by Julia Jones
Vicky was enjoying it, as she scrambled in and out of the low entrance, and played peek-boo with the two adults who were sheltering from the wind on the dry grass of the bank. She wanted Liam to come inside at once. Skye was equally at ease. Lottie’s finger-spelling must have been far more advanced than she’d ever let on.
The children’s father was a short, broad man wearing a black woolly hat and a new-looking donkey jacket. His jeans looked new as well. They were about a size too large. Maybe someone else had bought them.
What happened about clothes when you went to prison? Did they take your stuff away and give back to you when you were let out? Or did you wear your own clothes or overalls or something?
Whatever you’d worn in prison, you’d surely never want to wear again. Lottie would have been the one who’d done Bill’s shopping and chosen these new clothes for him. Maybe he wasn’t as big as she remembered.
Why wasn’t Lottie here?
When Luke and Liam sprinted forward to hug their dad, Bill struggled to his feet awkwardly. Looked over his shoulder and from side to side as if he was about to make a getaway. He stood where he was but didn’t reach out, didn’t speak or smile.
Liam flung his arms around his father’s waist and hung there, ecstatic, face completely buried in the thick cloth of the donkey jacket. Luke stopped before they touched.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Hello, Son.”
Even in the fresh breeze Bill’s face was colourless. He and Luke stood staring at each other unable to find words. Bill let out a long exhausted sigh and slipped an arm round Liam. Held him close; brought his other hand to touch his son’s fair hair, so carefully.
“Your sister’s grown,” he said to Luke.
“Yeah. And she talks a lot more too.”
“Not too much, I hope?”
His voice was suddenly harsh. It took the boys a moment to understand what he meant.
“No, Dad, honest. It’s only us as understands her most of the time.”
“She says ‘doh’ mostly ...”
“Like Homer Simpson.”
“Your step-mum says you two can keep a proper secret now.” he stopped again. Donny noticed that he was avoiding looking at Anna.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come, Bill. When you were in ...”
“Her Majesty’s Parlour? You didn’t exactly miss much. Did she, boys?”
Luke and Liam didn’t answer.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Bill burst out. “If yer knew ... how I wanted ... all of yer!”
He had to let himself touch both his sons together, just his hands resting on their shoulders. He looked at Anna then gazed at Vicky.
“Wasn’t even there when she were born. Thought it wouldn’t matter. Being a fisherman and that. Used to be off on the trawlers three months at a time – when there was trawlers. Couldn’t cope with this, though. You could be proud to have your dad a deep-sea fisherman, even when he weren’t around. Not a ...”
He couldn’t finish. His eyes were wet and it wasn’t the wind.
“You’re still our dad,” said Luke.
“Why ain’t you coming home, Dad?”
“Because it ain’t safe. Thought your step-mum told you. Never mind that I wouldn’t exactly fit in with your new big house an’ all ... it just ain’t safe. There’s a bloke out there strangles budgies for his party trick. He could hurt you, any of you.”
Anna stood exceptionally still. Tense with wanting to know more. Tense with trying not to ask.
“He’s why I shouldn’t have come. Him and the others. But Lottie’s leading ’em a dance in her flash car and I’m parked up at the top in this lady’s van.”
Skye had scooped Vicky into her arms. She was quick to sense distress.
“He says you lent him the camper,” Donny signed. “Did you know all about this?”
“He has seen the eyes of Pauguk,” she answered. “He is frightened.” her hands conveyed her pity and sadness.
“Dad’s scared because of us,” Luke told his brother. “Thinks we might let on to them bullies. Then they’d try an’ rough us up to get at him. If we left you inside, Dad – pretended to – we wouldn’t have no problem looking a bit sick an’ not saying much if anyone was to ask. Today, it’s like we’re on our desert island. It ain’t regular. So you don’t have to be our dad today; you can be like our Man Friday.”
“It’s Monday,” Anna corrected automatically.
“An’ he is our dad. Every day. Wherever he’s been. You said.”
