in my class. She said Badge Thomas said he would ram the teeth of the man who said it right down his throat if he opened his mouth again. The man was from Towednack, Jessie said. No one who knows Dad would ever believe it. He would never let the Peggy Gordon go on the tide. He loves her too much.
4. “Was your husband worried about anything? Debts? Problems at work? Did he seem depressed or unlike himself? Had he been drinking?”
These are some of the questions that the police asked Mum. Conor and I guessed what the police were trying to find out, but it was all rubbish. Dad was happy. We were all happy.
5. “You remember what happened to that other Mathew? Could be it’s the same thing come again.”
“You don’t really reckon, do you?”
“Well, they do say—”
This was Mrs Pascoe and her cousin Bertha talking in the post office stores. They saw me come in and they bit off the rest of what they’d been going to say. I hung around the birthday-card stand pretending to choose one, but the women just paid for their stuff and went out. They could have been talking about something else, but I don’t think so. I could see from their looks that they’d been talking about us, and there’s no other Mathew around here except Dad. That other Mathew – what did they mean?
I look down at the list I’ve written, and cross out three and four straight away. That leaves one, two and five. Josh Tregony’s dad told him that a factory fishing trawler did once pull down a small boat off the Scottish coast. The small boat got caught in the nets and dragged down, and the fishermen drowned. So maybe it could happen here. I don’t believe the freak squall theory. I remember that night too well, and how flat the sea was. So number two can be crossed out as well.
That leaves one and five. I don’t understand five at all, so maybe I’d better leave it on the list for the time being, until I find out more.
Suddenly I hear three sounds at once. The crunch of Mum’s tyres on the stony track up by the gate. The creak of a window shutting upstairs. The slap of Conor’s feet on the boards as he runs back to bed.
I slam my notebook shut, snap off the light, and dive under my duvet.
When I wake the next morning, there’s heavy white mist outside my window. I can’t even see the garden wall. I push my window open and lean out. There’s a mournful lowing sound, like the moo of a cow who has been separated from her calf. It’s the foghorn, calling to warn the ships.
So many ships have run aground and broken up on the rocks around here. Dad used to tell me a long list of their names: the Perth Princess, the Andola, the Morveren, the Lady Guinevere. Some of the wrecked ships were homeward bound from wars more than two hundred years ago, Dad said. You can still find driftwood from ships that sailed to fight Napoleon and never reached home again. Dad once showed me a piece of driftwood with a hole where a ship’s brass nail would have fitted.
I held it up and put my finger over the nail hole. I tried to imagine what it was like when the ship sank. The noise of the wind screaming and the waves pounding. Men would yell out orders on deck, trying to save the ship. But the wind and current were stronger than the power of the men, and the ship was driven on to the black spine of the rocks.
The rocks ripped the hull and water gushed in, on top of the people who were struggling to escape. There was nowhere to go, except into the wild black water.
Boys Conor’s age worked on those ships. Maybe they climbed the masts as high as they could, trying to save themselves. They clung to the spars as the ship tossed this way and that like a horse that falls at a jump and breaks its back.
They had no chance. The sea knows how to break up any ship. Those rocks are too far out for people on shore to throw lines and save them. In that raging sea you could never launch a boat for rescue.
The foghorn lows again. Danger, it says. Keep away. Danger. I hope the ships are listening today.
Mum’s up. I can hear her banging around in the kitchen. No sound of Conor.
My heart jumps in fear. Barefoot, I tiptoe to the loft ladder. I grasp its sides and climb up as quietly as a squirrel, high enough to see Conor’s bed.
He’s there. I can see the back of his head poking out of the top of the duvet. He’s fast asleep.
I climb down the ladder, go to the bathroom and then pull on my jeans and a sweatshirt. If I’m quick, I’ll get the chance to talk to Mum before Conor wakes up. Maybe I’ll be able to tell her what happened yesterday – ask her what we can do—
But as soon as I see Mum, I know I can’t say anything about Conor and the sea and the girl, and why it frightens me. In the daytime world, none of it makes sense. Mum won’t understand why I’m scared.
“She’ll have been one of Conor’s friends from school,” Mum would say. “Conor can’t spend all his time with you, you know, Saph. He’s growing up.”
Mum’s busy, making coffee, ironing a dress for work, and finishing off peeling the potatoes, all at the same time. She’s got the radio on and she’s humming to a song called Happy Days, which is getting played about twice an hour this summer:
Happy days babe,
I got them for you,
The morning sunshine
The sweet dark too,
Yeah the sweet dark too…
It’s the kind of song people Mum’s age love. Her face has gone soft and dreamy, listening to it. She lifts the iron and the steam sizzles, then she smiles at me.
“Hi, Mum. Wow, is that strawberry tart for us?”
Mum brings leftover stuff back from the restaurant sometimes. But this is something special. A big tart stuffed full of shiny ripe strawberries, glazed with jelly. There’s only a quarter taken out of it.
“Have a piece for breakfast if you like, Sapphy.”
For breakfast? I stare at Mum. There is something completely different about her this morning, but I can’t work out what it is. Quickly, before she changes her mind, I divide the strawberry tart into three pieces and take my own.
“Mm, s’dlishus, Mum.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” says Mum, sounding more like herself. But she still doesn’t look like herself. What’s going on?
And then I see what it is. The tight lines around Mum’s mouth have melted away. She’s wearing her favourite jeans and her pink top. She looks happy. I swallow the mouthful of tart and ask, “Did you get good tips last night, Mum?”
“Mm.” Mum shakes her work dress and puts it on a hanger. “All right. Nothing special.”
So it’s not that.
My heart leaps. Suddenly
