Midnight Dolphin (5 page)

Lucy broke
down and wept hot, bitter tears. She buried her face in her pillow
to stifle the noise of her crying. She didn’t want Dad to hear. She
didn’t want him to have the satisfaction. If Bethany was there at
least she would be able to bury herself in her aunt’s warm embrace,
but Bethany was far away and she just felt alone. As her tears
finally abated, Lucy felt the book under the duvet and pulled it
out again to look at. There it was, ‘Flora and Fauna of the Cornish
Coast’, the book that Mum must have had at about the same age as
she was now. If only Mum was alive and she could ask what it had
been like for her.

Megan held her
younger sister’s hand as they walked along the tops of the cliffs.
They’d all been to see one of the old tin mines that had been
turned into a museum and visitors centre. Megan had looked down the
central shaft. She shuddered to think of the men and even children
like her who’d toiled down there years and years ago, trapped in
the darkness underground. She’d been glad to get outside into the
sunlight and she and Bethany had opted to explore the cliff tops
whilst Mum and Dad went to the café for a cup of tea.

Bethany wanted
to find daisies to make a daisy chain, but the grass along the tops
of the cliffs was grazed close by sheep and rabbits and there were
no daisies to be found. Besides, the summer was unusually hot and
the grass had been burnt brown by the sun.

‘
Megan?’ asked
Bethany as the strolled along. ‘What’s it like to swim with
dolphins?’ The question slipped out of the six-year-old’s mouth
without her really thinking. Megan stopped walking and looked down
into the face of her younger sister.

‘
I didn’t know
you knew about that’ she replied quietly. ‘I don’t like to talk
about it and I’d like to keep it that way.’

‘
I won’t tell’
piped Bethany excitedly. She loved secrets.

‘
You’ve got to
promise not to tell Mum or Dad or anyone. Cross your
heart…’

‘
And hope to
die!’ said Bethany. ‘But don’t Mummy and Daddy know
already?’

‘
Well, they’ve
got an idea I suppose after what happened last year…’ answered
Megan uncertainly.

‘
So what’s it
like to swim with dolphins then?’ Bethany asked again insistently.
Megan sighed and looked at her sister.

‘
Well it’s
kind of cool. It’s hard to describe. They give off a sort of
energy… Hang on, how do you know anyway?’

‘
I followed
you yesterday morning’ replied Bethany, suddenly realising she
might get into trouble now. ‘They looked lovely. Can I meet
them?’

‘
No you
certainly can’t’ answered Megan quickly. ‘You’re way too little and
anyway you can’t swim properly.’

‘
I can too!’
answered Bethany defiantly.

‘
Don’t be
silly’ replied Megan. ‘You’re still in armbands. Besides Mum and
Dad would find out.’

‘
How do they
come to you Megan?’ asked Bethany curiously. ‘Do you whistle for
them like a dog.’ Megan smiled.

‘
They’re not
like dogs. They’re much smarter than dogs are and no I don’t
whistle for them. It’s difficult to explain. I’ve got a special way
of communicating with them.’

‘
What
does
communicate
mean?’ asked Bethany.

‘
It
means
talk
. I’ve
got a special way of talking to them.’

‘
You talk to
them then?’ asked Bethany, looking up at her sister and shielding
her eyes from the sun with her hand.

‘
Sort of, only
not with words or sounds. I talk to them in another way.’ Megan
looked over her shoulder as though Mum and Dad might be hovering
there listening to what she said. ‘Come on, let’s go look at the
view.’ There was an observation point nearby with railings and a
telescope on a pole that you paid two pence to look through. ‘Race
you!’

They ran over
to the observation point. Megan could easily outrun her sister, but
she let her win anyway. She hoped that Bethany would forget all
about their conversation now.

‘
Do you think
we’ll see dolphins if we look through the telescope?’ Bethany
asked. Megan sighed. Bethany was always full of
questions.

‘
I shouldn’t
think so’ Megan replied. ‘It’s quite rare to see them you know.’ As
it happened Megan had two pence in her pocket and she put the coin
in the slot so that Bethany could take a look. The six-year-old was
far too short to look through the eyepiece though and Megan had to
lift her up so she could put her eye up to the lens.

‘
All I can see
is blue!’ exclaimed Bethany indignantly; she could hardly tell if
she was looking at the sea or the sky. Megan chuckled. She
preferred to scan the horizon with the naked eye. They certainly
wouldn’t see any dolphins that afternoon. There was a fishing boat
in the middle distance though and they watched for a while as it
made its slow progress across the calm sea.

Megan would
enjoy telling Jet about what Bethany had said later though. Somehow
she felt that she could trust her sister, even though Bethany was
half her age. The sun baked down on them from above.

‘
We’d better
get back’ she said to Bethany.

Back at the
holiday cottage, after dinner, the family sat outside in the garden
enjoying the late afternoon sun. It didn’t get dark till ten
o’clock in August and although the sun was no longer warming their
skin, the air was still pleasant and balmy. High up in the sky the
swifts were still swooping and circling in their hunt for insects
on the wing and Megan saw a bat flit by, flying from the house
towards the trees. Bethany was playing in the grass, Mum was doing
the crossword at the back of the newspaper and Dad was leaning back
with his eyes closed.

Megan was
lying on her stomach on the grass studying a column of small brown
ants that emerged from a hole by the path and which marched
determinedly out into the thicket of grass stems. She wondered if
they’d located Bethany’s secret horde of sweets.

Normally Megan
would only reach out to Jet with her mind if she was entirely
alone, but everyone seemed so absorbed in their own activities and
there was no particular reason why they should notice if she did.
At worst they would simply think that she had dropped off to
sleep.

