Runners

by Ann Kelley

  ‘Yes, them.’

  ‘They’ll look after her, don’t you fret. I’ll show you where they’re to if you like. Take them shellfish sometimes, I do, in return for chicken eggs and other things.’

  ‘You know where they are? Freedom Farm it’s called.’

  ‘Freedom’s not far. In a hidden valley, it is.’

  ‘That’s it. With nut trees and caravans and tents and stuff.’ Sid fell over the words, he was so excited.

  ‘Then what are you going to do? Won’t let you in, will they?’

  ‘I want to make sure she’s okay, safe. I don’t know what I’ll do then. If she wants to go with me, maybe we’ll make it back to a den we had once. There was fresh water there.’ He sounded sad. ‘I was going to find my grandfather but he’s dead and Gran – Grumps – doesn’t like children.’

  The man made himself comfortable on a flat rock by the fire. They sat together, mesmerised by the sight and sound of green waves crashing a few metres away onto the half sand, half pebble shore.

  ‘Bring her here if you want. Live along with me.’

  ‘Really? Really?’ Sid squeaked. It was too good to be true. ‘What about my dog?’

  ‘He’s a good’un. Don’t mind him either.’

  ‘But you’ve no room for us really.’ Gaz had been sleeping on the floor, Izzi on the bed with Sid.

  ‘No problem, boy, I’ll build on another room.’

  ‘Can I help?’ Sid couldn’t believe the man’s generosity. Lo would love to live on the beach with a dog.

  ‘If you like.’ The man took Sid to the cave, where as well as the boat, there was a stack of seaborne timber.

  ‘Is this your boat?’

  Gaz nodded.

  ‘Can I… do you sail it?’ He was aware that there were supposed to be no privately owned boats any more, and wondered if Gaz knew that.

  ‘We’ll go out in a day or two if you like, when the sea’s calmed down. The storm churned things up.’

  They dragged and carried the timber to the hut and began to build.

  ‘What are you going to use as a roof?’

  ‘Got a bit more galvanised left; it’ll do us fine.’

  When he had finished fixing the roof, Gaz told Sid to gather some furze to camouflage it. It took the boy ages to cut the spiny gorse branches and drag them to the hut, his hands and arms pricked and bleeding. Gaz’s hands were like leather, nothing hurt them.

  ‘Now find a few big flat stones to pile on top. Stop it all blowing away in the wind.’

  Sid admired Gaz. He could shoot, sew clothes, cook on an open fire in the rocks, paint, and make things from nothing, things like tools and baskets. He made crab pots from willow twigs, which he wet and wove into shape, and constructed wire snares for rabbits, though Sid disapproved of those. Gaz could do anything, even with a missing finger. Sid watched and learned.

  ‘When can we go and find my sister?’ he asked Gaz, who was mending a tear in the boat’s sail with a thick bent needle and twine, ‘now there’s somewhere for her to sleep.’ He swept the new room clear of sand each morning, feeling proud that he had helped to build something so sturdy.

  ‘We’ll go dreckly, when I’ve got enough stuff to take the women, all right?’

  Over the next few days Gaz took him up to the cliff top and showed him how to dowse with a Y-shaped stick to find hidden water wells in the ground. Sid was delighted when the stick moved of its own accord, twisting in his hands.

  ‘You’m a natural, you are, my handsome!’ Gaz clapped Sid on the back and the boy’s smile widened. ‘We don’t need any fresh water yet, but when we do I’ll know where to find it.’

  ‘Izzi drinks more than we do,’ said Sid, watching the spaniel lap rainwater from a bucket. A gull glided past them. ‘What about gull eggs? Can we eat them?’

  ‘Can do, but they only lay eggs in the spring, boy, not this time of year.’

  They dug a fresh latrine well away from the hut at the other end of the beach, but above the tide line. Gaz leaned on his spade, looking out at the sea.

  ‘We needs a break from digging. Come on, I’ll show you how to sail.’

  ‘It’s a bit rough, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s calm enough.’

  It didn’t look very calm to Sid: rollers broke on the shore, sucking pebbles into the sea and throwing them back again. Dark swells rose and fell, blurring the horizon. But no waves broke over the distant rocky islet where shag and cormorant stood and preened. There, the sea rose and fell, lapping at the masses of purple mussels that colonised the rock.

  It was a clinker built wooden boat, five metres long, with a name painted in red on the stern and side – Girl Rose.

