Last summer
The girl who arrived that day, August 14th, is sixteen. She comes from somewhere near Birmingham. Her mother (Lorna) is divorced. Her little sister’s called Coral. Rosie makes friends with Coral.
Joe’s like a lost person. He’s fallen in love for the very first time.
‘Hook, line and sinker,’ Gramps says.
Gramps laughs when he hears what her name is. ‘Samphire! It’s a plant,’ he says.
‘Well, there’s Ivy and Rose and Lily and all manner of flower names,’ Evie says. ‘The old names are coming back.’
‘It’s in Shakespeare, too,’ Gramps says then. ‘King Lear.’
‘No,’ Evie says. ‘You’re getting muddled up now. That’s Cordelia. The favourite daughter.’
‘Samphire’s in there too,’ Gramps says. ‘But as a plant, not a person. For picking and eating.’
They carry on like that for a bit, amusing themselves, but Joe doesn’t think it’s funny. He slams out of the back door, and goes to find Samphire (he starts calling her Sam, after that) for another walk, or whatever it is they do.
The first day after she turned up Joe showed her round the island, since she hasn’t been here before. He wouldn’t let me come, though. That’s another thing that’s new: before, all us kids just mucked in together.
I hear little bits and pieces about Sam. Scraps that start making a picture. Like the fact she doesn’t like camping – never done it before. She’s brought a different outfit for each day, but nothing warm enough, so Joe lends her his fleece. She starts using the bathroom at our place, because she doesn’t like the showers at the campsite. She and Joe spend ages in his room.
That’s where they are now. I’m lying on my bed in the room next door to them, writing in my notebook. I wonder what Sam makes of the pictures on the wall next to Joe’s bed: boats and lighthouses and fish and stuff. The map of shipwrecks, with the names and dates of the thousands of boats that have gone down around this archipelago (that’s one of my favourite words at the moment). It’s one of the most dangerous in the world, which is why Gramps has taught Joe about currents and navigation and sea-charts. He bought him a special watch with a compass and everything.
When I listen up against the wall, I can’t hear a thing. No voices, or music, even.
Gramps clumps noisily up the stairs, whistling. He stops outside my door.
‘Coming for an evening walk, Freya?’ he calls. ‘We’ll stop at the pub.’
He knocks on Joe’s door. ‘Joe? Coming? Bring your friend, too.’
He’s either forgotten her name, or he can’t quite bring himself to say it. Samphire.
There’s the sound of something scraping along the floor – furniture, or something heavy, before Joe opens his door a crack. ‘Join you later,’ he says, and he shuts the door again.
Through my open door I see Gramps just standing there, as if he’s not sure what to do.
‘I’ll come,’ I say. We go downstairs together.
In the kitchen, Evie purses her lips. She looks worried. ‘What would Martin and Helen do?’ she says. Helen is Mum, Martin is Dad, their son.
‘About what?’ I ask.
‘Joe and that girl in his room all that time.’
I shrug. ‘Nothing, I guess. She’s just a friend.’
Evie and Gramps give each other funny looks.
‘Sam is friends with everyone,’ I say. ‘It’s fine.’
I think about this at the pub while Evie’s ordering our drinks and Gramps is chatting to people outside. It’s true that Samphire is friends with Joe and Huw, but not really with anyone else. She hardly speaks to me or the other girls, not even Lisa and Maddie. She doesn’t join in the games on the field in the evenings with everyone else. She watches from the sidelines, looking bored. Sometimes I see her with Coral, washing up at the campsite sinks outside the stone barn, but mostly Coral plays with Rosie.
I know Evie and Gramps are worried, so for some reason that makes me want to reassure them. I take Joe’s side every time, even though I am cross with him for spending so much time with his new friend. Now, sitting at the table outside the pub, I chat away so they don’t keep wondering where Joe’s got to.
He doesn’t turn up, of course. At closing time we walk back in the soft dark, over the field and along the top of Periglis.
‘Watch out for shooting stars,’ I say. You always get them in August, when it’s clear like this, if you look for long enough. Then you can make a wish.
I wish for the puppy. Please let Mum and Dad say yes.
Later, lying in the bath, I hear raised voices. My heart beats faster: it’s so rare to hear Evie and Gramps arguing for real.
A door slams. I turn off the hot tap so I can hear better, but someone turns the radio on in the kitchen; classical music. I sink back into the water. I’m practising holding my breath. I want to be as good as Joe. Better. He can do nearly two minutes, he says.
When I come out of the bathroom the house is quiet. The bathroom is downstairs and you have to go through the kitchen to get to the stairs. The radio’s off. Evie’s reading in the front room.
‘Nice bath?’
I nod. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ she says. ‘Joe got a bit cross with us for interfering. We forget he’s sixteen now. I suppose we’re a bit fuddy-duddy. Old-fashioned.’
‘No, you’re not! You really aren’t, Evie! Mum and Dad would’ve been much crosser, I expect, if he’d had a girl in his room all that time.’
Up in bed, I feel bad for saying that, as if I’ve betrayed Joe, somehow. I write about it in my notebook before I go to sleep. Sorry, Joe. But he had it coming, really. He should think about the rest of us sometimes. Evie and Gramps and me.