Stormswept

But Jenna’s tearing at my hand. “Morveren! Morveren!”

The feeling fades, like waking from a dream. I try to snatch it back as the gull screams in the distance, but it’s gone.

“Hurry, Morveren!”

We wade through the shallows as the causeway rises and the grip of the tide releases us. It’s just water now. We’re safe, and suddenly the sea is cold, freezing cold, and all I want is to be in front of the fire at home.

Panting and wet, we haul ourselves up the last few metres, scramble up the slipway and collapse against the harbour wall, hoping no one will be about. But of course, Jago Faraday’s lounging around as usual, even though it’s now pouring with rain. There’s nothing he likes better than someone else having a bad time.

“Cutting it a bit fine, my girl,” he says to me, frowning as if it’s all my fault that we nearly got caught by the tide. “You keep your sister away from the water.”

To say that Jago has favourites is an understatement. He loves Jenna and hates me. He calls us the good ’un and the bad ’un. It’s supposed to be a joke – the kind of joke which is not funny when you are the butt of it.

“You been getting your sister into trouble again.”

Jenna is exactly the same age as me: in fact she is twelve minutes older. So how is it that I’m always supposed to be the one who leads her into trouble? But I don’t say this. Backchat will make him more likely to tell Mum and Dad that not only have I nearly drowned Jenna, but I gave him lip as well.

“I shan’t tell your mum and dad,” says Jago, as if he’s read my mind. “I can keep a secret.”

I’m relieved in a way, but I don’t want to share any secrets with Jago Faraday. He’s a spiteful, mean old man. But Jenna smiles at him, and then Jago’s face changes completely as he smiles the creaky old smile that only she ever gets. “You go on home and warm yourself, my maid,” he says to her, in his special Jenna voice. Never mind if I die of pneumonia, as long as Jenna’s warm. I look sidelong at Jenna, and pull a face, but unfortunately she is still smiling at Jago.

Our school shoes are sodden, and our tights too. Our coats are not too bad.

“If we stuff our shoes with newspaper and put them near the stove, they’ll dry out all right,” says Jenna. “Lucky it’s raining. Mum won’t notice.”

“I should have skipped detention. No one except Mr Cadwallader would give a detention on the last day before half-term.”

“You’d have got a double one.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have had to do it for more than a week… Jenna? Have you ever had a detention?” I know she hasn’t.

“Well… I haven’t yet,” says Jenna cautiously, because she doesn’t want to make me feel bad.

“You haven’t ever, you mean. Do you realise how much easier my life would be if you weren’t so good?”

“Mum won’t ask why we were late. We’ll just say we missed the boat.”

“OK.”

Mum will find out anyway at the end of term, when she sees my report. They always put detentions on reports, but that’s a good long way off and anything could happen before then. If only Jenna didn’t bring her report home at exactly the same time, mine wouldn’t look so bad. If my parents compared my report with Bran Helyer’s, for instance, they’d be quite happy. Ecstatic, even…

“Couldn’t you throw a few crisp packets round the classroom, Jen? Or tell Mr Kernow you didn’t fancy doing your maths homework?”

Jenna stares at me. “Why would anyone do that?” is written all over her face.

“Bran was in detention today,” I say casually.

Jenna’s face shadows. It’s complicated. All through primary school she and Bran were friends. No one else liked him, though he had a gang for a while. But the gang got too violent even for the people who were in it. Soon, Bran was a gang of one, and everybody left him alone.

Mum used to say, “Bran doesn’t have much of a life, with that father of his,” as if she were sorry for him. No one else was: they were too scared of him. But then something changed between Jenna and Bran. People think that twins tell each other everything, but that’s not true. Jenna doesn’t need to tell me, anyway. I can feel the difference in her. She might not be friends with Bran any more, but if someone talks about him, Jenna always reacts. It’s not obvious, because nothing with Jenna is obvious, but it’s there. I can sense what Jenna’s thinking most of the time and I know from the way she looks at Bran (which, being Jenna, she rarely does any more) that even if they aren’t friends, there’s still a link between them. But Bran is too much of a bad boy for Jenna now.

“Was he?” says Jenna now, in a carefully neutral voice.

“What?”

“In detention. Bran.”

“Yeah. He walked out halfway through though. He’ll get suspended again, I think.”

Jenna flinches.

“Bran won’t care about a suspension, Jen.”

“His dad hits him,” says Jenna in a low voice. She may not be friends with Bran any more, but she still knows a lot more about him than anyone else does. But the fact that Bran’s dad is violent isn’t exactly news. He used to live on the Island, when he was still married to Bran’s mum, because she’s an Islander, like us. She’s gone away, upcountry. I think Bran still sees her, but I’m not sure. I look at Jenna. She’s frowning and her face is full of worry. Jenna hates any kind of violence. Even the kind of fights boys have in primary school used to make her hide away in the girls’ toilets.

