Tide Knot

by Helen Dunmore

  I shiver again, uncontrollably. Quick, quick, I must get home. My fingers shake violently as I untie Sadie. She presses against me, her body warm against mine, and her rough tongue licks my hands. But Sadie is trembling too. She’s afraid. Cold makes my voice stammer as I try to reassure her.

  “I’m s-s-s-sorry I left you s-s-such a long time….I didn’t mean to s-s-scare you, Sadie….Please, Sadie darling, stop shaking like that.”

  I slide my key into the front door lock, creep up the stairs, and dive into the bathroom. I strip off my wet clothes, jump into the shower, and turn it on full. The hot water prickles like needles on my cold skin. I stand there, eyes shut, soaking up the steamy heat. In Ingo I’m never cold. I’ll put my clothes in the washing machine, stuff my trainers with newspaper, and leave them by the boiler so that they’re dry by morning—

  “Sapphy! Sapphire! Is that you in there?”

  “Yes, Mum!”

  “You were quick. I hope Sadie got a proper walk. Don’t use all the hot water now.”

  I was quick, was I? So Faro was right. Time is hardly moving at all in Ingo tonight.

  “Out in a minute, Mum!” I call.

  The next morning I come down to find Sadie lying full length on the living room rug. Mum’s making coffee at the kitchen end of the room. She looks up quickly as I come in.

  “Sapphy, I don’t want you to worry, but Sadie doesn’t look too good.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not herself.”

  I kneel beside Sadie, and she thumps her tail languidly against the floor. Her eyes are dull. Even her coat seems to have lost its shine. But she was fine last night. I’m sure she was….

  A cold feeling of dread steals into my heart, mixed with responsibility and guilt. I left Sadie tied up to a post. I went into Ingo without thinking about her. I might have been gone hours. But I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I was back almost before she had time to miss me.

  Time. Is dog time the same as human time? Maybe my absence seemed endless to Sadie. Maybe she was afraid I’d drowned. Could Sadie possibly have guessed where I was? If she sensed that I’d left her behind, along with everything in the Air, to plunge into a strange world where she couldn’t survive for more than a minute, how frightened she must have been. She must have thought I’d abandoned her.

  “Shall we go for a walk, Sadie?” I say, testing her. But she doesn’t rise to the challenge. There’s no joyous leap to her feet, no skittering of paws on the wooden floor, no gleam of delight in her eyes. Sadie stares at me sadly, as if to say, “Why do you ask me now, when you know I can’t come?”

  “She’s ill, Mum. She’s really ill.” I can’t help panic breaking into my voice, even though I don’t want to alarm Sadie.

  Mum leaves the stove, comes over, and stares down at Sadie, frowning. “No, she’s not right, is she?” she says at last. “I wish Roger was here. He’d know what to do. But he’s up at Newquay today.”

  “I’ll take her to the vet.”

  “The vet? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that bad, Sapphy. She’s only just become ill. We’ll let it wait a day or so and see how she gets on.”

  “You’re only saying that because the vet is expensive!” I burst out. “I’ll pay for it. I’ve still got most of my birthday money. That’ll be enough.”

  “Sapphy, do you really think I’m the sort of mother who’d make you spend your birthday money on taking the dog to the vet? Do you?”

  Mum sounds really upset.

  “I don’t care. There’s nothing else I want to spend it on.” I know I’m being unfair. Mum doesn’t see the danger, because she doesn’t know what Sadie experienced last night.

  “Listen,” says Mum soothingly, “stop worrying, Sapphy. If Sadie needs a vet, then she’ll go to a vet. But we’ll wait and see until tomorrow.”

  “But she’s ill, Mum. Look at her. She looks as if all her life’s gone out of her.”

  “It’s not as bad as that,” says Mum briskly. “You do exaggerate, Sapphire. There’s Conor coming down now. Maybe he’ll be able to convince you.”

  But Conor is in no mood for long discussions about Sadie’s welfare. He is giving an IT presentation at school today, and mentally he is already there, standing in front of the class. He barely glances at Sadie. “Calm down, Saph. Sadie’s tired, that’s all.”

