Phosphorescence (19 page)

There is no sign of the red T-shirt in the heaving waters. I turn to the shore and try to paddle in. It is hopeless, impossible against the quickening tide. I am too far out.

‘Oh my God,' I whimper, not even trying to paddle any more.

There is a thin shout from Freda. She is gesturing further out than I can bear to look. Dave has been swept on. He is treading water, and waving every few strokes. His head bobs, tiny and vulnerable on the swelling sea. Ignoring the empty canoe, Harry turns and paddles towards Dave but makes slow headway.

‘This undertow is so powerful. Dave's got ahead and he's moving fast. I don't know if I can get to him,' he shouts.

‘Just try,' I scream back. ‘We've got to try.'

The wind is roaring in my ears, I can't hear anything but I can see Freda is mouthing something. She has turned her canoe, and is trying to paddle back towards me. She is not moving forward in the water. With utter disbelief, I watch her chuck her oar into the sea and jump in.

‘What are you doing? You'll drown. You're mad!'

It looks as though she has drowned already, because as I speak a wave slaps over her and she disappears. A moment later she comes up in a completely different place, much nearer, gasping, chalk-white with hair sprawled down her face. And again she is submerged. Tears blur my vision, but I
wipe them away furiously. I am witnessing someone drowning. This is what happened to my uncle. This is what my dad sees in his mind when he thinks of James. I look round wildly for Freda. She has not come up where I expected her. I can't see Dave either.

Freda appears further from me again, heading along the shore but about fifty metres out. Her canoe has floated away round the corner. Struggling, I paddle towards her. Her face is in the water, I do not take my eyes from her pink top floating. The rushing roar of the sea fills my ears, and my own voice, whispering over and over, ‘She's going to be all right, she's going to be all right.'

I do not hear the boat engine, or see its looming bulk until I am no more than two waves from it.

Round from the seaward side of the point, dragging Freda's canoe, a fishing smack appears. It is Josh and his dad, Ian, and Billy Lawson coming in from a fishing trip. I am terrified that they are too late. A flare cracks into the sky, I can hear the fizz of the offshore radio and Ian giving urgent instructions.

‘Get the lifeboat dinghy – they won't last more than twenty minutes and I don't know how many there are. I'll send up another flare for you to find us.'

Josh chucks a rope to me. It snakes into the water and lies rippling on the surface for a moment before I grab it and haul myself to the side of the boat. There I cling to the rope with one hand, gesturing with the other.

‘It's not me, it's the others, quickly, please quickly.'

Billy reaches over and lifts me up by my armpits as if I am a small kitten.

He looks hard at me.

‘Are any of you wearing life jackets?'

‘No, and there are three others in the sea, not just me,' I gasp, then collapse, exhausted and overwhelmed, on a seat behind Josh.

Billy mutters something under his breath and moves away to scan the sea for the others. I am so wrung out that even when Josh strips off his weatherproof clothes, and, holding a rope, jumps off the other end of the boat in his shorts and life jacket, I cannot register any emotion at all. Dragging myself to my feet, I see him swimming with the rope towards the pink top, the only part of Freda with any colour in it.

‘She's dead, she's dead,' I sob to Billy. ‘And where are the others? They were there.'

‘We will look for them when we've got this one in. The lifeboat is coming from Salt. It won't be long.'

‘Dave's been in the water for ages already,' I whisper to myself more than anyone else.

‘Christ, this is ever a job for the lifeboat men,' mutters Ian as he begins to haul Josh and the inert form of Freda back towards the boat. ‘We've got to stop them both smacking themselves against the boat,' he says grimly to Billy. The pitching waves slap against the gunwales, and Ian leans right over into the sea, trying to keep the rope taut so Josh and Freda don't hit the side.

Billy leans with him and, after an eternity, Freda is hauled into the boat and Josh is pulled up behind
her. Freda is placed gently on the floor on the wet fishing nets. Billy covers her with his oilskin, Josh crouches over her, shivering, and administers the kiss of life. Nothing happens. A corner of my mind registers that the boat has turned and we are picking up speed, but I cannot risk looking away from Freda. Her skin is blue, and when Josh blows into her mouth, her cheeks swell then deflate again with a little pop. Her eyes are closed. Josh does not stop for a moment, does not hesitate, but pumps and blows, pumps and blows. All I can think is that Dave is still in the water, and Harry is there too. Freda must be gone already. Suddenly she struggles, turns her head and retches, vomiting bile and salt water. She sits up, gagging for breath, and sobs, ‘I'm sorry, it was stupid to jump, but I couldn't stay in the canoe. I was being swept away, I just wanted to get out of the sea.'

