Samphire Song (9 page)

He lets me rest my head against his neck. I’m already excited at the prospect of the ride home and I feel he is, too. I love every minute I spend with him. Riding him, rubbing him down, putting his coat on and feeding him have become the highlights of my day.

I smile when I think of Ed’s enthusiasm for tractors, planes and all things mechanical. We’re so different in that way.

Light is shafting into the clearing, turning the lake
liquid silver. Dad said this was a magical place and he’s right. It takes my breath away.

‘I’m so glad we came, Samphire,’ I say to him. ‘Now you’re with me, it doesn’t hurt to remember. I know you don’t understand, but thank you.’ I give him a big kiss on his nose before he has time to avoid me.

And I make a heart out of small stones on the ground, in case the fairies are watching.

Chapter Sixteen

‘You PROMISED!’ Ed is pulling my arm, trying to get me out of bed.

‘It’s six thirty in the morning,’ I moan, my eyes coming to focus on my alarm clock.

‘You said, stables then picnic,’ he whispers sternly in my face. His breath smells of chocolate hoops and marshmallows. He must have had breakfast already.

‘It’s Saturday. I don’t need to be there until nine.’ I plunge my face back into my pillow. This is too much for Ed. He jumps on top of my duvet and starts bouncing. My bed lurches and squeaks in protest.

‘Mum said last night that we’ve got to make the sarnies, LAZY BONES,’ he shouts. I think there must have been a lot of additives in the chocolate hoops.

Resistance is pointless. I put my hands up in
surrender. My mattress heaves a sigh of relief as the onslaught stops.

‘Remind me why it’s a good thing to have a little brother,’ I say, wriggling out from under his weight, swinging my legs over the side of my bed and on to my purple rug.

‘Cos I’m a bibble bobble diggle doggle magic woggle super blooper CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!’ he answers, trying to do a shoulder-stand on my rumpled bedding and collapsing in giggles.

I shake my head. Ed’s antics are too much at this time of the morning. I’m used to getting up on my own, at my own pace. Peace and quiet. The sound of my bike tyres on the wet lane on the way to the stables. Samphire’s song when he hears me approaching. The other horses, murmuring, and the scraping of hooves on loose-box floors.

I’m often the first to arrive. It’s my favourite time of day, just me and all the animals adjusting to the new morning, shaking off the haze of sleep. I tell Samphire
about the lessons I’m enduring at school. He munches his breakfast and noses his bucket around, immune to the horrors of English essays and French verbs. I wish I could swap places with him sometimes. He would end up in the Head’s office in no time, though, and not just for pooing in the classroom. His report would read: ‘headstrong, boisterous, noisy, inattentive, a nightmare to teach. However, he is very good at running and will be an asset to the cross-country team.’

As I pass Mum’s open door, I glance in and see that she’s still asleep, her hair spread out in a halo around her head. It’s a nice image; Mum the angel. My memory suddenly produces another image, of Dad next to her, limbs spread untidily, bare chest protruding from the duvet (he only ever slept in his boxer shorts). We used to creep into the room, Ed and I, right up to the bed, and burrow between them, nestling into the warmth between their bodies.

‘Permission to board, Squadron Leader,’ Ed would say. It was a phrase he learned very young, when he
was negotiating the potty and then the loo. He and Dad would salute each other before and after every manoeuvre.

‘Permission granted,’ Dad would reply, sleepily, half-peering at us through long, dark lashes. ‘But no wriggling, or I’ll push the pilot eject button.’

Pilot eject is not working. Repeat, pilot eject is not working
. . . Dad’s last words, recorded by the control deck on the aircraft carrier HMS
Cronos
, patrolling the blue waters of the Gulf. Oh, memory, why do you do this? My heart suddenly beats in my chest so insistently I hear myself gasp a little. I need to focus on something else quickly to avoid the dizzy spell that usually follows. I wiggle my fingers and toes fast and hard and feel the tingle of a blood-rush. It seems to have worked. I find myself breathing out slowly.

I blink twice and the vision of Mum and Dad together vanishes. I see only Mum, breathing softly, curled into soft folds of white linen on one side of the king-size bed, the book she has been reading still open,
next to her, where Dad should be. As if she senses me, her eyes open and she gives me a little wave.

‘Trot on, Whinny,’ instructs Ed, his hands on my lower back.

‘Don’t push it,’ I warn him. I’m regretting saying today would be a good day for Ed to try aerobatics with his plane and for the three of us to eat lunch on the beach. For one thing, it’s October. Ed assured me all week that today would be fine, according to the predictions on the weather site.

‘Sunny face,’ he kept saying, dragging me to the computer and pointing to the yellow smiley suns over Hampshire on the chart. After several days of ‘maybe’, Mum had a quiet word and told me it wasn’t fair to make Ed wait any longer for his first aerobatic flight in front of an audience. It was to be a family occasion, complete with several layers of clothes, flasks of soup and a ground sheet to sit on.

I’m really happy for Ed that he’s got the plane of his dreams, which arrived in a long brown box and has
taken him several weeks to learn to fly. He’s been in his element, stretched out on the newspapers covering the cold, concrete floor of the garage; nimble fingers adjusting intricate parts, his tongue poking out to the left, the way it does when he’s concentrating.

