Midnight Dolphin

by James Carmody

  ‘That’s all very well’ said Rachel, ‘but where are they?’

  ‘Well that bit’s not so easy’ admitted Megan. ‘It says that the exact location of the caves has been lost. It says that even cavers haven’t been able to locate where they are.’

  ‘Did you say caver?’ asked Rachel. ‘That’s another word for potholer. This guy Dave in my halls of residence is the president of the Uni Potholing Society’ she exclaimed. ‘And I happen to know that he’s exploring a cave system a few miles from here. Let’s go and ask him.’

  Megan felt both nervous and curious as she climbed out of Rachel’s old Citroen and they walked down the steep track between two fields. At the bottom, in a cleft between two hills, a slow stream trickled down into the gaping hole of a cave.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she asked Rachel as they got closer. There were a couple of rucksacks propped up against some rocks and a coil of rope next to them, but other than that it was quiet and deserted.

  ‘I guess they must be down in the cave system somewhere’ replied Rachel nonchalantly. ‘There’s nothing for it but to sit and wait.’ After the brightness of the day the hard mouth of the cave seemed particularly dark and uninviting. Megan imagined Dave and the other potholers somewhere below them, tripping over rocks and crawling through tight crevices in the inky darkness.

  Rachel sat down against an accommodating rock, put on her sunglasses and stretched out in the sun. Megan ambled around the entrance to the cave, trying unsuccessfully to find fossils amongst the rough stones underfoot. Eventually she too sat down on a small boulder. Glancing around she realised that Rachel had been silently watching her all the while.

  ‘So what’s it like then Megan’ she asked softly. Just then it seemed as though all the birds had stopped singing and there was a moment of absolute quiet. ‘You know what I mean don’t you?’ Megan nodded. Rachel knew that she was a Dolphin-Child but had never asked a single question about it until now.

  ‘It just feels great’ Megan answered after thinking for a moment. ‘It feels like belonging, like coming home. When I’m with them in the sea, I feel as though I’m both lost and found, all at the same time. The ocean is so vast. I…’ she broke off. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t swim with Jet and the pod anymore.’ Rachel didn’t reply at first and they both sat in the sunshine in quiet contemplation.

  ‘I’ve never met one before you, you know’ said Rachel at last. ‘A Dolphin-Child I mean. Of course I’ve heard stories about them and there’s always supposed to be one or two born in each generation in Merwater, but I thought it was just a myth, something that the fishermen used to tell each other while they were mending their nets.’ Megan glanced over at Rachel.

  ‘Why do you believe I’m one then? I might be making it all up.’ Rachel smiled.

  ‘I did wonder’ she admitted. ‘But if you’d been making it up you’d be talking about dolphins all the time to prove that you are one. Instead you haven’t said a word. It’s the quiet ones that I always keep my eye on, not the ones that like to boast.’

  ‘Why is it that you’re helping me like this?’ asked Megan. She really wanted to know.

  ‘Well at first it was just idle curiosity’ Rachel admitted. ‘After all, you’re a living link to a mystery that goes back hundreds of years. And then I saw this far-away look in your eyes when you glimpsed the blue ocean and…’ She trailed off. ‘Well,’ Rachel smiled, ‘I just knew I had to help you.’

  Just then they heard the sound of boots on rock from within the cave, and they both looked over towards the entrance. Megan stood up and peered in. She could see a flash of light approaching them. Eventually Dave and his two friends emerged. They wore helmets with lights mounted on top and each of them had a coil of rope hung over a shoulder. Their clothes were dirty and Dave’s face was smeared with something like mud. Megan had imagined Dave to be a tall and hearty looking, but instead he was slight and sported a straggly beard. The cavers slung their ropes on the ground, and sat down on the rocks before taking long gulps from the water bottles they had with them.

  ‘Hey Dave’ said Rachel, almost shyly.

  ‘Rachel! What are you doing here?’ asked Dave, wiping drops of water from his beard. One of his two potholing friends went off up to their van to get something, while the other sat down on a rock and looked on with interest.

  ‘Well as a matter of fact we’ve come to ask you something’ Rachel replied.

  ‘Oh? Fire away then. How can I help you?’

  ‘Trinity Caves’ said Rachel. ‘Have you heard of them?’

