The Tide Knot

by Helen Dunmore

  I’m not going to accept that Dad has changed forever. He still has human blood in him, just as I have. If a human being can change to become one of the Mer, then he must be able to change back again somehow. There will be a way. Somebody somewhere must know.

  Faro’s teacher! He’s supposed to be so wise. Perhaps he can help me. I won’t tell him why I want to know. He’s Mer, so he’ll want Dad to stay in Ingo. But surely all the changes can’t be one-way?

  “Are you all right?”

  “Oh…yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I was just—”

  “You were miles away,” says Gloria Fortune. “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “You wouldn’t want them,” I answer. “They’re just a mess.”

  “Okay, okay, I didn’t mean to pry. You go on down to the cove.”

  “Maybe not today.”

  “Come back another time then,” says Gloria. “You can help me with that basket and pulley.”

  “Um, you know, I think that could be quite dangerous.”

  “I wasn’t being entirely serious. I smashed the top of my thighbone, and things didn’t mend so well, so I’ve got to have a hip replacement. But I’m putting it off because I don’t like hospitals.”

  “I’ve never been in one.”

  “Not even to be born?”

  “No. I was born here, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. It’s the one that faces away from the sea.”

  There’s a pause. Luckily Sadie creates a diversion by diving toward a hole in the garden wall, pretending she’s smelled a rabbit. It’s a hole where I’ve seen adders sunning themselves in August, so I pull her off sharply, even though any adders should be hibernating now.

  “Come again,” Gloria repeats. “But maybe you wouldn’t like to come inside the cottage, with us living here.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gloria nods thoughtfully. There’s something about her face—I don’t know what it is. A look that is strange yet familiar. It’s elusive, but it’s there, like a ripple of water moving over her features. Water! Yes, that’s what it is. Salt water. Ingo. Ingo has touched her face and left its look there.

  It sounds like a wild, crazy guess, but it’s not. I know, deep inside me, because it’s the look I see on my own face sometimes in the mirror. And on Conor and Faro and Elvira…and on my own father.

  I open my mouth to speak but then say nothing. It’s too much of a risk. If she doesn’t know, is it safe to tell her? I have the feeling that if she were to go down to the cove, Gloria too would see a figure sitting on the rocks. A figure that looks like a surfer in a wet suit from a distance, but when you come close, it looks like a boy, and then like a seal, and then like a boy again. But Gloria’s leg is injured, so she can’t climb down the cliff path. Maybe that’s just as well.

  “Were you born by the sea?” I ask abruptly.

  She stares at me. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I just had a feeling.”

  “That is weird. You’re right. I grew up in London, but I was born on Skye, up in Scotland. Our cottage was down by the shore.”

  “You don’t sound Scottish.”

  “No, I’m a Londoner, really, like my dad. He came over from Jamaica when he was two months old. But my mother was Scottish. She came from Skye, and we lived there until I was six. We had to move down to London then because my father got a job there. Maybe that’s why I love this place so much. It reminds me of when I was little. Skye is so beautiful. I remember the seals. I used to think I could talk to them, and they’d talk back to me. The place we lived was so remote that I conversed with the seals more than I did with other children.”

  Her face is soft with remembering. That strange yet familiar look is growing stronger. I was right. She really has a look of Ingo on her. Maybe she doesn’t yet know what it means.

  I’m burning with excitement. I can’t wait to tell Conor. There are others, not just us. We are not freaks. We are part of something much larger than we knew. Maybe there are other gateways, other people going through the skin of the sea and into Ingo, all over the world….

  I bend down over Sadie, pretending to adjust her collar, and whistle, very low, a few bars of “O Peggy Gordon.”

  I wish I was away in Ingo

  Far across the briny sea,

  Sailing over deepest waters…

  I glance up cautiously. Gloria’s expression is far away, and she’s listening intently. “What tune is that you’re whistling?”

  “It’s a song called ‘O Peggy Gordon.’”

