The Tide Knot. Helen Dunmore
the sea-anemones and limpets that have made their home on the fallen stones. The part of me which is Mer thinks it is beautiful, but the part which is human thinks of all the human life that’s been swallowed up by salt water.
“What’s the matter, Sapphire? Why are you screwing up your face like that?”
He really doesn’t know. Faro knows a lot about the Air, but not that humans weep.
“I’m sad, that’s all. It’s called crying.”
“I’ve heard of that,” says Faro eagerly, “but I’ve never seen it.” He makes it sound as if I was performing a juggling trick. “Show me how you do this crying,” he goes on.
“No, Faro, it doesn’t work like that. I don’t want to cry any more. I’ve stopped, look. But what do the Mer do when they are sad, if they don’t cry? What do you do if someone dies?”
“We keep them in our memories.”
“I think we should go,” I say abruptly. I want to get away from this place, with its mournful atmosphere. How could this have happened? How did the sea rise so suddenly that whole islands were swallowed by it, and people didn’t even have time to get into their boats and escape?
I take a last look at the drowned village. There are the hulls of fishing boats chained to the harbour floor. They wouldn’t float now, even if you could bring them to the surface. Sea water has rotted their timber. What would the people who lived here think if they could see this?
I can’t help it. Tears are prickling and stinging behind my eyes again. It hurts more to cry in Ingo than it does in the Air. I don’t want Faro to see how upset I am, or to watch me with his bright, curious eyes as I do this strange human thing called “crying”, so I put my hands over my face. What was it called, this drowned village? It must have had a name.
Tell me what you were called, I say very softly inside my head. Tell me your name.
No one answers. The sea surges around me, lifting me. There’s no moonlight any more. I can’t see anything. Ingo is dark and full of sea voices that seem to come from everywhere. The sea lifts me again, and carries me away with it.
I wake in my bedroom in St Pirans, struggling out of a sleep that sticks to me like glue. My room is very small, only wide enough for my bed and a narrow strip of wooden floor. There’s a shining pool of water on the floor. My porthole window is open. Maybe it’s been raining and the rain has blown in. No, I don’t think so. I dip my finger in the water and taste salt. Ingo.
The house is silent. Everyone in St Pirans is fast asleep. I look at the digital alarm clock that Roger gave me after I missed the school bus for the third time. Its digits glow green. 03:03. There’s a heap of wet clothes on the floor by my bed – my jeans and hooded top – and my hair is wet. I must have changed into these pyjamas after I got back, but I don’t really remember. It’s all cloudy.
But the memory of the drowned houses is all too clear. The windows looked like empty, staring eye sockets in a skull. I don’t want to think about it. I want to push it out of my mind.
It’s daylight again. Safe, ordinary daylight where the things that seem huge and terrifying by night shrink like puddles in sunshine.
I’m down at the beach with Sadie. Mum’s already at work, but it’s Saturday, so no school. I’ve cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the living room and now I’m free.
Sadie is like daylight. When I stroke her warm golden coat, all the shadows disappear. She looks up at me questioningly, wagging her tail. We’re standing on the last of the steps that lead down to Polquidden Beach. Am I going to let her run?
I am. Dogs are allowed on to the beach after the first of October, and it’s mid November now. Sadie’s got a good memory, though, and that’s why she’s hesitating. She remembers that when we first moved to St Pirans in September, dogs were still banned from the beach. Every year from April to October, when the visitors are here, dogs have to keep away. I think it’s unfair, but Mum says you couldn’t have dog dirt on the sand where people are sunbathing.
All September I had to keep on explaining to Sadie, “I’m sorry, I know you want to run on the sand, but you can’t.” The more I get to know Sadie, the more I realise how much she understands. She doesn’t have to rely on words. Sadie can tell from the way I walk into a room what kind of a mood I’m in.
Now she’s quivering with excitement, but she still waits patiently on the step.
“Go on, Sadie girl! It’s all right, you can run where you like today.” Sadie stretches her body, gives one leap of pure pleasure, and then settles to the serious business of chasing a seagull in crazy zigzags over the sand. Sadie has never caught a gull, and I’m sure this gull knows that. It’s leading her on, teasing her, skimming low over the sand to get Sadie’s hopes high, then soaring as she rushes towards it.
I want Sadie to run and run, as far as she likes. I know she’ll come back when I call. And besides, I want her to be free.
Since we moved to St Pirans I’ve been having these dreams. Not every night, not even every week, but often enough to make me scared to go to sleep sometimes. In the dream I’m caught in a cage. At first I’m not too worried because the bars are wide apart and it will be easy to slip out. But as soon as I move towards them, the bars close up. I try to move slowly and casually so that the cage won’t know what I’m planning, but every time the bars are quicker than I am. It’s as if the cage is alive and knows that I’m trying to escape.
I still can’t believe that we are really living here in St Pirans. Can it be true that we’ve left our cottage for ever? And Senara, and our cove, and all the places we love? Conor and I were born in the cottage, for heaven’s sake, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. How can you shut the door on the place where you were born?
Mum’s promised that she’ll never, ever, sell our cottage, but she’s renting it out to strangers. The rent money pays for us to rent a house in St Pirans, where we have no memories at all.
It seems crazy to me. Completely crazy in a way that the adults all believe is completely logical.
You’ll make so many new friends when you’re living in a town!
You’ll be able to go to the cinema and the swimming pool.
They’ve got some really good shops in St Pirans, Sapphy.
Why would anyone who lives by the sea want to go to a swimming pool anyway? Swimming pools are tame and bland and fake blue and they stink of chlorine. The water is dead, because of all the chemicals they put into it. The sea is alive. Every drop in it is full of life. If you put water from a swimming pool under a microscope, there would be nothing. Or maybe some bacteria if they haven’t put enough chemicals in.
Even the sea gets crowded in St Pirans. It’s quieter now because the season’s over, but everyone keeps telling us, Wait until the summer months. You’re lucky if you can find a patch of sand to put your towel down in August. There are four beaches and a harbour, and thousands and thousands of tourists who swarm all over the town like bees. Conor and I sometimes used to come to St Pirans for a day while we were still living in Senara. Just for a change. A day was always enough. You can’t swim without getting whacked by someone’s board. Sometimes there are even fights between different groups of surfers – the ones who are local and the ones who have come here in vans from upcountry. They fight over such big issues as one surfer dropping in on another surfer’s wave. Imagine thinking that the sea belongs to you, and fighting over waves. That’s another sort of St Pirans craziness. I must tell Faro about it. It would make him laugh.
“Sadie! Sadie!” Suddenly I see that Sadie is way over the other side of the beach, bounding towards a tiny little dog. It’s a Yorkshire terrier, I think,