The Tide Knot. Helen Dunmore

She puts her front paws up in my lap until her whiskers tickle my face.

      “You’d never have got Sadie without Roger,” Conor goes on.” He really pressured Mum.”

      I know that’s true, but I don’t feel like agreeing with Conor just now. Besides, why bring up Roger? Roger may have been the one who made sure I got Sadie, but he’s also taken Mum and split my family apart.

      Sadie gazes at me reproachfully, as if begging me to admit that my version isn’t quite true. Who split your family apart, Sapphire? Was it Roger, or was it your own father, who loved you and Conor so much that he left you both without a backward look or even a note to let you know where he was going?

       Your father, who has never seen you or spoken to you since.

      Angry, bitter thoughts rise in my mind. I’m so used to loving Dad, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s also possible to hate him. Why did he go? What father who cared about his children would take his boat out in the middle of the night and never return? I can taste the bitterness in my mouth.

      No, I’m not going to let that wave of anger drown me. I’m going to ride it. Dad disappeared for a reason. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to explain it to us yet.

      Suddenly an upstairs window bangs. Our house here in St Pirans is tiny, even smaller than the cottage. Downstairs there’s one large living room, with the kitchen built into one end. Upstairs is larger because the house has something called a “flying freehold”. This sounds more exciting than it is. All it means is that part of this house is built above the house next door. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom. My room is so tiny that a single bed only just fits into it, but I don’t mind that at all because the room also has a round porthole window which hinges in the middle and swings open exactly like a real porthole on a ship.

      Mine is the only window in the house from which you can see the sea. My bedroom is part of the flying freehold. I like it because it feels so separate from the rest of the house. I can’t hear Mum and Roger talking. I’m independent. When I kneel up on my bed and stare out to sea, I can imagine I’m on a ship sailing northeast out of Polquidden, out of the bay altogether, and into deep water—

      The window bangs again, harder. The wind’s getting up. This is the season for storms. When storms come, salt spray will blow right over the top of the houses. I can’t wait to hear the sea roaring in the bay like a lion.

      “Better shut your window, Saph.”

      “Are you sure it’s my window that’s banging?”

      “Yeah. No one else’s bangs like that. Your porthole’s much heavier than the other windows.”

      Conor was right. The porthole has blown wide open. I kneel up on my bed and peer out. Beyond the jumble of slate roofs, there’s a gap in the row of studios and cottages through which I can glimpse the sea. The wind is whipping white foam off the tops of waves. Gulls soar on the thermals, screaming to each other. We’re very close to the water here. I’m used to living up on the cliff at Senara, and it still seems strange to live at sea level.

      “I’m going down to the beach,” Conor shouts up the stairs.

      “I’ll come with you.”

      The wind’s really blowing up now. It pushes against us as we come round the corner of the houses and on to the steps.

      “Do you think there’ll be a storm?”

      Conor shakes his head. “No. The barometer’s fallen since this morning but it’s steady now. It’ll be a blow, that’s all.”

      We jump down on to the sand. The cottages and studios are built in a line, right on the edge of the beach. The ground floor windows have big storm shutters that were hinged back when we first arrived, but now they are shut and barred. Some of the shutters are already half buried in sand that was swept up in the storms we had around the equinox, in late September

      Sand could easily bury these houses. Imagine waking up one morning and finding the room dark because sand had blown right up to the top of your windows. Or maybe it wouldn’t be sand at all, but water. You could be looking at the inside of the waves breaking on the other side of the glass. And then the glass would break under the pressure, and the sea would rush in.

      “I wonder how the sea always knows just how far to come, and no farther,” I say to Conor. “It’s so huge and powerful, and it rolls in over so many miles. But it stops at the same point every tide.”

      “Not quite at the same point. Every tide’s different.”

      “I know that. But the sea doesn’t ever decide to roll a mile inland. And it could if it wanted, couldn’t it? With all the power that’s in the sea, why does it stop here when it could swallow up the whole town?”

      “Like Noah’s Flood.”

      “What?”

      “You remember. God sent a flood to drown the whole world and everything in it, because people were so evil. But Noah built his ark and he survived. And when the flood was over, God promised he’d never do it again.”

      “Do you believe in God, Conor?”

      “I don’t know. I tried praying once, but it didn’t work.”

      “What did you pray about?” But I already know. Conor would have prayed for Dad to come back. I know, because I did the same. I prayed night after night for Dad to come back, after he disappeared. But he never did.

      “You know, Saph.”

      “Yeah. Me too.”

      “Did you pray as well?”

      “Yes. Every night for a long time.”

      “But nothing happened.”

      “No.”

      “You know what the story says that the rainbow is? The Noah story, I mean.”

      “No.”

      “It’s a sign that there’ll never be another flood like the one that drowned the world.”

      “Hey, Con, I forgot to tell you. I met a girl called Rainbow.”

      But Conor isn’t listening. He’s shading his eyes and staring into the distance, out to sea. At first I think he’s looking for surfers, but then he grabs my arm. “There! Over there by the rock! Did you see her?”

      “Who? Rainbow?” I ask, like an idiot.

      “Elvira,” he says, as if that’s the obvious, only answer. As if the one person anyone could be looking for is Elvira.

      He never talks about her. Never even says her name. But she must have been in his mind all the time, since the last time he spoke to her. That was just after Roger and his dive buddy Gray were almost killed, when they were diving at the Bawns.

      I remember how Conor and Elvira talked to each other, once we’d got Roger and Gray safely into the boat. Conor was in the boat, leaning over the side, and Elvira was in the water. They looked as if there wasn’t anyone else in the world. So intent on each other. And then Elvira sank back into the water and vanished, and we took the boat back to land.

      “I can’t see Elvira,” I say. “I can’t see anything.”

      “There. Follow where I’m pointing. Not there – there. No, you’re too late. She’s gone.”

      “Are you sure, though, Conor? Was it really Elvira?”

      “It was her. I know it was her.”

      “It could have been part of a rock.”

      “It wasn’t a rock. It was her.”

      “Or maybe a surfer—”

      “Saph, believe me, it was Elvira. I couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.”

      I still