  “Is it a Scottish song?”

  “I don’t know. It could be. My father knew a lot of Scottish songs.”

  “I’m sure I know it. My mother used to sing me a lot of songs. Do you know the words?”

  I shake my head. It’s too risky. It was the song that began it all, that Midsummer Night before Dad disappeared. He was singing “O Peggy Gordon” then, and he was listening, listening, but I didn’t know then what he was listening for.

  I mustn’t tell Gloria the words or speak the name of Ingo to her. Not here. Not now. What if Ingo starts to call her when she’s alone? It might tempt her as far as the cliffs. She can’t climb down them on crutches, but I know how powerful the pull of Ingo can be. Gloria might try. She might fall. It’s safer for her if she doesn’t know too much. Not yet.

  “I’ve got to go now,” I say aloud, “but I’d like to—I’d really like to come again and bring my brother, Conor, to meet you.”

  She nods. “That’d be good.” Does she recognize a look on my face, too? Does she have that feeling we’re not really strangers but more like distant cousins from a family that’s been scattered for generations?

  Get a grip, Sapphire. If you say anything like that, this woman will think you are completely crazy. She’ll keep the door locked next time you come.

  I want to come again. Not now, maybe not for a while. But deep inside me I’m sure that I’ll see Gloria Fortune again. Somewhere in the future, where only Granny Carne can see it, our lives are linked.

  “Good-bye, then,” says Gloria, smiling. “I’ll tell Rob I’ve met the little mermaid. He’ll be sorry he missed you. You look exactly like your picture.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I hoped Mum would be at work when I got back early this afternoon, but no. She had swapped her day shift for an evening shift at the restaurant and was waiting for me. I was sorry when I saw how tired and tense she looked, but then she began to shout, and I began to shout back.

  Not only was Mum waiting behind the front door, but Roger was on patrol in the living room. With a pincer movement, they got me into a chair so they could lecture me while they stood over me like judges. Most of what they said (or in Mum’s case shouted) was what I’d expected.

  You’ve missed two whole days of school. Do you expect me to write a pack of lies to your teachers about your being ill?

  Don’t you realize how dangerous it is to go off without telling anyone where you’re going? Anything could have happened, and we wouldn’t have known.

  If Mary hadn’t phoned to tell us you were at Granny Carne’s, we’d have had the police out looking for you. What do you think it’s like to have a neighbor telling you where your own daughter’s got to?

  I knew you’d be safe with Granny Carne, but that’s not the point. You’ve got to be more responsible, Sapphy.

  Your mother has been seriously upset, Sapphire, and when she’s upset, I’m pretty unhappy too.

  There was a lot more, but I was ready for it. I’d known there would be major trouble when I got back, even though the most important thing was that Sadie had been cured.

  “But look at Sadie,” I said. Sadie cocked her head toward us from where she was sitting, as far away from the row as she could get. Her eyes glowed, and her coat shone with health. “She’s completely better. Granny Carne healed her. I had to go. She was so ill she might have died.”

  “Rubbish!” Mum shouted. “She was ill, but she wasn’t that ill. You’re just using Sadie as an
excuse to do exactly what you want.”

  I thought about the accusation. It wasn’t true this time. Sadie wasn’t an excuse; she was the heart of the matter. But Roger hadn’t seen how ill Sadie was, so he backed Mum. “If Sadie could cope with the journey to Senara, she can’t have been as bad as you say.”

  “She was. She was nearly dying. She collapsed on the ground by the bus stop, and she couldn’t get up.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Sapphire!”

  I took a breath, ready to yell back at Mum, but Roger put up his hands. “Wait. Let’s cool it here. Sapphire, you have to understand that your mother has very proper concerns about your welfare, and she has a right to be angry with you.”

  “Why are you being so pompous?” I flashed back. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father.”

