Every year when we were children, she would help us to carve jack-o’-lanterns of our own, while telling us the story of their origin, the myth of Stingy Jack. The Irish legend claims that a man called Stingy invited the devil for a drink, but then refused to pay for it. It was a trick, one of many that Jack played on the devil until the day he died. But then God wouldn’t let Jack into heaven, and the devil – rather tired of a lifetime of tricks – refused to let him into hell either. So Jack was doomed to purgatory, with nothing but a burning coal inside an old turnip to light his way in the darkness. I guess turnips morphed into pumpkins at some point in history, but then all stories told often enough bend and twist out of shape over time. Stingy Jack is the reason why we carve pumpkins and put candles inside them to make lanterns at Halloween. One of my greatest gifts is knowing a little about a lot of things, and Nana taught me about most of them. She said the lesson of the legend was to pay your way in life, or be doomed to be forever lost and lonely in the dark.
‘She was obviously very upset with us all,’ says my mother, snapping me out of my trance. ‘I think that was clear last night too. I’ve been wondering for a while whether Nana might have been suffering from some form of dementia. This . . .’ she points at the chalk poem without looking at it ‘。 . . unpleasantness is completely out of character. Perhaps she just worked herself up and then . . .’
‘What? Worked herself up, wrote a poem and died?’ asks Lily.
‘This might turn out to be a blessing in disguise,’ says Nancy.
‘How can you say that?’ I ask, trembling with anger.
My mother ignores me. ‘And this display of . . . dementia, along with her odd behaviour last night . . . might mean that her will simply can’t be taken seriously. If she was out of her mind when she wrote it . . .’
‘She wasn’t out of her mind, she was just speaking it,’ says Rose.
Nancy glares in her direction.
Before they can start to argue, we all freeze when we hear the sound of Nana’s voice in the distance.
‘It’s time for you to meet the rest of the Darker family, my darling girl.’
Eleven
31 October 12:30 a.m.
five and a half hours until low tide
‘Don’t be cross,’ Trixie says to Lily, as we all crowd into the lounge. ‘I tried to watch television, but this started playing instead.’ She points at the ancient wooden TV cabinet, and I spot Nana’s old VCR player. She never upgraded to DVDs, in the same way she refused to listen to music on anything other than vinyl records on her 1950s jukebox. The retro TV set rarely worked anyway – especially in a storm – so our only screen-shaped entertainment as kids when we were here was Nana’s VHS collection. It’s probably why we all spent so much time outside. I remember the home movies lined up on the shelf last night, and see that they are gone. The shelf is empty. All I can see on the TV is a flickering image of a baby, until Lily snatches the remote from her daughter and hits the play button.
The screen is filled with a close-up of Nana’s face, but she looks thirty years younger. She’s carrying a baby into this room – which looks exactly the same – and it takes a while for me to realize that the child is me. My dad was a bit obsessed with making home movies when we were little kids, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before. And I’m not sure any of us really want to watch it now.
‘And the rest of the Darker family can’t wait to meet you,’ says Nana. She carefully passes baby me to my mother, who looks so much younger. Nancy looks tired, but very beautiful, and still has a hospital ID tag around her wrist. This must be the day they brought me home to Seaglass. I always knew I was born when we were here. ‘Shall I go and fetch Rose and Lily now?’ says Nana’s voice, out of shot. ‘They’ve both been very patient waiting to meet their new baby sister.’ The camera seems to nod, and I realize that my dad must have been holding it. I want to switch off the home movie, but Nancy takes the remote from Lily and sits on the very edge of the sofa closest to the television. I’m touched at first – that she wants to remember this moment – but then I see that she is staring at herself on the screen, not me.
The image of my past wobbles as my father puts the camera down on the table, so that he can be in shot. He comes to stand next to my mother as she lays me in an old-fashioned baby crib, before rocking me back and forth. Dad has long, slightly shocking 1970s hair, and is wearing what looks like a comedy moustache and flared jeans. The other thing that is noticeably different from the man we know today is that he looks . . . happy. They both do.