Moominpappa at Sea (21 page)

‘Don’t worry,’ said Moominpappa. ‘It was a present from the sea, and not even the sea would take a present back.’

They drank tea a little earlier that evening.

Afterwards they took out the jigsaw puzzle and Moominmamma fetched the tin of toffees from the mantelpiece.

‘It’s a very special day today, so you can have five each,’ she said. ‘I wonder whether the fisherman likes toffees.’

‘You know what,’ said Moominpappa. ‘I never felt really happy about the toffees you put out for me on the rock.’

‘Why not?’ asked Moominmamma, surprised. ‘You are very fond of toffees, aren’t you?’

‘Nonsense!’ said Moominpappa with an embarrassed laugh. ‘It may have been because I couldn’t get anywhere with my investigations. I don’t know.’

‘You just felt a stupid fool, that’s all,’ put in Little My. ‘Can I count two toffees as one if they’re stuck together? Are you going to stop bothering about the sea, then?’

‘Far from it,’ exclaimed Moominpappa. ‘Do I stop bothering about you just because you behave like a stupid fool?’

They all laughed.

‘You see,’ Moominpappa said, leaning forward, ‘the sea is sometimes in a good temper and sometimes in a bad temper, and nobody can possibly understand why. We can only see the surface of the water. But if we
like
the sea, it doesn’t matter. One learns to take the rough with the smooth…’

‘Oh, you
like
the sea now, do you?’ asked Moomintroll shyly.

‘I’ve always liked the sea,’ said Moominpappa indignantly. ‘All of us like it. That’s why we came here, isn’t it?’ He looked at Moominmamma.

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve found a bit that fits into that awkward spot.’

They all bent over the puzzle admiringly.

‘It’s going to be a big grey bird!’ exclaimed Little My. ‘There’s the tail of another – a white one. They’re flapping their wings as though someone had lit a match under them!’

Now that they had discovered what the puzzle was supposed to be, they soon found four birds. It began to get dark and Moominmamma lit the hurricane lamp.

‘Are you going to sleep outside tonight?’ she asked.

‘Not on your life,’ answered Little My. ‘Our hide-outs have all grown over.’

‘I’m thinking of building a tiny little house of my own,’ Moomintroll announced. ‘Not immediately, but sometime anyway. When it’s ready you can all come and call.’

Moominmamma nodded her head. She was adjusting the flame of the lamp. ‘What’s the wind like now? Have a look and see, dear, will you?’ she said to Moominpappa.

He went over to the north-window and opened it. After a while he said: ‘I can’t see whether the forest’s moving or not. It’s blowing just as hard. It’s probably up to force eight.’

He shut the window and came back to the table.

‘The trees will be on the move later tonight,’ said Little My, her eyes sparkling. ‘Moaning and groaning and groping higher and higher up the rock – like this!’

‘You don’t think they’ll try and get in here, do you?’ Moomintroll exclaimed.

‘Of course they will,’ said Little My, lowering her voice. ‘Can’t you hear the boulders beating against the door downstairs? They’re rolling up from all directions, crowding round the door. The trees are closing in round the lighthouse, getting nearer and nearer. Then their roots will start climbing up the walls until they’re right outside these windows, making it dark inside…’

‘No, stop!’ cried Moomintroll, putting his paws round his nose.

‘Really, my dear,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Please don’t imagine such things!’

‘Please keep calm, all of you!’ said Moominpappa. ‘There’s no cause for alarm. Just because a few poor little bushes are scared of the sea there’s no need to get worked up about it. It’s really much worse for the bushes, you know. I shall see to the matter.’

It began to get darker and darker, but no one thought of going to bed. They found three more birds, and Moominpappa was absorbed in a drawing of a kitchen cupboard.

The storm raging outside made the room feel very safe. From time to time one of them said something about the fisherman, wondering whether he had found the thermos and drunk the coffee.

Moomintroll began to feel uneasy. It was time for him to go and see the Groke. He had promised her she could dance tonight. He huddled up in his chair and said nothing.

Little My looked at him, her eyes like shiny black beads. Suddenly she said: ‘You left the rope down on the beach.’

‘The rope?’ Moomintroll said. ‘But I brought…’ Little My kicked him viciously under the table. He got up and said very sheepishly: ‘Why, so I did. I must go and fetch it. If the water rises it’ll get washed away.’

‘Go carefully,’ said Moominmamma. ‘There are so many roots everywhere, and we’ve only got one glass for the lamp. And while you’re out you can have a look for Pappa’s exercise-book.’

Moomintroll looked at Little My before he closed the door behind him. But she was busy with the jigsaw puzzle, whistling nonchalantly between her teeth.

THE island was moving all night. The fisherman’s point drifted imperceptibly a little farther out to sea.

Shudder after shudder shook the whole island like chills running up and down its spine, and the black pool seemed to creep deeper and deeper into the rocks. It was sucked in and out and fresh waves broke in from the sea, but the pool never seemed to fill up. Its enormous mirror-like black eye sank lower and lower, surrounded by a fringe of sea-grass round the edges.

