Magnus Fin and the Ocean Quest (2 page)

For Magnus Fin, getting on with life as best he could meant going down to the seashore, splashing about in the cold North Sea, diving with his mask and snorkel and beach-combing for the treasures the tide brought in. With water he was brave. With water he was happy. It was in standing up to other people that his knees went wobbly. But for most of the time – after school, weekends and holidays – there were no other people, not children to play with anyway.

Often he played alone in his bedroom, his “Neptune’s Cave”. He had decorated it with his fantastic findings, so when he wasn’t at school he was likely to be in one of two places: at the beach or in his room. Hanging from his bedroom ceiling was an old brown fishing net with yellow corks. On his shelves made from driftwood he’d placed clam shells and Chinamen-hat shells, patterned stones, coloured glass and bones. In a wooden box under his bed he kept his extra special treasure – weird and wonderful bits from the wrecks in the Pentland Firth or the
Titanic
, the Spanish Armada or pirate ships.

In this treasure box he had a metal sign that said
GENTLEMEN
and another that said
UPPER DECK
.
Magnus Fin was sure that these faded metal signs had once adorned the great ships of old. He had hundreds of bits of broken plates in another box that had, he was certain, once been dinner plates on the great ship the
Titanic
. Now the plates, all broken, were like a jigsaw. Magnus Fin would spread out the pieces on his bedroom floor and try to make a plate. When he had something that vaguely resembled a round shape he would put a biscuit on the patchwork plate and pretend he was dining on the
Titanic
. Then, when the ship struck an iceberg and started to sink, it would be Magnus Fin who ran about rescuing everyone – but he had to do it quietly because he didn’t want to wake his parents. Then he’d be hailed a hero and have his picture on the front page of the local newspaper and everyone at school would want his autograph. Magnus Fin loved his treasures from the beach.

It was his mother who first named her son’s room Neptune’s Cave. “But I’m not fit enough now to clean it for you, son. Cleaning’s too much effort – you’ll have to do that yourself,” she said one day as she hobbled through the house puffing and panting.

“That’s no bother to me, Mum,” he said, grinning and waving a duster in the air, “I’ll definitely keep it spic and span.” It was his private room full of his private treasures.

She nodded her old white head and shuffled off across the hallway. Barbara spent most of her days in the kitchen listening to the radio while
making soup or gutting the fish her husband managed to catch. Her evenings and nights she spent reading books or watching television in bed. Cleaning was something that happened less and less in the cottage down by the sea.

Magnus Fin’s grandmother visited every Sunday, but as a rule Barbara didn’t like these visits – not when her mother looked much, much younger than herself, and insisted on tidying up and rearranging the kitchen, and sighing and saying the place was a blooming mess. But Magnus looked forward to these visits because with Granny May on a Sunday afternoon there was always some laughing, singing and storytelling about the house. She might be a “wee busy-body”, as Barbara called her, but she brought life and shine to the little cottage by the shore.

It was Sunday, and because it was rainy Magnus Fin was in his room playing with his pirate ship. Granny popped her head round the door and asked if she could just peep at her grandson’s treasures. “I promise I won’t disturb them,” she said, “and I won’t clean up either. Just a teeny wee peep, eh?” So Magnus Fin let her in to Neptune’s Cave, and felt his chest swell up with pride when his grandmother whistled in wonder.

“What a grand place you have here, Fin – my goodness me, that bell looks like it once tolled the time on a tall sailing ship full of one-eyed pirates.”

“You’re right there, Granny May. And look, here’s a sign from the
Titanic
– the gentlemen’s toilet sign. Isn’t it the best thing in the whole
world?”

“Goodness mercy me – the very best in the universe. Just think – poor men – looking up at the sign as they went off innocently to the toilet, them never guessing it would be for the very last time. Oh, Fin, imagine all that salt water covering your face, filling your lungs – how awful.” Granny May looked like she would burst into tears.

