flew into the hedge. The helicopter circled above the island and then swooped low across the waves, whipping up the surface of the water as if to expose what was underneath.
After a while, it flew back in our direction and hung for a short while above the grassy slope behind the house. It tried to land but didn’t seem able to. I could see two men behind the glass. They both raised a hand and flew off toward the horizon.
Later the coastguard called to say they had found nothing, and that the slope on our island was too steep for the helicopter. They needed to know the exact time of the disappearance to locate Dad in the current that had taken him out to sea. Mum looked at me.
‘What time did you last see Dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered, and began to cry again. ‘It was still light.’
‘Late afternoon, perhaps as late as six,’ she answered.
The coastguard said they would keep a lookout, and that all shipping had been notified.
Mum kept on phoning. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if they’d been stung. She repeated her story. The answer was always the same: ‘We’ll do what we can.’ Then she headed back outside, wearing Dad’s raincoat. I had to wait by the phone. As soon as she was gone, I retreated into the darkness of the cupboard under the stairs. When the telephone shattered the silence, I let it ring till it stopped all by itself.
Even in my hiding place, the pale shape reappeared. I pressed my fingers into my eyes till the pain made me cry out.
6
Karl knocked on the back door. Mum waved at me to open it.
Solemnly he took off his cap and shook my hand. The air around him was thick and tepid, his cheeks were bristly. He glanced around the kitchen and shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘Not a trace.’
We all looked in different directions.
‘They sometimes surface after three days or so,’ Karl said.
I saw Dad rising from the deep, the arc of a diver in reverse: world underwater swimming champion Birk Hammermann. We’d all applaud, and Mum would stick her fingers in her mouth and whistle, and I’d give it a go, too. They’d let me keep the fake gold medal, and everything would turn out all right.
‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘And if they wash up on shore, they’re all swollen up like that dead seal a while back.’
Mum leaned stiffly against the sink. I tried to imagine how long a person could hold their breath.
‘There’s no knowing where, eh. Could be anywhere. Pull of the water. Currents are treacherous, he should’ve …’ He let the rest of his words evaporate. ‘He was… I mean is… a grown man.’
To prove how thoroughly he’d searched, he listed everything his nets had dredged up. ‘Planks, old nets, seaweed. A plastic crate I lost months ago,’ he chuckled. Flies were orbiting the kitchen light, spinning faster and faster, closing in on one another with a high-pitched buzz. There was no counting them.
Heaving a sigh, Karl looked at the pot of soup, still standing on the table since yesterday evening, along with the spoon and the empty bowl. The grey chunks of fish and broken strands of vermicelli had sunk to the bottom and fat glistened on the top. Karl scratched his head, stuck his little finger in his ear, and poked it around. He examined what his nail had scraped out and wiped it off on his trousers. ‘Can’t say I know what to do now,’ he murmured.
Mum had turned to face the window. She wanted Karl to leave, to go on searching, to turn the sea inside out. He didn’t get the message.
‘Nothing else left to do,’ he went on. ‘You saw the helicopter.’
Karl took hold of Dad’s chair, scraped it toward him, and sat down. The wickerwork seat creaked. He lowered his head. The flies had landed and were scuttling across the table. Nothing else in the kitchen moved.
Karl nodded toward the pot of soup. When I didn’t respond, he turned to Mum. His neck was covered in blond hair that disappeared beneath the grubby collar of his shirt. Mum used to cut his hair once in a while. He would sit there, bare-chested, on one of the kitchen chairs, his head bent forward as Mum ran the trimmer over his neck. He had one of those belly buttons that stick out a bit. Dad always went outside to chop wood when Karl dropped by for a haircut. After he’d swept up and Mum had tucked the trimmer back in the toilet bag, Karl would hang around the kitchen much longer than he needed to, shirtless.
Karl had pulled the soup bowl toward him. He eyed the spoon, turned it over between his fingers, and tapped it lightly on the table. ‘What can I do?’ he said. ‘I suppose I could let down my nets and sail round the island again.’ Mum didn’t answer.
I began to count. I’d nearly reached a hundred before Karl said, ‘Just don’t know what else to do.’ He stood up and said goodbye. Mum’s lips creased into a thin line.
The chug of Karl’s boat brought her back to life. She lifted the pot from the table and sloshed the soup down the toilet. She took a brick of soup out of the freezer, clattered it into the empty pot, and turned the gas on full. The block of ice steamed and shrank while she stared out the window.
‘We have to keep our strength up,’ she said. She ladled Dad’s bowl full and pushed it toward me. I’d rather have had a fresh one. ‘Even if you’re not hungry, you should try and eat something.’
‘You too,’ I said softly.
‘I can’t right now, love.’ Every word sounded like a gasp, as if she were forcing them out with the last of her breath.
‘What if I make you some soup?’ I asked.
Her gaze turned tender as a kiss.
‘You eat for both of us. Please. When Dad comes back, we’ll eat together again.’
Silently, I began to spoon. A few mouthfuls were all I could manage.
Without a word, Mum went into the hall, wriggled her feet into her boots, and disappeared outside.
As soon as I could no longer hear her, I went to the toilet and poured the rest of my soup away. I rinsed the soup bowl and the spoon under the tap, dried them, and put them back on the table, where they had spent one whole day waiting for Dad.
7
We drank our coffee, awkward, silent. I had never seen Mum smoke, yet here she was, lighting Dad’s cigarettes. She sucked fire into them expectantly, but after a couple of draws she let the fag end drop, hissing, into the last of her coffee. Stretching her arm, she slipped the pack back into the inside pocket of Dad’s raincoat, which was slung over his chair.
It wasn’t long before she fished the pack out again, and her trembling fingers slid a new cigarette between her lips. She saw me looking at her, and they curled into a smile as fragile as a Christmas-tree decoration, the kind you’re afraid might break before you even touch it.
I dashed upstairs to my room, took the atlas from my desk, sat down on the bed, and opened it on my lap. I flicked through the pages, so fast I accidentally tore one. At the back there were maps of the sea, covered in wavy lines with arrows at the end. I was looking for the map with our stretch of
