Stormswept. Part 4

I lean over and say his name, my mouth close to his ear, but he doesn't react. He's unconscious, I think. Is he breathing? I wish I had a mirror, to see if it mists from his breath. But do the Mer breathe warmly, as we do? He's so cold.

"Do you think it's safe to put him in?" asks Jenna, "What if he drowns?"

Put him in sounds so awful, like putting a pet goldfish into a bowl. This whole day is making me feel horrible about being human. The responsibility of knowing what to do for Malin feels as heavy as his body when we were carrying him. If only he'd tell me how to help him into the water...

But Malin is silent. He's far away, in a place where no one can reach him. Come back, I whisper under my breath. Come back. He doesn't stir or speak, but at that moment, deep inside me, his voice echoes: I must be in salt water if I am to live.

"Mer won't drown," I say to Jenna, with more confidence than I feel.

There's no shallow end to King Ragworm Pool. The rock has been hollowed out by water over thousands of years, and the sides of the pool are sheer. There's a ledge at the other end where Jenna and I usually scramble in and out of the water, but we can't clamber all the way round there carrying Malin.

"How're we going to get him in?" asks Jenna.

"Let's move him to the edge. If we pull the groundsheet so it's over the rock and down to the water, we can sort of slide him, maybe. I'll get into the pool and then if you ease him over, I'll make sure he doesn't bang his head or anything."

"You'll be freezing!"

"Yeah, I thought of that." I stand up and pull off my hoodie and jeans. "Hold him under the arms so I can get him in tail-first."

We get Malin to the very edge of the pool, with the protective groundsheet under him but not wrapped around him. Carefully, we pull the groundsheet free so that it hangs down, touching the water.

"I'll splash water all over him so he slides better."

"OK."

My toes grip the edge. King Ragworm Pool has never looked so cold and dark. I shut my eyes, stop breathing, and jump in.

I come up gasping, throw my hair back, and swim to the side.

"Stand back, Jen!"

I tread water, raising myself high while I scoop up handfuls of water and throw as much as I can over Malin and the groundsheet. Then I brace my feet against the rock and kick backwards, gripping the end of the groundsheet. My weight pulls it tight, like a chute.

"Push him now, Jen!"

Jenna grunts with effort as she tugs and pushes, easing Malin over the lip of rock. The groundsheet tightens as Malin starts to slide. Suddenly there's a rush of weight and movement. Just in time, I jack-knife away as Malin plunges over the edge of the rock and into the water. The pool surface breaks up and I can't see him any more. Jenna's leaning over the edge.

"Where is he? Is he all right?"

"He's at the bottom."

I can see him now. For a second I think he's moving, and my heart leaps with hope, but then I realise it's only the disturbance of his fall.

"I'm going to dive down and have a look."

"Be careful!"

I am so cold now that I've gone numb. I kick off against the rock, down to the bottom. There he is. Face-down, not moving. Only his hair stirs as it flows upward. I touch his shoulder and he drifts a few centimetres, then he's still again. I've got to breathe. I push upwards and burst through the surface, shuddering with cold.

"Morveren! Come out! You'll get cramp."

"Just a just one more dive-"

I steady myself, draw in the biggest breath I can take and dive again. I swim to Malin. He's turned a little now, on to his side. I can see the gash in his tail.

Suddenly Malin's body quivers from end to end, as if a current is running through it. He hangs still, then his tail moves. With one stroke, he is in the deepest shadow of the rock. I want to follow him, but I can't stay underwater any longer. I rise to the surface, and this time I know that Jenna's right, I've got to come out. If I stay in any longer I'll be too weak to climb out.

I swim slowly to the edge. Jenna's scrambled round to help me, and soon I'm lying on the rock, so exhausted that I hardly feel the cold. She takes off her own T-shirt and rubs me hard.

"I've brought your clothes round. Get them on quick, Mor, you're all blue."

My hands shake so much I can hardly get my hoodie over my head.

"Put your hood up, that'll keep you warm."

"Have you a got any a chocolate?"

Jenna shakes her head. "We've got to get home straight away, you're freezing. I thought you weren't going to come up, the second time. I was all ready to dive in after you."

"That was s-s-stupid-"

"I saw him move, Mor. He's all right."

I nod. I'm not sure that "all right" is really the correct description of how Malin is, but at least he's not dead, and he must be conscious or he wouldn't have been able to swim to the side. He wanted us to put him in the water, and we did. We couldn't do any more. But that gash in his tail, gaping under the water- "You're shaking, Mor. Come on."

It starts to rain again on the way home. I don't feel cold any more, but my head doesn't seem to belong to my body. I have to concentrate hard to put one foot in front of the other.

Digory's not in the cottage, but he's left a note: i am Gon to sea Mum.

"I hope n-n-not," I say.

"What?"

"G-g-gone to sea. We've g-g-got enough a to worry about w-w-w-without that."

"Your teeth are making a horrible noise, Mor."

She's right. They are chattering. I've read about it in books but never thought it could happen in real life. My teeth are clashing together so hard I'm afraid bits will chip off.

Jen rushes upstairs and runs a bath. It's so hot that it hurts to get in, and she pours in half Mum's lavender bubble bath so that bubbles come right up the edge.

"I'm going to make you some hot chocolate. Don't fall asleep, Mor."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to drown in the bath after not drowning in the pool."

My teeth have stopped chattering. Jenna brings me a ma.s.sive mug of hot chocolate and sits on the edge of the bath while I drink it. It's so sweet I feel the sugar rushing through me.

