The Sea Change Read Online Free PDF

for dinner. Father sent me to
fetch you. You as well, Annie – your mother will be wondering where you are.’
    Annie scuttled over to my sister as if she
were her mother.
    Freda, you’re such a
show-off
,
I wanted to shout. My sister had a way of waltzing into situations
and putting her stamp on them with seemingly no effort at all. I disliked her keenly for
it. Even when we were older – and I had plenty of reasons to think her foolish – I never
escaped the feeling that she had the better answers, and the better secrets.
    I braved one last look at Pete. He was
staring past me towardsthe gate to where my sister and Annie stood.
The light left with the three of us, and as we made our way back down the track, I
turned to find the yard empty: Pete had gone, leaving only his circle, which rested like
an uncracked code in the dirt.
    Already, I sensed that he wasn’t one
to be pinned down – not an easy lad to love. As soon as we were evacuated, he parted
ways with the Archams and went to work as a farmhand in Coombe Down. Mr Archam never
recovered. Annie told me the doctor’s notes had stated that he had died of a
broken heart. But stories like that always did have a way of swelling on her tongue.
Whatever caused Mr Archam’s passing, it would have been a lonely death without
Pete by his side.



CHAPTER 3
    Something cuffs itself to my wrists,
hoisting me out of the water and giving me my air back. Rasps and rasps of it. I
can’t take it in properly – each breath a stammer. There’s something sharp
scraping across my belly. My shirt is rucking up. I’m being dragged out of the
sea.
    ‘Help’ is my first word, frail,
half formed. I don’t understand the reply I’m given. Tamil or Malayalam,
maybe. It’s a man’s voice. There’s a rough, rusting surface beneath me
that feels powdery and metallic on my fingers. It fits unevenly under my shoulders, the
metal arching into sharp peaks and troughs. But we’re floating. And that’s
all that counts.
    The voice is shouting now but I still
don’t understand. The saltwater dissipates in stinging blinks; I begin to make out
the man’s shape. He’s soaked to the skin, like me, in a checked
lungi
and plain shirt, hair wired with grey. His face, creased with years,
is washed into blankness at the sight of me and everything that’s gone before
us.
    ‘
Vana-kkam
,’ I reply.
One of the few words I know in Tamil.
Good morning
. I must sound ridiculous.
He’s smiling. At least that’s something.
    ‘
Ongelal payse
 …’
I don’t catch the rest. And even if I did it would be useless.
    ‘I don’t understand. I’m
so sorry.’
    He tips his head from left to right and back
again. Then his hands rise and leap into action, eyes widening as he gestures towards
the shore. He mimics the wave coming in as he speaks, then knocks the metal underneath
him with his knuckles, drawing out the shape of a square in the air with his two indexfingers. He points to his chest and bangs the metal again, rattling
out his sentences at such speed that I’m sure I wouldn’t catch everything
even if we did speak the same language.
    ‘Your house? This is your
house?’ I watch him draw the shape in the air again and point down at the sheet of
metal.
    ‘House!’ He nods, rapping on the
metal for a third time. I force myself to sit up and look down at our makeshift raft. It
is nothing more than a sheet of corrugated iron – a roof. Something catches his eye and
he grabs me by the wrist, like he did when he rescued me. He points to my ring, then
down at the house and then back at the shore, face stiffening.
    I catch only one word from what he is
saying:
Manaavi
. James and I learnt it yesterday – our wedding day. He said he
preferred the sound of it to ‘wife’. I meet his stare, which is taut,
unblinking. Raising my hand, I point to my ring and then to the shore, just as he did.
‘
Kanavar
,’ I whisper, ‘my husband.’
    I talk in English, telling him about James
and our wedding