Dolphin Child (18 page)

‘
Did you see anything suspicious, or anything unusual that you
could not explain?’ continued Spirit, with the same edge of anxiety
and concern in his voice.

‘
No, but the sound from the ship had made us feel very unwell.
You know when a really terrible headache makes it hard for you to
see properly? Well it was a bit like that. My vision was all fuzzy
round the sides. Maybe we just weren’t well enough to search for
anything suspicious. In fact I thought that Star-Gazer had already
swum off to rejoin the rest of the pod. I told Storm that we’d find
her with the others when we got back. Instead when we did, they
said that they had no idea where she was. It was a mystery that we
never did find the answer to.’

‘
The ship. Do you remember what colour it was?’ asked
Dancer.

‘
Oh yes’ replied Summer. ‘It was red with a white stripe up the
side. But Spirit…’ she continued. ‘Whatever happened to her, your
mother’s lost to us now. We can’t bring her back. You’ve got to let
go and accept that what’s happened has happened. If you let
yourself live in the past and ask ‘what if…’. Well, you will never
find the answer. It will eat you up.’

Spirit felt a turmoil of emotions inside him, but didn’t know
how to express them so he didn’t say anything at all. He thanked
Summer and he and Dancer swam off a short distance
again.

‘
So what’s going through your head then?’ asked Dancer after
they had left Summer.

‘
It’s just…. It’s just that I’ve begun to feel so close to Lucy
and so I’ve started to trust other humans as well. But then I still
don’t know much about them and Storm says not to trust them at all.
Then we come across the pilot whales and they say that humans
actually capture them, or else herd them onto the rocks to kill
them. And then I think…. Well I think that if no one knows what’s
happened to Star-Gazer, maybe humans did something to her too!’
Spirit sighed.

‘
I know but….like Summer said, you’ve just got to let go of it.
We’ll never know what happened to Star-Gazer.’

‘
But don’t you see’ replied Spirit with true anguish in his
voice, ‘I can’t. Not when I’m linked in this way to a human like
Lucy. I have to find out, I just have to!’

‘
Well I’ll tell you one thing that we can do then’ said Dancer.
We can go and look at that stretch along the edge of the sea and
see what we can find.’

Spirit and Dancer decided to head off towards the coast
straight away. The other dolphins in the pod were still dozing
lethargically after feeding on the squid and there was plenty of
the day left. There was no reason why they should not leave now and
still get back to the others before sundown. ‘I don’t know how
those young dolphins find the energy’ muttered Moonlight to Chaser
as they watched the tails of Spirit and Dancer swim off into the
blue.

Spirit was glad that Dancer suggested going to see the place
where Star-Gazer had disappeared. At least by doing something he
felt that worrying knot of anxiety inside him lessen a little. He
had no idea what they could do or find now after all this time.
After all, it was at least twelve moons since Star-Gazer had
disappeared and even if there might have been something to find at
the time, there was unlikely to be anything now.

As they approached, Dancer looked up at the rock which Summer
had described as looking like a dolphin leaping.

‘
Doesn’t look much like a dolphin leaping to me’ she grumbled.
Spirit gave her a playful nudge.

‘
You’ve got to look at it from the right angle’ he
said.

‘
Which angle is that?’

‘
With your eyes open!’ joked Spirit.

The rock loomed up above them as they swam past and when they
went into its shadow, Spirit felt his mood darken. This was the
stretch of coast which Star-Gazer had disappeared from. The shore
formed a gentle curve, as though it were a very wide bay for about
three miles before coming to another rocky outcrop in the distance.
Beyond that was the mouth of a narrow estuary where a river fed
into the sea. The shoreline itself was a mixture of pebble beach
and low cliff. Out there somewhere, the ship had passed and during
that stormy squall, while the noise from the ship had disorientated
all three dolphins, something had happened.

‘
Come on, lets start looking’ said Spirit.

‘
But what for?’ replied Dancer.

