by Julia Jones
“Jonjo suggested we go swimming. The boys are up for it but how about you?”
“Nah,” said Kelly-Jane, “I ain’t going. D’you wanna go, Siz? Wrong time fer me. I get cramps.”
She screwed herself round to look up at Siri and Siri looked back at her. Then her blue eyes wandered to the porthole in the side of the cabin, quite high above her bed. It was small, maybe less than a foot across, round and with the standard issue cream-painted metal rivets surrounding salt-clouded toughened glass. The sounds of a summer afternoon were wafting in. There were walkers setting out and returning along the marsh wall.
“You saw me yesterday. When I was running off into the afternoon.” Xanthe said to Siri. “Then you had to get out as well.”
“You shoulda told me.” Kelly-Jane was hurt. “I were worried sick.”
“We could go the other way today. If you don’t want to swim we could take a long walk. Take it together.”
Kelly-Jane’s hand went to the base of her stomach and rubbed it. Maybe that wasn’t all her normal fat. Maybe she was feeling bloated and sore.
“S’up to Siz, innit.”
“You think the saltings are spooky.” Xanthe was talking to the younger girl. “But on a day like today they can be beautiful. They have flowers that you’ll never see anywhere else and birds all settled into their summer homes. We could stay on the wall and walk to the top of the creek that runs up Broad Marsh – where we went sailing that day.”
Kelly-Jane was being carefully don’t-care but Siri’s blank expression had begun to shift.
“Take a look out though that porthole, won’t you?” Xanthe didn’t mind pleading if that was what it took
It turned out they had to have Martha with them. But that was okay and Martha brought a backpack with sun cream and water and apples and biscuits.
Then Siri did something that Xanthe found totally disturbing. She produced two grubby Mothercare wrist-links and wordlessly insisted that she be attached to Xanthe and to Kelly-Jane, one on either side. It would mean they’d have to walk chained together, single file, for most of the time along the wall.
“That’s because of her mum,” said Kelly-Jane.
She didn’t say any more and Martha didn’t comment. But it started Xanthe thinking. Her mother, who was a magistrate and who sometimes knew things that other people didn’t know, had sent her here in alliance with Rev Wendy, who also, in her over-anxious, ploddy and ideological way, knew things about…things. So maybe there could be some reason why Xanthe should try not to whinge about having to walk along a wall in the sunshine, linked up to an obviously traumatised child who felt safer that way.
There weren’t that many people to notice them. The group of birdwatchers who were spending this half-term week on Godwyn had long ago twitched off to their hides. People who had boats on the saltings were settled in their muddy hollows, doing jobs or snoozing or playing their radios and drinking beer. People who had boats on the river would have to stay out there. There wouldn’t be water in the creeks again until nine or ten o’clock tonight.
Martha made a few remarks but mainly they walked and looked around them in quiet. There were white birds feeding and nesting in a haze of sea lavender and the breeze was warm and stroked the sides of their faces and under their chins as they walked. They were walking away from the cranes of the ex-power station and it was too far away to hear whatever was happening with the construction of the replica harbour.
Xanthe was thinking of Eli – Eli and Iris, two people who had never been happy or in love with each other. She was remembering the way Eli had looked back at Rebow Cottage when he’d left it that last time.
She had assumed that it was the last time. He’d been standing and staring with his hands in his pockets. He’d certainly not been carrying anything. Then he’d taken one hand from his pocket and held it against his face.
Iris had done the same but Iris had known she had an audience. Eli had thought he was alone.
Iris’s ebony walking stick had vanished from the house that night. She’d had it in the sitting room when they had been quarrelling and the next time Xanthe had seen it was in the soft mud at the highest tip of this Broad Marsh Creek, at the final bend of the channel before the old landing stage. And now she had it in the sail lofts.
She ought to take it to the police – she was sure about that. Wasn’t she?
Except she’d look such a lightweight if it belonged to some other oldie. She should check it out first. Maybe ask
Martha?
Martha was family; she might not want to answer. Everyone was family around here. Jonjo wasn’t, but he wouldn’t know.
Kelly-Jane got slower and quieter. Siri was silent.
Martha was looking around them all the time. Perhaps she was hoping to spot a ruff or a greenshank or a young marsh harrier. Xanthe knew the words, no more than that. There was a moment when they spotted the turrets of a Victorian Gothic mansion shrouded by dark trees and Martha opened up with some fragments of local history.
“That’s Auntie Iris’s childhood home,” she told Xanthe. “Her father died on his way back from Dunkirk and her mother sold it not long after. It’s a private clinic now. The company who own it wanted to buy the marshes too. We fought them off but then they bought the St Peter Peninsula and that old power station. And that worries me and Gareth because…”
They’d reached the top of the creek. Xanthe could feel Siri tugging at the wrist-link. “Yeah, this is where we sailed,” she said without looking. “Where you and K-J were going solo for the first time. You have to come out again tomorrow. We could take ourselves a picnic. Do a full day.”
No answer except a much longer, more impatient pull.
“That’s not what you were saying? We could try a code…”
The younger girl stopped walking which meant that Xanthe had to stop too. And look behind her to see what was wrong.