On the beach on the leeward side, little field-mice ran backwards and forwards at the edge of the water, the sand slipping away from under their paws. Boulders turned over heavily, revealing the pale roots of the sea pinks.

At dawn the island slept. The trees had reached the lighthouse-rock, deep holes were left where great
boulders had been before, now lying scattered among the heather. They were waiting for another night to come so that they could roll nearer and nearer the lighthouse. The great autumn gale continued to blow.

At seven o’clock Moominpappa went out to look at the boat. The water had risen again and the south-west wind was blowing the sea higher and higher. He found the fisherman lying rolled up at the bottom of the
Adventure
. He was playing with a handful of pebbles. He blinked under his fringe, but he said nothing. And the
Adventure
lay there beaten by the waves and without a mooring.

‘Can’t you see that this boat is about to drift out to sea?’ said Moominpappa. ‘She’s being bashed against a stone. Just look at it! Come on now! Jump out and give me a hand to pull her up!’

The fisherman twisted his bent legs over the side of the boat and tumbled on to the beach. His eyes were just as kind and gentle as ever, and he said: ‘I haven’t done any harm…’

‘You haven’t done any good, either,’ said Moominpappa; with a tremendous effort he pulled the boat up himself.

He sat down on the sand, puffing and blowing. What was left of the sand, that is. The angry sea seemed to be jealous of the sand, taking more and more of it away every night. He looked at the fisherman sourly and said: ‘Did you find the coffee?’

But the fisherman only smiled.

‘There’s something wrong with you that I can’t
make out,’ Moominpappa said to himself. ‘You’re not a human being at all. You’re more like a plant or a shadow, just as if you’d never been born.’

‘I was born,’ the fisherman said immediately. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow.’ Moominpappa was so surprised that he began to laugh.

‘You remember that all right,’ he said. ‘So you have a birthday, do you? Just think! And how old are you, if I may ask?’

But the fisherman turned his back and strolled off along the beach.

Moominpappa went back to the lighthouse. He felt very worried about his island. The ground where the forest had been was abandoned and full of deep holes. Long furrows crossed the heather, left by the trees as they moved towards the lighthouse-rock. And there they stood, a tangled skein of fright.

‘I wonder what one has to do to calm an island down,’ Moominpappa wondered. ‘It won’t do for the island and the sea to fall out with each other. They must be friends…’

Moominpappa stood still. There was something wrong with the lighthouse-rock. With a very slight movement it was shrinking, like skin going into wrinkles. A couple of grey boulders turned over in the heather. The island seemed to be waking up.

Moominpappa listened. A chill went down his spine. He was sure he could feel it. A very slight thumping sound. He could feel it all over his body, getting closer. It seemed to come from deep down in the ground.

Moominpappa lay down in the heather and pressed his ear to the ground. He could hear the island’s heart beating. It was deeper than the sound of the breakers, deep deep down in the earth, a soft dull heart-beat.

‘The island is alive,’ Moominpappa thought. ‘My island is just as much alive as the trees and the sea. Everything is alive.’

He got up slowly.

A juniper was creeping quietly through the heather like an undulating green carpet. Moominpappa scrambled out of its way, and stood stock-still, frozen to the spot. He could see the island moving, a living thing crouching on the bottom of the sea, helpless with fear. ‘Fear is a terrible thing,’ Moominpappa thought. ‘It can come suddenly and take hold of everything, and who will protect all the little creatures who come in its way?’ Moominpappa started to run.

He got home, and hung his hat on its nail.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Moominmamma. ‘Has the boat…?’

‘I pulled her up,’ said Moominpappa. The family stared at him and he added: ‘It’s the fisherman’s birthday tomorrow.’

‘No? Really?’ Moominmamma exclaimed. ‘Is that why you’re looking so strange? Well, we must give a
party for him. Imagine! Even the fisherman has a birthday!’

‘It’ll be easy to think of a present for him,’ said Little My. ‘Little parcels full of sea-grass, a lump of moss, or just a damp spot, perhaps!’

‘Now you’re not being very nice,’ Moominmamma said.

‘But I’m not nice,’ cried Little My.

Moominpappa stood at the window, looking out over the island. He could hear his family discussing two very important questions: how to get the fisherman to come into the lighthouse and how to get the crate of whisky over the sea-washed point. But he could only think of the island’s timid heart-beats deep down in the ground.

He would have to talk to the sea about it.

Moominpappa went and sat on the lighthouse-keeper’s ledge in the cliff, looking as though he was the figure-head in the bows of his galleon – the island.

This was the real storm he had waited for, but it wasn’t what he had imagined it would be. No beautiful pearls of foam on the waves, no, not in a wind force eight. Instead the foam was blown off the surface of the sea like angry grey smoke, and the water was lined and furrowed like a face wrinkled with rage.

Suddenly, in the way it can happen to a troll, Moominpappa found it terribly easy to start talking to the sea – silently, of course.