To change the subject, and move to another of his favourite topics, Magnus Fin sank down on to his bed, patting it for Granny to come and cuddle up next to him.

“Tell me what Mum was like before,” he said. His mother had gone for her nap and his father had gone out fishing. Magnus always asked for that story – every Sunday – and Granny May always told it to him.

“Oh, all right, my boy. If I can just get comfy on this boat bed of yours then I’ll tell you all about your beautiful mother.”

He had to make sure his mother was out of hearing range. It was part of their game. Magnus Fin jumped up and closed his bedroom door.

“Ready lad? Coast clear?” she called.

“All clear, Captain,” he said, saluting like a sailor. Then with a leap he jumped aboard and squashed up next to her on the bed.

“Well then, once upon a time Barbara, your mother, was the belle of the county. Lads used to come from as far as Inverness for the dances in our village, just in the hope she might partner them in a Gay Gordons or a Strip the Willow or one of these disco things. Oh, she had bonnie
warm brown eyes and a sweet red mouth that was forever smiling and her hair was a curtain of coppery curls. And the pretty dresses she had! Goodness, her wardrobe was bursting with them. Cost me a fortune! But I didn’t mind, Fin; she looked such a picture in them. And high-heeled shoes, and fancy jackets and dangly earrings. She loved to dress up did your mother. Height of fashion she was. And what a dancer! And did I tell you about her singing?”

Magnus Fin nodded. Yes, he’d heard about her singing and dancing and dressing up, but he needed to hear about it again and again and again. His grandmother ruffled his mop of black hair, kissed him on the cheek and carried on.

“Oh, she had a voice I can tell you, like a nightingale. And like you, my lad, she was forever messing about down at the seashore. She could have married a lord, so she could. Well, she married your father and they were the happiest, bonniest couple in the north. Strange wedding, mind you, Magnus. Oh, it was great fun and the salmon on the table was second to none, but your dad invited none of his family. Not one! Which meant I had to do most of the work. Well, they got this wee cottage at the shore and everything was fine. Your dad got a job up at the farm and people say he was a good worker and your beautiful mother worked in the jewellers in town. Well, you were born and what a lovely wee boy you were. Then not long after your third birthday something happened. The good Lord knows what because I don’t, but in a jiffy all the beauty and
youth in the pair of them went away. You’d think someone had gathered it up in a jug then poured it down the drain. Gone.
Puff!
Just like that.”

Magnus Fin bit his bottom lip. He never enjoyed this part of the story.

“No one knows what happened,” Granny May went on, shaking her head, “and if I’ve asked my daughter once, I’ve asked her a thousand times. But you just remember, boy, she was a beauty, and for that matter, so was your father. Now, lad, is there a cup of tea for your grandmother? Hm? All this speaking has made me as dry as a cork. And a wee biscuit too if you can spare it.”

Magnus Fin jumped up, went through to the kitchen and made his grandmother tea. She had taught him to make tea, and toast and porridge. And she taught him to sing “You Cannae Shove Your Granny Off a Bus.” He came back with the tea, singing away to himself.

“You are a great wee singer too. Just like your mother. And a little bird told me there’s a boy having a birthday soon,” she said, slurping her tea and winking at him over the rim of the cup. Magnus Fin nodded and grinned. “And what will that wee laddie who is going to be eleven be wanting?” she asked.

Magnus Fin shrugged his shoulders. What he really wanted was what he’d asked for in the glass bottle he’d thrown out to sea. Apart from those things he would like a bike, but he didn’t know if his grandmother could afford a bike. Maybe it was too big a present to ask for. Usually she got him books and pencils and swimming trunks and
jigsaws and sweeties. She lived in a little council house on her own in John O’Groat’s. He didn’t think she could afford a bike.

