by Julia Jones
Gold Dragon looked surprised. “It’s a fair wind,” she thought aloud. “We could pick up an overnight mooring at Pin Mill. But I was set for sea.”
“Gerald’s making fish pie,” Rev. Wendy was begging. “From sustainable stocks ...”
The gates at the far end were opening. Donny cast off once again and Skye pushed energetically on her boat hook.
Polly Lee hesitated as Strong Winds nosed out towards the broad grey river. As they passed the ferry pontoon she reached her decision. “I’d prefer to get that dinghy up in davits for a sea passage. It’s freshening already and the twenty-four hour forecast’s not good. We’re not shipshape and I’ve an inexperienced crew. No harm in a run up the Orwell first.”
“Donny,” she ordered, “Dip our flag to the Reverend. We’re accepting her kind invitation.”
CHAPTER SIX
Hawkins
Friday 29 September, evening
When leaving Shotley Marina in all but the smallest boats, you have to keep quite straight in the narrow, dredged channel for about fifty metres until you’ve passed between the two tall entrance beacons. Keeping straight is not always as simple as it sounds: tides can run strongly over the mudflats on either side of the channel and it’s easy for a boat to be pushed off course and ground in the shallows whilst still apparently pointing towards the beacons. The easiest way to counter this is to pick a mark on the far side of the harbour and keep it in line with the beacons. Or you can keep looking astern to check that the leading light by the lock gate indicates your course is steady.
Skye was standing on Strong Winds’ foredeck as they motored steadily out into the Stour. She gave a shout of joy and spread her arms like wings.
Polly Lee looked a bit startled to have her tuition interrupted and sent Donny to check that his mother was okay.
“The big sea water,” she signed, looking ecstatic. “Kayoshk!”
Sure enough there was a pair of seagulls perched one on each of the entrance beacons watching them depart.
“Is Nimblefingers all right?”
“Very!” Donny shouted back. “It’s her first time, remember.”
He saw his great-aunt’s face change just for a moment. He didn’t know whether she was going to laugh or cry. Then the motorised foot-ferry came pushing past in the narrow channel. The handful of passengers stared curiously at Strong Winds who was crabbing slightly under engine and foresail as she kept her ruler-straight course between the lock and the beacons.
“Of course she’s all right,” said Gold Dragon, as if it had been Donny who had questioned this. “She’s Eirene’s daughter! Ask her please to come here and stand with me. We should have done this years ago.”
They passed the beacons and the junk swung 90 degrees to port. They were all three of them together in the cockpit and Skye seemed to drink in the wide grey harbour scene as if it was an elixir. She was alert and confident, gazing ahead. She took Donny’s hand first then reached out towards her aunt. She wasn’t even shaking.
Almost at once she needed both hands back to sign a question. “Hiawatha’s chickens?”
She gestured towards the Hispaniola. Donny repeated what she’d said but it took a moment before he understood what she meant.
There were budgies wheeling above the schooner’s deck and perching on her crosstrees. Or were they canaries? He wasn’t very good on exotics. There were at least a half dozen of them, maybe more.
It was a strange and troubling sight. The birds seemed confused, fearful of the open space. Donny watched first one and then another make tentative flights away from the schooner then hesitate, turn, flutter back.
There was a chill in the freshening breeze and the late September light was fading.
Gold Dragon reached for her binoculars. “Crazy little kites. Harwich Harbour’s no place for them ... They’ve escaped from somewhere. Or been tipped out. Cages, most likely. Now what’s Nimblefingers wanting?”
Skye was signing urgently.
“She wants you to head over to the schooner. She says there’s something wrong. Mum’s got brilliant eyesight.”
Another shredded flag? More black-painted signs? Donny felt a squirm of embarrassment when he remembered the childish message he’d left outside the Hispaniola’s wheelhouse.
But it was nothing like that.
