The Wreck of the Zanzibar Read online

  In the morning, early, I’ll have to get him back into the sea. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but somehow I will. I must. Now it’s not only the gulls I have to save him from.

  SEPTEMBER 9TH

  The Day of the Turtle

  I SHALL REMEMBER TODAY AS LONG AS I LIVE. This morning I slipped away as soon as ever I could. No one saw me go and no one followed me, I made quite sure of that. I’d lain awake most of the night wondering how I was going to get my turtle back into the water. But as I made my way down to Rushy Bay, the morning fog lifting off the sea, I had no idea at all how I would do it. Even as I uncovered him, I still didn’t know. I only knew it had to be done. So I talked to him. I was trying to explain it all to him, how he mustn’t worry, how I’d find a way, but that I didn’t yet know what way. He’s got eyes that make you think he understands. Maybe he doesn’t, but you never know. Somehow, once I’d started talking, I felt it was rude not to go on. I fetched some seawater in my hat and I poured it over him. He seemed to like it, lifting his head into it as I poured. So I did it again and again. I told him all about the storm, about Granny May’s roof, about the battered boats, and he looked at me. He was listening.

  He was so weak though. He kept trying to move, trying to dig his flippers into the sand, but he hadn’t the strength to do it. His mouth kept opening and shutting as if he was gasping for breath.

  Then I had an idea. I scooped out a long deep channel all the way down to the sea. I would wait for the tide to come in as far as it could, and when the time came I would ease him down into the channel and he could wade out to sea. As I dug I told him my plan. When I’d finished I lay down beside him, exhausted, and waited for the tide.

  I told him then all about Billy, about Joseph Hannibal and the General Lee, and about how I missed Billy so much, all about the cows dying and about how nothing had gone right since the day Billy left. When I looked across at him his eyes were closed. He seemed to be dozing in the sun. I’d been talking to myself.

  The gulls never left us alone, not for a minute. They stood eyeing us from the rocks, from the shallows. When I threw stones at them now, they didn’t fly off, they just hopped a little further away, and they always came back. I didn’t go home for lunch – I just hoped Father wouldn’t come looking for me. I couldn’t leave my turtle, not with the gulls all around us just waiting their moment. Besides, the tide was coming in now, closer all the time. Then there was barely five yards of sand left between the sea and my turtle, and the water was washing up the channel just as I’d planned it. It was now or never.

  I told him what he had to do.

  ‘You’ve got to walk the rest,’ I said. ‘You want to get back in the sea, you’ve got to walk, you hear me?’

  He tried. He honestly tried. Time and again he dug the edge of his flippers into the sand, but he just couldn’t move himself.

  The flippers dug in again, again, but he stayed where he was. I tried pushing him from behind. That didn’t work. I tried moving his flippers for him one by one. That didn’t work. I slapped his shell. I shouted at him. All he did was swallow once or twice and blink at me. In the end I tried threatening him. I crouched down in front of him.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right. You stay here if you like. See if I care. You see those gulls? You know what they’re waiting for? If they don’t get you, then someone else’ll find you and you’ll be turtle stew.’ I was shouting at him now. I was really shouting at him. ‘Turtle stew, do you hear me!’ All the while his eyes never left my face, not for a moment. Bullying hadn’t worked either. So now I tried begging.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘please.’ But his eyes gave me the answer I already knew. He could not move. He hadn’t the strength. There was nothing else left to try. From the look in his eyes I think he knew it too.

  I wandered some way away from him and sat down on a rock to think. I was still thinking, fruitlessly, when I saw the gig coming around Droppy Nose Point and heading out to sea. Father was there – I recognised his cap. Old man Jenkins was in Billy’s place and the chief was setting the jibsail. They were far too far away to see my turtle. I came back to him and sat down.

  ‘See that gig?’ I told him. ‘One day I’m going to row in that gig, just like Billy did. One day.’

