by Claire Wong
“Here we go, it’s flying closer to the land. I should be able to get a better view now. Let me see… ah.” And with that last “ah”, he lowered the binoculars. His growing smile had vanished.
“What’s wrong?” Kit stopped dancing.
“A great black-backed gull. A large adult, to be sure, but nothing more. Not an albatross, I’m afraid.”
They both stood, crestfallen, staring at the gull that was circling nearer to the shore. Kit felt decidedly annoyed with the bird for deceiving them. He knew it wasn’t the gull’s fault it wasn’t an albatross. Still, it had given them false hope. Anxious that the birdwatcher would be equally disappointed, he tried to keep their search moving before there was time to reflect too much on this first failure.
“Maybe if we walk a bit further down,” Kit suggested. It was, after all, only a vague indication on the map.
“Of course,” said Bert. “Birdwatching takes a lot of time and patience, you know. Sometimes I’ve sat all day in the same spot, just waiting to see what comes along. It’s the only way to be sure you haven’t missed anything. Really, it would have been a miracle if we’d seen a rare bird so quickly. Let’s walk a little bit further. But keep an eye on the tide. We don’t want to get cut off from the path.”
They wandered along the stony shoreline, Kit kicking at the thin threads of seaweed that were strewn over the rocks. Bert kept looking from the cliffs to the sea and then back again.
“Ah, now there’s something we can be glad we’ve seen.” He pointed out over the water. “Do you see that dark shape among the waves, just a bit further out than the headland over there? Here, borrow my binoculars for a closer look. Do you see it?”
“I can see something bobbing about in the sea, but it’s not a bird: it’s too big.”
“That’s right; it’s a grey seal.”
And now that he knew what he was looking at, Kit could make out the facial features: the round black eyes and pointed snout of the seal. It seemed to be floating on its back, perfectly happy to be borne along by the waves.
They took it in turns to use the binoculars to watch the seal. If he strained his eyes to really focus through the lenses, Kit could even make out the individual whiskers around its nose. Eventually, Bert looked up at the darkening sky and said, “Best we head back now.”
Kit wanted to stay out longer and keep searching for the albatross, but Bert sounded resigned and had already started walking. As they followed the path back up the cliffs and north towards Askfeld Farm, it began to rain. Kit pulled up his hood and thrust his hands into his pockets to keep as dry as possible, and the two of them walked home with their shoulders hunched and their heads down to protect themselves from the downpour.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find your albatross, Bert. Maybe I read the map wrong.”
“Never mind, eh. It was always going to be a long shot.”
Bert spoke lightly, but as they trudged up the path past the dark trees where Maddie had been working, and across the exposed grass to the door of Askfeld Farm, he gave a great sigh. Kit wondered whether he had been too hasty in encouraging Bert to hope he might make an important discovery here. It had been so rewarding to see the old man shake off some of his cloud of despondency for a while. Now, however, Bert seemed more dejected than before. Kit hoped this was at least in part an effect of the rain, and that life might look better when the skies cleared again.
The birdwatcher had evidently had the same thought. “I think this calls for a hot cup of tea, and somewhere to dry out these shoes.”
Bert pushed the door of the guest house open and started stamping on the bristled welcome mat to scrape off as much of the mud as he could. It was only when he stepped aside to take off his boots that Kit saw there was someone in the hallway waiting for them.
It was his mother, and she was white with anger.
CHAPTER TEN
UTTERSCAR
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ALBATROSSES:
1. Great albatrosses have the longest wings of any bird in the world.
2. Sailors used to think it was bad luck to kill an albatross.
3. They aren’t easy to find.
“Christopher Shackleton Fisher, get inside right now!”
Kit’s heart seemed to plummet all the way down into his stomach. His mother never shouted at him in front of others, preferring to wait for the privacy of family. This was bad. He closed the door and kicked off his shoes, which left muddy marks on the tiles next to the mat.
“What were you thinking?” his mother cried.
“I was just trying to find an albatross with Bert,” he answered truthfully, the water dripping off his sleeves onto the stone floor of the hallway.
“Kit, you went out without telling me or anyone else where you were going. And with a stranger!”
“Bert’s not a stranger. He’s a birdwatcher.”
“Excuse me, madam,” Bert ventured to join in now. “I’m terribly sorry if there’s been any cause for alarm. But I can assure you Kit has simply been showing me a good spot by the cliffs to watch some nesting seabirds at low tide. There was never any danger.”
“I’m sorry, Mr…”
“Albert Sindlesham. But please call me Bert.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Sindlesham, but I don’t know you. And the fact that you would take my child off the premises without my permission, without speaking to me first, without even introducing yourself, is completely unacceptable. Now Kit, come with me.”
Kit allowed himself to be marched upstairs. A glance back over his shoulder showed Bert looking as dejected as Kit felt. The birdwatcher trudged into the guests’ sitting room while the Fishers went up to the first floor. Once the door to Kit’s room was closed, Catherine continued.
