Helen Dunmore - The Tide Knot

All September I had to keep on explaining to Sadie, “I’m sorry, I know you want to run on the sand, but you can’t.” The more I get to know Sadie, the more I realise how much she understands. She doesn’t have to rely on words. Sadie can tell from the way I walk into a room what kind of a mood I’m in.

Now she’s quivering with excitement, but she still waits patiently on the step.

“Go on, Sadie girl! It’s all right, you can run where you like today.” Sadie stretches her body, gives one leap of pure pleasure, and then settles to the serious business of chasing a seagull in crazy zigzags over the sand. Sadie has never caught a gull, and I’m sure this gull knows that. It’s leading her on, teasing her, skimming low over the sand to get Sadie’s hopes high, then soaring as she rushes towards it.

I want Sadie to run and run, as far as she likes. I know she’ll come back when I call. And besides, I want her to be free.

Since we moved to St Pirans I’ve been having these dreams. Not every night, not even every week, but often enough to make me scared to go to sleep sometimes. In the dream I’m caught in a cage. At first I’m not too worried because the bars are wide apart and it will be easy to slip out. But as soon as I move towards them, the bars close up. I try to move slowly and casually so that the cage won’t know what I’m planning, but every time the bars are quicker than I am. It’s as if the cage is alive and knows that I’m trying to escape.

I still can’t believe that we are really living here in St Pirans. Can it be true that we’ve left our cottage for ever? And Senara, and our cove, and all the places we love? Conor and I were born in the cottage, for heaven’s sake, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. How can you shut the door on the place where you were born?

Mum’s promised that she’ll never, ever, sell our cottage, but she’s renting it out to strangers. The rent money pays for us to rent a house in St Pirans, where we have no memories at all.

It seems crazy to me. Completely crazy in a way that the adults all believe is completely logical.

You’ll make so many new friends when you’re living in a town !

You’ll be able to go to the cinema and the swimming pool.

They’ve got some really good shops in St Pirans, Sapphy.

Why would anyone who lives by the sea want to go to a swimming pool anyway? Swimming pools are tame and bland and fake blue and they stink of chlorine. The water is dead, because of all the chemicals they put into it. The sea is alive. Every drop in it is full of life. If you put water from a swimming pool under a microscope, there would be nothing. Or maybe some bacteria if they haven’t put enough chemicals in.

Even the sea gets crowded in St Pirans. It’s quieter now because the season’s over, but everyone keeps telling us, Wait until the summer months. You’re lucky if you can find a patch of sand to put your towel down in August. There are four beaches and a harbour, and thousands and thousands of tourists who swarm all over the town like bees. Conor and I sometimes used to come to St Pirans for a day while we were still living in Senara. Just for a change. A day was always enough. You can’t swim without getting whacked by someone’s board. Sometimes there are even fights between different groups of surfers – the ones who are local and the ones who have come here in vans from upcountry. They fight over such big issues as one surfer dropping in on another surfer’s wave. Imagine thinking that the sea belongs to you, and fighting over waves. That’s another sort of St Pirans craziness. I must tell Faro about it. It would make him laugh.

“Sadie! Sadie !” Suddenly I see that Sadie is way over the other side of the beach, bounding towards a tiny little dog. It’s a Yorkshire terrier, I think, skittering about by the water’s edge. Sadie won’t hurt the Yorkie, of course she won’t. But all the same I begin to run. At the same moment, a girl of about my age sees what’s happening, and jumps up from where she’s digging a hole in the sand with a little kid.

“ Sa-die !”

Is she going to listen? Does Sadie really believe that I’m her owner now? Yes! A few metres away from the terrier, Sadie slows and stops. You can see from her body how much she longs to rush right up to it. She glances back at me, asking why I’ve spoiled what could have been a wonderful adventure.

“Good girl. You are such a good girl, Sadie.”

I’m out of breath. I drop to my knees on the wet sand and clip on Sadie’s lead. The terrier girl picks up her dog, which is no bigger than a baby.

“I thought your dog was going to eat Sky,” says the girl. She has very short spiky blonde hair and her smile leaps across her face like sunshine.

“ Sky. Weird name for a dog.”

“I know. She’s not mine. She belongs to my neighbour, but my neighbour’s got MS so I take her for walks. Not that she walks far. Sky, I mean, not my neighbour,” adds the girl quickly, as if she’s said something embarrassing. “Sorry,” she adds, “too much information.”

I don’t even know what MS is, so I just say, “Oh. I see.”

“Is this your dog?” asks the girl longingly.

“Yes.” It still feels like a lie when I say that. It’s such a cliché when people say that things are too good to be true, but each time I say that Sadie is my dog, that is exactly how it feels. Much too good to be true. I worried for weeks that Jack’s family would want her back, but they don’t. She’s yours , Jack’s mum said. Dogs know who they belong to, and Sadie’s chosen you for sure, Sapphire. Look at her wagging her tail there. I never get such a welcome.

“She’s beautiful.” The girl stretches out her hand confidently, as if she’s sure that Sadie will like her, and Sadie does. She sniffs the girl’s fingers approvingly. I give a very slight tug on Sadie’s lead.

“We’ve got to go,” I say.

“I must take Sky and River back, too. That’s River, over there at the bottom of the hole. He’s always digging holes. He’s my little brother.”

“River. Weird name for a boy,” I nearly say. I stop myself in time, but the girl smiles.

“Everyone thinks our names are a bit strange.” She looks at me expectantly. “Don’t you want to know what my name is? Or would you rather guess?”

I shake my head a bit stiffly. This girl is so friendly that it makes me feel awkward.

“Rainbow,” she says. “Rainbow Petersen. My mum called me Rainbow because she reckoned it had been raining in her life for a long time before I was born, and then the sun came out. My mum’s Danish, but she’s been living here since she was eighteen.”

There is a short silence. I try to imagine Mum saying anything remotely like that to me, and fail. The sun came out when you were born, Sapphire darling. No, I don’t think so.

The girl – Rainbow – looks as if she’s waiting for something. She picks up the terrier, and I say, “Well, bye then.”

But then she looks straight at me and says quite seriously, “You know my name and my little brother’s name and Sky’s name. Aren’t you going to tell me yours?”

I feel myself flush. “Um, it’s Sapphire.”

“That’s great,” says Rainbow warmly.

“Why?”

“I’m so glad you haven’t got a normal name like Millie or Jessica. Sapphire. Yes, I like it. What about your dog?”

“She’s called Sadie.”

The girl looks at me again in that expectant way, but whatever she’s expecting doesn’t happen. After a moment she says, “OK, see you around then, Sapphire. Bye, Sadie,” and she goes back to where River is digging his hole.