White Dolphin (8 page)

Felix snorts a laugh. ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he says. ‘I just can’t see the point going up and down in a stupid boat.’ He walks away in his short jerky steps to sit in his control chair and starts tapping at the keyboard.

I smile because he hasn’t fooled me. ‘It’s no game out there,’ I say. ‘When the wind is screaming in your face and the waves are coming over the sides, there are no second chances. You can’t just die and start again.’

Felix’s fingers hammer the keys, but I know he’s listening.

‘Just how brave are you,’ I say, ‘when the real world is out of your control?’

Felix’s fingers stop tapping.

I shut the door and smile, leaving Felix and deep silence in the room.

‘
I
’ve put a flask of coffee on the side to take and some saffron buns as well,’ says Aunt Bev. ‘Let’s hope it makes Mr Andersen want to buy
Moana
.’

Dad’s fishing tackle, spare life jacket, and a bucket of bait are piled by the kitchen door. I squash the flask inside the canvas bag with the rest of the picnic and place the yellow buns on top. Dad’s already packed some pasties, crisps, and a large bottle of lemonade and paper cups.

‘He’ll be expecting sushi, not pasties,’ I say.

Dad looks up. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing.’ I slide down against the door frame and push my foot against the corner of the bag. I hear the crack of the plastic cups and feel my foot press against the soft bag of pasties. I want the meat and onions to split through the bag and stick against the thermos and the crisps. I pick a currant from one of the buns and roll it in my fingers.

‘Leave that.’ Aunt Bev glares at me above her magazine. ‘Mr Andersen won’t want half-eaten buns.’

Daisy is cutting pictures out from magazines and catalogues, and sticking them on paper. She stops cutting, scissors in mid-air, and frowns. ‘His son’s the one from the café, isn’t he?’

I nod. ‘He’s the new boy in our school.’

Daisy’s frown deepens. ‘There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?’

‘You’re right there,’ I say, ‘he’s rude and I don’t like him.’

Dad turns the cold tap and watches water swirl into an old plastic bottle. ‘Mr Andersen told me Felix has cerebral palsy,’ he says.

Aunt Bev looks up and sucks air sharply through her teeth. ‘I’ve just been reading about that in my
Pregnancy
magazine. It happens if a baby doesn’t get enough oxygen to the brain before it’s born.’ She covers her belly with her hand and holds up the magazine. ‘There’s a story in here about a girl with it. She can’t walk or talk. Stuck in a wheelchair she is, for life.’

‘That boy’s not in a wheelchair,’ says Daisy.

Dad turns off the tap and caps the bottle.

‘I think it affects some worse than others.’

Aunt Bev closes the magazine and shakes her head. ‘I pity his poor parents.’

‘Me too,’ I say. It’s the first time Aunt Bev and I have agreed on something. ‘I don’t know how they can stand him.’

‘Kara!’ Aunt Bev frowns at me. ‘You shouldn’t say that. He’s . . .’ She pauses as if she can’t find the words she’s looking for. ‘You should feel sorry for him, is all I’m saying. He’s not like you or me.’

I pick the picnic bag up and walk out of the door. ‘Doesn’t seem to stop him being rude,’ I say.

Dad’s standing inside
Moana
, pulling the mainsail up the mast. ‘We’ll have to put a reef in,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit fresh out there.’

I look out through the gap in the harbour walls. The sea beyond is lumpy and flecked with white. ‘It’s not that bad,’ I say. ‘We’ve been out in worse with full sails.’

Dad runs a fold along the bottom of the sail to make the mainsail smaller. ‘We’re not racing,’ he says. ‘We’re giving Mr Andersen a gentle trip out.’

‘We should charge him for it,’ I say. ‘He’s got enough money.’

I heave the picnic bag and swimming bag and spare towels into the boat and push them into the locker under the foredeck. I tie the bucket with the bait around the mast base to stop it rolling across the deck as we sail. I want it to be just me today. Just me and Dad. I don’t want anyone else on our boat.

‘Here’s Mr Andersen,’ says Dad.

I look up to see Mr Andersen walking along the pontoon followed by Mrs Andersen and Felix. I’m surprised they’ve come along to see him off. The wooden boards of the pontoon bounce with their footsteps and I see Felix stumble to his knees. His mother tries to help him up but he brushes her away.

‘All set?’ says Mr Andersen. He puts his bag beside the boat.

Dad nods. ‘It should be fun out there today.’

Mr Andersen glances back at Felix. ‘I hope it’s still OK with you, but Felix has changed his mind. He’d like to come along too. I’ve borrowed a life jacket for him.’

‘That’s fine with me,’ says Dad.

Felix glares at me and looks away.

I climb out on to the pontoon to take Mr Andersen’s bag.

Mrs Andersen’s scarf flaps across her face and she pulls it free. ‘I really don’t think this is a great idea, Matt,’ she says. ‘It’s too windy today.’

‘It’s fine,’ says Mr Andersen. ‘What d’you think, Jim?’

Dad looks up at the flag on the chandlery. It’s flying full out, rippling in the wind. The top branches in the tree beyond are swaying. ‘It’s a force five, I reckon,’ he says. ‘But I checked the weather report and it’s going to settle down later.’

I dig my hands into my pockets and take a sly glance at Felix. ‘Looks like a force six or seven to me,’ I say.

Mrs Andersen wraps her coat around her and folds her arms. ‘I don’t think you should go, Felix.’

Mr Andersen turns to her. ‘But, Sarah . . .’

She lowers her head next to his, but I can still hear them. The wind is blowing this way.

‘Anything could happen out there,’ she says. ‘What if you capsize, what then?’

Mr Andersen runs his hands through his hair. ‘Nothing’s going to happen, Sarah.’