His mother had spotted one of the small bright birds tumble exhaustedly from the schooner’s gunwale. A wave had caught it before it could fly back to safety. Now it was struggling in the water, a frantic yellow speck being carried away by the rushing tide.
Polly Lee swung Strong Winds’ bows in the direction of Skye’s pointing arm and reached down to slow the engine. “Man overboard, Sinbad. Tell your mother to keep pointing. She’s not to let up for a moment. Shrimp net by the foremast. You cut along and stand by ready to use it. Look lively. You’ll only get one chance. Port side.”
She took the junk down-tide of the weakening bird, then brought her head to wind before she stopped the engine.
The handle of the shrimp net wasn’t quite long enough. Donny crouched as low as he could behind the junk’s high gunwale ready to cling to a stanchion and reach his whole body out. So close ... not close enough?
Then everything seemed to go quiet and he could only wait for the drowning bird to drift the last half metre. It was scarcely moving and its eyelids were half-shut. Donny was certain they were too late.
He scooped it on board anyway and gave it, dripping, to his mother.
Skye wrapped it quickly in a corner of her shawl and carried it down into the main cabin.
They were only a boat’s length from the Hispaniola. The other birds flew up in alarm as Gold Dragon restarted Strong Winds’ engine and swung the junk away.
The foresail filled with a snap. The birds flew higher, still uncertain. Then the wind took hold of their weak and ragged flock and blew it across the harbour to Felixstowe.
Donny wondered how many of them would reach the shore – and what would happen if they did? The skyline of gantries, girders and vast container ships didn’t look like a welcoming place for such fragile escapees. He remembered something he and Anna had seen happen there.
The Hispaniola’s wheelhouse door was open. Was the owner on board?
Polly Lee called to him to hoist the mainsail and Donny lost no time unfastening the main halliard from its wooden cleat. The sooner they were gone, the better. The mainsail ran easily up the tall mast, each battened section unfolding in sequence until the full sail was ready to take the wind.
Polly Lee sheeted it in and turned off the engine. Donny hoisted the mizzen and they went winging up the River Orwell with the tide.
Skye had kept the rescued bird folded in her shawl until its feathers were completely dry and its bright dark eyes watchful. Then she’d stroked its tiny head with the tip of her finger until she was quite sure that it was a tame, not a wild, creature. By the time Donny and Gold Dragon had reached Pin Mill and picked up a mooring close to the end of the Hard, Skye had persuaded the canary to take beakfuls of fresh water and to grip her forefinger with its slender claws.
When Donny came below it turned its head sharply to regard him and tensed as if about to flee. Then it began to chirrup and to preen as if anxious to expunge every last trace of the waves that had so nearly killed it.
Now that the little bird was well it would soon be hungry and they had no food to offer. Skye wrapped the canary softly back in her shawl and carried it with them as they rowed ashore in Lively Lady and walked up the lane to the vicarage. Donny was sure Gerald would have something seedy in his macrobiotic kitchen.
It was odd – but definitely good – to be arriving at Erewhon Parva as a visitor. The vicarage had never felt like home and he’d promised himself that, whatever happened, he wouldn’t live there again. He’d run away, go AWOL.
Skye’s step faltered a
s they turned into the gravelled drive behind the dusty laurel hedge and, as she looked up at the grey stone façade, she held the canary closer. Great Aunt Ellen tapped lightly on the front door with her hook and Donny braced himself to resist the familiar atmosphere of disapproval and suspicion.
But no dull adult voice told Luke and Liam that it wasn’t safe to run, as the two boys hurtled out of the sitting room into the cold bare hallway, shouting. Anna was close behind them. She was carrying her red-headed half-sister, Vicky. She didn’t say anything – she wouldn’t have been heard if she had – but she looked ... as if she might have hugged him!
Donny guessed this wasn’t personal. It could only mean that Rev. Wendy had been true to her promise and had told Anna that she could use the new laptop. It was the www Anna wanted to embrace, not him. She could continue her search.
