Helen Dunmore - The Tide Knot

Mal tags along all the way back to our house. Conor asks him in, but I say nothing. Leave us alone, go away , I think. As if he picks up my thoughts, Mal says, “All right then, I’ll be getting along. See you, Conor. Um… see you, Sapphire.”

“Bye.”

As soon as we’re inside the house, Conor says, “You might be more friendly to Mal. He likes you.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“OK, he only thinks he likes you. But you don’t have to be so hard on him. You don’t have to dive away when anyone comes near you.”

I hug Sadie so I can hide my face in her neck. Conor isn’t going to be deflected.

“That dolphin, Saph.”

“Which dolphin?”

“You know which dolphin. The one you were talking to.”

“I couldn’t talk to her properly. I was trying really hard, but I couldn’t. I think it might have been because I was in the Air and she was in Ingo. Even when dolphins leap out of the water, they are still in Ingo, Faro told me that. Or maybe I’m just forgetting everything.”

It’s the first time Faro’s name has passed between us for weeks. Conor frowns.

“Why did the dolphins come? Was it a message from Faro?”

“No. It wasn’t anything to do with Faro, I’m sure of that. It wasn’t exactly a message from Ingo – it was about Ingo. The dolphins were trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quick enough. I couldn’t pick it up.”

“Did you want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I just said. Did you want to pick up their message?”

“Of course I did. It was Ingo , Conor, trying to communicate with me. With us,” I add hastily.

“You don’t have to pretend. It was you the dolphin was talking to. But what I want to know is, do you want to listen? Do you really want all that to begin again?”

“Conor, how could I not want it? It’s Ingo. ”

Conor’s eyes search my face. A strange thought strikes me. Conor is trying to decode me, in the same way as I was trying to decode the language of the dolphins. But Conor and I belong to the same species. We’re brother and sister, for heaven’s sake. After a while, Conor says very quietly, “You could if you tried. But you don’t try, Saph.”

I struggle to explain. “It’s not like that. I don’t have a choice. I feel as if I’m only half here. Only half-alive. Our life here in St Pirans is all wrong for me. I feel as if I’m watching it on TV, not living it. Oh, Conor, I wish I was away in Ingo—”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s true.”

“I know,” says Conor slowly and heavily. “You can’t help wanting what you want. I don’t blame you, Saph. I do know how you feel. It’s so powerful, so magical. It draws you. It draws me, too… But I think that if you try as hard as you can – if you really struggle – you can stop yourself taking the next step.”

“What next step?”

Conor shrugs. “I don’t know. I was thinking aloud.” His voice changes and becomes teasing instead of deadly serious. “But there’s something you haven’t thought of, Saph. You’re so keen to talk to dolphins that you’re forgetting Sadie.”

“What?”

“They don’t have dogs in Ingo, Saph.”

As if she’s heard him, Sadie pushes up close to me, nuzzling in. She always knows when things are wrong, and tries to make them better. Her brown eyes are fixed on my face. How could I have forgotten Sadie, even for a minute? They don’t have dogs in Ingo.

Maybe they do. Maybe they could. Sadie’s not like an ordinary dog. Could she come with me through the skin of the water, and dive into Ingo? I don’t know. I try to picture Sadie’s golden body swimming free, deep in Ingo, with her nostrils closed so that the water won’t enter them. But it doesn’t work: the picture I create in my mind looks like a seal swimming, not like Sadie at all.

Sadie whines. It’s a pleading, plaintive sound from deep in her throat. She puts her front paws up in my lap until her whiskers tickle my face.

“You’d never have got Sadie without Roger,” Conor goes on.” He really pressured Mum.”

I know that’s true, but I don’t feel like agreeing with Conor just now. Besides, why bring up Roger? Roger may have been the one who made sure I got Sadie, but he’s also taken Mum and split my family apart.

Sadie gazes at me reproachfully, as if begging me to admit that my version isn’t quite true. Who split your family apart, Sapphire? Was it Roger, or was it your own father, who loved you and Conor so much that he left you both without a backward look or even a note to let you know where he was going ?

Your father, who has never seen you or spoken to you since.

Angry, bitter thoughts rise in my mind. I’m so used to loving Dad, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s also possible to hate him. Why did he go? What father who cared about his children would take his boat out in the middle of the night and never return? I can taste the bitterness in my mouth.

No, I’m not going to let that wave of anger drown me. I’m going to ride it. Dad disappeared for a reason. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to explain it to us yet.

Suddenly an upstairs window bangs. Our house here in St Pirans is tiny, even smaller than the cottage. Downstairs there’s one large living room, with the kitchen built into one end. Upstairs is larger because the house has something called a “flying freehold”. This sounds more exciting than it is. All it means is that part of this house is built above the house next door. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom. My room is so tiny that a single bed only just fits into it, but I don’t mind that at all because the room also has a round porthole window which hinges in the middle and swings open exactly like a real porthole on a ship.

Mine is the only window in the house from which you can see the sea. My bedroom is part of the flying freehold. I like it because it feels so separate from the rest of the house. I can’t hear Mum and Roger talking. I’m independent. When I kneel up on my bed and stare out to sea, I can imagine I’m on a ship sailing northeast out of Polquidden, out of the bay altogether, and into deep water—

The window bangs again, harder. The wind’s getting up. This is the season for storms. When storms come, salt spray will blow right over the top of the houses. I can’t wait to hear the sea roaring in the bay like a lion.

“Better shut your window, Saph.”

“Are you sure it’s my window that’s banging?”

“Yeah. No one else’s bangs like that. Your porthole’s much heavier than the other windows.”

Conor was right. The porthole has blown wide open. I kneel up on my bed and peer out. Beyond the jumble of slate roofs, there’s a gap in the row of studios and cottages through which I can glimpse the sea. The wind is whipping white foam off the tops of waves. Gulls soar on the thermals, screaming to each other. We’re very close to the water here. I’m used to living up on the cliff at Senara, and it still seems strange to live at sea level.

“I’m going down to the beach,” Conor shouts up the stairs.

“I’ll come with you.”

The wind’s really blowing up now. It pushes against us as we come round the corner of the houses and on to the steps.

“Do you think there’ll be a storm?”

Conor shakes his head. “No. The barometer’s fallen since this morning but it’s steady now. It’ll be a blow, that’s all.”

We jump down on to the sand. The cottages and studios are built in a line, right on the edge of the beach. The ground floor windows have big storm shutters that were hinged back when we first arrived, but now they are shut and barred. Some of the shutters are already half buried in sand that was swept up in the storms we had around the equinox, in late September