The Visitor by Katherine Stansfield Read Free Book Online

foul fish that’s only good for bait.
    Jack’s mouth is screwed up. He looks as if he’s trying not to cry and the effort is turning his face red. Nicholas grips the crude model boat between his knees and planes the bottom.
    â€˜There!’ He holds up the boat and turns it round for Pearl and Jack to admire. Jack still looks grumpy. ‘Let’s go and launch her,’ Nicholas says.
    The three of them walk down the slipway to trek to the other side of the bay where the rock pools wink to them in the sun. The sand crunches under her bare feet. As they go, her mother calls down from the harbour wall where she’s mending nets.
    â€˜You be sure to tuck your dress into your knickers if you’re for wading.’ And to Nicholas, as the oldest and in charge, ‘Go steady now, you know she’s not to run. Doctor said.’
    The doctor’s always saying, according to her mother, though Pearl doesn’t remember ever having seen him. It was when she was a baby. He put his ear to her chest to hear her breath catch.
    Pearl walks and looks at the sea lying asleep beyond the harbour wall. It’s green today, no blue or grey, and no waves either. Calm as stone. This is a different sea to the one that throws ships onto rocks and swallows people.
    Nicholas takes one of her hands. ‘Day-dreaming again, limpet-legs? Come on.’
    She trots along beside him. Jack, hands in his pockets, kicks a stick of driftwood along the beach. Nicholas and Pearl reach the spread of rocks at the bottom of the cliff first. He helps her climb onto the nearest one from which she is able to cross the others unaided, but she pretends she can’t so that she gets to keep hold of his hand for longer. The rocks have sharply rippled surfaces that dig into the soles of her feet making her lurch about, unbalanced. Nicholas laughs and helps her steady herself. They come to a stop at the deepest pool and look in.
    If Pearl stood on the bottom the water would be over her head, but it’s so narrow that she wouldn’t be able to stretch out her arms. The walls are the colour of the undersides of mussel shells, dotted with green furry plants that feel soft underwater but slimy out of it. Tiny crabs scuttle from the shadow she and Nicholas cast over them. The smell of seaweed is everywhere, salty and old.
    Jack slopes up. Nicholas lets go of Pearl to hold the boat in both his hands, the sun gilding its edges.
    â€˜What shall we name her?’ he asks as he sets the boat oh so gently on the water. There’s a terrible moment when Pearl thinks it might sink. The boat quivers, tilts and dips forward.
    Jack reaches out to grab it. ‘The keel’s too sharp.’
    Nicholas slaps his hand away. ‘Give her a minute. She’ll right.’
    And she does, settling in the water. The sail, made from a white handkerchief belonging to Nicholas, stretches out when he gets behind the boat and blows. He’s like the north wind in the picture book at school; his brown curls slip over his eyes, which are as dark as the rocks. Pearl claps her hands as the little boat moves forward on waves stirred by Nicholas’s breath. She knows what the boat should be called.
    â€˜Let’s name her Fair Maid ,’ she says.
    Nicholas purses his lips and looks up, considering the matter. ‘That’s only a seine boat.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with that?’ asks Jack.
    â€˜This is bigger; more of a mackerel driver like the east coast men sail,’ Nicholas says. Jack is silent. ‘How about Storm Beater ?’ Nicholas asks, his eyes wide with the certainty of his idea. ‘She’s one of the fastest east coast boats.’
    Nicholas always decides, because he’s the oldest. Jack’s face reddens again and his hands curl into fists. For a moment he stands rigid apart from a shake in his arms, then he picks up a stone and hurls it into the water. The splash upsets the boat and it tips