  ‘Won’t someone see?’

  ‘Who’s to see?’ The man grinned.

  ‘Coastguards?’

  ‘You seen any?’

  ‘No, but… what about the helicopters?’

  ‘They don’t bother with this coast. Too rough, too hazardous, no refugees are going to try and land hereabouts. Where would they come from? America?’ Gaz laughed loudly at his own joke, until he started coughing.

  The sun was dropping into the waves as they dragged the boat across the beach on wooden poles that acted as wheels. Izzi barked and ran up and down the beach.

  ‘No, Izzi, you have to wait here for us,’ said Sid.

  ‘Come if he wants,’ said Gaz, and Izzi, as if he been waiting for an invitation, jumped into the boat.

  ‘Get in, boy,’ Gaz told Sid, and pushing the boat into the waves he shoved it off, climbing over the side as it floated free. The boat rocked alarmingly and Sid held onto the side.

  Gaz dropped the centreplate, hauled up the brown canvas lug-sail and fitted the rudder and tiller over the stern. Wind filled the sail and they were sailing. It was the most exhilarating feeling that Sid had ever had, better than leaping from roof to roof, better than fighting with lances. It was like flying. He threw back his head and laughed. They sailed over big waves and into the deep troughs, where the land was invisible to them. They sailed out by the rocks and Sid saw dark heavy creatures flop from the rocks and plunge, then stick doggy heads out of the water, whiskers dripping diamonds.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Seals, boy, ain’t you never seen a seal?’

  Izzi had been standing with his front paws up on the side of the boat, but when he saw the seals he leapt into the water.

  ‘Come back, Izzi, come here.’ It was deep water and Sid was scared the pup would drown.

  ‘He’s all right. Like to swim, they dogs do.’ They watched as Izzi swam after a seal and as the seal dived, Izzi swam in a circle yapping and wagging his tail like a rudder, looking to see where the seal had gone. The seal surfaced some way away, looking towards the dog as if he was calling him to play. Dog and seal played hide-and-seek for some time, the boy and man watching them. The seal grew tired of the game and dived, not to come up near the dog again. Bewildered, Izzi barked and searched for the seal for a while before heading back to the beach to shake himself and sit on the rock watching the faraway boat.

  ‘Going to try for some fish now,’ said Gaz, ‘when they seals is far enough away. Steal our catch otherwise.’ They sailed in silence for a while, following the coastline westwards. All that remained of the setting sun was a swathe of fiery clouds. The waves were tinged with pink and yellow. Tall granite chimneystacks rose from the rocks like grey fingers pointing to Heaven.

  ‘What are they?’ Sid pointed.

  ‘Old engine houses, for the tin mines,’ Gaz replied. ‘There were shafts going under the sea years ago. Once, there were thirty-odd men killed when a shaft collapsed. Dangerous work it were. Another time, fifty men or more were drowned underground. Waterspout in the shaft.’

  ‘Like the Thames Tunnel. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was nearly killed when it collapsed,’ Sid said, proud of his knowledge.

  The man grunted. ‘My old feyther told me, follow the seabirds,’ he said. ‘They know more than we. Watch for g
annets diving. Only for garfish, sprats and sand-eel, but it’s all you get these days. Big fish all gone, all dead and gone. Used to be mackerel and pilchard years ago, and bigger fish, mullet and bass,’ he said. ‘Never saw them myself. All dead and gone. Only tiddlers and spider crabs – bleddy ugly critters – no meat on ’em to speak of. Make good soup, though.’

  But there were no gannets diving, no gulls hovering. The man’s voice was hypnotic; he talked with a lovely sing-song West Cornwall softness. Sid had to listen carefully to understand what he was saying. Not like the harder East Cornish of his father and mother. His poor father and mother! Sid hadn’t thought of them for ages. It was as if they were from another time, a different world. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and sniffed hard.

  Gaz sailed the boat to where he had placed a buoy made of an old plastic oil-can. He hauled up a length of chain with a crab pot at the end and found two spider crabs, their long red legs tangled together.

  ‘Take them out, then,’ he said, and Sid grabbed the crabs. They had puny claws and he wasn’t scared of being pinched.

  ‘Stick them upside down in the bilge.’

  ‘Bilge?’

  ‘Bottom of the boat, boy.’

  The crabs lay helpless on their backs, scrabbling the air. They looked like giant scarlet spiders.

