I choose to sit at the front next to Steve and watch as he expertly maneuvers us away from the wooden jetty. We’re moving so slowly that there’s hardly a wake behind us; there must be a speed limit in the cove. As we draw nearer to the mouth of the bay, the land rises on either side of us to form cliffs of striated pale yellow, with smatterings of gray, above the clear blue-green of the sea. The sky above us is entirely cloudless. It’s almost laughably picture-perfect.
As we exit the shelter of the bay, the boat begins to pitch and roll and the wind picks up, teasing strands of hair out from my chignon and whipping them around my face. Steve turns the wheel so that we are tracking the shoreline, and opens up the throttle; the boat noticeably lifts. The wind, warm and welcome, becomes a constant buffeting pressure, as if I’m being deliberately massaged by it. I start to feel the freedom that always comes on the water at times like this, when there is nothing else I should be doing, nothing else I could be doing, as if the whole essence of my self expands. Even the manila envelope with its curious contents begins to drop away. I look back at the others. Bron is still napping, despite the bumps and thrusts of the boat, her feet in Duncan’s lap. Adam has taken off his T-shirt and is sitting in Bermuda shorts, with one arm stretched casually across the back of the seat cushions. There’s a scar on the underside of his arm that I hadn’t noticed before: perhaps he got it whilst he was in the army? He sees me looking at him, and his face breaks into a slow half smile beneath his sunglasses. In this moment, I am happy, I think, and it’s too shocking to contemplate. I have to look away. How dare I be happy when we are here because Lissa is dead?
I look instead at the shoreline, and suddenly it dawns on me where we are. “Is that the mouth of Kanu Cove?” I ask Steve, trying to pitch my volume for his ears alone, but I misjudge it and the wind steals my words. Steve bends toward me from his upright position at the wheel, and I try again, half standing to reduce the distance. I see his face clear as he comprehends the question and starts to nod enthusiastically, and then I see the moment when he remembers we are all Lissa’s friends.
“You’ll be swimming on the other side of the nature reserve. The current is just too wicked round here,” he yells, his eyes watchful, and I nod, but my gaze is drawn back to the cliffs bookending the opening. They look almost the same as those of Horseshoe Bay, but there’s a curious glassiness to the center of the strip of water between them. A rip current, most likely, the deceptively smooth surface hiding a fierce tow out to sea. Kanu takes. Takes who wants taken. Steve is leaning toward me again, and I mirror him to catch his words. “If you got swept out, the current would most likely take you right past the tip of the nature reserve—I guess that’s what must have happened. After that it’s about two hundred miles before there’s another shore.”
I sit down abruptly, my mind full of Lissa, in that red swimsuit, floating facedown a couple of feet below the surface with her blond hair clouding around her. I can’t see the current pulling her inexorably on, but I know it must be there. She’s turning slowly, lazily, spinning around in the dark waters with that hair fanning out—in a mere handful of seconds I will see her face, her eyes; dear God, I can’t bear to see her eyes . . .
Steve is touching my arm. It’s the merest of brushes, but it drags me back to the boat. “You okay?” he’s yelling, his eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Seasick?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine,” I force out, and he nods, though not as if entirely convinced. Then, because I can’t stop myself asking, “Is that where the fisherman found her? Near that shore two hundred miles away?”
Steve waggles his head equivocally. “Not quite. It was a fair bit farther west. Lots of different factors can affect the currents, especially round here; it’s so hard to predict. The search area that the police came up with was impossibly huge.”
I settle back down in my seat and look at Adam again, but it’s too late. The freedom has gone.
FIVE
BRONWYN
I couldn’t be less in the mood for a swim. The wine from lunchtime—more than I should have had, but less than I wanted—followed by my nap has induced a low thumping headache. I know a swim will be just the thing to clear it, but still, I can’t quite gear myself up for it; I feel like a reluctant teenager as I sluggishly find my goggles and swim cap and look for Vaseline to slather over the areas that chafe. Georgie, on the other hand, is already prepared, and Steve is explaining the swim route to her. “Just remember you can’t land on the island at all; it’s protected. There’s a special kind of cormorant that breeds here, and some kind of ducks. Technically you’re supposed to keep at least twenty meters from the shoreline even when you’re swimming, but you’ll be okay so long as you don’t actually go ashore.”
