Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection: Moon Island, Sunrise, Follies. Rosie Thomas

the fires were blazing in the brick furnaces of the try-works. The seamen had fed the hungry iron mouths of the furnaces with wood carried for the purpose and now began the business of feeding blubber into the two huge pots mounted above. It was boiled to release its barrels of oil and when each load had yielded its all the tired-out scraps themselves were used to feed the red heat.

      William sank down, mesmerised with exhaustion, on to the hatch-cover that up until now had protected the try-works. The boat steerers were the ship’s stokers, and they stirred up the roaring flames and used long poles to pitch reeking piles of blubber into the boiling pots.

      The smell was all of terrible singeing, a sick oiliness that filled every throat with a taste of decay and death. Dense clouds of black smoke billowed up from the pots to darken the sails overhead with broad brush-strokes of filth. The ship surged forward in the night, freed from the encumbrance of the whale, with the inferno of fire and smoke blazing on its deck.

      It was a twelve-barrel whale, William had learned. A good enough start to the Dolphin’s voyage

      As he huddled on the hatch he watched the hissing pots and the belching flames of the furnace, and the figures of his shipmates bending and gyrating in the lurid light. Their naked upper bodies gleamed with sweat, their faces were black masks of smoky grime and their exertions drew their lips back from their teeth in a stark grimace so that white teeth shone cruelly out of the tangles of black beard. They looked like the devil’s own imps tending the subterranean fires.

      ‘I am in hell,’ William whispered aloud. ‘Truly I have descended into hell and this is the payment for my sins.’

      He locked his hands together and tried to pray, but no form of prayer would come to him.

      May lifted her head. She could see the dead whale and the oily fires glimmering on the deck of the ship. A shiver crawled over her skin. The sea was greedy and she felt how close it was to her, gnawing and worrying at the shore.

      She thought that if only she listened a little harder she would be able to understand its language; maybe interpret the warning it was whispering to her. It was like breeding an extra sense that was not yet quite ready to use, a painful knob under her skin to which her fingers kept returning, pressing to test the growth.

      The book was more than just a book, but she couldn’t put a finger on why or what it might mean. Hannah Fennymore had lent it to her because she had asked for it, because she was curious about Doone. And beyond Doone’s bedroom window there was nothing to be seen except the beach, and Kevin and the others fooling about on or in the water.

      And Lucas, slant-eyed, who made her feel things she did not understand or welcome.

      May didn’t want to be shut up alone any longer. She left her chair and ran to the door and for a second it seemed again that there was a weight pressing against it, trapping her in the room. But it yielded and banged open, and May ran down the steep stairs.

      John was sitting by the window overlooking the sea. There was a book on his lap but he was staring out at Moon Island, his chin resting on one hand, as if waiting for something. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

      May hovered in front of him. She was pricklingly conscious of her father’s outstretched legs and the sinews on the backs of his hands. Her own legs felt thick and over-elongated, and her hips wide and heavy. Her arms hung clumsily at her side.

      He made the little beckoning movement she was waiting for, putting his book aside. May could see that he was afraid she might reject his gesture. She bundled forward and piled herself on to his lap, an awkward mass of jutting elbows and knees.

      John held her, resting his chin on the top of her bent head and stroking her hair. Her weight and size surprised him. It was a long time since she had come asking for a cuddle like a little girl. ‘What’s wrong?’

      May picked dully at a three-cornered tear in the pocket of his chinos. Where to begin? I wish I were like Ivy. I’m afraid I’m turning into someone else. There’s a ghost on the island and now I’m scared of the sea… ‘I don’t like it here,’ she said. It came out as a whine instead of an explanation.

      John sighed. ‘I know that. What do you want to do, May? Go home early?’

      He had unintentionally wrong-footed her, turning her into the saboteur of other people’s pleasure when she had only wanted reassurance. It seemed always to happen this way between them. When he offered his concern it made her feel awkward. She retreated in guilty embarrassment. And when she asked for it he couldn’t interpret the question.

      May shook her head violently, bumping his jaw. ‘No. It’s okay. I don’t mind staying.’

      ‘Is there something going on between you and Ivy?’

      ‘Nuh-uh.’

      She had blocked off the channels already and had no idea how to clear them. They both sat still, locked by the failure of communication.

      ‘Just feeling blue?’

      ‘I guess.’

      At least he was holding her. But as soon as the thought came she was uncomfortable with the weight of his arms, the thump of his heartbeat against her ear. Her flesh shivered. The physical solidity of him was an invasion.

      There was a tap on the door-frame. Leonie was standing there wearing a plaid shirt and hiking boots. She said uncertainly, ‘I was wondering about that walk. But we can easily do it another day.’

      John lifted his hand an inch from May’s head and as soon as he did so May leapt to her feet and backed away, hump-shouldered and frowning.

      ‘May, how about coming with us?’ John asked.

      ‘No, thanks.’

      They made an attempt to persuade her, then John went to put on his boots and Leonie tried to talk to May. May managed to answer every question with a monosyllable, but this victory gave her no satisfaction. At length John and Leonie went out together and May was left to drift out on to the porch, to watch their figures disappear northwards across the headland.

      Ivy came up through the garden from the beach. ‘Hi. What is there to eat?’

      ‘How should I know?’

      Ivy ignored her and busied herself with hauling food out of the refrigerator. ‘I’m starved. D’you want something?’

      May could see that Ivy was wearing her marijuana face. Her eyes were pink and heavy-lidded, and she had a stupid, muzzy smile. She had been smoking with Lucas; it made her obliging and affectionate instead of the way she usually was. And it made her hungry, too.

      Why did John never notice what was so plain? May felt angrier still with his lack of perception. ‘What have you been doing?’ she asked her sister sharply.

      Ivy’s shapeless smile widened. ‘None of your business, kid.’

      ‘You’ve been smoking weed.’

      Ivy turned her silky, sun-tanned back. ‘Grow up,’ she drawled.

      The coastline above Pittsharbor and Moon Island Beach became a ragged fringe of wooded promontories and narrow green inlets lined with sloping ledges of granite. By staying close to the tideline it was possible to walk or scramble the two miles to a rocky causeway linking Berry Island to the mainland.

      Leonie knew the route well and most of the owners of the summer cottages that stood back from the water in their secluded clearings. She liked walking and often came this way alone, but John turned out to be a good companion. He didn’t press too close on her heels where the path was narrow and on the strips of shingle beach he moved unobtrusively alongside her. He seemed content not to talk very much. They found a rhythm of step and breath, and stuck to it.

      The causeway itself was a narrow spine of rocks from which the tide dropped to expose shoulders of sand and stone. It was low water when they crossed over, and they walked easily between lacings of driftwood and sea wrack and the occasional