Black Waters (Strong Winds Series Book 5)

by Julia Jones

“Dominic Gold and the Project administrator have seen all of my daughter’s qualifications. They have spoken to her college principal and also to our vicar. My daughter is an extremely talented sailor and has experience instructing the younger children at our club and also on the local reservoir. I believe that the Flinthammock Project is lucky to get her. If your accommodation is unsuitable I will insist that they find her lodgings elsewhere.”

  Xanthe had looked at her mother in surprise. What was that all about? Then she noticed Mrs Farran cross herself as she stood aside to let them in.

  The two girls had said nothing as they stood in the narrow hall and waited while Mrs Farran insisted on taking Mrs Ribiero upstairs and showing her the bedroom that would be Xanthe’s. They heard their mother commenting politely on its cleanliness and its view of the village street and some piece of sewing or embroidery or something.

  “But is this how she likes to sleep?” asked the old lady. “In a bed like this?”

  Mrs Ribiero laughed. It was maybe not quite her usual warm chuckle. “I’ve heard my daughters begging to be marooned on a desert shore and to be allowed to bivouac in the bottom of a dinghy. I have sometimes wondered why I bother with the comfort of our home. I’m sure Xanthe will find this room perfectly acceptable until a cabin becomes available on the lightship and she moves to join her pupils there. Perhaps we should ask her to have a look for herself?”

  It had carried on awkward. She’d gone upstairs, glanced round: the room was fine, everything immaculately clean and white. She had her own bathroom and was assured there’d be no need to share. Then Mrs Farran had invited her and her mother and Maggi into her tiny north-facing parlour and had tried to introduce them to her husband.

  He was a grim-looking old man, wearing a threadbare fisherman’s guernsey and a neckerchief and the sort of thick, dark, woollen trousers that you saw in nineteenth century photos. He could have stepped straight out of one of those photos except he wasn’t smoking a pipe or wearing his fisherman’s cap and, instead of boots, he had Poundland slippers.

  Mr Farran wouldn’t shake Mrs Ribiero’s hand.

  His wife might have been trying to cover up his rudeness. Except that her fussing had made it worse. She forgot to ask them to sit down and hobbled around removing the everyday tea-set that she’d already put out and replacing it with some translucently thin cups and saucers which were obviously for Special Occasions Only. Then she began searching through the drawers of a massive antique cabinet until she found a lace-edged cloth that she smoothed across the tiny table. She spent about five minutes rubbing a pierced silver cake stand, which was already completely shiny and didn’t have any cakes on it anyway. Then, as they still stood there, feeling totally awkward, she brought out a fluted white porcelain teapot with a pattern of pink rosebuds.

  “You do drink tea, don’t you? Nobody said..!”

  The moment you dropped one drip of tea on that snow-white cloth it was going to stain it brown forever. Xanthe and Maggi looked at each other and asked for glasses of tap water, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

  From the way Mr Farran glared you’d think they’d demanded his last two kegs of smuggled rum. Mrs Farran struggled back to the kitchen and they could hear cupboard doors opening and shutting before she came back with another tray, this time holding a cut glass jug of water and two matching crystal tumblers. Xanthe stepped forwards to offer help and knocked over a table. It was a spindly polished object with scalloped edges and tripod feet. A single plate of scones hit the floor.

  “Hell, I’m sorry…” and then she remembered that she mustn’t swear. How would she survive living here?

  “Leave ’em,” said the old man to his wife. “There’ll be no more.”

  Finally they were all able to sit down. The tiny scones lay crumbled on the rug while June Ribiero made conversation into the silence. Mrs Farran offered more tea, which Mrs Ribiero declined. There was a general feeling of relief

  “You need to watch yourself, Xanth,” Maggi whispered as they hugged goodbye. “He was giving you the total evils.”

  “Mr and Mrs Farran are natives of Flinthammock,” said June carefully. “And their families before them. They’ve lived here all their lives. Of course they will be insular. I don’t know why I was surprised. They’re museum pieces, I suppose.”

