Midnight Dolphin (7 page)

‘
What’s that
you’re reading?’ Dad asked at dinner time. ‘You’re not going to
turn into a Buddhist are you, and go round in an orange sheet with
a shaved head?’ Lucy gave a guarded smile.

‘
Oh no, I just
thought it would be, you know, interesting’ she answered
noncommittally, turning over the page as she spooned a forkful of
spaghetti into her mouth.

‘
You be
careful’ warned Dad, ‘you’re going to get tomato sauce all over
that book if you don’t watch out.’ Lucy put her fork down; she
didn’t feel hungry anyway.

Up in her
bedroom Lucy was desperate for the meditation methods in the book
to work but the more she tried, the more difficult it seemed to
get. Every time she tried to clear her head and relax, a whole slew
of thoughts seemed to flood into her mind and distract
her.

The book she
had borrowed described a simple counting method for relaxing by
counting down from nine to zero, then from eight to zero, and so
on. The idea was that if you focused on the counting, you didn’t
let any other thoughts into your head. It simply didn’t work for
Lucy though. She just felt tense and nervous in the pit of her
stomach.

Their form
teacher Mr Baines had once asked the class what the first thing
they thought of was if he said ‘
Don’t
think of an elephant
.’ Of course everyone
had immediately thought of an elephant, even though he’d just told
them not to. The more Lucy thought about not getting tense or
worried, the more her thoughts crowded into her mind and the harder
it got to stretch out to Spirit at all.

The worst
thing though, was thinking that it wasn’t just nerves preventing
her from stretching out to Spirit, but something far worse than
that. What if she really was just growing out of her gift as
everyone seemed to think she was? She was determined to prove them
wrong, but she simply didn’t know how to start. If it really was
happening, it would be as if half of her had died, she thought
sadly.

‘
You look as
if you’ve got the world on your shoulders’ Mr Baines told her as
they left his religious education class earlier that day. ‘Whatever
is the matter?’ Lucy looked up.

‘
Oh nothing’
was all she was able to say in a dull lifeless voice.

‘
Chin up!’ he
replied. ‘No need to be so glum. No one’s died have they?’ Lucy
shook her head slowly as she left the room, but it felt as if
someone had.

At lunch time
Lucy simply hadn’t felt able to spend time with Amy, even though
they were normally inseparable. It felt like nothing could shift
her dark mood. Lucy realised that the change in her made Amy feel
uncomfortable and that her friend didn’t really understand what was
going on in her head. It just seemed as though she simply couldn’t
bring herself to make the effort to be more positive.

Sitting there
cross-legged on the bed trying to meditate, a mood of quiet
desperation settled over her. Try as she might, she still could not
find the portal between her conscious mind and the world of water.
It used to feel so natural, so easy. Now it seemed impossible. What
was the point of anything if she couldn’t reach out to Spirit? Was
this really what Dad wanted for her; a grey, empty, pointless
life?

It had been
difficult enough for her when Mum had died, but at least everyone
knew what had happened and tried to be sympathetic. This time Lucy
felt entirely alone and the sense of loss felt just as
real.

Eventually
Lucy gave up trying to focus her mind, and flung the meditation
book onto the floor. She picked up her book ‘The Flora and Fauna of
the Cornish Coast’ that had mysteriously come through the post the
other day. She flicked through it idly. Someone had sent it to her
as a clue, but Lucy had no idea how to decipher it. Lucy looked at
some of the notes that Mum had made when she was still a young
girl, about the same age as Lucy was now.

‘
Jeremiah
Smith
’ Mum had written in the margins at
one point in the book, ‘
journal
volume
’ it went on. Whatever did it mean?
Lucy was too tired to think about it now.

She leant over
to switch of her bedside lamp and turned on her side to sleep.
Maybe she’d dream of Spirit once she dozed off. Her brain was wide
awake though and she found herself staring up at the dark ceiling
of her bedroom. She tried to imagine Spirit floating there in front
of her. Then she attempted to bring Mum’s face to mind. It worried
Lucy that it was becoming harder and harder to remember Mum’s face
and voice. If it hadn’t been for the video film and holiday photos
that Dad had taken before Mum had died, perhaps she’d have
forgotten entirely by now.

