Samphire Song Read online

  I can hear his call above all the others.

  It’s as if he’s speaking to me . . . as if we’ve connected somehow.

  Books by Jill Hucklesby

  If I Could Fly

  Samphire Song

  JILL HUCKLESBY

  Samphire Song

  First published 2011

  by Egmont UK Limited

  239 Kensington High Street

  London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2011 Jill Hucklesby

  All rights reserved.

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 4052 5225 6

  eISBN 978 1 7803 1064 0

  www.egmont.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Acknowledgements

  Meet Jill Hucklesby

  Also by Jill Hucklesby

  With special thanks to Becky Hucklesby

  and Sophie Adshead

  Chapter One

  Hooves thundering on sand, across the wide sweep of the sun-washed bay. Salt-spray splashing up, stinging our eyes, matting our hair. The taste of the ocean on our tongues and the cry of gulls in our ears. Faces forward, almost nestling in warm manes. Knees gripping leather, feet taut in stirrups, bodies carried by an energy surge, like surfers balancing on boards, rushing at breakneck speed to shore.

  We’re riding into the warm July wind and my cheeks are streaming with tears, whipped up by the whoosh of air against lashes. I’m breathing in blue sky mixed with the muskiness of horse sweat. My heart feels like it’s dancing to the deep dada da dum rhythm beneath my feet. Laughter hiccups from my throat.

  I’m looking at Dad, who is focusing straight ahead, brow furrowed in concentration. Now he’s glancing at me and a massive smile is radiating from his mouth, causing creases to fan from the edges of his blue eyes.

  ‘Yeeha!’ he calls. ‘Last one to the rock is a bandit . . .’ He’s lengthening his reins and urging Kaloo, a retired racehorse who is the fastest mount at the stables, to gallop to victory.

  ‘In your dreams,’ I yell back, asking Rambo, my favourite chestnut, to pick up the pace. He responds willingly, eager to please. I curl down further on his neck, jockey style, trying to make us more aerodynamic. Kaloo has taken off like a rocket, with Dad almost clinging to the curve of his arched neck. Dad usually rides like a cowboy, laid back in the saddle, but now, slumped forwards, he looks more like a highwayman, fleeing for his life.

  ‘Hey, tough guy, what are you waiting for?’ I whisper towards Rambo’s ears, which flick back and forth like furry antennae.

  And as my calves brush his belly gently, we push forwards in pursuit of Kaloo’s impressive black tail, which is flying behind him regally. Lumps of wet sand splatter on to my nose and eyelids as our competitors veer a little to the left, directly ahead of us.

  Rambo grunts and instinctively changes course, his feet following a deeper gully where the tide is oozing its way back in. His hooves smash down on the water like marbles clattering on to glass.

  At fourteen hands, Rambo is struggling to gain ground against Kaloo, the mighty seventeen-hand colossus. But I can tell Kaloo is beginning to tire under the fifteen-stone weight round his neck and on his shoulders, and his pace is changing. His long, graceful legs are slowing to a comfortable canter, despite Dad’s protestations and offers of extra carrots for supper.

  I’m pulling my hat further down to protect my eyes as a barrage of shingle-studded ocean mud is propelled from Kaloo’s hooves in our direction. We’re narrowing the gap and Rambo is holding his head steady and proud, without interference from me on the bit. I’m willing him on with every fibre of my being and it feels as if we’re moving in perfect synchronicity.

  Dad and Kaloo are close now, surrounded by salt mist. I can hear Dad calling me, his voice full of exhilaration and mock panic.

  ‘Jodie . . . Jo-die . . .’

  And the water vapour is enveloping him, blurring rider and horse into a silhouette, a mirage as faint as a memory.

  ‘Jodie!’ I jump at the sound of my name, coming from behind me. When I turn, I see the face of Rachel Holmes in the space above the half-closed loose-box door. As my mind tries to make the leap from past to present, a shudder ripples down my spine.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Rachel asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I’m good, thanks,’ and I thrust my fork into the pile of hay at my feet with surprising force.

  Rachel, at sixteen, is the oldest of the volunteers who help out at Whitehawk Farm Stables in return for free hacks and lessons. She tries to keep a team spirit going, encouraging us to eat our packed lunches on bales in the yard in summer or upstairs in the sand school in winter. Lunchtimes are legendary for the swapping of pony gossip and funny stories. I listen in sometimes, on the periphery of the circle. I don’t want to talk, though. I come here to not talk.

  I prefer to be around the horses, keeping busy, mucking out, cleaning tack, getting things done. It helps me forget and helps me remember.

  ‘Can you do Jiminy’s box with me after this?’ Rachel asks. I nod and smile. I know she’s trying to be a friend and give me the chance to loosen up. But that’s like asking Tutankhamun to open his own tomb. What would I say? That I miss my dad more than words can express? That my little brother, Ed, has kidney disease and Mum and I are worried sick?

