Chapter Thirteen

It happened like this. The boy had been caught in the house again as the tide rose. It was a Sunday; he was allowed out of the orphanage all day, as long as he reported back by late afternoon. When he’d crossed the fields to the house, he’d seen that the sea was already very high and still rising, and he’d known that, by mid-morning, he would be marooned at Ynys Elyrch. Really he was looking forward to it, that he and Mr Clewe and the two dogs should be cut off by the swirling sea. Harry was glad, too. In the same way, he was excited by the prospect of being marooned with his young visitor.

So, that Sunday morning, once the two of them were cosily established by the fire, with tea and crumpets, with their feet warm­ing on the backs of the great, snoring hounds, they would glance out of the bedroom window and pretend they hadn’t noticed how the sea came closer and closer, how it crossed the fields, filled the ditches, poured through the hedges and the tumbledown walls, how at last it reached the house. They pretended they hadn’t heard it slither through the front door and flood the hallway. From time to time, they looked at one another over the rims of their tea mugs, and they smiled. After a while, going to the bathroom to fetch an armful of wood from the bath, Christy saw that the water was slapping at the staircase. It was grand to gaze from the landing window and see nothing but chopping, white waves lit by a clear, cold sun . . . a swollen brown ocean. The house was in the sea! The sea was in the house! Grand!

‘Looks as though you’re here for the day,’ Harry muttered, as he stumped out of the bedroom and joined Christy on the landing. ‘You stupid girl! Didn’t you see the tide coming in? What if I decide to throw you out? Can you swim? Eh? Didn’t you say you were a bloody mermaid or something? Looks as though I’m stuck with you all bloody day . . .’

But his grumpiness slipped, for once, and his face split into a wide grin. Christy grinned too. They stood together on the landing and surveyed their watery isolation.

Then, hundreds of yards away on the flooded horizon, a vivid purple shape appeared . . . unmistakable, a splash of gorgeous colour against a grey sky. Christy saw it straight away: Harry saw it a few seconds later, where it danced and fluttered like a brilliant spark. But neither of them said anything. They stiffened and stared as the sail raced towards the house.

Sensing a tension in the atmosphere, the dogs came out of the bedroom too. They peered out of the window, forcing their heads between the man and the boy, and when they caught the zigzag and flutter of the purple thing, and heard the snapping and the slapping of it, they started to bark. There was pandemonium. Harry bellowed at the animals and booted them off the landing; they skidded down the stairs, slithered to a halt when they met the sea in the hallway, turned round and clambered back up again, still barking as loudly as they could. Hooking the window open, Harry reached for the sack of potatoes which was leaning at the top of the stairs and prepared to hurl his missiles as soon as the target came in range. He shouted and shouted, a blather of meaningless threats which echoed up and down the landing with the booming noise of the dogs. The louder he shouted, the louder the dogs barked; the louder the dogs barked, the more noise the man made. And when the windsurfer veered within a few yards of the house, grinning a dazzling grin and tossing his golden hair, Harry lobbed the potatoes feebly out of the window.

Christy had kept out of the way while the dogs took the brunt of the man’s frustration. Now he felt a wonderful, surging thrill inside him. This was the kind of adventure he was looking for, after the ordered routine of the orphanage: a house surrounded by foaming sea, a mad man and two booming mad hounds, defending the territory from anyone foolish enough to venture within range of whatever weapons came to hand . . . With a squeal of excite­ment, he lunged for the potatoes and braced himself to hurl the missiles from the window.

‘Let me do it, Mr Clewe!’ he yelled. ‘I’ll get him! I got him last time, didn’t I?’

He leaned from the landing. The windsurfer was turning his craft just below the window. The sail flapped, a glistening, strug­gling thing, and for a moment the youth fought to control it, too busy to glance up at the house although he’d come so close deliberately to draw the fire of the man who lived there. As Harry stood back and watched, his chest heaving, his mouth opening and closing, Christy took aim and threw.

He threw twice, three times. The potatoes missed by yards. They splashed into the water, nowhere near the youth or his purple sail. Before Christy could reach for more ammunition, the sail bulged with a bang as the wind filled it and the board sped away. The man and the boy could hear the windsurfer laughing.

‘Useless bitch!’ Harry shouted.

There was more and greater pandemonium. Harry exploded all his anger and frustration. He lunged at Christy, seized him by the hair and shook him so hard that the boy could feel the teeth rattling in his head. He jutted his face to the boy’s face and shouted hoarsely, spitting crumbs of crumpet, ‘Bloody fluke the last time, was it? Beginner’s bloody luck, was it? Now all you can do is stand there and throw like a bloody useless feeble girl! Why the hell do you come here?’

He shoved so hard that Christy staggered, fell backwards and only saved himself from rolling down the stairs by grabbing at the banister. With an expression of terrible disgust, Harry wheeled away and turned his anger on the dogs, which had been barking wildly all this time. Lashing out with his feet, he drove them into the bedroom. The bellowing and barking continued, louder and louder, a scuffling of snarls and grunts as the man pursued the dogs round and round the fireside furniture.

Christy struggled to his feet. All the strength was wrung from him. Sobbing with anger and humiliation, blinded by tears, he crossed the landing to the window again. As he leaned on the sill, the house itself seemed to tremble with the slap of the waves, the gusting wind and the dreadful commotion of the hysterical man and the hysterical dogs. A hundred yards away, he saw the flash of the purple sail, slowing and stopping and turning, no more than a blur through the welling tears.

The noise increased. The house rang with a futile, impotent rage. The man’s words clanged in Christy’s head, and every word was a wound, which sent a lancing pain through him. Trying to blot out the roaring sounds which still came from the bedroom, he knelt at the window. As the sail grew bigger and bigger, he steadied his breathing, but the blood was pounding in his head and his chest. He felt for the gun which was leaning in the corner and he pointed it out of the window, resting the weight of the barrel on the sill.

The noise from the bedroom reached a howling crescendo. Either the man was beating the dogs to death or the dogs were dis­membering and devouring the man. Christy didn’t care which. He sighted down the barrel. The purple sail filled his vision. It raced closer and closer until he could see the flying, golden hair and the shining, black, muscular body.

He held his breath. He felt for the trigger. He heard the flap of the sail as it came within yards of the house. And the last thing he saw before he shut his eyes was the windsurfer’s face below him, how it looked up at the window and changed from a broad, bright grin to a look of disbelieving horror . . .

Christy squeezed the trigger.