“I know I did, Li. An’ he is ... but you know when people start asking stuff. Like that lady who catches us at school – that old yeller-headed witch – the one who gives you bad feelings.”
Toxic didn’t only call at Gallister High; she could visit any of the schools, pluck out the unhappiest children, probe their scars with her painted nails.
“So, if we leaves our dad back in that visiting room, then this bloke’s our Man Monday. An’ we don’t get in no muddles, see? Even if the yeller-headed witch or that fat copper come asking us who we might have been meeting.”
Liam saw at once. Bill more slowly.
Donny and Anna were impressed.
“How do, stranger!”
They greeted him one after another, slapping high fives and jumbling their stories. They assured him that they were the solitary inhabitants of these Desolate Shores and they enticed him back to their camp. Skye made him tea – just as Granny Edith would have done – and then she cooked a pot of pasta, mixed with sweetcorn, tinned tuna, egg and tomato and some shreds of bright green samphire that she’d gathered while she and Bill and Vicky had been waiting to be found.
Afterwards the boys wanted to show their father the pits they’d dug and then walk out with him on the slowly uncovering sands.
“’Course if you’d have brought a good flat net you could go after them shrimps. Or you could anchor that little boat of yours some way out and hope to hook a few dabs or a plaice.”
“Luke did try cockling but he didn’t get many.”
“Cockling ... that’s hard. There ain’t so many as there was. An’ you need a sieve. Still, mix ’em up with whelks an’ mussels an’ you’ll get yourself a panful.”
“Yuck,” said Anna.
“You ain’t changed then,” said Bill, forgetting that he had never met her in any other life.
“I think I have, you know.”
Donny felt sorry for Bill. His fear was like those flat bits a little way up the beach, which looked as if they were covered with smooth sand. Then, as soon as you stepped on them, you found slippery black mud straight underneath.
Bill couldn’t keep up the Man Monday game. They walked down to Vexilla and he turned straight back into an ex-fisherman, making suggestions how Donny should keep her safe if it should come on to blow in the night.
“Reckon you’ll want to be well out of here tomorrer. Forecast ain’t getting any better.”
“I wanted Anna to ring Weathercall but her mobile’s out of battery. Don’t suppose you’ve got one?”
“Nah. Well, that ain’t exactly true. Lottie did give me one but I told her I weren’t going to switch it on. Not when I’m near here. They can track you by a mobile, you know. I met blokes inside that had been done that way.”
“But ...” Anna sounded unconvinced.
“Don’t start, Anna,” Donny interrupted. “There are some things we don’t want to know, remember? If Maggi and Xanthe turn up, we’ll use theirs and, if they don’t, we’ll batten down the hatches anyway. Except we haven’t got any – hatches, I mean. Look at the sky. Someone’s getting well wet out there.”
The clouds on the horizon were massed gun-metal grey. Dark rain veils linked sky to sea. Night was coming early.
“Time I was off,” said Bill. But he didn’t go.
They went back to the camp and drank more tea and Bill checked the guy ropes and reminded them about not touching the sides of the tents if it did come on to rain.
�
�It was you, last night, wasn’t it?” Donny asked him. It was difficult to be sure which questions could be asked and which would have Bill skidding on the mud of fear again. “Round our tents. Smoking.”
“Might have been.”
“I only wanted to be sure that it wasn’t ... anyone else.”
“Bad habit I picked up. I’ve told Lottie I’ll stop. I’d seen you from the tower, when you was out sailing. Then I spotted a couple of coppers. They was only buying ice-cream but I made meself scarce. Moved the van a couple of times and came back when you was all asleep. Felt a bit emotional ... Packet’s gone now.”
“The cairn, whose idea was that?”
“Your mum’s. I’d been holed up since early. Watching. Then young Vicky came along and found where I was. She wouldn’t leave go, bless her. So I wrote the note and your mum laid the trail. She thought you’d enjoy a bit of a game. You took long enough. I reckoned Lottie’d made a mistake and the kids didn’t want to see me after all. Wouldn’t have blamed them.”
“You should have done,” said Luke, firmly.