“A book about sharks would be good,” he said. His grandmother looked relieved. “Well, if you’re sure that’s all you want I’ll do my best,” she said brightly, dunking her chocolate biscuit into her tea. “Now then, I’d better be getting back. Doing my line dancing tonight. Don’t want to go missing that bus now, do I?”

Then Granny was off and the small cottage by the sea fell back into its quietness. Barbara lay sleeping. Ragnor was down by the shore. Magnus Fin went through to his room, carefully put away his
Titanic
treasures and counted the days to his birthday.

The bonnie couple that Magnus’s grandmother spoke of were now bent and grey and wrinkled. They were little more than thirty years old but looked at least a hundred! The days of dressing up and dancing seemed to have gone for ever. There was not a mirror in the house that his mother had not broken, and lately Barbara had taken to wrapping her face in a shawl so only her eyes could be seen. When she ate her soup at suppertime she brought a hand to her face, and when the postman or the catalogue lady came calling she took to her bed, so that no one should clap eyes on her. Often Barbara, so ashamed of her haggard appearance, cried herself to sleep. On those nights Magnus Fin held spiral shells up to his ears so that the drone of the sea would drown out his mother’s crying. And the sea that came from his shells made a fine song, booming some nights and sighing others. Magnus Fin fell asleep to the slow hush of small waves lapping on the shore and woke to the same.

Come daybreak he was up and out. There was the sea otter to watch fishing for her breakfast of sea urchins at the shore. There were the seals to say good morning to – the kind-eyed creatures
with their noses rising out of the water seemed to know just when Magnus Fin would be up and about. And there was the tidemark to study, to see what had been washed ashore overnight. Sometimes, if his tummy was rumbling, he’d pull limpets and winkles from the rock and suck their juicy contents down in one suck. He loved them.

He knew every stone, every rock. He knew where the heron slept. He knew where the oystercatchers raised their young. He knew the difference between a shag and a cormorant. He knew where the polecat prowled and saw every morning whether a rabbit had been killed or not. He knew so much but the pity was, he thought, he had no friend to share it with.

On this morning he took up a flat stone and skimmed it. The surface of the water was smooth. The waves were baby waves, hardly worth jumping over. His stone skimmed seven times. His record was nine but seven was still good. His father, he remembered, had taught him a verse: one for a minnow, two for a cod, three for a reel and four for a rod, five for a dolphin, six for a seal, seven for a shark, so squeal baby squeal!

He laughed remembering the verse and the tickling that always came at the end. His father had been young then and full of life. It had been a long while since he’d been tickled. Magnus Fin scuffed at some stones. His job was to bring home driftwood for the fire. On the stones he found a thick plank. It could have come from a broken hull. He dragged it along the beach and
back to his house. He might be thin but Magnus was strong.

His father was resting against the dry-stone wall by the cottage and calling to his son, “Good work, son – that’s a fine bit of firewood. It’s time for school. Don’t be late! Find any treasure today?”

“Two dead rabbits and a cormorant’s skull. But I left the rabbits,” Magnus said, lowering the plank with one hand and with the other showing his dad the delicate shape of the white bird skull.

“She’s a beauty,” Ragnor said, nodding his old grey head and handing Magnus his school bag. “Now, go on, son – school!”

Magnus Fin placed the bird skull carefully in his bag and headed off in the direction of the village school. Somehow he couldn’t run to school the way he could run to the beach. He dragged his heels and wished it was Saturday, Sunday or best of all, the summer holidays.

“Late again, Magnus Fin,” said the teacher, Mrs McLeod, who was marking the register. She looked up when the strange wee boy closed the squeaky door of the classroom as quietly as he could. “What’s the excuse this time?”

“Sorry,” he said, his voice a tiny whisper, “slept in.”

Mrs McLeod had almost given up hope with Magnus Fin. She had even gone so far as to buy him an alarm clock. But when her husband, a fisherman, told her that he regularly saw the boy at the beach at six in the morning, Mrs McLeod knew sleeping in was not the problem.