"Yum, that's amazing. Don't watch me like a nurse, Jenna. I'm fine. I just got a bit cold."

"You were all covered in blue patches. I nearly called Dr Kemp. I thought you were going to have an asthma attack."

I used to have asthma when I was little, but I don't any more and I hate it when people go on about it. I sink back into the bubbles. The mention of Dr Kemp has given me an idea.

"I'm going to ask Dr Kemp what's the best thing to do for a gash like Malin's, that can't be st.i.tched."

"You can't do that, Mor! She's bound to ask who it is that's injured."

"I'll make an appointment for something else, then I'll just sort of slip in the question."

"You can't do that. Mum always makes our appointments."

"I can. Malin can't go to a doctor, can he? So I'll go for him."

"What will you say is wrong with you?"

I sink back in the water until only my mouth and the tip of my nose are above the bubbles. "I'll think of something. Did Digory take my Mars bar?"

Jenna is silent. I blow paths in the bubbles under my chin.

"Mum'll notice we've used her lavender."

"Mor..."

"What?"

"Maybe he won't be there, when we go back."

"Of course he will."

"He might just a you know, swim out, when the tide's high."

"He can't do that. You know he can't. The tide doesn't get that far and the channel's far too narrow for anyone to swim up it."

"But if he's-"

"If he's what?"

"Well, he's not like a person, is he?"

"He's Mer. You know that."

"He might be... well, you know. Able to disappear. If he's a sort of-"

"Sort of what?"

"You know. A sort of magical creature. Like in Harry Potter."

"You carried him, Jenna! He didn't feel very magical to me. He's as real as we are."

"Yes, but..." Jenna's voice trails away into unhappy silence.

She wants him not to be real, and everything not to have happened. If we go back to the pool and Malin's not there, then we can start to forget about him. In a few months we might be able to pretend that none of this really happened. It was something we imagined, because we hadn't had any sleep and because the Polish sailor a Adam a died.

I sip the dregs of my hot chocolate, and watch Jenna secretly from under my eyelashes. I'm not going to argue any more with her about the reality of Malin. But I am going to see Dr Kemp.

ello, Jenna," says Dr Kemp. The door swings shut behind me, and she looks surprised. No doubt she was expecting Mum to be with me.

"It's Morveren," I say.

Dr Kemp rubs her hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry. What can I do for you, Morveren?" She looks tired. I move forward to stand by her desk, feeling awkward.

"Would you like to sit down? Now, what can I do for you?"

"Um a I haven't been feeling too good."

Earlier on, when I was talking to Jenna it seemed a perfect plan. Go in, pretend to have something wrong with me and then slip in a question about Malin's wound. Easy-peasy. But now that I'm here, with the surgery smell and Dr Kemp's hands hovering above her keyboard, ready to tap in everything I say, it's very different. My hands are sweating. I hate going to the doctor anyway.

"How is your asthma?"

I hate it when people say "your asthma" as if it's a pet or something. "I don't have asthma any more." My voice comes out snappy. I stopped taking my inhalers ages ago. We don't need to talk about it. But all the illnesses you've ever had stay on your computer record.

Sure enough, Dr Kemp glances at her computer screen. "It's a year since you stopped taking medication, isn't it? And how is that going? Are you checking your peak flow regularly?"

"It's fine." I don't want her thinking I ought to go back on my inhalers. "I came because I've been getting headaches."

She asks me how long for, and I say just a few days, then she asks me lots of questions about what kind of headache it is a tight, throbbing, over my eyes, at the back of my head, etc. etc. I didn't know there were so many kinds of headache, and it's quite hard to answer questions about a pain that doesn't exist. Dr Kemp shines a light into my eyes, checks my temperature, asks me to move my neck up and down, and looks at my throat and ears. Then she says she will take my blood pressure. I'm getting worried. This is all a bit too serious, and I'm afraid she'll think she's got to tell Mum. While she is fitting the blood pressure cuff on to my arm, I ask casually, "Dr Kemp, is it true that salt water is good for cuts? Even quite deep ones?"

"It depends on the injury."

"Suppose someone had a deep cut, on their a leg, for instance a and they had to spend a long time in the sea. Would the salt water help it to heal?"

Dr Kemp adjusts the velcro fastening, sits back and looks me full in the face.

"If any wound is deep, it's got to have proper medical care. It might need st.i.tching."

"Yes, but if it couldn't be st.i.tched, for some reason. If the person couldn't get medical help."

"Morveren, is there something else worrying you, besides these headaches?"

Her voice is so nice that everything rushes into my mind at once. The gash in Malin's leg. The lifeless way he sank down through the water. The Polish sailor in his life-jacket, lost on the sea in the darkness. n.o.body being able to save either of them. It was stupid of me to come, because if Dr Kemp goes on talking in that voice I'm going to cry. I keep my voice steady. "Nothing's worrying me. I just wanted to know. It was- It was something that someone was talking about at surf life-saving."

As soon as I've said it, I regret it. You learn proper first-aid in surf life-saving, resuscitation and everything. You would never randomly put injured people into salt water. She's still looking at me in that way doctors have, as if they know more about you than you know about yourself.

"You were out helping with the search, weren't you, Morveren?"

"Yes."

Dr Kemp sighs, then leans back and rubs her eyes again. She looks very tired. "It's hard when something like this happens. It affects everyone. But he wouldn't have suffered for long. The sea is so cold at this time of the year, and with the injury he had as well... He'd have lost consciousness very quickly."