“What do you think the fortune-teller said?”
“Dad wouldn’t tell me. It must have been something really bad, though.”
“Maybe the fortune-teller said that Mum would die by drowning.”
“Don’t be stupid, Saph. A fortune-teller wouldn’t ever say that to someone. You’re going to drown, that’ll be ten pounds please.”
“But she must have told Mum something terrible. Mum wouldn’t stop going in boats for the rest of her life otherwise—”
“Saph, please don’t go on about it or I’ll wish I hadn’t told you. And don’t let them know you know. Dad said not to tell you in case you got scared.”
Mum and Dad’s voices rise again. Why do they have to argue so much? I hardly ever quarrel with Conor.
“I’m going in to make some toast,” says Conor. “That’ll stop them.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Mum and Dad are standing by the stove. They go quiet when they see us, but the air prickles with all the bad things they’ve said. Sometimes I think that if adult quarrels had a smell, they would smell like burned food. Dad’s mushrooms are shrivelled up and black. He sees me looking at them, and he picks up the pan and scrapes the burned mushrooms into the pig bin.
What a waste. I love mushrooms.
The next night Conor and I bike up to see his friend Jack. We stay longer than we mean to, because Jack’s Labrador bitch has three puppies. We haven’t played with them before, because they’ve been too little, but now they’re seven weeks old. Jack lets us hold one each. My puppy is plump and wriggly and she sniffs my fingers, licks them, and makes a hopeful whining sound in the back of her throat. She is so beautiful. Conor and I have always wanted a dog, but we haven’t managed it yet.
“You are the most beautiful puppy in the whole world,” I whisper to her, holding her close to my face. She has a funny little folded-down left ear, and soft, inquisitive brown eyes. If I could choose one of the puppies, it would be her. She wrinkles her nose, does a tiny puppy sneeze, and then snuggles in under my chin. I feel as if she’s chosen me already.
Poppy, the pups’ mother, she knows us, so she doesn’t mind us playing with them. She stays near, though, looking pleased and proud and watchful. Every time a pup tries to sneak away to explore, Poppy fetches it back and drops it in the basket. I love the way Poppy makes her mouth soft to pick up the pups by the scruff of their neck.
We forget all about the time. When we remember, it’s getting late and we have to rush.
“Come on, Saph. Mum’s going to kill me if we’re any later!”
Conor’s up ahead, racing. My bike’s too small for me and I have to pedal like crazy, but it still won’t go fast. When Conor gets a new one, I’ll have his old one. Dad says maybe at Christmas Conor will get his new bike.
“Wait for me!” I yell, but Conor’s away in the distance. At the last bend he waits for me to catch up.
“You are so slow,” he grumbles, as we bike the final downhill stretch side by side.
“I’m just as fast as you are, it’s only my bike that’s slow,” I say. “If I had your bike…” Conor’s already told me he’ll paint his old bike for me when he gets a new one, and I can keep the lights. He’ll paint it any colour I like.
We reach the gate where the track goes down past our cottage. Ours isn’t the only cottage here, but our neighbours are set far apart. At night we can see the lights from the other cottages’ windows, shining out against the dark hillside. Our cottage is closest to the sea.
“Look, there’s Mum. What’s she doing?” asks Conor suddenly.
Mum has climbed to the top of the stile opposite our cottage. She’s standing there, outlined against the light of the sunset. She strains forward, as if she’s looking for something.
“Something’s wrong,” says Conor. He drops his bike on the side of the track and starts to run. I drop mine too, but its handlebars get tangled up with Conor’s bike. I stop to sort out the bikes and prop them against the wall. I want to run to Mum, but I also don’t want to. I hang back. I have a cold feeling in my heart that tells me that Conor is right. Something is wrong. Something has happened.
This is when the long night begins. The longest night of my life so far, even though it’s summer and the nights are short.
None of us goes to bed. At first we all sit together in the kitchen, round the table, waiting. Sometimes I start to fall asleep. My head lolls and then I lurch out of sleep just before I tip off my chair. Mum doesn’t notice, and she doesn’t send me to bed. She watches the door as if any moment it will open, and Dad will be back.
“Dad often takes the boat out this late,” Conor keeps saying stubbornly, as the clock moves on. Ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock.
“Not like this,” says Mum. Her lips barely move. I know that she’s right, and so does Conor. Something’s wrong. When Dad goes fishing he usually goes with Badge or Pete. He does go on his own sometimes, but he never, ever just disappears without telling us where he’s going. We help him load up the boat and often we watch him go out on the tide.
But this time Dad has said nothing. He was working in the garden all afternoon. Mum heard him singing. She went to lie down for half an hour, because she was so tired from not sleeping the night before. She must have fallen asleep. When she woke the sun was low. She called to Dad, but no one answered. She went down the track and called again but everything was still. Our neighbour, Mary Thomas, came out.
“Is something wrong, Jennie?” she asked. “I heard you calling for Mathew.”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” said Mum. “It’s just I don’t know where he is. Maybe he’s working on the boat. I’ll go down to the mooring and check.”
Imagine Mum going all the way down to the cove, so near to the sea. She must have been scared, but she did it. She slipped on a rock as she climbed down, and cut her hand on mussel shells and got blood all over her jeans. She went down as far as she dared, until she could see that there was no boat tied up at the mooring place. The tide was high, just on the turn. Mum called and called again even though she was sure by now that Dad wasn’t there. She couldn’t stop herself calling.
“I had a feeling that Mathew was nearby. He was trying to get to me, but he couldn’t.”
Mum doesn’t tell us all this as we sit around the kitchen table. Much later that night, when she’s told us to go upstairs and get some sleep, we sit on the stairs and listen to her talking to Mary Thomas, telling her all the things she hasn’t told us – about calling Dad, and thinking he was nearby, but he couldn’t get to her.
Dawn comes, and Dad’s still not back. Mary Thomas is with Mum in the kitchen. Conor and I are still sitting on the stairs, waiting and listening. I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I wake up with Conor’s arm round me. I’m stiff all over. My head hurts and the heavy frightened feeling inside is stronger than ever.
Mum said Dad would be back in the morning. But it’s morning now, and he’s not here.
