Despite my purchase of a special Romanian spell doll from the charity shop and willing the camping trip to be abandoned, the day of reckoning dawns. Mum and Marcus both take me to school, which would be embarrassing normally, but I have too much else to worry about to be concerned that I look like a juvenile delinquent being marched into care by undercover police officers.
Mum hugs me.
‘Have fun, and be careful, remember these are London children. They won’t have a clue about tides,’ she says, pressing a tide table into my hand.
I roll my eyes.
‘Honestly, Mum, are you expecting me to get them to learn this on the way up?’
But I grin and kiss her. Marcus gives me twenty quid and a BT phonecard.
‘This weekend is going to be like one of those challenging TV programmes where you’ve got to see how far you can go with these two items,’ he says, winking at me. ‘I hope you will be able to get home from Staitheley.’
He kisses my cheek, which is the first time we have touched each other, but it is not a watershed moment because I have just caught sight of Pansy’s outfit for travelling and it is making me hyperventilate with anxiety about what Dad will say.
Unbelievably, we arrive in Staitheley much earlier than expected. This means that the tide is out. Pansy, chucking her phone to one side because it has had no signal for the past five minutes, leans over the seat of the minibus and shouts, ‘I can see the sea. Oh. No, I can’t. I can see a trickle of water and miles of mud. There isn’t any sea. Where is it?’
Freda stops applying mascara to look out of the window. She wrinkles her nose.
‘God, this place is filthy,’ she says, and returns to the more attractive prospect of herself in the rear-view mirror.
The minibus judders to a halt. Pansy moves seats to get a better view.
‘We’re not stopping here, are we?’ she growls, her voice at its most husky. ‘We can’t get out with all that mud. Where are we actually going?’
‘See that hut?’ I ask, pointing my finger to the tiny, Lego-sized building on the horizon, separated from us now by the thick mud of the creek at low tide. ‘We’re going to take a boat out there and that’s where we’re staying.’
‘Well,’ is all Pansy can say, she is so deeply shocked by the basic nature of Staitheley. She bats accusing eyelashes at me and crosses her legs, revealed to full effect beneath her white hot pants and a silver lamé halter-neck top.
‘Are you auditioning for Baywatch?’ Harry asks when she adds lipgloss and a slap of foundation before lowering her dark glasses. Pansy ignores him, and continues to gaze out of the window.
‘The sun’s gone,’ she adds balefully.
‘I think it might be your glasses,’ says Jessie, not unkindly. Pansy removes them, but she was right.
In Staitheley, locals say, there is a microclimate, and we can have weather here that no one else is experiencing. It’s usually quite extreme. Now the sun has rushed behind a purple cloud, and a huge shadow sweeps in across the marshes, drawing all light with it, so for a few moments the summer seems to have departed.
Along the grey quay, Dad approaches, pulling on a big yellow mac over his shorts and wellies.
‘Hey, check that dude,’ shouts Pete, one of the back-seat boys.
‘Rock on, man. Rock right on over.’
There is a low whistle from his friend Carl.
‘Clock the ear muffs.’ He grins.
The last time I saw them was when Carl played an intensely cool gig for a school concert and his house won. They signed up for the trip because they thought Aiden from the basketball team was coming, and now that he’s not they don’t even pretend to be interested. They’re just here for the ride.
My cheeks burn when I step off the coach, and, in full view of my schoolmates, am folded into Dad’s arms. There is now no way I can dissociate myself from the shorts and the ear hair.
Mr Lascalles groups us around Dad on the quay and makes a little speech.
‘We’re all very grateful to you, Mr Jordan, for this opportunity to experience something quite unusual.’
He doesn’t hear Pete whisper to Carl, ‘Just how unusual is our call? D’you want a bet on Pansy?’
‘Nah. Too easy. I’ll go for Freda. She’s more of a challenge.’
Freda bridles, obviously listening to them, not to Mr Lascalles. A huge pink ball of bubblegum swells from her mouth and she pops it with a splat over her cheek.
‘Eugh, gross,’ she squeals, cutting through Mr Lascalles’s thanks.