“But I can see people on the island—look, there,” Georgie objects, pointing. I glance up to follow her finger and see a group of five or six people walking on the island, up on the high ground, intermittently hidden from our view by trees.
Steve nods. “Yeah, there’s a tourist ferry that lands at a specific site three times a day; that limits the numbers. They have to stick to the paths.”
Georgie looks back at the map, studying it. She’s swimming in a bikini today. Sometimes she takes off the top, depending on the country we’re swimming in and how relaxed she’s feeling. Lissa used to do the same, but neither of them has much more than an A cup to worry about. Or had. My own swimsuit feels tight and restrictive; it’s already cutting into me under my arms and across my back. I grit my teeth. It’s no use wishing that I had been swimming more of late and was three-quarters of a stone lighter; it’s not going to melt off overnight.
“Jem loves it here,” throws in Duncan. He is slopping globules of Vaseline along his jawline in what I know is a vain attempt to prevent his stubble from rubbing his shoulder. For a blond man, he grows unexpectedly dark facial hair, and remarkably quickly too: his five o’clock shadow makes an appearance around noon. He adds mischievously, “Did you know he’s a closet twitcher?”
“What, Jem?” Georgie sounds skeptical. “Really?”
But Duncan is nodding vehemently, his blue eyes twinkling at the incongruity of it. “He and the chief of police like to go off on bird-watching trips together.” I’ve heard him point it out before, as if it somehow belittles Jem, as if it makes him less “cool,” when really it only belittles Duncan.
Steve is tapping the map, trying to pull Georgie’s attention back to it, given she’s the only person who hasn’t done this swim before. “At this end—here—there are some lovely caves you can dip into, but just make sure you stick together when I can’t see you. Motorboats aren’t allowed within one hundred meters, to protect the reeds and whatnot, but most of the time I’ll be able to see you. And don’t go beyond the headland—here—because the currents start to pick up, and you might get swept round and caught up in the currents on the other side.” Georgie looks uncharacteristically anxious, and Steve moves quickly to soothe her. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to signal you all to stop well before that point.”
Georgie is nodding, then she turns to me. “All okay? You sure you want to swim?”
“Not in the least,” I say, yawning, “but I’ll be glad I did afterward.”
“That’s the sort of enthusiasm I like to hear,” calls Steve wryly, but Georgie is still looking at me searchingly. I know I ought to tell her about the message in my bathroom, but somehow I can’t. She’ll ask me all sorts of questions in her dog-with-a-bone way, and I can’t take any more of that. I already have questions running in a constant loop in my head that the wine did nothing to disrupt. Who wrote it? Why did they write it? What do they think is my fault—Lissa’s death? And if so, why do they think I’m to blame? The trouble is that even trying to answer the last one feels like accepting the premise; accepting that someone might reasonably think I could be to blame, when I’m not. It’s ludicrous. Nobody could reasonably think that I am.
I step onto the platform out the back, pulling my goggles into place. “Come on, guys, let’s get this thing over with,” I call, and then I throw myself in.
For the first few instants, my pulse races frantically, but then my body works out that it’s not actually cold at all. I hold myself a couple of meters underwater without surfacing from my entry and watch the blurry shape of Georgie on the boat dissolve and re-form as the waves shift the water above me. Then her feet burst through the greenish ceiling of my world, bubbles blossoming around her and rushing up the length of her body, seemingly multiplying as they race for the surface. I come up for a breath then submerge again, sculling with my hands to keep from floating up. The water here is clear and deep, and there’s no bottom to be seen, just a gradual darkening that must surely become black at the point where the light can no longer penetrate at all. There could be all manner of creatures living down there, devoid of the sun, and I wouldn’t be able to see them. Do they look up and watch us, as I watched for Georgie only moments ago? An image crosses my mind of a giant serpent, slithering sinuously through the depths, its ancient gnarled head reaching upward, its ink black eyes searching—and I kick sharply for the sunshine of the surface just as Adam and Duncan explode into the water beside me.
