The Girl From Seaforth Sands (6 page)

‘Right,’ Albert said. ‘And no more snipin’ at the girls, Paddy, ’cos it makes for awkwardness. I’m goin’ to set up me fishin’ line first, though. We can watch it as we eat, the girls too. Good thing we came right up this end o’ the beach, the other end’s thick wi’ folk already.’

It was true. Amy, glancing along the way they had come, could see family parties, groups of young people and children already industriously digging in the wet sand at the edge of the waves. What was more, she knew from experience that as the day went on, even the less popular part of the beach where the marram grass grew and the shoreline tended to be muddy at low tide would grow crowded with people. Therefore it behoved them to
get as much pleasure from the day’s holiday as they could while a large area of sand around them remained empty of people. Amy had never gone fishing with her brother, because Albert almost always went with Paddy. The older boys, most of whom fished for a living, preferred to take a rod into Wales or the Wirral for a day’s sport. As for the fishing boat, she had never asked her father to take her shrimping and thought she probably never would. Even had she done so, she doubted that Bill would want her on board. She imagined he would think it unlucky to take a woman out fishing and was devoutly glad of it.

However, fishing with Albert and the others might be quite fun, so she watched with interest as the boys set up their lines. Her brother and Paddy had short hazel wands, which they stuck in the sand after they had thrown out lines baited with what looked like grubs of some sort. Philip, however, had a proper rod with a line and a float and bait, which looked more professional somehow. He cast expertly, too, sending his baited line a good deal further out to sea than either Albert or Paddy had managed, but then he, too, stuck his smart, cork-handled rod in the sand, and strolled back to where Mary and Amy were watching.

‘There, that didn’t take long, did it?’ he asked, sitting down on the sand beside Mary and reaching across for the basket he had been carrying. ‘It’s early still, but I could do with a snack.’ The basket lid was cunningly closed with two loops and a wooden peg. He unfastened it and threw back the lid, revealing several compartments filled with interesting-looking packages as well as an oddly shaped bottle full of a dark-red liquid, neatly corked. Amy was fascinated
to see that the lid of the basket held cutlery, a couple of enamel mugs and plates.

‘There’s all sorts in here.’ Philip fished out two of the packages and began to unwrap them. ‘My grandmother’s cook is an awkward old blighter, but she has a soft spot for me. Besides, if she packs me a decent picnic, she knows she’ll be rid of me all day, which makes her life easier, I suppose.’ He held out the package towards the two girls. Amy, looking at the chunks of cheese, slices of thick bread and cuts of ham, found that her mouth was watering already. If this was the cook’s idea of a carry-out, what sort of meals did Philip normally enjoy?

‘Cor!’ Amy breathed reverently. ‘Your cook must’ve thought your sister was going to share your carry-out, eh? No one could think one feller needed this lot.’

Philip laughed. ‘My sister’s gone to the city centre to visit our great-aunt,’ he said. ‘She and Grandma will get a grand luncheon at Great-Aunt Betty’s. Laura loves iced puddings so Great-Aunt’s cook always makes one for her.’

The Logan family had ham at Christmas, but iced puddings? She’d never even heard of such a thing, let alone tasted one. They had cheese from time to time, but it was still very much a treat. And fancy having plates and mugs on the beach, where such things were virtually unknown. It must be wonderful to have so much money and so many possessions that one could risk the loss of cutlery or even plates and mugs. The Logans guarded such things with jealous care. Isobel would never have dreamed of letting so much as a teaspoon leave her neat kitchen.

But if the rich had many possessions, the poor could have good times too. Amy remembered one of
her brothers telling her once how Dad had taken the older ones on an expedition to New Brighton. They had dug cockles, boiled them in an old Glaxo tin over the driftwood fire they had built and eaten them as the sun began to sink. Gus had never forgotten the trip, and now Amy felt dimly that though it was wonderful to have loads of money and a picnic basket full of delicious food, there were compensations in being poor. She did not think that even the most succulent ham could ever be as delicious as food you had won from the sea, cooked over your own fire and eaten in the sunset’s glow. She remembered some of Isobel’s favourite sayings, that money was the root of all evil and that riches gave only the delusion of pleasure, and for the first time she thought she saw some meaning behind her mother’s words. For all the Grimshaws’ money, they would not know the intense pleasure that Amy and her family – and the Keagans come to that – got from the small excitements in their lives. Ham at Christmas, cheese when the money stretched to it, a trip on the ferry, a ride on the overhead railway and cooking your own supper on a sunset beach. To the Logans and the Keagans such things were the very stuff of pleasure, something to be treasured all the more because of their rarity and remembered in the years ahead.