  “Tired!”

  “Got to go, Mum. Later, Saph.”

  “Is that the time?” Mum exclaims. “Oh, no! Why do I keep getting these breakfast shifts?”

  Conor grabs his bag, guitar, IT folder, bottle of water; and he’s out of the door.

  “The bus, Sapphire! You’re going to miss the school bus!”

  “It’s okay, Mum, you go to work. I’ve still got to pack my lunch. The bus doesn’t leave for ten minutes.”

  The door slams, and Mum’s gone.

  Ten minutes. I open the fridge door and look inside. Milk, eggs, yogurt…I stare at them. What did I open the fridge for?

  Wake up, Sapphire, you’re supposed to be making your lunch. Just then Sadie whines, very quietly and pitifully. I slam the fridge door and hurry to her side. In a second the decision is made. I’m not going to school. I am taking Sadie to the vet. I know where his office is—on Geevor Hill. My birthday money is in the chest under my bed. Forty pounds. If the vet sees that Sadie’s sick, surely he can do something for forty pounds?

  “Come on, Sadie. Come on, now, good girl. We’re going to see someone who’ll make you feel better.”

  I clip on Sadie’s collar and tug gently. She clambers awkwardly to her feet and pads slowly across the floor to the front door.

  I look up and down the street. No one’s about. “Come on, Sadie.” We make our way very slowly along the beach road and then up to the corner by the graveyard, where Geevor Hill begins. The vet’s office is halfway up. Sadie pants like a dog ten times her age. Her head droops to her chest.

  “Why ent you at school, my girl?”

  Oh, no, it’s Mrs. Eagle. She’ll tell Mum.

  “Inset day,” I say quickly.

  “Never had they in my day,” says Mrs. Eagle critically. “You belong to be at school on a working day.”

  I smile brightly and slip past her. “Just taking Sadie for a walk, Mrs. Eagle.”

  “Don’t look to me like she wants to walk up Geevor; looks to me like she wants to go back downlong,” grumbles Mrs. Eagle. I escape as fast as I can, almost dragging Sadie.

  The vet’s office is the one with the blue door. But on the blue door there is a laminated notice:

  VETERINARY HOURS, ST. PIRANS:

  TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS ONLY. 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

  It is Monday. They’re closed. Sadie looks up at me in mournful exhaustion. I know in every fiber of my body that Mum and Conor are wrong. Sadie’s condition is serious. There isn’t time to wait for tomorrow’s office hours. Sadie needs help now, and there’s only one person who might be able to give it. Granny Carne. Everyone round Senara goes to Granny Carne when they have a trouble they can’t solve. I think of Granny Carne’s amber, piercing eyes and the power in her. She’ll know what’s wrong with Sadie. She’ll help her if anyone can.

  At the same moment I hear the growl of a bus engine, changing gear at the bottom of the hill. I look back, and there is a shabby blue bus with SENARA CHURCHTOWN on the destination board. Home. I stick out my hand.

  The bus lumbers past without stopping. The driver turns to me and yells something I can’t hear. Then, as he gets toward the top of the hill, I see he’s pulling in at the bus stop to wait for me.

  “Can’t stop on the hill, see,” he says as I climb up the steps, pushing Sadie ahead of me. “Lucky for you I’m ahead of myself this morning.”

  “Thanks for waiting.”

  “I could see that poor old dog couldn’t hardly get up Geevor.”

  I find my fare and go to the back of the bus. He thought Sadie was old. That must be because she looks so weak.

  I flo
p down on the backseat, with Sadie at my feet. The driver pulls out onto the road again and picks up speed. On we go past the gray stone houses, past the rugby ground and the RV site, past the farm at the edge of town and to the crossroads where the school bus turns left. This bus turns right, onto the open road that leads across the moors to Senara. A streak of pale wintry sun lights up the hills. The landscape opens wide and beautiful around us. I take a deep breath of freedom. No crowds, no busy streets. Just a narrow gray road rising over the wild country toward home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When the old blue bus drives off into the distance, leaving me at the roadside with Sadie, the reality of what I’ve done hits me. This is the stop before Senara Churchtown and the nearest stop to Granny Carne’s cottage. There are no houses here, only the road and the hills covered in bracken, furze, and heather. There’s a wide black scar across the hills, from a gorse fire.

