Phosphorescence

by Raffaella Barker

  I know because Mum told me that the reason why Dad doesn’t talk to Ian Christie is that he has never been able to get over his brother’s death. Dad was only twelve, and tagged along with James and Ian wherever they went. He could so easily have been with them that day, but he was at home with Grandma. I don’t think he can forgive himself for that either, or that’s what Mum says. It’s funny, because Mum talks to me about this, and tells me what she thinks Dad and Grandma feel about it, and what she thinks Jack might feel, but none of them ever say anything about it themselves. It is a secret that everyone knows.

  The next afternoon I walk across the marshes to my grandparents’ house. Ever since I was little I have spent a night there every week, but these holidays I’ve been too busy and my old familiar routine has disappeared. I have been feeling a bit guilty about not seeing them, but Grandma hugs me and smiles and I know I don’t ever have to apologize because she is glad to see me.

  Jack, my grandfather, white-haired, gruff, but kind, and with a big moustache, has always lived on the marshes, and now he is nearly eighty. He has been a fisherman all his life and he is still out setting mussel and lobster traps on every tide. He has caught every kind of fish there is to find in these waters and he is famous in all the villages around here for bringing in a catch on tides when most people wouldn’t dare leave the harbour.

  ‘He’s an old fool,’ snaps Annie, my grandma. ‘He has no need to be out there in all weathers now. He could come and help me in the garden, but he’s always got a boat to mend or an engine to restore.’

  I love Grandma’s house, where the kitchen is warm with the scent of clean laundry and baking, and there are tins in the cupboard by the window always full of the flapjacks and cakes she makes. In the telly room, which Grandma calls the drawing room, a high shelf around the walls gleams with pearl-pink lustre china, and there is a box of toys kept behind the sofa for visiting children; in other words, mostly for me. The toys in it are battered and faded survivors from Dad’s childhood, growing up here on the marshes with his two older brothers, John and poor lost James. It makes me sad to see them gathering dust, unplayed with in the box, so I always get them out when I am at Grandma’s.

  I have developed a ritual with the toys. I separate them into the groups I think suit the three brothers or what I know of them. In Dad’s lot, for example, I put all the animals: the lead donkey with the carrot in its mouth, the cattle and the sea lion with its bucket of fish. Of course, there aren’t many wild sea birds in a children’s farmyard collection, but there are a few trees and the odd tiny painting, on scraps of crumpled paper, of a garden or a field. I add all these things, and I like to think you could get a sense of Dad and his connection with nature, when you look at the toys I give him. In James’s pile I sort all the little boats and their fishing nets, the miniature lighthouse and the tiny toy ice-cream van. Anything with a connection to the sea, because all I know about him is that he loved being on the water, and even that is more something I know in my head, because no one ever talks about him to me. I feel sad when I think of James, so any random black toys tend to go in his pile, like the plastic alien that appeared in the box one day, and the model Batman figure. Dad got the Bart Simpson model that came out of a cereal packet, and I gave John the McDonald’s plastic car. When James died, John, the oldest of the three, was nineteen, and the tragedy made him closed and silent. He would not go on the sea again, no matter how Jack shouted and blustered and tried to persuade him to help with the boats. John moved away when he left school, to landlocked Germany, and began working in electronics. So his toys must be the cars and tractors, the engines and wheels and dynamos in the wooden box. I line them all up, and then, because I don’t know what else to do, and I am not interested in them at all, I make myself play with them and I vroom them around the room until Grandma finds me for tea and says, ‘Aren’t you a bit old for those toys now?’ But I like them because they give me a secret entrance into the past.

  My Uncle John rarely comes back to Staitheley. Sometimes he sends me gadgets, and I struggle to see what they are for. But if I ask Dad, he gazes at them, baffled, and smiles wryly before saying, ‘I think we’ll take this to Jack. He knows how things work.’

  Every time I go over to Salt Head with Jack he shows me something I haven’t seen before or tells me something new. You would think he would run out of things, but an island is always changing, and he has such a knack for finding curious things washed up by the tide that I used to sometimes think he’d come along for a rehearsal before bringing me.