“You’re our dad. We keep saying.”
“Bill,” said Anna. “I’m sorry about ... how I used to be. But I think you should explain. Why did you and my mum have those terrible rows? You kept getting drunk and once ...”
“I hit her. I’m sorry for it. I’m sorry every day. Luke, Liam. Don’t ever get like me, do you hear? What Anna says is right. That was when I realised how low I’d sunk ... Because I was wrong. Not wrong like they said, but wrong all the same. It was when I was working at the docks. Container handling. I didn’t have no skill – not like a crane driver or anything. But the baby was coming and Lottie couldn’t work and we needed the money.”
Donny watched Anna now, leaning forward, intent on hearing the truth.
“So when I’d been there a bit and they told me about the bonuses I was well pleased.”
“What bonuses? What did they give you bonuses for?”
“Observation. If you spotted a container with a special mark you told this Chinese feller and it was hundred quid in your hand and the next day off. Unofficial, so you still got paid like as if you’d been in. But Lottie, she wouldn’t have it. Wouldn’t touch the money – the hundred quid or money for the day un-worked. She was that stubborn.”
“She knew it was crooked.”
“So did I. Thought it must be goods going to get lost out of the system. You know stuff ends up in markets or gets sold out of the backs of vans. Didn’t want to think it was anything worse. I’d borrowed money where I shouldn’t and the repayments ... well, they was getting bigger all the time. But she wouldn’t entertain it. So then I tried to stop and the Chinese feller turned nasty. Really nasty. That’s when I reckoned it must be drugs.”
“But it wasn’t drugs.”
“It were people. Mind you, it could have been drugs as well. They was that bent. First I tried taking the money – so they didn’t think I was going to grass on ’em – and drinking it on me day off, but I couldn’t get the people out of me mind. Couldn’t live with meself. Let alone with her.”
“That wasn’t the first row.”
“No, it weren’t. But it were the last. Next day I went to work and found a copper and I told him everything I knew.” Bill fumbled in his pockets as if he was searching for these absent cigarettes. “Picked the wrong copper, didn’t I?”
“You told ... Flint?”
Bill nodded. His hands were shaking. Like Skye’s when she’d been coming off the vodka.
“Big man. He was always about down there. Always going on how he hated illegals. I reckoned if anyone would want to stop the trade it’d be him.”
“You were wrong.”
“Couldn’t have been wronger. He sat me down. Wrote down everything I’d said. All very correct. Got me to sign it, with witnesses. No intimidation, nothing.”
“That’s right. The lawyer checked it ...”
“Then when the other coppers’d gone, he took it all out of his bag again. Kept the signatures. Wiped most everything else – except the bits that fingered me – and said, if I added as much as another word, my kids’d suffer. Then he bought his nasty little mate in and they did one of their demonstrations.”
“With ... a bird?”
“With a bird.”
Anna didn’t move or speak but Donny found there was one more thing he needed to know.
“The mark, Bill. What did the mark on the containers look like? The one you were meant to spot.”
“Load a scribbles really.”
“Can you show me?”
“Promise you won’t none of you tell. I just need you to keep safe.”
“We promise.”
“Cross our hearts.”
Bill leant forward.
Donny had been certain he was going to see the Pura-Lilly symbol – the one on that pile of containers where the hidden workers had had to live, the flesh-pink sign on the Tiger’s van, on the Chinese cleaner’s overalls. Skye had seen it. Lottie had worn it.
The sign Bill drew in the clear damp sand was the Chinese character for Welcome – the sign that Donny had remembered from the poster on his primary classroom door, the sign he’d carved on the fake Hispaniola that distant day when he’d rescued the dragon flag. He’d put it on top of the Chinese national flag. Left it for the Tiger.
The Tiger had tried to threaten Great Aunt Ellen: GO HOME LÓNG, he daubed and slashed her flag to shreds. He would have assumed that Donny’s Welcome sign was Gold Dragon’s reply. No wonder there’d been trouble.