‘What’ll you have, young Amy? Cheese or ham? Only better take a bit of bread first, so you can make a sort of sandwich.’

‘Thanks,’ Amy breathed, delighted by such generosity. ‘Can I have a bit of both? Just a little bit you know.’

‘Amy!’ Mary was scandalised. ‘It’s greedy to have
both. Besides, this is Philip’s dinner. We shouldn’t . . .’

‘Oh, let her have both, there’s plenty for us all I should think,’ Philip said airily. He watched while first Amy and then Mary selected their food, folding the bread over the meat and cheese, and then did likewise, while Albert and Paddy, as a matter of course, helped themselves. The five children sat on the sand, munching in companionable silence, until Amy happened to notice that one of the hazel wands was being tugged almost out of the sand by some movement in the sea. She grabbed Mary’s arm. ‘Look, Mary! Does that mean someone’s caught a fish?’

‘Bejaysus, that’s my stick – rod, I mean – so it is,’ Paddy exclaimed, jumping to his feet. The other two boys promptly followed suit and very soon Albert and Paddy were up to their knees in the waves, both attempting to catch hold of the slippery line and draw it in by hand, for only Philip had a proper reel. Amy went as far as the edge of the waves and watched the struggle, which ended with Paddy and Albert drawing the fish so close to the shore that Paddy fell upon it and presently staggered from the waves, bearing in his arms a sizeable codling. ‘Will you look at that!’ he wheezed, as he reached Amy’s side. ‘Isn’t he a fine aargh . . .’

The fish, wriggling and flapping wildly, had momentarily escaped from Paddy’s grasp, but the three children – for Amy did not intend to be left totally out of the chase – fell upon it in the creaming waves and Paddy dispatched it, chiefly by falling upon it and driving it into the sand. Scrambling to his feet, he grinned triumphantly at his fellow fishers. ‘Gorrim! And he’s dead as a Dodo,’ he said,
holding up the limp and sandy grey body. ‘Shall us cook him for our dinners?’

‘Oh, we’ve got our dinners,’ Albert said. ‘We have fish often. Paddy, you take him home for your mam.’

Amy was relieved when Paddy, having considered the size of his fish, nodded agreement. ‘All right. Me mam’ll be glad of it,’ he said. He began to slosh the fish to and fro in the water until, Amy thought, you could almost have believed it alive again. ‘Do you reckon there’s enough on this ’ere for me gran to have some as well? Still, you never know, if I rebait me hook I might get another. They’s bitin’ well today, wouldn’t you say?’

‘That one certainly did,’ Albert said appreciatively. He looked up to where his own rod stuck up out of the sand. ‘Tell you what, Paddy, if I gets a bite you can have that ’an all. But we’d better get your hook rebaited and into the water, to give your fish’s pals a chance to join ’im.’

‘Right you are.’ Paddy shoved his fingers into the fish’s mouth and withdrew the hook, examining it with a grunt of satisfaction. Clearly its sojourn in the fish’s gut had done it no harm, Amy concluded.

The three children emerged from the water and made their way to where Albert’s rod stood in the sand. Amy watched with interest as Paddy rooted around in an old tobacco tin and produced a wriggling grub, which he impaled upon his hook. He ran down to the edge of the sea and cast his line as far as he could, before returning to stick his hazel wand into the sand once more. Then, for the first time it seemed, he looked long and hard at Amy. ‘Oh, Gawd,’ he said in an awestruck voice. ‘What’ll your mam say to this, ’eh? She’ll think I baited me
hook wi’
you
instead of one of me grubs. ’Cept you’d better not tell her it were my fault, ’cos I never asked you to go jumpin’ in the sea and interferin’ wi’ me day’s sport.’ Still staring at Amy, he began to giggle. ‘I wish you could see yourself, girl, you’re enough to make a cat die laughin’.’

