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But the bread tastes funny too. Much too dry, and chalky – it’s as if I’m trying to swallow earth.
“Have a drink of water with it,” says Mum. “Here you are.”
She passes me a fresh glass of water and I start to drink. But even the water doesn’t taste good. There’s something missing.
Without knowing that I’m going to do it, I reach out to the saltcellar and tip a white stream of salt into my hand. I lick the tip of the index finger on my other hand and dip it in the salt. Then I taste it. It tastes so delicious that I dip my finger again. Salt. That’s what I need. No wonder the food didn’t taste good, and the water was all wrong. It needs salt.
“Sapphire, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing putting salt in your water?”
I drink down a long, refreshing gulp.
“You can’t drink salt water! It’s bad for you!”
Mum snatches my glass away. Never mind, I’ll make some more when she’s not looking.
“Mum, what are those little brown fish called that you get on pizzas?”
“Anchovies.”
“Have we got any?”
“You wouldn’t like them, Sapphy. One or two on top of a pizza taste all right, but they’re much too salty to eat on their own.”
“But have we got any?”
“I might have a tin in the cupboard somewhere. Now please, try and finish at least one of those sausages. You haven’t eaten anything.”
Conor is watching me. Mum’s watching me. I cut up one of the sausages into small pieces and try to chew it.
“I can’t, Mum. It tastes awful.”
“Oh dear, you are ill. You’re so pale. Maybe you’ve got a stomach bug. But I’ve got to go to work tonight, there’s no one to take over my shift. Maybe I could ask Mary to come in and keep an eye on you again—”
“I’m not ill. I’m fine, Mum, I just don’t want to eat these sausages.”
“Saph, cool it,” says Conor warningly. I make a huge effort and swallow the hot, angry words that are rising in my mouth. Of course Mum’s got to go to work, but I don’t want Mary here to keep an eye on me. I’m not a baby. I don’t want Conor spying on me either. Everyone’s trying to stop me from doing what I want to do.
Mum goes to the sink to start the washing-up. Normally I do it in the mornings, and Conor washes up in the evenings. Mum’s tired. She works so hard. I’ll get up in a minute and dry the dishes. Mum ought to be sitting down with a cup of tea.
I watch Mum’s back as she scrubs out the frying pan. Everything seems different suddenly: safe. This is my home, the same as it’s always been. Mum’s radio is on as usual, Mum’s wearing her old jeans and a white T-shirt and she’s got her hair pulled back in a ponytail. That means she’s not going to work until later.
I’m in the kitchen, having a late – well, very late – breakfast with my mum and my brother in a normal school holiday. Maybe I am hungry, after all. I don’t want the sausages, but maybe a piece of toast with Marmite. I’ll make a mug of tea for myself as well as one for Mum. When she’s finished the washing-up, she’ll sit down opposite me at the kitchen table and drink her tea and tell me funny stories about last night’s customers. What they said, and how much they drank, and how much money she made in tips. I love hearing about all the weird things that customers do in the restaurant. A customer even snapped his fingers to call Mum over once, but Mum just said to him, “Have you lost your dog?”
“Mum,” I begin, but just then Mum turns the cold tap full on and the gush of the water hides my voice from her.
And at that same moment, I hear it again. A sweet sound, sweet but sharp, like a knife that can cut deep inside you. It’s like the sound I heard in the mirror, but this time it’s shaping itself into words. The song grows louder and louder, and the comfort of Mum’s presence fades like a dream, until she doesn’t seem important at all.
I wish I was away in Ingo
Far across the briny sea,
Sailing over deepest waters
Where love nor care never trouble me…
“Saph, what is it?” whispers Conor urgently. “What can you hear?”
“Listen, Conor. Can’t you hear them?”
Conor listens. I wait for the sound to fill his ears as it’s filling mine. I watch his searching, suspicious expression. I can tell that he hears nothing at all.
I wish I was away in Ingo…
“Conor, can you really not hear it?” I feel frightened, as if Conor and Mum are far away and I’m alone. The words are for me. Only for me, not for Mum or Conor. Conor can’t hear anything, and Mum goes on calmly washing-up.
“Don’t listen to them, Saph,” whispers Con. “Close your ears. If you ignore them, they’ll go away.”
He thinks it’s Faro calling me, and maybe Elvira, but I know it’s not them. These are the words Dad used to sing. But he is not the singer. Even Dad, my Dad with his fine voice, couldn’t sing so sweetly. The sweetness draws me like a magnet, out of my chair, across the kitchen, through the open door, away from everything I know and into another world—
But Conor’s following me. “Where are you going, Saph?”
“I’ve got to go, Con. They want me to come. They want me to come now.”
“You mean Faro and Elvira?”
