Midnight Dolphin

by James Carmody

  ‘My dear Mrs Greenwood’ exclaimed Toby Smith as he opened the door. ‘How lovely to welcome you into my home! Do come in, do come in all of you.’ He gestured to usher them into the hall. He and Rachel’s Mum immediately started chatting. Before long the two adults were on first name terms and Rachel and Megan felt almost forgotten. They all went through to the large sitting room with its grand piano, stereo and piles of jazz records.

  ‘What a beautiful room Toby’ exclaimed Rachel’s Mum, looking through the expanse of window into the walled garden beyond.

  ‘Why thank you Sophie’, Toby Smith beamed in reply. ‘The house has been in the family for at least three generations, but I’ve tried to give the old place a lighter and more airy feel since I inherited it. Of course I live most of the year in London but I normally spend a few months down here, especially over the summer.’ Rachel’s Mum laughed in appreciation.

  To Megan, perched on a small formal-looking sofa next to Rachel, Toby Smith seemed to inhabit a completely different world of comfort and leisure. It was difficult enough for her parents to scrape enough money together to rent a cottage for a fortnight and to own not one but two homes would be impossible for them.

  Megan felt rather gauche and ill at ease sitting there on the sofa, watching the adults talk. Fortunately she wasn’t required to say very much at all. It seemed as though Toby Smith and Rachel’s mum were very keen to laugh at whatever the other said, and she couldn’t help noticing that Rachel’s Mum was wearing more make-up than she’d seen her wear before.

  ‘Why don’t you two keep chatting over tea whilst Megan and I go and take a look in the loft?’ Rachel broke in on the adult’s cosy tete-a-tete.

  ‘Excellent idea’ replied Toby Smith, who seemed only too pleased to have Rachel’s mum’s undivided attention. ‘Once you’ve finished you can come back down and join us for tea’ he went on. He stood up and Megan noticed that he appeared to be holding in his rather ample stomach. ‘Let me show you two up.’

  He led them out of the sitting room back into the hall where the wide, elegant staircase swept upwards. Megan could see from the wood that it must be as old as the house, and it creaked slightly as they proceeded upwards.

  ‘I haven’t really had a good look around the loft for years’ he said as they walked upstairs. I occasionally push the odd cardboard box in there but really it could do with a proper sort-through. There must be a hundred years of junk stuffed up there.’

  At home her parents loft was accessible only through a small hatch in the ceiling at the top of the stairs which her dad used a ladder to reach. She liked to go up there with him when she could, but there were no floor-boards and she had to be careful to step from joist to joist, otherwise she might put a foot through the plaster ceiling into the room below. Toby Smith’s loft, she was certain, would be a rather grander affair.

  At the top of the stairs there was a big picture window looking down on the walled-garden below. The walls were wood-panelled up here and Megan half expected to see a suit of armour standing to attention in the corner. An old and worn carpet ran up the passage leading from the stairs and Megan thought that Toby Smith’s redecoration had not reached this far. He led them down the passage, talking loudly as they went.

  ‘The servants would have lived up here once upon a time’ he said, smiling back at them, ‘but of course I don’t have servants now. Just a lady with a vacuum cleaner who comes in once a week to do battle with the dust.’

  At the end of the corridor there was another window, and then a small, cramped door to the left. Toby Smith produced a big old key from his pocket and opened the door. It creaked eerily as he pushed it open.

  ‘Well it’s all yours you two’ he said, flicking on an ancient looking electric switch. Behind the door Megan could see a tight little staircase that twisted round up out of sight. ‘Last time I looked there were some chests where you might find the Rev’s journals, but to be honest I can’t exactly say where they are. You’ll just have to rummage around and see what you come up with. Mind your heads now!’

  Rachel went first and Megan followed, feeling a surge of excitement as they did so. They could hear Toby Smith padding back down the corridor in his suede shoes.

  At the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a cavernous room under the eaves of the roof that seemed to extend all the way across the house. There was one bare light bulb but fortunately there were two small windows set into the roof which let the afternoon sun stream in. Megan could see motes of dust floating in the air and promptly sneezed.