Dad coughs, delivers a flinty glare at our assembled group and begins his spiel.
‘Right, you lot. I’d like you to listen carefully for a few moments and then I’d like you to go away and digest what I am about to tell you. This is not chitchat. Your lives might depend on your listening to me.’
I have heard it loads of times before, so I really can’t be expected to listen. But he has caught the others’ attention, at least for the time being. I glance around surreptitiously, horribly aware of the spectacle we are creating on the quay.
Caroline Christie drives past, and I see her raise her eyebrows as Pansy, clearly wanting to change the tempo, reaches her arms above her head in a stretch which reveals yet more of her perfect midriff. Dad has lost everyone’s attention already, and he has only got to the bit about not disturbing the terns. I switch off for a while, coming to with a start when he puts his arm around me again (why is he doing all this friendly stuff? It’s not normal) and says, ‘Anyway, I know I can trust my daughter to show you all how to behave on the nature reserve. Look to Lola’s example and you won’t go far wrong.’
How could he? What have I done, apart from not listening, to deserve this sort of humiliation? Crimson, I mutter something inarticulate and step casually out of his embrace. All the time we have been talking, the tide has been creeping up. We hang around waiting for it to be high enough to set off.
An old rowing boat with an outboard engine slides alongside us and I cannot believe the way things can go on getting worse. It is Josh and his dad, and they are taking us out to Salt Head. It could have been any one of the fishermen around here, but no, it has to be Josh. Why didn’t he tell me he was taking us? I am not prepared for mixing my two lives. Panicking, I scramble to the opposite end of the boat from where I know he will be sitting.
‘I am due at an emergency meeting this afternoon, so I can’t come over with you,’ Dad is explaining to Mr Lascalles. ‘The only people I could get were Ian Christie and his son, Josh. So they will take care of you all.’
‘Blimey, don’t spare us, will you?’ mutters Josh’s dad under his breath, winking a greeting to me.
I can hardly look at him. I still don’t understand why Dad can’t relax with them. I want to talk to Josh about it right now, to clear it up once and for all, so we can all accept that James died and Ian lived and that it’s sad but it was all so long ago. I feel like the grown-up with Dad right now, even in the middle of my embarrassment. Annoyingly, Josh makes sure he doesn’t catch my eye as he heaves all our belongings into a dinghy attached to the motorboat. Dad, having looked Pansy up and down very slowly, has not attempted to edit our luggage at all, and soon the boat is sinking dose to its Plimsoll line.
‘All right, get in. Girls at the front, please.’
Freda, pausing to apply some fudge-scented hair mascara in vivid pink, joins me at the front.
‘He’s fit.’ She glances at Josh, who’s helping Pansy into the boat. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Of course I do, I know everyone in this village. There are more people in our school than live here, you know.’
Freda is surprised I am so short with her,
‘All right, keep your hair on. Oh look, Pansy’s playing her tricks on him.’
At the other end of the boat, Pansy is perching next to the outboard, tying a shawl over her hair and shooting sideways glances at Josh as he unties the mooring line, making sure the small dinghy he is pulling behind doesn’t get caught in any ropes.
‘How did she manage to get to sit next to him?’ hisses Freda.
‘She won’t be able to when we set off.’
And indeed, Josh places a hand under Pansy’s elbow and propels her to the bench in front of us.
‘God, he’s right up my street, girls,’ Pansy announces gladly and, getting out her phone, waves it in the air in search of a signal. ‘I’ve got to tell everyone about this guy. He’s so gorgeous. What’s his name, Lola? How old?’
The engine has started, but even so, Pansy’s voice is easily heard. She sounds as if she is talking about a pet guinea pig. Josh sets his jaw and looks out to sea. His dad shoots Pansy a look of disgust that makes my toes curl. She, however, is oblivious.
‘God, how do they survive out here? No signal at all,’ she shrieks. ‘I’ll have to put a message in a bottle, or maybe I’ll just keep him all to myself and not tell anyone how lovely he is. What did you say his name was, Lola?’
