Helen Dunmore - The Complete Ingo Chronicles - Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, The Crossing of Ingo, Stormswept

Faro. He came last night. If my mind had been closed I would never have heard the voice of Ingo. That’s why I can’t settle into St Pirans. I mustn’t. I’ve got too much to lose.

“ Saph! Saa-aaphh !”

I spin round. Sadie bounds forward. It’s Conor, running down the beach.

“There you are, Saph. I’ve been looking all over for you. Come on.”

“What’s happened?”

“Something amazing. Come quick—”

My heart leaps. I know what Conor’s going to tell me. We’re going back to Senara. Mum’s tired of St Pirans. Maybe… maybe she’s splitting up with Roger. We’re going home!

“There’s a pod of dolphins in the bay. They’re playing off Porthchapel, close in. Mal’s dad is taking the boat out, and he says we can both come if we get there quick.”

“What about Sadie?”

“We’ll drop her at the house on the way.”

Our house is in a street close to Polquidden, tucked away behind the row of cottages and studios which faces the beach. We leave Sadie there and race through the narrow streets. Even Conor’s out of breath. He ran all the way from Porthchapel so that I could get the chance of going out in the boat too.

“Thanks, Conor!”

“What?”

“For not just going out – in the boat – without me…”

“I wouldn’t go without you.”

We cross the square, go down the Mazey and we’re nearly there. Porthchapel Beach stretches ahead. There’s a little crowd of people, and a bright orange inflatable boat in the water.

“Come on, Saph! They’re ready to go.”

Mal’s Dad gives us a lifejacket each, and we fix them on while he starts the engine. Mal splashes thigh-deep in water, pushing the boat out.

“We’ll take her out in the bay a bit, then I’ll kill the engine so we don’t scare them,” says Mal’s dad. “Mind, they like boats. I reckon there’s about twelve of them in the pod, could be more. November – it’s late in the year to see them here.”

There are a dozen or more people at the water’s edge. More are hurrying down the slope from the putting green. I shade my eyes and scan the water. Porthchapel Beach is sheltered and the sea is always calmer here than on Polquidden. Suddenly I see what I’m looking for. The water breaks, and a dark, glistening shape breaches the water. The back of a dolphin, streaming with water as it leaps and then dives back into the sea. Another dolphin breaches, and then another. They swim in a half-circle, in tight formation. Suddenly five of them leap at once, as if the same thought came to them all at the same instant.

One dolphin is much smaller than the others. A young one, probably a calf born in the spring. It’s almost a baby, even in dolphin terms.

Dad taught me about dolphins. He loved them. He took loads of photographs of them. He knew the ones that came back year after year, but he said it was wrong to give dolphins human names and human characteristics. They know what their names are , he always said. They have their own language. They’re better communicators than we are.

The dolphin calf is swimming close to its mother. She’ll be taking him south soon, to warmer waters. Wherever the dolphins are, Ingo is there too, I remember that. Even when they show their backs above the water, or leap right through the skin into the Air, they still carry Ingo with them. So Ingo must be very close…

A pod is like a family of dolphins, and here they are, playing in full view of the humans whom they ought to fear. I count them. Six – eight – eleven – yes, Mal’s dad is right, there are twelve dolphins here. They don’t seem at all afraid of us. But they should be afraid. Why should they trust a boatload of humans?

They’re coming closer and closer inshore. People on the beach are waving and clapping. Mal’s father switches off the engine and lets the boat rock. A long swell moves under the water’s surface. Little waves slap the side of our boat. I sit forward, tense, waiting. Something is about to happen. Every sound seems to die away, even the noises of the sea and the people cheering the dolphins.

One of the dolphins leaps high out of the water.

“She’s seen us. She wants to talk to us,” I say under my breath to Conor. Mal glances at me.

Conor turns casually and murmurs in my ear. “Be careful, Saph.”

Mal’s dad stands up, legs braced for balance, camera in hand. “Should be able to get some good shots from here,” he says.

I was wrong. It isn’t quiet at all. Sound floods across the water in a wave. The dolphins are talking to each other. There are more than a dozen voices, weaving together, clicking and whistling, filling the sea with a net of sound. Cautiously, so that my weight balances that of Mal’s dad, I stand up too.

“Careful, Saph,” says Conor again.

They want to come to the surface. They want to talk to us. What is it? What’s happening?

“Beautiful,” says Mal’s dad. He has got his shots. “I’m going to blow up these images into posters.”

“Hush. Listen.”

“What is it?” asks Mal.

“Don’t talk. I can’t hear what they’re saying if you talk.”

“They do say dolphins have their own language,” agrees Mal’s dad.

And now I hear it. It’s like tuning into radio stations on an old-fashioned radio. The air waves wheeze and crackle. There’s a snatch of music, then something that might be words in a foreign language. One of the dolphins leaps so close to the boat that its wake catches us, our boat rocks and Mal’s dad has to struggle to keep his balance.

“This – is – amazing,” says Mal in a low, awestruck voice. “I never seen them come in so close. Look at him there.”

It’s not a male, it’s a female. An adult female with broad, shining sides and small, dark, intelligent eyes that look at me with recognition. Of course. Of course. I know her. I know the shape of her – her powerful fluke that drives her through the water, and her dorsal fin. I know what her skin feels like when I’m riding on her back with the sea rushing past me. I know her voice, and the power of the muscles beneath her skin.

“Hello,” I say. My voice makes only the feeblest click and whistle, like a baby trying to talk dolphin. She turns, swims away from the boat fast then turns again and rushes the boat. Three metres from us, she stops dead. Water surges and her eyes gleam, catching mine.

“That is just so am-az-ing ,” says Mal again. Even though he’s Cornish, Mal likes to sound American, or maybe it’s meant to be Australian. He thinks it’s cool.

“I reckon she’s having a game with us,” says his father. “They’re playful creatures, dolphins.”

She’s not playing. You can tell that from her voice. Lots of other voices are breaking in, all of them dolphin voices, some close, some far away. They weave a net of urgent sound, but her voice rises above them all.

kommolek arvor trist arvor

truedhek arvor

arvor

kommolek

lowenek moryow

Ingo lowenek

The dolphin language weaves like music. I hear some of it, and then it slides away. It rushes over my mind, teasing and tickling. I can’t grasp it.

“Please help me. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

She is very close to the boat now. Her eyes look directly into mine, powering their intelligence into me. But I can’t decode it; I can’t get there. My brain fizzes with irritation, just as it does when I’m on the point of solving a puzzle in maths.

And then the connection breaks.

“Hey, Sapphire, that was fantastic fake dolphin language you were talking!” says Mal, and the dolphin turns and dives back to the pod. I think it’s Mal’s appreciation which is fake, but I say nothing. Conor is watching me, silently willing me to shut up and not draw any more attention to myself. And I certainly don’t want everyone in St Pirans to think that I’m a crazy girl who converses with dolphins.