  ‘Used to catch bleddy great lobsters, one time. Geet claws on ’em, could take your finger off.’ Gaz laughed a rasping laugh and coughed, spitting to leeward.

  ‘Is that how you lost your finger, Gaz?’

  ‘It was, ’es, that’s how I lost it, not concentrating. Own fault. Got to watch out when you’re dealing with they.’

  Gaz rebaited the pot with open mussels and chucked it back over the side into the sea.

  Each morning when he woke Sid filled his lungs with the clean salt air. He spent his days running on the beach with Izzi, and incidentally, learning about the beach life around him – which rock plants and seaweeds were good to eat and which were not. There was a rock samphire that Gaz particularly enjoyed. Sid climbed the rock face to gather it for him, glad to be of use. He watched Gaz wash the bunch of pale green succulents in fresh water to get rid of the saltiness, then steam it all over a pan of water. Like the mussels it smelt of the sea. They bit off the fleshy parts, leaving the woody stalks.

  ‘Used to have butter and pepper with these, in the good old days,’ Gaz reminisced.

  One hot day they were out in the boat, Izzi standing on the bow, his nose pointing up to sniff the air.

  ‘Right, boy, your turn. Move over here, then, carefully now, sit here, that’s right. Hold the tiller firmly, but feel the wind talking to you, feel the sea carrying you.’

  Sid took the helm and held the rope that was attached to the sail, loving the tug of it, loving the pull of the wind.

  ‘That’s it, you’re a natural, you are.’ Gas pretended to doze while Sid sailed, but when he looked like getting into trouble, he was there in a flash to help get the boat back on course, and to tack the boat against the wind and turn it about.

  ‘Why doesn’t it go in a straight line?’

  ‘Have to go to the side of the wind, work with it, not agin it.’ Zig-zag, that’s the way, zig-zag.’ Gaz let Sid sail the boat for half an hour or more. Then he said, ‘Move over, I’ll show you how to survive a capsize, all right?’

  He steered the boat into the quieter waters of a small cove and performed a deliberate gybe and capsize.

  As they’d floated in the calm water, the boom and sail floating alongside the hull of the boat, Gaz told him to swim around to the stern, to avoid swimming over the mast, sail and lines. Izzi woofed happily and swam around looking for seals.

  ‘Push down the centreboard,’ Gaz told Sid, but he wasn’t strong enough.

  ‘Okay, so grab the end of it and pull down. Put your feet on the underwater part of the hull.’ It still lay in the water. Sid’s efforts weren’t good enough and he was tiring. ‘You help,’ he begged.

  ‘No, you can do it, son. Climb onto the centreboard and stand on the end of it. Pull the boat up.’

  Sid scrambled up and did as Gaz told him, and it worked. He clambered over the side of the now upright dinghy.

  ‘You did it, see!’ The man climbed over the side of the boat and bailed out the water. Sid was proud of himself. ‘And never leave your boat to rescue anyone. It’s your only hope of survival. Never leave your boat.’

  Sid was tanned and filling out. He felt like he had lived on the beach all his life. He swam in the surf and let the waves carry him in on his belly. He discovered rock pools exposed at low tides and marvelled at the red jelly-like sea anemones that stretched out sticky tentacles when the water covered them; blennies and shrimp, tiny white crabs and starfish. He learned how to knock limpets off the rocks and eat them raw.

  ‘Can I go sail the boat on my own, Gaz?’ He was keen to do it by himself.

  ‘Dreckly, perhaps.’

  Izzi paddled in the shallows, tail wagging, watching for movement on the pebbles, scrabbling with his paws at small crabs. Sid made narrow channels in the sand; he dammed the flow and made elaborate bridges from sticks and pebbles. For a time he could forget what he had been through: the terror when his parents were taken away; escaping from the jeep; the flight from the city with Lo; the roundabout den; his fear of the injured Reducer. And the loss of Lo.

  One morning, when he had walked to the next cove, foraging for young alexanders and nettles, he heard a mournful wailing, like an overtired Lo when she was a baby. He looked around, holding his breath, listening carefully. It came from out at sea. Izzi sat up straight, his ears pricked, facing the ocean.

  ‘What is it, Izzi? Can you hear a baby, too?’ He stroked the dog’s head. The sound came from a rock about twenty metres offshore.