I want to catch Josh’s eye, so I can wordlessly tell him I am not part of this, but he will not look at any of us.
Next to Pansy, Jessie suddenly swoops towards the water. Leaning forward to grab her, I find she is giggling.
‘Did you think I was going in? Don’t worry, I just had to test the water. Its freezing, isn’t it? I hope everyone has got wetsuits. I know I have.’
‘Well, we don’t heat it for tourists,’ says Josh coldly.
Up in the front, Harry is delving in his rucksack for gloves and a hat. Pete and Carl have got their headphones on. The only person treating Josh and his dad normally is weedy Dave, whom I can see mouthing some sort of conversation with them.
The tide is ‘out’ and ‘low’. How can it come in so fast, with enough water to set off in the boat? We bounce over the waves to Salt Head, and with every breath the familiar exhilaration of being on the sea comes back to me. The sun is over the dunes at the tip of the island now and, squinting to look at the familiar landscape, I am suddenly flooded with sadness for Jack. I wish my family was whole again.
The tide has turned when we finally reach the island, and we cannot get the boats right up.
‘Everyone out,’ says Ian, cutting the motor.
‘But we’re not at the edge,’ objects Pansy. ‘We’ll get soaked.’
Mr Lascalles has taken off his shoes. He rolls up his shorts so they are embarrassingly brief, and jumps in up to his thighs.
‘Welcome to the world of camping. We can’t get right to the land because the boats can’t go any shallower or they will be grounded,’ he says to Pansy, and holds a hand out to help her from the boat.
‘This is so not glamorous,’ she sighs, but drops into the water with no more complaints.
When we are all standing in the water, Josh passes Mr Lascalles the rope of the smaller boat.
‘You can drag this one up on that mud to get your stuff on dry land, but then you’ll need to wade out a bit further than here to anchor it. It gives you more leeway with coming and going.’
‘And be quick with it or you’ll end up stranded with it on the mudbank,’ shouts his dad. Standing by the tiller, Josh salutes us mockingly as they depart.
Even Mr Lascalles has a slightly forlorn note to his voice as he begins to take charge.
‘OK, Carl and Pete, could you take the first bags over? Harry, anchor the boat here, will you? I don’t see a need to drag it through the mud. We can wade with the equipment.’
‘You must be mad,’ mutters Freda, floundering through thick oozing mud to the shore with her rucksack. ‘Urgh, this mud smells disgusting.’
‘Oh, stop moaning.’ Pete chucks a tent down next to her. ‘Here, carry this stuff up to the hut.’
Astonishingly, Pansy has made no fuss at all, but wordlessly shoulders her vast floral rucksack and wades to the edge with it.
‘I’m going up to the campsite,’ she volunteers. ‘I’ll start unpacking.’
The campsite is dominated by the lookout hut, a small, breezeblock house with a tiled roof, a fireplace and no loo, water or electricity. Really it is little more than a lean-to with damp, peeling brick walls. I love it. I have stayed in it every summer and sometimes at other times of the year too. It has bunk beds and a tiny loft reached by a ladder where you have a view over the sandbank and out to sea. The other windows face Staitheley. It is much more primitive than Pansy’s tent, but, with a kitchen table, crockery and even a pack of slightly frilly, damp cards, it is a base I know we will be glad of.
Mr Lascalles is breathless and caked in black mud when he finally sets foot in the hut. He doesn’t seem unduly bothered by the mushrooming chaos of Pansy’s unpacking.
‘I’m ready for a swim before we get this place sorted for the night. Lola, take us to the best beach around if you please.’
Suddenly, I am giddy with anticipation. We are here. None of them really knows what to expect, and it isn’t raining.
I am the last into the sea, because I want to see everyone else go in. I feel like I used to when I was little at my birthday parties. I would sometimes just stop and stand still, smiling and looking around at everybody enjoying themselves. Mr Lascalles is so white he looks as if he is wearing a T-shirt, but he dives beneath a wave and strikes out along the shore, swimming strongly. Harry has brought a boogie board, and he and Carl muck about, trying to stand up on it. Pete wolf-whistles as Pansy edges towards the water in a searingly bright yellow bikini. Taking a puff of an inhaler, Dave runs up behind her but is pushed in by Freda and Jessie, both wearing goggles and wetsuits, which on a summer afternoon is absurd, but entertaining to look at.
