The Tide Knot

by Helen Dunmore

  “What sort of feeling?”

  “As if something’s going to happen,” says Mum very quietly, as if she doesn’t want anyone to overhear.

  “But what could be going to happen? You mean here, in the house?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. I’ve just got this uneasy feeling all over my skin. I can’t settle. Sadie was the same. She kept whining and padding up and down and twitching until Roger got fed up with it and said he’d take her out.”

  “She was probably only wondering where I was.”

  “No. It wasn’t that, Sapphy. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up. Bristling.”

  “But Sadie’s got a smooth coat, Mum.”

  “You could see it, all the same. It made me think of the way dogs are supposed to know when an earthquake’s coming.”

  “An earthquake! There can’t be an earthquake here in St. Pirans.”

  I’m relieved. If all that Mum’s worried about is an earthquake, then I can relax.

  “You know how they say cats and dogs run out of the house when an earthquake is on its way, but nobody understands how they sense it? I think something’s in the air, and Sadie senses it. Something—something ominous. And that’s what I feel too.”

  “What do you mean, Mum, ominous?”

  “Oh, Sapphy, you’re better with words than I am. You know what an omen is. It’s a sign, a warning.”

  I open the bathroom door. I don’t want to talk about imaginary earthquakes or signs or warnings. What is really going on is strange enough. “Mum, you should go to bed. Maybe you’re having, you know, whatever it’s called when people imagine things because they’ve got a high temperature.”

  “I’m not delirious,” says Mum, folding her arms. “I thought you’d understand, Sapphy.” She stares at me, her eyes very bright and swimmy and her face full of trouble. Mum’s not well at all. For a moment I feel as if I’m the mother and she is the daughter. Conor would put his arms round Mum and hug her if she looked like that, but I’m so cold and wet that it wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “If you don’t want to go to bed, Mum, why not rest by the fire with Conor? You shouldn’t be trying to do things when you’re ill. I’ll make you some tea as soon as I’ve had my shower.”

  “I don’t like the sound of the wind,” says Mum abruptly. “Listen to the way it’s blowing over the top of the house. That horrible empty, booming sound. And the waves were crashing right inside the harbor.”

  “Well, they do, don’t they, when there’s a storm?”

  “The wind’s still rising. I don’t like it. I wish Roger hadn’t gone out.”

  “He’ll be back soon. We’ll look after you, Mum,” I say as gently as I can. When I was in Ingo, I couldn’t properly remember that I loved her. How could I have forgotten? She’s not a frozen image. She’s Mum.

  “It’s only a storm coming,” I tell her as reassuringly as I can. “It’ll pass.”

  “I know,” says Mum. “I know all that.” She pauses, as if there’s something more she wants to say but isn’t sure that she should.

  “Mum, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing, Sapphy. Don’t worry. I’m just being silly. It’s only—it’s just that I don’t like the sound of that wind.”

  It’s completely dark by the time Roger gets back with Sadie. He’s walked the legs off her, he says jokingly, and now he hopes she’ll settle down. But far from settling down, Sadie leaps on me as if she hasn’t seen me for years, licks my hands, trembling with excitement, and then puts back her head and begins a volley of barks that are loud enough to be heard across three fields rather than one small living room. Mum puts her hands over her ears.

  “Try to calm her down, Sapphy,” says Roger.

  “I’m trying to. Sadie girl, what’s the matter? Stop it now.” I put my arms around her firmly, and she nuzzles into my shoulder, still barking so loudly that my ears hurt.

  “That’s enough, Sadie, or we’ll have to put you out in the yard, and you don’t like that. Mum’s not well.”

  Sadie stops barking and instead stares at me reproachfully. I can almost see the thoughts in her soft brown eyes. Don’t you understand that I’m trying to tell you something? You go off without me, and I don’t know what you’re doing or when you’re coming back, and then you make me stop talking. All right, I’ll do as I’m told, but only because I’ve got no choice.

