The Complete Ingo Chronicles: Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, The Crossing of Ingo, Stormswept

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“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.”

“But they never found him,” says Granny Carne. “Strange. A drowned man usually washes up somewhere, no matter if it takes weeks, or months. Do you think your father drowned, Sapphire?”

“I don’t know, I—”

I don’t know what to say, but strangely, I don’t mind Granny Carne’s questions. They’re not like some people’s questions about Dad, which drip with rumour and inquisitiveness. Granny Carne is asking for a reason. Conor draws close to her, as if he wants to ask her for help.

Granny Carne’s called Granny, but she has no grandchildren. I don’t think she ever had children. She lives her wild life alone. She’s always lived in her cottage under the Downs. Sometimes people go there, when they need help. They go secretly. They don’t even tell their friends or their family. They knock on Granny Carne’s door and wait for her to answer. People say Granny Carne has the power to know the future, and sometimes she can look into your future for you. I don’t know how she does it, or what it’s like. It sounds scary to me.

Dad once told me most people round here have been up to Granny Carne’s at some time. When they had need of her.

“What kind of need, Dad?”

“To help you make a decision, maybe. To resolve a question that’s troubling you. To see beyond the present.”

“How can anyone see beyond the present?”

“They say she can,” said Dad. I had the feeling he was hiding something from me.

“Have you ever been to see her, Dad?”

“I’m always seeing her.”

“You know what I mean. To ask her about the future, like you said.”

“I did once.”

“What was it about, Dad?”

“Well, it was about that dummy you still had when you were nearly three years old, Sapphire. I wanted to know if you would ever give it up, or if you would be taking it to school with you along with your packed lunch.”

“Dad!” It was so annoying. But he wouldn’t tell me any more, no matter how much I asked.

“Mathew knows this coast like the back of his hand,” says Granny Carne. “And the sea was flat that night he disappeared.”

She said, Mathew knows. Not Mathew knew. That means for Granny Carne, Dad is still in the present tense. Just as he is for me and Conor. And if you’re in the present tense, then that means you must be alive. If Granny Carne really can see into the future, maybe she knows he’s alive. Maybe she can see that Dad’s going to come back.

“So where is he, if he didn’t drown?” asks Conor.

“He’s away somewhere, I believe.”

“Away in Ingo,” I say immediately, without knowing that I was going to say it. Granny Carne’s amber eyes flash on me. I feel like a mouse or a vole when the eyes of a hunting owl light on it.

“Ingo,” she says. “In Ingo, you say? It’s strange you should say that, Sapphire, because when I saw you coming down the lane I thought you had a look of Ingo on your face. There’s a bit of it on Conor’s face too, but not as strong as on you.”

She knows, I thought. How can she know? How much does she know?

“What’s Ingo?” I ask her.

“I think you know that,” says Granny Carne. Now I feel like a vole when the owl’s rushing down towards it, talons spread. “Ingo’s a place that has many names,” says Granny Carne. “You can call it Mer, Mare or Meor. And it has its own Morveren name, but we don’t say that name, not while we’ve got our feet planted on the earth. Earth and Ingo don’t mix, even though we live side by side. Earth and Ingo aren’t always friends. Do you know the old name of Ingo, Sapphire? The old Morveren name?” Granny Carne asks the question casually, but now the owl is so close I can hear the rush of her wings. She really wants to know how much I know. But what would it mean, if I did know the Morveren name?

“No,” I say, reluctantly, because now I wish I did know it. I wish I was truly part of Ingo and knew everything about it.

“But you know who the Morveren are?”

“No. Not really.”

“Ah.”

I think she’s pleased that I don’t know. Suddenly her eyes lose their fierce, owl-like glitter, and she’s an old woman again. Granny Carne turns, pulls a bramble out of the hedge, and gives me a plump, shiny blackberry. Even from the look of it you can tell it’s warm and ripe. But surely it’s too early for blackberries to be ripe – it’s only the end of July. I walked up the lane yesterday and I didn’t see any.

“You have that one, Sapphire, and I’ll find another for Conor.” She searches the hedge and brings out another ripe berry. I hold my blackberry. I want to eat it, but at the same time I don’t.

“Eat it, Sapphire,” says Granny Carne. I put the blackberry into my mouth. It tastes of earth and sunshine and spicy fruit. It reminds me of fields, woods, the farm, the puppies, Mum cooking apple and blackberry pie, autumn, wood smoke, lighting the fire, kicking through fallen leaves with Conor when we were little…

“There’ll be plenty of fruit this year, with all the sun we’ve had,” says Granny Carne. “Now, Conor, tell me. Were you thinking of swimming today, down at the cove?”

“Maybe,” says Conor. It doesn’t sound rude. He smiles across at her and I think that Conor and Granny Carne look a bit alike. Both of them have strong brown skins that love the sun, and shiny dark eyes.

“I wouldn’t go today,” says Granny Carne. “There’s a strong current running. You might be able to swim against it, but not Sapphire. It would carry her away. She should keep inland today.”

“But I want to go,” I say.

“I know you do. Believe me, Sapphire, I know how much you want to go. I can feel it in you.” Granny Carne reaches forward and grasps my wrist. Her hand is strong and warm. “I can feel it running in you. But we lost the first Mathew – and then your father – and now who knows what’s going to happen? The story’s not ended yet. There’s a pattern, and it’s got to work itself out. Ingo’s growing strong. We’ll have fish from the sea swimming up the stream to my cottage next. But that’s not right. If Ingo breaks its bounds, then Earth will break its bounds. Ingo should stay in its place, and then I can stay in mine.”