  Once we found a wooden chessboard under a twist of rope at the very end of the northernmost beach; another time after terrible electric storms and high seas for weeks, we found a wedding dress, or the ragged remains of one. I shiver slightly with this memory. It is so vivid it could have been yesterday, but it was four years ago. It was a summer afternoon, and Jack and I had taken Cactus for a walk at the northern tip of the island. The tide was coming in, and we had taken my little red boat with its outboard motor.

  ‘Let’s go up and see what the storms have done round the end of the island. We’ll wave to your father. I know he went over there this afternoon.’

  We chugged up the inside channel past the marshes, with Jack showing me nests abandoned by the oystercatchers because of the unusually high water. Leaning out with the binoculars, I was exclaiming over a nest, ‘Oh, it’s got eggs in. She must be going back. Look, Jack.’

  I turned round when he didn’t answer, and his face was blank white and he was staring at something in the water.

  ‘What is it? Tell me? Let me see.’

  Jack tried to stand between me and the edge of the boat.

  ‘NO, sit down and keep yourself quiet,’ he said sharply, but it was too late.

  Floating lazily on a wave, not more than four metres away, was a soft, mist-white shape, spreading and undulating on the water. My heart hammered in my throat. I slipped my hand into Jack’s and stepped closer to him.

  ‘It’s fabric.’ His voice was gruff, but I could hear relief in it. ‘Just fabric. You know how storms throw things up.’ Whatever Jack had feared had now passed. He was back in control. Reassured by the timbre of his voice, I leaned over the edge, craning to see.

  ‘It’s lacy, it looks like a tablecloth or something, it’s all lacy. Pass me a pole, Jack, let’s hook it in, it might be a treasure.’

  ‘I think not.’ Jack’s hand was under my arm now, steering me back from the mass in the water.

  He was still pale, and he folded his mouth firmly shut as he opened the throttle and we left the inexplicable lace floating on the sea. No one would speculate with me as to what it might be, everyone was playing down its interest and importance back home, and I soon forgot about it. But later that week, Dad’s friend Billy Lawson came round with some shrimps and told Dad he’d found a wedding dress.

  ‘It was hooked up in my pots. Gave me one helluva shock, I’ll tell you. People say it was from up the coast. Some honeymoon yacht in trouble, everyone drowned.’

  Dad and Billy were on the doorstep talking, and I was in my room with the window open. But I leaned out to listen, and shouted down in excitement and dread, ‘That’s what me and Jack saw, we saw the wedding dress. Is the bride dead?’

  Dad and Billy looked up, startled to see me. Dad rammed his cap on his head, a sign he was ready to leave. ‘No, she’s not. People love to make up stories. I doubt it is actually a wedding dress, it’s probably some old rubbish that has been dumped. I shall ring the Port Authorities to find out what ships have been in the area making a mess.’ And with an expression of finality Dad marched off with Billy in tow.

  Jack though was definitely still shocked. I saw it when I went to tell him what Billy had said, and he suddenly looked frail. ‘Don’t go listening to gossip,’ he said mildly. ‘You come and help me with these nets and take your mind off that sort of nonsense.’

  Thinking back now, I realize that was the first time I saw any sign of Jack being o
ld. I don’t notice it any more, but then I haven’t seen Jack and Grandma much because I have been working. Suddenly my life does not revolve around my family; I am part of the Christies’ world this holidays.

  Caroline Christie gives me lots of work so I am saving up quite a bit of money. I thought being around Josh all the time was going to turn our friendship into a swoony romance like a photo love story, but actually he has become more like I reckon a brother would be. Nell is here quite a lot too, and the three of us go out on our bikes, with Sadie on Josh’s crossbar. Today we go up to Salt and have hot chocolate in the birdwatchers’ cafe.

  ‘Sadie, you mustn’t tell Mum,’ Josh warns her, adding some marshmallows to her fistful of sugar lumps in a blatant attempt to buy her silence.

  ‘Tell Mum what?’ Sadie flings the marshmallows into her cup and stirs it vigorously, spilling a lot of the steaming contents. ‘I haven’t got anything to tell her, have I?’ She blinks innocently at her brother.

