Moominpappa at Sea (9 page)

The lift worked perfectly. Actually she had never supposed it would do anything else.

Tired but happy, Moominpappa walked home through the heather. Naturally, somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he would have to try again to make the lamp work, but there were still some hours left before dusk. And he had been rolling big stones, enormous ones, and every time one of them rolled down into the water, Moominmamma had turned her head and watched from the garden. Moominpappa decided to go round by the western point.

On the leeward side the fisherman rowed past with his fishing rods in the bow of his boat. Moominpappa had never heard that it was possible to get the fish to bite with a rod and line so late in the year. July was the month for that. But he wasn’t an ordinary fisherman. Perhaps he liked being by himself. Moominpappa lifted his paw to wave, but didn’t. He wouldn’t get an answer anyway.

He climbed up the rock and began to walk into the wind. Here the rocks were curved and looked like the backs of enormous animals walking side by side towards the sea. He had reached the pool before he caught sight of it. The water in it was calm and dark, and it was oval in shape, looking like a great big eye. Moominpappa was
delighted. A real lake, a black pool, one of the most mysterious things one could find! From time to time a little wave found its way in from the sea. It slipped in over the threshold, shattering the mirror-like surface of the water for a moment, and then the pool became calm again, staring blankly up at the sky.

‘It’s deep down there,’ thought Moominpappa.

‘It must be very deep indeed. This island of mine is a complete world of its own, it has everything and is just the right size. How happy I feel! I’ve got the world in my paw!’

Moominpappa went back to the lighthouse as fast as he could. He wanted to show them all the black pool before they found it for themselves.

‘What a pity it isn’t rainwater,’ said Moominmamma.

‘No, no, it was made by the sea!’ said Moominpappa, gesticulating with his paws. ‘Great storms have flung the sea over the island and rolled stones round and round at the bottom until it has become terribly deep.’

‘Perhaps there are some fish in it,’ Moominmamma suggested.

‘Very possibly,’ said Moominpappa. ‘But if there are any, they must be gigantic. Imagine a giant pike which has been down there for a hundred years, just getting fatter and angrier the whole time!’

‘That really would be something!’ said Little My, impressed. ‘Perhaps I’ll throw in a line and find out.’

‘Angling is not for little girls,’ said Moominpappa firmly. ‘No, the black pool is for fathers. And don’t go too near the edge! You must realize that it’s a very dangerous spot. I shall make very careful investigations, but not just at the moment. There’s the jetty to think about, and then I must make an oven for smoking eel and pike weighing more than fourteen pounds. And I must put out the nets before it starts to rain…’

‘And some sort of guttering for the roof,’ added Moominmamma. ‘In a couple of days we shall have no drinking water left.’

‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ said Moominpappa protectively. ‘You’ll get a gutter all right. Be patient, and I’ll do everything.’

The family went back towards the lighthouse and Moominpappa continued to talk about the gigantic pike. The wind blew gently through the heather and the setting sun drenched the whole island in warm golden light. But behind them the black pool lay sunk in shadow between the rocks.

Moominmamma had finished clearing up after Little My and the trap-door was closed. As soon as he came in, Moominpappa noticed the calendar.

‘That’s exactly what I need,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it? If I’m going to keep any sort of order on this island, I must know what day it is. Today’s Tuesday, that I know.’ Moominpappa picked up a pen and drew a large round circle high up in the margin. That was ‘The Arrival’, and then he made two small crosses underneath for Monday and Tuesday.

‘Have you ever seen a sea-horse?’ asked Moomintroll. ‘Are they as beautiful as those in the picture?’

‘Possibly,’ said Moominmamma. ‘I don’t know. They do say that the painters of pictures exaggerate.’

Moomintroll nodded thoughtfully. What a pity it was that you couldn’t tell from the picture whether the little sea-horse had silver shoes or not.

The sunset filled the room with gold, and in a little while it would turn red. Moominpappa stood in the middle of the room thinking. This was the time he ought to go up and light the lamp, but if he climbed the ladder the others would know exactly what he was doing. And when he came down again they would know if he hadn’t been able to make the lamp work. Why couldn’t they keep out of the house until dusk and leave him in peace to try and light it? Sometimes there was something about family life that Moominpappa didn’t like. His family wasn’t sensitive enough at times like these, although they’d lived with him for so long.

Moominpappa did exactly what one always does at uncomfortable moments – he went and stood in the window with his back to the room.

The marker for the nets lay on the window-sill. Of
course. He had completely forgotten to put out the nets. That was important, very important. Moominpappa felt a great sense of relief. He turned round and said: ‘We’ll put the nets out tonight. They ought to be in the sea before sunset. Actually, we ought to put them out every night now that we’re living on an island.’

Moomintroll and his father rowed out with the nets.

