by Julia Jones
“That’s just about how it is. Now my uncle Eli used to come down here. He was a lonesome old gizzard so he used to leave me a marker ter show where he’d reached on each of these rows. First job I’m needing you to do – those who’s got their sailing boots on or who don’t mind a paddle – is take a good look along and see if you can find any old piece of canvas sail tie. That’ll tell us where he’s been. He called them his favours. Came off a boat he once owned.”
“The Igraine?”
“His one true love – as he always said.”
“So these canvas sail ties,” asked Kieran, who was up and ready to wade into the above-knee-deep water, “I don’t really get what they look like.”
“Nothin’ much not once they’ve been in and out the river for a month or two.”
All the kids were ready to search for Eli’s markers. Nelson managed a quick one-liner about the oysters crossing the road to get to the other tide – “tide, not side, geddit?” They got it.
There were six long rows of oyster racks: one for each child and one for Xanthe. Jonjo kept lookout on the river wall, Martha stayed close to Siri and Gareth moved from person to person, pointing things out and explaining.
“It wasn’t red, is it, the markers?” asked Kieran. “There’s something completely tangled in here that was red once.”
“Not red,” said Gareth. “But you’d be surprised the things that do get caught up here. Bits of rope and old towels and fishing line and single shoes.”
“I’m undoing it anyway,” said Kieran. He was a steady, persistent type. “It’s really long. I can’t get it out properly.”
Kelly-Jane left her rack and came to help her brother. “You know what it’s like?” she said.
“No.” They were all gathering round to watch Kieran extricate the mystery object.
“It’s a bit like them flag-things you see on boat masts in the creek. Except it’s way bigger.”
“OMG!” Martha covered her mouth with her hand. “You know what this is, don’t you, bro?”
Gareth was staring too as Kieran and Kelly-Jane pulled the object free. It was about two metres long and would have been a vivid red before it had got tangled round the oyster rack. Kelly-Jane grabbed it from Kieran and showered everyone with drips as she shook it.
“I found it,” he whinged. “It’s mine. Give it back.”
“Stop it,” said Gareth. “Stop that now, please.”
There was something in his voice.
“It’s a pennant,” said Xanthe. “From a smack or a barge. It’d fly from a bamboo pole at the top of the mainmast. I never realised they were that long.”
“They ain’t. This ’un’s special.”
“You recognise it?”
She guessed what he was going to say.
“It’s hers alright. It’s her best. Kept in reserve for a match or a birthday or summat. He must have had it all these years an’ brought it down here. He must have meant it.”
“For his…death day?” Xanthe began to feel horrified.
“Okay. Stop, everyone. We need to do this properly.”
Martha pulled out a radio that they didn’t know she had. She was calling Jonjo. She’d remembered that she was a policewoman.
“It’s evidence,” she explained, using her phone to take a photo of the oyster rack.
Jonjo came at the run.
“We need to bag this,” she said. “Elijah Farran’s inquest is on Tuesday. This could affect the verdict.”
She told Jonjo what they’d found.
“Thenks,” he said, sounding foreign. “I’m not so sure I’d hev seen the significance.”
“Most people wouldn’t.”
“He left it here,” said Gareth. “That meant it were for me. Eli were a crusty old so-an-so. I reckon he thought I oughta have it because of Dad.” His voice was growly with emotion.
“Yes,” Martha sounded emotional as well but she was staying focused. “That’s right, and so you should, but the coroner has to see it first. It can’t have got here by accident. It’s a message. I’d say it’s as clear as if he’d left a suicide note.”
She forced herself to brighten up. “So, well done Kieran for spotting it. And K-J for helping get it out.”
The kids were looking fed up. They didn’t understand what was going on and what they did understand, they didn’t like.
“We’ll give this rack a special treat,” said Xanthe. “Show us what to do, Gareth.”
“That’s simple enough. Like shaking a duvet. Yer grab each sack by its corners and yer give it a wriggle. So’s the oysters shift around and there’s not the same ones getting all the best space.”
“We could work in twos. C’mon Nelson.”
He heaved a big sigh, moved up to the nearest sack and did as she’d suggested. Then he stopped still. His hands hung down by his side. He appeared to be deep in thought.
“What’s the best way to catch a fish, teacher-lady?”
She was totally amazed by him. How did he keep it going?
“Mr Midshipman, I wish I knew.”
“Have someone throw it at you,” he told her, breaking out once again into his glorious grin.
Chapter Fifteen
Blackout
Friday May 31, lw 0711 hw 1330 lw 1930 hw 0146
“It were easy enough if you owned a good boat. The real danger came when you were landing the goods – onto the beach or up the creeks.”
“What sort of stuff was it?” The kids had left in the minibus with Martha and Jonjo. She and Gareth were in the Land Rover, towing the dinghy back. She wasn’t that bothered about old-time smugglers; she was keeping him talking as a distraction. It had obviously upset him, finding the Igraine’s pennant tangled in his oyster racks, and he’d been really angry with Martha except he couldn’t say much because of the kids.
“Brandy and cigars. Bottles of gin. Not drugs, not like today.”
“Alcohol’s a drug. So’s nicotine.”