“Kit, can you even understand how worried I’ve been, not knowing where you were? What if you’d got lost or fallen from the cliffs? What if you’d been hurt somewhere? You can’t just go wandering off like that, not on your own, and certainly not with strangers. It’s not just today. It’s all the other times you’ve run off while we’ve been out. It’s like ever since we moved up here you’re trying to get yourself into trouble. What happened to promising me you would be well behaved and helpful?”
If only she understood that it had all been in an attempt to do exactly as she had asked. How was he supposed to help anyone if he stayed quietly in his room all the time and never did anything?
“I just wanted to help Beth finish her map,” Kit mumbled, too dispirited to maintain pretence or secrecy any longer. Catherine frowned; this was clearly not the answer she had expected.
“Who’s Beth?”
“She lives here. She’s married to Sean.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen Sean Garsdale’s mysterious wife the entire time we’ve been here. Unless you mean that woman he was talking to after breakfast the other day. I thought she was someone they brought in to help with the bookkeeping. What’s she got to do with this?”
How was he to explain so that his mother would understand? He had not planned to tell her about the unfinished map, but he could see no other way now.
“She’s making a map of all the good places round here. But she can’t go outside to see those places any more, so I was doing that for her. She has to stay indoors, you see.”
“And I suppose she’s been encouraging you to go off exploring dangerous places by yourself? Well, I shall be having words with that woman –”
“No, Mum, you can’t!” Kit grabbed Catherine’s arm in desperation. “It’s not her fault. I wanted to go. She didn’t ask me to.”
“Well, I imagine she’s used to having people do things for her all the time, sitting around and being waited on by Sean every day.”
“But she’s ill, Mum!”
“Is she? She didn’t look ill to me when I saw her. She didn’t so much as cough. Some people like to pretend that they’re not well, Kit, when they’re fine. They do it for attention.”
“That’s not fair!” he shouted
.
“Don’t answer back! And don’t take that tone with me, either. I don’t want you talking to strangers any more. From now on, you stay indoors and you only go out if Juliet or I am with you, do you understand? Now get changed into something dry and put those clothes straight into the washbag: you look a state. I’ll be amazed if you don’t catch a cold after today.” She went to leave the room but turned back at the doorway to add, “You know, I expected better from you.”
She marched out, closing the door firmly behind her so that Kit understood he was not supposed to leave. He understood too that he had disappointed her. She had asked him to be responsible and mature. Though he had been doing his very best to follow these instructions by helping everyone, he had made her worried and cross instead. He hadn’t meant to do that. But he didn’t think her reaction was fair either.
His feet ached from the day’s walking, so he sat curled up on the end of the bed and listened as, to his horror, Catherine could be heard downstairs saying, “Excuse me, are you Beth? I’d like a word about the ideas you’ve been giving my son.”
Unable to bear listening in on this, Kit put his head under the duvet to try to block out the sound of his mother’s raised voice talking too quickly to let Beth answer or defend herself. If he had not known better, he could have believed it was Maddie shouting.
Kit kicked listlessly at a chair leg. Juliet was practising French vocabulary, which meant there was no hope of a conversation with her that he would understand. Still, it was either this or sitting alone in his room, and Kit knew which he preferred. He still had one of Beth’s books left, but he did not like to read it too quickly. He did not know when he might be able to go and borrow another from her, with both his mother and Sean so set on keeping him from seeing her at all now. So he was putting off finishing the last few chapters, because somehow not reading but having a book set aside in case of urgent need seemed better than finishing reading and having no options left.
They had seen no one else all day, except for at breakfast time, and even then Catherine had made them wait until nine o’clock in the hope the other guests would have already eaten. Sean had been particularly abrupt with them, placing their food on the table without a word. Kit was certain it was because of how his mother had shouted at Beth, but Catherine appeared to show neither awareness nor remorse that she was the cause of their unpopularity at Askfeld.
Juliet had her head down as she attempted to recite the list of words she had been memorizing. “Le foyer, le gosse, le gamin. Do you have to keep kicking the chair like that? It’s really distracting.”
He planted his feet on the floor. “Why are you revising anyway? How can you have homework from a school you haven’t even started at yet?”
She did not look up from the colourful cards she had painstakingly covered with her notes. “Parce que I’ve already checked the syllabus for my subjects so I can prepare. And I don’t know how good the others in my class will be at St Jude’s, but I couldn’t face Mum or Dad if it turned out I’m the stupidest one there, so I need to go over everything before September.”
“Jules, you always get perfect marks in everything. There’s no way you’re going to be the stupidest person in your class.” Would their parents be angry if Juliet did badly on a test? He didn’t think so. Then again, how could he be sure, when Juliet had never failed at anything? Fishers work hard and rise to the challenge.
“What do you know about it? You’re not even in secondary school yet. La famille decomposée, la famille recomposée, concilier carrière et famille.”
It had not even been a compliment, in Kit’s opinion; it was just a fact. Juliet was good at every subject, except perhaps drama. Being on a stage made her uncomfortable. When she was cast as Ophelia in the school production of Hamlet, she had been sick the night before the first performance. Kit only knew this because his room in their old house had been next to the bathroom, and the walls were not soundproof. When he asked her about it, she had insisted he imagined the whole thing, but he was certain of what he’d heard. Their parents were always praising her exam marks, and he could not see why she was so worried. If he had been in her position, he would have taken the summer off, and only studied things that interested him.