  And I told him all about the gig and the big ships that come into Scilly needing a pilot to bring them in safely, and how the gigs race each other to get out there first. I told him about the wrecks too, and about how the gigs will put to sea in any weather if there’s sailors to rescue or cargo to salvage. The strange thing is, I didn’t feel at all silly talking to my turtle. I mean, I know it is silly, but it just seemed the natural thing to do. I honestly think I told the turtle more about me than I’ve ever told anyone before.

  I looked down at him. He was nudging at the sand with his chin, his mouth opening. He was hungry! I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. I had no idea at all what turtles eat. So I tried what was nearest first – seaweed of all sorts, sea lettuce, bladderwrack, whatever I could find.

  I dangled it in front of his mouth, brushing his nose with it so he could smell it. He looked as if he was going to eat it. He opened his mouth slowly and snapped at it. But then he turned his head away and let it fall to the ground.

  ‘What then?’ I asked.

  A sudden shadow fell across me. Granny May was standing above me in her hat.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ I asked.

  ‘Long enough,’ she said and she walked around me to get a better look at the turtle.

  ‘Let’s try shrimps,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe he’ll eat shrimps. We’d better hurry. We don’t want anyone else finding him, do we?’ And she sent me off home to fetch the shrimping net. I ran all the way there and all the way back, wondering if Granny May knew about her roof yet.

  Granny May is the best shrimper on the island. She knows every likely cluster of seaweed on Rushy Bay, and everywhere else come to that. One sweep through the shallows and she was back, her net jumping with shrimps. She smiled down at my turtle.

  ‘Useful, that is,’ she said, tapping him with her stick.

  ‘What?’ I replied.

  ‘Carrying your house around with you. Can’t hardly have your roof blowed off, can you?’ So she did know.

  ‘It’ll mend,’ she said. ‘Roofs you can mend easily enough, hope is a little harder.’

  She told me to dig out a bowl in the sand, right under the turtle’s chin, and then she shook out her net. He looked mildly interested for a moment and then looked away. It was no good. Granny May was looking out to sea, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun.

  ‘I wonder,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder. I shan’t be long.’ And she was gone, down to the sea. She was wading out up to her ankles, then up to her knees, her shrimping net scooping through the water around her. I stayed behind with the turtle and threw more stones at the gulls. When she came back, her net was bulging with jellyfish, blue jellyfish. She emptied them into the turtle’s sandy bowl. At once he was at them like a vulture, snapping, crunching, swallowing, until there wasn’t a tentacle left.

  ‘He’s smiling,’ she said. ‘I think he likes them. I think perhaps he’d like some more.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I picked up the net and rushed off down into the sea. They were not difficult to find. I’ve never liked jellyfish, not since I was stung on my neck when I was little and came out in a burning weal that lasted for months. So I kept a wary eye around me. I scooped up twelve big ones in as many minutes. He ate those and then lifted his head, asking for more. We took it in turns after that, Granny May and me, until at last he seemed to have had enough and left a half-chewed jellyfish lying there, the shrimps still hopping all around it. I crouched down and looked my turtle in the eye.

  ‘Feel better now?’ I asked, and I wondered if turtles burp when they’ve eaten too fast. He didn’t burp, but he did move. The flippers dug deeper. He shifted – just a little at first. A
nd then he was scooping himself slowly forward, inching his way through the sand. I went loony. I was cavorting up and down like a wild thing, and Granny May was just the same. The two of us whistled and whooped to keep him moving, but we knew soon enough that we didn’t need to. Every step he took was stronger, his neck reaching forward purposefully. Nothing would stop him now. As he neared the sea, the sand was tide-ribbed and wet, and he moved ever faster, faster, past the rock pools and across the muddy sand where the lugworms leave their curly casts. His flippers were under the water now. He was half walking, half swimming. Then he dipped his snout into the sea and let the water run over his head and down his neck. He was going, and suddenly I didn’t want him to. I was alongside him, bending over him.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ I said.

  ‘He wants to,’ said Granny May. ‘He has to.’

  He was in deeper water now, and with a few powerful strokes he was gone, cruising out through the turquoise water of the shallows to the deep blue beyond. The last I saw of him he was a dark shadow under the sea making out towards Samson.