Skye smiled with relief. As soon as the front door closed behind them, she unfolded her shawl and set the canary free.
Rev. Wendy stifled a small scream as the yellow bird flew joyously up to the railing around the upstairs landing and perched for a moment on the dark wood before taking off on a series of energetic explorations.
‘You see?’ Skye signed, ‘He is not a wave-wanderer but a house-friend.’
Gold Dragon began to apologise for her niece but Skye couldn’t hear her. Donny didn’t try to interpret. He’d be wasting his time trying to explain to his mother that letting a rescued bird fly free in the first safe house you found wasn’t the most natural and sensible thing in the world.
Gerald had slammed the kitchen door and was pulling on his rubber gloves, muttering about hygiene regulations and avian flu. His wife, however, had recovered remarkably fast and now seemed as entranced as the children.
The canary took a skimming flight down the long upstairs corridor, then returned to the landing rail. It paused, chirruped and launched out again to circle the wide space above their heads. It didn’t cannon into walls or hurl itself against the high windows. It was investigating, Donny realised, not trying to escape. Suddenly the hall and landing began to transform into good solid empty space where anyone could have fun, instead of a gloomy no-man’s land to hurry through on your way to somewhere else. Skye was right: the little bird was a house-friend.
Rev. Wendy was smiling. He didn’t know her cheek muscles could do that. “Oh, bless ...” he thought he heard her mutter.
Skye signed to Donny that he should ask Gerald for some food.
The foster-carer looked flustered. No change there. He blinked a bit and slipped back into his kitchen, opening and closing the door behind him as if he were being pursued by hornets. Donny and Anna rolled their eyes at one another. Gerald was so hopeless.
But they were wrong. When Gerald reappeared he was carrying a plastic plate with carefully tea-spooned heaps of sesame seeds, mung beans, sunflower seeds, pine kernels and brown rice, plus an up-turned Horlicks lid filled with fresh water. Surely a canary’s five-star delight?
Skye stretched one arm towards the bird, as if she were calling it back.
It paused, turning its small head from side to side as if each eye wanted to be sure that the other eye had seen correctly. Then it shuffled a few steps sideways along the balustrade, made up its mind and skimmed down as if it were surfing solid air.
“Bless ...” said Rev. Wendy again, as she watched the canary pecking, considering, swallowing or discarding Gerald’s haute cuisine.
She didn’t look quite so certain when Donny explained that Skye thought that the canary should live with them in the vicarage because it had been fearful on a boat. Gerald’s mouth dropped soundlessly open and Anna had to bury her face in Vicky’s warm tummy to hide her giggles.
Luke, however, went pale with longing. “Please, oh please can we keep him? Li and me’s always wanted a budgie. Or any pet but a budgie would be best of all. We’ll do all the work, won’t we, Li? He won’t be any bother. We love him so much.”
He turned to his brother for confirmation but it wasn’t needed. Liam had already crept right close to Skye and was watching the canary as it supped up water with its short black tongue. Slowly, very slowly, the younger boy touched the bird’s soft feathers with the tips of two fingers. Skye wrapped Liam in her free arm as if he too were a salvaged fledgling. He leant against her as if he’d known her all his life.
Wendy and Gerald stared at each other. “But ...” they croaked.
“It’s a very tame canary,” said Great Aunt Ellen. “I’ve no idea where it’s come from but I don’t think that need worry you. It’s not as if it were a dog ... I knew a man in China once – greedy, cruel, treacherous, despicable in every way ... but his songbirds were delightful. He came to a bad end of course ... so completely irrelevant here ... forget I mentioned him. The bird’ll be fine. You’ll need a cage though – for visitors.”
The vicar was pulling herself together. She walked across the hall to her study but didn’t completely close the door. A moment later they heard her on the telephone.
“Environmental pest control most likely,” muttered Anna to Donny.