“OMG, K-J, you are completely done in! Hey, Martha, we need to make this our sit-down spot.”
They had Project sweatshirts tied round their waists, so they spread them out to cover the rough grass. Martha distributed the water bottles from her backpack. There were small birds singing their hearts out in the shrub and swallows wheeling in the cloudless sky. It was idyllic.
Kelly-Jane pulled her knees up towards her chest and used her untethered hand to massage her lower stomach. She was grey with pain.
“You need to free up her other hand, Siri. It’s her wrong time of the month. And you are just too brave for your own good, K-J.”
“You poor love,” said Martha. “I used to get completely crippled up when I was your age. My m…” You could see she had been about to say something about her mother but had decided not to. “Are you okay taking paracetamol? It’s all I’ve got with me.”
“Not that bothered,” grumbled Kelly-Jane, but she took the pills and drank some water and rolled over onto her side, facing away. Then Siri gently slipped her second hand out of the wrist link and began to massage the base of her friend’s back.
Martha pulled out her phone. “I’m going to get Dominic to fetch us in the minibus when the boys have finished swimming. There’s a farm track leads down past the old house.”
“Naw! Don’t do that. My trouble’s personal.”
“No need to worry. For one thing Dominic’s not that curious. He probably won’t even ask why we want collecting and if he does I’ll tell him I’ve got blisters or I’m running late for Auntie Iris or any number of things – all of which will be at least 50 percent true.”
“You’ll tell him later. You can’t never trust adults to respect your privacy.”
Xanthe could almost feel that low griping cramp and the struggle to squeeze back tears. So, it seemed, could Martha. She came right round and crouched below Kelly-Jane on the rough slope of the marsh wall.
“K-J, I know that your situ
ation is really tough – and you know that if I ever have to make a choice between your privacy and your safety it’ll be safety every time. It has to be. There are too many others at risk.”
Kelly-Jane hid her face in her arms. All Xanthe could see was the back of her head and her slightly greasy hair. It had been hennaed once.
“But this thing isn’t about safety and I don’t have to tell. And I won’t. I was young a long time ago and I discovered that not telling things sometimes made them easier to bear. Though not always,” she added, after a moment.
“I can always guess with my sister,” said Xanthe, who thought Martha was still talking about period pain. “She’s so sweet-natured it’s untrue, then suddenly she’ll bite your head off and you’ll think ‘what was that about?’ and then you realise. She often gets migraines with it and she has to stay home.”
“Mmmm,” said Kelly-Jane. She sounded more relaxed now, even a bit sleepy. Siri carried on rubbing her friend’s back as if she knew exactly where it ached. Then she yawned too.
“Take a nap, why don’t you?” suggested Martha. “The minibus won’t be here for at least half an hour. Xanthe and I will count damsel flies.”
“I’ve got my research notebook.”
“That’s cool. Okay girls, we’ll wake you when the transport’s here.”
Kelly-Jane was asleep already. Siri gave a small contented smile and moved as close as she could to her friend. Xanthe knew that she and Martha were being trusted to stand guard – against what? Still no-one was telling her.
She began to doodle in her notebook, thinking about the D-day components she had seen that morning. But then her sketching changed and she drew the creek ahead of her and the place where Excalibur had been found and the landing stage and the big house behind. She could see how neatly it connected to the field and the path across, leading directly to Rebow Cottage and the gate with the splintered sampler.
There was a cuckoo calling from somewhere in the trees near Broad Marsh House. Cuck-oo, cuck-oo. She remembered playing those two notes over and over when she and Mags had been learning the recorder.
“I hate that sound,” said Martha suddenly. “Makes me think of all the eggs and all the baby birds that are going to be smashed so that one chick gets its best survival chance.”
“I’m sorry. It’s only ever said summertime to me.”
“It wouldn’t if you were a reed-warbler.”
She fell silent again. Xanthe stared at the twists and turns of the empty creek and she thought about tide times.
Martha’s phone chirruped as a text arrived. “Dom’s on his way. Time we began waking these girls. It’s been good to see them so completely out of it.”
Siri’s creamy skin was flushed pink. Her eyelids were moving slightly and she was murmuring in her sleep.
“She’s dreaming,” said Xanthe. “REM sleep. I can’t wake her now.”
“Let her be happy while she can,” agreed Martha.
She began talking quietly to Kelly-Jane, trying to ease her back to consciousness. Xanthe sat back, watched Siri, and wondered.
Then the younger girl’s eyes blinked open, not quite focused yet. She must have felt the warm sun and her friend beside her. Heard the birdsong maybe? Stayed another moment in her dream?
“Mummy…?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Martha’s voice was choked. “Your mum’s not here. There’s just us, your friends,” she added, “Keeping you safe.”
“Yeah, but her mum could be here, couldn’t she?” said Kelly-Jane. “Watching over her, like, in spirit.”
“Of course she could,” said Martha fervently.
“And I do believe she is. We love you, Siri’s mum. We’re here for you. We’re gonna help you keep her safe.”
For once Xanthe was certain that she’d found the right words. It didn’t seem to matter that she hadn’t any idea what she was talking about.