  ‘Wow, what a lot of stuff!’ exclaimed Rachel as they both looked around. They were practically cut off by a wall of tea-chests stacked three-high in front of them. To their right there was an old television and a record player a bit like the one that Megan’s parents had at home. A pile of magazines were propped up untidily to their left, in imminent danger of sliding over on top of them.

  ‘This stuff doesn’t seem so old’ said Megan, looking around her.

  ‘My guess is that the further we go that way’ Rachel said pointing in towards the depths of the loft, ‘the further back in time we go.’

  ‘We could be up here for ages’ whispered Megan. Rachel giggled.

  ‘I don’t think that old Toby is going to mind. He’s taken a bit of a shine to my Mum.’ Megan was appalled. She didn’t think grown-ups that age should get up to that kind of thing.

  ‘But he’s so old!’ she exclaimed, aghast.

  ‘Oh he’s only about fifty’ Rachel replied, and my mum’s forty-five, so they’re not so badly suited age-wise.’ Rachel smirked again. ‘You know what, I think Mum quite likes him too. She and Dad divorced about three years ago and it would be good for her if she met someone nice.’ Megan pulled a face and gave a convulsive shiver, as though she were shaking off a particularly off-putting thought.

  ‘I know, I know’ replied Rachel, ‘Best not to think about it. Now, let’s see if we can find the Reverend Jeremiah Smith’s journals.’

  To make up for being left alone, Mum and Dad promised to take Bethany rock-pooling. She loved to peer into the limpid clear pools left by the receding tide and search for any stray fish or crabs that might be caught there. Because their cottage was next to a wide sandy beach, there hadn’t been much opportunity to look at rock pools so far. Dad grumbled a bit but Mum was keen to go to a cove that she’d read about in her guide book. Armed with her wire-hooped net on a bamboo pole and a sandcastle bucket to keep anything Bethany caught, they set off.

  Mum had some difficulty finding the public footpath that led to the cliff edge, but eventually she spotted the right one. Dad parked the car off the road by the stile next to the field gate and they started out on foot. They’d made a picnic and although Bethany wasn’t very keen on egg and cress sandwiches, she was looking forward to the cheese and onion crisps and little cocktail sausages skewered together with pineapple on little toothpicks that Mum thought would be a nice idea.

  The path cut across a small field occupied by a few scattered sheep that eyed the three of them indignantly. Bethany ran on ahead. There it was; Old Man’s Cove, with a small crescent of pebbly beach with rocks and pools exposed on each side with the low tide. It looked an awfully long way down the steep path and they gingerly picked their way down it, clinging on to clumps of grass occasionally for fear of sliding down. Eventually they got to the bottom. Dad wasn’t very keen on sunbathing on a pebble beach and sat on a boulder in his shorts and check-shirt under a panama hat, reading a paperback. Mum pottered around with Bethany for a while, peering into rock-pools, before she too retreated up the beach to flop down on one of the large towels she’d spread out over the pebbles. Presently Mum called to Bethany to come and share the picnic with them. Bethany tried to eat as few egg and watercress sandwiches as she could, whilst stuffing herself with as many crisps and cocktail sausages as she could get away with. She drank orange squash from a bottle whilst Mum and Dad drank coffee from the plastic, screw-on cups that came with the
ir large tartan-checked thermos flask. Dad said the coffee always tasted strange from the thermos, but he drank it anyway.

  After the picnic Bethany was keen to get back to her rock-pooling, whilst Dad said that he and Mum were going to lie down and have a snooze. He made Bethany promise not to get too close to the water’s edge, but then left her to her own devices. Soon she could hear Dad’s light sonorous snore above the gentle waves breaking on the rocks.

  Bethany crouched down and stared intently into the clear waters of the rock pool. There were a few strands of seaweed, and in amongst them she occasionally glimpsed a handful of tiny fish that darted this way and that when her shadow fell across them. She’d managed to catch one fish with her net, which now hung gloomily in her plastic bucket full of sea water, but she wanted to snare a second one to keep it company. Every time she swished her net through the water though, the fish darted away to the safety of the little crevices that pitted the rock pool and all Bethany seemed to catch was sand. She’d had more luck with the tiny hermit crabs that inhabited discarded winkle shells and which lumbered laboriously around with their house on their backs. She’d caught two of those but decided to release them back into the rock pool to continue their journey. They’d hide, rock-still in their adopted homes for a minute or two before tentatively putting out their legs and continuing their slow journey.

