The Forget-Me-Not Summer (25 page)

Sighing to himself, Steve clattered down the flight and into the snowstorm. Tomorrow's Sunday, so if the snow builds up real good then I reckon it'd be worth a gang of us making our way out to Simonswood and taking
my sledge and any sturdy trays we can lay hands on, he told himself. Miranda will have got over her sulks by then; she loves sledging. We went last year and she loved every minute. If I get up early enough I'll get Mam to pack up a carry-out. She's bound to have bread and jam and that, and I can buy another slab of cake and another bottle of Corona. Oh aye, if the snow continues, Miranda won't go on bearing a grudge. He grinned to himself. She'd better say she's sorry, 'cos I've done it once and now it's her turn.

Making his way along the snowy and deserted streets, he decided that he would tell his mother what had transpired as soon as he reached home. She was a grand woman, his mam, and always knew what was the right thing to do. She'd feel rare sorry for Miranda, of course, but that wouldn't stop her seeing his point of view. Thinking back, he was glad he had apologised and tried to make things right, because he knew his mother would tell him to do just that. He guessed that she would also tell him off for pointing out that Miranda had got the temperature of the sea all wrong. He really shouldn't have said that; he was lucky she had not battered him across the ear, even though it was true.

Steve turned the corner and the full force of the storm hit him, hurling snowflakes into his face with stinging force. He turned up his collar and pulled his cap lower over his brow. Not much further, he told himself. Soon be out of this horrible weather and in Mam's kitchen. Wonder what she's got for supper? Hope it's scouse. He plodded on, all memory of the fish supper he had recently eaten disappearing under the onslaught of the storm. Scouse would be nice, but what he most wanted at the
moment was a big mug of hot tea with two sugars and possibly one of Mam's shortbread fingers. He turned into the jigger and actually had difficulty in recognising his own back yard through the whirling flakes, but he made it at last and burst into the kitchen looking, no doubt, just like a snowman for his mother, seated comfortably by the fire in her old wicker rocking chair, gave a squawk of protest, and his stepfather, seated in the chair opposite and working away at his weekend task of mending the family's shoes, begged him tersely to ‘Gerrinto the yard, lad, and brush off that perishin' snow; us don't want the kitchen like a pond when it melts.'

Steve obeyed. Then he came back into the kitchen, hung his outer clothing on a peg by the door and turned to his mother. ‘Have you had supper yet, Mam?' he asked hopefully. ‘I'm that hungry me belly thinks me throat's been cut. But if you've et . . .'

‘I saved you a dish of scouse and two big boiled potatoes,' Mrs Mickleborough said at once. ‘It's on the back of the stove keeping warm. I guessed you'd be glad of a bite after fighting your way from your young lady's place to Jamaica Close.'

‘Thanks, Mam, but she ain't my young lady, nor likely to be,' Steve said gloomily, emptying the contents of the saucepan on to a tin plate. ‘There's been news of that ship – the
Pride of the Sea
– what Miranda thinks her mother may have been aboard . . .'

When the story was finished – and the scouse also – Steve looked hopefully at his mother. ‘I reckon you'll say I did wrong to try to make her see she weren't no worse off than before,' he said apologetically. ‘Lookin' back, I can't think what come over me. I said I was sorry of
course, but she never said a word, not even when I thanked her for the fish 'n' chips . . .'

His stepfather, who had not appeared to be listening with undue attention to the story, looked up, brows rising. ‘Fish 'n' chips?' he said indignantly. ‘And then you come here and guzzle a big plate of scouse and spuds! You've got hollow legs, young man.'

Steve laughed, but his attention was fixed on his mother. ‘I'll go round tomorrer and tell her I'm sorry and mebbe we'll sit down and write a lot of letters for Missie or the Grimshaws to hand out to any islanders they think might know something,' he said. ‘Poor old Miranda; she feels guilty, you know, because she wasn't nicer to her mam when she had the chance.'

Mrs Mickleborough sniffed, but Mr Mickleborough nodded slowly. ‘That's what you call
what might have been
,' he said. ‘It's allus the same when someone goes out of reach; those that are left wish they'd been kinder. Ah well, no doubt your little pal will come to terms with what's happened. And now, my lad, you'd best wash up that plate and mug and gerrup to bed, 'cos I know you. Tomorrer bein' Sunday, a whole gang of you will go off to Simonswood, snowballin', mekkin slides and sledgin', so you'd best get a good night's sleep.'