  Joyce, the bereavement counsellor who used to visit, says that people are like animals. When we’re wounded, we sometimes try to isolate ourselves from further harm. Animals look for a piece of high ground, a tall tree or a deep burrow. Mum, Ed and I feel like we’ve been shipwrecked on an island. Joyce says, in time, we’ll build our own life raft. (Mum says she hopes we’ll be rescued by Johnny Depp, but only if he’s wearing his pirate costume.)

  Horses, on the other hand, don’t want explanations. Just care and respect. That’s fine by me. When I look into their eyes, I can tell their life story. I can see whether there is trust or fear, playfulness or anger. Many have had several owners and homes. They all have different personalities. But they have one big thi
ng in common – their destiny isn’t their choice.

  They know a thing or two about survival. They’re very intuitive. And I’m sure they understand people very well. Unlike the girls here who think I’m just a geeky loner with ‘family problems’, the horses make no judgement and accept me as I am.

  I wonder if they read the story in my eyes? If they do, they’ll see that I’m Jodie Palmer. I’m fourteen years old. And I have a stone where my heart should be.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Hey, Sticko,’ says Ed, a bit breathlessly, raising a hand from the bar of his exercise bike and waving at me. He calls me Stick because, although I’m nearly five feet seven inches tall, I don’t have any curves, whichever angle you see me from. Even my nose is straight, like a Roman soldier’s. Mum prefers to describe me as ‘athletic’ and says that my shape will develop ‘all in good time’. Until then, Ed says, I’m in danger of being mistaken for a bookmark and squashed into one of Mum’s Jane Austen novels for all eternity.

  ‘Hey, Teddy,’ I respond, yawning. This is my family’s pet name for Ed, who was, until his kidney troubles, quite squishy in the tummy department. ‘Mum says dinner’s ready and you’re to wash your hands before you come to the table.’

  ‘You’re always on my case,’ he complains, waving his arms theatrically, looking as if he’s just crossed the line in the Tour de France.

  ‘Just relaying orders,’ I tell him. ‘How was vampire club?’

  ‘They sucked and they sucked until my blood ran dry!’ he gasps, pulling his face into a grimace, then stumbling off the bike and lurching towards me like a monster. I put my hand on his head so he can’t move. He looks up at me sweetly, through his long, blond fringe.

  ‘It didn’t taste so good though, so they decided to give it back.’ He grins, looking just like Dad, blue eyes twinkling. A sensation approaching pain shoots across my chest. I put my arms round Ed and squeeze, not too hard. He hugs me back. He feels clammy after his exercise, which he has to do every evening to help his body rid itself of the toxins that his struggling kidneys can’t deal with.

  Ed isn’t quite eleven yet and he’s really brave. He has to go to dialysis three times a week at the hospital, to have his blood cleaned up. It’s taken out through a tube in his arm, filtered to remove waste products and returned by another tube. The whole process lasts four hours, which means Ed misses a lot of school. He says this is one good thing about having dodgy kidneys. He doesn’t fall behind, though, because he has a brilliant teacher called Miss Snow who coordinates his catch-up work. To Ed, she is ‘the Evil Ice-Woman’.

  ‘One day, global warming will melt her and she’ll stop putting maths prep in my pigeonhole,’ he says, darkly.

  I’m looking at Ed’s floor, which is covered with small bits of dark plastic, laid out in shape order. He follows my gaze.

  ‘It’s a stealth bomber,’ he says, almost reverently. I don’t get his thing about making model aeroplanes, just as he doesn’t get my thing about horses.

  ‘Wow, a stealth bomber,’ I reply.

  ‘It’s not just a stealth bomber, actually,’ he states. ‘It’s a B-2 Spirit and I’ve been waiting for it for two months.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say, ruffling his shaggy mop. His bedroom already looks like an aircraft museum. My chest tightens again as I imagine how Dad, who was an RAF pilot, would have loved it.

  ‘I don’t diss you for wanting to shovel up poo all day long, Whinny,’ he points out. Whinny is his other nickname for me, when he wants to hit below the belt.

  ‘Yeah you do,’ I say. His expression changes from a petulant frown to a big grin. I feel mine doing the same, even though I’m trying to keep a straight face. Ed’s smiles are impossible to resist. Even the fiercest consultants at the hospital are won over by his charms and end up chuckling.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asks warily. Mum is an erratic cook. If there isn’t a supper plan she’ll invent a dish out of whatever’s in the fridge, so you can end up with pea and baked-bean pasta or spaghetti risotto. Ed has to have a special diet, avoiding food with lots of potassium, like bananas, tomato sauces and melons. We try to sit down together on a Sunday and make a list of meals for the following week but the trouble is, none of us likes being organised. Dad was the planner in the family. Everything used to run like clockwork. Even when Ed got sick three years ago and started his regular hospital trips, daily life ticked along and everyone smiled.

  That seems a long time ago.

  ‘Veggie lasagne,’ I reply. Ed pulls a face. ‘It’s OK, it’s the one I helped her make last week and we froze it, remember?’

  ‘No cauliflower?’ he shudders.

  ‘No,’ I confirm. ‘Only the leftover beetroot.’

