Cry of a Seagull (15 page)

Someone came out of the front door of the hotel and shook out a cloth. Rose jumped up in amazement – at least, her spirit did. Her body, which was Jean's, remained sitting on the lobster pot.

She was seeing herself! The tiny far-off figure that shook the cloth and went back indoors was Rose Wood. Jean must be on the fishing boat that Rose had seen yesterday, glinting in the early sun off Sandy Neck.

When the boat was round the point and past the marsh and approaching the bluff that rose from the sea to the higher cliff coastline beyond, Jean went to the forward well to stand in the bow like a figurehead and try to spot the green and blue striped polystyrene blocks that marked her father's lobster pots. Only one more week of holidays and then back to the high rise and school and her mother, who
now had a boy friend, Roger, whom Jean couldn't stand. She and her mother fought a lot, but when Jean asked, ‘Why can't I go and live with Dad, like Bobby does?', her mother said, ‘Because I need you here, that's why,' although she was always nattering with Roger about what a nuisance Jean was.

Jean and Rose saw a green and blue block, and then another and another, quite close together. Jean gave a shout that was a mixture of ‘oy', ‘ho' and ‘whoa'.

Her father slowed the boat. As it came alongside a bobbing block, Jean hooked the line on the block over the drum of the winch and wound it up until the lobster pot came over the side, dripping seaweed, with some odd shelly creatures clinging to the outside of the slats, and a lobster and a few spider crabs inside.

Jean put on a heavy pair of gloves. Rose was terrified as she put her hand inside the wooden cage and fished out a lobster, but Jean knew how to hold it at the back of its head, so that the frenziedly waving claws would not nip her. She measured the length of its head with a metal caliper, grunted at it, slipped rubber bands over the pincers to keep them together, and threw the lobster into a tank of water. She dropped the crabs overboard and threw the lobster pot after them.

It was a lovely job. Rose was thrilled to be a part of it. When they were in the middle of their fishing ground, Jean's father let the engine idle and he and she worked together, hardly speaking, but enjoying each other's company, communicating with the odd word or grunt.

Some of the lobsters were too small and had to be thrown back in the sea, but after an hour they had a pretty good catch on board, and Jean's monosyllabic father was moved to say, ‘Bring me luck, you do, girl.'

‘So why can't I stay and live with you?'

‘And grow up to be a fisherman? You've got to do better than that.'

‘I won't, if I stay with Mum.'

‘We've been into that.' He threw a large blue-black lobster into the tank. ‘Don't start on me, girl.'

His nice, rugged face looked unhappy. Jean knew that the Law had given her to her mother three years ago when they were divorced.

‘If I'm really bad,' she speculated, ‘perhaps Mum will chuck me back at you.'

‘I don't want to talk about it.' Her father passed a hand over his face. ‘Just get on with the job.'

When they had hauled up all their lobster pots, they were quite a way beyond the bluff.

‘Have to move these pots soon,' Jean's father said. ‘The yacht club people will be putting their marker flag out again opposite Pebble Cove for the summer races.'

He turned the boat round, and when they were clear of the fishing ground he picked up speed and they went fast back towards the harbour with their catch.

Jean thought about the breakfast she would cook when the work was done, and the lobsters loaded into the lorry that would carry them to market. Rose thought of them as ‘poor lobsters', but Jean didn't, because she was a lobsterman's daughter.

She sat on the aft deck and leaned against the side and shut her eyes. She had got up at five.

‘Sleepy?' Her father looked back at her and grinned.

‘No.' She opened her eyes. If he wasn't, she wasn't. But her eyes closed again.

Rose woke sitting in the sand, leaning against a hump in a hollow of the dunes. What? It was always a shock to come back to her own world and her own self. Jean and the lobster boat – that was yesterday. This was today. She had flown with the horse to find the donkey, and what had she learned? Nothing. True, she had been at sea, but what had lobster pots to do with Gully?

She dusted herself off and shook out her hair and wiped a sleeve across her face. Had she imagined a fantasy of being nearly suffocated by the Lord of the Moor?