‘
I don’t know. Let’s just look.’ That was the problem. Spirit
didn’t know what to look for. This stretch of coast was long and
even if there was some evidence of Star-Gazer’s disappearance, the
chance of him and Dancer stumbling upon it was remote.

They swam along, scanning the seabed as they went. The rock
didn’t drop away sharply here as it did along some parts of the
coast, but formed a gentle incline. They searched for evidence of
humans having been there. They would frequently see small
see-through containers on the seabed that Lucy called bottles, or
metal ones that were discoloured or crumpled. They seemed to be
everywhere. Occasionally they would see a larger black round thing
with a hole in the middle. Spirit could not imagine what they were
for. Chaser said he’d bitten one once to see what it tasted like.
He said it was tough and chewy, like old squid, but that the taste
had been acrid and bitter in his mouth.

Every so often there would be larger lumps of metal in the
water that were brown with rust and encrusted with small shell
fish. They reminded Spirit of the ship-wreck that he and Dancer had
explored off the islands, only these lumps of metal were much
smaller and spread out. They came across one which was like one of
those small metallic drinking containers, only it was much much
bigger. Some black liquid was leaching out of it slowly, polluting
the sea around it.

‘
Let’s keep away from that’ said Dancer as they swam along. The
trouble was that they did not understand what most of these things
left by humans actually were. In some parts they completely changed
the nature of the seabed and instead of the life that Spirit would
expect to see there, it was desolate and dead.

‘
Shall we go closer to the shore?’ Spirit asked
Dancer.

‘
As long as we don’t get too close we’ll be ok’ she
replied.

A pipe ran out into the sea and from it came a black-ish brown
effluent that drifted in murky clouds in the water until the
current dispersed it. Spirit, who was used to the mostly cleaner
waters of the open sea, found the taste of it in the water
disgusting and over-powering. Some shell fish thrived on it and
there was a colony of hundreds of mussels just by the outlet pipe,
but to Spirit and Dancer it was dirty and unnatural.

‘
It’s like they just throw into the sea anything that they no
longer want on land’ said Dancer, the unpleasant taste still
lingering in their mouths. ‘It really is horrid along here. It’s
like a wasteland. Maybe we should swim out to sea again.’ Spirit
agreed and they swam out further from the shoreline.

Spirit half expected to see the ship that Summer had
described, making its way across the wide bay, but of course there
was nothing. Spirit felt increasingly despondent about swimming
here. What was the point? Instead he started to try and imagine
what had happened to Star-Gazer. Maybe the ship had a claw that had
picked her up. Maybe she’d become ensnared in nets that had been
left drifting in the water. Perhaps somehow she’d been pulled into
the ship’s propellers and been killed. It was so hard to
say.

At the far end of the beach around the outcrop of rocks was
the entry to the narrow estuary, where fresh waters mingled with
salt. Dolphins would never risk going up an estuary like that. It
was far too shallow and dangerous, so they turned back.

By this time Spirit had completely given up on the idea of
finding something and began to turn to head for home. More than
anything right now, he wanted to be able to speak to Lucy and he
tried to send her that message in the way that he had once before.
It was not so urgent this time, but who knew, maybe she would sense
that he wanted to speak to her and would come to him.

After a few minutes, Spirit began to get that feeling that he
sometimes had that Lucy was just about to appear in front of him.
He was not wrong. As they watched, her shape slowly coalesced in
front of them.

‘
Hello Spirit. Hi Dancer’ she said as she floated there in the
water in front of them. ‘I had a strong feeling that you needed me
somehow. You know, like last time. Is there something wrong? Is
someone in trouble?’ Lucy looked around her, half expecting to see
some dolphin or person there that needed saving.

‘
Yes, that’s right. I did want you to come to us’ replied
Spirit. ‘I needed to ask you something.’

‘
What is it Spirit?’ Lucy replied. ‘Of course. Ask me anything
you like.’ Spirit hesitated, trying to summon up this
thoughts.

‘
I need to ask you a question’ he answered. ‘Do humans really
steal dolphins out of the sea?’ he asked Lucy. She looked awkwardly
away, as though thinking about how best to answer.

