Only the Ocean
Page 20
Days, nights, light coming through the curtain and then darkness. Kel spent her time eating and sleeping, getting stronger. Her only pleasure, the one thing she looked forward to, was buried in her imagination; Rose’s spirit visiting each night, telling her to hurry up and get better, for the baby, for their future. Some nights Rose stayed and they were the best of nights, when she lay beside her and held her close, but in the morning Kel found the space next to her gone cold and the girl consigned to memory, just a fantasy moment. It was those times when Kel thought of all the things she should have said and all the things she would never say. It was love, but it went deeper than love; it was colour when she had never known colour, it was music when she had only ever known one tune. She thought about Rose’s voice, the song she had sung that first day in the dinghy and it made her smile, made her cry.
The things that should have picked her up pushed her further into the bed, the clock ticking, the curtains opening and closing, until finally one morning a sound, faint at first, the tiny gurgle of a baby waking from his sleep; her baby.
Kel sat up and stretched from the bed. She stood at the window and opened the curtains and waited for the blood to reach her head, her legs weak, but in her heart a new kind of strength building bit by bit.
She dressed quietly and found her bag and slowly crept through the strangers’ cottage. She was grateful for all they had done but if she woke them she would have to explain why she needed to get away, how there was nothing there for her, the baby was all she needed.
She found Rosen behind a closed door and when she picked him up he smiled and Kel smiled too. ‘Just this,’ she whispered. It was Rose who had helped her appreciate all that the baby was, good from bad. Kel told herself she would always make the best of things, always, for Rose.
When she was sure nobody was about she strode out into the dark-drawn day with the baby tied into the carrying thing she’d fashioned whilst on the island.
She walked into a new dawn storm. It stood steady behind her and pushed her forward through a maze of wet fields and busted boards, and she kept her mind clear of thinking, let the wind guide her toward higher ground.
Through the gusting rattle-run racket she didn’t hear her name get called and she turned her head into her collar to keep the air out of her ears and then she pulled the blanket that covered the baby’s head over her own the same. It was into this snood that she hid from the world except to keep step and footing.
‘Kel!’
She could hear her name riding clear on the breeze and she recognised it as Rose’s voice and she told herself that the girl was dead. No good came from want, no matter how it hurt to know this. And so she went on, definite in motion until the hand on her arm pulled her backwards.
‘Kel,’ shouted Rose and she held her almost to shaking until Kel returned her name.
‘I thought you was dead,’ said Kel. ‘You was dead.’
Rose shook her head. ‘I’m getting better.’ She stood back to stick out her leg.
‘You got a cast,’ said Kel, stunned.
‘Kind of. More of a splint really. That lady did it, she used to be a doctor. Why did you think I was dead?’
‘That bloke. I said you had to be looked after cus you was tower folk and he said you werent nobody no more.’
‘The towers are no more. They’ve been taken down, all the swampers rose up.’
‘What about your lot?’
‘Who cares? We did it, Kel. We’re free.’
Both girls stood with the awkwardness of circumstantial intimacy between them and Kel said something about being glad that Rose hadn’t died.
‘Ha, so am I.’ Rose smiled, and so did Kel.
‘You stayin on with them olds?’ she asked.
‘Why?’
Kel shrugged. ‘Maybe whilst you’re still healin or whatever.’
‘What about you? You’ve been sick these past days.’
‘I have?’
Rose nodded.
‘Might just go on now I’m headin.’
Rose nodded and Kel knew she was waiting for her to speak.
‘I int so good with words,’ said Kel and she wanted to scream all the love from her in one go.
‘I know that.’
‘But if you want to …’
‘Go on …’
‘You can come with me. Just if you want to, till you find somethin better or whatever.’
Rose started to laugh.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got no idea, Kel Crow.’
‘Bout what?’
Rose smiled and took her hand and Kel noticed the tiny buds of colour on Rose’s nails, pink.