The swim is an icebreaker. Afterwards, Mr Lascalles goes for a walk up to the end of the island at Seal Point and I take some of the others over to the creek side facing Hinkley Marshes to catch flatfish in the warm shallow water.
‘You stand still and watch the water. When you see the sand move, you have to shove your hands in fast and if you’re quick you will catch a flatfish and we can cook it.’
Harry and Pansy, Pete, Freda and Carl look at me in amazement.
‘That is wild.’ Carl begins to roll up his jeans.
‘You’re saying you can catch them in your hands?’ Harry wrinkles his nose in disbelief.
‘It is so Robinson Crusoe,’ marvels Pansy. ‘I love that lighthouse,’ And she squints into the sun, pointing at the old striped tower up by Seal Point.
‘Hey, look!’ Pete is already in the ankle-deep water, poised. ‘I see it. I always thought that scuttling of something along the seabed was a crab.’
I have to say I really enjoy this moment of power. All of them are so impressed by something so simple. I am the epitome of confident success. Yippee. I wade into the water to demonstrate and, shrieking, dive in pursuit of a scuttling stream of sand. Of course, I lose my balance and fall flat on my face in the shallows.
‘Missed it!’ I yell, laughing, partly because they look so amazed, so clean and so timid.
‘I think I’ll watch,’ says Harry, tossing the little dice he keeps in his pocket. ‘I’ll have a quiet bet with myself over who will catch the most.’
I raise my eyebrows at him. I am aware of a stab of disappointment, because he is only watching, because he doesn’t want to risk looking foolish.
We cook sausages on the little hearth outside the hut. Pansy makes a washing line with a length of ribbon she has brought, and hangs our wet clothes above the fire. Harry is the least helpful person once again, and sits on an upturned bucket, teasing Jessie about the pile of bird and plant books she has brought.
‘Looks like you’ll be up all night reading these,’ he says, flipping through a pocket wild-flower guide, before chucking it on the ground. Pansy turns on him.
‘Harry, why don’t you do something useful, like gather some wood?’ she suggests.
He stands to attention, mocking her.
‘Yes, ma’am. Where from, ma’am?’
I roll my eyes and stretch my arm to encompass the whole island.
‘Use your common sense,’ I hiss, still irritated by him.
He wanders off, and when he reappears by the fire, he has a crate of neatly stacked wood with him and a spray of rugosa roses.
‘This might be nice as a centrepiece for the table,’ he suggests, giving it to me.
‘Did you find that?’ I am curious. I know there is a wild rose bush on the Point, but it is way up on the other side, by James’s and Jack’s graves. I don’t think he could have found it in the time he has been gone.
He shakes his head.
‘No, someone gave it to me.’
‘Who?’ I demand.
Harry smiles and jerks his head back. ‘A mermaid. She’s just getting dressed. We had a swim.’
It is irrational, I know, but I am really irritated by the news that he has just gone off on his own for a swim. Or even with someone. I am about to interrogate him on who the mermaid is when Pansy shrieks with joy. She has climbed on to the roof of the hut and has found a signal.
‘Guys, it works, it works! Does anyone want me to get a message to anyone?’
‘You should get off there. The coastguards have binoculars trained on this place, and if they see you up there you’ll be kicked out.’
The voice of reason coming round the corner is Nell.
‘I didn’t know you were coming!’
I rush to hug her.
‘I didn’t either, but my mum was in Salt and I suddenly decided to walk up and see you, so here I am until the next tide takes me out of here.’
‘Or until you walk back.’
I am amazed that these unwelcoming words are coming from me, but instinctively I am bristling with antagonism. I don’t want Nell here. This is my thing with my new school. She does not belong. Harry comes over with the rose in a jam jar.
