right,” I whisper. “If we land in the centre of the bay we can walk the boat back to the cave.” He takes two cautious strokes, the water hissing past the dinghy’s sides. “Here,” I whisper.
“I don’t like landing blind.”
Our little boat tosses in the swell. A sudden rift opens in the cloud, showing the bay ahead. The wash of light is gone as quickly as it came. “Straight in,” I tell him.
We find our way by luck alone, the boat lifted by a swell and swept forward, its keel scraping sweetly over sand. A wild laugh tears up within me and I seal my lips against it. Ronan ships the oars as a following wave shunts us higher, slewing the dinghy sideways. “We’ll have to wait for a break in the clouds to shift it into the cave.”
He’s right. The rocks below the cliff are too great a hazard in the dark. Impatience brews within me as we stand aimless on the sand. When the clouds finally blow clear, I tug at the dinghy’s rope and lead it bucking like a pony along the incoming tide.
As the mass of the headland looms ahead, I peer in doubt. Something’s wrong. Where the waves should run deep along the channel that edges the cliff, they curl and crash instead against a tower of rocks. I hand the tow rope to Ronan. “I think there’s been a rock fall. I’d better take a look first.”
“Wait.” He rummages in his pack and hands me a torch. “Don’t use it until you’re inside the cave.”
Water flicks up from my heels as I hurry across the damp sand, the incoming waves frothing around my ankles, waking an image of Sophie skipping away from the sea foam.
Boulders are jumbled high around the mouth of the cave, so that it comes as a relief when I find a narrow entry. Inside, the dark is absolute. I crank the torch’s dynamo handle and memories come leaping from the shadows as the thin beam dances around the walls.
The cave is not as I remember it. Rubbish lies strewn across the floor — not the flotsam of the sea, but ugly piles of teck: old drums and rusting metal, crushed and warped into unrecognisable shapes. There’s a smell of death about it. For a moment I let the arc of light linger on the ledge, as littered as the cave floor, where we cared for Dev, then I turn and clamber past the rocks.
I know why Colm has done this. Even gone, he sought to punish me. Jed knows we cared for Dev in the cave, and I told Ton myself that it held memories of my father. This purposeless desecration shows me the edge of Colm’s fury.
“Someone’s filled it with rubbish,” I tell Ronan, forcing back the unreasonable grief that knocks at my heart. “And the rock fall has half-blocked the entry. We can’t use it.”
We tow the dinghy beyond the tongues of the tide, dragging it as close as we dare to the cliff. I can hear the drip of water off an overhang of rock — fresh water, trickling from above. In winter the flow can turn to a torrent, but now there’s just enough to braid shallow channels across the sand.
“This close to the cliff, it won’t be seen from above,” I tell Ronan, though I know the greatest risk of discovery comes from the far end of the bay. “And if we lay driftwood across it, it’ll look no more than sea-wreck.”
“What about the inlet you mentioned?”
“It’s on the far side of the headland. We wouldn’t find the channel in the dark.”
I can feel his misgivings, but he raises no objections as we stumble about, gathering driftwood. “No one visits the bay,” I tell him quietly. “Even before, it was only ever Ty and Sophie and me who came here.”
“We should move it as soon as it’s light,” he says, unfolding a square of sailcloth in a hollow amongst the dunes. “It’s not safe leaving it in full view.”
I don’t answer. At the bay we’re only minutes from Leewood. The inlet is hours away. For a moment I stand listening to the surge of the sea. Beyond the hill at our back, Ty and Sophie are sleeping. Tomorrow will bring what it will bring. I push
“I don’t like landing blind.”
Our little boat tosses in the swell. A sudden rift opens in the cloud, showing the bay ahead. The wash of light is gone as quickly as it came. “Straight in,” I tell him.
We find our way by luck alone, the boat lifted by a swell and swept forward, its keel scraping sweetly over sand. A wild laugh tears up within me and I seal my lips against it. Ronan ships the oars as a following wave shunts us higher, slewing the dinghy sideways. “We’ll have to wait for a break in the clouds to shift it into the cave.”
He’s right. The rocks below the cliff are too great a hazard in the dark. Impatience brews within me as we stand aimless on the sand. When the clouds finally blow clear, I tug at the dinghy’s rope and lead it bucking like a pony along the incoming tide.
As the mass of the headland looms ahead, I peer in doubt. Something’s wrong. Where the waves should run deep along the channel that edges the cliff, they curl and crash instead against a tower of rocks. I hand the tow rope to Ronan. “I think there’s been a rock fall. I’d better take a look first.”
“Wait.” He rummages in his pack and hands me a torch. “Don’t use it until you’re inside the cave.”
Water flicks up from my heels as I hurry across the damp sand, the incoming waves frothing around my ankles, waking an image of Sophie skipping away from the sea foam.
Boulders are jumbled high around the mouth of the cave, so that it comes as a relief when I find a narrow entry. Inside, the dark is absolute. I crank the torch’s dynamo handle and memories come leaping from the shadows as the thin beam dances around the walls.
The cave is not as I remember it. Rubbish lies strewn across the floor — not the flotsam of the sea, but ugly piles of teck: old drums and rusting metal, crushed and warped into unrecognisable shapes. There’s a smell of death about it. For a moment I let the arc of light linger on the ledge, as littered as the cave floor, where we cared for Dev, then I turn and clamber past the rocks.
I know why Colm has done this. Even gone, he sought to punish me. Jed knows we cared for Dev in the cave, and I told Ton myself that it held memories of my father. This purposeless desecration shows me the edge of Colm’s fury.
“Someone’s filled it with rubbish,” I tell Ronan, forcing back the unreasonable grief that knocks at my heart. “And the rock fall has half-blocked the entry. We can’t use it.”
We tow the dinghy beyond the tongues of the tide, dragging it as close as we dare to the cliff. I can hear the drip of water off an overhang of rock — fresh water, trickling from above. In winter the flow can turn to a torrent, but now there’s just enough to braid shallow channels across the sand.
“This close to the cliff, it won’t be seen from above,” I tell Ronan, though I know the greatest risk of discovery comes from the far end of the bay. “And if we lay driftwood across it, it’ll look no more than sea-wreck.”
“What about the inlet you mentioned?”
“It’s on the far side of the headland. We wouldn’t find the channel in the dark.”
I can feel his misgivings, but he raises no objections as we stumble about, gathering driftwood. “No one visits the bay,” I tell him quietly. “Even before, it was only ever Ty and Sophie and me who came here.”
“We should move it as soon as it’s light,” he says, unfolding a square of sailcloth in a hollow amongst the dunes. “It’s not safe leaving it in full view.”
I don’t answer. At the bay we’re only minutes from Leewood. The inlet is hours away. For a moment I stand listening to the surge of the sea. Beyond the hill at our back, Ty and Sophie are sleeping. Tomorrow will bring what it will bring. I push
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