‘About love.’ Rose wrapped her arms around her and told Kel she had missed her more than she’d ever thought possible. ‘I even miss this bloody baby.’ She bent to kiss Rosen.
Kel looked down at the ground; she wanted to tell Rose that she loved her so much that it was a new thing for her heart to contend with, that she loved her more than anything in the world.
‘Rose?’
The girl nodded. ‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘Day one.’
‘No, not day one.’
‘Ha, I think so. I think you were in love with me the moment you saw me and saved me from the ship’s crew.’
‘That int how it went.’
Rose smiled. ‘Whatever. So are you going to tell me the plan now?’
It was then that Kel realised for the first time that she no longer needed a plan. She put her hand to the heart that had broken and fixed itself right through compassionate and she promised herself that she would not set upon any course other than the one she was on. She had hope, and it was bigger than the swamps and bigger than the towers and bigger than the world she hated but would learn to love, and it was with that thought that she smiled suddenly. Kel Crow had survived, and she could now survive anything.
‘Well?’ Rose said again. ‘Where we heading?’
‘As far from the ocean as we can get,’ said Kel.
Rose nodded. ‘That sounds like just about the best plan I ever heard.’
She took hold of Kel’s hand, and together they went on toward the new dawn rising.
About the Author
Natasha Carthew is a working-class country writer from Cornwall, where she lives with her girlfriend. She has written all her books outside, either in the fields and woodland that surround her home or in the cabin that she built from scrap wood. She has written two books of poetry, as well as three novels for young adults, Winter Damage, The Light That Gets Lost and Only the Ocean, all for Bloomsbury. Her first novel for adults, All Rivers Run Free, is published by riverrun/Quercus. Natasha has written for many publications on the subject of wild writing, including the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, Eco-fiction, TripFiction, the Guardian, the Big Issue and the Dark Mountain Project. She’s currently writing her second literary novel for adults and a new collection of rural poetry.
Praise for Winter Damage
‘Elegantly lyrical … A heart-rending quest story about children in a bitterly cold, climate-changed Cornwall, searching for the everyday comforts and love of the world so recently lost’
Susan Elkin, Independent
‘A tough, heartbreaking story of loss, fear and friendship’
We Love This Book
‘Small but perfectly formed, Winter Damage is the sort of book that begs to be read out loud, even if there’s no one else near to hear it. It’s a stone-cold stunner with an uncommonly humble heart, and I urge you to take it into yours too’
Niall Alexander, Tor
‘A poetic, chilling and moving debut’
Love Reading
‘A beautiful book. It’s mysterious and lyrical, sad but hopeful, and truly unforgettable’
The Bookbag
‘Introducing a resourceful teenage heroine in bitter circumstances … This gripping quest tale is set in Cornwall in a near future suffering the effects of climate c
hange and social collapse’
Geraldine Brennan, Observer
Praise for The Light That Gets Lost
‘It’s wholly original, a novel that could only have been written by Natasha Carthew. The camp, the earth beneath, the sky above, are so vividly described, we feel the soil under fingernails, smell the sunshine. Carthew’s language is enthralling, she uses Cornish dialect words rooted in the landscape described, and her writing has its own poetry’
Books for Keeps
‘The prose is often eccentric, quirky and vernacular, and sometimes poetic, with a magical and lyrical rhythm. Superb! Highly recommended’
School Librarian
‘The Light That Gets Lost is a wild and dangerous story and a beautiful one too. It’s rough and taciturn and frank and, at times, utterly shocking. But it’s also deeply, deeply intimate’
The Bookbag
‘Carthew delivers a gripping story in intense, powerful prose’
International Business Times
‘The lyrical and expressive writing style breathes life into this absorbing story’
BookTrust
BLOOMSBURY YA
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Natasha Carthew, 2018
Natasha Carthew has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4088-6860-7; eBook: 978-1-4088-6862-1
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