“Government weren’t trying to keep them things out of the country for health reasons. Those were things that people wanted, so government put tax on ’em to earn revenue.”
“So the smugglers were like tax dodgers. And that’s not right either.”
“Taxes in them days weren’t exactly supporting a national health service or education.”
Xanthe had stopped thinking that smugglers were okay when she’d discovered about the way they smuggled people. Or used people to smuggle drugs. But Gareth was talking from way back. Maybe it was different.
“What does it matter what I think? You were telling me what happened. You said the Golds started smuggling to pay for Igraine.
“And Farrans didn’t like it.
“Was that because they thought it was wrong?”
“More likely they were jealous. They weren’t doing so well on the fishing – wherever they went Golds had got there first. Igraine were that much handier than Farrans’ old boats. She had all new gear as well.”
“What happened?”
“Farrans turned ’em in. Igraine were seized and no end of contraband was found on board. It meant transportation for the Golds and Igraine was forfeit. Those boys was lucky they weren’t hanged.”
Yuck. Xanthe was glad she lived now, not then. “They must have known about the risk.”
“But they all swore blind that they wasn’t guilty. Never mind what they might of done other times, this time they said it were a plant. And when Farrans came out as Igraine’s new owners the Golds didn’t reckon they needed to look far to guess who’d stitched them up.”
“Do you think they had, the Farrans I mean?”
“Nothing proved. The younger Golds – the ones what hadn’t been convicted – carried on as best they could.”
“They didn’t try to get revenge?
; “They weren’t exactly gonna leave it, were they.”
“Did they fight?”
“Out of the Plough and Sail on a Saturday, a-course they did. The rumour was a bit more subtle.”
“What rumour?”
“That them Golds left cuckoos in the Farran nests.”
“Cuckoos?”
Xanthe thought of what Martha had said and about the reed-warblers and maybe also that bird that had flown out of the wood. She’d meant to look it up.
“Children what didn’t belong. Farrans was dark and Golds was fair and every so often there’d be some fair-haired baby turning up in a dark-haired Farran nest.”
“The mothers would have known.”
“No doubt they did but Farran men weren’t exactly notable for tolerance so they’d probably have chose to keep it quiet. Anyway it were probably no more’n rumour. It’s a small village, Flinthammock, and us families have been interbreeding for years.”
“You know what,” said Xanthe. “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to go round staring at people and wondering if their dads were who they said they were.”
“No more do I. So you get what I was saying? There’s some questions best not asked. Though I’d have thought as I could have trusted me own sister…” He glowered over the steering wheel as they bumped along the narrow lanes.
“And Iris?” – she’d try anything to keep him off that pennant – “I thought she was the little rich girl from the big house. But didn’t you say that she was a Gold, before she got married?”
“That’s right. Her dad were second or third generation from some of them Golds that got transported. His lot struck it properly rich.”
“And he came back here?”
“He were a clever man, Augustus Gold. He liked fast boats and inventing things and he bought Oveseye. Then he made a man’s mistake and he married what they call a trophy wife.”
“Who left her child as soon as she heard her husband had been killed. Why would she have done that? Poor Iris, maybe I oughtn’t to be surprised she has such weird ideas.”
“Except she were left with my Aunt Ann Farran and she were a good woman. There’s sommat gone curdled in Iris. She shouldn’t never have married Eli.”
“She’s weird about that too – she says the Igraine’s a death-ship, keeps on about her ‘coming for him’.”
Gareth laughed. “Igraine’d have been pushed to do that!”
She was glad he’d cheered up. “Why?”
“Cos goodie cousin Dominic and I took ’er out and scuttled ’er on the Gunfleet sands,” he said triumphantly. “That were after Eli had drowned my father, Joe. We put an end to ’er. We should ha’ put an end to all that feudin’ an all.”
Then it couldn’t have been the Igraine in the mirage. It must have been some other random smack. Iris had got the whole thing wrong. All her talk about dark powers! It was a relief.
They’d reached Godwyn now so they slid the Pico off its road trailer and wheeled it over to the other dinghies. Then they carried the sails and all the detachable bits into the storage shed and Gareth got back into the Land Rover.
Rebow Cottage time. More Iris. This wasn’t her family.
“Hey, Gareth, would it be a big deal for you if I didn’t come back to Rebow Cottage yet? I’m feeling there could well be an evening breeze.”
“You go for it, lass.”
“And it mightn’t be so easy to go sailing by myself when I’m living with the kids on Godwyn.”
He waved her away. “You’d best get off then if you’re going. I gotta bit of thinking to do. I won’t lock the back door in case you’re after Aunt Iris’s curfew. I shoulda thought to show you Eli’s trick for gettin’ in – he had his crafty side!”
“Cool. Thanks Gareth.”
Xanthe crossed over the wall and dropped down onto the marsh so she wouldn’t be seen from Godwyn. The shelduck resented her and the greylag geese with their half-grown goslings scrambled anxiously away from the edge of the scrape where they’d settled for the night. She’d been meaning to ask Gareth what it was he’d expected her to have known about Fritha.