‘
Maybe
everything fades into nothing in the end’
Lucy thought despondently. Finally, Lucy’s eyes fluttered
closed, and she fell asleep.

Lucy’s
troubled mind seemed to wander from dream to restless dream. She
dreamt of dolphins, but it wasn’t the happy dream that she normally
had of swimming with the pod, so vivid, it was as though she were
really there. This was a grey dream of fleeting silhouettes that
disappeared into nothingness. She dreamt of a girl with her face
obscured by a bonnet looking at her. She felt as though the girl
was concerned about her, though she couldn’t say exactly
why..

Her restless
mind started dreaming about school, then the echoing swimming pool
where she normally did her swimming practice. She dreamt that Ms
Baldwin their sports teacher was shouting at her and that she was
sinking through the pool as though it had no bottom and it just
went down forever. It was like a big weight had been tied to her
feet and was pulling her down into an endless chasm. In her dream
she looked up through the water and saw faces peering down at her
until she got so deep that they disappeared.

It was about
three o’clock in the morning that she suddenly sat bolt-upright in
bed, her heart racing. Her bed clothes were caught up in a tangle
around her, damp with perspiration. Lucy looked around her in the
dark, confused and disorientated, barely knowing where she
was.

‘
Whatever is
the matter?’ cried Dad, bursting into her room in his pyjamas. ‘You
cried out so loudly I thought you were being kidnapped!’ He
switched on the light and came to the edge of her bed, anxiously
looking into her face. Lucy crumpled into Dad’s arms and started
weeping in deep heavy sobs.

‘
Oh Dad, it
was so horrible. I was dreaming about Mum. I…’

‘
There there’
said Dad hugging her. ‘It’s all okay. You’re awake now.
Everything’s alright.’ Lucy clung to him for comfort as he perched
on the edge of her bed, still crying into his arms.

‘
Come on’ Dad
said eventually. ‘Let’s go downstairs and get a mug of cocoa. Then
you can tell me all about it.’ He took Lucy’s hand as she climbed
out of bed.

‘
Here’s your
dressing gown. We don’t want you to get cold now do we?’ Downstairs
Lucy sat on the sofa in the darkened living room, wiping away her
tears with a piece of kitchen roll while Dad made cocoa in the
kitchen. A couple of minutes later he brought through two steaming
mugs and handed one to Lucy. She cupped it in her hands and then
took a sip of the hot milky drink.

‘
What was this
dream of yours all about then huh?’ Dad asked.

‘
It was about
Mum’ Lucy replied, sniffing. ‘First of all I was swimming with her
in the sea on holiday, laughing and playing. Then she was all alone
in a car. It was dark and cold and it was raining.’ Dad gave Lucy’s
shoulders a squeeze with his arm.

‘
I think I
know where this is going’ he said quietly.

‘
It rained so
hard I couldn’t see her anymore. I was scared and I tried to grab
her, even though I wasn’t there in my dream but looking in from the
outside.’ Lucy blew her nose again.

‘
Then the
dream got darker and suddenly there was a huge bang’ she
continued.

‘
That must
have been when you shouted out in your sleep’ commented
Dad.

‘
What did I
say Dad?’ asked Lucy.

‘
Oh you just
shouted ‘
No!
’
really loudly. Then you shouted ‘
Come
back!
’ Lucy nodded, though she couldn’t
remember what she’d said.

‘
After that
everything went pitch black, and I felt like I was buried alive in
a coffin. Then you came into the room and I realised I was
awake.’

‘
Oh Lucy’ Dad
exclaimed sadly, giving her shoulders another squeeze. ‘That sounds
like a terrible dream. I’m so sorry.’

‘
Tell me again
how Mum died’ asked Lucy. Dad glanced looked down at his mug for a
long moment, before looking back at her again.’

‘
You know the
story Luce’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t need me to tell it to you
again do you?’