‘Okay, Dad,' Steve said, but his eyes were still fixed on his mother's face. ‘I thought I'd ask Miranda to come sledging with me; we could have a whole day away if you'd make up a carry-out for us. I don't mind takin' Kenny if you think I ought.'

He was relieved, however, when his mother shook her head. ‘You'll have your work cut out to get back on the right side of young Miranda,' she said sagely. ‘And now
gerroff to bed, young man; I'll let you have a bit of a lie-in, but if the snow's still thick I'll wake you around nine o'clock. And once you're in bed you can work out how best to make up with your pal.'

After Steve had left, Miranda simply sat in the kitchen fighting the despair which threatened to overcome her. She acknowledged that she had probably overreacted to Mrs Grimshaw's news, and she knew in her heart that it had been no reason to turn on Steve the way she had. He was her bezzie, had never faltered in his championship of her, had listened patiently whilst she went over and over the last day that she and her mother had spent together. He had never criticised her for her behaviour, and even after Mrs Grimshaw's dreadful news he had been supportive. In fact the only thing she could blame him for was his callousness regarding the water in which her mother had drowned –
if
there had been a woman aboard, and if that woman had been her mother, of course. Going out for the fish and chips and feeling the cold wind trying to tear the hair from her head, it was natural that she had thought of her mother struggling in an ice-cold sea, but it was also foolish. She and Steve both knew from talking to Missie and the Grimshaw boys that the weather in the West Indies was tropical, that the sea was blue and warm as milk, and that in any case sharks would not venture into the icy waters that surrounded the British Isles.

Yet still she could not help feeling furious with Steve. He simply did not realise that her mind was still in shock from the story she had been told. He had been right when he had pointed out that she could either mourn
her mother as dead or believe that she was still alive somewhere, but he should have understood that she couldn't think logically at the moment.

When Avril returned from her evening out, she was so full of chat that Miranda did not have to open her mouth, and presently Avril made both of them a cup of cocoa, and then went to bed. If she was surprised at Miranda's short answers to her questions she gave no sign of it and presently, sitting on the hard chair in the kitchen, her mind aching with worry and confusion, Miranda looked up at the clock and saw that it read midnight. Sighing, she damped down the fire and went through to bed, suddenly realising that she was totally exhausted, too tired even to prepare herself properly for bed. She slid between the sheets in her underwear and was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

First there was a sensation of falling which seemed to go on for a long time, and then she was in the water. Waves as high, it seemed, as a house picked her up and threw her from one to another as though she were the ball in some wild, cruel game. She started to cry out and was gagged by the water pouring into her open mouth. Something hit her a numbing blow and she grabbed for it just as another wave, bigger than the rest, smashed down on her, but she hung on, thinking how often she had heard of a drowning man clutching at a straw, wondering whether that was what she was doing, but continuing to cling nevertheless. When the next wave crashed over her she realised she was holding on to a plank of wood; wood floats and will stay on the surface, she told herself, even in the worst and most violent sea.
Then for an instant she felt her foot touch something; was it land? But just as she was beginning to hope, a huge wave snatched her up and once more there was only darkness and water, though she was aware that there was flotsam all around her; the remains of the ship on which she had been travelling when the storm hit.

But she had no time for conjecture; the only thing that mattered was clinging to the spar of wood and praying that someone would find her before her strength gave out, before her numb fingers were torn from the spar by the strength of the attacking waves, and she was dragged into the depths.

Mostly she had scarcely bothered to look around her in the pitch dark, but presently she thought she saw a lightening of the sky overhead, and it seemed to her that the sea grew calmer as dawn, cool and grey, lit the sky. She was beginning to hope, to think that she might drag herself ashore if she were lucky enough to be carried on her friendly plank to terra firma, when she felt something nudge her dangling legs. For a moment she remembered stories of friendly dolphins helping shipwrecked mariners to gain the nearest land, but then another image arose, and she kicked out convulsively, terror in every movement. Sharks!