  I felt suddenly alone. Granny May knew it I think, because she put her arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

  Back at home we never said a word about our turtle. It wasn’t an arranged secret, nothing like that. We just didn’t tell anyone because we didn’t want to – it was private somehow.

  Father says he’ll try to make a start on her house tomorrow, just to keep out the weather. Granny May doesn’t seem at all interested.

  She just keeps smiling at me, confidentially. Mother knows something is going on between us, but she doesn’t know what. I’d like to tell her, but I can’t talk to her like I used to.

  If Billy were here I’d tell him.

  I haven’t thought about Billy today and I should have. All I’ve thought about is my turtle. If I don’t think about Billy I’ll forget him, and then it’ll be as if he was never here at all, as if I never had a brother, as if he never existed, and if he never existed then he can’t come back, and he must. He must.

  This is the longest day I’ve ever written in my diary and all because of a turtle. My wrist aches.

  OCTOBER 25TH

  I LOVE THE SMELL OF PAINT IN THE SUNSHINE. Today we painted the gig outside the boathouse – Father and me together – and he began talking about Billy again. He’s been talking more about him lately. I wish he wouldn’t because he only ends up tormenting himself. Always the same impossible questions I can’t answer: Why? Why did he go off like that? Where’s he gone? Why doesn’t he come home?

  I just wish I had the courage to tell him, and to tell him straight: ‘Because you would keep shouting at him, because he was sick of milking cows day in day out, sick of slaving on the farm every hour of every day.’ But he wouldn’t understand and it wouldn’t do any good anyway. It wouldn’t bring Billy back, would it?

  We were painting all day. Mother and Granny May brought us out some bread and water and I sat down and admired the gig, sleek in the sun, a shining gleaming jet black. No one spoke.

  When no one talks it means we’re all thinking of Billy or of how long we can last out here on Bryher with the cows gone and no money coming in. When Granny May looks at me and smiles, I know she is thinking of our turtle.

  I was looking out to sea today and I was thinking: they’re out there, Billy and our turtle, both of them. Maybe one day our turtle will swim right underneath Billy’s ship. They’ll meet in mid-ocean and never know it. Maybe.

  We finished painting the gig by sunset. A cold wind was getting up and my hands were numb. Everyone come down to the boathouse to look. The chief said how fine she looked and how she’d move faster through the water now she was painted. And I said she’d go a lot faster still if I rowed in her. They all laughed, but I wasn’t joking. Father knew it. I caught his eye. He wasn’t angry. I really think he was proud of me, just for a moment.

  Mother looks so grey these days, and thin. She’s always gazing out of the window. She’s looking for Billy – I know she is, she’s waiting for him. She and Father scarcely speak at all. Only Granny May talks and she talks more to herself than anyone else. I’m hungry. We’re all hungry.

  NOVEMBER 1ST

  THE COLD OF WINTER HAS CREPT INTO THE house, into my room, into my bed. I curl up tight. I pile on blankets, but I cannot keep warm. Mother says I’m sickening for something.

  Granny May stayed in her bed in Billy’s room all day. She has a cough on her chest that won’t leave her. When she’s not coughing, there is a silence in the house that frightens me.

  We had limpets for supper – again. There’s little else to eat. I sleep a lot and drift from dream to dream. I dreamed of my turtle again today and I went in to tell Granny May. She’s as white as her pillows. She smiled and said she can never remember her dreams. She said she’ll be down again tomorrow, when she feels better. She’s still cheerful – she’s the only one of us that is. She looks older in bed. There’s always a dew drop on the end of her nose. I try not to look at it. The house creaks in the wind, like a ship at sea. I am so cold.

  NOVEMBER 30TH

  WE ARE LEAVING. I READ IT AND I STILL CAN’T believe I am writing it. We are leaving Bryher for good, forever. And there’s others doing the same thing, all over the island. Even the chief is leaving. I think that’s maybe what finally made up Father’s mind for him. He came out with it this evening.