Clouds of pollen blew into the air as she pushed her way through the long grass, keeping out of sight. There was thistledown on the evening breeze and unexpected insects darting across her path.
She didn’t run. She knew she was already tired. She began wondering who had taken those photos. She switched on her mobile to see whether Maggi or Anna had any ideas but she couldn’t get reception.
It had to be Madrigal, didn’t it? But how had she discovered that Xanthe was in Essex?
As she climbed back over the river wall and began stepping along the line of muddy slabs and bags that formed the Fisherman’s Hard, she could see it was going to be a struggle getting out onto the river. The young flood was gathering pace and the breeze was funnelling in. She wished she had oars, or an outboard, or someone to give Fritha a tow. But, as she had none of those things – and there was utterly no one in sight – she decided to tow herself. So she slipped, splashed and occasionally swam the first, shallowest stretch, pulling the Firefly behind her.
Why was she doing this? Getting cold and muddy and even more tired. She could be back in Rebow Cottage running herself a bath or stretching out in that smooth white bed.
Stick with it and she’d soon be out, close-hauled and heading seawards, free as a bird. Were birds free? Or was it only humans who thought so? Birds probably felt totally stressed out. They had to eat all the time, didn’t they? And guard their chicks.
The water was a darkening blue and that further shore looked bleached in the evening light. The cranes on the construction site stood skeletal against the sky. Their floodlights were already on. She glanced across at the D-Day components with the tugs lying alongside. It wouldn’t get properly dark for a couple of hours. She’d be back in the Flete by then. Xanthe emptied her mind and headed for the horizon.
Fritha’s jib was backed, her mainsail shivering. She had turned into the wind and stopped herself. Xanthe had slumped forward, dropping the main sheet and pushing the tiller away as she fell asleep. The Firefly was hove to.
The night was all around them. It seemed extraordinarily dark.
She pressed the side button on her sports watch. Eleven o’clock. She felt as if she’d never experienced such blackness. So dense she could almost touch it. Breathing it in to her lungs like fog. Had that brief moment of illumination from the watch damaged her night vision? She closed her eyes to help them readjust.
Fritha’s gentle motion told her they were at sea. There was still a friendly breeze and a couple of hours’ flood. It wasn’t a disaster. She had her compass. Gareth hadn’t locked her out from Rebow Cottage. She simply needed to spot some sort of mark. Get herself a bearing.
Xanthe opened her eyes again, let go of the tiller and leaned quickly over the stern. She filled her cupped hands with seawater and splashed it cold against her face. The dinghy’s sails flapped. A cloud slipped onwards revealing the smallest sliver of a waxing moon. That could be crucial. She needed the sky to stay clear.
There was no sparkle in the water. That gleam of moon was going to have to be enough to help her compare black against black and distinguish sea from sky and land. If the wind direction hadn’t shifted while she’d been asleep, it would be still blowing on-shore and the flood tide would be tending to take her up the coast. The last thing she remembered was the green flashing light of the Bench Head buoy that marked the official entrance to the river.
Where was it now?
Fritha had lost her equilibrium; she was restless: she wanted to sail. Xanthe brought her round so that the wind was on her port side. She kept her close-hauled, standing away from the land. She couldn’t risk being pushed ashore until she knew what shore it was.
The Firefly seemed quicker and lighter. There was a gleam i
n her sails. The mainsheet in Xanthe’s hand felt new. Not new as in modern braids, new as in right for Fritha. And it was leading from the centre of the dinghy not her stern. Had Gareth made some rigging change she hadn’t noticed?
She was going to work on the assumption that she was somewhere off the seaward edge of the St Peter Peninsula. There was possibly some last lightness in the western sky and that small silhouette could be the outline of the ancient chapel. Nothing glowing from the peace camp, but maybe she wouldn’t be seeing that?
You shouldn’t do assumptions and possibilities in navigation. You needed fixed points.
So where was the Bench Head Buoy or the Colne Bar or the Inner Bench Head – all those fixed, illuminated, navigation marks that she’d memorised from her chart? And where, for that matter, were the lights of Meresig or even the floodlights of the construction site? Or the neon from the towns that stretched northeast along the coast. Big towns like Clacton that should paint the night sky orange?
Fritha was slipping clean and fast though the water. She was sailing like a new dinghy, tuned to perfection. Xanthe felt as empowered as if she was sailing Spray. She pulled her compass from inside her jacket and allowed herself to bring the dinghy round so the wind was astern of her port quarter. Just north of west. This course should be taking her back towards the Nass.
The water sizzled soft beneath the dinghy’s smooth hull. All else was silence.
Nothing from St Peter’s and nothing from Meresig. No construction noise, no distant music, no car engines. And still no lights. Meresig was a holiday island. It had campsites and caravans. Pubs would only just be closing. It was half term!
She tried to take a peep under the Firefly’s mainsail, setting full out to starboard. This new arrangement of the sheets was good. There was a swivel jam cleat she hadn’t noticed before. It made the dinghy much easier for a single sailor. She clamped both sets of sheets and shuffled cautiously for’ard. She knew she mustn’t risk an accidental gybe yet she felt peculiarly desperate to identify some source of light. Where were the floodlights for the power station?