The Complete Ingo Chronicles: Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, The Crossing of Ingo, Stormswept. Helen Dunmore
she lets Conor go off in Roger’s boat, even though he’s almost a stranger, and he doesn’t know a zillionth of what Dad knew about the coast and the currents here. Dad knew the sea almost as well as the Mer.
I mustn’t think about it now. I mustn’t let Mum guess about the Mer, or Ingo, or any of it. She wouldn’t understand and it would only make her more afraid of the sea than ever.
“How long have they been gone, Mum?”
“For heaven’s sake, Sapphy, stop fussing! Conor will be fine with Roger. Roger’s got full safety equipment, and his mobile.”
“There’s no reception out there.”
“All they’re doing is testing the engine, taking the boat near the Bawns, doing some soundings and coming back. And then we’ll all have tea.”
I can’t believe it. Mum’s making it sound like an Enid Blyton story: have a nice adventure, and then home for tea. But Ingo isn’t like that. They weren’t anywhere near the Bawns when I saw Roger, I want to say. They were much farther out than that. Testing the engine, eh? But never in a million years can I tell Mum about lying in the sunwater, far out to sea, and feeling the shadow of Roger’s boat come over me.
“There they are now!” says Mum, going to the door. She can’t stop herself from sounding relieved. She heard the sound of footsteps and voices before I did. Roger’s deep voice says something muffled, and Conor answers. Mum flushes slightly. A little smile grows at the corners of her mouth, and I know she’s happy because Roger and Conor are getting on well. But that’s what Conor is like. He’s the easy one, who makes friends everywhere he goes.
Conor and Roger take off their shoes outside the door. I stay inside.
“Is Saph back yet?” calls Conor. I can hear the anxiety in his voice and I wonder if Mum can.
“Yes, she’s in the kitchen,” says Mum casually, going out to meet them.
“When did she get back?”
“Oh, just a little while ago. You were right, she was out walking Sadie. You two sound as if you’ve had a good time.”
“We have,” says Roger heartily. “Or at least, I have. It was a pleasure to have you along, Conor.”
What a creep. But then I hear Conor. “Yes, it was good. Can we go out again next time you’re down?”
“No problem,” agrees Roger. “I’m grateful for the local knowledge. I’d have scraped when we came off the mooring, Jennie, but for Conor.”
Conor protests that Roger would have done fine without him, and they all laugh. And now they come in through the dark doorway, blinking as people do when they’ve been out on the bright sea for hours. My eyes are already used to the indoors, and so I see Roger’s face clearly. He startles when he sees me, just a little. He wants to hide it, but he can’t. He comes farther into the room, trying to look as if he isn’t staring at me. But he is. He’s measuring my face against something in his mind. He’s trying to tell himself that what he thinks he’s seen out on the deep water can’t possibly be true.
“Hi, Roger,” I say cheerfully. Mum gives me a pleased look, because I’m being friendly at last, and forgetting all that nonsense about not liking Roger.
“Let’s all have some tea,” she says. “I’ve made a coffee and walnut cake.”
“Wow, coffee and walnut, my favourite,” says Roger enthusiastically. But he is still staring at me, and a frown knits on his forehead. Maybe he isn’t going to enjoy the coffee and walnut cake quite as much as Mum hopes.
Roger’s not the only one who is watching me. Conor sends me a meaning look. “Upstairs,” he mouths silently. Aloud, he says, “Be down in just a minute, Mum. Got to change my jeans – there was water in the bottom of the boat.”
But Conor’s jeans are dry. Another lie for Conor. I follow him upstairs. If he keeps on lying like this, how long will it be before people stop always believing him?
“What are you playing at?!” whispers Conor angrily as soon as we get to the top of stairs. He grabs my arms so I have to turn and face him.
“What d’you mean? Shut up, Conor, they’ll hear! You’re hurting my arms.”
“No, I’m not,” says Conor. “I never hurt you. Saph, you must be crazy. First of all you go to Ingo again, and on your own. How many times do I have to warn you?”
“It was all right, Con. Their time was nearly the same as ours today.”
“Today, maybe,” says Conor grimly. “You were lucky. I had a feeling it would be OK though, I don’t know why. I wasn’t as frightened as I was the time before. So I made up some stuff for Mum about Jack calling to ask if you’d walk Sadie because he was going surfing.”
“Conor, you’re such a bad liar. The sea’s flat.”
“Yes, but Mum didn’t think of that. You got away with it this time. Or at least you nearly did. Roger saw you. Now he’s trying to convince himself it was some weird refraction of your image. You know, like a mirror image of you got beamed up into the air and reflected underwater, because of freak weather conditions.”
“He can’t believe that. It’s impossible.”
“Not as impossible as looking over the side of the boat and seeing you relaxing underwater with a big smile on your face. And seeing that you didn’t need to breathe. And you were miles out as well.”
“Did you see me too?”
“No. He didn’t say anything straight away. I guessed something was wrong because of the way he went all still and tense, but I don’t know him well enough to ask. Then after a while he turned round and said he’d seen something that couldn’t possibly be there. A girl underwater. Not a drowned girl, but a real girl looking up at him. And then he said: You’re not going to believe this, Conor, but she looked exactly like your sister. She could have been her twin. And then he started saying all that stuff about light rays bending and images refracting. But I knew he didn’t really believe it, he was just trying to convince himself. So I said that there have always been mermaids around here, and maybe you had a mermaid double. That made him laugh.”
“He laughed at the Mer?”
“Sapphire, please. I was trying to make him laugh. I wanted him to think it was all crazy and impossible and so he couldn’t have seen anything. He said, Well, one thing I know for sure is that your sister isn’t a mermaid. I’ve seen her walking and she definitely has two feet.
I can’t stop myself. I glance down at my legs to make sure, and yes, there are my feet, safely inside my trainers. Relax, Sapphire, relax. Conor is on your side. He’s only trying to cover up for you, and make Roger believe that he can’t have seen you down there in the sunwater.
“I’m sorry, Con,” I say. “I know you still do.”
“Still do what?” asks Conor blankly.
“Still care about Dad. Still want him to come back.”
“Of course I do,” says Conor impatiently, as if he’s forgotten all about our argument. “But Saph, listen—”
“What?”
“You don’t need to be so against Roger. He’s all right.”
“He is not all right! He’s a diver. He’s the enemy of the Mer.”
Conor doesn’t answer for a little while. He watches my face very carefully, and then he says, in a cautious voice, “But Sapphire, you’re not Mer, are you? You belong to the Air. You’re human. Like me and Mum and Roger.”
“I’m not like Roger!” I spit out, before I know what I’m going to say.
“But you are