Loe raamatut: «Footprints in the Sand»

CHAPTER THREE

I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD when my whole world changed—and I remember it so clearly.

Alone and terrified, I had pressed my face against the cottage window, watching the storm unleash its fury on the bay. The glass felt cold, but I pressed my cheek harder against it, fighting the tears that welled up. “Be brave,” my dad had said, so I mustn’t cry.

He was brave, my dad. In fact, he was the bravest person I knew. Every day—if the tide was in—he would walk down to the jetty before dawn, no matter what the weather and no matter what the other fishermen said, to take his boat across the bay into the open sea beyond. Daffyd went with him, of course, but old Mr. Mac, our next-door neighbor, said that Daffyd was even dafter than my dad. He did have a funny look, I supposed, kind of gormless really, but I don’t think Mr. Mac can have meant it because Daffyd was his son.

My dad wasn’t gormless; my dad was handsome and smart. He could take his boat out in the wildest storm and come back safely. I think he kind of liked storms.

“Got to get those fish in, darlin’,” he would say if I woke up when he kissed me goodbye. And this morning it had been the same as always. So why was I here with my face against the window and big fat tears slowly squeezing their way out? Because I had heard old Mr. Mac shouting, that was why.

I heard my dad’s voice first, soft in my ears as my eyes opened in the half light.

“Sweet dreams, darlin’. Mrs. Mac will watch out for you.”

His lips had brushed my cheek, I heard his boots tramping loudly down the narrow wooden staircase and then the back door closed with a thud. The wind was rising; I could hear it from my bed, whipping around the house and rattling the windowpanes. I curled up tight beneath my blankets and wished it was morning and my dad was coming back.

Mr. Mac was shouting. I could hear his voice clearly even though the wind was starting to howl. The wind was always howling around Jenny Brown’s Bay.

“You might be crazy enough to go out this morning, but you’re not taking Daffyd.”

My dad laughed, just like he always did. My dad laughed at everything.

“You’re going soft in your old age, Billy Mac,” he said. “Let the lad decide. He’s old enough to make up his own mind.”

I crept out of my bed despite the cold, and raced to the window, peering out into the eerie light of the half-hidden moon to see the three of them standing on the narrow pathway that led down to the shore. Mr. Mac was waving his fist; I’d never seen him so cross. Then suddenly the moon disappeared behind a dark cloud and when it came back there was just him, standing all alone, staring out across the bay. His shoulders drooped and he looked smaller somehow. I think I knew then that something terrible was about to happen.

I wasn’t scared of being alone in our cottage. Mrs. Mac watched out for me. All I had to do was press the numbers on the phone that my dad had written out for me and she would come to tuck me back up into bed again. I didn’t want to be safe in bed, though, when my dad was out on his boat in the storm, so I just waited with my face pressed against the glass, staring out at the angry sea.

After a while, I didn’t even feel the cold because my whole body had gone numb, but still I waited. The day was slowly creeping in, throwing a pale light on the crashing sea. Furious black clouds rolled across the sky and the wind howled, but I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, watching for my dad’s boat to come home. Sometimes he would flash a light for me as he sailed into the bay, but no light came.

I don’t know how it happened but I must have closed my eyes because when I opened them again it was as if I’d moved into another world, a beautiful world where storms didn’t turn the sea into a crazy beast.

The bay was smooth and calm, autumn sunshine made the water sparkle like crystal, and the sky was a clear pale blue. Perhaps my dad’s boat had come home while my eyes were shut. But I could see Mr. Mac down on the shore and he still seemed kind of small so I knew that he was sad. He was looking out at the vast expanse of shimmering sand left by the tide.

I tried to move my hands but my fingers were achingly numb and suddenly I became aware of just how cold I was. Everything chattered, from my teeth to my toes. I think that maybe even my heart was chattering because it felt all fluttery and weird.

Where was my dad? The question rose inside me like a roar. Misery overpowered me and my whole body became one big tear as I started to scream.

