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

“Where’s Conor? Have you seen him?” Mum’s rushing round, getting ready for work. She’s always rushing these days, but at least that means that she never just sits, staring into space…

Mum’s on the evening shift this week, at the restaurant where she works in St Pirans. She leaves at four, and she’ll be back after midnight.

Mum stops in front of the living-room mirror to pin up her hair and put on her lipstick. She never used to wear lipstick every day…

“Sapphire! Are you listening to me?” Mum snaps. I jump. Mum snaps quite a lot these days. She doesn’t mean it, it’s because she’s always tired. She works in one of the expensive new restaurants down by the harbour. The tips are good, but the hours are long in the summer season. Mum got a twenty pound note from one party last week. Twenty pounds! Imagine having so much money you can give away a twenty pound tip on top of paying for your meal. But then there are also mean people, who spend a hundred pounds on one dinner, and think a pound tip is enough—

“Sapphire! Will you please stop daydreaming !”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“For the third time, where’s Conor?”

“Gone up to Jack’s.” I have no idea where Conor is, but I want Mum to go off to work happy.

“I told him to be back by three,” says Mum. “I don’t like leaving you here on your own, Sapphy. Yes, I know you’ll be all right, but I feel safer if Conor’s here. Oh dear, these school holidays, they go on for ever.”

“But they’ve only just started, Mum!”

“It’s all right for the teachers. They get the whole holiday off work, to be with their own kids. They don’t have to go to work all summer and worry themselves half to death about leaving their children on their own—”

“Mum, we’re not little kids. We’re really sensible, and anyway, Conor’ll be back in a minute. But Mum, I wouldn’t ever be on my own if we had a dog—”

“Sapphire, please don’t start that dog business again . Oh no, now I’ve messed up my lipstick.”

“I think you look nicer without lipstick.”

“The customers don’t,” mumbles Mum as she wipes off the smudged lipstick and puts on more.” Look at the rings under my eyes, Sapphy, I need a bit of colour… Now, if Conor’s not back by five, call me on my mobile.”

It is so unfair. Jack’s got three dogs and we haven’t even got one. His mum said we could have Sadie, my favourite puppy, the one with the folding-down ear, but Mum wouldn’t let us. We kept telling Mum we’d look after Sadie and take her for walks and do everything, but Mum said what would happen when she was at work and we were at school?

Sadie is so beautiful. She’s over a year old now, but Jack’s family hasn’t sold her to anyone else. Her coat is pale biscuity gold and she has huge soft brown eyes that look at you as if she knows all about you. And she understands when you tell her things. I take Sadie out for walks whenever I can. It’s a little bit like having a dog of my own, when I’m out with her. She comes to heel immediately when I say, “Heel, Sadie!” People who go past in cars probably do think she’s my dog.

Sadie is so affectionate, but she’s not clingy. In fact she has a perfect character. She always gets so excited when she sees me. Dogs can tell if you really love them. If Jack’s mum and dad ever sold Sadie to someone else, I don’t think she’d be happy. I know she’d miss me as much as I’d miss her—

“Sapphire, listen ,” says Mum. “There’s a pepperoni pizza in the freezer, and Mary’s lettuce, and those spring onions.”

I nod. I hate spring onions. Why does anyone bother to grow them?

“You’ll be all right, won’t you?” says Mum, frowning anxiously. She hates leaving me alone, and she’ll worry about it while she’s at work. She’s got to work, because we need the money. Dad didn’t have any life insurance.

I hate Mum worrying.

“Mum, we’ll be fine.”

Mum gives me a quick rushing-out-of-the-door kiss, and she’s gone. I listen to the car starting then Mum toots the horn and I remember I’ve got to open the gate at the end of the track for her. I run outside, untie the orange twine from the gate post and swing the gate wide. Mum accelerates through, waving at me with a bright smile that doesn’t fool me for a second.

Back into the cottage. It’s too warm inside, and so I leave the door open. I wonder where Conor is?

He’ll be up at Jack’s, on Jack’s computer, or playing with the dogs.

But Conor usually tells me where he’s going. He doesn’t just disappear .

No. Don’t think about that word. I’ll make our tea. We’ll have it early and then we can watch loads of TV. I get out the pizza and put it on a baking sheet. I wash Mary’s lettuce, shake it dry, and carefully cut the roots off the spring onions for Conor. We haven’t grown any vegetables ourselves this year. Dad did all the gardening, and usually he grew everything: onions and potatoes and beans and peas and carrots and all our salad stuff. I used to help him. But now our garden is tangled and overgrown and weedy, and I don’t know where to start clearing it. Dad would hate the way it looks.

But then I remember something. Deep in the weeds there are three gooseberry bushes. I wonder if any of the gooseberries are ripe yet?

They are. They are fat and juicy and when I hold them up to the light I can see the dark seeds inside the yellow skin. I run into the kitchen, get the colander, and start picking. We’ll have gooseberries with sugar and cream. There’s half a carton of clotted cream in the fridge, which Mum brought back from work yesterday.

I pick and pick. Brambles scratch my legs and gooseberry thorns jab at my hands, but I don’t mind. I’ve got nearly a whole colander full now. There’ll be plenty for tomorrow as well, so Mum will be pleased. Conor’s going to love them—

Conor. Where is he? Worry stabs through me again. I look at my watch and it’s twenty-five past five. Mum said to call her if he wasn’t back by five, but I can’t do that. She’d be so scared. She might have an accident from driving back here too fast. And she’d lose a whole night’s pay.

I look around. Everything’s still. Way in the distance I can see Alice Trewhidden watering the geraniums by her front door. Even from a distance you can see the crabbed way that Alice moves. She has to peer up close at things before she can see them. No good asking her if she’s seen Conor.

I could ask Mary.

No, I won’t. Conor hasn’t disappeared . He’s late back, that’s all. If I ask Mary, it will make Conor’s absence seem serious, like the night when Dad—

No. Don’t think about it . I never, ever want to visit that awful night again.

I could phone Jack’s house. Maybe a bit later. But what if his mum answers and says, No, Conor’s not been up here today. Is everything all right, Sapphire ?

I go back inside and put the colander of gooseberries on the kitchen table. I’ll top and tail them later.

The cottage seems quieter than ever. I can’t settle anywhere. I turn the TV on and then quickly turn it off, in case it stops me hearing Conor’s bike. Suddenly I think that maybe Conor is up in his bedroom, asleep.

“Conor?” I call. “Conor?”

Maybe he can’t hear me because he’s got the duvet over his head. I run up to my room and climb the loft ladder to Conor’s room, almost sure by now that he’ll be curled up under the duvet.

The bed is empty. The duvet is on the floor. I wonder if he’s left me a note on his pillow, the way people do in books, but of course he hasn’t. I end up searching all round the loft, as if Conor might have left a clue somewhere. I even bend down to peer out of the little window that Dad made. I remember him making it, after he’d boarded the loft for Conor. He let me sit on the floor and watch and pass his tools to him—