Tide Knot

by Helen Dunmore

  There’s a tap on the door. “I’ve brought you some tea. It’s just outside the door when you want it. Are you feeling better?”

  “Loads better.”

  I clamber out, wrap a towel around myself, and fetch the tea. Rainbow is still sitting on the stairs, guarding them. She jumps up. “I’ll get you some of my clothes. They’re all clean, I promise! Everyone’s sitting round the fire, warming up. But they didn’t look as bad as you. What happened?”

  “Nothing. I had to swim, that’s all. I must have got pulled out by a current.”

  “Did she get away safely? The dolphin?”

  “I think so.”

  I don’t really want to talk about it anymore, but Rainbow goes on awkwardly. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay. It was the water coming in like that. I’ve never seen it rise so fast.”

  “I know.”

  There’s a pause. Then Rainbow goes on in a rush: “It’s like that with me. I get scared of the tides sometimes. I think the sea’s not going to stop where it should, it’s going to go on coming in and coming in right over our house. I know it’s stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” I say slowly. “My mum is afraid of the sea too. She’s much worse than you are. She won’t even go on the beach if she can help it.”

  “But you’re not, are you, Sapphire? You love the sea. You love it more than you love the land.”

  “How do you know?”

  Rainbow shrugs, suddenly looking much younger and less certain. “I don’t know why I said that. But when we were with the dolphin, I had a feeling—No, you’re going to tell me I’m completely mad.”

  “What sort of feeling?”

  “You were talking to her. But it wasn’t English, was it? What language was it?”

  “It can’t have been another language. I don’t know any.”

  Rainbow looks disappointed and unconvinced.

  “Where are your parents?” I ask quickly, to prevent her asking any more questions.

  “In Copenhagen. My mum likes to go back to see her friends. My stepdad’s gone with her. He’s Patrick’s father.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re fine on our own. They took River with them, so I don’t have to look after him. Anyway, Patrick’s sixteen,” she says quickly, as if she’s had to explain all this a few times.

  “How long are they away for?”

  “Not long,” says Rainbow carefully.

  “So you just go to school and everything, even though they’re not here?”

  “I don’t go to school. I learn at home.”

  “What—never?”

  “No.”

  I bet she doesn’t learn much while her parents are in Copenhagen, I think. Great chance for a holiday from schoolwork. Unfortunately my skeptical thoughts show on my face.

  “I speak English and Danish and German,” says Rainbow quietly. “But music is what I do most of the time. And cooking. I want to be a chef when I’m older.”

  This sounds much more impressive than anything I’ve achieved at school so far. “You must be really clever.”

  “I’m not. You could try it. Home schooling, I mean. See if it works for you.”

  “Maybe. But I suspect my mum sends me to school for other reasons, like getting me out of the house,” I say dryly, and suddenly we’re both laughing.

  Rainbow fetches the clothes. Her jeans are a bit big for me, but her cream top is so beautiful that I wish I could wear it forever. I take a secret peep in the steamy mirror.

  “It’s so good with your dark hair and eyes,” says Rainbow. “It looks much better on you than it does on me. Keep it.”

  I look at her in amazement. A beautiful top like that! It must have cost loads. “It’s only a top, Sapphire,” says Rainbow, as if amused. “You’re welcome to keep it.”

  Maybe they’re rich. That must be it. But no, rich people don’t live in tiny cottages like this. I ought to say no, but I’m longing to say yes.

  “It’s yours,” says Rainbow firmly.

  “Thank you,” I mutter. I always find it hard to sound grateful even when I really am.

  When we go downstairs, they all are sitting around the fire. There aren’t enough chairs, so Patrick has put big cushions on the floor. He has also brought out some beers, and everyone is telling their parts in the story of the dolphin’s rescue.

  I stay silent, drinking my tea. The dolphin is safe in Ingo, and here I am in a warm, lighted room, with the fire leaping up in the grate and everyone’s face flushed with relief and beer. The door is firmly shut against the night and the rain. These cottages are very old. Some of them have been standing for more than four hundred years, resisting the storms that sweep in from the southwest. Rainbow’s living room has a feeling of permanence and safety. Even though it is so close to the sea, it feels anchored to the rock of the earth.