* * *

“SHUSH... NOW SHUSH...”

Mrs. Mac’s voice was in my ears, her warm hands wrapping me in a blanket, lifting me, carrying me down the stairs and into her house. I cuddled against her comforting bulk, my screams softening into a bubbling mess of tears as I breathed in her familiar scent of fish and roses.

“No sign?” Her voice sounded brittle and strange. I recognized the big man who filled her tiny living room. He was called Ted and he lived in a cottage at the end of our lane. Usually he was all smiley and nice but today his round face was crumpled into a frown. He shook his dark head slowly, circling his hat around and around in his hands.

“Not yet.”

His voice was very sad and when he nodded at me I saw that his blue eyes were sad, too.

“Is the lass all right?”

Mrs. Mac sighed. “Just cold and scared,” she told him. “Have you seen Billy?”

He shrugged, frowning. “Not for a while. He and Joey went off along the coast.”

“He’s gone hasn’t he, Ted—my Daffyd?”

When her voice started to rise, I slipped down from her arms and ran to hide behind the sofa.

“That Mad Mick Malone has finally done himself in and taken my boy with him.... I hope he rots in hell.”

“Now, now, Mary.”

Ted’s voice was soft and kind, and he placed an awkward hand on Mrs. Mac’s plump arm. “We don’t know that yet. Don’t give up hope. Now why don’t I get the little lass some breakfast?”

My tummy rumbled as I crept out of my hiding place.

“You nip next door and find her some clothes,” he suggested firmly.

Mrs. Mac looked up at him, then looked at me with a funny expression in her faded eyes before ambling off to do his bidding.

I didn’t think I’d be able to eat anything at all but the bread dipped in fried egg he made me tasted so good that I ate the whole plateful. Suddenly I felt sure my dad would come back after all. He knew the sea too well to let it get him, like it sometimes got other people. Mr. Mac’s brother was drowned in the sea; I think that was why he always looked so sad. Mrs. Mac looked sad now, too. Her face had gone gray and she ignored me when I went to try to sit on her lap. Ted crouched down beside me, his big knees sticking up past his elbows.

“Just leave her be for now, lass,” he said. “Things will work out, you’ll see.”

I looked past him toward the window, my eyes wide as I tried not to cry. “Be brave,” my dad had said, but what if “things” didn’t work out? Suddenly I didn’t feel big enough to be brave.

“When will my dad come back?”

My voice sounded shaky and I gripped the sides of my chair really hard. Ted coughed, covering his mouth with his hand as he glanced at Mrs. Mac.

“We’ll just have to wait and see, lass,” he told me sadly.

Mrs. Mac’s eyes were like pieces of glass and her voice was sharp, too, as if all her softness had suddenly turned into ice.

“There’s nothing to wait for,” she said. “You know as well as I do that they’ve both gone for good.”

Ted stood up, his shoulders bowed and his head almost touching the ceiling.

“Now, Mary,” he began. “Let’s not jump to...”

I didn’t find out what we shouldn’t jump to, though, for a gust of wind rushed through the house as the front door burst open. There was Mr. Mac. His stooped figure was outlined by sunshine, his white hair was all blown up into a funny shape and his mouth was working but no sounds were coming out. Clean salty air filled the room, the cries of gulls filled my head and I felt a great big sadness deep, deep down inside me. Perhaps the gulls were crying for my dad. Oh, how I wished he would come home.

“Is my dad back?” I cried, but Mr. Mac didn’t seem to hear me, then he stooped so far down that I thought he was going to fall.

Ted rushed over to help him across the small room and into his own chair by the fireside. I could tell by his face that the answer to my question was no, and so could Mrs. Mac. She seemed to have gone completely frozen now. I thought that perhaps she should get closer to the fire, too, and then she might go soft again; I liked her better when she was soft.

“Mick’s boat has been washed up on the rocks down the coast.”

Mr. Mac’s voice was so low and kind of croaky that it didn’t really sound like him at all, but I felt a great big jolt of excitement. My dad’s boat had been found! That must be good. But Ted’s eyes narrowed and I saw his jaw clench as he glanced across at me.