‘We must put them out in an arc from the east point,’ Moominpappa said. ‘The west point belongs to the fisherman. It wouldn’t be right to start fishing right under his very nose. Now row slowly while I keep an eye on the bottom.’

The water began to get deeper in very gentle, sweeping terraces of sand, descending in the water like a broad ceremonial staircase. Moomintroll rowed towards the point over forests of seaweed that got darker and darker.

‘Stop!’ shouted Moominpappa. ‘Go back a bit. The bottom’s fine just here. We’ll lay it out obliquely towards those rocks. Slowly now!’

He threw in the float with its little white pennant and dipped the net into the sea. It glided out slowly with long even movements, drops of water shining in the
mesh. The corks rested on the surface for a moment, and then they saw them sink, like a necklace of beads behind them. It was a very satisfying feeling putting a net out. It was a man’s job, something one did for the whole family.

When all three nets were out, Moominpappa spat three times on the marker and dropped it in. It stuck its tail in the air and disappeared straight down in the water. Moominpappa sat down in the stern of the boat.

It was a peaceful evening. The colours were beginning to grow pale and disappear in the dusk, but right over the thicket the sky was still quite red. They pulled the boat up the beach in silence, and then walked home across the island.

When they had got as far as the poplars, they heard a faint wailing coming over the water. Moomintroll stood still.

‘I heard that noise yesterday, too,’ said Moominpappa. ‘It’s a bird, I expect.’

Moomintroll looked out across the sea.

‘There’s something sitting on that rock,’ he said.

‘That’s a beacon,’ said Moominpappa, and walked on.

‘There was no beacon there yesterday,’ thought Moomintroll. ‘There was nothing there at all.’ He stood stock-still and waited.

It was moving. Very, very slowly it glided over the rock and was gone. It couldn’t be the fisherman. He was short and thin. It was something else.

Moomintroll pulled himself together and continued on his way home. He wouldn’t say anything before he
was certain. Anyway Moomintroll hoped that he would never know what it was that sat out there wailing every evening.

Moomintroll woke up in the middle of the night. He lay quite still, listening. Someone had called him. But he wasn’t quite sure, perhaps he had only dreamed it. The night was just as calm as the evening had been, full of a blue-white light, and the waxing moon was high over the island.

Moomintroll got out of bed as quietly as he could so as not to wake Moominpappa and Moominmamma, and went up to the window, opened it carefully and looked out. Now he could hear the faint sound of the waves breaking on the beach, and see the dark rocks floating forlornly in the sea. Far away a bird called; the island was completely at rest.

No – something was happening down on the beach. The distant fall of hurrying feet, something splashing in the water – something was happening down there. Moomintroll became intensely excited. He was sure that whatever it was concerned him, only him and none of the others. He must go down there and see for himself. Something told him that it was important, and that he must go out into the night and see what was happening down there on the beach. Somebody was calling him and he mustn’t be afraid.

When he was by the door he remembered the stairs and hesitated. The winding stairs at night were an awful thought – in the day you could run up them, not giving
yourself time to think. Moomintroll went back into the room and took the hurricane lamp off the table. He found the matches on the mantelpiece.

The door closed behind him, and the tower opened up below him like a deep, dark well. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. The flame of the hurricane lamp flickered, rose and fell, and then burnt steadily. He put it down and plucked up courage to take a look.

The light had frightened all the shadows, and they fluttered giddily all round him when he lifted the lamp up. So many of them, fantastic shapes flickering up and down the hollow inside of the lighthouse. It was beautiful. The staircase wound downwards, down, down, down, grey and fragile like the skeleton of some prehistoric animal, and was lost in the darkness at the bottom. With every step he took, the shadows danced on the walls all round him. It was much too beautiful to think of being frightened.

So Moomintroll went down the stairs, step by step, holding the lamp tightly, and reached the muddy floor at the bottom of the lighthouse. The door creaked as usual and it felt very heavy. He stood outside on the rock in the cold, unreal moonlight.

‘Isn’t life exciting!’ Moomintroll thought. ‘Everything can change all of a sudden, and for no reason at all! The staircase is suddenly quite beautiful, and the glade something I don’t want to think about any more.’

Breathlessly, he walked over the rock, through the heather, through the little copse of aspens. They were motionless and quiet now, there wasn’t a breath of
wind. He walked slowly, listening. The beach was quite quiet.

‘I’ve frightened them,’ Moomintroll thought, and bent down to turn out the lamp. ‘Whatever it is that comes here at night must be very shy. An island by night can be very scared.’

Now the lamp was out, and immediately the island seemed to come much nearer. He could feel it very close to him as it lay there motionless in the moonlight. He wasn’t at all frightened, but just sat there listening. There it was; the sound of prancing steps in the sand somewhere behind the aspens. Backwards and forwards they went, down the beach into the water, splashing about and making the foam fly.