  ‘Need binoculars, don’t I?’ He concentrated hard on the mound of jagged green granite that grew bigger and smaller in the swell. Then he saw, well camouflaged, a mother seal on the fringe of the rock, her young seal wallowing below her in the water. She was singing to it. Or it was singing to her. And the sound and sight moved the boy. He sat on the bank, dropped his head into his hands and sobbed. The dog lay down beside him, head on paws, whining, wagging his tail uncertainly, and gazing unhappily at his boy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GAZ WAS USED to having the boy with him, and wasn’t relishing the thought of having a small child to care for. But he had promised.

  ‘I reckon it’s time to go and fetch your little sister,’ he said. They were sat on the beach, backs against a rock watching, as they always did, as the sun set into a pink and purple sea. ‘Need more eggs and greens from the women, anyway,’ said Gaz.

  Sid wore one of Gaz’s old pair of shorts, which were huge on him, but Gaz had shortened them, sewing being one of his many talents. He had lent Sid his only other T-shirt. It was tattered and misshapen and had once been red, but was now a very washed out pink. There was a faded message on it – MY PARENTS WENT TO SCILLY, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T-SHIRT. But mostly Sid went bare-backed, bare-foot.

  ‘Have you been to Scilly, Gaz?’

  ‘Years ago. Sailed there I did.’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Gaz said, smiling. ‘Perfect.’

  ‘How is it perfect?’

  ‘Clear waters, strange birds and plants you never saw in your life before, dolphins, white sand, safe ’arbours.’

  ‘Is it still like that? Thought it was all gone in the rising oceans?’

  ‘Dunno, boy, went there when I were a nipper. But I did hear that they’d all gone under the water apart from the highest – St Mary’s. And that’s smaller than it used to be.

  ‘Sailed there on your own?’

  ‘Nah, only part way. It were a race, a boat race like. Gig boats, teams of us, rowing we were.’

  ‘What’s gigs?’

  ‘Lifeboats, originally. Thirty-two feet long and a beam of four feet ten inches. Pilots they were. Used to race to incoming
fishing boats. To get the work of carrying fish baskets to shore, see? Six oars.’

  ‘Did you win?’

  ‘Nah, had a good time though.’ He laughed at his memories. ‘They gig girls were some strong. Arm wrestle you stupid then drink you under the table, they could.’ Gaz scratched his crotch thoughtfully.

  They packed a sack with fresh mussels, spider crabs, rock samphire, several garfish caught that morning, all wrapped in wet seaweed to keep them fresh, and pretty pebbles.

  ‘Women like pretty things.’

  Sid had an idea. He went to the far end of the beach where he had seen fragments of green and blue sea-smoothed glass, and gathered a pocketful. He was amused to see Gaz trim his beard, using a piece of broken mirror to see himself. The man showered under a makeshift shower – a bucket of water on a rope – and changed into clean shorts and brightly patterned Hawaiian shirt. He looked ten years younger.

  It was a fine morning. The sun hung in front of them as they climbed up the stony valley, following the stream that had carried Sid and his dog to Gaz several weeks ago. The old bridge had been swept away; only a buttress end still stood. Boulders were strewn along the banks. The rocks had already been colonised by new shoots of brambles and tightly coiled ferns. Sid had the horrors as he saw the place where he had been hurled into the raging flood. It all came back: the black water; not being able to breathe; the helpless swirling under the surface; the terrible, irrevocable force of floodwater. He patted the dog’s head and turned away. Izzi whined softly and licked Sid’s hand.

  ‘IKB and me, we both survived floods,’ he whispered proudly to himself.

  They passed the cottages, which had been patched up and scrubbed clean of the contaminating waters. No one was about, though washing blew on a line – faded blue sheets, pillowcases, cotton trousers and women’s underwear. Sid thought he saw the slight twitch of a curtain at a window. Behind the cottages were several fields planted with potatoes and other vegetables.

  ‘Can’t we get stuff from the farmer?’ he asked.

  ‘Never goin’ to ask ’im for nowt,’ Gaz said, and spat, his brow furrowing.

  ‘Why not?’

  A grunt was all the answer Sid could get. Gaz took him along a narrow lane bordered by three-foot thick dry-stone hedges, where succulents grew from the cracks and lizards basked in the sun, and off onto the sea-fields, where the dog ran and the boy ran after him. Daisies danced in the wind and Sid wondered if he would see the daisy girl.