  ‘Of course I have’ exclaimed Dave, ‘Every potholer around here knows about them don’t they Jane?’ he said, asking his friend who Megan suddenly realised, was actually a girl. Jane nodded her agreement.

  ‘Where are they then? asked Megan excitedly. The potholers both chuckled.

  ‘Wouldn’t we all like to know the answer to that question’ laughed Dave, putting his bottle down on the ground. The Trinity Caves are a bit of a legend, a holy grail, you might say to us potholers. They’re supposed to be full of stalactites and crystalline formations that give off a strange eerie glow. There’s some Victorian bloke who describes them, but no one seems to know where they are now. Believe me, I’ve looked into it. All I know is that they’re linked to the sea somehow.’

  ‘I’d love to see the Trinity Caves, they’re supposed to be magical’ joined in Jane from behind them.

  ‘But if they’re so fantastic, how come no one knows where they are?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘Ah, well’ exclaimed Dave. ‘Didn’t that Victorian chappy says that the locals blocked off the entrance for some reason or other? Can’t think why.’

  ‘This Victorian guy’ asked Megan, ‘Was he the Reverend Jeremiah Smith by any chance?’

  ‘Actually no’ replied Dave amiably, ‘thought I’ve heard of him too. The bloke I’m thinking about was a geologist. Worked in the tin mines. Only potholers like us have heard about him really. Welsh bloke. What’s his name again Jane?’

  ‘Davidson’ replied Jane. ‘Owen Davidson. He was a geologist. I’ve got a copy of his article on the Trinity Caves back home’ she went on. ‘He says they’re spectacular. I can lend it to you if you like.’

  ‘In fact there were tin mines all round Merwater’ continued Dave. ‘Some of the deeper seams extend out under the sea. You can still come across the mine openings when you’re walking in the countryside.’

  ‘Oh yes that’s right’ added Rachel. ‘In the local paper recently there was a story about a man walking his dog in the woods who fell down a disused mineshaft. They’d never have found him if it wasn’t for his spaniel sitting at the top of the shaft barking away for twelve hours. His leg was fractured in three places and it took three hours to winch him out.’

  ‘Do you think one of the tin mines links up with the Trinity Caves?’ asked Megan curiously.

  ‘Oh no, don’t even think about it!’ exclaimed Dave with a comic wag of his finger in Megan’s direction. ‘They’re very dangerous. Even experienced potholers like us two would think three times before we went poking around down one of those old shafts.’

  Megan said nothing in reply, but her brain was a mass of ideas. She couldn’t wait to get hold of Owen Davidson’s article on the Trinity Caves. She knew that somehow the caves and the old tin mines were connected. Somehow, she was determined to track them down.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  As the Land Rover rattled along, Lucy curled herself up on the back seat. The car was cold and draughty and she pulled a couple of coats over herself to keep warm. Dad’s coat smelled of mothballs and Bethany’s smelled of mints and turpentine. Eventually her eyes fluttered closed and she dozed off.

  Lucy started dreaming about dolphins, but they were a long way away from her and try as she might, she could not get near them. Then the scene changed. She was walking, half bent over, down a narrow rocky tunnel. She could sense water dripping down and she could feel the drops striking the ba
ck of her neck. Somewhere in the distance Lucy could hear the low rumble of the sea. The rock beneath her feet was irregular and slippery, and Lucy had to hold onto the sides of the narrow cave to steady herself. She had a bicycle light pinned to her chest which gave her just enough light to see by, but it was barely enough to illuminate the damp rock around her.

  She kept on going, but her progress was painfully slow. The tunnel turned to the right and then started to slope upwards. Then, a few metres away, she could see the mouth of the tunnel illuminated by an eerie green light. ‘Almost there’ she thought to herself as she struggled on. It was so tantalisingly close.

  ‘Lucy. Do you fancy a sandwich?’ asked Dad, glancing over his shoulder from the passenger seat of the Land Rover. Lucy was pulled abruptly from her dream and opened her eyes.

  ‘No thanks Dad’ she replied, sitting up and rubbing her stiff neck.

  ‘Not so far now’ called Bethany from the driver’s seat, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of her. ‘Can you smell the sea yet?’

  Lucy smiled. When she was small, and her Mum and Dad drove down to the sea, she was always convinced that she could smell the sea and that they would be able to see the sparkling ocean over the crest of the very next hill they drove up. Mum used to say that she would do that for an hour before they got anywhere near the sea. Bethany had obviously heard the stories.