Amy, recalled to reality by these rude remarks, glanced down at herself. She was soaked and sandy from halfway down her blouse to the hem of her draggled skirt and knew that, in the excitement of the chase, she had somehow managed to get her hair wet and sandy too. Despite herself, she began to grin. Paddy might be a horrible boy who teased and tormented her, but at least he was honest. It had not been his fault and she did look a sight, she acknowledged the fact. It would be bad enough when she went up the beach to rejoin Mary – she could not imagine what her mother would have said had she been present. However, Isobel was safe at home, no doubt eagerly awaiting news of the coronation. The hour of reckoning, therefore, might be decently delayed until evening. By then, with a bit of luck, she would have dried off and have been able to brush away the sand and to appear at least moderately respectable. She glanced up the beach towards where her sister sat and decided that Mary must have seen what had happened, so hopefully would not chide her for the state she was in.

Albert, beside her, gave her skirt a tweak. ‘Take it off, queen,’ he suggested. ‘If we swish it in the water like Paddy did his fish it’ll get rid of a deal of sand. Better do it now, afore any more folk come walkin’ past.’

Amy, with a sigh, agreed. She began to struggle out of her skirt and presently she and Albert
swished it through the water and then squeezed it as dry as they could before Amy replaced it upon her person. ‘It won’t make much difference,’ she said with a sigh, ‘because when I sit down to have my dinner the sand’ll stick like glue. Still, no one can say we didn’t try.’

When the younger ones went roaring into the sea, Mary and Philip walked back up the beach to where they had left their possessions. As Mary had anticipated, the beach was already filling up and, with so many people about, she did not think it safe to leave things unattended. So she sat down by her string bag and Philip, after only the slightest of hesitations, sat down beside her.

‘I wonder what they’ve hooked?’ he said idly after a moment, looking back towards the sea where the three younger ones seemed to be having a private fight of their own against some monster of the deep. ‘Surely it shouldn’t take three of them to tackle one little plaice?’

‘It might not be a plaice,’ Mary objected, wincing as Albert fell to his knees and was immediately up again, though clearly drenched. ‘I should think it’s a shark, or a whale, judging by the commotion. Oh, Lord save us, Amy’s forgot to kilt up her skirt; she’ll get soaked to the skin all over again! Honest to God, that girl should’ve been a lad, she just doesn’t know how to behave and that’s the truth.’

Philip glanced at her; Mary saw that he had golden-brown eyes with very thick, fair lashes and a dusting of freckles across his rather aquiline nose. ‘Your sister’s a spunky kid. There aren’t many girls who’d jump into the water like that just to save a pal’s fish.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t, for one,’ Mary admitted. ‘I like paddling all right and I might like swimming, if I had a swimming costume, but I wouldn’t go jumping in with all my clothes on.’

Philip turned and looked at her again, his mouth quirking into an engaging grin. He nodded slowly, still smiling at her. ‘No, I guess you wouldn’t plunge fully clothed into the briny,’ he agreed. ‘But if you’ll excuse me saying so, Miss Mary, you’re a young lady, not a kid. And you’ve had responsibilities as the elder, which young Amy won’t ever have. I’m older than Laura and when we’re together I’m responsible for her, so I behave in a more serious fashion, I suppose. Do you feel freer when Amy’s not with you? I’m sure I do when Mother takes Laura off my hands.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Mary said, having thought the matter over. ‘It’s just that . . . that Amy doesn’t think before she acts. She’s not a bad girl, just a thoughtless one. And Dad encourages her. He thinks she’s a spunky kid, too, but Mam doesn’t agree. She’d like Amy to be a real little girl; she says Amy’s neither one thing nor the other. And she’s a real worry to me, acting the way she does. I never know what she’ll do next and that’s the truth of it.’ She had been facing Philip, but now she turned to glance once more at the sea and gave a shriek. ‘Oh, my Gawd, she’ll be drowned for sure. Oh, oh, oh!’ She jumped to her feet and would have run down the beach, but Philip seized her arm and pulled her into a sitting position once more.

‘She’s up again and I think they’ve got the fish,’ he said, as Mary settled herself by his side. ‘It’s a codling, by the looks, and a decent sized one at that. See? Paddy’s got it in his arms, just as though it were
a baby. Oh! It jumped clear back into the sea. Well, will you look at that.’

For several moments the two young people sat and watched, fascinated, as the three children collapsed on the edge of the sea in a whirl of foam, and flailing arms and legs. But fortunately for Mary’s nerves, the battle was a short one and presently Albert, Paddy and Amy came dripping up on to the beach and clustered round Paddy’s fishing gear. ‘They’re rebaiting the hook,’ Philip said wisely. ‘They’ll try for another one now, after such a good start. I say, d’you fancy an apple?’