Sea Change (9 page)

"No problem,"
John said, "it's just nice to get the chance to go out."

"Aye well,
we'll get us out then, rather than stand here nattering. I want a
lifejacket on you, same as the other two. Simon can show you how. I
better get meself in there. She's a good learner, is Sal, and can
steer a steady course in clear water, but it's a while before I'll
be letting her take the boat out through the breakwater, I tell you
that for nothing, doesn't matter how good she thinks she is."

He stomped away
into the cabin, and Simon grinned at John, reaching for a
lifejacket. "He's all right, is Uncle Davey, but he doesn't half go
on a bit. On his own, you see, since Auntie Jean died, reckon he
gets a bit lonely. Then again, he always went on a bit when she was
still around. He's lived in the village since there were dinosaurs
roaming the lanes, remembers everything and everyone who ever lived
here, likes to tell stories about each and every last one of them.
Makes most of it up, I reckon."

John saw Sal
reluctantly move to the side in the cabin, but she still hovered
close to Davey, while he bent himself over the controls of the
boat. The sound of the engine rose, the water behind them frothed
white and choppy, and then they were moving out through the
harbour, the sun shining bright on the water, the wind ruffling
John's hair. The gap in the breakwater looked impossibly narrow to
John. They slipped through it, close to one of the towering wet
walls of stone. As they passed, the boat rose, and then fell again,
and rose further still, and then the walls were behind them and
they were into the open sea, the swell much heavier than it had
been in the harbour. John wondered with a sudden panic whether he
would be seasick, the potential humiliation in front of the others
unfolding in his mind like a horror film. He sent his thoughts down
gingerly towards his stomach. It seemed to be all right for now.
How long did seasickness take to start?

"Do you want to
go see the controls and that?" Simon said.

John would have
been quite happy just to stay in the back of the boat, feeling wild
and alive as the salt spray from the endless sea broke over his
face, and the wind tugged at him, and he thought I'm not going to
be seasick, and he knew beyond doubt that he was right.

The air was
calmer inside the cabin, the noise of the engine and the wind and
the water dropping down as Simon closed the door behind them. John
felt as if he had lost something that he had only just discovered.
Davey was standing squinting out of the window as Sal stood
directly in front of the wheel, feet planted firmly apart on the
deck, fingers wrapped tight around the wheel.

"That'll do,"
Davey said. "Now shift yourself, girl."

"Uncle Davey,
come on, a little longer?" Sal sounded cross, John thought.

"Because of the
first rule," Davey said. "You remember the first rule, don't you
Sally?"

She reluctantly
stepped back from the wheel, letting Davey take over. "Yes, Uncle
Davey, I know it." She sounded as if she had answered that question
a hundred times before. John saw Simon grinning.

"And what is
it, my love?"

John got the
feeling that this was a game that they had all played out many
times before.

Sal pursed her
lips and then muttered something.

"What was that,
sis, couldn't hear you back here?" Simon said. Sal swivelled her
head and glared at him in a way that made John think of a bird of
prey. Simon just shrugged. "Must be the engine noise and all that.
What did you say?"

Davey made a
noise that could have started off as a laugh but ended up as a
cough when Sal's hawk gaze swivelled in his direction.

"The first
rule," she said, through gritted teeth. "The first rule of going
out on the boat is that after a minute you always want to throw
your idiot brother overboard. The second rule, is that it's Uncle
Davey's boat and he's the captain and we're the crew and the crew
always do what the captain says, when he says it, and without
question."

"Aye, that's
pretty much it," Davey said. "Good to see you can remember it. It's
the first rule though, always the first rule. Throwing your brother
overboard can be the second rule if you like though, seems sensible
enough for me. Anyway, north or south, John? You're the guest, it's
your decision.”

"Let's go
south," Sal said. "We went north up the coast last time we were
out."

"That was ages
ago," Simon said. "North's cool."

