Eighty-nine sheared, rolled and packed fleeces later, Gruff stood beside Dad on the jetty near the lifeboat slip. Together they watched Dai’s small fishing boat, Molly, rear up and down in the swell under a grey, late-afternoon sky. Gruff’s stomach danced with nerves.
Mat was going to be the only other eleven year old on the island, and Gruff knew everyone expected him to make friends with her. But he didn’t know how to be friends with someone his own age. He was used to his friends being adults, like James and Ffion, or very small children, like three-year-old Prem or two-year-old Steph. Now he was going to meet the girl who had written that confident letter, who wanted to be an oceanologist and didn’t like broccoli. He had to think of something to say.
He hoped he didn’t smell too strongly of sheep.
Dai steered the boat into the bay. Out on deck, framed by a mound of luggage, stood the New Neighbours. The man and woman – John and Zosia – were looking out towards the jetty; they waved and Dad waved back. The girl next to them – Mat – did not look up. She was gripping the rail tightly and staring straight down at the water as it chopped and churned. Gruff wondered if she was feeling sick. Looking at the horizon helped that, not staring at the sea.
Dai cut the engines and leapt from the wheelhouse as Molly drifted in to bump her fenders against the wooden planks of the jetty. He chucked the stern mooring rope to Gruff, who looped it round the nearest bollard. Spray peppered his muddy jeans with dark drops of seawater. Further down the jetty, Dad caught the other rope and Molly came to a gently rolling halt. Mat was still staring down at the water, strands of light brown hair escaping from her two plaits and whipping behind her in the brisk breeze. She had not once looked up.
John and Zosia left the rail and picked up a rucksack each.
‘Good crossing?’ Dad called as Dai started to loosen the holding ropes round the luggage.
‘Not bad,’ Dai replied, and Gruff saw him give a little wink and flick his eyes towards John, who was tall, dark-haired and, currently, looking distinctly green round the gills.
Zosia, who was much shorter and had fair hair and a big, genuine smile, jumped off the boat with sure sea-legs and held her hand out to Dad. ‘Nice to see you again, Owain.’
‘You too,’ Dad said. ‘Welcome to the island – croeso.’ He turned to the boat. ‘Let me help you ashore, John. You look like you need some land under your feet!’
John clambered off the boat with much less grace than Zosia, and Gruff tried hard not to smile at the look of utter relief in the man’s eyes.
‘My son, Gruffydd,’ Dad said, and all eyes turned to Gruff. He felt heat rising to his face and was suddenly aware of his muddied jeans and the holes in his hoodie.
‘Hi, Gruffydd,’ Zosia said, coming over and holding her hand out. Gruff shook it, feeling awkward. He noticed her unchipped, blue-painted fingernails and the dirt that lingered beneath his. But then he looked up, and her smile was so wide and beaming that he found himself smiling back.
‘Nice to meet you,’ John said, coming over and shaking his hand as well. He had a strong Scottish accent. John was taller than Dad and Gruff had to tilt his head back to look up at him properly.
‘Matylda!’ Zosia called. ‘Come and meet Owain and Gruffydd.’
Mat jumped, turning from her sea-gazing as though she had just woken up. She glared silently at her mum and Gruff felt a combination of satisfaction and sympathy that she seemed just as uncomfortable as he had felt when Dad had drawn attention to him.
Mat shouldered a pink rucksack with a dangling minke whale keychain.
‘Hi, Matylda,’ Dad said, as Dai helped her step ashore. ‘I’m Owain, and this is Gruff.’
Mat flicked her gaze up at Gruff and his heart kicked in his chest with surprise. Something in her brown eyes seemed to be moving with the leap and surge of a mounting wave, as though the sea was inside her and about to break out.
Gruff took a step backwards, fighting a sudden, mad urge to run away.
Mat blinked and her eyes were calm and steady, nothing unusual about them at all. Molly bumped softly against her fenders and red-billed oystercatchers shrieked to one another across the shoreline rocks. All was as it had been.
‘Hi,’ Gruff said. The sound of his own voice pulled him back to reality, and the moment before seemed far-off. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too,’ Mat said quietly. She fiddled with one of her plaits. She didn’t look like the bold, confident girl Gruff had imagined from reading her letter.
The first of the big bags was heaved over the side by Dai, landing on the jetty with a thud. The awkward introductions melted into activity as Gruff helped unload the boxes and bags off Molly so that Dai could head round the island to his berth at Trefynys. The adults talked and laughed as though they had known one another for years, but Gruff kept quiet, not knowing what to say and wanting Mat to seem more friendly. She was silent, but Gruff caught her glancing at him a couple of times. He felt he ought to start some sort of conversation but the words wouldn’t come. This would be easier if she was three, he thought. I know how to be friends with three-year-olds.
He slid his gaze sideways at her again and again, but didn’t see even a hint of what he had imagined before – that surging power, the sea in her eyes. It must have been a reflection from the waves. What with this and the person-on-the-Sleepers, his imagination was obviously having a field day.
At last the bags were unloaded off the boat and half of them were piled high in the hand-cart Dad and Gruff had brought with them. Molly’s engine spluttered into life and she was off, round the island towards the harbour at Trefynys.
‘We don’t have a quad bike,’ Dad explained as he took one handle of the cart and John and Zosia took the other. ‘We try to be as fossil-fuel-free on the farm as we can. Solar panels and wind turbines, you know? You can get electric quad bikes now, but not in our price range! That’s what Evan Williams has, though – cow farmer, and barley, most of the fields on the island are his. Lovely man. You’ll meet him at the festival tomorrow. He wanted me to tell you that he was going to lend you his quad for the move, but unfortunately it’s out of action at the moment.’
‘No worries,’ Zosia laughed. ‘I like this. It’s an adventure!’ The three of them heaved and the cart began to trundle behind them on its thick-rimmed wheels.
‘Bring some smaller stuff,’ Dad called back to Gruff and Mat. ‘We’ll come and make a second trip for the rest.’
Looking panicked to be left alone with Gruff, Mat started sorting through boxes.
‘What should I take?’ Gruff asked.
Mat shrugged and shook her head. ‘Shouldn’t we stay?’ Her voice was so quiet Gruff barely caught the words.
‘Why?’ he asked.
She frowned. ‘Because someone might take the stuff?’ Gruff could hear an accent in her words now that wasn’t her mum’s or John’s – he guessed it was a Manchester one.
‘Oh,’ Gruff said. ‘Nope. No one would do that. And if they did, everyone else would know about it.’
‘Oh … right.’ Mat looked unconvinced, but she grabbed a small cardboard box and held it out to him. ‘It’s only got the kettle in it. It’s not heavy.’
Gruff took the box. Mat grabbed another with ‘toaster’ scribbled on it in biro, and they headed up the jetty towards the shore. The wooden planks gave way to the earth of the coast path. The cart trundled on ahead of them, the voices of the adults mingling with the sound of its heavy wheels.
Mat took a deep breath as though she was about to speak, but didn’t. After a moment she tried again, her words tumbling out of her in a rush. ‘If we don’t take the kettle now, Mama and John can’t have tea, and I think that’d make their world end.’
Gruff grinned. Mat smiled shyly down at the freshly-made handcart tracks in the mud.
‘That sounds like Nain,’ he said. Nain was a great believer in tea.
‘Nine? Nine what?’ Mat asked.
‘Grandma,’ Gruff said. ‘It’s Welsh for grandma.’
‘Oh, right! I call my grandma Babcia.’
They fell silent again, but this time Gruff didn’t mind the silence so much.