I hadn't realized I was crying until I try to answer her.

‘I thought you were trying to drown on purpose.'

Freda shakes her head, and starts to shake uncontrollably.

‘Where's Dave? What are they doing?' she demands, her voice rising hysterically.

Josh wraps a towel around her shoulders.

‘Here, Lola, take her down below deck. Give her some tea from Dad's flask. You'll find a jumper too.'

He opens the hatch into the small cabin, and Freda and I stumble down the steps into the warm, diesel-smelling hold.

‘What about the boys?' Freda is trembling, juddering
like a washing machine. I put both arms round her.

‘They'll be fine,' I soothe. ‘They'll be fine.' I do not believe this, but I have to calm her down.

‘Who will get them?'

‘We will, I suppose.'

I can't tell her that we have rounded Seal Point and are tearing down the long beach where we swam only last night, away from the boys, back towards Salt. I cannot believe it myself, and all my thoughts are whirling through my head, shaping to one dreadful repeated image of a tiny canoe riding huge waves with no one in it.

Freda is silent, and has stopped shaking by the time we reach Salt. We wait on deck while Josh and Billy drop the anchors. The shingle beach is thronged with people, their stricken faces a freakish contrast to the summer dresses and bright T-shirts they are wearing. Little Sadie is holding her mum's hand, pulling her towards the front of the group, waving at me. In response, I try to uncurl my fingers from the blanket I have shrugged around me, but I cannot wave, and she cannot see.

Josh nudges me.

‘Sadie's seen you,' he says. ‘You'll be playing princesses with her again in a minute. Everything will be back to normal then.'

Coming in, with all these people watching, silent and shocked, is the most shaming moment in my life. I have been so stupid, and we have paid such a high price. My dad wades in the shallows for us, and I can hardly look at him I feel so ashamed and so
frightened for the others. I am terrified that he will confirm that they are dead. His pale eyes tell me nothing. He has no reproach in his face, just loving concern.

‘Here we are, girls. Just a few yards to dry land,' he says quietly. He lifts Freda across first and then turns to me. ‘I'm glad you're back,' he says simply.

Freda stares at us in amazement. I think she expected more of a dramatic reunion considering I have been snatched from the jaws of death. I reach to put my arms round Dad's neck and I hug him as tight as I can.

‘Let's get you on to the beach,' says Dad, and we wade out of the sea behind Josh, who has jumped into the water to help secure the boat in the rough sea. Caroline pushes through the crowd.

‘I think this is the moment to lay old ghosts to rest,' she says, and instead of hugging me, or Josh, or even her husband, who is standing, looking sheepish in the shallows in his waders, she hugs Dad. Even more weirdly, he hugs her back and real tears stand in his eyes.

‘Thank you all for this.' He turns to Josh and his dad, clapping his hands on each of their shoulders then pulling them awkwardly together so he is embracing both of them. ‘Thank you. I stand now and forever in your debt,' he says, and both he and Josh's dad get out huge handkerchiefs and blow their noses.

Grandma suddenly appears, fear still draining her face of colour. She cups her hands around my head and looks searchingly at me.

‘Oh, Lola, my dear Lola,' she says. ‘I thought we'd lost you. I must thank the Christies.'

I struggle to free myself; all this gratitude, and Harry and Dave are still missing. I have to tell her.

‘The boys are still out there, and Dave was in the water—'

‘Where are the boys?'

Mr Lascalles is suddenly at the front of the crowd with Pansy and Jessie; they are each holding on to one of his arms, as if he cannot stand without them. His voice is sharp with anxiety. Billy, still on the boat, hears him and shouts an answer.

‘They're coming in now in the lifeboat. They're both all right, I've spoken to the skipper on the radio.'