I can’t tell him that I have this waking nightmare about Dad plummeting into the sea and that looking at any flying craft at all – even hearing an engine – can trigger it. I’m not sure how Mum feels, but I think it would be better all round if Ed liked collecting stamps instead.

Chapter Seventeen

In the summer, Lynton Bay is packed with tourists, like ants swarming on a perfectly curved banana. Out of season, it’s almost deserted, apart from the occasional dog-walker or angler digging up worms. It’s where Dad and I rode and raced and ribbed each other. Looking at this golden horseshoe of a beach, I realise it’s the last place I remember being happy and totally worry-free.

We all decided it was the best place for Ed to put his plane through its paces. Mum was very sensitive when we discussed it, asking me if I felt ready to come back here. I think I must be, because I found myself whispering in Samphire’s ear that I would bring him to the bay one day, if he was very, very good, so that he could experience the gallop of his life.

‘This is an exact replica of the combat plane
that took on the German Luftwaffe above southern England in the Battle of Britain in 1940,’ explained Ed, reading from his instruction leaflet as we tramped over pebbles and up and down the beach in search of exactly the right spot, with the least wind resistance for the Spitfire’s first aerial mission.

‘You’d better go back a bit,’ he advises now. He’s wearing a black wool beanie hat, four layers under his coat and a pair of jeans two sizes too big, but he still manages to look cute. Ten metres from his lumpy, ten-year-old frame, the Spitfire is positioned for take-off.

Mum and I, who have helped Ed flatten the ‘runway’ by jumping up and down a long strip of damp sand in our wellies, obey Ed’s orders and move further up the beach. Mum grabs my arm and cuddles it tightly as Ed gives us the thumbs-up sign and gazes down at his radio-controlled handset.

A sputter and a low, choking rumble. The propeller is turning, gathering speed. Ed shrieks and jumps about on the spot. Mum and I exchange glances, big grins
on our faces. The Spitfire begins to edge forwards, fuselage wobbling slightly over worm-mounds we didn’t spot. The painted pilot inside looks dwarfed by the one-and-a-half-metre camouflaged wingspan either side of him.

There’s a sudden spurt of speed, and the plane propels itself into the air, wings lurching to the left, taking the craft in a circle over our heads. Not
that
far over our heads, really. Mum and I both duck instinctively.

‘Sorry!’ yells Ed. He’s sending the Spitfire south over the sand and towards the sea – the tide is way out. He turns it to the right and brings it lower to skim along over the rippling shoreline. He makes it bank steeply and follow an arc in the sky. Mum and I are holding our breath; disaster could strike any moment and Ed’s dream could end in scattered wreckage.

Somehow, miraculously, the plane stays airborne, responding to the signals from Ed’s handset. Mostly, he keeps it level, in between difficult manoeuvres, spins
and loops. After several minutes, it’s descending, its undercarriage wheels lowered, and it makes a speedy but perfect landing, coming to rest on the sand about fifty metres from Ed, who turns and raises his fist in triumph.

‘Yaaaaaargh!’ he shouts, doing a cartwheel but ending in a crumpled heap. When we reach him, he has extended his arms and legs, like a star, and his smile stretches from ear to ear.

‘Did it,’ he states. There’s relief in his voice. And excitement. And absolute happiness.

‘Well done, you,’ says Mum, offering him a hand up and giving his damp, sandy frame a big hug.

‘Ace pilot, Teddy,’ I tell him, pulling his ears.

‘Geroff, Stick,’ he giggles.

There is a photocall: Ed with his plane, saluting; me and Ed, with his plane; Mum and Ed, with his plane; the Spitfire (from all angles); me and Mum, pretending to be asleep on the beach.

We drink the hot soup from the flask, eat the rolls
and cakes and tease Mum about the pickle moustache on her top lip. Despite the damp cold, which is starting to seep into our bones, we feel brilliant. It’s been the best day. Mum looks radiant. Her eyes are bluer than I’ve ever seen.

And despite my heart being in my mouth a couple of times, watching the Spitfire plunge, I haven’t felt weird or panicky. Maybe those bad times are finally leaving me alone?

‘Last one to the plane is a rotten egg,’ Mum announces, setting off down the beach with her arms out on either side of her. Ed follows, making plane nose-diving noises. I’m half way through my muesli bar and running and swallowing isn’t a great idea, so I stay put and watch them doing twirlies on the sand so fast they make themselves dizzy.

Ed reaches the plane and proclaims that Mum is a ‘stinky, rotten egg’. Together, they carry it back up the beach, joking with each other all the way. Behind them, high above the skyline, a cotton-wool cloud has wisps
of white trailing from its sides, silver slivers, dazzling in the sun. Maybe it’s a sign from Dad, letting us know he approves. Maybe it’s just a cloud. I video it on my phone. When I play it back, the brightness has obscured the picture. There are silhouettes of two people carrying a plane. All you can hear is Ed, laughing.

Chapter Eighteen

‘Oh, that’s so GROSS!’ I’m standing directly behind Samphire, three strands of white hair in my hand, having a plaiting lesson from Rachel. My horse has decided, at this precise moment, to lift his tail and deposit half a bucketful of manure on my boots. Rachel and I scoot to the door, holding our noses.