The Water Children
Four lives. Four defining moments which will bring them together.Owen Abingdon is haunted by nightmares of the Merfolk. He believes they have stolen his little sister who vanished while he was meant to be minding her on the beach, but he was only a child himself. Is it fair for his mother to blame him?Catherine Hoyle's perfect Christmas with her cousin from America was blighted when they went skating on thin ice and Rosalyn nearly died. Somehow, instead of being praised for raising the alarm, Catherine gets blamed.Sean Madigan grew up on a farm in Ireland. Learning to swim in the Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but it also incurred his father's wrath. He flees to England, but his heart belongs to the Shannon and her pulling power is ever near…Unlike the other three, Naomi Seddon didn't fear the sea. She'd been orphaned and placed in a children's home in Sheffield and cruelly abused. The sea offered her a way out and she revelled in its cruel power.The "water children" meet in London in the searing hot summer of 1976 and Naomi uses her siren's charm to lure Owen, Catherine and Sean into her tangled web of sexual charm and dangerous passion. A holiday in the Tuscan mountains with a flooded reservoir and its legend of the beautiful Teodora who drowned there brings this emotional drama to a powerful climax. Will the power of family, love and redemption finally help the water children conquer their fears and triumph over their childhood traumas?
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ANNE BERRY
The Water Children
For Bez, my dear father-in-law, who never swam in the sea but chose to rest upon the changing tides.
1911 – 2010
‘Give your will over to the flow of me. And let me take you with me to my mother, the sea. For there a bed has been made ready.’
The Water Children, Anne Berry
No water-babies, indeed? Why, wise men of old said that everything on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies then why not water-babies? Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets, water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of plants, are there not water-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end?
The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Legend of Lake Vagli
Acknowledgements
Also by Anne Berry
Copyright
Chapter 1
1961
It is the recipe for a perfect day. The sun beats down from a cloudless blue sky. The air fizzes with heat and salt. The sea glitters and shifts and curls and breaks along the three-mile stretch of pale, gold, Devonshire sand – Saunton Sands. It somersaults over mossy rocks and tangled tresses of tide wrack. It sends the beach into a nervous, excited jitter. The sea-sawing cry of gulls rises to a crescendo with their swoops and nose-dives, then quiets as the curved beaks snap at darting fish. Apart from a few surfers riding the breakers, and sporadic clusters of people guiltily enjoying their mid-week leisure break, this coastal paradise is deserted. But then it is still early morning.
Like the day itself, the Abingdon family have all the right ingredients to be perfect. It only remains to see what happens when you blend them all together. They are stepping onto the beach now, arms full, trudging determinedly through the un resisting sand. There is the mother, Ruth, tall and willowy in build, and the father, Bill, prematurely balding, a couple of inches shorter than his wife and broad-chested as a weight-lifter. And then come the two children, a tousled, fair-haired, leggy boy of eight, Owen, pulling a sturdy little girl who is almost five after him, Sarah. Sarah is protesting, her plaintive whines muffled by her scrap of a comfort blanket, once pink, now greyed, frayed and faded with constant mouthing.
‘Tell Sarah to walk properly,’ Owen calls after his parents. Neither of them pause. This expedition to find the right spot, the precise one in this unfamiliar desert terrain, is a serious business. ‘She’s dragging her feet!’ He gives his sister’s tiny hand a shake, and pulls his brow down before rounding on her in his frustration. The sun is in his eyes so that he cannot see her face clearly. ‘I can’t carry you and the bag, now can I?’ Sarah, who clearly doesn’t see the logic of her brother’s words, or chooses not to, sits down with a thump on the sand. Sighing with an exaggerated heave then slump of his slight shoulders, the way he has seen his mother do, Owen lets go of her hand.
‘Mum, Sarah’s being really naughty!’ he cries out, but not very loudly, not nearly as loudly as he can, certainly not loudly enough to summon back his mother.
He pauses to see if his sister, fearing a reprimand, will rise to her feet, then make an effort to keep up. His life would be so much easier if only she would co-operate. But Sarah only grinds her little bottom deeper into the sand, and mutinously thrusts a thumb in her mouth. ‘Do you have to be such a big baby?’ Owen sets down his bag and drops to his knees. Hooding his eyes with a bent elbow, he can see that his sister’s, a lighter shade of blue than his own, a radiant blue, and big and round, are wet-lashed, that her bottom lip is quivering. She reaches her needy arms up to him. Instantly he feels the tightness in his chest loosen, the irritation with this sister of his, this annoying millstone, fall away as if it never was. With one hand he strokes her loose curls, so pale they are almost white, so soft they feel like dust.
‘Don’t cry, Sarah, don’t cry. It’s all right. We’ll go more slowly I promise.’ He wants to hug her, to draw the stubborn pillow of her body close to his, but he feels a bit awkward out here in the open. At home cuddling her is fine, nice really, but maybe not in public. his parents never hug outdoors, or indoors either now he thinks of it, definitely not in front of him anyway. Compromising, he moves to tickle her armpit. She gives a squeak of a giggle and rewards him with her special smile, the one warm enough to melt steel. He takes up his bag and they stand together, clasp hands, and move clumsily onwards, as if their legs are tied together in an obstacle race.
