The Crossing of Ingo (27 page)

We come closer. It’s a young male dolphin, caught by his pectoral fins. He must have struggled and struggled until he drowned. There are gashes in his skin where the net has cut.

The dead dolphin lies on his back. His mouth is slack and the eye that we can see looks milky.

“He has not been dead long,” says Seiliko. Her voice is harsh with distress. “The fish have not come to him yet.”

“Can we free him? Faro, could we cut the net?”

“We have nothing to cut it with,” says Faro, staring at the dead dolphin.

“Humans have been here,” says Seiliko as if that’s all there is to be said.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You did not put the net here, Sapphire,” says Elvira.

“But humans did.”

The dead dolphin and the net sway a little in the current. I
wish we could cut him free. If we had a knife or even a sharp shell …

“His body understands that we can do nothing for it,” says Seiliko. “His spirit is free to ride the waves.”

I wish I could believe that too. The dolphin lolls there, so dead and so helpless.

“We must get away from this place,” says Seiliko.

I’m glad to go, but I can’t help looking back over my shoulder until the dead dolphin becomes a shadow again, and then disappears.

Seiliko knows where the sperm whales are. They were logging not far from what she calls the Great Land. One more day’s journey, she says, will take us there.

Seiliko says nothing more about the dead dolphin, and nor does anyone else, but the memory of it hangs over us all. I’ve known for a long time about dolphins getting caught in nets and drowning there. But knowing is not the same as seeing it with your own eyes. I feel heavy, sad and responsible. The dolphins and Faro and Elvira don’t seem to blame us, but in their hearts maybe they do.

The journey seems endless. I am longing for night to come so that I can sleep, and maybe then the image of the dead dolphin will leave my mind. The sun is low in the sky now, and it feels as if we’re travelling straight into the sunset. My eyes
dazzle until I can hardly keep them open. Even Seiliko must be growing weary. I listen to the hiss of water curling away behind us, and to the scream of seabirds when we rise above the surface. I don’t really believe that we’re ever going to see land. The ocean stretches endlessly ahead of us, and endlessly behind …

I must have fallen asleep. I open my eyes. We are logging on the surface. Swell moves beneath the skin of the water, and moonlight shines on the black humps of the three other dolphins. Everyone’s resting. Dolphins don’t sleep deeply; they drowse for half an hour or so, but on some level they’re always alert to danger. I’ve been asleep for a long time. I stretch one leg and then another. Water clucks softly around Seiliko’s body. I don’t want to wake her but I feel much too alert and alive myself to stay still. Maybe she won’t notice if I slip off her back and go and see if Conor’s awake. Stealthily, I slide one leg over Seiliko’s back.

“Where are you going, Sapphire?” she asks me, her voice the quietest possible outbreath of clicks and whistles.

“Oh! I thought you were asleep, Seiliko.” I raise my head to look around. Beyond the dark swell of the sea there is a more solid, opaque line. I stare, and as I watch a few lights open along it, like eyes. For a moment I can’t think what it is. A ship? A huge liner on its way across the world? A smell catches in the back of my throat, sharp, mineral and unmistakable.
Land. I can smell land. Those lights are human lights.

We must be close to shore. Not more than a few miles at
most. There are people living there, in houses. How strange that seems after we’ve been so long in Ingo. Maybe children are going to bed in those houses at this moment.

“Seiliko, I think I can see land.”

Seiliko’s body tenses. “Where do you see it?”

“Over there, ahead of us. Look at the lights.” Seiliko does not respond.

“Can’t you see it?” I ask again. Suddenly I am seized with longing. “Seiliko, do you think that is the Great Land that you were talking about? My mother could be there. One of those lights could be shining from her window.”

Still Seiliko says nothing. Maybe she’s angry because of the nets.

“Could you take me there?” Seiliko could cross that stretch of water in a few minutes. We could be there and back again before the others woke. Imagine if Mum really was there, and I could see her and speak to her. Of course it’s crazy to believe that out of all the thousands of miles of Australian coast, those lights show the place where she is. It’s crazy but maybe this is one of those nights when the million to one chance comes true. Those lights are like a signal.
Here I am. Here I am.