‘
Yes’ she said
simply. Dad looked up at the ceiling, as if he were afraid to catch
her eye.

‘
Like I told
you’ Dad replied. ‘Mum was away on business, miles from here,
driving home in a hire car. Visibility was bad and the car on the
other side swayed across and clipped Mum’s car. She crashed into a
wall and was killed instantly.’ Dad’s arm around her shoulders went
limp. Lucy had heard the story before and knew exactly what Dad was
going to say, but somehow she wanted to hear him say it
again.

‘
What was she
away for?’ Lucy asked. Dad continued to stare up at the ceiling.
Lucy looked up at his face, but he would not return her
gaze.

‘
Oh you know,
work stuff’ he replied awkwardly as if he wanted to change the
subject. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked down rapidly at his mug again
and then took another swig of cocoa. He put the mug down on the
floor next to Lucy’s feet and gave her shoulders another squeeze,
still avoiding eye contact with her.

‘
I know it’s
terrible’ he said. ‘There’s not a day that passes when I don’t
think about Mum. I miss her so terribly, just like you do. I wish
that she hadn’t been stolen away from us like she was. She was only
thirty six you know. She was so young really.’ Dad stroked Lucy’s
hair thoughtfully.

‘
You know you
remind me so much of Mum’ he continued. ‘You look so much like her
and you’ve both got the same independent spirit. You’re all I’ve
got now Luce. That’s why I want to look after you.’

Lucy nestled
into Dad’s arm, but there was something about what he said, or the
way that he said it, that did not feel right. She just couldn’t say
what made her think that though.

‘
Why were
there so few people at the funeral?’ Lucy asked. ‘Mum knew lots of
people.’

‘
Oh I know
Luce, Mum was very well-liked, but I just wanted to keep it an
intimate affair, just family you see?’ Lucy nodded.

‘
Do they
report car crashes on the news?’ she asked.

‘
Oh sometimes
they do, but there are so many car accidents that mostly they don’t
bother. It might have been on the local news I suppose, but like I
said, it was miles away where the accident happened.

They continued
to sip their cocoa quietly in the dark for a few minutes, until
Lucy’s mug was empty.

‘
Come on then’
said Dad eventually. ‘Let’s get you back to bed.’ They went
upstairs and Dad straightened out her duvet and sheets for her
before Lucy got back into bed. Dad bent over to give her a soft
kiss on the forehead.

‘
Sleep tight
then Lucy’ he said softly. He plugged in the night light that Lucy
used to have on when she was younger and pulled the door quietly
closed behind him.

Lucy stared up
at the ceiling, an uneasy feeling nagging at her mind. Then she
realised. Just now Dad had said that Mum had been driving
home
from a business
trip. Last time he’d told her that Mum had been going
to
a business
meeting.

Lucy felt
tired the next morning after her broken nights’ sleep. Her
nightmare about Mum had disturbed her and she felt almost guilty
that she harboured doubts about what Dad had told her about how Mum
had died. Why would he lie to her about something so important? No,
she must be mistaken, she thought. Yet despite that, something
still didn’t feel right. At some point in the night she dreamt
about a girl in a bonnet and old fashioned dress whose face was
just out of view. Try as she might she could not seem to see her
properly.

‘
Are you
feeling better this morning Lucy?’ Dad asked sympathetically over a
hurried bowl of cereals. He shot her a shy, almost vulnerable
smile. She’d have liked to tell him that everything felt fine now,
but in fact she felt desolate and empty inside. Lucy just nodded
and glanced back down at her cornflakes.

‘
You’ll be
alright Luce’ said Dad, patting her arm companionably, ‘you’ll see.
Mum would be proud of you if she could see you now.’

Did Dad know
that she hadn’t been able to stretch out to Spirit for over a week
now? Lucy certainly hadn’t told him but maybe he’d guessed. Maybe
Thelma had told him that this was the age at which
the gift
left
Dolphin-Children. Maybe he knew that her life was just about to
change for the worse. Maybe…maybe. Lucy frowned to herself as she
walked up the road to school.