Moominpappa at Sea (18 page)

AT dusk, the fisherman had a feeling that the beautiful big waves were coming. He dragged his boat high up the point and turned it over, and bound up his fishing-rods. Then he crept into his little house and curled himself up so that he looked like a wrinkled little ball. He lay there and allowed perfect solitude to surround him.

Of all winds the south-wester was his favourite. It had really settled in to blow and had not died down that evening at all. It was an autumn south-wester and could go on for weeks and weeks until the waves became high grey mountains heaving round the islands.

The fisherman sat in his house watching the sea swell. It was so marvellous not to have to care about a blessed thing. No one to talk and no one to ask questions, and no one to feel at all sorry for. Only the
mystery and unfathomable vastness of the sea and the sky flooding over him and past him that could never disappoint him.

It was nearly dark when his perfect solitude was destroyed by Moomintroll coming over the slippery rocks. Moomintroll waved, made a loud noise and finally started to bang on the window. He shouted as loud as he could that Moominmamma was lost. The fisherman smiled and shook his head. The window-pane was much too thick to hear anything.

Moomintroll staggered on in the wind, waded back across the point through the breakers and went towards the heather to search there.

Moomintroll could hear his father calling, and he could see the hurricane lamp swinging to and fro as Moominpappa groped his way over the rock. The island was restless and uneasy, full of strange whispers and cries, and as Moomintroll ran he was sure he could feel the ground moving beneath his paws.

‘Mamma’s vanished,’ he thought. ‘She was so lonely, she just disappeared.’

Little My sat huddled up among the stones. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the stones are moving.’

‘I don’t care,’ cried Moomintroll. ‘Mamma’s lost!’

‘Mammas don’t get lost as easily as all that,’ said Little My. ‘You can always find them in a corner somewhere if you only look. I’m going to have a nap before the whole island starts to slide away. Mark my words, there’s going to be a devilish to-do here before long!’

The hurricane lamp was over by the black pool, and Moomintroll went over to it. Moominpappa turned round, holding the lamp in the air.

‘I do hope she hasn’t fallen in…’

‘It’s all right, Mamma can swim,’ said Moomintroll.

They stood in silence for a moment, looking at each other. The sea thundered on the lighthouse-rock.

‘By the way,’ said Moominpappa. ‘Where have you been living all this time?’

‘Oh, just here and there,’ Moomintroll muttered, looking in the other direction.

‘I’ve had so much to see to,’ said Moominpappa vaguely.

Moomintroll could hear the stones turn themselves over. It was a strange, hard sound. ‘I’m going to look in the thicket,’ he said.

But just then two candles appeared in the window of the lighthouse. Moominmamma had come home.

When they came into the room she was sitting at the table making a towel.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ exclaimed Moominpappa.

‘Me?’ said Moominmamma innocently. ‘I was just taking a little stroll to get some air.’

‘But you mustn’t frighten us like that,’ said Moominpappa. ‘You must remember that we’re used to your being here when we come home in the evening.’

‘That’s just it,’ Moominmamma sighed. ‘But one needs a change sometimes. We take everything too much for granted, including each other. Isn’t that true, dearest?’

Moominpappa stared doubtfully at her, but she just laughed and went on sewing. So he went over to the calendar and made a cross on it to show that it was Friday. Below it he wrote: ‘Wind – force 5’.

Moomintroll thought that the picture of the sea-horse had changed somehow. The real sea wasn’t as blue as that, and the moon was a little overdone. He sat down at the table, and whispered as softly as he could: ‘Mamma. I’m living in a glade in the thicket.’

‘Are you?’ said Moominmamma. ‘Is it nice there?’

‘Yes, very. I thought perhaps that you might like to come and see it sometime.’

‘I’d love to,’ said Moominmamma. ‘When will you take me there?’

Moomintroll looked round quickly, but Moominpappa was deep in his exercise-book. Then he whispered: ‘Now. Straight away. Tonight.’

‘Ye–es,’ said Moominmamma. ‘But wouldn’t it be nicer if we all went together in the morning?’

‘It wouldn’t be the same thing,’ said Moomintroll.

Moominmamma nodded her head and went on sewing.

Moominpappa wrote in his exercise-book: ‘Some things may change at night. For investigation: what does the sea do at night? Observations: my island is quite different in the dark because of (
a
) certain curious sounds, and (
b
) certain unmistakable movements.’

Moominpappa lifted his pencil, hesitating for a moment. Then he continued: ‘Can strong emotional disturbance in a person transfer itself to his surroundings? Example: I was really very upset because we couldn’t find Mamma. Investigate this.’

He read through what he had written, and tried to come to some conclusion. But he couldn’t, so he gave it up and pottered over to his bed.

Before he pulled the blanket over his head, he said: ‘Make sure you turn the lamp out properly before you go to bed. We don’t want it to smell.’

‘Of course, dearest,’ said Moominmamma.