You don't know what's what any more, she told herself critically.

She ran back to the hotel and in through the back door to put on her apron again and join the scullery crew who were scrubbing baking tins and scraping plates and loading the dishwasher.

‘Where you
bin
?' Abigail asked her.

‘Dad wanted me.' Rose turned away, afraid that she would cry, because she had not found Gully. She put her fingers to her eyes and pressed them, which sometimes worked to force tears back. Her eyelashes were gritty, as if her face had been pushed into the sand.

At the sink, with her hands in greasy water, Rose looked up and saw that the brown donkey was beginning to appear in the steamy window. The steam cleared, and she saw him lying down, a dark mound among the dark rocks. His long ears drooped sideways. His eyes closed, white nose resting on the sand.

He couldn't be dead – he mustn't be dead – but how much longer could he survive? Even his desert origins could not keep him alive without water.

The window began to steam up again, but the sight of Gully in his terrible plight stirred her to a revelation.

‘The marker flag,' Jean's father had said, ‘for the summer racing.'

The Yacht Club people didn't just stick a flag in the sea. It would have to be on a moored buoy. Could it be the buoy with the black and white flag that Joanne had watched from the shore? That had been last summer. The marker would have been out then.

‘Pebble Cove,' the lobsterman had said. Could that be the beach where poor Gully was, with the red bucket?

Gloria dropped a double handful of silver into the sink.

‘Pity people don't eat with their fingers any more,' she said.

‘But it was so elegant.' Rose had an idea to try out. ‘One lady said, “I can't wait to come here again.” She lives the other side of Pebble Cove. Ever heard of that place?'

‘Of course. Where the big caravan site is, up on the cliff.'

Rose let out her breath.

Got it. I've got it.

The image of the collapsed donkey was almost gone.

‘Hang on,' Rose whispered to him silently before he disappeared. ‘I'm coming to you. I don't know how, but I'm coming.'

‘Stop dreaming, Rose, and get on with those pans,' Hilda said bossily. She was very full of herself, because old Mrs Yardley had sent for her specially, to compliment her on the trifle.

Rose knew she could not get down to Pebble Cove from inland, because of the fenced-in caravan park. The only hope was to go by sea. Jean and her father had got there easily in their big boat. Rose would have to go in Ben's small whaler, and risk her luck.

She could not tell anyone. Even if Ben were here, she could not ask him if she could use the boat. She had got to do it all alone, and no one must ever know.

Now she knew the way she had felt compelled to look for the old harbour under the marsh. It was because Favour wanted Ben to teach her how to run the boat, in preparation for this.

She could not leave now, because there were too many people about at the hotel, and there would be others on the beach. Someone would see her. It was too late to start anyway. It would be dark before she got to Pebble Cove.

She fretted her way through the evening – lunch party leftovers for the hotel guests' supper – and went to bed early so as to try for a few hours' sleep.

She thought she would lie wide awake, with such a massive enterprise before her, but when the alarm rang at first light she punched it into silence quickly, and realized she had been very deeply asleep.

The sun was not yet up, and it was cold. Rose put on two sweaters and her anorak, and went stealthily out of the hotel and into the garage to collect the oars and rowlocks, and take the key of the engine down from its nail. She also carried in a bag a bottle of water, a tin of Coca-Cola, apples and a small jar of peanuts left over from the party.

Rowing the dinghy was not as easy as it had been before, because the sea was not so calm. Whoever invented rowing should have arranged it so that you could row facing forwards. It was hard to keep the tubby little boat straight when she had to
keep looking over her shoulder to make sure she was heading for the buoy where Ben's whaler rode at anchor.

In the half light, she could just make out its blue and white paint and metal handrails on the far side of the other boats, so she rowed outside them, rather than risk trying to navigate between the boats and their mooring lines.

She reached the whaler and put out a hand to hold on to its side. Although she was out of breath from rowing, and tense with nervous excitement, she made herself think calmly back to how she and Ben had gone about it.