  Nell is gazing at her adoringly, but I whisper, ‘Don’t be misled. She’s very crafty. Watch her blackmail him now.’

  ‘No,’ Josh agrees, ‘but Mum will go into a total psych if she finds out we brought you along the road on my bike, so you can’t say you came here for hot chocolate, OK?’

  ‘I could forget, you mean?’ Sadie is thoroughly enjoying the attention.

  ‘Honestly,’ Nell whispers. ‘She sounds like someone in a gangster movie.’

  ‘Yes.’ Josh struggles to retain control of the situation. ‘Just forget we came here.’

  ‘I could,’ Sadie muses. ‘But I might need some cake to remind me to forget.’ And watching our faces as we try not to laugh, she bangs her small fist on the table and cackles, loving her power. ‘I see you smiling, Josh, and you, Lola! Ha ha.’

  ‘The only way to survive extortion is to own up,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell Caroline it was me.’

  ‘OK,’ Josh agrees, ‘that’s fine. My mum loves you.’

  ‘What’s extortion?’ asks Sadie.

  Sure enough, Caroline laughs when I tell her what Sadie said.

  ‘Oh, she’s so lucky to be having all this fun with you, Lola. I don’t know what I would do without you. We’ll have to see if you can’t carry on coming a bit in term time, or we’ll all miss you.’

  The next day is a day I can remember every moment of. Sadie and I come in from crab fishing, and for once I bring her to our house because she’s really wet and cold and it’s right next to the quay. In fact, I brought her home because I thought Mum would like to meet her. Sadie is sitting at the kitchen table, twizzling her plaits while I make her some toast, when Mum comes in. Sadie is in full flow of a story about her crab, who is in a bucket on the table in front of her.

  ‘He’s waving at me. Look at his claws, they’re toes really, aren’t they? I love that crab, Lola. His name is Jeffrey Johnson.’ She squeals, blowing him kisses from a safe distance. ‘He’s my pet. I’m going to keep him in the cage with Neoprene. They can be best friends.’

  The toast pops up and I butter it, not noticing Mum come into the kitchen because I am listening to Sadie.

  Mum is suddenly right behind me. ‘Lola. I have to talk to you. I’m so sorry, darling. I don’t know how you will react to what I am going to say, but please try to remember that I love you.’

  I am instantly afraid, and I don’t know what I am afraid of but it is making my heart bang against my chest so hard I am amazed Sadie can’t hear it.

  Startled, I turn to face her.

  ‘I’d better take Sadie home,’ I mutter, and picking up Sadie and the bucket containing Jeffrey Johnson, I shoot out of the house. I don’t know what Mum’s going to say, but I don’t think Sadie needs to hear it.

  ‘Your mum’s got sad eyes,’ Sadie observes into my ear as I scuttle along the pavement with her held tight in my arms, the water from the crab bucket slopping over my feet. ‘She can’t help crying, can she?’

  Tears of sympathy for poor Mum well up, and I just post Sadie through the front door with Jeffrey Johnson and shout, ‘Here she is, sorry, must go!’ before slamming out again. Miss Mills waves to me just as I am reaching our gate, and I wave back, smiling my biggest smile, even though she is half blind, and I very much doubt she can see my face properly. I want so badly to believe that everything is all right.

  Mum has made a pot of tea and cleared away Sadie’s toast. I look at the shiny dark surface of the kitchen table where everything is tidy, and tears begin to drip down my face because I know nothing is going to be the same any more, and I can suddenly feel the huge weight of my mum’s unhappiness.

  She takes my hand in both of hers.

  ‘Dad and I have both decided that we can no longer remain married,’ she says.

  Is that how most people do it, then? Is there a set line that they look up in some sort of handbook for parents who want to break up? I know the next line, and yes, here it comes.

  ‘But we both love you, and none of this is to do with you, it’s to do with us.’

  Huh! How can it possibly not be to do with me when I am one of ‘us’? ‘Us’ is my dad, my mum and me, it always has been. It always was.

  On Mum goes, and to be honest, I can hardly hear what she is saying because my head is whirling. She squeezes my hand and tries to look jaunty by tousling her pale hair with her other hand. She flashes her eyes at me, and, frankly, looks mad as she announces, ‘And you and I are starting a new life together. It’s going to be so exciting.’

