The Harbour Moon Won’t Lie Still
Nell could row a dinghy right across the harbour without making a single splash. Not one drop. If you had asked her what she was best at, that is what she would have told you. Then she would have taken you down the slipway and shown you, very quietly, in case you hadn’t believed her.
She lived in a fishing village on a cold sea, where the harbour was a small round of water held in two stone arms. At night the moon kept two places there. One was up in the sky, where everybody’s moon is. The other was down on the water in the middle of the harbour. That was the harbour moon, round and silver, and it lay flat and still all night long.
It had a job to do. The late boats steered home by it. A boat that kept the harbour moon straight ahead of its bow came in between the two stone arms as neatly as a thread through a needle. Nell’s dad was the ferryman, and on the nights he went out with the late boats, that was how he came home.
On those nights Nell waited up for him in the harbour office with Gus. Gus was the harbour master. He kept the tide tables folded up inside his hat, and he kept a long broom by the door, because he believed there was nothing in the world a good broom couldn’t fix.
“Let’s see,” Gus said that night. He took off his hat, unfolded the tide tables, ran his finger down them and nodded. “High water.”
The sea was lapping at the top step of the slipway. Anybody could have told him it was high water. Gus always checked anyway.
Nell was on the stool by the window, keeping an eye on the harbour moon, and that is how she saw it get up.
First it gave a little shiver, the way you do when you have lain too long on one side. Then it slid off its place and across the water to the moored boats. It went in among them, round and bright, and bumped each one gently on the side as it passed, as if it were knocking on doors. The boats rocked and knocked their fenders together and woke up. Then the harbour moon reached the wall. It went straight up a mooring rope, like a coin rolling uphill, and sat down on top of a bollard.
Up in the sky, the real moon looked down at the empty patch of water in the middle of the harbour, like someone who has put down a cup and can’t think where.
“Gus,” Nell said. “The harbour moon’s got up.”
Gus came to the window. On the quay the bollard shone silver, and so did the rope below it. Everything the harbour moon touched stayed silver for an hour. Gus took off his hat and checked the tide tables, though they had nothing to say about moons.
“The late boats come in at the turn of the tide,” he said. “An hour, near enough.”
Nell thought of Dad coming round the point and looking for the harbour moon, and finding nothing in its place but water.
“Then it has to be lying still by then,” she said.
“Leave it to me,” Gus said, and he fetched his broom.
By the time they got down to the slipway, the harbour moon was drifting about at the bottom of the steps. Gus leaned out with his long broom and swept the water flat, the way he swept the quay every morning.
The harbour moon slipped under the bristles and came up on the other side.
Gus swept again. Under it went, and up it came, brighter than before. When Gus lifted the broom out, the end of it was silver. Everything the harbour moon touched stayed silver for an hour.
“That’s never happened to this broom,” Gus said, turning it over. He sounded rather pleased.
Nell climbed down into her dinghy. Under the seat she kept a little lantern for rowing home late. She rowed out beside the harbour moon without a single splash. Then she rocked the dinghy like a cradle, gently, side to side, side to side.
The harbour moon came closer, right up against the boat. Then it climbed over the side, sat down in the bottom of the dinghy between Nell’s boots, and shone up at her.
“That’s not what I meant,” Nell said.
The boards went silver where it sat. Everything the harbour moon touched stayed silver for an hour.
So Nell tried being firm. She used the voice Dad used when it was very late and he meant it.
“It is bedtime,” she said. “The boats are asleep. The gulls are asleep. Everybody in the whole harbour is asleep. You go and lie down in your place this minute.”
The harbour moon slid over the side and across the water and straight up the slipway, past Gus’s boots, and sat at the top among the buckets.
“It’s gone up the steps,” Gus said, in case Nell hadn’t noticed.
Nell sat in her dinghy and thought about what she had said. Everybody is asleep. The boats were asleep. The gulls were asleep in a row on the harbour wall, with their heads under their wings. And the harbour moon had gone round to every one of them, knocking.
She knew about that. Some nights Nell couldn’t sleep either, and she would get up and go down the stairs, looking for someone awake. Nobody swept her flat on those nights. Nobody rocked her, because she was far too big, and nobody told her firmly, because that never works on anybody. Dad just lit the little lamp and sat on the end of her bed with a net to mend. He didn’t say much. He was there, awake, and after a while she wasn’t.
“It isn’t restless,” Nell said. “It’s lonely. It wants someone to stay up with it.”
Gus took off his hat. He studied the tide tables for a long time. Then he put his hat back on and said, “Could be.”
Gus tied a long line to her bow and kept hold of the other end. Then Nell rowed out to the middle of the harbour, slowly, without a splash. She lit the little lantern and set it on the seat beside her. Then she sat there.
She didn’t call the harbour moon. She didn’t look at it much. She just sat, awake, with her hands in her lap, and the lantern made a small gold light on the water beside the boat.
For a while nothing happened. Then, at the top of the slipway, the harbour moon came down off the buckets. It came down the steps and across the water, not bumping anything this time. It came all the way out and lay down beside the lantern’s little reflection, flat and still. Two lights together, a big one and a small one.
Up in the sky, the real moon looked down, saw the harbour moon back in its place, and looked very relieved.
On the quay, Gus sat down on the bottom step with his silver broom across his knees, to keep the two of them company from a distance.
Nell meant to stay awake until Dad came. She stayed awake a long time, keeping the harbour moon company while the harbour moon kept her company, and the lantern burned on the seat between them. Then, somewhere near the turn of the tide, Nell’s chin went down on her chest, and she was asleep.
Dad’s boat came round the point. He looked for the harbour moon, and there it was, flat and still, exactly where it ought to be. He steered straight for it and came in between the two stone arms as neatly as a thread through a needle.
Beside the harbour moon was a little lantern, still lit. Beside the lantern, in her dinghy, was Nell, fast asleep.
Dad tied her boat to the back of his and towed her in, so slowly that there was not a single splash. Nell would have been very proud of that, if she had been awake.
Gus was waiting at the bottom of the slipway, coiling in the line. The mooring rope by the bollard was still silver, just, and the harbour cat was walking up and down it as though it were a road.
“She put the moon to bed,” Gus said.
Dad looked at the silver boards in the bottom of the dinghy, and at the silver end of Gus’s broom, and decided to hear the whole story in the morning. He lifted Nell out without waking her.
“I saw your lantern from the point,” he said to her, very quietly, though she couldn’t hear him.
Gus took off his hat and checked the tide tables. It was the turn of the tide, just as he had said.
Dad carried Nell up the slipway and up the hill and home. He put her into bed, lit the little lamp, and sat on the end of her bed with a net to mend, the same as always. She was already fast asleep. He stayed anyway, for a good while, because he was glad to be home and glad to be sitting with her.
Down in the harbour, the harbour moon lay flat and still until morning. Up the hill, so did Nell.