  Ed squirms and hugs his body protectively. ‘Yeeeuch!’ he splutters.

  ‘You’re too easy to wind up, Teddy,’ I tell him, grinning, taking his hand and pulling him on to the landing.

  ‘You are both in league with the Evil Ice-Woman. You just want to make my life a misery. Goodbye,’ he announces, swinging his leg over the wooden banister rail and sliding down to the bottom.

  ‘I’m your big sis, it’s my job,’ I call after him. My eyes rest on the framed family photos filling the long wall on my right. Shots of Mum and Dad when they were young (one of Dad on a bike is the image of Ed); a close-up of them on their wedding day, outside the register office, with a caption that reads ‘Ali and Mike got married!’ (It’s the card they sent to all the surprised relatives after the event). Then there’s Mum with her sister, Auntie Connie, who runs a pet rescue sanctuary in Scotland; me as a baby in an embarrassing hat and no top; Dad and his parents, the day he got his ‘wings’. The biggest one is of the four of us in our posh clothes and neat hair against a blue background in a cheesy studio set-up.

  Underneath this is my favourite; Dad and me riding in North Wales on holiday when I was eight, the first time we’d gone on a hack together. He’d sung a Welsh song about ‘yonder green valleys’ in a very loud voice even though I pleaded with him to shut up. Even the sheep who heard it ran away, bleating crossly.

  The sound of running water from the downstairs loo brings me back to earth. My eyes open to see Ed, at the bottom of the stairs, showing me his freshly washed hands.

  ‘Very nice,’ I say, walking downstairs towards him. ‘Now go and turn the tap off.’

  Ed obliges then asks, ‘Are we going in, Squadron Leader?’ before we open the kitchen door.

  ‘Affirmative,’ I answer. We shake hands. Ed turns the round handle and pushes.

  We’re met by two unusual sights – a room full of bubbles and lit candles, and Mum, beaming, serving up a fantastic smelling dish, with our favourite garlic doughballs. The transparent, soapy globes drift and pop on work surfaces, the fridge, the floor and even our noses. Ed chases about, clapping his hands around as many as he can get to.

  ‘Change of plan,’ Mum announces. ‘There was mash and spinach in the fridge, so I’ve made bubbles and squeak!’

  Chapter Three

  Mum, whose hair is usually pinned up in a messy bun, is pushing loose, wavy blonde wisps behind her ear, the way she does when she’s about to announce something important. She is also frowning at Ed, whose tongue is poised above his plate, ready to lick up what’s left of the squeak.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ warns Mum.

  ‘Doh,’ says Ed, flashing her a smile so radiant it seems to light up the room and envelop us all. That’s how it used to be with Dad, too – women seemed to crumble in the presence of that grin. Ed even bought him a mug for what turned out to be our last family Christmas, with ‘Babe Magnet’ on it. Mum pretended to be outraged. Dad was quite chuffed.

  Mum’s sternness has vanished and she is beaming back at Ed. ‘I have some good news,’ she begins.

  ‘Stick’s moving in at the stables so I can have her room?’ Ed suggests, clapping his hands.

  ‘You are never, ever going to have my room, Teddy. Get used to it,’ I tell him. He pulls a devastated
face and drops his head on to his arms on the table with a thud.

  Mum looks at me, her eyes daring me to guess the mystery. I suddenly have a horrible thought and I can feel my eyebrows knitting together, the way they do when I’m confronted with a huge obstacle, like an English essay.

  ‘You’ve got a boyfriend,’ I state, my voice flat and dull.

  ‘No!’ Mum laughs.

  ‘You do talk to that Rubber Gloves quite a lot,’ says Ed, resting his chin on his hand.

  ‘He’s my Editor,’ responds Mum, gently. ‘We discuss gardening things.’ It may be a trick of the light, but I think she’s blushing a little. Mum’s colleague got his nickname after Ed took a phone message one day and scribbled down his version of Rupert Glover.

  ‘It’s something nice that concerns all of us,’ says Mum.

  ‘We’ve inherited money from a wrinkly old aunt we never knew we had?’ suggests Ed.

  ‘You’re getting warm,’ teases Mum.

  ‘We are the love children of an aging rock star who has finally claimed us and wants to give us a million quid?’ I ask.

  ‘Not quite,’ answers Mum, cryptically. Ed and I are both mulling this over when she finally relents.

  ‘I’ve been offered a column in Gardening Guru. It’s the first time I’ve had my very own space to fill every week. I’ll be answering readers’ questions and giving advice. And the money’s really good,’ she adds in a whisper.

  ‘That’s so brilliant,’ say Ed and I, in unison. We rush round the table and give her a big squeeze, which makes her giggle. Since Dad died, Mum has struggled to find enough freelance gardening writing. I know she worries a lot about the lack of money coming in. The huge smile on her face looks like a mixture of excitement and relief.

  ‘I’ll need to go to London two days a week,’ she explains, gauging our reaction.

  ‘That’s cool,’ says Ed. ‘We can take care of things here.’ Mum and I exchange glances. Ed sounds so grown up these days.