“No, not them,” I say. I feel as if I’m speaking in a dream. I can hardly hear my own voice, and Conor’s is thin and distant. “They’re Mer voices, that’s all I know. They’re trying to tell me something – I’ve got to go there again – they want me—”
“I’m not going to let you, Saph,” says Conor. He stands in front of me and spreads his arms wide. “You’re staying here. I’m not going to lose you as well as Dad.”
I can easily get past him. I’ve got Mer strength in me now. I could walk straight through Conor, as if he were mist instead of flesh and blood. But Conor’s gaze is fixed on my face, holding me back.
“I’m not going to let you go, Saph,” he repeats, and this time his voice is stronger.
“I’m sorry, Conor. You have to let me go. I know I can find Dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s there. You were right. He’s away in Ingo.”
“Don’t you understand, Saph? They’re trying to make you think that! They want you to think you’re following Dad! That’s what this is all about.” Conor’s eyes blaze. “And then I won’t have a sister either. And Mum’ll lose you as well as Dad. Can’t you think of us at all? Can’t you think of anything except Ingo, Ingo, Ingo?”
“I just want to find Dad, that’s all.”
“What’s the good of trying to find Dad, if we end up losing you as well as him? It’s dangerous. You know it is.”
“We swore, Conor. We swore and promised. This is our chance. Maybe the only one we’ll have.”
“All right then,” says Conor at last. “You win. I can’t watch you all the time. I can’t beat you and Ingo. But you’re not going alone. I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ulink_19b7fefd-29a9-5c56-a8da-78b809e5ee34)
“Mum, we’re going out for a bit,” Conor calls back casually through the open kitchen door. Usually Mum would shout, “OK, see you later. Stay together,” but today she comes to the door, wiping her hands on a towel and frowning.
“But Sapphy’s not well,” she says. “Don’t you want to stay at home with me, Saph?”
“I’m fine, Mum! I’m OK now, really,” I say as brightly as I can. Mum looks puzzled, and a bit disappointed.
“Come here, love. Let me have a look at you.”
Conor drifts away across the garden. I know he’ll wait for me. Mum puts her hands on my shoulders. She smells of the rose perfume she only wears on special days. Why is today a special day? Maybe she’s going to meet Roger, I think. I frown at Mum, and try to pull away from her.
“What’s the matter? Sapphire, look at me,” says Mum, gripping me tight as if she thinks I’m going to run away.
Slowly, I lift my head. Mum’s eyes, close up, search my face. For once, we’re really looking at each other. We’re always rushing around these days. Mum’s off to work, Conor and I are off to school or else we’re going out somewhere, or there are loads of jobs to do. Mum worries about our clothes and our schoolwork and the house and money and everything. Sometimes it feels as if she hardly sees us. All she sees are her worries about us.
I know it’s not Mum’s fault. She’s only one person, trying to do everything that two people used to do. She’s got to earn the money and look after us and keep the house. Even though we help as much as we can, she’s always rushing.
We don’t even have our meals together very often, because Mum’s at work nearly every evening and often in the day as well. Mum tells us where she’ll be and what time she’ll be back and what time we’ve got to be in by, and she leaves lots of notes and we have her mobile number. But it’s a different family from the one we used to have, and sometimes it’s not much like a family at all.
We’re just three people who live in the same house, I think. We’re not a proper family any more.
I look down, in case Mum sees the thoughts in my eyes. She’d be so upset. She’d think I’m blaming her for working all the time, and that I don’t understand that she has to earn the money, because Dad’s gone.
If only I could tell Mum how strange the days are when she’s gone off to St Pirans to work, and I know she won’t be back until midnight. The days are long and there’s no shape to them. Mum gone, Dad gone, the house quiet. Sometimes I go down to the kitchen at night, when Conor’s gone to sleep and I can’t. If Mum was at home, she’d come up with a glass of water for me and sit on the side of my bed and say, Don’t worry, Sapphy, just relax and you’ll soon drop off. But when Mum’s not here, I can’t make myself stop worrying.
I listen to the fridge purring. Every so often it gives a click and stops. I wait for it to start purring again and when it does I feel glad, as if the fridge is a friend – which is so completely pathetic that I could never in a million years say that thought aloud to anyone. Certainly not to Mum.
Visitors say that where we live is like paradise. They pay a fortune to come here on holiday. They say we don’t know how lucky we are to live here all the time. This is the best summer we’ve had for years, everyone says so. It’s hot and dry and there’s sunshine day after day after day. All the verges are brown from the heat. Mum says St Pirans is jam-packed with tourists. The restaurant is full every night, that’s why she gets back so late.
