Victorian coast, 1929
Orah huddled beside her mother in the belly of the lifeboat, thigh-deep in water, freezing fingers clamped to the crossbench. Staring over the rim, she searched the moonlit waves. Splintered planks swirled like matchsticks in the black water. Barrels bobbed among the wreckage, a suitcase and a small chest swirled past. Once, she glimpsed something white that might have been a man. It turned out to be an empty nightshirt. The current churned the shirt on its foamy surface, and then sucked it away.
Hot tears stung her eyes as she looked for the shore.
‘Mam, we’re drifting out to sea!’ She hadn’t meant to sound so small and frightened, not when she’d made a private promise to be brave. They only had one oar, and no rope nor anchor. Not that it would have mattered. A weaving woman and her thirteen-year-old daughter from the cobbled heart of Glasgow were no match for the sea. The Lady Mary’s captain and his crew had gone down. The strong labourers, the midshipmen, the navvies and stewards – all of them gone. Orah and her mother were the last survivors, and the sea was hungry for them too.
Mam grasped her hand. ‘We’ll be all right, love. The coastguard will find us, and before you know it we’ll be with your pa, snug in warm blankets, sipping sugary tea.’
When Mam pressed her lips to Orah’s brow, Orah began to weep. The kiss was warm, the only warmth apart from her tears that Orah had felt in hours. She clung to her mother, and Mam stroked her cold face. Orah found herself drifting into an uneasy stupor, rocked by the swell of water beneath them, cradled in Mam’s arms . . .
But then Mam cried out.
Orah lurched up in time to see an outcrop of rocks loom out of the water into their path. Mam flung herself to the edge of the boat, grappling for the oar, but she was too late. The lifeboat struck the rock. The impact threw Mam off balance, and before her daughter’s frozen senses could react, she had gone overboard.
Orah launched after her, but the vessel lurched violently and almost sent her into the water too. Mam surfaced and Orah reached down and grasped her hand, but she was too heavy to drag over the rim and back into the boat.
Orah clutched her tightly. ‘Mam!’
‘Hold on, Orah,’ Mam said. Clamping her free hand on the edge of the boat, she tried to heave herself up, but again the little vessel listed dangerously, sinking lower in the water.
‘Let go of my hand,’ Mam ordered.
Orah let go. The boat sat low in the water, rocking and dipping wildly as Mam struggled to pull herself up over the side. Her arms shook and her wet dress dragged her backwards with each wave. Orah gripped her under the arms, but again and again the swell threw them off balance. Mam was growing tired. For a while she rested her head against the rim of the boat, panting. When she looked up again, her eyes held a glimmer of her old fire.
‘Hold tight,’ she instructed. She edged along the boat and grasped the bow, then began to paddle with one arm. Slowly, the lifeboat began to move through the water towards the shore.
Just when Orah thought they were safe, the swell retreated and another bank of submerged rock broke the surface nearby. The current foamed and swirled, rushing the lifeboat towards it.
Orah screamed.
Mam wrenched around. Her face was chalky, her eyes widened when she saw the rock. Her mouth opened in a silent cry as the wave hollowed out and sucked the boat swiftly towards the rock. Her body struck it soundlessly. She buckled like a rag doll, and the tide dragged her under.
Orah threw herself to the front of the boat and straddled the edge, somehow managing to grasp Mam’s sleeve, then her wrist. Mam’s skin was slippery, and Orah almost lost her. Then their hands locked and Mam’s face broke the surface.
She gasped. ‘Orah . . . Orah!’
Orah hung on hard. Her hands were strong. After Pa’s departure for Australia six years before, Mam had kept them in food and board by spinning raw yarn and weaving woollen cloth for a tailor. Orah had helped to spin and card the yarn, a job she had come to love. It had given her the gift of physical strength, which until now she had taken for granted.
She tightened her grip, but seawater found its way through her fingers, into her palm, weakening her hold. Mam’s lips moved. As if from a great distance, her voice spoke softly in Orah’s mind.
My clever girl, one day you’ll leave the nest and make a great life for yourself. When you do, remember that whatever else changes, your old mam will always love you.
Mam locked her gaze on Orah. Her fingers slackened. ‘My darling girl, I love you so.’
‘No,’ Orah cried. What was Mam doing? ‘No, no!’
Mam released her grip. Her eyes widened as she slipped from Orah’s grasp. Mam cried out, a single word, a final haunting wail that was lost forever as the black water claimed her and took her under.
Orah couldn’t remember how the lifeboat had capsized, only that the lower half of her body was now in the water. She grasped the splintered hull with frozen fingers. Debris bobbed past, chests and lifebelts, scraps of wood. Black waves slapped against her, foul-smelling and oily.
She wanted to sink into the darkness and be with Mam. She was so very tired. The effort of staying alive was wearying, and she wished it over. All she had to do was let go. The seawater would rush in and fill her lungs, all the bubbles of her breath would escape, and she would sink down and join her mother in slumber.
She glared at her fingers, willing them to loosen. Mam, wait for me. Don’t leave me alone. Tears began to burn down her cheeks. Her brain was punishing her, throwing out sweet memories that here, in the vast cold hell of the sea, made her ache with longing: Mam’s lips on her brow, Mam’s gentle voice, her big soft-bodied embrace, her reassuring presence. Only now, there were other memories: Mam’s worried eyes, Mam in the water, the slow horrible slide as Mam slipped through Orah’s fingers and away. If only she were still here. Orah screwed up her eyes, searching the dark water, wishing hard. Perhaps Mam had surfaced again, too far away for Orah to see. Perhaps she was, at this very moment, searching the wreckage for a sign of Orah.
