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Myna’s earliest memories were her happiest. Tending the garden with Mother, snaring with Father, swinging high on the plank her parents had hung from a branch of the great old oak—the breeze whistling past her ears.
She remembered Alfred’s visits—a gentle ruffling of her hair in greeting, occasionally a treat, and always a fish; the largest and tastiest of his catch.
She’d not known the ocean existed, then.
She discovered it on her first trip to town. She’d felt like such a grown-up girl, accompanying Father down the slippery scree, making their way through the woods to follow the path to the town.
But then she saw it—that great expanse of blue, deeper than the sky and sparkling like the creek that gurgled its way across the meadow. The ocean called to her with such strength she dropped the parcel she’d begged Father to let her carry, spilling pods of peas and ears of corn across the path, and raced towards the blue. The powdery sand gave her pause, but only for a moment and she was off again, knee-deep in water before she heard Father’s desperate calls.
She turned just as he reached her, yanking her back by her arm, out of the sea, and back across the beach.
‘Are you crazy? Your mother will be furious!’
Myna remembered frowning. ‘Why?’
Father had paused, his mouth opening and closing. Then, ‘Look at your trousers!’
She’d glanced down. Cut off just below the knee, it was only the cuffs that were wet, and she’d laughed. She’d never seen her mother angry. Myna played in the creek all the time, and Mother was never angry about wet clothes, not even when she fell in and was drenched from head to toe. She helped Father pick up the scattered vegetables, and they continued to market.
But Myna couldn’t concentrate on the stall. Even from where they stood in the village green she could hear the waves; the crash as they struck the shore, the whoosh as they returned to sea.
She stole away while her father was deep in conversation, down to the shore between two houses. She removed her sandals high up on the beach and picked her way across the stones, dipping her foot into the icy swell.
Her toe tingled. In moments, Myna had stripped off all her clothes and waded out to where it was deep enough to dive in.
She ventured farther and farther out, diving deeper each time, as deep as her lungs would allow her to go and even then holding on fit to burst, just for that time under the water.
She hadn’t realised they’d been looking for her. She hadn’t heard their calls, never had a thought for those on land until two strong hands pulled her from the water and into a boat.
When they realised she wasn’t drowning they took away the blanket—punishment for one who caused such panic. And then came the beating. Her doting mother hit her with a wooden spoon, enough lashes across her bottom and legs that she couldn’t sit properly for days.