When Wendy came out she was still looking cheery. “Mrs Everson has something we can use,” she said to Gerald. “Luke can come and fetch it with me now. I’m sorry about the supper.”
“Completely ruined. I don’t know why I bother.”
Even dried-out fish pie going brown around the edges tasted wonderful to Donny once they were all squeezed round the kitchen table. There was locally-pressed apple juice for the children and Rev. Wendy produced a bottle of Essex white wine which she claimed to have won in the harvest raffle.
“I notice some of the same gifts being re-donated time and again,” she commented. “So I thought perhaps we should take this one out of the system.”
Donny saw Gold Dragon blink convulsively after she’d taken a single sip. Skye, on the other hand, was thirsty. She swigged her portion as if it too were apple juice and held out the glass for more. Donny couldn’t remember Granny buying them anything stronger than ginger beer.
The canary had settled contentedly into the tall narrow cage that had formerly housed Mrs Everson’s daughter’s chinchilla. They covered the cage to help him sleep – or her. There were gender issues. Once Luke had discovered that the bird had been rescued near the Hispaniola, he and Liam insisted that it should be given a name from Treasure Island. They’d wanted Jim but Anna objected that they didn’t know whether the bird was male or female.
“If you call it Hawkins,” said Donny hastily, “It could be Jim or his mother. They would have had the same surname.”
“Not necessarily,” said Anna. But she didn’t go on about it for long. It was Friday evening; House Meeting had been cancelled; her little sister had fallen asleep sucking her thumb and she had the weekend ahead with the promise of a new, fully-enabled laptop with wireless broadband.
Toxic and Tony arrived just then. Walked straight in without bothering to knock.
“Unannounced Monitoring as per schedule 666 sub-section 13,” said Toxic – where anyone else would have said good evening or I hope we’re not disturbing you.
Though, coming from her, both would have been lies.
“They’ve accepted the Conditions?” said Tony to Rev. Wendy. He sounded surprised.
“I haven’t told them anything. Can’t you see we’re having our family supper?”
She’d betrayed them. Lured them here so that he could be re-captured at Toxic’s convenience. Anna’s Internet access hadn’t been worth this much.
Donny looked for his two companions. Gold Dragon had been telling Luke and Liam round-the-world adventure stories and making plans for everyone to come sailing with her on Strong Winds. Clearly she’d completely forgotten the bizarre SS meeting and Tony’s incomprehensible threats.
She was up and out of her chair now, as ready to run as he was.
Skye wasn’t going any
where. She’d slumped forwards onto the formica table and was fast asleep and snoring, a third glass of raffle wine spilled beside her. It had been a long day.
Toxic nodded to Tony. He nodded back as if she had jerked some invisible string attached to the back of his head.
She picked up the wineglass and took a deep, slow sniff of its remaining contents. Then she extracted her BlackBerry from its snakeskin case and took a photograph of Skye.
“Witnessed?” she said and Tony nodded once again.
“Not such a good moment perhaps,” she purred to Wendy and Gerald, smiling with extreme delight. “Ai’ll pop back in the morning. With Inspector Flint. Ai had no idea you would be exposing the children to Alcohol on these Family Occasions.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shipping a Hostage
Saturday 30 September
Flint’s shark-boat was already moored in the Port of Felixstowe No Admittance area as Strong Winds slipped through Harwich Harbour in the pale light of morning.
It gave Donny goose bumps to see it there. He’d almost rather its owner had been bullying the kids in the vicarage. Ever since he’d seen those tiny birds blown towards that quayside, he’d been trying not to remember the day that he and Anna had watched that fat policeman and a small man in overalls wring a cage-bird’s neck.
Then stamp on it. At the top of those exact same steps where the shark-boat was now. He wished he could have forgotten that delicate blue feather still sticking to the sole of Flint’s boot as he guzzled lobster and slurped chilled wine. Stuck with dried blood probably.