‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘You can live somewhere all your life and see it afresh every day,’ Grandma X said. ‘It’s all in how you use your eyes . . . how attentive you are to changes.’
It didn’t look to Jaide like the town had changed in at least a generation, maybe two, and she could tell when she was being fobbed off. She folded her arms and huffed back into the seat, despairing of ever seeing or doing anything that interested her.
‘How long have you lived here, Grandma?’ Jack asked.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Were you born in Portland?’
The glasses came down. Grandma X’s expression was distant, as though seeing something very far away.
‘Oh, no, I grew up on the other side of the world, almost. It was your grandfather who came from here. He was a clockmaker, and a very good one, too.’
‘What happened to him?’ Jack asked, thinking of the broken clock in the lounge, and the other one that went tick-tock-tack.
‘He died a long time ago.’ Grandma X sniffed, and turned her steely gaze back to the twins. ‘Things have changed an awful lot since his time. Schools, for instance.’
‘Can we go for a walk?’ Jack asked.
‘I’m sure you can,’ Grandma X said, ‘but may you? That’s the question.’
Jaide had heard that line from her father. ‘May we go for a walk, Grandma? It looks like the sun is coming out.’
Grandma X raised the opera glasses once more, but not to look at the clouds, which were parting a little. Instead she focused the glasses at the top of the lighthouse.
‘I suppose the . . . conditions . . . are not unfavourable,’ she said slowly. ‘Stay within sight of the lighthouse, keep well away from the rocks at Dagger Reef, and be home before dusk. That is very important. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Grandma,’ they both said. They already had their car doors open.
‘You do remember the way home from here, don’t you? Go back down Dock Road and left at Parkhill. If you reach the iron bridge, you’ve gone too far.’
‘Yes, Grandma.’
‘If you’re not home in an hour, I’ll come looking for you!’
The twins slammed the doors behind them, making the car’s heavy body rock from side to side. They didn’t need to discuss where they would go first. Gravestones beckoned by the church.
Maybe their grandfather lay under one of them.
JAIDE AND JACK RACED ACROSS the car park and around the lighthouse. Jack relished the feel of the pavement under his sneakers and of holding back as he always did at the end, to let his sister catch up a little, but not too much. When he reached the first of the headstones, he slowed to an amble in order to read what they said.
‘Look,’ said Jaide, pointing. ‘This guy died when he was ninety-eight!’
‘Well, this whole family died in the same year.’
‘Was there a plague?’
‘Maybe an accident.’
Jack hoped their father was okay, wherever he was. ‘Look for Shields. Dad’s dad came from here, remember?’
They separated in search of their family history. Quite a few of the gravestones had become illegible with the passage of time, the carved letters eroded beyond any possibility of puzzling them out. Despite this, several Shields stood out, notably a Giles Chesterton Shield, who had died thirty-three years ago and lay buried alone in one corner of the cemetery. There were no words on his headstone, apart from his name and the date, but there was a compass-shaped insignia carved into the marble, which looked markedly less weathered than the stone around it.
‘I guess this must be our grandfather . . .’ said Jack. He felt like he should take his hat off, but he wasn’t wearing one. Instead he bowed his head a little bit and felt solemn.
Jaide looked behind them to see if Grandma X was watching them from the car with her opera glasses. But the old car was gone.
Jaide felt free, as if relieved of some constraint or leash. Though she was curious about this whole new branch of her family tree, the prospect of endless pots of plastic flowers, worn granite and dead, dusty things faded in comparison to the much more interesting places to explore nearby.
Especially the great hill of stone that loomed up so very close to them.
‘Race you to the top,’ she said, pointing at the Rock. ‘There’s a path, look!’
‘I already saw the path,’ said Jack, but he hesitated. ‘Do you think Grandma X would let us?’
‘It’s in sight of the lighthouse,’ replied Jaide. ‘Well, the top is, anyway – and she didn’t say we couldn’t.’
‘Or shouldn’t,’ said Jack with a grin.
They ran to where the sign advertised the start of a walking trail, by the rear of the old church. The trail wasn’t paved; instead, numerous feet had cleared the way of weeds and pounded the dirt to something like concrete. The way was easy at first, but it grew steadily steeper, winding back and forth around sudden rocks and promontories, with the occasional bench for people to catch their breath. The twins were the only two on the track. They quickly climbed to a height where the path narrowed and hurrying seemed unwise, so they settled into a more cautious, steady plod upward.
The higher they got, the stronger the wind became. Jack hugged himself tightly against its bite. It was so strong, he had to brace himself when they reached the top. From the summit, as they stood next to a small stone memorial with a metal plaque, Portland was entirely revealed to them, as though they were looking at a model.
The bay swept in an almost complete circle from Lighthouse Park to Mermaid Point. There was a breakwater on the south lip, protecting the angular marina from the open sea, though today the swell was massive, and the spray from the breaking waves was carrying well over the huge stones. A smattering of shops served the marina on that side of the bay, mostly old buildings but all sporting some form of renovation or extension. On the northern side of the bay there were sand flats and a dredger bobbing wildly, even in the partially sheltered waters.
The red roofs of newer houses stretched inland, roughly following the river, which had swampland bordering it, particularly on the northern side. To the west there was a smaller version of the Rock, which a railway tunnel ran through like thread through the eye of needle.
Along the coast to the south there was another beach, less hospitable than the one they had visited the previous day, with forests of seaweed crowding close to the shore. Jaide’s eyes were drawn to it. She wished the weather would clear up so they could go for a swim. A bit of seaweed didn’t worry her.
A particularly strong gust of wind pushed both of them back, and Jaide suddenly felt herself becoming weightless for an instant, as though she might be lifted up and off the Rock – and then she was rising up into the sky, and Jack only just managed to grab her by the ankles. For a second, Jaide thought they were both going to be blown away, and then the lightness inside her vanished and they tumbled back down.
‘Wow,’ she said.
‘You were about to take off, like Rodeo Dave!’ exclaimed Jack. ‘Don’t do it again!’
‘It wasn’t on purpose,’ said Jaide. ‘I just . . . got really light.’
She laughed uneasily. She had felt as light as a feather, light enough to be blown away, to go flying across the sky in the grip of the wind. But why her and not Jack? They weighed exactly the same, despite their slight differences in height and build.
‘I think we should head down now,’ said Jack firmly. ‘The path keeps going down the other side, and then we can cut straight across toward Grandma’s house.’
Jaide looked along the zigzag way on the other side, up to where the path disappeared from sight. She figured Jack was probably right. If they followed the path, they would come out on the southern side of Watchward Lane, near where the decrepit house abutted Grand
ma X’s property. Though it was hidden by the fir tree, she could see part of her grandmother’s house itself, with its widow’s walk, pointed roof, and spinning moon-and-star weathervane.
Jaide peered closer and frowned. The wind was strong and mainly coming from the east. It was difficult to see, but she was fairly sure the weathervane was pointing directly at the Rock, which wasn’t east at all.
As she stared, eyes blinking against the breeze, a lost memory suddenly returned. Jaide remembered that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen the weathervane behaving oddly. When they’d arrived, it had displayed a life independent of the elements, as though it was pointing to something other than the source of the wind. But what could that be? What use was a weathervane that didn’t pay attention to the weather?