First things first. Tie the dinghy's painter to a cleat on the stern of the whaler. Unship the oars. Get into the larger boat. Whoops – she almost left one leg behind when the dinghy moved away. Pull up the mooring rope, pass it through the fairlead and wind it round two cleats and haul the buoy on board.

What next? Tie the dinghy to the buoy. Untie the whaler? ‘And drift out to sea without any engine power?' Ben's imaginary voice brought her back to order. Suppose the engine key had fallen out of her pocket when her legs were stretched between the two boats?

When her hand closed on the key, it felt like a friend. She turned it in the ignition to check the petrol gauge. Half full. She remembered to see that the throttle lever was in neutral, and turned the key farther round to start the engine.

Nothing happened. The starter made that sickening, hopeless noise of a car with no intention of getting going on an ice-cold morning.

She tried again several times. How often could the starter operate without running down the battery? Rose's hands were shaking, partly from cold, partly from fear. Was a donkey going to die, and perhaps an old man as well, because an engine would not start?

If only Ben could have been here with her. The engine had started immediately for him. What else had he done? She saw in her mind his left hand going forward to a black knob that even had written on it the word ‘choke'. Stupid Rose. It's handed to you on a plate and you can't see it.

She pulled out the choke, turned the ignition key again, and the engine settled down to a quieter throb.

Now, unhitch the dinghy rope and fasten it to the ring on the buoy. Release the whaler's rope from its cleats and throw the buoy overboard.

Perfect, Rose. You did it. The boat began to drift away backwards. When it was clear of the dinghy and mooring, she put her hand on the throttle lever at the side of the control panel. She had been afraid all along of what she was doing. Now she was suddenly gripped by real panic.

What on earth am I doing?

Shut up. Don't think about that. Had Alan stopped to wonder what he was doing when he backed the Lord's charger Favour out of the horse lines at the castle and leaped on him to gallop down the valley to save the people? He was no more than Rose's age, but if he had wavered, the Lord or his soldiers would have stopped him. He had plunged ahead, trampling the Lord underfoot, and clattered out under the arch before the guard could shut the gate.

Be like Alan, Rose. Don't think about it, just
do
it. Her hand moved the throttle lever gently forward. The gear engaged and the boat stopped going backwards and began to move out to sea.

Here I come, Alan. When she was clear of the other boats, she pushed the lever farther forward and headed out towards the end of Sandy Neck. Here I come, Gully.

When she had come this way with Ben, it had been low tide and a fairly calm sea. There was much more wind now. It blew in her face as she ran parallel to the long, curving beach, and she had to increase the throttle to keep up her speed.

She knew that she had to go far enough out beyond the headland to clear the rocks, but how far was far enough? The tide was higher than it had been with Ben, and she could not see the rocks now, only the swirling, troubled water above them.

Rose looked back. The land seemed miles away. She could only just see Wood Briar hotel, waiting darkly for some early riser to turn on a light.

Beyond the headland, the sea was rougher. Better turn soon.
Rose looked at the distant shore to her left and tried to make out the three dead trees and the water tower which were Ben's landmarks. There was still not enough light to see any details, but she had better start turning anyway before she got too far out.

‘Put a port wheel on, Rose.' As she turned the steering wheel, the boat slowed, and she had to give it more throttle. It seemed to be going through the rough water quite fast, but each time she looked sideways at the headland, she saw that she was not getting any farther beyond it. The wind blew strongly from her right. Was it her imagination, or was she being blown closer to the rocks?

She turned the wheel to head farther out, but the tide must be rising, because the boat did not respond properly. Rose kept its bow turned away from the land, fighting to batter her way out against the wind and the strong tide in a churning sea where the waves seemed to be hitting her from every direction, and her hair and clothes were soaked with flung spray.

Out on the horizon, the grey sky showed a blue-green line, and as the sickly pre-dawn light crept across the hostile ocean, a sudden ghastly vision of the Lord of the Moor rose up from the waves like a misty sea wraith, pointing her back towards the rocks with a long pale finger that dissolved at the tip as the whole apparition floated away on a howl of wind.