  The small room is crowded with people and voices and laughter, and it feels good to be here and part of it all. Rainbow comes over to take my empty mug. “Do you want more tea? Are you still cold?”

  Conor puts his arm around my shoulders. “You’ve stopped shivering at last. I was worried about you, Saph. Your lips were blue.”

  “It didn’t feel at all cold when I was in the water.”

  “You were numb,” says Roger. “Lucky you’re not suffering from hypothermia.”

  If I was, I’m sure you’d know what to do, I think.

  “Sapphire speaks the most amazing dolphin language,” says Mal innocently. “Did you hear her? What were you saying to the dolphin, Saph?”

  Everyone looks at me, smiling as if it were a joke.

  “Only Conor calls me Saph,” I answer coldly.

  Mal flushes and turns aside, and I feel a moment of regret because I’ve broken the atmosphere. But Rainbow grabs a towel and begins to rub Mal’s long surfer’s hair dry, teasing him about how he must miss his hair dryer, and suddenly everything’s all right again. I pass the chocolate biscuits to Mal in a way that I hope looks friendly, but unfortunately the plate wobbles, and four biscuits slide into his lap.

  “You’re shaking again,” he says in surprise, picking up the biscuits.

  “The cold must have got right into her,” says Roger. He takes one of my hands and chafes it. “Cold as ice. Did you say you had a hot bath?”

  “I don’t feel cold.”

  They are looking at me in concern. Rainbow fetches a duvet from upstairs and puts it around my shoulders.

  “You need more flesh on your bones,” says Mal’s dad. “Have another chocolate biscuit.”

  The talk turns to the sea. Why is it that so many dolphins are being stranded—more than ever before? Is it the trawlers’ nets trapping the dolphins, or sickness, or some kind of secret underwater military sonic system disrupting the dolphins’ sonar?

  Will blames the trawlers; Patrick believes there’s something more to it, something we don’t know.

  “It tears you up to see a beautiful creature like that thrown up on the sand to die,” says Will.

  I wish Faro could hear this. He divides the world so sharply. He believes that humans have no concern for Ingo because all they want is power and money and more and more living space. To Faro, humans are a source of pollution, danger, and damage.

  But all these people are humans. They don’t even know about Ingo, but each of them fought to save the dolphin. They risked their lives. Next time I see Faro, I’m going to tell him that.

  “We ought to be getting back,” says Roger at last, standing up. “Your mum will be finishing her shift.”

  It’s hard to leave the warmth and company. It must be great to be Rainbow and Patrick, with the house to themselves, knowing they can wake in the morning and do exactly what they want. I wonder how long their parents really will be away.

  “When’re your mum and dad back?” asks Will as if he’d picked up my thought.

  “Couple of weeks,” says Patrick easily.

  “You two seem to manage pretty well.”

  Will is ap
proving. He thinks kids these days get brought up too soft—all of them going to college and doing media studies and living off their parents when they should be earning. Patrick has a full-time job in a surf shop. But Conor has already told me that Mal wants to be a doctor, and that takes years and years of training. Why is it that whatever kind of child parents get, they always think the opposite kind would be preferable? My mum would think she had died and gone to heaven if I said I wanted to become a doctor. She has always told both of us that she won’t let money stand in our way if we choose a career that needs a long training.

  “We haven’t got a lot of money, you know that, but I’ll beg, borrow, and steal to get you through, once you make your mind up what you want to do. I can easily take a second job.” When she says this, Mum looks so determined and fiery that I wish I had an ambition that was big enough for her.

  We leave Rainbow and Patrick’s cottage and go up the rain-wet street.

  “We’ll stop by the house and see if Jennie’s back. If not, I’ll go down to the restaurant for the key,” says Roger.