If only I could explain to Mum how empty the days are. How scared I get when Conor wants to go out without me, even if it’s only up to Jack’s for an hour. He always asks if I’ll be OK, and I always say, “I’ll be fine. I’m going to watch TV.” Mum thinks I go and see Katie, or one of my other friends, but I don’t. I feel cut off from them, because their lives are going on the same as ever, but mine has completely changed.
It’s all right as long as Conor’s here. When he’s at Jack’s he’s not that far away. I could get on my bike and find him if I had to. But when he went away to Ingo without me I was so afraid I thought I would die.
I won’t stay here on my own, being scared. I won’t be the one who is left behind. I’ll leave before Conor does, this time. I’ll go far away, where I won’t need any of them.
“You’re all right, Sapphy, aren’t you? You’d tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn’t you?” Mum asks. She smoothes down my hair. “This hair’s like a tangle of seaweed. We need to brush it all out,” she says.
“Can you do a henna wax on it, Mum?”
“I’m sorry, Saph. There isn’t time today.”
I love it when Mum does a henna wax on my hair. It takes a long time. She washes my hair first, and dries it a little, then she massages henna wax all over my hair, and she wraps my head in a hot towel and we sit and chat for half an hour so that the henna has time to work. The henna’s not coloured, it’s just to make your hair soft and shiny again after you’ve been swimming in the sea every day.
“Maybe you should have your hair cut. It’d be easier to keep it in good condition if it was short.”
“No, Mum!”
“All right, all right. But if you want it long, you’ve got to look after it. Some of these knots are so bad they’ll need to be cut out soon. And look how long it’s getting. It’s below your waist.”
I’m growing it.
Mum lets my hair fall. She looks at her watch.
“I’m sorry, Sapphy. I’ve got to—”
You’ve got to go. I know. But I don’t say it. I want to keep the soft look on Mum’s face.
“Will you do my hair on your day off, Mum?”
“Mm, maybe Sapphy, we’ll have to see—”
I forgot. On Mum’s day off, on Sunday, Roger is coming. Maybe that’s why Mum’s got to go now. Maybe she’s meeting Roger before work, and that’s why she’s wearing the rose perfume.
“Conor’s waiting for me, Mum. Got to go,” I say, pulling away from her. But again, she holds me tight. She strokes her hand over my rough, tangly hair again.
“Your hair,” she says, “I really ought to do it,” and she glances again at her watch. “Come on, Sapphy, we’ve just got time.”
But I don’t want Mum doing my hair in a big rush, glancing at her watch. I like it when we’ve got loads of time, and we sit and chat. Henna hair waxes are one of the best things I do with Mum, just the two of us.
But not now, not while she’s really wanting to be in St Pirans, with Roger. I draw myself out of Mum’s grasp.
“We’ll do it another time, when you’re not so busy,” I say. For some reason Mum’s eyes go shiny, as if she’s about to cry. I’m so alarmed by this that I gabble, “Got to go, Mum, see you later, have a good day,” and turn and run across the garden, so that for once it’s Mum who is left standing at the door, watching me go.
“You didn’t tell her anything, did you?” asks Conor.
“No.”
“Make sure you don’t, Saph. Mum’s got enough to worry about. Besides, she’d think we were crazy. No one is going to believe any of this stuff.”
Our trainers scuff up dust and pebbles as we run. The pebbles rattle, and that’s when I realise what the sound is that I’m not hearing. There’s no sweet sound any more, no singing voice. There’s no pull from the sea either. When did it stop? Was it while Mum was talking to me? There’s no hurry any more, no pressure. Conor and I might go down to the cove, or we might not.
As we come round the corner of the track, between the tall granite hedges, we see someone standing in the middle of the track. It’s Granny Carne.
“What’s she doing down here?” mutters Conor. And it’s true that you don’t often see Granny Carne so close to the sea. She belongs up on the Downs, in her cottage near where the Midsummer Bonfire’s built. Her cottage is half-buried in the side of the Downs. Half-buried, or maybe half-growing out of the earth. That’s why her earth magic is strong, maybe, because she lives so close to it.
“I don’t know,” I answer. I feel uneasy. Granny Carne’s eyes always make me feel as if she knows things about me that I don’t even know myself.
Granny Carne stands waiting for us to come up to her. She is tall and straight and full of dignity, like a tree growing from deep earth.
“How’s your mother?” Granny Carne asks. Her amber gaze sweeps over our faces.
“She’s all right,” says Conor.
“Is she? Let’s see, it’s more than a year since Mathew went now.”
The way she says Dad’s name reminds me that Granny Carne was his friend. Dad knew – Dad has known Granny Carne ever since he was a boy. He used to say she always seemed just as old as she is now. Granny Carne doesn’t change like other people change.
“My dad drowned,” says Conor abruptly. “That’s what they say.”