  “Sorry, Sadie,” I whisper into her ear. “I can’t explain to you properly now, but I had to go today. It was really important. I couldn’t take you with me because dogs can’t go to—well, to the place where I was. It’s no use looking like that. You can’t understand because you haven’t got a single drop of Mer blood in you. Maybe that’s lucky for you.”

  Sadie whines deep in her throat. She’s still uneasy, like Mum. There’s something going on that unsettles her. Probably it’s just the storm. Dogs are much more sensitive to weather than humans are.

  “Oh, Roger, I’ve got such a headache,” says Mum, as if she can’t help herself. Mum hardly ever complains, just as she’s hardly ever ill.

  “Let’s get you up to bed, Jennie,” Roger says. “Sapphire will make your tea, and you’d better take some aspirin. You’re very hot. You need to lie down.”

  I jump up. “Tea’ll be ready in a minute, Mum. You go on up with Roger.”

  Roger smiles at me. It’s a warm, approving smile, and I can’t help smiling back. I’ve got to admit that sometimes it’s good to have Roger here. He does think about other people, and he’s kind too. It’s not soft kindness, but it’s real.

  Anyway, it’s all right to recognize Roger’s good qualities. I’m certainly not going to start thinking he’s my stepdad or something, just because I’ve stopped hating him.

  Roger decides he’s going to sit with Mum until she goes to sleep. “Your mum’s got a high fever. I’ll call the doctor in the morning if she’s no better. Keep the music down, kids.”

  But it’s not music that’ll keep Mum awake, I’m sure of that. It’s the wind and the angry roar of the sea. The storm is disturbing and exciting at the same time. The weather hasn’t been as wild as this since we came to St. Pirans.

  “Barometer’s dropped again,” announces Conor from the doorway, where the barometer hangs on the wall.

  “What does it say?”

  “Storm. Going down to severe storm, I think.”

  “What comes after that?”

  “Hurricane. But there won’t be a hurricane, Saph.”

  “Listen to it.”

  We both listen. I see what Mum meant about the booming sound. The house sounds like a drum, and the wind is the drummer. Beyond the wind we can hear the shapeless roaring of the sea.

  Just then the phone rings. It’s Mal. His dad needs help, urgently, and he’s asked Mal to call his friends.

  “He’s got a share in his brother’s boat—you know, that big clinker-built one that does trips out to the seals,” Conor says, as he starts to cram his feet into his boots. “They want to bring it right up the wharf. Mal says conditions in the harbor are freaky.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, Saph. Stay here. Mum’ll get upset if you go out again on a night like this. She doesn’t need the hassle.”

  “But I can help with the boat. I’m strong.”

  “Saph. Please. Just for once, could you be the one who stays in the house and keeps everybody happy?”

  Reluctantly I agree. I don’t want to make Conor angry. But as soon as the door closes on him, I wish I’d gone too. The house doesn’t feel like a drum anymore, but like a cage, with the wind rattling its bars. A fierce draft whistles under the door, and then the weirdest thing happens. The draft lifts up the bright red rug Mum put there as a doormat. It doesn’t lift the rug right off the floor, but it gets underneath and makes the thick red material ripple up and down like incoming waves. It’s uncanny. After a few seconds the rug flops back against the boards and lies still. But just when I think I
’ve imagined it all, there’s another twitch, and the funneled force of the wind under the door gets hold of the rug again and flip-flops it against the wooden boards. It’s only a little sound, compared with the racket of the storm, but it makes my skin crawl. It’s as if the wind is the cat and the rug is the mouse.

  Sadie hates it. She cowers on the other side of the room, staring at the rug.

  “I know, it’s horrible, Sadie,” I murmur, putting my arms around her. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”

  Sadie whines plaintively, then gets up, shakes herself all over, and pads toward the stairs, looking back at me for my reaction.

  “You know you’re not allowed upstairs, Sadie.”

  But Sadie’s expression is so imploring that I give way.

  “Oh, all right, just this once. As long as nobody hears, you can go up in my bedroom. But I’m not coming to bed yet, so you’ll just have to wait for me.”

  I settle Sadie in my room alongside the bed. There’s so little space in my room that I have to step over her in order to get to the doorway. My porthole window is firmly shut, and I draw the curtains too, to shut out the wild night.