‘Look, Matt, buy the damn boat if you must,’ she snaps. I glance at Dad and I know he can hear them too. ‘But don’t expect either of us to step foot in it.’

‘I want to go, Mum.’ Felix is grim faced, staring at the water. ‘I’ll be fine.’

I pull my life jacket on, zip it up and pull the Velcro cords tight. I can’t imagine Felix enjoying this trip.

Mrs Andersen glares at Felix. ‘What’s changed your mind?’

Felix doesn’t take his eyes off the water. ‘I want to go.’

Mrs Andersen spins round to her husband. ‘Have you got your mobile on you at least?’

‘Yes, Sarah,’ he says. He puts his arms out to hug her but she walks away. The thud of her footsteps on the wooden boards jars through the bare soles of my feet.

I watch Mr Andersen fasten Felix’s life jacket and help him into the boat. Felix struggles to swing his left leg over. One leg is stiff and locked straight out and his arm is bent and curled.
Moana
sways underneath him and his dad catches him as he tumbles forward.

‘You might find it easier to sit up at the front,’ says Dad. ‘There’s more space and there’s a handhold.’

Felix pulls himself up on the seat and grips the brass handle with his good hand. His knuckles turn white and I feel a twinge of guilt run through me. I hadn’t actually thought how hard this could be for him.

I untie the mooring rope and push
Moana
away from the pontoon. Dad sets her sails and we slide out between the harbour walls.

The first wave hits us side on and I see Felix lurch sideways. He stares down at the floor and presses himself against the side, bracing himself for the next wave. He doesn’t look up until we are far out in the bay. It’s less choppy, but an ocean swell rolls in from the Atlantic in grey green hills of waves. Mr Andersen is leaning back, smiling, the sun shining on his face. He holds the jib sheet in his hand, keen to help Dad sail
Moana
. But Felix is looking at his feet again.

And he’s a sickly shade of green.

I slide over beside him. ‘It helps if you look out of the boat,’ I say.

Felix looks up briefly and scowls at me. ‘I’m not interested in the view.’

I lean back and stare out to sea. ‘What I mean is, if you fix your eyes on the horizon, you won’t feel so sick.’

Felix nods and looks out beyond the boat.

‘We’ll check our lobster pots, if that’s OK by you, Mr Andersen,’ shouts Dad, ‘then we’ll go on to Gull Rock where we can stop for lunch.’

‘That’s fine by us,’ Mr Andersen shouts back. He lets the jib out a little as Dad turns away from the wind. ‘How many pots do you and your dad have, Kara?’

‘About twenty.’

‘Do you catch much?’

‘Enough,’ I say. I turn my back on him, fold my arms on
Moana
’s side and look out to sea. I want to see the dolphins again. I want to see them leaping through our bow waves.
Moana
’s wake runs in lace ribbons out behind us. The sunlight sparkles in the sea like stars. Soon we won’t have this. We won’t have any of this, any more.

We round the headland and pass along the rugged coastline of rocky inlets and deep shelving coves. Bright orange buoys of crab and lobster pots bob on the water marking the lobster pots beneath. A man in his boat waves to us. I see the initials TL on his buoys. It’s Ted from the Merry Mermaid checking his pots. I remember painting Dad’s initials on our buoys. I painted flowers on them too, big white ones. Dad said he never heard the last of it down the pub. They called him the flower pot man for months. They teased him too, because Mum made him use traditional withy pots made from willow, not the modern metal and mesh nylon ones.

Dad spills some wind from the sails and we slow down towards the mouth of the rocky inlet where we keep our lobster pots. Two ravens croak from the clifftop. Waves slap against the rocks and gulls wheel and scream in a tight circle above the cove. I crane my neck to look, because there must be something there to pull the gulls and ravens in. A buoy with painted flowers bobs loose on the water like a small child’s lost balloon. It trails a blue rope in a long line out behind it.

Suddenly I feel sick deep inside, because something here feels so wrong.

A roar of engines cuts through the air, and a puff of black smoke drifts up into the sky. An orange ribbed inflatable bursts from our cove. It rears over a wave and smacks down into the water sending up spumes of flying spray.

It passes close and slews in a tight arc around us.
Moana
rocks in its wake, and I have to put my arm out not to fall. I see Dougie Evans at the wheel, a grim smile on his face. Jake holds up his hand, his finger and thumb out in a loser sign.

But my heart is thumping in my chest because Jake’s words repeat over and over again in my head.

‘
Soon, you and your dad will have nothing left
.’

T
he small inlet is empty of our buoys, almost.

Two more orange buoys float against the rocks, trailing cut ropes across the water. I see our initials on them, and the flowers. There’s one buoy floating in the water near us. Dad hauls it in and pulls up the rope. But I can see it’s coming up too quickly. Dad pulls on the rope, hand over hand, not coiling it but spilling it in a tangled mess inside the boat. The lobster pot comes up over the side, a wreck of smashed-up wicker. The door has been wrenched off, and the curved funnel of the trap has been cut apart. It’s useless now.

Dad just stares at the mangled mess in his hands. ‘That’s all of them gone, Kara,’ he says.

I stare out to the orange rib inflatable disappearing into the distance, spumes of white spray flying in its wake.

Mr Andersen is sitting forward, his face a tight frown. ‘What happened here?’

‘Let’s call the police, Dad,’ I say.

Dad shakes his head. ‘No point. There’s no proof is there? It’s his word against mine.’

‘But, Dad . . .’

Dad shoves the remains of the pot on the seat next to me. He forces a smile to his face and turns to Mr Andersen. ‘Let’s go for lunch, shall we?’

He pushes the tiller over hard, the boom swings out and the sail snaps tight.
Moana
lurches forward.