  Then she gave up. “My Xanthe, my darling, have I made a terrible mistake? The Project is good, I’m certain of that, but can you be happy in that very strange house?”

  “I’m only expecting to sleep there. And you said yourself I’ve slept in worse.”

  She knew that wasn’t what her mother had meant. Sleeping out on the hard floor of a dinghy – or onshore in a tent or a bivvy bag – was an experience that made you feel more alive and cleared your mind even when every bone in your body was aching. The atmosphere of Rebow Cottage felt oppressive and somehow dusty. Things didn’t fit. All those random pieces of silver and grand furniture and stuff. Even that stupid little table had probably been some sort of antique.

  “Nights in a museum…it’ll be a new one. At least I can keep my history tutor sweet with recording wartime memories and that.” She couldn’t live with herself if she carried on being a coward about everything.

  Her mother’s face had brightened. She stood straight and glowing and confident again.

  “This won’t last for ever, my lovely one. You’ll move to the main accommodation with the others. And we’ll be always there for you if it doesn’t work out. Don’t hesitate. We’re…so proud of you.”

  She had held Xanthe tight and for once Xanthe had been glad to let her.

  “Don’t panic, my mother, I’ll hold a steady course and head for the horizon.”

  Maggi had turned on her then. “That’s what you’re always doing, sis. It’s probably what got you in this mess. When are you gonna learn to keep a look-out for the half-tide rocks?”

  Xanthe would have flared back but just in time she’d spotted that Mags was about to cry. Or she was getting a migraine or something.

  “No rocks here, sis. It’s the level wastes of sucking mud. I’m in Essex now. I need high-fives.”

  The sisters had done their full hand-slapping routine, only missing a couple because they were both maybe a bit blurry. Then June and Maggi drove away and Xanthe went back into Rebow Cottage.

  “Should I go and unpack?” she asked. She didn’t know when they had supper or what was expected. Neither of the old people answered so she went upstairs and took a few things out of her case. Not many. Then she sat on her clean bed and scowled so hard that she could feel the halves of her head grinding together like tectonic plates.

  About an hour later Mrs Farran rung a small brass gong and she guessed that meant it was supper. There were hard-boiled eggs, tinned potatoes, soft lettuce, pickled beetroot and salad cream but no conversation. Mr Farran ate his food, pushed back his chair and left and Mrs Farran very obviously couldn’t think of anything except to ask Xanthe about her name and disregard the answer.

  “It’s not an English name then.”

  “No, it’s Greek.”

  Xanthe carried on repeating the information as politely as she could and managed to force herself to eat the lettuce, three cubes of potato and a quarter of one egg. #bbarbie had found lots to say about the ‘classic’ West African figure and she hadn’t been able to stop herself searching the net for ethnographic data to check whether they were right.

  She had started to hate her body – her big, clumsy, genetically-determined body that had allowed her to behave like a maddened water buffalo – so she had decided to show it who was boss. Not eating when she was hungry had seemed like one good way. Then her body had got too clever and she found she couldn’t eat even when she wanted to.

  She had noticed her mother cooking her favourite dishes almost every night: heard Maggi’s falsely casual “Hey, sis, get this down you!”, saw her fath
er looking grave and helpless, gazing at her with his deep brown eyes, his broad, wise forehead and the receding hair that was beginning to grizzle round the edges. She had felt his sadness most of all but it had done nothing for her ability to swallow.

  She excused herself after her non-supper and walked down the short stretch of road that led to the wide, open saltings and to Godwyn. There was a signpost to the Project that pointed between a couple of storage sheds and along a straight gravelled path.

  That signpost was so unnecessary! Godwyn outshone all the other boats in the area. She was the brightest red you could imagine and the high, round turret that contained her light was metres higher than the nearby masts. At sea she would have looked small and gallant and probably slightly shabby with salt-stains and incipient corrosion – and bird poo. Here, she was like a huge, in-your-face, positive statement.

  Xanthe felt a tremor of anticipation and excitement. Except that this wasn’t all about her. She was going to be responsible for five unknown kids. Was she up to it?