  The lights are on behind the drawn curtains. Mum is probably making herself a cup of tea. She likes to relax for half an hour before she goes to bed, with the TV on low so as not to wake us. She’ll think Conor and I are asleep in our beds, but in a few seconds we’ll appear on the doorstep. She’s not going to be pleased. Roger hesitates. “Obviously we’ve got to tell your mum what happened to some extent, but there’s no need to worry her,” he says.

  “We’ll just give her the general picture, shall we?” says Conor.

  “That’s right.” Roger agrees seriously. “No need to mention Sapphire going into the water, for instance.”

  “Of course not.”

  “We never do,” I add, and Roger gives me a sharp glance. But it’s too dark for him to read my expression.

  We’ll go inside, and in a little while Conor and I will go up to bed. And then I’ll have to tell Conor about Dad. There’s no putting it off any longer. He would be furious if he thought I’d kept something so vital from him for a second longer than necessary.

  I think back to the day of Dad’s memorial service, when Conor and I first swore and promised that we two would never give up hope until we found him. Everyone except us was mourning Dad, but we knew he wasn’t dead.

  Maybe it would have been easier if he had died. Easier than having to tell Conor now that Dad is alive but says that he can’t come back to us.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Conor doesn’t react as I thought he would when I tell him the whole story of what happened last night at Granny Carne’s. He listens intently, without saying a word. Even when I tell him about Dad with water running down his shoulders and his hair like seaweed, Conor remains calm. He doesn’t seem as shocked as I thought he would be. At last I reach the end.

  “And then Dad sank back into the pool, and I couldn’t see him anymore.”

  There’s a silence. After a while I say, “Conor, you do believe me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—”

  “Give me a minute, Saph. I need to think.”

  We are sitting on my bed, huddled in my duvet. I should be tired, but I feel wide-awake. It’s a relief that Conor shares my knowledge now. I won’t have to keep going over and over the events of last night in my mind, trying to work out if I did everything I could. Conor clasps his knees, frowning in deep thought. At last he looks up with a faint smile and says, “Don’t look so scared, Saph.”

  “I thought you might blame me for letting Dad go again.”

  “No. None of it was your fault.”

  “I wish you’d been there, Conor.”

  “I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. He couldn’t stop himself, don’t you see? He wasn’t free. But listen, Saph. It’s not what happened last night that’s important now. It’s what we do in the future.”

  Conor is so composed, as if he’s understood and accepted in about five minutes everything that has taken me hours to absorb.

  “Conor, aren’t you even surprised?”

  Conor shakes his head. “No. As soon as you told me, everything slipped into place. I must have known inside myself for a long time, but I didn’t realize it. There were so many clues. I’m sure Granny Carne was trying to tell us. Why else did she talk so much about how the first Mathew Trewhella disappeared? Didn’t you know, somewhere inside yourself?”

  “I’m not sure, Conor, I—Yes. Maybe.”

  “But that’s not what matters now. What matters is that Dad needs us. He’s not free. He can’t do what he wants. He’s trapped, like you said, and he can’t come home. He’s like a prisoner.”

  I am more and more amazed. I thought Conor would rage against Dad for going into Ingo, for leaving us, for letting his human self weaken and his Mer self grow strong. I was sure that Conor would blame Dad.

  “A prisoner,” Conor repeats. “He’s a prisoner in Ingo, and he’s a prisoner inside a body that isn’t his anymore.”

  “But maybe he wants to be there.”

  “Saph, don’t you understand? If Dad doesn’t have a free choice, then how can anybody know what he wants?”

  Suddenly I think of something. “Conor, listen. We’ve only been able to go into Ingo since Dad was there, haven’t we? Maybe there’s a connection.”

  “Or a reason.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dad can’t leave Ingo, but we can enter it. Think about it, Saph. We’ve got the power to go to Ingo, where Dad is. We mustn’t waste it.”

  “Do you mean we could sort of…visit him there?”

  Conor laughs. “You mean like access visits when parents get divorced? It’s my dad’s turn to see us this weekend, only unfortunately he lives under the sea. No, Saph, I don’t mean visiting Dad. I mean giving him the choice to leave Ingo.”

  “Rescuing him?”