“Okay?” Georgie asks me. The sun is so bright that it would be easier to close my eyes. I shouldn’t have had the wine. That’s what’s making me susceptible to ludicrous flights of fancy. That, and the writing on the mirror. Though to be fair, it was the writing on the mirror that made me susceptible to the wine. Who wrote it? What do they want? And possibly the most important question: What happens next? Or is whoever wrote that message content to leave things at that?
If something else happens, I will tell Georgie. If something else happens.
“Okay?” Georgie asks again, somewhat impatiently, and this time I nod. She gets cold if we don’t get going quickly; she doesn’t have any body fat to speak of for warmth. The men have surfaced now. “Ready?” she asks them.
“Give me a sec. Still peeing,” says Duncan. Georgie makes a face as, on the boat, Steve laughs. “Right, done.” And we’re off, in our little pod that lacks the symmetry that it used to have. Georgie positions herself on the trail of bubbles from Duncan’s feet, and I sit off her right shoulder. Adam won’t fill the gap of Lissa, because he breathes to the left, and he won’t be quick enough in the long run to sit on Duncan’s right-hand side, so he’s following on Georgie’s feet. We are an arrowhead with one blade missing.
I’m battling a little to stay level with Georgie, hoping that either I find my stride soon or that she slacks off the pace. It used to be that no matter how rough I felt at the beginning of a swim, I would be confident that my strength would tell in the end; front crawl was never my stroke—I was a butterfly swimmer—but whilst I could never beat Georgie in a front crawl race in the pool, in open water conditions, where sheer strength as well as technique are important, I used to be able to just about match her. Now, I’m not so sure. I feel fitter than I was before I flew here—swimming here every day has done that—but I’m nowhere near the shape I ought to be in. Maybe I never will be again; another clause in the contract I hadn’t realized I’d signed by having kids.
I twist my wrist awkwardly mid-stroke under the water to see the time on my watch; we’ve only been swimming for ten minutes. I should have settled by now, if I’m going to settle at all. Duncan is keeping us some one hundred meters or so from the shoreline, presumably on instruction from Steve, which is far enough away that we may as well be in open ocean. I try to give myself over to the rhythm, but everything is off-kilter. The waves are coming in from my left and ought to be blocked by Georgie, but occasionally one washes over my face, forcing me to break rhythm by throwing in a quick recovery breath to the other side; and whenever I turn to breathe, the sun is too bright. And the greenish-black depths beneath me are too dark, too secretive.
After some time (Two minutes? Five? Twenty? I won’t let myself look at my watch again.) I realize we are now angling toward the shoreline. The darkness below me is losing its saturation, and then, only a few strokes later, I can discern a sheer cliff face sloping beneath us, an extension of the rock face that’s above the water. Duncan has slowed his pace, which surprises me because it’s not the most interesting viewing, but then I realize that there are schools of small silver fishes darting with impossible swiftness along the sloping shelf; Duncan has a good appreciation of the treasures of the seas, whereas if I’m honest, marine life doesn’t hold much interest for me, except to know which species might bite or sting. I’ve swum here before, and it’s starting to come back to me: the shoreline here breaks up into nooks and crannies, and then just a little farther on, we should hit the caves—and then we do.
Duncan pauses, treading water before a yawning opening in the cliff face, so that we can all group up, though Adam was right on our heels the whole time. Georgie is already moving slowly into the cave, holding herself upright in the water by using an eggbeater kick for stability, with each leg alternating in a breaststroke corkscrew motion as she cranes her neck, her goggles up on her forehead, looking up at the vaulting cave ceiling that soars above; it must be at least the height of a two-story building. I remember there’s a small pebbled beach at the back of it, and I start toward that, but as I move into the shadows I feel the abrupt change of temperature and pause on the border between the light and the dark. It’s deep here—surprisingly so, so deep I can’t clearly see the bottom—or perhaps that’s because I have my goggles up and in this spot, half in and half out of the sun, my eyes can’t adjust. The movement of the water is playing disturbing tricks on my eyes as I look into the depths. I could almost believe something is moving down there; all this focus on Kanu Cove and that ridiculous myth is making me embarrassingly open to suggestion. The ebb and flow of the sea is moving me rhythmically to and fro, though more to than fro: I have to work a little to keep myself from being swept in. Then something cold slithers past my leg, and I let out a strangled yelp.