Harwich Approaches, Monday 28 May 2007
Min couldn’t know where they were when the storm struck.
Even the container ship felt it. She rocked slightly and heeled for all her massiveness. It was the noise that was terrifying. The wind screaming round the exposed metal, the small, unexpected crashes as the crated furniture began to shift. The cries of fear from people in the dark. Then came the moment when they felt their prison begin to slide. The traumatic lurch when the single container that hadn’t been properly fastened slipped from its position on the exposed aft corner of the lee side and plunged forty metres into the gale-swept sea below.
It sank slowly and almost completely as the spring tide pushed it towards the sands.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hazards to Navigation
Walton Backwaters, Tuesday 29 May 2007
Bill had stayed until it was almost bedtime. Xanthe and Maggi had arrived in their Laser dinghies so he met them as well. They’d been late leaving Weymouth and the traffic had been bad but they’d persuaded their parents to launch Spray and Kingfisher at Titchmarsh Marina. They’d come down the Walton Channel on the ebb, carrying just enough gear for one night.
“We don’t need a tent,” said Xanthe. “We want to sleep in Vexilla. I’ve been hankering to bivvi there ever since you did. The parentals are bringing Snow Goose tomorrow. They don’t want you to stay any longer. Forecast’s terrible. If the tide had been right or if we’d left earlier, they’d have come tonight.”
“Good thing they didn’t.”
“Do you have to go now, Bill?” Anna said. “Couldn’t you stay a bit? The boys’d squash up for you.”
“Don’t never want to go but I reckon I ought. That there van’s conspicuous and they don’t like overnighters in the car park. I can’t risk having me number taken.” he sighed. “Tell you what, though, I might drive back up the Naze in the morning. Have a last look from the tower. You won’t see me but I’ll likely see you.”
“We could fly a flag,” Maggi suggested.
“Not with this wind. It’d rip away. You’re going to have to sit tight enough in them tents. And get your dinghies pulled well up.”
“Here you are.” Anna brought out her binoculars. “Use these. They’re almost new. I thought I’d take up bird-watching but I haven’t the patience. Go on,” she insisted, “think of them as a present from the kids. The shops are full of stuff for Father’s Day and I have
n’t anyone to buy for.”
He thanked her awkwardly. Then he hugged his children and set off along the beach to the Naze, taking care to walk all the way below the tide-line.
“That’s so his footsteps’ll be licked away when the water comes back up,” said Luke, glumly.
They did their chores, ate and got ready for bed. No-one felt like dancing about.
“Sorry,” said Donny to Xanthe and Maggi, when they went to check the dinghies one last time. “This isn’t quite what you came for.”
“Yes, it is. Just because we haven’t done some blood ceremony doesn’t mean we don’t stick together through thick and thin, hell and high water, sand, mud and slime.”
Xanthe’d read Secret Water but the others hadn’t. Donny told them about the blood ceremony – pricking fingers and mingling the drops. Anna said “yuck” immediately but Luke and Liam began to look alarmingly keen.
“I bet Xanth hasn’t told you why we were so late leaving Weymouth,” said Maggi.
“Don’t.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You were brilliant and the selectors were there and we were asked to stay afterwards ... and they’ve put her on the long list to train for the Olympics! They’ll confirm the place after this summer’s championships but, as she and Spray are so amazingly consistent, she’s pretty well home and dry. Or wet.”
“That is so fantastic!”
“It’s better than that. Because if they do confirm that she’s in the squad, Dad’ll have to give up looking for jobs abroad. The training schedule’s seriously intense – even though it’s such a long time away. And there’s residency rules and stuff.”
“That’s the best news since ... well, since we last had any best news. Put it there, Xanth.”
“Atmosphere a bit muted in the car though. Him and Mum. He still insists he’s chucking in the Ipswich job. We might find we’re living in Dorset or Anglesey or anywhere.”
“At least it’s the same country. We can have holidays together and stuff.”
“And I get to chill out at weekends occasionally. When she’s off in some RYA boot camp.”
“Don’t you mind, Maggi – not being in the squad?”