Chapter Fourteen
Favours
Friday May 31, lw 0711 hw 1330 lw 1930 hw 0146
Who is taking fotos fgs? #bbarbie has u walking in slave chain gang and larfaminnit has capsize pix going viral. U need 2 stop them asap!
A text from Maggi? That was breaking the agreement. They were only supposed to chat at weekends but her Nokia brick had blipped this morning as soon as she stepped out from Rebow Cottage.
Let them larf. I don’t care. Honest.
It was true, she had no urge to look at Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or any other place where people might be showing off their unkindnesses.
Don’t agree. They r bullies. Shd be stopped. Anna is writing prog to run thru ISP addresses and find source. She says hi.
Say hi back but tell her don’t waste time.
She likes it. Glad u ok xxx
They were like voices from another planet. Her lovely sister Maggi and their incredibly clever maths-geek friend, Anna. It was half term. Maybe they were sitting together on a bus to go shopping or more likely they’d met up at one or other’s house to discuss GCSE revision.
Xanthe wondered whether she should text Anna to
tell her not to bother trying to trace the photo source. Now
that she had begun to guess what her kids might be going through, she couldn’t believe that she’d ever lost a moment’s sleep over Madrigal Shryke and her mind-games.
Except she knew that when Anna had decided to do something, no one could stop her anyway. And Mags was right; Anna did genuinely love complex mathematical challenges. She wrote computer code like other people wrote playlists.
Xanthe sent a couple of smiley faces back, switched her phone off and headed for Godwyn. The barometer was steady, weather set fair and she was planning to take her crew upriver for a picnic sail. After that she had only one more night to sleep in Rebow Cottage and she’d be moving onto the lightship full-time.
There were Companions still cooking breakfast and a comfortable clatter of plates and hum of conversation from the mess room. Food. Good.
But someone stopped her as she was collecting her tray and told her she was wanted in the office.
“Can’t I even grab a coffee?”
“They said immediately. I’ll bring you some.”
“Then could I possibly have toast as well?”
Dominic and Jonjo were either side of the computer screen in the small round office. It felt as if they were in the middle of a quarrel.
“What do you hev to say about these, Xanthe?”
Jonjo’s South African accent seemed more apparent as he struggled to contain his fury.
“About what? I’ve not seen anything. I don’t have internet unless I’m here.”
“Access on Godwyn is monitored and firewalled,” Dominic cut in. “I’m telling you. Xanthe hasn’t used it at all this week. I watch out for her.”
Jonjo was angry with her, Dominic defending. Huh?
“But you hev a camera and you also hev a phone.”
“Yeah. But they don’t link. My mum lent me her Macbook to upload any photos. I’m only allowed to use it for research.”
“And thet’s where?”
“In my bedroom.”
“You used it last?” His jaw was set. He looked more like Action Man than ever. Almost quite scary, if she’d done whatever it was that had wound him up. Which she hadn’t.
“Yesterday night. But not for photos. I was writing up some notes. And I can’t access the internet when I’m there as there isn’t any wi-fi.”
“You could hev a dongle.”
“But I don’t have a dongle. You’re making no sense.”
Jonjo didn’t answer. He was already on his mobile phone asking – no, telling – Martha to fetch Xanthe’s camera and the Macbook from her room and bring them down to Godwyn as soon as she’d finished giving Iris her breakfast.
“And any other
electronic equipment thet you can find,” he added.
“What IS this?” Xanthe asked Dominic.
“There’s been a major breach of security. It’s connected with your social media activity. Or your friends’.”
“My social media activity???”
She crossed to his desk and sat down in front of the screen. He was logged into Facebook. The larfaminnit.com photos were mainly of her and Nelson falling in the river, though the capsize drills she’d gone through with Kieran and David were up there as well. Okay, they were quite funny – capsizes usually were, if you were watching and not involved – but each one of them already had literally thousands of hits and they’d only been posted yesterday. There were YouTube video links as well.
“And I suppose you’ve been on Twitter and typed #bbarbie,” she asked. “And you’re both psychotic enough to assume that I’d have shared those pictures?”
She was almost too shocked to be angry. “Did you not understand that I’m here to get away from that stuff? Can you not grasp how sick it makes me feel?”
Though it didn’t, really, not like it used to do. She was shocked by the scale of the Facebook activity, aware of the casual stupidity of everyone who’d clicked and shared and added a comment, but it didn’t hurt her any more.
She wondered whether the kids had seen them. Nelson might laugh. She wasn’t so sure about Kieran and David.
The Twitter string was worse. It usually was. #bbarbie had a photo taken from behind of her with Siri and Kelly-Jane linked by their wristbands with Martha appearing to drive them along the marsh wall. It was a silly photo but the racist abuse was unbelievable.
Jonjo was shoving his mobile at her.
“Hi Xanthe,” Martha sounded shaken. “Jonjo’s been on at me to take things from your room. I’ve told him no. Not unless I have your permission. What is all this?”
“I wish I knew. Someone’s been posting photos on Twitter and Facebook and he’s totally overreacting. He can’t believe, apparently, that I haven’t been deliberately showing myself up.”
“Are any of the students in these photos?”