I don’t care what Conor says, I know Mum isn’t going to die of shock if she sees me. She’d want to see me more than anything. There’s so little time. Tomorrow those lights will be gone. We’ll travel on and we might never come so close to the coast again. And I know deep in my heart that there’s danger waiting ahead. The closer we get to completing the Crossing, the
closer we are to breaking Ervys’s dreams of power, the greater that danger will grow. My Atka said,
You must stay in your world and fight its battles.
Ingo is my world. Ingo’s battles are my battles. If something happens to me – if Mum never sees me again –

“Please,
Seiliko!”

If there’s the faintest chance of seeing Mum I’ve got to take it. It might be our only chance and there is something I must ask her. Deep inside me a question is forming, as huge and shadowy as a whale beneath the surface of the sea. I don’t know exactly what it is yet. I only know that those lights have appeared for a purpose and I’m not meant to ignore them.

“I cannot take you,” says Seiliko.

Her rejection sears through me. “But Seiliko …”

“I cannot take you,” she repeats.

“I’ve got to see my mother, Seiliko.”

Seiliko doesn’t ask me why I think that Mum is there. She believes me, but she’s still not going to help me. “Then I will swim,” I say.

“No,” says Seiliko, “that land is much farther away than you think.” I think I sense a change in her voice. Maybe she’s about to yield. At last she says reluctantly, “I cannot take you to land, Sapphire, but there is one who may be willing.”

“A dolphin, you mean? Can you ask him for me? I’d be so grateful, Seiliko. You don’t know how important it is.”

“If you are sure.”

“Yes, yes, of course I’m sure.”

“Then climb off my back.”

I slide off Seiliko’s back and sink into the water, where I won’t have to breathe air. But if I go to shore I’ll have to breathe, and it will hurt …

I’ll face that when I come to the shore.

A soft, mysterious whistling fills the air, like drops of music. Seiliko is calling. The sound fills the water, spreading out in wider and wider ripples. It’s a sweet, wild, urgent sound. If I were a dolphin and I heard it, I’d have to come. I look up towards the surface of the water, but none of the other three dolphins or their riders has stirred. They still float on the surface as if they’re enchanted. Slowly the whistling fades away. Seiliko dips beneath the surface and says, “He is coming. Wait here and he will ride you to the shore. Don’t speak to him or ask him any questions and he will take you safely and return you safely. Promise me.”

“I promise, Seiliko.”

She melts into the shadows of the water. I wait tensely. I hear nothing, no clicks and whistles, no dolphin greeting, but suddenly the dolphin is at my side in a silent swirl of water. Moonlight streams on to the curve of his back. For a moment he looks transparent, like a trick of the light, and then I touch his flank and swim up on to his back and of course he is real and solid. But he doesn’t speak to me. He waits until I’m in position and have sealed myself against him, and then without warning he leaps forward.

He is no faster than Seiliko but when he breaches he leaps even higher above the waves, so that he seems to hang in the air for seconds before diving so steeply that he enters the water
with hardly a ripple. He dives deep, where the moonlight can’t reach, then up to the surface to skim it like a stone skipping across a lake. He doesn’t splash like the other dolphins. If I couldn’t feel the solid roundness of his body I would think he had no weight at all.

I hear the thunder of swell breaking on a reef. I look ahead and see the white of foam where the water pounds. The dolphin doesn’t hesitate, but heads straight for the wild water. I brace myself, but before I’ve had time to be afraid he finds a gap and we slip through into the calm of a lagoon. The water is shallow here, and so transparent that I can see moonlit crabs scuttling on the sea bed beneath us. As I slide off the dolphin’s back, Faro’s words from long ago ring in my mind.
As long as you are with the dolphins, you are in Ingo.
My feet touch the sandy bed of the lagoon. The water is chest deep, and suddenly I’m aware that it’s warm. The dolphin slides away a couple of metres. Now I am in the Air. Now I’ve got to breathe. I brace myself, clenching my fists.