  Bethany had hoped to find a seahorse, but Dad said he didn’t think you could find them on the Cornish coastline. She’d bought a dried-out seahorse with her pocket money from a souvenir shop by the harbour in Merwater, but Dad said they were probably imported from abroad. There were plenty of limpets stuck to the rocks there, although they weren’t very exciting to look at, and she’d spotted spiny sea urchin which she knew would be painful if she stood on it.

  Bethany was so absorbed in the perfect miniature world of the rock pool at her feet that at first she didn’t notice the movement in the sea a few meters away from her. Suddenly though she heard a clicking noise and glanced up. There in front of her, a short distance from the rocky outcrop where she was sitting, was a smiling dolphin, regarding her with friendly eyes.

  Bethany felt a tight knot of joy at the sight of such a wonderful animal. It must be Megan’s dolphin Jet! She glanced around at where Mum and Dad were lying. They were both dozing and were quite oblivious to the wonderful creature that had suddenly appeared in front of her. Bethany went right up to the edge of the rocks.

  ‘Hello dolphin’ she whispered excitedly. ‘You’re beautiful!’ she exclaimed as she admired the sleek dolphin’s head and dorsal fin protruding above the surface of the sea.

  ‘Are you Megan’s friend, then?’ she asked. The dolphin clicked in reply. On television on Saturdays there was a drama about a dolphin that lived off the coast of California. The dolphin was friends with a boy whose dad was a coastguard and invariably saved people from drowning in each episode. Dad said that it was like a sort of aquatic Lassie. This dolphin seemed completely different though. Bethany had never been so close to a real live dolphin before and she wished she could jump into the water and swim with it, but she didn’t dare to.

  The dolphin put its head on one side and clicked at her some more. Somehow, Bethany decided that the dolphin looked sad.

  ‘Did you want to see Megan?’ she asked sympathetically. She couldn’t help but be struck by the intelligence in the dolphins eyes. He seemed to be looking intently at her. ‘I wish that Megan was here too’ she went on, ‘but she’s gone off for the day.’ Bethany knew that the dolphin couldn’t understand what she was saying, any more than she could understand its clicks, but it helped her to speak to it.

  ‘I wish I could help you Mister Dolphin’ she said. Bethany stretched out her hand as far as she dared, just on the surface of the water. The dolphin touched her hand briefly with its beak. Then, with one last sad look at her, the dolphin turned and disappeared again under the gentle lapping waves. It was gone.

  ‘Goodbye Mister Dolphin’ she whispered.

  After forty minutes or so of searching, Megan and Rachel were both exhausted. Dust seemed to have boiled up into clouds every time they moved something and now there was a fine grey coating all over their hair, hands, face and clothes. They looked like a pair of ashen-faced ghosts. They sat down wearily on an upturned tea chest and gulped greedily from a bottle of water that Rachel had in her bag.

  So far they hadn’t made much progress. The loft was so full of boxes and discarded junk that it was difficult to move through it at all. They had to shift boxes just to get to something that looked interesting. It was back-breaking work. There were any number of cardboard boxes full of papers, but most of them seemed to be accounts, old letters and manuscripts from the nineteen fifties and sixties. Megan had imagined that they would find the odd rocking horse, stuffed lions head or the occasional wooden chest, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was more like someone’s office had been boxed up and deposited up there.

  ‘Look over there’ said Rachel peering into one corner where the roof sloped down to the wooden floorboards. Megan looked over keenly, but was immediately disappointed. ‘You see there’s a bird’s nest in that corner. It must be a great place to bring up chicks’ Rachel laughed.

  They got up and started looking again.

  ‘Let’s look over there’ said Megan, pointing towards a corner furthest from the door they had come up. ‘If you’re right, the further from the door you go the older the stuff will be.’