  “There now, is that better? Are you happier now?”

  Sadie thumps her tail softly on the floor. She understands that she mustn’t make a noise up here. She’s certainly a lot more relaxed now that she’s upstairs. I wonder why.

  “I’ll be back soon, Sadie. I’m going to close the door so Mum and Roger don’t see you. Hush now.” I put my finger on my lips, and Sadie stares back conspiratorially. She knows perfectly well that we’re breaking the rules.

  I go back downstairs, put another log on the fire, and clear the washing up off the draining board. Perhaps I ought to go up to bed now. It’s early, but at least I’d be with Sadie.

  I feel too restless. I hate being shut in the house when the wind is like this. I never minded when we were at our cottage. We were so high up on the cliffs that it didn’t matter how ferocious the sea became because it could never reach us. Our cottage was made of granite, and its walls were so thick that no wind could ever blow them down.

  But this house doesn’t feel so strong, and the sea’s very close—less than fifty meters away and almost on the same level as the house. It seems farther away because the road winds around the houses, but it’s not. Don’t be stupid, Saph. This house has been standing since Victorian times. That is more than a hundred years. They wouldn’t have built it here if there’d been any risk.

  I turn the TV on and then quickly switch it off again as a storm of static hits the screen. Something’s happened to the reception.

  The rug twitches again. A buffet of wind and rain hits the windows. Suddenly I feel completely alone. The living room ought to be safe and comforting with the log fire burning, but it isn’t. Smoke blows back down the chimney, and the fire’s struggling to keep alive.

  Maybe Mum’s really bad. Maybe we should have called the doctor….

  I’ll go upstairs, creep in on tiptoe, and see how she is. I can’t believe she’s really asleep, with the wind battering the house like this.

  But she is. She’s lying flat on her back in the middle of the big bed, fast asleep. The bedside lamp is still on. Mum’s very pale, but there are red blotches on her cheeks, and she’s breathing fast. Her lips look dry and cracked. Roger is asleep too, in the basket chair. Half the newspaper is on his lap, and the other half has slid onto the floor. His mouth is open. He certainly doesn’t look as handsome as usual, but when people are asleep, you can’t help feeling as if you should look after them…just a bit. I tiptoe to the bedside lamp and switch it off.

  The click of the switch seems to disturb Mum. In the light from the landing I can see that her eyes are still shut, but she starts to toss from side to side, muttering. I stand dead still, not daring to move in case she wakes up.

  “Mathew…Mathew…no…don’t go out…not in the Peggy Gordon, Mathew, no—”

  She sounds terrified. Oh Mum, don’t. Please don’t. What you were afraid of has already happened.

  I wish I could make it not have happened. I wish with all my heart that we could go back in time and change it so that Dad never left our cottage that night the summer before last. Dad, why did you do it?

  Suddenly the Mer baby comes into my mind. His soft, plump little hands. His hair like dark feathers, drifting in the water. And his mother’s face, full of love as she looks at my father.

  Mum doesn’t know about any of it. Again I have that feeling that I am the mother and she is the daughter. I don’t want her ever to know. I don’t want her ever to feel as sad as I know she will feel if she sees the Mer baby.

  “No, Mathew. No…no…” Mum mutters again. I stand there frozen, hardly breathing. Go back to sleep, Mum, please.

  At last Mum is quiet. She stops tossing her head from side to side and settles back onto the pillow. Very slowly I tiptoe to the doorway, slip through, and shut the door as gently as I can so that the catch doesn’t even click. Maybe Mum will sleep peacefully until morning now.

  I go to my bedroom door and listen. Not a sound. Sadie must have gone to sleep too. I won’t go in, so she doesn’t start barking again. Everyone’s restless today. Everyone’s on edge, as if something’s about to happen.

  Conor’s not back yet. I’d like to go down to the harbor to find him, but he’d be angry. I really don’t want to stay in this house a minute longer. It’s like a cage full of sadness, as if Mum’s anguish about Dad has drifted out of her dreams and into the air, and now it’s flitting from room to room, touching everything.