But it doesn’t hurt. The air slides into my body easily. I can hardly believe it. Cautiously I take another breath and wait for the shock and pain of harsh air on my Ingo-smooth lungs, but my breath comes as easily as if I’ve never been in Ingo at all. A breeze caresses my face, carrying heavy, tropical sweetness. It reminds me of the palm trees in St Pirans when they come into flower, but the night here is much warmer than the hottest summer night in Cornwall. I look up. The night sky is rich blue velvet, and the stars are huge and close. The dolphin rolls over
in the shallow water of the lagoon. I’m afraid that he’ll strand himself, but he sculls lazily into deeper water, and floats there. I can see one of his bright eyes watching me.

It’s very strange that he doesn’t speak, but I don’t want to break my promise to Seiliko by trying to make him talk. I’m confident that he’ll wait for me.

I wade inshore, waist-deep, thigh-deep, then splash ankle-deep through the shallows on to dry, warm sand. I can’t see the lights of the houses now because a little ridge ahead of me hides them. Leaves hiss, and there’s a rattle and then a crack as if something’s treading on dry twigs. Thoughts of snakes, poisonous spiders and crocodiles crowd my mind. I hold my breath and tiptoe forward. Sand sifts between my toes, and then I’m on a path.

There’s a light shining ahead of me. I can see a vague dark shape that is probably a house. It looks too low for a house, though, more like a shed. There’s only one storey, and the roof has a dull metal gleam. A wooden verandah runs around the house. I creep forward silently, praying no dog starts to bark. The light is coming from a window on the left-hand side of the building.

The ground prickles my bare feet. I put them down cautiously and noiselessly. I’m about ten metres from the verandah steps when the door opens suddenly, spilling light. An outlined figure stands there, looking into the dark.

It’s a woman, wrapped in a dressing gown. You know how you can recognise people without ever seeing their faces, just
from their shape and stance? I would know her shape anywhere. My eyes burn and her figure blurs.

“Mum!” I whisper. She freezes, then turns slowly towards me. I expect her to cry out for Roger, but she doesn’t. Very quietly, as if any noise might scare me away, she says, “Sapphy?”

“Yes.”

Mum seems to fly down the verandah steps and across the prickly grass. She stops just short of me. “Is it really you, Sapphy?”

“Yes.”

Slowly she stretches out her hands and puts them on either side of my face. She turns my face towards the moonlight and looks at me for a long time.

“It
is
you,” she breathes at last.

“I had to come and see you, Mum. I had to ask you something.”

“What is it, lovely girl?” Her words pierce my heart. I’d forgotten that Mum used to call me that, long ago when I was little.

“Mum, do you think that Dad is dead?”

Mum doesn’t answer straightaway. Her fingers stroke my face, very gently, like the warm breeze. I can’t see her eyes because she’s got her back to the moon.

“Mum?”

“Yes,” she says, “he’s dead, Sapphy. Do you think I’d ever have gone with Roger if your dad was alive?”

“No,” I say, “I know you wouldn’t.” And I do know it, because
Mum’s not the kind of person who would just change from Dad to another man, unless she was sure it was right.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“You can ask me what you want, Sapphy.”

My dark, shadowy questions have come to the surface, and now I know what they are.

“Why are you so afraid of the sea?” Mum’s fingers go still. She takes a quick breath.

“What I was most afraid of has already happened. The sea has taken your father.”

“But you were afraid before that.”

“That’s true. I always told your father it was because of what a fortune teller told me.”

“Wasn’t that true, then?”

“Yes, it was true in a way, but there was more to it than that. I can tell you now, lovely girl, seeing as we’re both asleep and dreaming. When I was a little girl I was crazy for the water. Your grandma always said I could swim like a fish before I was two years old. She could throw me into the sea and I was never afraid. I’d laugh, she said, and dive in and out of the waves. Then one day I must have thought I could breathe underwater like a fish.”