  As the words came out of my mouth, I saw Roger flinch, just a little. And then a picture of Dad rose into my mind, exactly as he’d appeared the night before. Drops of water glistened on his shoulders. His hair was like seaweed, and his face was torn with anguish. He was my father, yet he was like a stranger. I couldn’t even put my arms around him. It must be like that when you have to visit your dad in prison and talk to him through one of those glass screens they have and not be able to hug or kiss him.

  “You’re not my father, Roger,” I repeated quietly. “It’s not that I don’t like you, but—”

  I expected Roger to react angrily, but he didn’t. “I know that. All the same, I care what happens to you.”

  “Only because you don’t want Mum to be upset.”

  “Yes, that’s part of the reason, but it’s not the whole of it. Why do you find it so hard to believe that people like you for yourself, Sapphire?”

  I had nothing to say, which was just as well since Roger still had plenty.

  “I don’t want to tell you what to do, Sapphire. I think you’re probably right, and Sadie did need help, but you’ve got to go about it the right way. I want you to take responsibility for your own life. Make your own life good. Running back to Senara isn’t going to solve anything. That’s not where we live now. St. Pirans has a lot to offer, but you’re walking around with your eyes shut so you won’t get involved.”

  I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but it hurt. My chest was tight. I wanted to get out of the house, out of the town, out of this tangle of Mer and human, to a place where I could be one thing and one thing only. But perhaps that place did not exist.

  “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again,” said Mum.

  All the things that had happened since yesterday morning flashed through my mind. Sadie lying on the verge of the road, so desperately ill. Granny Carne pouring life back into her. The dark night and Dad’s voice calling me. The eerie silence by the moonlit pool after Dad had disappeared again. Granny Carne’s life book with words that swarmed like bees. The look of Ingo that I’d seen on Gloria Fortune’s face…

  So much had happened. No, I would never do those exact same things again, though I might do other, different things. It was safe to promise. “I promise I’ll never do those things again,” I said, perhaps a little too readily, because Mum looked at me with suspicion.

  “You really promise, Sapphy?”

  “I really promise. Mum, where’s Conor?”

  “He stayed over at Mal’s. They were going surfing at first light. They’ve got a late start at school this morning for some reason.”

  I bet, I thought.

  “Did he come back after school yesterday?” I asked with apparent casualness.

  “No, he went straight to Mal’s,” said Mum innocently.

  But Roger had seen what I was getting at. “Sapphire,” he said warningly.

  But I went on as if I hadn’t heard, “So Conor’s been away for exactly as long as I have and he won’t even be back until tonight. Much later than me. Aren’t you worried about him?”

  “No,” said Mum sharply, “because I know where he is.”

  “Mary Thomas told you where I was.”

  “It’s not the same thing. Conor’s older. Besides, I can trust him—” She broke off again.

  “And you don’t trust me. I told you that Sadie was dying. It was true, Mum, but you didn’t believe me because you don’t trust me. I do the things I do for a reason. Not just because I want to. Because I have to do them.”

  Both of them were looking at me now. I didn’t feel like yelling at them. I didn’t want to burst into tears. A year ago I’d probably have done both those things.

  Roger leaned forward. “What things?” he asked very quietly. “What things do you do, Sapphire, because you have to do them?”

  Perhaps I should have told him then. I don’t know. Ever since the day when Roger dived into Ingo without knowing what he was doing and was almost killed by the guardian seals, I’ve had the sense that he knows something. Deep in him there are memories that he can’t quite touch. But sometimes perhaps they come close to the surface.

  I didn’t tell him. I looked back at him as seriously as he was looking at me and answered, “I can’t tell you that.”

  Mum did something surprising then. She knelt by the chair where I was sitting and put her arms around me. She hugged me so tightly that it hurt, as if she never wanted to let go of me. “Don’t grow up too fast, Sapphy,” she whispered in my ear. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Mum always wants us to be independent, and we are. “I don’t want to lose you just yet.”