  Lucy sat up and looked out of the window at the traffic rushing past on the other side of the road. It started to rain gently and Bethany turned the windscreen wipers on which swished rhythmically from side to side. Lucy glanced at Dad. He was staring out of the window on the other side. She wondered what he was thinking about. Was it the job that he hated so much but which he devoted such a lot of his time to? Was he thinking about the funeral that they were just about to go to? Lucy remembered Mum’s own funeral less than two years before. Lucy cried so much in the days before the funeral, that at the ceremony itself she felt almost numb. Dad clasped her so tightly round the shoulders that it had almost hurt. It was as if by containing her, he could keep a grip on his own feelings and emotions. She’d wondered what would happen to him if he let go. She never did find out.

  Eventually Bethany turned the Land Rover off the bigger highways and down the smaller country roads that led towards Merwater. Finally they rattled down the tight farm lane that led to Mary and Darren’s farm where Bethany also had her studio. It was late afternoon and it had already got dark. Bethany had switched on her big head lights and apart from the road and verge ahead of them illuminated by the beams from the car, all was dark. In the town where she lived with Dad, even when darkness fell there was the ever-present glow of street lights. Out here in the countryside, it was pitch-black. They bumped over the cattle grid and into the familiar farmyard.

  Mary came out of the farmhouse. She was as tall and lean as ever, but now she was wearing a wool-lined sheep-skin coat and a woolly hat. Lucy thought she looked like a cross between a cow girl and a hippy. Mary embraced Lucy warmly and beckoned them all inside.

  ‘Come in, come in out of the cold’ she urged them. ‘I’ve got a casserole on the go and a glass of something to warm you all up. Lucy shivered. It definitely felt colder down here in Cornwall and she was glad to take Mary up on her offer. She wondered what it was like to be in Bethany’s studio. With all that glass and no central heating, it must be an ice box at this time of the year. They all went in to the farm house’s living room. There was a fire lit in the big hearth and Lucy was instantly drawn to the leaping flames. Darren appeared from the kitchen with glasses of mulled wine for the adults and a hot chocolate for Lucy. It felt very good to be back at the farm again.

  Three hours later Lucy lay under a warm duvet cover in the same holiday cottage that she and Dad had stayed in during the summer. Bethany was sleeping in the spare bedroom in the farmhouse during the cold weather because her studio was too cold to occupy. Thelma’s funeral was going to be the next morning. Lucy wasn’t looking forward to it. Eventually she fell asleep.

  It was still dark when Lucy awoke the next morning. She shivered under her bedclothes. The central heating in the cottage had not yet come on and Lucy could tell it had been a chilly night. Getting out of bed, she pulled the curtains and looked out of the window. For a moment she thought it had been snowing, but then she realised that there was a layer of frost across the landscape. The blue sky was clear of clouds. A pair of sheep stood in the field on the other side of the fence blowing steamy breath into the sharp morning air.

  She pulled on her jeans and a sweatshirt and tumbled downstairs. Dad was already up and dressed in his suit for the funeral. He was sitting in the dining area, a mug of tea in his hand, staring fixedly out of the window onto the frosty world beyond the glass. He glanced round when Lucy came down. His eyes were red and he looked grey and drained. He sniffed and wiped his hand quickly across his face when Lucy approached.

  ‘Hey Luce’ he greeted her. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about, you know…’ He trailed off.

  ‘I know’ replied Lucy quietly. She gave him a hug.

  After breakfast Lucy put on her formal clothes for the funeral and she and Dad took the short walk down the lane to the farmhouse to find Bethany. Lucy was always used to seeing Bethany with her mass of unkempt, curly blond hair and the brightly-coloured, unconventional clothes that she tended to wear. Today though Bethany was transformed. She had tied back her hair neatly and was wearing a sombre grey trouser-suit.

  ‘Right, are we ready to get going?’ she asked. They climbed into the Land Rover. The metal was so cold that Lucy half expected her skin to freeze to the door handle. She huddled in her coat on the back seat while Bethany started the engine and Dad scraped away the ice from the windows. When he was done, Bethany drove cautiously up the lane.

  ‘Do you think it will snow?’ asked Lucy. She loved the snow but it never seemed to happen much back home.