  “Finding out how he can gain his freedom. We know that human beings can go to Ingo and become Mer. It happened to the first Mathew Trewhella, and now it’s happened to Dad. It might have happened to other people. But I don’t believe that all the transformations go in one direction. Haven’t any of the Mer ever tried to live in the human world? Even if only out of curiosity?”

  “There’s a story about that. I think there was a mermaid who came up on land and her tail got cut to pieces on the stones.”

  “That’s just a fairy story. Why shouldn’t someone be able to leave Ingo even if it means that his body has to transform? We know that Faro and Elvira can stay in the Air for a while. One of the Mer might have done it for longer, even permanently. If there is a way, we’ve got to find it. We’ve got to find it, Saph. Dad isn’t completely Mer yet; he can’t be. He’s still partly human. Once we’ve found the way, Dad has got a choice.”

  Excitement is starting to burn in me at Conor’s words. If Conor is right, and Dad hasn’t chosen to leave us permanently, then it’s still possible that everything can be reversed. But I’m not quite as hopeful as Conor. Maybe it’s because I feel the pull of Ingo so strongly myself. If I had to choose between spending the rest of my life in St. Pirans, among streets and houses and traffic and crowds, and living in Ingo, it would not be so easy to decide. But if Dad comes home, we’ll return to the cottage. The cottage, the cove, all our old free life will open up again as if it’d never been interrupted.

  But even as these happy thoughts float through my mind, there’s also a trace of doubt. Gloria Fortune will have to leave. Mum will have to change back into the person she was—the one who loved Dad and had never met Roger. Roger will have to disappear, and somehow I can’t see Roger agreeing to do so without a fight.

  But I won’t think of all that now. All we need to think about is rescuing Dad.

  We make plans until three o’clock in the morning. Conor’s convinced that we need to go to Ingo together, as soon as we possibly can. He insists that we go together, although I have to point out that he’s going to find it hard with only me to rely on. Cono
r cannot take in enough oxygen underwater to swim independently. There is too much of Earth and Air in him, I think, although I don’t say that.

  “It’s a long time since the summer. We’ll both have grown stronger,” Conor says. “I might be fine in Ingo now.”

  But I am sure Conor has grown farther away from Ingo over the months since we left Senara. My Mer blood is certainly stronger, but I daren’t rely on it to keep us both alive. What if we’re deep in Ingo, a hundred meters below the surface, and my strength fails until it’s only enough for me but not for Conor?

  I’ve seen before that this can happen. I watched the life and color drain from Conor’s face. And we were in relatively shallow water then. We were doubly lucky because Faro was at hand to rescue us, but next time he may not be, unless—

  “Faro should come with us, Conor.”

  “I don’t want him. This is family business. It’s private.”

  “But Conor, how can we do this on our own? We don’t even know how to begin to look for Dad. Ingo is so vast. We could search for years and not find him. We haven’t got a map. The Mer don’t even have maps. Or—or if you don’t want Faro, then maybe Elvira would help us?”

  I glance slyly at Conor’s face to see how he reacts to Elvira’s name. I think his color deepens. It’s hard to tell with Conor because his skin is so brown.

  “She wouldn’t come,” he says quickly.

  “Then I’ll call for Faro. I daren’t go into Ingo with you unless Faro is there. I’m not strong enough.”

  Conor seems to be on the point of agreeing when another brilliant idea strikes me. Saldowr. Faro’s teacher. If he’s so wise, if he knows so much, then he is the person to ask. Maybe that is why Saldowr wanted to meet me. Faro said he did. Perhaps Saldowr knows that I’m searching for Dad. Perhaps he wants to tell us something.

  My thoughts race on, pulsing with excitement. We’ll find Saldowr, and he’ll be ancient and white-haired and wise, like a wizard in a children’s book. He’ll be very tall, with a flowing beard. He’ll stare down at us in an all-knowing and ancient way and say very solemnly, “I am glad you came to me, my children. Your quest is over.” And he’ll raise his arms and his robes will spread wide, and then he’ll unveil the mystery—