  I can hardly believe any of this stuff. I just want her to be herself again. Mum’s mad eyes are red, her voice is strained and tremulous. A new life with a mother as sad and exhausted as mine is right now could not be exciting.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I can’t look at her and I snatch my hand away when Mum tries to clasp it again in both of hers. ‘I don’t want a new life. My life is exciting enough now.’

  ‘No, but we’re going to live in London and you’re going to a new school. We’re going to look round it on Thursday, and the term begins next Monday, so we’ve got lots of shopping to do. Aunt Jane’s found us a flat for a while, and we will have such fun together.’

  Mum croaks the last words out in a hideous attempt at cheeriness. If Mum had stood up and announced to me that she was a mermaid, or Medusa, or Lara Croft, I couldn’t have been more shocked than I am now. I push my chair back and stand up.

  ‘I’m going to watch TV,’ I say without looking at her.

  The children’s channels all have smiling presenters who look like aliens to me, so I settle for horse racing and slump on the sofa fiddling with the volume on the remote control. I know Mum is standing outside the door – I can feel her rather than hear her – but I don’t want her to come in. I wonder why Dad didn’t tell me with her. I hadn’t noticed I was crying, but there is a salt, wet taste in my mouth and my nose is running. I sniff, and I hear Mum draw her breath in sharply in the hall. I wish she would go away. I am too muddled and shocked to deal with her sense of guilt. The only thing I know right now is that I need to tell Nell.

  *

  The next morning, Nell arrives early, or as early as her paper round and the bus timetable allow her to. I hear her pounding up the stairs to my room, and I can picture exactly where she is all the time I hear her until she opens the door, long red hair swinging, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright from being outside. She throws herself on to the bed next to me and through the warm cocoon of my pyjamas I can feel the crisp chill of the morning air still clinging to her as she hugs me.

  ‘You can’t really be going. She must have been kidding.’

  I sit up, determined to suppress the panic, which comes in waves, and the stab of sadness I feel at seeing Nell lounging on my bed as she has done since we first became friends at primary school.

  ‘I wish she was kidding. I keep hoping this will all turn out to be one of those nightmares like at the cinema, but so far I haven’t woken up from it. We’re going on Thursday to look at the school, and I start ther
e on Monday. I can’t believe that I’m not coming back with you to Flixby High. I won’t even see anyone there again. I never said goodbye.’

  ‘Why didn’t they tell you before?’ Nell picks up a nail file and begins sawing away at her chewed thumbnail.

  ‘I asked them that and they both got upset. Mum said she couldn’t until she knew when her job would start.’

  Talking about last night, which was not like real time but more like in a 3D movie it was so surreal, is making me feel a bit more normal. I am relieved that Nell is asking me questions I can answer.

  ‘She’s going to work for a television news channel and she’s really pleased about it. She said she wasn’t sure if she would get it and she couldn’t talk about it – I don’t know. I think I believe Dad more. He just said he couldn’t bear to tell me until it was real.’

  ‘Did you really never notice that they weren’t getting on?’

  I have been thinking about this so much, and now I look back, I can see that the silences at home, Mum’s crying, and Dad being away a lot have all added up to something so obvious, but it’s amazing what you don’t see if you don’t want to. Nell is looking at me, her expression so kind that I crumple inside.

  ‘No,’ is all I can say.

  I slump on the pink quilt next to her. She hugs me, and then places her hands on my shoulders and forces herself to smile.

  ‘You will come back,’ she says. ‘You’ll come to see your dad and you’ll have all your London clothes and London friends and you’ll be so busy we’ll have to make appointments to see you.’

  I shake my head, eyes blurred with tears so Nell’s smile smudges into a blur with my posters and the necklaces festooned like cobwebs through the beams in my attic bedroom.

  ‘I’ll miss you, Nell.’

  Nell squeezes my hands. ‘Oh, Lola, I wish I was leaving boring old Flixby and starting again with you. My mum and dad have both lived all their lives here, and I don’t know how I’ll ever escape it happening to me too.’