Megan started
to focus her mind. She would do this by looking into the middle
distance and then letting her focus dissolve. Then she would
imagine water rushing into the scene and let her mind concentrate
on the water and not the surroundings behind it. Then she would be
there and feel the cold tang of salty water on her skin and she
would be swimming along free and easily, liberated from the gravity
of life on dry land.

Often Megan
would see the tails of Jet’s pod receding away from her and she
would glide along faster to catch up with them. She could easily
make out Jet because he was slightly smaller and darker than the
others and she recognised the way he swam. Often Jet would know
that she was approaching him and would glance back before she
reached him. He would whistle a message to the others and would
peel off from the others to come back and join her.

At first Megan
had found it difficult to stay with Jet for more than a few
minutes. Her energy would deplete too quickly and she would
dissolve back into the briny currents again. As time went by
though, Megan became stronger and she frequently stayed with Jet
for forty five minutes or more, swimming along with him and even
breaking the surface of the water to leap high into the air. At
first Megan had been worried that someone would see her if she
followed Jet when he took a leap and would think she was a mermaid.
After a while though Megan realised that when she came to Jet like
this she was not physically there.

One time they
both chased along at the bow of a sailing yacht as it sliced along
through gentle waves. A man and a small boy stood at the bow
looking down in excited admiration at the dolphin barely two meters
away from them.

‘
What a
beautiful dolphin!’ exclaimed the man admiringly. The boy looked on
the other side of the bow where Megan was gliding effortlessly
along through the water.

‘
Look Daddy!’
he exclaimed. ‘a mermaid!’ The man looked over to where the boy was
pointing.

‘
Don’t be
silly’ he replied unseeingly. ‘The dolphins’ on this
side!’

‘
So I’m not
always completely invisible to people like this’ Megan said to Jet
afterwards.

‘
Maybe that
boy’s a Dolphin-Child too, but doesn’t realise it yet’ Jet replied
as they relaxed together in the surge and swell of deep green
sea.

As Megan lay
in the garden watching the procession of earnest ants making their
way across the grass, she looked forward to spending time with Jet,
even if it might only be for a few minutes.

She started to
focus her mind in the way that she had taught herself. Megan let
the scene in front of her blur and imagined the sea washing in to
cover it. The scene remained speckled with patches of white though
and try as she might she could not make the background of dry land
dissolve away as she normally did. Megan tried again. This time the
sea washed around her and she felt the cold water on her skin. She
could see the pod not far away lounging just under the waves, but
as she started to approach them the scene dissolved before she
could get anywhere near them. Megan found herself lying on the
grass again, an ant running lightly over the back of her hand. She
flicked it off.

Megan was
disappointed that she had not been able to reach Jet, but maybe it
was because her family were around her, or perhaps it was something
she’d eaten. She’d try again later.

As she turned
to see what imaginary world Bethany had created with her toys, she
noticed that Dad had opened his eyes as he leant back in the
deckchair and was watching her intently. As she looked up he closed
his eyes quickly as if to pretend that he was sleeping
again.

Later on, at
bedtime, Megan tried again. In the bathroom, toothbrush in hand she
looked through the small circular mirror on the wall as though it
was a porthole in the side of a submarine and the sea lay beyond.
Megan was able to conjure up the sea beyond the glass, but when she
tried to let her mind dissolve and re-form in the sea beyond the
glass, she was unable to do so. It was like watching a natural
history programme on the television. She felt a million miles away.
When Megan was younger she believed that the television was like an
actual window and that if you looked at it from one corner, you
would see more of the scene that would be hidden than if you looked
at it head on. The vision of sea disappeared again and all she
could see was her own unhappy face looking back at her. Megan
decided there and then that at least she would go down to the sea
at first light the next morning to swim with Jet. When she was with
him in real life like that, they could not speak to each other as
they did when she reached out to him with her mind. She would not
be able to explain to him that it suddenly felt hard to reach him.
Yet at least she would be able to look into his eyes and feel the
energy that passed from him to her and back again.

The next
morning Megan was awake again at first light and crept out of the
room that she shared in the cottage with Bethany, this time making
sure that her younger sister did not follow her. She slipped her
swimsuit on quickly but did not bother putting clothes on top, so
eager was she to get to the sea. She ran quickly and lightly along
the board walk that rose and fell as it followed the path of the
dunes to the sea. There at last she saw the sea glittering in the
early morning light. Megan scanned the water for the tell-tale sign
of a dorsal fin, but there was none there.

Rather than
wait and watch, Megan decided to plunge into the sea and swim out
from the shore into the deeper water where it would be easier for
Jet to approach her. She swam with the powerful confident strokes
of an accomplished swimmer, but even though she got as far out as
she dared on her own, Jet did not approach her. She stopped and
started to tread, looking around her anxiously for signs of the
friend who did not come.

Chapter
Four
:

Megan came
back on to the shore and stood on the sand, shivering as she
scanned the horizon one last time for any sign of Jet or the other
dolphins in his pod. She looked at the sun. It must have been after
half past seven by now and she knew she had to get back before
Bethany, Mum and Dad woke up. Her parents liked to sleep in when
they were on holiday, but Bethany always had been an early
riser.

Megan felt
confused and more than a little scared about what was happening
between her and Jet. Why couldn’t she stretch out to him like she
was used to doing? Megan had grown to feel in control of her life
and in her connection to dolphins. She’d worked hard to develop her
skill and now it seemed no more solid than the sand that she was
standing on. What was happening to her? She was already beginning
to feel empty and alone. If Jet and the others disappeared from her
life altogether, she didn’t know how she could go on.