They turned the boat and pushed it out, and when it began to float, Flora jumped in, settling in the middle and holding the oars. She rowed with her back to the cockerel, facing her father. Flora liked the action of rowing: there was something satisfying about pressing her feet against the sides of the boat and feeling her shoulder muscles work—the closest she could come to swimming without being in the water. The skiff gave a blip as it rose and dipped in the swell; Gil took off his sunglasses and closed his eyes, wedging himself into the corner formed by the stern and one side. His arm was stretched out and his hand gripped the side of the boat.
When they were about a hundred metres out, Flora turned the skiff and rowed hard against the current, which flowed towards Old Smoker. She got into a rhythm, pulling the oars through the water, lifting and rotating the blades. Behind her, the cockerel’s croak had changed to a puk, puk, puk.
“I read about this trick that you can do with cockerels,” Gil said, opening his eyes.
“I thought you said Mum told you,” Flora said, when the blades were out of the water.
“Well, yes. Whichever,” Gil said. “They have a sort of sixth sense.”
“I have to rest for a bit.” Flora pulled in the oars and bent over, panting. They had gone past Dead End Point and were opposite the beach huts, where a few owners sat out on wooden decks. Without the forwards motion the boat wallowed in the waves, which were bigger now they were out from the lee of the cliff, and Flora felt the wind chilling the sweat that had formed down her back. “Are you cold, Daddy?” Gil was hunched, his free hand tucked between his legs. Flora picked up the cushion and the blanket from the bottom of the boat, but they were both sodden and she dropped them back. A bigger wave caught them broadside and spat at all three of them. The cockerel’s noise changed to an open-beaked bray, starting high and plummeting to a throaty cough. It wasn’t a crow but a sound more melancholic, a lament. As soon as it finished, the bird began the sound again. Flora twisted around to look behind her and the boat rocked. “I think it’s seasick,” she said.
“If you row over the spot where a person drowned, the cock will crow,” Gil said.
“What?” Flora turned back to him.
“Or maybe it’s where their body is, under the water. I’ve forgotten exactly.” Gil’s eyes were closed as if he was concentrating, and his hand again gripped the side of the skiff, his knuckles white.
“Is that what this is all about? You think Mum drowned? But you saw her in Hadleigh.”
“I saw something. Who knows what it was. Something my imagination served up for me.”
The cockerel was louder now, and Flora saw people on the beach stop to stare out at them.
“Do you think it’s all right?” Gil craned his neck to look around her. “Maybe it’s seasick.”
Flora rolled her eyes. “Your imagination?” she asked.
Gil ignored her. “Perhaps we should let it out, and then it might crow.” The cockerel’s noise was hideous, and it tried to flap its wings but the cage was too small.
“I can’t row all over this patch of sea,” Flora said, picking up the oars. “We’re not even up as far as the nudist beach. I think we should go.” When she looked at the land, they were drifting back the way they had come, around Dead End Point.
“Open the cage just for a moment,” Gil said. “Then at least it might be less distressed.”
Flora shifted to manoeuvre her legs over her seat. The boat listed and cold seawater slopped over the edge. The bird’s cage tilted and the terrified creature grew even louder. Contorting her body, Flora reached to unhook the catch. The bird jumped, battering itself against the top.
“Careful,” Gil said.
“I am being careful!” Flora shouted over her shoulder, but he didn’t mean the cockerel. When she turned with the wailing, flapping bird in her hands, one of the oars was overboard and bobbing beside the boat.
“I can get it,” Gil said, leaning awkwardly.
“No, Daddy!” Flora shouted above the cockerel’s shrieks. It jabbed with its head, aiming for her face, and she let it go. The bird perched on the side of the boat and glared at them and the strange wet land they had brought it to.
“There,” Gil said, pointing at the oar, which Flora could plainly see. “Get it.”
Using the remaining oar as a paddle, she tried to move the skiff forwards as the floating oar travelled ahead of them in the current. The boat jerked and bumped, and there was a scraping as they hit the underwater rocks at the Point.
“Push us off! Push us off!” Gil said, and Flora jabbed at the rocks with the oar so that the skiff bumped again and Gil held on tighter. With each bump the bird bounced and then resettled on the edge, until Flora pushed with all her strength and with an ungainly flapping flight the bird took off, landing a couple of metres away on a seaweedy rock which poked up out of the waves. And then they were clear of Dead End Point and being returned to the beach, with Flora paddling to keep them angled towards the sand, the waves washing them back in.
Richard and Martin were waiting, and beside them was a furious-looking Nan. Flora twisted to get a glimpse of the cockerel, and Gil watched it too as it puffed out its chest, tipped up its head, and crowed. Gil wheezed out a laugh, and Flora began to laugh, too. Richard waded out a little way and took the rope tied to the bow to pull them in.
“Bloody hell, Gil,” Martin said. “How am I going to catch that effing bird now?”
Nan’s face was white with anger.