‘
Yes, they do’ she replied eventually, an unhappy look upon her
face.

Chapter Eleven:

Lucy was so used to seeing Dad in his work clothes everyday,
that it seemed strange to see him wearing a pair of baggy shorts
and trainers. His knees looked white and pasty, as though they
hadn’t been exposed to sunlight for a very long time. He appeared
rather uncomfortable in his holiday clothes, as though he’d got
mixed up over the day of a fancy dress party. It was so surprising
to see Dad there in the farmyard, suitcase next to him, that Lucy
was quite taken aback. He just looked out of place there
somehow.

‘
Lucy’ exclaimed Bethany coming round the corner. ‘Your dad and
I have just been having a chat. Now that you’re both here, why
don’t we go inside and have a cup of tea?’

Lucy wondered what they could have been having a chat about,
but the obvious answer was her and Spirit. Bethany and Dad didn’t
exactly see eye to eye, but Dad had been persuaded to let Lucy come
down here and stay, when before he’d been dead set against it. In
fact she still wasn’t entirely sure why. She felt as though two
different worlds that she would rather have kept apart had just
clashed and the thought made her feel rather awkward and gauche.
Lucy had always known that Dad would be coming down to Cornwall to
join her, but his arrival here a few days early brought it home to
her even more forcibly.

They went inside. Lucy could see Dad eyeing Bethany’s studio
critically. He didn’t seem exactly pleased at what he saw. Looking
at the studio as if through Dad’s eyes, she could see that it was
quite messy. Canvasses were stacked up along the wall and the
wooden floor was stained where paint had dripped down. There was a
smell of turpentine in the air and the metal-framed windows looked
tatty and old. The kitchen area was improvised and she could see
that dust and fluff had accumulated under the cooker. The living
and sleeping area on the raised platform seemed restricted and
pokey. Dad took it all in with one sweeping glance and Lucy could
imagine his disapproval at such a place for his daughter to be
staying in.

Dad said nothing, but smiled as he stirred his tea, as though
he was determined to be jolly.

‘
So what have you been up to this morning Lucy?’ he asked
conversationally.

‘
Well me and this boy Paul’ Lucy started. ‘Well we’ve been to
see, you know. Well my dolphin Spirit actually’. Lucy’s enthusiasm
drained out of her voice as she wondered what Dad would make of her
visit to her dolphin friend. Instead he didn’t comment about
Spirit.

‘
A boy?!’ he asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘
Don’t be silly, not a boy like that. He’s this kid I met in
town. He’s younger than me and a bit scrawny looking. He… well, we
hang out together that’s all.’ Dad nodded sagely.

‘
So you’ve been swimming already this morning? Is that safe?’
he continued. Bethany shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She was
supposed to be the responsible adult, but had allowed Lucy to go
and swim in the sea alone and unsupervised.

‘
Yes I slipped out before Bethany woke up’ Lucy replied
quickly, before Bethany got into trouble. ‘She doesn’t allow me to
go down to the sea on my own otherwise’ she lied. Dad adopted a
sceptical expression but didn’t say anything. He’d only just
arrived and Lucy guessed that he was trying not to be
judgemental.

‘
More tea John?’ Bethany enquired brightly, trying to change
the subject and filling his mug up from the teapot on the table.
Dad explained that he’d rented a cottage.

‘
Oh Dad!’ Lucy exclaimed anxiously. ‘I don’t have to leave the
farm do I? Not already!’ Lucy hated the idea of moving out of the
studio and the farm in order to go and stay in some soulless
holiday cottage. She knew that Dad couldn’t stay in Bethany’s
studio, but didn’t see why she had to leave just because Dad had
turned up.

‘
Where’s the cottage then John?’ asked Bethany. Dad smiled.
Ignoring Lucy, he replied to Bethany.

‘
As a matter of fact, the cottage is not far from here and I’m
renting it from a Mr and Mrs Pengelly.’