  ‘If he’s going,’ said Father, ‘then that’s an end of it, the end of Bryher, the end of us. There’ll be no one left. We’re leaving.’

  ‘You can leave if you want to,’ said Granny May quietly. ‘But I’m staying put. ‘You hear me? I’m staying put.’

  Mother said what I was thinking. ‘But what if Billy comes back? We won’t be here for him.’

  Father spoke sharply without looking at her. ‘We can’t spend all our lives waiting for Billy,’ he said. He didn’t have to go off like he did, did he?’

  Granny May took Mother’s hands in hers.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ she said. ‘He’ll find me and then he’ll find you. He’ll come back, you’ll see.’

  Mother looked at me and I tried all I could to give her some hope but she knew I was pretending.

  She’s sitting downstairs now, crushed and sunken in her chair. She doesn’t cry and neither do I. My tears won’t come because they don’t want to come. The honest truth is that I want to leave. This house is full of sadness and hunger. We’re lucky to have one meal a day. There’s no bread, no milk, no eggs, only a few soft potatoes, and limpets – oh, there’s always limpets. There’s no joy, no laughter, no Billy.

  No one smiles at you any more as you pass by, no one waves. Everywhere I see stooped figures bending into the wind, faces gaunt with hunger, yellow from too many limpets. Some people have left already. Sally and Sarah and all their family, and Mr and Mrs Gibson from the shop. Father says we’ll be gone in a week or so – if the weather permits – on the next boat to the mainland. I shan’t be sorry.

  Granny May is sleeping in with me now. We try to keep each other warm. She’s so thin. I’ve told her and I’ve told her she must come with us when we leave, but she won’t listen. Instead, she whispers in the dark about our turtle. She wonders if we’d have done the same thing now, whether we’d have helped him back into the sea if we’d been as hungry as we are now. Granny May thinks we would, but I’m not so sure.

  I can’t sleep so I’ve lit the candle and am writing a bit more. More than anything I feel angry. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. I’m angry we’re being driven out of our home, driven off our island, and angrier still that now I shall never be able to row in the gig . . .

  Granny May has just woken up. She looked at me and said, ‘I’m telling you, Laura, I am not leaving. You can write that down in your diary. I was born here. I’ll die here. I’m not leaving.’

  She’s sleeping again now. When old people sleep, you can hardly see them breathe.

  DECEMBER 6TH

  WE’
RE STILL HERE. THERE’VE BEEN STORMS for a week now. No one will be going anywhere till it’s over. Granny May says it’s an omen, a warning. The storm is telling us to stay, so we must stay. Father says he doesn’t believe in omens and superstitions or any of that kind of thing, and they had a big argument. I’ve never heard Granny May so angry. She’s made up her mind and she won’t be gainsaid. She means it. She’s set her heart on it. If she has her way no one will leave, and when Granny May sets her heart on something . . . maybe we won’t be leaving after all.

  Mother wants to stay too, but she says nothing. She’s disappeared inside herself completely, and I don’t think she’ll ever come out again, or smile, or laugh, or tell us everything will be all right, like she used to when Billy was here.

  Sometimes now, I cannot picture Billy’s face any more and I think maybe that’s because he’s dead. I don’t want to think it, but I can’t help myself.

  DECEMBER 8TH

  WILL THE RAIN NEVER STOP? WILL THE WIND blow forever? We hardly ever leave the house, just to cut limpets off the rocks and to bring in firewood from the shed. There’s precious little wood left, and what there is, is damp.

  Granny May won’t eat. Mother has tried everything she can to tempt her – this evening the very last of the potatoes. She won’t even look at it. She turns her face away, just like the turtle did. She’ll die if she doesn’t eat. She knows it and she doesn’t care. And I know why. I really think she’s made up her mind to die – that way at least she can stay here like she wants to.

  She sleeps most of the time. She’s sleeping now beside me and she’s talking in her sleep, all about the turtle. I can’t make any sense of it, but it’s a kind of rambling prayer, not to God like prayers should be, but to the turtle. She’s losing her mind, I think.