‘Mam!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you?’
Orah’s cry ended on a shriek as something nudged her shoulder. She wrenched around, alight with frantic joy. Mam’s survived. She’s not dead at all, and now she’s found her way back to the lifeboat, back to me—
But it wasn’t Mam.
It was a boy. Treading water an arm’s length away. His brown face peered at her through the half-light. Wild wet hair jutted from his head, and his straight brows furrowed over midnight eyes. Eyes so dark they surely belonged to a devil risen from the deep.
‘Give me your hand,’ he said sharply.
Orah’s mouth opened, but the scream stuck in her throat. She tried to thrash away from the boy, but lost her hold on the broken hull and slid into the water, swallowing a mouthful. She began to cough so hard she couldn’t breathe.
The boy grasped her arm. She shoved away from him, spluttering and gasping, managing to scramble back to the upturned boat. He tried to take hold of her again, but she lashed out, clawing at him with frozen fingers.
‘Let me help,’ he said more gently. ‘Put your arms around my neck and hold on. I’ll swim you to shore.’
He pointed to the headland, and finally Orah’s fearful mind began to jostle together a sort of sense. She looked at him. He was no devil from the deep. Just a boy, not much older than her. He patted his shoulder and said, ‘Here, climb on my back. Hold tight. Don’t be afraid. I’m a good swimmer.’
Orah made no move to let go.
‘Will you let me help?’ he asked.
She nodded.
With one hand, he gripped Orah’s fingers and prised them from the hull. His skin was a shock of warmth. Orah wondered vaguely why the chill had not taken hold of him as it had taken hold of her. She slid into the water, clumsy with fear, but the boy did not let her sink. The lifeboat drifted out of reach. She twisted, trying to splash after it, but the boy held her firm.
He drew her to him and pulled her arms around his neck. She clung to him, letting her cheek fall against his head as he swam towards the shore, his muscles bunching and lengthening, his lean body warm through the sodden cloth of Orah’s dress. He crested the swelling waves with ease, pushing strong and swift through the troughs. Soon the shadows of the headland loomed over them. Orah saw a cut of deeper darkness at its base, and realised with a pang of sorrow that Mam had been right. A tiny cove lay at the foot of the headland, with a narrow stretch of gravelly beach curving along the water’s edge.
They reached the shore and the boy laid Orah on the sand. She rolled onto her belly, retching. When the spasms stopped, she hunched into a ball to catch her breath. Finally, she looked up.
The boy was crouched beside her, his eyes fixed to her face. He wasn’t alone. A girl kneeled next to him. She was dark-skinned like the boy, and her wide eyes shone in the gloom.
‘Come on.’ The boy put out his hand.
Orah brushed him away and struggled to her feet. She stood shakily, then pointed to the water.
‘Mam’s out there. You have to help her.’
The boy studied her face, his brows drawn. He looked at the girl, and back at Orah, then nodded solemnly.
For the next hour, he dived and searched. Orah shivered on the shore, straining to see. The girl stood motionless at Orah’s side, her skinny frame ghostlike in the gloom. From time to time, Orah heard her speak, her words as melodic as birdsong. Orah couldn’t make out what the girl was saying. The roar of the ocean still rang in her ears, and her heart thumped too loudly. The boy was a shadow in the predawn light. Paddling in circles, swimming along the surface of the waves, and then diving deep. At times, he was gone so long that Orah thought the current had pulled him under, drowned him like all the others. Finally, he swam back to shore, emerging from the surf panting, his head held low. He collapsed on the sand next to her.
Orah dropped to her knees. She had bitten her lips, and the sticky ooze of blood mingled warmly with the salty crust of dried seawater around her mouth. She drove her fists hard into her temples, as if that would somehow stop the pain. She pressed her face into the sand, the cry inside her trapped, her body rigid.
‘Warra,’ the girl cried. Her small hands fluttered over Orah’s frozen skin like warm moths. ‘Oh, Warra, look at her!’
The boy took Orah’s hand. After a while, he helped her to her feet and led her along the beach. They entered the shadows of the headland. The girl hurried along behind them, and from time to time, Orah heard her speaking or singing quietly as they walked.
‘Watch the rocks,’ she called to Orah. ‘Uphill now, mind your feet.’
Orah had no care where she trod, no care that the stones cut her bare heels and bruised her toes. She cared nothing for where the boy might be taking her. She simply stumbled along beside him, following like a lamb, her heart in tatters. They climbed up into the rocks, and worked their way along a steep path. As they climbed, the ocean’s roar became a muffled, hollow moan. Several times, Orah had to stop and rest until the trembling in her legs subsided. Each time they stopped, the boy waited without a word.
His grip on her hand never wavered, his fingers strong and warm around hers. The girl stayed close, a dark butterfly flitting along behind Orah and the boy, sometimes beside them, sometimes ahead, never far.
Orah thought their climb would go on forever. The sun broke over the horizon and bathed them in its first yellow rays. Still they climbed. Rocks gave way to grasses. They entered a thicket of stumpy trees with small leathery leaves, and a while later broke through the other side onto flat ground.
Soon after, Orah lost her sense of place, of time. She walked blindly, as if walking was all she knew. She placed one foot in front of the other, dragging herself through a sludge of seconds, minutes, perhaps hours. In the swirling sea storm of her mind, she saw the ocean, the lifeboat, the wild rolling waves, the crash of water. She relived the giddying fear. Now, rather than the boy’s warm fingers, she was holding Mam’s cold ones. Clutching them for dear life, praying that this time, this time, if she only held tightly enough she would be able to save her.