‘Welcome to our island retreat,’ he says mockingly, and it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that he fancies Nell.
‘Hey, Lola, there’s a call for you.’ Pansy has got all our phones balanced on the chimney of the hut and is playing at being receptionist. ‘It’s that hunky guy, Josh. Shall I take a message for you?’
She giggles flirtatiously into the phone. Hastily I scramble up on to the roof and take the phone gingerly, not wanting to lose the signal.
‘You’re an idiot to let your friends get on the roof, Lola,’ is how Josh greets me.
‘You shouldn’t be spying,’ I respond, hurt, and feeling persecuted on all sides.
‘I’m not. Your dad asked me to keep an eye on you with the telescope.’
Oh, that’s great, isn’t it? Dad asks Josh to look out for us. Josh, of all people. He doesn’t even like him.
‘Well, there’s no need for you to go on watching us. We’re fine.’
From up here I have a bird’s-eye view of Carl, natty in his yellow billowing shorts, dragging one of the canoes that are kept by the hut right through the oystercatchers’ nesting area towards the sea. I pray Josh doesn’t see that.
‘Um, I’d better go,’ I mutter. But not quick enough.
‘Tell that idiot with the really sad shorts to get away from the birds, Lola.’ Josh pauses, then adds, ‘Oh, and be careful of fires. There could be one starting behind you right now.’
I swivel in time to see Pete approaching with a lit cigarette. God, they are all so lawless. I wish Mr Lascalles had brought a sidekick to keep control when he wanders off to commune with nature.
‘Oh, leave us alone,’ I snap at Josh. ‘God, we’re supposed to be on holiday, not in a sodding military camp.’
I hurl my phone off the roof and it thuds on the ground next to Freda. The sausages are done. Harry builds up the fire and we sit round it, waiting for Mr Lascalles, thawing out privacy and self-consciousness. I remain silent and inhibited until Nell, with a sigh, stands up and announces that she must go.
‘I thought you were waiting for the next tide.’ Harry jumps up too.
‘I can’t, I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll swim if I have to.’
Her hair is piled in a high knot, with curls escaping. She is thinner than when I last saw her, and she moves with a luxurious confidence that is mesmerizing. Or so Harry seems to think. A flame of loathing for my best friend shoots through me. She’s showing off – she knows it’s too dangerous to swim.
‘Bye, Nell,’ I shout, busying myself with the washing-up Jessie is piling in the biggest saucepan. ‘Thanks for coming.’
Nell looks anxious for a minute, then turns away.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she calls.
‘I’ll walk you part of the way,’ offers Harry.
My choked fury is interrupted by Pansy, still on her own mission.
‘Is there a mirror anywhere? I desperately need to pluck my eyebrows,’ she says, brandishing a torch.
Jessie and I subside, giggling, on the sleeping bags we have hurled in a heap by the fire, ready to sort for sleeping out on later. It is dark now, and Mr Lascalles finally comes to from his reverie to take charge. He has been reading the comment book from the hut, and now he slaps it shut.
‘No mirrors. But could everyone make their beds up now and start thinking about putting the camp to bed,’ he says, and is interrupted by weedy Dave, whom I suspect has been knocking back the vodka.
‘Mr Lascalles, it’s only ten o’clock. What about a dune expedition now? We could reconnoitre for the morning mission.’
‘You may do as you please as long as you are careful,’ says Mr Lascalles, who has become so relaxed and benign it is creepy. ‘I am going to turn in now.’ He continues, ‘I want to be up at dawn to observe the birdlife here. I cannot bear to miss a moment of daylight. I’d like you all to stay within hearing of the camp.’
Then he makes his big mistake. He drops his box of earplugs and we all watch the little wax balls spill on the ground, rolling out into the beam of his torch as he bends to pick it up. If I wasn’t so cross about Nell and Josh spying, I’d be thrilled. The teacher, who seems to have abdicated any responsibility because he is so entranced by nature, is putting earplugs in and going to bed. There is a full moon, the night is young, and we are eight teenagers alone on an island.