no longer, she called Calypso back.
“Sing, Mummy, you have to sing to me!”
Dutifully, Sophie sang: she sang a song Davy Jones had taught her, about a fisherman who was starving. He was so weak that he did not have the strength to pull his fish into the boat and he had to persuade it to jump in of its own good will. And when the fish did that, its belly opened and out poured a mass of golden coins, and the boat almost sank under the weight of all that gold.
But Sophie’s boat did not sink: Calypso allowed herself to be reeled in on that thread of song, though as soon as her feet touched the beach she fell, as if she could not bear her own sudden weight …
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Sophie.”
It was Dominic’s voice: exasperated, chiding. Waking suddenly, Sal leapt in. “She’s playing at being happy for the first time in her life. You should try it.”
“Sal, please! I’m not here to make trouble. But on this island, of all places! To bring her, here!”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“A few years ago you’d have died rather than be seen in a place like this. Some millionaire playing at gurus and all of you crying ‘Shantih’ at his feet.”
“From you, this is rich!” hooted Sophie.
“But an island! After Joe, you should be going as far inland as possible.”
Sophie grunted. “That would be running away.”
“And Sweetholm is the thick of things?”
“It suits us. You think we don’t deserve a break?”
“Of course you do.” He came and sat beside her. “You can’t guess the seventy ways I worry about you both, Sophie. And whatever you did, you’d get me turning up probably, trying to show you different.”
Sal put her arms round Sophie. “Haven’t you bullied her enough for now?”
“It’s all right, Sal,” said Sophie. She looked from one to the other and shook her head. “Let’s show Dominic the house he has come to, at least.”
When the footsteps had dwindled, Calypso sat herself up, back against the stone pedestal. She pulled the crocheted blanket from her legs. She saw nothing that displeased her: a satin glimmer of reflected fire, a loop of scattered window light over the soft fur. Her toes stretched, her feet and legs stretched out together. She was glad to be alone and out of the dream-maze. Had that been … had it been … Uncle Dominic? Had it? And had she been with him in a hospital, a hospital on wheels that made her remember frightening things? Or had that been just a dream?
Calypso tucked her knees together and hooked her hands round about her shin. Other people, she had begun to learn, had dreams that stayed dreams. They were lucky, those people.
Her dreams always came true.
The first things to stir at Crusoe’s Castle next morning were Tansy’s toes, which had broken free of the covers and found the air too cold. Tansy opened her eyes and saw them waving at her from the far end of the blanket. She had been put in one of the attic rooms, with a slanted ceiling and a dormer window.
She got up and tried out her view. From the open window she could hear the gulls wheeling, scavenging in the bins at the back of the house. One passed so close she could see the feathers of its outstretched wing, and the dribble of loose meat in its beak. No use even guessing what that had been when it was alive. Behind the gulls there were other sounds: the bleating of sheep from the field next door. And always, just too low to distinguish, a murmur of the sea. Even now it was spilling into the gulleys and on to beaches, scooping caves out of the rock not far away. On each side of this narrow island, from the north and south coasts it rose and arched over their heads, a dome of sea talk, of bee slumber, just out of sight.
There was much to do at the smallholding. Uncle John had left affairs in a disorderly state. Supplies of food and drink were low, the linen needed sorting and Hilary had declared the kitchen a war zone. And Davy Jones’s showing Geoff the ropes seemed to involve spending most of their time in a shed at the bottom of the garden. Tansy lazily contemplated the possibility of escape.
In the yard the house’s shadow lay flat and broken-backed where it rose against the angle of the barn opposite. To her right stood the spur of whitewashed brick where Uncle John had set to building guest rooms. Davy Jones had referred to this scoffingly as John’s Folly. For there had been no guests.
“Nor ever will be, I reckon, not to speak of. If there’s a guest here it’ll be some rambler who forgot the time and missed the ferry back.”
“But why? Look at this place – it’s beautiful! They should be flocking here.”
“Ah, well, you’re seeing it at its best. But the weather …” Davy Jones mumbled something about the weather, but it was lost in his beard. “Once you get a reputation …”
This trick of mumbling dumbness was already familiar and Tansy knew better than to pursue him into its thickets.
One part of the reason had emerged later that evening, though not from the mouth of Davy Jones. They’d gone to the pub in the Haven. Two locals were playing dominoes in the public bar. Each sat with a half of stout that looked, as Geoff observed, more likely to evaporate than be drunk, at their rate. Once Hilary, using the excuse of an enquiry after toilets, had tried to prise open a conversation. The domino players had fallen silent and watched her, as one might watch a spider spinning.
Tansy did not merit even that much notice. Gazing at the lights on the fruit machine nearby, she had heard them mull over her Uncle John. “Not a patch on Owen Jones. Not a patch on Davy either. There hasn’t been a decent crop raised on that land since Owen Jones fell ill.”
The fruit machine said: Welcome to the Pleasure Dome, and cascading lights dazzled Tansy in the half-darkness. And the old men were peeling away the farm’s history, through the Jones who kept it before Owen Jones, and the Jones before that who was crushed by one of his own pigs, back to ancient Hwyl Jones who built the place. And how it was a shame it had gone to mainlanders, and how things had never been right with it since.
Though it was early morning Davy Jones was already about, helping himself to bacon and eggs from the kitchen. Someone (Davy probably) had already mopped down the floor.
He saw the surprise on Tansy’s face and laughed, a big Viking laugh. “Muzzle not the ox as it treads the grain,” he said. “I’ve been helping to look after this place so long, it’s become a habit.” He sat down to eat in the big armchair in the living room.
“Haven’t you a house of your own?” asked Tansy.
“Everything’s under control,” said Davy, a piece of fried bread pouched in his cheek. “The milking’s done, and I have other people to help me. It’s like that, Sweetholm. Everyone mucks in, like. You’ll find out.”
“It sounds a very friendly place.” Tansy watched him pour himself more tea, four sugars. She decided she would
