Free Deep Water by Tim Jeal Page A

look out every minute or two. A desire to defecate sent him hurrying to the lavatory. ‘I’ll be blamed,’ he thought, imagining the worst as he sat on the lavatory. ‘I said nothing when a few words to mum could have saved Justin’s life and now he’s drowned and nothing can bring him back.’ Soon after Leo returned to bed, his heart leapt at the sound of the latch on the garden gate. He raced to the window. Justin was pushing his bike up the path.
    ‘Tell me everything,’ begged Leo, dragging Justin into his room.
    ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Justin sat on the edge of Leo’s bed and smiled to himself as if enjoying a private joke. ‘The gunboat wasn’t there. Only the minesweeper and the MTB . No sign of the, small boats either.’
    ‘Maybe they’re anchored somewhere else.’
    ‘Why would they be?’ Justin sounded put out.
    Leo said reasonably, ‘Their engines might need repairing in a yard.’
    ‘Not three at a time.’
    Justin’s certainty irritated Leo. ‘Oh, I forgot. They were away on a secret mission.’
    ‘I won’t give up, whatever you think.’
    Leo said flatly, ‘You’ll go out night after night, and sleep in the day?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    When Justin was up in his attic, Leo could hear him moving about the room, taking off his shoes, and finally getting into bed. Leo had hoped that the whole mad adventure would be over in a day or two, and that then they would be able to enjoy a normal holiday; but now it was obvious it wasn’t going to stop. At least not until Justin could manage to climb aboard a vessel and see for himself. Till then, there would be more sleepless nights and hours of waiting.

C HAPTER 4
    Andrea had been wondering what account of her evening to give to Leo and was relieved, in the event, not to be asked to give any. At breakfast, both boys seemed preoccupied with their boiled eggs – rare delicacies at the best of times – but they became more animated on being told that they could go sailing later that morning.
    ‘I’ll take you in the car,’ offered Andrea.
    ‘Can’t we go by bike? It’s all downhill,’ said Leo.
    Andrea couldn’t tell whether her son’s coldness of the previous evening had lasted through the night. She said, ‘You must both wear life jackets.’
    ‘Aye aye, cap’n,’ giggled Leo, unexpectedly kissing his mother.
    Suddenly both boys were laughing helplessly, for no reason she could fathom. When they had gone, Andrea contemplated driving to the hill behind the club to see how they were doing. But the idea of spying on them was repugnant: having hired the dinghy, she would trust them.
    While Rose was piling the breakfast things onto a tray, she hummed quietly to herself, taking occasional glances at Andrea. ‘Where did ’ee go weth doctor’s wife, ma’am?’
    ‘An officers’ club.’ The girl picked up the tray smartly. ‘What’s wrong, Rose?’
    ‘I cudden say, reelly.’
    In view of Sally Lowther’s warning about local prejudices, Andrea let Rose leave the room without pressing her to elaborate. To avoid being the subject of local tittle-tattle, she would have to be careful. Recalling Sally’s remarks about the vicar’s wife, Andrea decided with time on her hands to look at the purgatorial fresco. Though an agnostic, she enjoyed churches, especially for oddities like lepers’ squints and misericords. Why not for a vision of hell?
    On entering St Peter’s, she walked past the Boy Scouts’ banners and the neat piles of prayer books. A monument near the font caught her eye. ‘ Here lyeth interred the body of Mary relict of Henry de Roos , Gent. A lady who gave constant heed to her husband through ten years of his patient affliction, and uncomplainingly returned to God ten of her twelve children, and was yet an example in virtue and piety …’ Mary was surely the creation of a professional writer of epitaphs.
    The Judgement Day mural extended in patchy fragments above two arches in the nave. A line of men and