Desperately, she tried to haul herself aboard the plank and almost succeeded, but then her weight tipped the plank right over. For a moment she clutched it, but then the water entered her gaping mouth and she spiralled down into darkness.

Miranda awoke. She had a vague feeling that she had been dreaming and suspected that it had not been a
particularly pleasant dream; why should it be pleasant, after all? Mrs Grimshaw and Steve had tried to make light of the fact that the
Pride of the Sea
had foundered in a storm somewhere in the Caribbean and that her mother might possibly have been aboard. There had been one survivor, the man who had paid to be taken aboard as supercargo in order to reach the next island at which the
Pride of the Sea
would drop anchor. Miranda sighed and sat up, glancing towards the window. For a moment she was honestly surprised to see, through a crack in the curtains, snowflakes whirling past; odd! For some reason she had expected to see bright sunlight and blue skies, and as she jumped out of bed to feel warm linoleum beneath her feet. Instead the whole room was freezing cold, and when she went over to the washstand ice had formed on the jug.

Miranda frowned. The events of the previous evening were somewhat vague, but she did remember that she had been very angry with Steve because he had not seemed to sympathise with her conviction that her mother was still alive. However, she also remembered – or thought she did – that he had promised her some sort of treat; whatever had it been? Judging by the weather she could see through the window it must have been some sort of indoor activity, and since today was Sunday she supposed that the most she could expect would be an invitation to share the Mickleboroughs' Sunday dinner, which was nice but not her idea of a special occasion.

Having ascertained that she would have to go and boil some water in order to get a wash, Miranda donned dressing gown and slippers and went through to the
kitchen. She had not wound the alarm clock the previous night and had no idea of the time, but as she entered the kitchen she saw that it was nine o'clock, and when she tapped the kettle it was warm, so she guessed that Avril had been up at the usual time, breakfasted and gone off to church, no doubt guessing that her friend had been late to bed.

Miranda carried the hot water to her room, washed and dressed and returned to the kitchen. She made herself a mug of tea and several slices of toast, still aware that she was confused as to just what had been arranged the previous evening. In fact she was on her last piece of toast when she heard feet clattering up the outside stair and she got up and opened the door, imagining that it would be Steve.

But she was wrong; it was Gerald, pink-cheeked and breathing hard. He grinned at her, then knocked the snow off his cap and brushed it from his shoulders before entering the kitchen. ‘Morning, Miranda. You all right?' he said, and Miranda heard the anxiety behind his cheerful words, and was grateful. He had obviously been told by his aunt or uncle about the
Pride of the Sea
and had guessed she would need cheering up. However, she did not intend to let Gerald know how desperately unhappy she had been, so she smiled and went over to the teapot.

‘Want a cuppa?' she asked brightly. ‘You can have toast an' all – I've cut plenty of bread – but you'll have to make it yourself. Why have you come round so early?'

‘I wouldn't mind some toast,' Gerald said, rubbing his hands together. ‘It's most dreadfully cold out there, what we call brass monkey weather at Browncoats. And I'm
early because I thought you might like to go sledging; the buses are still running, so the roads can't be too bad. We could get out to Simonswood and I thought it might take your mind off – off your troubles. Julian and I are spending the weekend at Holmwood Lodge which is how I came to hear about the
Pride of the Sea
.' He patted her arm. ‘Poor old Miranda. What a frightening story. But Auntie told me you believe your mother is still alive, and I'm sure you're right. It may take time, but us Grimshaws know all sorts of people in the West Indies, and I'm sure if your mother is on one of the islands we'll hear about it in due course. So you're to stop worrying and start getting on with your life.'

‘Oh, Gerald, you are kind, and sensible as well,' Miranda said gratefully, but the mention of Simonswood had brought Steve's suggestion rushing back. He had wanted her to go to Simonswood with him so that they could sledge. Well, she hadn't said she would, though she hadn't said she wouldn't either. She decided it was time that Steve was taken down a peg or two; taught that he was not the only person on whom she relied. Accordingly, she gave Gerald a big smile. ‘That would be lovely. Where's your sledge? And shall I make a carry-out? I've got a flask which I can fill with tea so we can have a hot drink . . .'