When Moominpappa had gone to sleep, Moomintroll took the hurricane lamp and guided Moominmamma across the island. She stopped in the heather and listened.

‘Is it always like this at night?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it does make you feel a little uneasy at night,’ Moomintroll said. ‘But you don’t want to let that worry you. It’s only the island. You see, it wakes up at night just when we’re all asleep.’

‘I see,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Is that what it is.’

Moomintroll led the way through the main entrance to his glade. From time to time he looked round to make sure that Moominmamma was still following. She got stuck in the branches, but somehow she managed to reach the glade.

‘So this is where you live!’ she exclaimed. ‘How lovely it is here!’

‘The roof has lost most of its leaves,’ Moomintroll explained. ‘But you should see it when it’s green. It looks just like a cave at the moment, with the lamp shining.’

‘Yes it does, doesn’t it,’ said Moominmamma. ‘We ought to bring a mat and a little box to sit on…’ She looked up and saw the stars and the clouds sailing past. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘sometimes I get a feeling that this island is moving, with us on it. We’re drifting somewhere…’

‘Mamma,’ said Moomintroll suddenly. ‘I’ve met the sea-horses, but they don’t seem to be interested in me at all. I only wanted to run along the beach beside them, and laugh with them, they’re so beautiful…’

Moominmamma nodded her head. ‘I don’t really think it’s possible to be friends with a sea-horse,’ she said gravely. ‘It’s not worth while being disappointed with them. I think one is only meant to feel happy when one just looks at them in the way that one looks at pretty birds or beautiful scenery.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Moomintroll.

They listened to the wind blowing through the thicket. Moomintroll had quite forgotten the Groke.

‘I’m sorry I’ve nothing to offer you,’ said Moomin-troll.

‘We’ve time for that tomorrow,’ said Moominmamma. ‘We can have a little party in here, and the others can come too if they want to. Well, it was nice to see where you live. Now I think I shall go back to the lighthouse.’

After he had taken Moominmamma home, Moomintroll put out the hurricane lamp. He wanted to be alone. The wind was getting up. The darkness, the thundering of
the sea, and something that Moominmamma had said, made him feel safe.

He came to the place where the rock fell away towards the black pool. He could hear the sound of the water splashing at the bottom of the cliff, but he didn’t stop. He strolled on, feeling as light as a balloon and not the least bit sleepy.

And then he saw her. The Groke had come right up on to the island and she was nosing around below the lighthouse-rock. There she was, shuffling up and down, sniffing in the heather, and staring short-sightedly all round her. Then she wandered off towards the swamp.

‘She’s looking for me,’ thought Moomintroll. ‘But she might as well take it easy. I’m not going to light the lamp, it takes too much paraffin.’

He stood still for a moment, watching her wander forlornly over the island.

‘She can dance tomorrow night,’ he said to himself with a feeling of kindly indulgence. ‘But not just now. I feel like staying at home tonight.’

So he turned his back on the Groke and took a round-about route back to his glade.

Moomintroll woke at dawn with a feeling of panic. He was shut in. He was suffocating inside his sleeping-bag. Something was holding him down and he couldn’t get his paws out. Everything felt upside down and he was surrounded by a curious brown light and a strange smell, as though he was deep down in the earth.

At last he managed to loosen the zip of his sleeping-bag. A cloud of soil and pine-needles was whirling round him, the whole world seemed changed, and he felt utterly lost. Everywhere, brown roots were creeping along the ground and right over his sleeping bag. The trees weren’t actually moving now, but in the darkness they had moved away from above his head. The whole forest had pulled up its roots and stepped over him just as though he was a stone. There was the match-box just where it always was and next to it the bottle of blackcurrant juice. But the glade had gone – it just wasn’t there any more. The tunnels he had made had all grown over again. He seemed to be in a primeval forest, fleeing with the trees, creeping along the ground, dragging his sleeping-bag. He had to hold on to it because it was a very fine sleeping-bag, and, besides, it had been given to him as a present.

He caught sight of the hurricane lamp. It was hanging in the tree where he had put it, but the tree had moved.

Moomintroll sat down and screamed for Little My at the top of his voice. She answered immediately. She
gave a long series of signals in a voice that sounded like the clarion calls of a very small trumpet, or a buoy far out at sea. Moomintroll started to crawl in the direction of the sound.

He came out into the daylight and the wind blew right in his face. He got up, his legs shaking, and looked at Little My with a feeling of intense relief. He thought that for once she was almost pretty.

A few of the smaller bushes which had pulled their roots out of the ground without any difficulty were already lying tangled and confused in the heather some way off. The swampy patch had sunk right into the ground and looked like a deep green ravine.

‘What’s happening?’ Moomintroll cried. ‘Why are they pulling up their roots like that? I don’t understand it.’

‘They’re scared stiff,’ said Little My, looking at him right between the eyes. ‘They’re so scared that every little pine-needle is standing on end. They’re even more scared than you are! If I didn’t know that in fact it’s the other way round, I should think that the Groke had been here. Eh?’