“You say that now, because we haven’t had results day. But when the GCSE results come out… I just know I’ve messed them up! It’s OK though, I have a back-up plan of what subjects I’ll take if I don’t get the grades in my favourites. I just wish I knew more about the other local schools, in case St Jude’s refuses to take me after all.”
Kit sighed. There was no arguing with Juliet, no convincing her that she really was very clever and had no reason to worry. He had run out of new ideas to persuade her.
“Juliet! Kit!” From somewhere on the stairs, their mother’s voice came calling.
“We’re here!” Kit shouted back. A moment later she marched into the room, her phone in her hand and a beaming expression on her face.
“Guess what! I’ve got some exciting news.”
“You saw an albatross?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I didn’t want to tell you until it was all sorted out, but I’ve been on the phone to the solicitor and the removal company a lot since we came up here, and now the new house is ready for us to move in! We exchanged contracts and completed last week actually, but all our furniture was still in storage and there wasn’t much point trying to live there without it. I’ve just had confirmation that the van will bring our belongings up later today.”
Kit jumped up, knocking some of Juliet’s revision cards to the floor and ignoring her shout of protest at his clumsiness. “Does that mean Dad can come up now?” If the family could be reunited, everything would go back to normal. It would not matter quite so much that he had failed to finish Beth’s map.
“Can we go over and unpack right now?” Juliet asked, picking the cards up and putting them in order. “I’m dying for some different clothes.”
“Well, you’ll have all your boxes and cases, and your new room to arrange. And in answer to your question, Kit, Dad’s staying with Grandma Fisher for the time being, since the old house is sold now. He’ll be coming up to join us just as soon as he can, of course.”
“Finally!” Juliet looked genuinely relieved, though it was unclear whether it was at the family situation or the prospect of broadening her wardrobe options.
“But will we be able to come back to Askfeld?” Kit faltered.
“Why ever would you want to do that? We’ll be in our own home at last. No more living in a draughty guest house and having to share our space with strangers.” Catherine looked pointedly encouraging at this prospect. Kit knew he was supposed to be happy about it too.
“But then we won’t see our friends any more.” He had not finished investigating Sean, or helping Beth with her map, or locating an albatross for Bert. There were too many unfinished stories to leave yet.
She glared at her son, who had refused to take her hint. “Well, before long it’ll be time to start at your new school. And then you can make lots of new friends at St Jude’s. Friends your own age. You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you?”
It was another of those questions that wasn’t really a question, and Kit knew it. This time he said nothing.
The next few hours were a whirlwind of repacking their suitcases. Catherine insisted that Kit and Juliet stay in the same room together while she was out buying supplies for a thorough clean of their new house, which Kit suspected was a way of making sure he did not run off to say goodbye to Beth or Bert. He brought armfuls of his belongings into the other room and dumped them all on his mother’s bed before trying to squash everything back into the case that had once contained it all so easily.
“Kit, you’re supposed to fold your clothes, not stuff them into the gaps like that,” Juliet informed him.
“They fit better this way,” he argued. His sister shrugged and set to untangling the jewellery on
her bedside table. She swept most of it into a drawstring bag, but selected a silver chain which she fastened around her neck instead. On it, there hung a small shining bird in flight. From where Kit was standing, it looked like a seagull.
“I’ve just got to go and get a book from downstairs,” he said.
Juliet raised an eyebrow. “Mum said you were meant to stay here.” She moved as if she meant to block his exit, but he was closer to the door than she was, and they both knew she could not stop him.
“I won’t be long, I promise. She won’t be back before me.”
His sister looked troubled by this. Juliet never broke rules. Toby from Kit’s Year Six class had told him it was because she was the oldest child, and that was how they behaved. Toby had been a great authority on families and why they were so strange. He used to read his stepmother’s psychology books and then come into school armed with technical phrases like “attachment issues” and “oppositional defiant disorder”, which he would wheel out into conversation casually, as if forgetting that his peers would not recognize the terminology. Others tended to ignore this, pretending not to have noticed the strange new words, but Kit would always ask for a definition, and Toby was always happy to provide one. On one occasion Kit had asked whether there were any long words in these books that might apply to someone like him. Toby had given a very knowing smile and muttered something under his breath that sounded like “messier complex”, but Kit doubted that could be true. He was generally very neat; his mother made sure of it.
He had no book to collect from downstairs, but it seemed a plausible pretence. He needed an excuse to go and say goodbye before anyone stopped him.
Bert was easy to find in his usual spot near the fireplace.
“Bert, we’re leaving!” Kit cried. “We’re going to our new house.”
“What’s that? Oh, congratulations,” Bert said, though he seemed barely to have registered what Kit was saying.
“Mum says we won’t be coming back here.”
“I dare say she knows what’s best for you,” the birdwatcher continued to answer vaguely, which Kit would not accept.