  No one is about. The road is gray and empty. But that’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. If I walk along the road a little way, there’s a footpath that leads up to Granny Carne’s cottage.

  “Come on, Sadie,” I say encouragingly. “It’s not far now.”

  This time Sadie doesn’t respond to my voice. She slumps on the rough grass between the road and the ditch, drops her head onto her paws, and closes her eyes.

  “Sadie!”

  Very slowly, with what looks like a great effort, Sadie opens her eyes. They stare at me dully, without recognition. After a few blank moments her lids close again.

  Terror runs through me like an electric shock. I think she’s dead. I throw myself down on the grass beside her and press my ear to her side. I can’t hear anything. She’s gone. It is so terrible that I can’t move or speak. And then, very slowly, her ribs move under her skin. There’s a rusty, tearing sound in her throat, as if she’s trying to breathe through barbed wire. But she’s breathing. She’s alive.

  It’s all my fault. I should never have forced her up Geevor Hill. Now she can’t even walk. She can hardly breathe. What am I going to do? I look wildly up and down the road. No one’s in sight. A sparrow hops out of a furze bush, cocks its head at me, then hops away again.

  “Sadie!” I try to lift her into my lap. She’s heavy, limp, and hard to move. But she’s warm. She’s alive. “Hold on, Sadie. I’ll get help for you. I promise. Please, please don’t die.”

  But how can I get help? If only I had a mobile phone. But even if I had, it would be no good here. Everyone in Senara complains that they can’t get a signal. Phone box. There’s a phone box down by the church. How long would it take me to run there? Ten minutes maybe, and then I’d have to make the call, and then another ten minutes back. That’s too long.

  If I leave her now, she’ll think I’ve abandoned her again, and she’ll give up.

  “Oh, Sadie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry….” I hug her tight, trying to pour life into her. She can’t die like this—for nothing. She wasn’t even ill yesterday. She was so full of life.

  I put my hand gently on her head and stroke her as reassuringly as I can. “Hold on. You’re going to be all right.” But for the first time ever Sadie twists her head away from my hand. Feebly she struggles to heave herself off my lap.

  “Get up, Sapphire. Stand back from her. Give her air,” says a voice behind me.

  “Granny Carne!” My words spill over each other in a rush of relief. Granny Carne will know what to do, better even than a vet. “Help me, please help me, I was coming to find you. Sadie’s so ill, I think she’s dying—”

  “Don’t say that word in her hearing. You’ll frighten the spirit out of her. Stand back, and let me see her.”

  Reluctantly I unwind my arms and settle Sadie gently back on the cold grass. Granny Carne stands very still, looking down at Sadie. She looks more like a tall tree than ever, with Sadie in her shelter. Her fierce eyes gleam. I can’t bear to see Sadie lying like that, so sick and so alone. I start to move—

  “No, Sapphire, stand right back. You can’t help her.”

  “I can’t stand here and let her die!”

  “No one’s letting anyone die, my girl. But what Sadie needs now is Earth power. See the way she lies there, so close to the earth? You ever seen a mother put her baby against her skin when it’s sick, my girl?”

  “No.”

  “These days everyone learns so much at school that they end up knowing nothing. But Sadie knows.”

  “I was going to bring her up to your cottage, but it was too far. She couldn’t walk anymore.”

  “Give her time. She’ll come round.”

  For a long while it looks as if Granny Carne isn’t doing anything. She stands there, not moving, not taking her eyes off Sadie, watching every breath Sadie takes. Suddenly there’s a small, chirruping whistle. One of the sparrows in the furze maybe. But the whistle comes again, more strongly and sweetly, and I know it’s not a sparrow. It’s Granny Carne. The sound is coming from her lips, and she’s whistling to Sadie. The whistling grows louder, louder. A shiver passes over Sadie’s supine body. And another. Big shivers that shake her whole body, as if she’s suddenly realized that she is freezing to death. Granny Carne’s whistling grows until my ears ring with it. Sadie shivers once more, from her nose to the tip of her tail. Her body looks different. She’s not slumped so much. One of her ears comes forward, as if she’s listening. Her tail thumps feebly against the grass. Slowly, with great difficulty, she opens her eyes again, and this time her eyes meet Granny Carne’s. They shine with recognition for a second before they close.

