? And we’ve got fat under our skins and our tears are salty . . . Why didn’t any of the other books mention all that? I thought they were mean.’

  ‘She’s not respectable.’

  ‘But she’s interesting, Dad. I’ve got her name in my diary. Hold on. What do you mean, respectable? And she made me laugh. Not a lot of laughs in the other books. Here – Elaine Morgan. Have you read it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no.’

  ‘Bother. There’s a lot of things I wanted to ask you about it. I mean, fur. You know before we’re born we’ve got fur on our bodies for a bit? She says that with us it’s sort of streamlined, for swimming, but it isn’t with chimps and gorillas. Is that right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m only a taphonomist.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You all know your own bits, and you’re so absolutely sure they’re the most important . . . I’m sorry . . . But it was interesting.’

  She had stopped because she had sensed a change in him, a closing down. She’d thought she’d been just teasing, but now she realized she’d gone too far in some way she didn’t understand. But at the same time she sensed he hadn’t wanted it to happen. She could see the disappointment in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘You’ll have to tell me.’

  He sighed, made an effort and managed to shake himself out of the mood.

  ‘Just remember you’re your mother’s daughter,’ he said. ‘You can tell me about the fur, if you insist.’

  ‘All right. Stand still. Do you mind?’

  He made a clown face as he spread his arms and allowed her to run her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest, trying to feel for the flow-lines.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I need a chimp to compare you with.’

  ‘The nearest chimp is several hundred miles away. May I put my shirt on?’

  ‘All right. Do you honestly think it’s nonsense?’

  ‘I think there isn’t any serious evidence for it. I think, in fact, there is very little serious evidence for any theories of early hominid evolution.’

  ‘But we aren’t chimps, Dad. Something happened. We’re different.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Now clear out, will you, while I finish dressing.’

  The camp was busier now, with people going to and fro, getting ready for the day. The man who’d taken the fossil from the awning was sitting at one of the tables, sketching it. Vinny moved closer to watch. He was using a very hard pencil, so that the lines he made were almost invisible. Each movement he made was slow, firm, exact. Already the knobbly shapeless lump on the table seemed to have become clear and ordered on the pad.

  After a few minutes he put his pencil down to stretch and yawn. He was clearly surprised to see Vinny standing so close.

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m Nikki Mako. Now you’re going to say why don’t I just take a photograph?’

  ‘But you can see a lot more in a drawing.’

  ‘You’re right. Know what? I don’t know nothing about fossils. I’m at college studying commercial art when the Minister tells our Principal he better find some fellows to come on Joe’s expedition, right?’

  ‘Why did they choose you?’

  ‘’Cause I get this prize last year. They send us along to the museum, tell us go and draw something for the competition, so I draw this big old dinosaur and I win the prize, you know?’

  He laughed at the joke. His eyes were lively with the absurdity. Despite being narrow-set they didn’t make him look mean, any more than his prominent teeth made him look ugly. They were right for him.

  ‘Well, they’re lucky to get someone who can draw like you,’ said Vinny.

  He shook his head and studied the half-finished picture.

  ‘No use for them. They take photographs, casts, you know. This is for me. My way of seeing a thing. Learning it, you know. Fred Wessler, he can tell you all about this fossil ‘cause he’s seen don’t know how many hundred fossil, all the same sort, looked at them, felt them in his hands. That’s his way. This is my way. When I draw something I look at it like it was the only damn thing in the world, only thing I’m ever going to be let see again. Know what I mean?’

  ‘I’d love to be able to draw like that.’

  ‘You just got to learn to see, Vinny. Then you’ll be drawing like I do. Good morning, Dr Sam.’

  ‘Morning, Nikki,’ said Dad, coming up. ‘Breakfast, Vinny?’

  ‘I’m starving. But don’t you think t
hat’s beautiful?’

  Dad looked briefly at the drawing, not very interested.

  ‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘Come along, before the eggs are all gone.’

  As they were walking up towards the eating area, she asked about Nikki.

  ‘He said he was just here by accident, because he drew a dinosaur.’

  ‘I told you, there’s only one palaeontologist in the country. Watson Azikwe. You met him last night.’

  ‘The one with the gold chains?’

  ‘That’s him. But for reasons of national pride this has got to be a joint expedition, so we get landed with people like Nikki. It’s not such a bad idea, to my mind. I’d much rather have someone we can teach, like Nikki, than some half-taught chap who wants to prove he’s better than the rest of us. Nikki’s being useful.’

  ‘Because he can draw?’

  ‘Because he can see. Not much point in knowing a lot about fossils unless you can spot them in the first place. Locals are often superb at that – you know, herdsmen who think we’re quite mad with our passion for old bones, but show them what you want and tell them there’s money in it, and they’ll spot things professionals might have missed.’

  ‘I’d really love to find a fossil.’

  They’d reached the eating area. Dr Hamiska was sitting with his wife and Dr Wessler, reading a document, but he must have heard what she said. He looked up at once.

  ‘You shall, Vinny, you shall,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to it personally.’

  Dad was pretending not to have heard. He was still walking towards the table with the food laid out on it.

  ‘In fact,’ said Dr Hamiska a little more loudly, ‘you shall do that this morning. There’s a site I want to have another look at. We’ll leave immediately you’ve finished your breakfast, before it gets too hot.’

  ‘Oh . . . I really want to watch Dad taphonoming. Nobody else has got a father who’s a taphonomist.’

  ‘And you actually know what a taphonomist does?’