  ‘It’s going to be impossible shifting all of those boxes to get over there though’ observed Rachel.

  ‘Well, why don’t we just climb over the top of them then?’ asked Megan with a mischievous smile. ‘No one will ever know.’

  ‘That’s brilliant Megan’ said Rachel with a laugh. ‘Up you go then! Lead the way. I’ll be right behind you.’ Megan climbed up and started picking her way cautiously over the tops of the boxes. Some of them were completely full with papers and were fairly safe to stand on. Others were only half full or had strangely shaped objects inside, and there was a risk of the top collapsing under her weight. She soon learned to distinguish which boxes were okay to stand on though as they made their way towards the shadows of the furthest corner.

  ‘Look!’ Megan exclaimed, pointing. There was a space at the back which they hadn’t been able to see before as it was hidden behind a wall of packing cases. In the gloom they could make out an ancient gramophone player with a an enormous brass horn to magnify the sound that came from the heavy needle. Next to it was a glass dome under which Megan could just make out stuffed humming birds that had been arranged on a branch. Next to that there was an enormous travelling trunk with brass fittings.

  ‘That must weigh a tonne’ murmured Rachel as the finally stood next to it. ‘Let’s look inside.’

  Fortunately the trunk was not locked and after some prising, the lid lifted up and Rachel swung it back on its hinges. The trunk was packed to the brim with hand-written letters tied up with ribbons, books and ‘journals!’ exclaimed Megan excitedly. She pulled out a volume. It looked exactly like the one journal of the Reverend Smith’s that Rachel’s mum had in the bookshop. In the dim light it was really quite hard to make out the copperplate handwriting. Even the date on the inside front cover was hard to decipher.

  ‘Tell you what’ said Rachel. ‘Let’s fish out all of the volumes of the Reverend’s journal that we can find, clamber back over the boxes and sit down somewhere with some decent light to read them.’ Megan nodded in agreement. They found a total of eleven journals which Rachel held in a great pile under her chin while they precariously picked their way back over the mounds of cardboard boxes.

  ‘I don’t like it up here’ said Megan, as they reached the top of the tight stairs that led up to the loft. ‘Let’s go back down.’ They descended the creaking stairs with their precious load and padded back along the servants passage to the top of the main staircase. It was flooded with afternoon light from the big picture window which overlooked the gard
en. Below them Megan could see Rachel’s Mum and Toby Smith wandering around the walled-garden, inspecting the flowerbeds and laughing.

  ‘They’re just like a pair of giddy teenagers’ observed Rachel with a smile. ‘Let’s not disturb them. Why don’t we sit down here at the top of the stairs and start browsing.’

  Megan felt a mixture of excitement and fear now that she had the Reverend’s journals in her hands. Excitement, because what the Reverend had discovered could bring her back to Jet again. Fear, because she knew she might learn nothing useful at all.

  Rachel and Megan organised the journals in chronological order. There was only one missing ‘which must be the one that Mum’s got’ observed Rachel. There were another four journals that followed the one they’d read from in Owl Books. Megan took the next volume after the one in the book shop, and Rachel took the one that followed that.

  They sat there, engrossed. First of all Megan read each entry with close attention, struggling occasionally to make out the words written in the Reverends elegant hand. After a while though she resorted to skimming the pages, looking for any reference to dolphins whatsoever. There were long passages on folk songs in the area which were of no interest to Megan at all.

  Megan lost track of how long they sat there studying their respective volumes, but eventually they heard the tread of feet on the stairs and then the faces of Toby Smith and Rachel’s mum appeared round the corner.

  ‘Oh there you are!’ exclaimed Rachel’s mum. ‘We’d begun to think you’d got locked in up there’. The two of them looked up from their respective journals. Megan could see that shadows were lengthening in the garden and the sun was getting low in the sky. Neither Rachel nor Megan had exchanged more than a few words since they started reading but Megan knew that Rachel hadn’t been able to find anything interesting either. Then just when she was beginning to despair Rachel made a little gasp and Megan had glanced over curiously. Just then the two adults appeared.