  The lightship was moored off the edge of a narrow creek. The saltings that stretched inland were dotted with hulks and houseboats and with some of the smaller yachts and motorboats that could manoeuvre easily in and out of the mud-berths. Xanthe calculated that the tide had been flooding for about four hours. The smaller channels were filling and the boats were lifting from their individual hollows but there was still very little depth of water. It was obvious that access was going to be a problem.

  She started up the gangway to introduce herself, then she changed her mind and walked further round to check out the dinghies. If she was going to make a success of this instructor job she’d best discover what she’d got to instruct with.

  She found a half dozen Laser Picos and a rack of kayaks. They were all okay and there were a couple of RIBs moored in the creek that would be the safety boats. There were a few items of equipment scattered around but she guessed most of it would be kept in those former sail lofts at the far end of the path.

  The Picos weren’t very big. What if she stepped into one and sank it with her ‘classic West African figure’? She’d got her body mass exactly right for Spray but she’d lost fitness since the training camp and there might be a kid or two sailing with her. What if she lurched and tipped them out?

  Get a grip! She needn’t lurch. She’d always had good balance and her muscles couldn’t have gone completely to spaghetti. Not since Easter.

  She was glad Madrigal and her five thousand Facebook friends couldn’t see where she was or what she was doing. No one at college knew where she’d gone, except for Mrs Oakenheart and the principal. Her mother and Rev Wendy had been right to send her here.

  She’d go for a run right now. Why not? Godwyn was moored between Roffey Creek – which led down to a much larger inlet called the Flete and then out into the main River Blackwater – and the Flinthammock saltings, a network of twisting channels and small mud islands. She’d seen a photo of the saltings taken from the air. They looked like the inside of a brain.

  Xanthe didn’t run like a sportswoman, checking her breathing and counting her paces against her stopwatch. She ran like a crazy little Pacman, trapped inside her own head. She pinged across the half-full streams and leapt along the wooden stagings and rickety bridges, jumping and splashing across the saltings until she reached the marsh wall on the furthest edge.

  No one knew her. No one could see her. She took huge gulping breaths and flung out her arms to the evening sky.

  Xanthe looked back at the lightship and sideways to the village. The flood tide was exploring the creeks with its silver fingers and the evening light was shining low and golden from the west. It lit up the white holiday homes and beach huts on the distant island of Meresig. There were shops and cars and civilisation over there. She’d raced Spray from Meresig. It seemed like a different world.

  Between Meresig and Flinthammock lay a complicated network of drying channels and semi-submerged islands. Only fishermen and samphire-gatherers and wild-fowlers understood those secret ways, and they were all long gone. And so were the smugglers who had sculled ashore with muffled oars and felt their way to private landing places and hasty, whispered conversations. If these pools and runnels could speak they’d have some tales to tell.

  Xanthe watched the water spreading inland, gleaming and serene, reflecting the colours of the evening sky as it faded from blue to pink and mauve and then to mother-of-pearl, glistening like the inside of a mussel. She looked at the chartlet that she’d printed from the internet when she still had access. This was Broad Marsh. It ran from the Flete to a private landing stage and what looked like a large house set back among trees. It wasn’t a smugglers’ haven; it was going to be the perfect sailing area for her young beginners.

  “Cuck-oo.”

  A heavy greyish bird flew out from a distant wood and across the flat green meadow. The falcon plummeted from nowhere then gave chase with the agility of a Stuka pursuing a barrage balloon. The grey bird was struck and killed in minutes. The falcon landed in the field with its prey clenched in its talons. Xanthe was close enough to see its head bobbing up and down between its shoulders as it tore at its meal with a hungry beak.

  “Hell,” she said, aware that her breathing had quickened and her palms were slightly sweaty.

  She looked around once more at the vast sky and the deserted marsh. Maybe it wasn’t so deserted. Maybe it still had stories. Maybe some of them were the sort to twist your stomach with fear and keep your eyes open wide at night.