  I thought Mum had put Dad out of her mind. I thought she only cared about Roger now. But in her sleep she talks to Dad.

  I’ve got to get out of the house. I won’t go far, just to the beach. I’ll stay on the slipway and watch the waves. It’s not even high tide yet, so it can’t be dangerous.

  Mum’s asleep, so she’s not going to know. Even Roger’s asleep. Imagine sleeping through a storm like this.

  I was right. It’s not high tide yet. There are still about twenty meters of sand, glistening in the faint reflected lights of the town, and then the pounding waves. It’s hard to measure the waves from here, but they’re huge. The wind is so strong that it blows the tops off them. The air is full of flying foam, and when I lick my lips, they taste of salt.

  The wind has veered round, so I’m sheltered from the worst of it. It must be hitting St. Pirans full on from the west now. The waves roar up the beach, dragging sand and stones and hurtling them onto the shore. Not even the best surfer in the world could ride these waves. They are wild and jumbled, as if the sea itself doesn’t know what it’s doing. I don’t think it’s raining anymore, because the moon is coming out from the clouds, but there’s so much spray that I’m glad I put on my slicker. I wonder if Conor and the others have got that boat to a safe place yet.

  I can’t go back in the house. I’m restless, prickling all over. The wind hits me like slaps from huge invisible hands. But it’s not the wind that worries me. It’s something else, beyond the storm. That’s what is making me have that horrible prickling, frustrated feeling. Maybe that’s how Mum felt earlier on, but I’m sure I haven’t got a fever.

  The moon slips right out of the clouds and shines on the raging water. Just for a second it doesn’t look like the sea at all. Instead it is like a mass of coiling snakes, whipping the water and lashing at the air.

  Ingo is angry.

  Who said that? I spin round. I’m sure that I heard a voice, but there’s no one there. Only the night, and the storm.

  Ingo is angry.

  It must be inside my own head. Maybe I have got a fever. Maybe I’m del-i-whateveritis.

  Ingo is angry.

  The third time is when I realize that it is not a voice at all. Not a real voice speaking from outside me, that is. It is a voice inside me. It is my Mer blood speaking to me.

  Sometimes you know more than you think you know. All the pieces of the puzzle are coming
together. The raging and raving of the waves no longer sound like any normal storm that will blow itself out by the morning. Saldowr’s words about the Tide Knot leap into my mind. Saldowr was afraid because the Tide Knot was beginning to loosen, and soon it wouldn’t be able to hold the tides in place. And then he said that there were some in Ingo who would welcome that. They’d like to see our world drowned if that made Ingo stronger.

  To see our world drowned. My blood shudders in my veins as if the fierce wind that blew under our door is blowing straight through me. Can our world be drowned like that village on the Lost Islands? Could it really happen?

  Another heavy bank of clouds is about to swallow the moon. What the moon showed me is burned onto my mind. A mass of coiling, writhing snakes. When I looked down into the Tide Knot, it was like a nest of snakes, twisting and twining. But then they were prisoners of the rock….

  I glance back at the row of cottages. Cracks of light show between the curtains. Patrick and Rainbow live in one of those cottages, that one, down by the end. They’ll be sitting by their fire in the living room, listening to the wind but feeling safe because they believe the storm will blow itself out, like every other storm there has ever been. And they know that the tide only ever comes so far and no farther.

  Saldowr didn’t want our world to drown. He didn’t want the balance between this world and Ingo to be destroyed. But the tides are so powerful. Their strength was awesome when I saw them, coiling endlessly, shining blue against the sheer dark sides of the rock that enclosed them. When you look at the Tide Knot for more than a few moments, it starts to hypnotize you. Maybe the tides can do whatever they want now.

  “Sapphy…”

  This time the voice is no more than a breath. It’s very faint and faraway, but it’s struggling with all its power to reach me. I know straightaway whose voice it is. I don’t answer; I just stand there, every fiber of my body tense. Listening, listening for the voice to come again. It fades, then breaks through again, like a voice on a radio from a country thousands of miles away.