Karl had pulled the soup bowl toward him. He eyed the spoon, turned it over between his fingers, and tapped it lightly on the table. ‘What can I do?’ he said. ‘I suppose I could let down my nets and sail round the island again.’ Mum didn’t answer.
I began to count. I’d nearly reached a hundred before Karl said, ‘Just don’t know what else to do.’ He stood up and said goodbye. Mum’s lips creased into a thin line.
The chug of Karl’s boat brought her back to life. She lifted the pot from the table and sloshed the soup down the toilet. She took a brick of soup out of the freezer, clattered it into the empty pot, and turned the gas on full. The block of ice steamed and shrank while she stared out the window.
‘We have to keep our strength up,’ she said. She ladled Dad’s bowl full and pushed it toward me. I’d rather have had a fresh one. ‘Even if you’re not hungry, you should try and eat something.’
‘You too,’ I said softly.
‘I can’t right now, love.’ Every word sounded like a gasp, as if she were forcing them out with the last of her breath.
‘What if I make you some soup?’ I asked.
Her gaze turned tender as a kiss.
‘You eat for both of us. Please. When Dad comes back, we’ll eat together again.’
Silently, I began to spoon. A few mouthfuls were all I could manage.
Without a word, Mum went into the hall, wriggled her feet into her boots, and disappeared outside.
As soon as I could no longer hear her, I went to the toilet and poured the rest of my soup away. I rinsed the soup bowl and the spoon under the tap, dried them, and put them back on the table, where they had spent one whole day waiting for Dad.
7
We drank our coffee, awkward, silent. I had never seen Mum smoke, yet here she was, lighting Dad’s cigarettes. She sucked fire into them expectantly, but after a couple of draws she let the fag end drop, hissing, into the last of her coffee. Stretching her arm, she slipped the pack back into the inside pocket of Dad’s raincoat, which was slung over his chair.
It wasn’t long before she fished the pack out again, and her trembling fingers slid a new cigarette between her lips. She saw me looking at her, and they curled into a smile as fragile as a Christmas-tree decoration, the kind you’re afraid might break before you even touch it.
I dashed upstairs to my room, took the atlas from my desk, sat down on the bed, and opened it on my lap. I flicked through the pages, so fast I accidentally tore one. At the back there were maps of the sea, covered in wavy lines with arrows at the end. I was looking for the map with our stretch of sea. Our island wasn’t on the map, but I knew where it was cos Dad had marked the spot with a little cross.
It was Dad who had taught me how to read the map, standing in the grass behind our house with the open atlas. From the top of the slope, we could see for miles.
‘Well? Where are they?’ I asked.
‘Currents aren’t something you can see, but they’re everywhere.’
‘Like God, you mean?’
He laughed. ‘That’s different.’
‘Different how?’
‘God is made up.’
‘And currents aren’t?’
‘No.’ He spread out his arms. ‘They’re everywhere.’
‘So how do you know they’re real?’
‘You can feel them.’
I nodded. I thought I understood. ‘If you can feel something, then it’s real.’
‘Something like that. Yes.’
I found the page with the little cross in the sea and traced my finger along the dark-blue lines in the water. Then I leafed through the other maps. The currents travelled halfway across the world, heading north, then arching right across the ocean to North America, down past Brazil, all the way down to Antarctica, and back. Eventually the currents came out not far from where they started. They came back to us.
That’s how Dad would come back, and when the time came, I had to be the first to spot him. I climbed up on my desk and took the binoculars down off the top shelf.
It was a clear day. My gaze flashed back and forth over the waves and I tried to adjust the focus. Something black shot up from beneath the surface and I dropped the binoculars in fright. It was only a stupid shag.
My eyes jumped and jerked across the endless grey. I sighted a sailing boat on the horizon. With the naked eye, the sail was as small as a folded piece of paper, but through the binoculars I could see someone standing under the boom in a red coat. Up front there was someone else in a blue coat. I fiddled with the focus and saw it was the jib in its plastic cover.
All at once I lost sight of the boat, and it took a while for me to find it again. I knew that mustn’t happen when Dad reappeared. When I shouted to Mum to come and see, I mustn’t accidentally move the binoculars and lose sight of him, so I practised on rocks, gulls, and a bit of floating timber. I lowered the binoculars and then tried to relocate what I’d been looking at as quickly as possible. To make it more real, I tried shouting. I was getting better and better at it, though the gulls were tricky cos they moved so fast and I could never really tell if I’d found the right one again.
The door swung open. Mum stood there, staring at me wide-eyed. She was wearing Dad’s nightshirt. I could see a bushy triangle of hair below it.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she replied, breathless.
‘Nothing.’
‘Did you see something?’
‘No.’
‘But you were shouting.’
‘Wasn’t.’
‘But I heard you.’
‘I’m practising.’
‘For what?’
‘For when Dad comes back.’
She grabbed the binoculars, which were hanging from a cord around my neck, peered out to sea in no particular direction, and then let them fall. They slammed hard against my chest. It hurt, but I didn’t let on.
8
A blue boat came motoring toward us, POLICE in big letters on the bow. It had a steel arc at the back with aerials sticking out, a kind of lunchbox on a pole, and two blue lights that weren’t flashing. A searchlight was mounted on the roof of the cabin. Gulls came swooping in, thinking there was grub to be had. I chucked my binoculars on the bed, thundered down the stairs, and ran outside without my coat on.
The boat was already turning alongside the quay. The tyres on the bow scraped and groaned against the concrete. The engine sputtered. A boyish man in a baseball cap stood up front. You could tell right off he wasn’t important cos they only let him hold the rope. Another man came out of the cabin and held up his hand to me. He ducked back inside and came out again wearing a policeman’s cap. He was much more important, I reckoned. A third policeman stayed behind in the cabin.
‘Why didn’t you have the siren and the flashing lights on?’
The policeman with the cap smiled.
‘Because there’s no need.’
They let me take the rope and wrap it around the mooring post. I tied three different knots so they could see they weren’t just dealing with some dopey little kid.
‘That’s tight enough. We’re going to have to untie