Mum and Dad aren’t at home. Mum’s left a note telling us that they’re rehearsing with Ynys Musyk in the village hall. Digory’s gone with them and there’s a stew in the oven. Ynys Musyk is our island band. Everybody plays in it more or less, although not Jago Faraday. The only time he even sings is at funerals, very loud and very flat. There’s a reason why our band is so important, but it’s complicated. We don’t usually talk about it to outsiders, because they wouldn’t believe it. They’d probably think it’s just a legend, one of those stories for tourists.

Digory is our little brother. He’s seven and he plays the violin. I do too, but Digory’s playing is something different. In the summer, when the visitors come, they hear Digory practising and they tell Mum and Dad that something ought to be done for him, as if Mum and Dad are too stupid to know how good Digory is. (Some tourists think that because there’s no mobile signal on the Island, and we don’t have broadband, that we are out of touch with the real world.) They say that Digory ought to go away to a music school on the mainland, to develop his talent. But Mum tells Digory to go and practise away down by the shore where nobody will hear him. She doesn’t want Digory leaving home, and nor do any of us. It’s bad enough that we have to go to school on the mainland once we’re past the Infants, because there aren’t enough of us to be educated here. At least we come home every night. The music school would be far away upcountry and Digory would have to board there. He would hate that.

When you grow up on an island you don’t ever want to leave it. It gives you such a safe feeling when the water swirls all around and no one can get to you. No, not safe exactly… Complete. As if you have everything that you will ever need, and nothing that you don’t need. Even though a causeway connects us to the mainland at low tide, we are still a true island. Sometimes in winter, when there’s a storm, we can’t go to school for days. I love the season of storms. No one can reach us then. We are supposed to keep up with school worksheets and reading, but even Jenna doesn’t bother.

Some people say that the sea is rising year by year, and the coastline will slowly crumble away as it retreats from the oncoming water. If that happens, we’ll be cut off from the mainland even at low tide. I’d like it, but other people say we couldn’t survive like that, and we’d have to build up the causeway, even though it would cost millions. Otherwise the tourists won’t come, and most of our income will be gone. It’s hard to make money here. The only jobs are fishing and tourism, unless you’re a doctor or a nurse or something like that. Mum has a part-time job in the post office.

Jenna stuffs our shoes with newspaper and washes the salt water out of our tights, while I put on potatoes to go with the stew. It is dark outside now, but inside it’s warm and you can smell the bread Mum made earlier, which is cooling on racks in the kitchen, ready for the freezer. The wind is blowing hard. The sea is beating up, and even with the door and windows closed we can hear the waves thump on the rocks. There will be deep water now where Jenna and I stood on the causeway. I shiver. Sometimes it frightens me, how quickly the world can shift between safety and danger. I want to retreat into a small, secure space. But at other times, risk pulls me like a magnet. I remember that strange feeling, when the sea almost lifted me off the causeway. I wanted it to lift me. Where did I want it to take me?

Maybe Jago Faraday is right, and I’m leading Jenna into trouble. She is so cautious and sensible. She would never take a risk unless I did, but then she would always follow me.

“You should dry your hair, Morveren,” says Jenna. “It’s dripping down your back.”

We both have long dark hair that reaches almost to our waists. When we were little Mum used to give us different partings, so that other people knew which one of us they were talking to, and she would buy blue hairbands for Jenna and green for me, because those were our favourite colours. We don’t bother with any of that now. If people don’t see that our characters are completely different, and that makes our faces different too, then let them go on mixing us up.

A thought strikes me. “You could do my detention for me next time.”

“It would still get written into your school diary,” says Jenna, who has clearly worked this out long ago. Otherwise, she would do the detention for me, I think. Jenna’s like that.

There’s a bang at the window, and I jump.

“That shutter’s come loose again,” says Jenna calmly.

“I’ll fix it,” I say, and before she can offer to help, I slip out of the door.

The night is wild now, full of wind and rain. All the cottages on the Island have shutters, to protect the glass in the windows from winter storms. I grab the loose shutter as it slams against the sill, and wedge in the hook that holds it. The wind whips my hair and I taste salt on my lips. Sometimes, when there is a storm, salt spray flies right over the Island. We go down to the headland and watch the waves battering the Hagger Rocks. I could go there now. I can find my way in the dark. I know every stone of the Island – we all do.

The wind whirls round the corner of our cottage. It’s pushing me, folding around me. The branches of our tamarisk tree whip above my head. How strange – I’m not by the window now, I’m already at the gate. The wind is shoving me along as if it knows where it wants me to go. My hand is on the latch. I open it, and now the wind seizes hold of me, carrying me with it, almost lifting me off my feet.

hen a storm is raging, I feel ten times more alive. Storms are in my blood, because of the way our island came to be, and the way I came to be here.

Long ago, there was no Island, and no wide bay full of sea. Mainland and Island were all one. There was solid land here, where our ancestors built a great city. It had wide streets and rich houses, and a hall as big as a cathedral, where they held gatherings. Everybody in that city loved music, and they would come together to play and sing and dance all night long, until they went home in the grey light of dawn.