  A small flat workboat had left the clear water of Broad Marsh and was winding its way through unmarked channels into no-man’s land. She could hear the quiet popping of its outboard motor and could see a dark shape slouched beside the helm.

  “Here be monsters,” she whispered to herself.

  Then she turned and jogged back along the wall with the controlled power of an athlete.

  Mrs Farran was in the Rebow Cottage kitchen filling herself a hot water bottle. She gasped at the splashes of mud on Xanthe’s jeans.

  “They said you’d keep your work-clothes on the lightship. Mr Farran never brings his filth indoors.”

  Filth. That seemed like a strong word.

  “And you’ll need to come in earlier than this. I lock the house at nine.”

  No late evening sailing? On these beautiful early summer nights?

  Where was Mr Farran now? Where did the old couple sleep? All she’d been shown was her own front bedroom and the cramped bathroom with nothing in it but a tablet of guest soap and a small white towel.

  She was hungry that night. Her stomach rumbled and she couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t any snacks with her and couldn’t exactly go raiding the kitchen. She kept thinking of those little scones, swept away into the bin. She read a bit and dozed. Then got up again soon after it was day.

  Chapter Four

  Fata Morgana

  Sunday, May 26, lw 0330 hw 0958 lw 1610 hw 2220

  Xanthe stood up in the unfamiliar dinghy and rocked it from side to side. She grabbed the mainsheet and heaved it across and back, across and back, to help create an air current. This wouldn’t be allowed if she were racing but heck, she wasn’t racing.

  This was the first time she’d been on the water since Weymouth. After they’d unhitched Spray and left her in the dinghy park she’d written to tell her sponsors that she’d been sent home and banned. She apologised for letting them down but didn’t – because she still couldn’t – explain why she’d behaved as she had.

  Their answer would be arriving any day. It would confirm that they had withdrawn their sponsorship. They would be reclaiming the dinghy and all its equipment. One good thing about hiding in Flinthammock was that she could put off that moment. Her parents had agreed that they wouldn’t forward any mail and they wouldn’t open anything.

  “Or even put your glasses on and hold it up against
the light or shine a torch from behind to check whether it’s see-through?”

  “No tricks, we promise.” Her mother’s voice was warm and relieved. “And you’re suspending all your accounts and changing your passwords so you can’t be hacked while you’re away. New mobile – pay-as-you-go – new number, no internet. I’ll lend you my camera and my Macbook. Solely for your essay research, you understand. And you’ll only have wi-fi when you’re on board Godwyn. You’re not going to import your address book or any of your contacts except us – and Donny and Anna, of course. You are on your honour.”

  “And you are not to call me. I’m sixteen. I need to learn to survive on my own. That could have been…part of the trouble.”

  “Oh,” said her parents.

  “Okay,” said Maggi. “That means I’ve got Only Child status. Could be very good indeed. I’ll take a few tips from baby Ellen. No need to hurry home, big sis.”

  It had been soon after five in the morning when she’d given up any attempt to sleep in the unfamiliar Rebow Cottage bed. She’d crept down the narrow stairs, placing her feet to the outside of each step to make certain they didn’t creak. She’d avoided a small, black, fluffy cat who stared knowingly from its basket but didn’t meow or move, then she’d let herself out into the quiet street.

  She knew she was expected to meet her crew on the lightship after breakfast but that still gave her a good couple of hours to begin to get familiar with the area. She mustn’t mess up on her first day.

  She’d found the kit alright but it had been a real issue getting the Pico away from Godwyn and down the shallow creek at this stage of the tide and she was beginning to wonder why she’d bothered. There wasn’t a breath of wind. She’d paddled, pushed, punted and she’d made it to the main river but she still couldn’t get the dinghy to sail. After a while she got fed up with standing up and pumping the mainsail and her shoulders began to ache.

  As soon as she stopped working, the dinghy began drifting backwards with the tide so she made a loop with the painter and lassoed one of the furthest channel buoys. The sun was fully up now and the heat of the day was beginning to intensify.