"Hey, hey the
pair of you, enough," Davey said wearily. "Every time I take the
pair of you out, it adds years to my life, bloody years. Let John
decide. I'm past caring. Although if he has any sense, what he'll
be deciding is that coming out on this boat with the pair of you
was the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life."

"South, then,"
John said.

"There's a
surprise," Simon muttered, being very careful not to look in Sal's
direction.

John felt his
cheeks colour, and looked out to sea. These are good people, John
thought, really good people, and I'm happy that I am here with
them.

"Hob's Hole,"
Sal said, and gestured towards the cliffs. John peered out, shading
his eyes from the sun, and saw the cave dark black against the
ochre of the rock. The sea broke up around the foot of the cliffs,
waves slapping at the base, white spray arcing up into the air,
falling down in a million sparkles.

"See what you
mean about the tides coming in," John said. "If you got cut off
there..."

"You'd be all
right," Davey said. "Long as you sat it out in the Hole, anyway.
Might be cold and frightened, but you'd be all right in there. Long
as you didn't fall down it."

"Wouldn't fancy
that much," John said, "But I suppose it beats—" he was going to
say drowning, but he thought of Sal and Simon's dad and he caught
the words, just in time. "Beats staying on the beach."

"It's not so
bad,” Davey said. "Least, not in hindsight. But then that's true of
most things, as you young 'uns will learn."

"You've stopped
there?" Simon said. "In the Hole?"

"Aye, long time
back mind," Davey said, rubbing at his chin with his thumb.

"Back before
electricity had been invented?" Simon asked.

"Aye, and
dinosaurs walked them cliffs," Davey said, and John got the
impression that it was something that Davey and Simon had said to
each other many times before. "Was summat all the local lads used
to do. Soon as they turned thirteen. You went up to the Hole before
the tide came in, and there you sat. If you didn't fall down the
hole or get washed away by the waves, you were picked up in the
morning, and you were one of the lads from then on, grown up. Won't
happen now, old customs like that all done away with for the telly
and computers. Not many fish out of Saltcliff now anyhow. Look: see
that line where the waves are breaking."

John stared
out, saw nothing at first because of the dazzle of the sun on
water, and then saw a line stretching out from the beach where the
sea turned white. "I see it, I see it," he said.

"Line of rocks,
stretches out, barely gets covered at high tide. If you're careful,
you can get a boat up real close, step down from it and walk along
the rocks like a causeway, only get wet up to your knees if you
didn't fall in or the sea wasn't up too much. So what they used to
do, the older ones, is wait until it was high tide, in the night,
and then bring a boat in, real quiet like. One of 'em would go over
and onto the rocks, and sneak along 'til they got up to the shore.
Then they'd moan and make terrible noises, scare the lad sitting in
the Hole half to death."

"That's awful,"
Sal said, and Simon hooted with laughter.

"That's class
that."

"Not for the
lads who were sitting in that cave, the night and their
imaginations all around 'em. You try anything like that, and you'll
be answering to me, you hear?”

John and Sal
desperately avoided looking at each other or at Simon.

"I mean it. No
messing around near the water."

They all went
quiet for a moment, and John thought that they were probably
thinking the same thing. One lost to the sea was enough.

"So were you
frightened then, Uncle Davey?" Simon said. "When you had to stop in
the Hole?"

"Not half as
much as I would have been if I hadn't heard Billy Dawkins swearing
his head off as he slipped off the rocks on the way in to scare
me."

They all
laughed, and Simon said, "Did any of you really believe in it
though? The Hob? I mean, were you all scared of that like, or just
of falling down the hole?"

"Plenty would
have told you they didn't. But in the night...."

"It's important
to keep stories like that alive," Sal said suddenly, with real
passion. "It's our story, of our place. Don't you think, John?"

"Uh—yeah, yeah.
Important," John said, although he hadn't been really listening, as
he had been thinking of things that he knew came out of the dark
that were scarier than falling down a hole. But whatever Sal said
was fine with him.

"Ignore her,"
Simon said. "She's just trying to impress you John. What with you
being up from the city and all that. She's all star struck."