With a blanket wrapped around me, and Dad's arm steering me through the crowd, I am feeling stronger every second. And light-headed. The orange lifeboat dinghy bouncing on the waves, with the afternoon sun behind it, is a beacon of hope, delivering weedy Dave and Harry back to the land. Mr Lascalles and Pansy and Jessie wade into the water to meet them, with Carl and Pete just behind, offering to piggyback them in. Harry laughs, and jumps off the lifeboat into the shallows, where he greets Josh and they shake hands then hug. Dave is still very weak and coughing a lot, so he is lifted above the water to the shingle beach. No one speaks. It has been too immense an experience for conversation.

Gradually the crowd drifts away, and the grey turbulence of the early afternoon dissolves into a still, hazy summer day. The sea is smooth as glass now, only the low sunlight sending sparks like a shiver
across the blue stillness. It is beautiful and beguiling, beckoning. I know it has already won me back, but I'm not so sure about the others. Only time will tell.

A sea tragedy was narrowly averted this week when freak weather caught a group of young people by surprise. Former local girl Lola Jordan, 14, was canoeing round the Point with companions from the James Ellis Grammar School, Harry Sykes, 17, Freda Low, 14, and Dave Fisher, 15, when the storm blew up. ‘We were paddling on an outgoing tide and we couldn't get in,' explains Lola, who is the daughter of Conservation Warden Richard Jordan. Lola and her schoolmates struggled against ten-foot waves and were heading out over exposed Seal Point, with two of them in the water before rescuers were alerted. They are lucky to be alive.

In an eerie echo of the past, we can reveal that the drama unfolded on exactly the same stretch of water where Richard Jordan's elder brother James was drowned, aged 15, in 1969. On that terrible day James was crewing for Ian Christie, when a similar freak storm blew up and his boat capsized. Ian, knocked unconscious, was washed up on Seal Point, where Jack Jordan rescued him, sailing with expert precision over Seal Point as it was submerged beneath the tide. His own son James's body was recovered several days later beyond Salt. History has gone full circle today; it was Ian Christie, now 50, who with his son Josh, 17, performed the courageous rescue of the girls today. The boys, Harry and Dave, were brought to safety by the lifeboat crew just moments after the girls had been taken on board Christie's boat
The Little Princess
.

The two families, who have lived in the area for decades, with Jack Jordan presiding over the sailing club until his death this year,
are unanimous in agreeing that the rift created by the terrible sorrow of that long-ago tragedy has been well and truly healed today.

The parents of the James Ellis Grammar School children have shown their gratitude by setting up a trust to fund a full-time coastguard on the Point. There are plans to start a summer school too, to bring urban children to the sea so they can learn to respect this unfamiliar environment. Josh Christie is hotly tipped as the best man to run the project.

We don't exactly abandon the field trip after this, instead we all go and stay at my house for the next two nights and Caroline Christie and Grandma cook us endless meals. No one talks much, but the atmosphere is full of relief. On Monday morning I get up early because we are leaving for London today. Cactus and I walk along the coast path towards Hinkley Marshes, and the noise of the gulls and the sea whispering is familiar and safe in the morning sun. I sit on the sand by the water's edge while Cactus careers through the samphire behind me and I am almost floating with thankfulness that everything has turned out all right.

I can't believe now that I thought I was going to die, or that the others were in such danger. It wasn't even surprising to me when Josh and Ian arrived in their boat, but actually it was a miracle, and we would have drowned if they had not come at that moment. Dad has been amazing. I thought he would be so angry because we did everything we shouldn't, but in fact I think he is so overcome with gladness, and now he has made up with Caroline and Ian. They came for supper last night, and Grandma was here too. A
friendship that seemed impossible just a few days ago is suddenly normal and I saw Grandma wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, and Caroline hugging her and it was like a weight off my shoulders that I didn't know I was carrying.

At supper I sat between Josh and Harry and they both teased me, but Josh was like a brother, the brother I always wanted. Harry, though, is something else. I'm not sure what yet, but it's exciting and I don't think it's just a holiday thing. Maybe we are going out together. I'm not sure, but there's time to find out and the future looks exciting. I'm glad to be going back to London with him and all the others. Staitheley is here for me, with all my past, and I have learned that I can have both worlds now.