  Lose me? I had the feeling that Mum understood, suddenly, how far away from her I sometimes was. She didn’t know about Ingo, but she realized that something was changing me and drawing me away from her. I’d thought she was happy about it, because it left her free to get on with her life with Roger, but perhaps I was wrong.

  I hugged her back, hard. It felt so nice, and I could tell that for once she wasn’t thinking of Roger or work or Dad, or even Conor, but only of me.

  So now I am grounded, and Conor’s not back yet. Grounded, grounded, grounded. No TV, no using Roger’s computer, no using the phone either.

  “Do some extra homework,” said Mum before she went off to the restaurant, “and make up for the school you missed.”

  I take out my mathematics book, but the figures won’t do what I want. I try to read, but I can’t keep hold of the thread of the story. By eight o’clock I’m lying on my bed because there is nothing else to do. I might as well rest my eyes. Of course I won’t go to sleep yet; it’s much too early. I’ll just lie here for a while and listen out for Conor.

  I wake with a shock out of a deep, dreamless sleep. I’m completely disoriented, and have no idea how long I’ve slept. It must be morning. But my alarm clock reads 21:32, and someone is banging on the door downstairs. And shouting. It’s Conor. His voice is loud and urgent. There’s something wrong.

  I jump up, fling open my door, and rush downstairs. Roger is already at the front door, and there’s Conor on the doorstep, with Mal, both of them streaming wet with rain.

  “Conor! What’s happened?”

  “Dolphin stranded on Polquidden,” gasps Conor. He must have run all the way up. “Mal’s dad was night fishing—found it lying on the sand just now. Must’ve got stranded after dark. He’s down there now.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “Just about. In a bad way, though. We’ve called the emergency number, and there should be a rescue team here soon. Is Mum still at work?”

  “Yes,” says Roger. He’s already pulling on his boots and raingear. “I’ll come down with you, Conor. I’ve done basic training on live strandings.”

  Of course you would have, I think. Is there any field in which Roger is not competent? I slide my bare feet into my own boots and find my slicker. I don’t care if I’m grounded. I’m going, and no one’s going to stop me. Roger glances at me but says nothing except “Don’t bring Sadie. She’ll stress the dolphin even more.”

  We slam the door, remembering too late that none of us has a key. Conor left his at Ma
l’s. But there’s no time to think because we’re already running down the street, turning the corner, and racing down the slippery rain-wet steps to the beach. The tide is out. It must have turned by now, but it’s still far away. The dolphin would have got stranded on the falling tide. What happened to make it come so close inshore? Maybe it was sick or injured, or it had been hurt in an encounter with a trawler, or something else had disoriented it….

  We splash over the wide, empty beach, through the shallow pools that the sea has left, over hard, ridged sand, toward a faint, bobbing light over by the rocks way down on the left-hand side of the beach. The light is shrouded by rain.

  “Where’s Mal gone?”

  “To fetch more help.”

  We run as fast as we can toward the light. It seems near, then far, and sometimes there seems to be nothing but rain and darkness and our own laboring breath. But we’re getting close. Now we can see shapes in the darkness ahead. Roger raises his flashlight. There’s a man—Mal’s dad, Will—and a curved bulk on the sand. It glistens with rain, like a wet black rock rising in a hump from the sand. But it’s not a rock; it’s the dolphin.

  I never understood what “stranded” meant until the moment I saw the dolphin lying there. The most graceful creature of Ingo lies helpless as a sack of sand. It cannot move. It cannot escape.

  Roger’s up ahead of me and Conor, shouting to Mal’s dad. “All right, Will? How are things?”

  “Female, weighs about half a ton. It’s not looking so good,” Will calls back. “She’s struggling.”

  Struggling to survive, he means. She’s not moving. Out of her element, stranded on the hard sand. She lies on her side.

  “Don’t reckon the tide’ll come in fast enough for her.”

  “Low water was about eight, that right?”

  “That’s right. Where are we now, half past nine? Water should be back to her by half ten, eleven time.”