Peter Dickinson - A Bone From a Dry Sea

They looked to Presh for leadership and Presh looked to Li for help and she had none to give. So they spread out and began to forage for food, as usual without much reward on this scant shore, but Presh stayed by the bay. More than once he climbed out and scrambled up the rocks to a vantage point from which he could gaze seaward, sniffing the wind and staring out for signs of some fresh danger. From there he could also see the central mountain, no longer gently smoking but sending up a black tumultuous cloud which rose high in the sky before it was blown away southward.

He had climbed there again, taking Li with him this time, still trying to make up his mind whether it was now safe to lead the tribe south, when suddenly he shouted and pointed north along the shoreline.

Li looked. The tribe had all stayed fairly close, waiting for Presh’s signal. Well beyond them she saw a number of black flecks in the water. She knew them at once. Not dolphins, not birds, but the heads of people swimming towards her. Strangers.

NOW: WEDNESDAY MORNING

VINNY WOKE BEFORE dawn, when it was just light enough for her to see Dad’s shadowy movements as he tried to dress without disturbing her.

‘I’ll come and help,’ she said.

‘Not much for you to do yet.’

‘I can wheel the barrow if you don’t fill it full. I’d much rather work before it gets too hot.’

‘If you really want to.’

While they were climbing the hill, the stars went out as if someone had turned off a switch. Only a few minutes later the sun’s rim clipped the horizon. Dad hacked soil out and Vinny wheeled the half-full barrow down the slope (no problem) and lugged it back empty (hard work). It was already getting hot before Dad decided they’d done enough. They went down the hill and breakfasted in the slant shadow of the big awning. For a while Dad said nothing so Vinny was silent too.

‘I’ve been thinking about what May Anna told you,’ he said.

‘So’ve I.’

‘What was your conclusion?’

‘I’m not going to choose between Mum and you. Not if I can help it. Mum tried to make me and I fought her off. That was OK. But I can’t fight you – it wouldn’t work. We’ve got to agree.’

‘Right. I’m going to make one condition, though. You are not to mention your sea-ape theory again to anyone in this camp.’

‘Oh . . . All right.’

‘It’s not because I think it’s nonsense, though at the moment I do. Some day, if you still want me to, and if I’ve time, I’ll read up enough about it to give you a considered opinion, but not now. It’s not in itself that important, but the atmosphere on this expedition is already quite trying enough for me without Joe or Fred or anyone having the extra leverage of being able to needle me about it. I’m afraid I’m not at all good at that sort of thing. I don’t want to have to cope with it now. Understand?’

‘Yes, of course . . . only . . .’

He looked warningly at her.

‘It’s all right. I’m not going to talk to anyone about it. I promise. If anyone asks me I’ll say I think it’s nonsense too.’

‘You don’t have to go that far.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Only . . . you know those toe-bones? I suppose Joe’s taken them back to the camp.’

‘He won’t let them out of his sight.’

‘If you find another one will you look at it and try and see if it might have been, you know, webbed? You needn’t say anything to anyone. Just look.’

He thought about it and nodded.

‘That’s fair,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I think it’s highly unlikely, even if that were the case . . . and you’d probably need laboratory equipment . . . All right, I will try to look as objectively as I can.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Not at all. Your mother in your position would have expected me to take on the lot of them in your cause.’

‘I’m not Mum.’

‘I am aware of that. But yesterday, for instance, when you were arguing with Watson about your theory and all I could hear was your voice, I had to keep reminding myself of the difference. And at times you look quite extraordinarily like her when I first knew her.’

‘I’ve seen the photographs at Gran’s. Did you love her then?’

For a moment she thought she’d put her foot in it again, but he smiled without apparent effort.

‘Since you arrived I’ve been reminding myself that we had two or three very good years before things went wrong.’

‘What did you call her?’

‘Debbie.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘She had something I felt I needed. More than just liveliness. A real excitement with life, a delight in its promises and possibilities, a readiness to plunge in, to take emotional risks. Conviction.’

‘What did you give her?’

‘Not enough. I think she felt she needed a stable centre, reliability, level-headedness, a stone to strike her sparks off. I am a doubter, I see at least two sides of every question, I am emotionally cautious, organized, orderly. I felt myself becoming a silence for her to fill with words, an emptiness for her to pour her life into. I think. It’s difficult to place things such as feelings, and changes of feelings, into their exact time. I’ve been tending to say to myself (and to other people, to be honest) that we should never have married. We were too different. There was no bridge between us. But that’s not true. You’ve made me remember that there was a perfectly good bridge for a while. We let it fall down and then we couldn’t find a way of rebuilding it, but it was there.’

‘Was it me made things change?’

‘Of course you made things change. There were two people now in your mother’s – Debbie’s – life for a start, but you didn’t bust the bridge, if that’s what you mean. We did that. I think even before you were born, while she was still pregnant . . . I should never have let her call you that ridiculous name.’

‘I’m used to it. It’s me now. Did you have a row about it?’

‘I’m bad at rows. I don’t remember exactly. I expect I said, “Well, if that’s what you want,” and left it to her.’

‘I can’t imagine being called anything else now. Of course I hated it when some kids found out I was really Lavinia and started calling me “Lav”. I’m no good at being needled either.’

‘Watch out for Fred, then. He’s got a tongue like an asp.’

‘I guessed.’

He grunted approvingly and they fell back into companionable silence, Vinny feeling that the damage she’d done yesterday had been repaired – more than repaired. Like a broken bone that’s mended well, the link would be stronger than before. Dad had put his mug down when the immense and empty silence around them was broken by the gear-change of the truck nosing down to cross the dry river-bed. Dad stretched and sighed.

‘End of idyll,’ he said. ‘Let’s let Joe find us at work. I think it’s going to be hot.’

‘It can’t be hotter than yesterday.’

‘I’m afraid it can.’

Vinny and Dad had just reached the trench when the truck stopped below. Vinny watched the party climb out, the Hamiskas, Michael, Dr Wessler, Nikki and three or four others she’d scarcely met so far.

‘He hasn’t brought Watson,’ she said.

‘That’s something,’ said Dad. ‘Well, let’s let him find us hard at it.’

In fact he’d scarcely loosened his first trowelful from the fossil-layer when Dr Hamiska came striding up the hill, shouting good mornings, and peered in under the awning.

‘Great work, Sam. You’ve shifted a lot. Found anything?’

‘Hardly started on that. We were doing the heavy stuff before it got too hot. Vinny’s been carting the soil away. We’ve been at it since sunrise. I see you haven’t brought Watson.’