“Slept in where exactly?” she asked. The whole class now turned to stare at Magnus, who was trying without success to slip unnoticed on to his seat.

“Bed,” he lied, his face turning red. Some of the children in his class giggled.

“Being late is bad enough,” the teacher went on, “and telling lies is even worse. The cupboard needs tidying and you, Mr Magnus Fin, can do it. You can stay back after school today and help me. Right, class, let’s get on. Now, P6 – what do you know about Mexico?”

“So, Magnus Fin, what’s so fascinating about the beach first thing in the morning?” the teacher asked that day after school when the other pupils had all gone home.

“It’s always different, Miss,” he said, handing Mrs McLeod a box full of jotters. This was his detention for being late, but the truth was he didn’t mind staying on after school. “Like, um, the tide brings things in and I have to check,” he went on, his voice excited now. “If I don’t I might miss something great. My favourite is bits from sunken ships. And I got something today – wait a minute, Miss, and I’ll show you – I’ve got a cormorant’s skull.”

Magnus left the teacher standing with her arms full of jotters and ran to his school bag and gently lifted out the cormorant’s skull. “See! I’ve got loads of stuff and I sometimes help birds if they’ve got broken wings and I helped a baby seal that was stuck inside a washing basket.”

“Goodness me! That’s a good skull. Poor thing, but what on earth was a washing basket doing on the beach in the first place?”

“Dunno, Miss,” he said, carefully placing the skull back in his bag. He returned to the cupboard, awaiting his next instruction.

“Pass me those crayons, will you? Good – and those paintbrushes. That wee Bobby Morrison has been putting his paintbrush away without cleaning it. Look! It’s ruined. You’ll have to throw it out. No wonder this school has no money. Oh, what a mess this cupboard is in. What is the world coming to? I don’t know. Washing basket, what next?”

Mrs McLeod, tutting and sighing, took the dirty paintbrushes from Magnus Fin and dropped them in the bin, then struggled trying to lift the boxes of art equipment on to a shelf. With another sigh she turned to look at Magnus who was now busy stacking boxes of jotters in the cupboard. “Magnus Fin, you really should stick up for yourself you know. I heard that bully Sandy Alexander in the corridor. I heard what he called you – and your parents.”

Magnus felt his face flush red. He stared at the floor. He’d heard Sandy Alexander too. “Decrepit lepers,” he’d said. It sounded bad the way he had said it, though Magnus Fin didn’t know what it meant. He just shrugged.

“And, um … how are your parents these days?”

“OK, I suppose. I mean, well, they seem … quite old and – and don’t do much,” Magnus Fin stammered, glad he was in the dark of the cupboard.

“Strange, isn’t it? I mean, do doctors know what the problem is exactly? You know, the aging so fast thing.” Mrs McLeod was stacking the artwork into a pile, not looking at Magnus Fin.

“My dad says we’re all different and I just have to get on with life. There’s a mousetrap here. Do
you want it out?”

“Oh, no! Don’t touch it,” she shouted. “Anyway, I think we’ve done enough for one day. Yes, your dad is right of course. We are all different. Now that we’re talking about being different, Magnus, I can’t help wondering about your eyes – if you don’t mind me asking. Do they run in your family? Have the doctors ever said anything about them?”

Magnus Fin imagined a line of doctors in white coats giving clever speeches about people. As far as he was aware no doctor had ever said anything. Magnus Fin had lied once already that day. He decided twice wouldn’t make much difference.

“That I am special,” he blurted out, feeling as soon as he’d said it that it wasn’t a lie. He was special. “Can I go now, Miss?”

“Yes, yes. Off you go. And, Magnus – special or not – be on time on Monday, promise?”

Magnus Fin grinned at Mrs McLeod, nodded then sped off. His dad would be down at the beach looking for him, and his mother would be bringing her soup to the table, the soup she’d laboured over all day long. Running home he could almost smell it. He was starving.