  ‘Oh I shouldn’t think so Kiddo’ replied Bethany. It’s unusually frosty this morning, but it generally doesn’t get cold enough for snow down here in Cornwall, especially near sea level. The Gulf Stream brings over warm moist air from the other side of the Atlantic and keeps the worst of the winter weather away. According to Darren it’s been ten years since there was any decent snow in these parts.’ Lucy felt disappointed. Christmas in the snow would have been fantastic.

  Before long they pulled up outside the chapel of rest at the corner of the cemetery. Lucy had imagined that the funeral would take place somewhere more picturesque, like the old church at the end of Bussey Lane.

  Instead the cemetery was at the edge of town, just off the main road, tucked away behind a DIY store. The chapel of rest looked rather bleak and modern. The cemetery itself though had a good view out towards the sea. There was already a small array of cars pulled up in the car park next to the chapel.

  Inside there were a few clusters of mourners in sombre suits talking quietly in corners. Bethany went up to a group of ladies and started talking to them, leaving Lucy and Dad to stand awkwardly, surveying the scene. There was Nate looking uncomfortable in a suit. He seemed as sad as he had done when she’d been with Spirit and seen him standing on the prow of his boat the Lady Thelma. Someone was talking to him now, but he broke away and came over to them.

  ‘Lucy love, thanks for coming’ said Nate, looking solemnly into her eyes and squeezing her hand briefly.

  ‘I’m so sorry Nate’ she replied. ‘I…’

  ‘I know’ he replied. When Mum had died everyone had said the same things to her so many times that they ended up being meaningless and she was sick of them. Maybe Nate was feeling the same thing.

  Organ music started playing from speakers at the front of the chapel and they all started taking their seats; family at the front and friends behind. Lucy, Dad and Bethany sat in the second row from the back. Just before the service was about to start, a skinny figure slipped into the seat next to her. It was Paul.

  ‘Hi Lucy’ he whispered to he
r.

  ‘Paul!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘I didn’t know that you knew Thelma!’

  ‘She was real nice to my Mum like, especially in the last few months, and Nate’s taken me out with him on the boat quite a few times as well. That’s why we’re here. My Mum’s over there’ he went on, pointing to a pew on the right.

  ‘It’s good to see you’ said Lucy as quietly as she could. ‘I’ve got so much to talk to you about. But have you seen Spirit at all?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen him a few times. But I don’t, you know, think I’m a Dolphin-Child anymore. Not like you.’ The news reassured Lucy. Just then the service began. Lucy didn’t recognise the Thelma she knew from the stilted words and solemn hymns that she heard now. Instead she thought of the jolly face she knew, and the big cakes that Thelma used to make. Nate would get thin now that Thelma was gone, she thought to herself.

  Eventually the service finished. The coffin bearers shifted the ornate box to their shoulders and walked slowly outside. Nate, his children and then the rest of the mourners followed them outside into the cemetery. The frost was melting away now under the bleak wintery sunshine. The sad procession snaked its way along the paths between the grave stones. Here and there a teddy bear would be placed on a grave, or flowers wrapped in cellophane.

  ‘Are you down here for Christmas then?’ asked Paul as they walked slowly along.

  ‘With any luck, yes’ replied Lucy. ‘It’s only a few days away anyway. There’s stuff I need to talk to you about. What are you doing tomorrow Paul?’

  ‘Not a thing’ he replied. ‘School broke-up today. I’ve got tonnes of time now.’

  ‘Meet you tomorrow then? At the recreation ground at midday?’

  ‘It’s a deal’ Paul replied.

  A tidy rectangular hole had been dug at one corner of the cemetery. A mound of earth next to it had been covered up with a tarpaulin. Lucy wondered what it must be like to dig a grave on a frosty December day, but then she saw marks of the caterpillar track of a digger in the grass. Of course, nowadays they used a mechanical excavator instead. Lucy stood towards the back of the group and couldn’t see very much. The priest intoned his prayers and Lucy could see that someone had put an arm around Nate to comfort him. Then the coffin was lowered into the ground and the family took it in turns to scatter earth down on top of it. Lucy glanced at Bethany. She could tell that her aunt was quite upset. Lucy felt numb though, as though she didn’t quite know what to feel anymore. After everything she had been through when Mum had died, it was hard to feel anything so acutely this time. She looked around her. ‘I hope I don’t have to come back to a cemetery again soon’ she thought.