Marina closed the notebook and slipped it back into the pillowcase.
Perhaps her father was unhinged. That was the word Ivy used about people whose minds were sick. ‘They look the same as you and me,’ she would say. ‘But inside their heads –’ and she’d tap her temple and mouth – ‘broken.’
Marina put her arms round Paddy’s neck and tried to summon up everything she could remember of the days after her mother’s disappearance. No one had told her where her mother had gone. Her father retired to his study and did not even come out for meals; Ivy had to leave food on a tray outside the door and take it away later, untouched. But some time not long after – Marina was still wearing black mourning ribbons in her hair – her father took her from her dolls and dressed her in her best coat and bonnet and they went in a hansom cab to London Bridge. He held her hand too tight as he pulled her along to the very centre of the bridge. She whined and cried and wanted to go home. But her father ignored her. And then he lifted her up and held her on the parapet of the bridge. She could scarcely make out the waves below, but she could hear the slap of the water and the lazy chug of the barges as they passed beneath. She was sobbing properly now, but her father took no notice. ‘Here she is!’ he cried out into the fog. ‘Will you come and take her?’ Marina had begged him to let her down. And then, so gently, he had lifted her down and held her to his chest and promised her that he would take care of her.
Years later, she found her father’s behaviour was no less puzzling. He had risked his life, and that of his crew, to sail north to repair a sonar transmitter somewhere on a deserted island.
Like the sea at its deepest, her father was unfathomable.
24
The next day, Paddy was much better: his nose was cold and his eyes were bright. Marina fashioned him a sledge from a packing crate which had contained some of her father’s equipment. Then she made him a harness out of rope. She took him on to the ice and let him pull her along, the pair of them enjoying the quivering air.
The mood on the Sea Witch had worsened overnight. Brown and Perkins were bickering. ‘Why did we come back?’ Perkins hissed.
‘Because we do as we’re told.’
‘But I told you when we left here last time, I’d never come back.’
‘Keep your trap shut. You do yourself no good letting your thoughts wander.’
Jones looked feverish, his colour high and his hair damp with sweat, despite the freezing air. Cook shouted at his Mate and the potatoes were burned. At dinner, Finchin arrived late, which was shocking because he was always entirely punctual. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for days. His clothes were dishevelled and he mumbled only a few words before they ate.
A plate smashed. ‘What the—’ Brown exclaimed.
Perkins stared out of the porthole at the silent water, unbothered by the broken china at his feet.
‘Get yourself together, man!’ Finchin’s voice crackled. But Perkins took no notice. He stood up, swaying slightly. Sweat broke out on his brow. ‘Can’t you hear it?’ he whispered.
‘Hear what?’ Brown muttered. ‘I can’t hear nothing but Cook with his pots and pans.’
‘That voice.’
‘There’s no voice, man!’ Finchin snapped.
‘I tell you there is! It’s calling to me!’ And with that, Perkins leapt towards the door of the mess and ran out. Stunned, the others heard his boots thudding on the deck.
Seconds later, a cry of anguish and a splash.
Finchin now shook himself, as if waking up. Brown was already out of the door. Marina and Jones followed them. On deck, Marina watched as Brown unhooked the lifesaver – why could so few sailors actually swim? – and threw it over the side.
Finchin, his face creased with anxiety, looked at Perkins bobbing about in the sea. ‘He’ll not last more than a few minutes in that water.’ He clenched his fists. ‘Damned stupid man.’
Brown now had a boat hook and was leaning over the side. ‘Just hold on to it!’ he cried. ‘We’ll do the work for you.’ But Perkins thrashed about, laughing. He wouldn’t reach for it – he seemed determined to perish.
They threw him a rope. Perkins yelled at them to leave him, but Brown managed to drop the net over him. Seconds later, Perkins was hauled on to the deck.
‘Get him inside,’ Finchin snapped. ‘And keep him there.’
Perkins was strangely quiet now. He didn’t shout or fling his arms around or attempt to throw himself in the sea. Brown led him away.
Finchin looked suddenly careworn. ‘It will be good to get away from this place,’ he muttered. Paddy yowled in agreement.
But Marina felt differently. Pechorin Island was barren, uninhabited; there was nothing to see. So why did she feel this urgent tugging in her chest to go north?
She woke early the next morning. Her father would be returning that day, although time seemed to run differently on this island of twilight. She sprang out of her hammock and rushed towards the galley.
‘Do you have any of that foul stuff you made for my father?’
‘Pemmican?’ The cook reached for a tin bowl filled with a strange mess of grease, dried meat and currants. This was what her father had taken with him to feed himself and the dogs on their arduous journey across the snow.
‘The minute I see Father, I’m going to take this and give the dogs a treat,’ she explained. ‘For bringing him home safely.’
Cook took a lump and formed it into a large ball, like a Christmas pudding, and wrapped it in a calico square. ‘It won’t be long now,’ he said, looking more anxious than Marina