  “Sadie!”

  “She’ll do now,” says Granny Carne. “Give her time.”

  “Is she better?”

  “Not by a long way,” says Granny Carne gravely. “Her spirit went far from us, on a cold journey.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Ingo put her in fear. The spirit in her shrank away from it. It was like putting water on a fire. This is no ordinary illness, Sapphire. I believe you know that. Ingo came too close to her. A creature of Earth like Sadie can’t survive there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not blaming you, my girl. But look at yourself. You’ve got Ingo written all over you today. Don’t tell me you haven’t been there. Don’t tell me you haven’t got Ingo’s music in your ears again. And where you go, that dog’s bound to follow, since she’s yours.”

  “But I didn’t take her with me, Granny Carne. I left her up at the top of the steps.”

  “That’s no protection for a dog like Sadie. She followed you in her heart. She went in your footsteps until she could go no more. She near burst her heart with fear for you.”

  Sadie is struggling to her feet. I rush to support her.

  “No, let her stand. She’s best alone for now. Give her a few minutes, and we’ll be able to walk her up to mine.”

  I don’t ask any more questions. To tell the truth, I’m a little afraid of Granny Carne today. She knows too much. She makes me have thoughts I don’t want to have. I know people come to her with their troubles, but maybe they don’t always like the answers they get from her. She won’t let me touch Sadie. Surely Granny Carne can’t believe I’d ever hurt Sadie?

  “Yes, she’s been on a long journey,” repeats Granny Carne. “You ever seen a man near frozen after he comes out of the sea half drowned, after he’s been clinging to a piece of wreckage for hours? You don’t sit him by the fire. You let him warm gently, so his body can bear it. Sadie will find her way back to life, but she needs time. She needs Earth around her, Sapphire. The breath of Ingo is too strong for her, in her present state.

  “How’s your Conor?” Granny Carne goes on as we set off walking slowly up the footpath. Sadie pads along cautiously, as if she’s not sure yet that her paws will hold her up.

  “He’s fine.”

  “Happy in St. Pirans?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. He wants to be happy there anyway.”

  “And you don
’t?”

  “It’s not so much that I don’t. It’s that I can’t. Granny Carne, I didn’t mean to hurt Sadie.”

  “I know that. But it’s hard to see a way clear in all this. I don’t see it myself yet. Only that there’s a reason why you and Conor are as you are. It’s for a purpose. Could be that a time’s coming when there’ll be a purpose in the two of you having this double blood. There’ve been others. The first Mathew Trewhella was one: he that left the human world and went away with the Mer. Your own father was another. But I never knew any with the Mer blood and the human divided so equal as it is in you. Half and half, you are. It must be the way the inheritance has come down to you. It weakens in one generation and grows strong in the next.”

  “Do you mean that Conor and I are exactly half Mer and half human?”

  “Only you, my girl. Only you. The Mer blood is not near as strong in Conor, and it never will be, for he fights it down every day.”

  “I know.” Now I understand better what Conor meant when he said, If you really struggle, you can stop yourself taking the next step.

  “Conor doesn’t want to be half and half, does he?” I ask. “He wants not to be Mer at all.”

  “Maybe he does.”

  Except for Elvira, I think.

  “He fights it,” says Granny Carne. “Your father didn’t fight so hard. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re old enough to know now, my girl, that things don’t just happen to us. Somewhere in us we agree to them. We let things happen, though even those closest to us might think we’re still fighting.”

  I feel cold and tired. I know what she’s saying. She’s telling me that my father wasn’t snatched away against his will. And I do know that, really, after all these months. It is seventeen months since he left us now and his boat was found empty and upturned, wedged in the rocks. Everyone else thinks he drowned. Only Conor and I keep the faith.