“Any sign of them?” His voice was low and urgent.

Mr. Mac’s face was very sad and he shook his head slowly from side to side.

“No one could have survived that storm...not even Mad Mick himself.”

I think I became invisible then because no one seemed to see me. Ted picked up his coat and headed for the door.

“I’ll go and see what I can find out,” he said. “And try not to worry.”

“Worry?” Mr. Mac murmured as the front door banged shut again. “It’s well beyond that.”

He turned to look at his wife, his eyes all wet and sad. “We’ve lost him, love,” he told her. “Our Daffyd’s gone.”

Suddenly she seemed to melt, crumpling onto the floor. But Mr. Mac didn’t go to help her; he just sat staring into space.

“There’s nothing left for us now,” he said

* * *

I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG we waited for someone to come. Mr. Mac didn’t seem able to get out of his chair and Mrs. Mac still lay on the floor, so I found a blanket and put it around her. It was a red-and-green checked blanket, her best one. I hoped she wouldn’t mind it being on the floor. Then I went and curled up next to the fire but it was getting lower so I tried to put on a log from the big brass box on the hearth. That only seemed to make it worse, though, so I decided to go and look for Ted.

The sun was so bright across the bay that I had to shade my eyes. It sparkled on the rippling water and glittered across the smooth expanse of sand, sand with no footprints at all. I searched along the shoreline but there was no sign of Ted anywhere, so I sat down and took off my shoes and socks. Sometimes, when my dad and me went for one of our walks along the beach, he would take off his shoes, too, and we would run together, right out to the edge of the sea. Now I looked down the coast to where I thought his boat might be and a big wave of loneliness stopped my breath. What if he never came back, what if we could never ever walk on the beach together again? I shook my head to get rid of the thought. My dad always came back.

I pretended he was right beside me as I stepped determinedly across the sand, feeling my bare toes dig deliciously into its crumbly surface. Ahead of me the sea glistened, a silver strip, way, way out near the sky, and I set off toward it, stopping sometimes to tread up and down until the sand beneath my feet went all soft and squishy. Then I had to jump out quickly in case it turned into quicksand and sucked me down forever. But the wet sand squelching between my toes made me feel much better, even though it was a bit cold.

I don’t know how I lost my shoes. A cloud rolled across the sun just as my feet got really cold, so I went to put them on but they were gone. I had walked almost to the edge of the sea and when I looked back to where our row of cottages nestled beneath the cliff they seemed a long way off, so I pretended to myself that my dad was right beside me as I walked back. However hard I tried, though, there was no one there, and my feet were becoming so numb that I couldn’t feel my toes at all. Eventually, when I just couldn’t walk anymore, I sat down on the huge stretch of lonely sand and started to cry.

I heard the siren blast out across the bay; an ear-splitting sound that brought me sharply to my senses. My dad had warned me about the tide so many times—“get off the sand when you hear that sound,” he used to say, and it felt to me as though he was right there speaking to me now, so I stood up again and began trudging toward the grassy shore.

I saw the white wave rushing at me around the other side of the bay. It didn’t look so dangerous, and anyway I could always swim. I was a good swimmer. I stared at it, mesmerized, wondering if I could outrun it. Fear prickled, my legs refused to work and then firm hands plucked me from the sand, swinging me high. My tears turned into a delighted shout—my dad had come to get me. I knew he’d never let me down.

“Now whatever are you doing out here all alone, lass?” came Ted’s voice. “And where are your shoes?”

A great loneliness welled up inside me, a pain that almost split my heart wide-open, and I went numb because suddenly I knew that my dad was gone forever.

I wanted Mrs. Mac, wanted to feel her plump arms enfold me, wanted her to hold me close against her big soft chest and wanted to hear her gentle voice telling me that everything was going to be all right.

“I want to go home,” I wailed as Ted swung me up to sit on his shoulders.