"Shut
up
Simon," Sal said, and there was heat in her words and colour in her
face, and John felt a dozen things all at once.

"You hot, or
ill or something, mate?" Simon said, innocently. "You just look a
bit flushed."

"You've got a
point there Sally," Davey said quickly. "It's tradition, like.
Worth keeping what's left alive, because there's precious little of
it. Makes where we live what it is, it's as much part of Saltcliff
as the cliffs themselves."

"Yeah, but it's
just a story," Simon said. "Not like it's real history, is it? Can
see why real history's worth keeping, because it's what happened.
But this sort of thing, it's just made up."

"You know that,
do you?" Sal said.

"Aw, come on,
Sal. The Hob? You're not telling me you really believe..."

"Maybe not like
in the story," she said. "But the story comes from somewhere. From
something."

"Time we headed
back," Davey said. "Shame, because it's a lovely day out here, but
if I don't get that van engine someone else will, and if it's one
bit what he says it is, it's a bargain."

The boat turned
in a slow and lazy circle, and John went out onto the deck behind
the cabin and watched the coast, ignoring the breeze that tore the
tops off the waves and threw salt water in his face. He thought
about what Sal had said, and then he thought about the old man.
Something dark, something dangerous. Stories that were not just
stories, but which told of something that really existed in the
shadows, a nightmare from the past that had never gone away.

When the
harbour walls showed dark against the sea, Simon came out and sat
next to John.

"You okay?" he
said.

"Yeah," John
said. "Just thinking."

"You don't want
to do that, it's dangerous, you'll end up like Sal." There was
silence for a moment between them. "Was worried you weren't having
fun, like, that you were bored or something. He's a funny 'un,
Uncle Davey, but he does go on at times."

"Bored? No way,
I wouldn't want you to think—Simon, this is great, I can't tell you
how much I've enjoyed myself. This is all just what I needed. There
were things back home that—well, they weren't good, not good at
all. Not at home, with mum and dad, just...stuff back there."

Simon nodded.
"It's all right. You don't have to talk about it. I know what you
mean, with...you know. Dad and that."

"I know," John
said, and they were silent for a moment. "Doing stuff like this, it
just stops me thinking about things back home. So...thanks. It's
just what I needed. What's that up there, by the way?"

John pointed up
at the cliff top, where he had seen the orange tape on his walk up
the cliffs.

"Heavy rains a
few weeks back, and then a landslip, massive chunk of the cliff
fell into the sea. Happens, from time to time. Don't go thinking of
building your holiday home on the cliff tops. Anyway, council go in
to tape it all up so no-one goes too close and falls into the sea
with it. Saw this programme a few weeks ago, about these men who
were the best at diving in the world, and they were diving from off
this cliff that was the highest in the world or something..."

Si was still
talking about it when they got off the boat, and Davey had driven
off in an old van that belched almost as much smoke as his
boat.

"So, what you
doing this afternoon?" John said, when he got a moment's chance to
interrupt.

Simon pulled a
face. "Sorry mate, not around, though I wish I was. We'll be eating
soggy biscuits and trying not to smell the wee."

"He means mum
is taking us to go and visit her Aunty Flo," Sal said. "Old folks’
home down near Scarborough. Won't be back 'til late, we usually
stop somewhere for tea. Maybe tomorrow though?"

"I'd like
that," John said. And thought: very much.

"Come with us
today, if you want," Simon said. "But it stinks worse than Davey's
boat."

"I think I'll
pass, ta," John said. "I'll have some lunch, maybe take a wander up
on to the cliff and check out that barrow. See you tomorrow though,
yeah?"

"If we survive
the gassing of boiled cabbage and wee," Simon said, already walking
away, a look of despair on his face.

"Yeah,
tomorrow," Sal said. And she looked at John sideways again and
smiled. "I'd like that." Then she turned and ran after Simon, and
John stood there, thinking about how many days he had left before
he would have to leave for home, and thinking that leaving would be
even harder than he had first thought.