“What’s up? Did I kick you?” It’s Adam, unexpectedly close behind me.
“You just about gave me heart failure.” But he’s on the wrong side; how could he have kicked me? I stare into the depths again. They shift and move with every back-and-forth of the seas. I find I’ve drawn my knees up impractically high for treading water; I’m being swept inexorably from the sunshine into the gloom of the cave. “Is there . . . Adam, can you see something moving down there?”
“What? Did you see a jelly?”
Jellyfish. The scourge of the open water swimmer. It could have been a glancing touch from one, I suppose, though it lacked the electric feel of the Mediterranean variety. Those can leave vicious welts; I’ve no idea what they can do in this area, as I haven’t encountered any yet. “I don’t know. I’m heading out.” I’m already fixing my goggles in place and turning for the sunshine, kicking hard to leave the cave behind.
The penetrating warmth of the sunshine on my shoulders is an instant tonic. I stop some thirty meters from the cave mouth, still reluctant to extend my legs into the depths. I’m simultaneously scared to look and afraid not to, which results in snatched glances that can’t possibly be effective; I know I’m being entirely ridiculous, but I don’t seem to be able to put a stop to it. Instead I look around for the boat. Ordinarily Steve would always stay within sight of us, often only ten meters or so away, but right now I can’t see the craft at all. I can’t hear it, either, and I can’t see any of the others; they must be deep within the recess. I scan around slowly—Steve can’t be far away—surely the higgledy-piggledy shape of the coastline here is hiding him from me? I lie back flat in the water to stick my ears under without sinking my legs, in an attempt to pick up the noise of the engine through the water—but nothing. And when I right myself again I realize I’ve been swept along a little, parallel to the shoreline, toward a distinctive arch, which has a series of dimini
shing stacks trailing into the ocean from it—I remember swimming through that arch before. Probably Steve is waiting on the other side; I think that’s what happened last time. Did he tell us that he would be waiting there today? I wasn’t paying quite as much attention as I should have been when he briefed us.
I should wait here for the others. It’s stupid to swim alone. I’ll wait.
And then a long shadow moves below me.
Or it doesn’t, I can’t be sure, but I’m not about to wait and find out; I’ve already broken into a fast front crawl, heading for the arch and trying to scan the depths beneath me as I swim, a high, choppy six-beat kick keeping my legs almost out of the water. I stick my head up quickly to locate the archway and catch sight of a flash of sunlight off metal: the boat! It must be on the other side. Forty meters to the arch. Thirty meters. I’m breathing hard now, gasping air every second stroke. Twenty meters. The water is getting shallower as I near the arch, and I can see that there’s nothing below me, but I still can’t bring myself to ease up on this panicked dash—not until I’ve safely hauled myself onto the boat. And now I’m swimming through the arch, without the slightest easing of pace to pay heed to the impressive geological feature that the sea has carved. The boat must be just ahead, it must be just—
A roar fills my ears—an engine—so loud and close that it seems like it must be right on top of me. I stick my head up, desperate to spot the source, even as my brain tells me that it’s a trick of the water; speedboats always sound closer underwater than they actually are. But as I lift my head I realize with horror that there really is a boat bearing down on me—a small motorboat—heading straight for me, its dirty blue bow lifted out of the water by the speed at which it’s traveling. There’s no time to shout or wave or even take a breath; I throw myself sideways and down, pulling frantically with my arms and kicking with fast, hard dolphin kicks in a frenzied attempt to get below the propeller. Seen from beneath the water, the shape of the hull is growing darker and broader as it races closer, filling almost my entire field of vision, a turbulent flow of water streaming out behind it. I’m not deep enough, it’s going to hit me, I’m sure it’s going to hit me—and then it’s right over me, the propeller mere inches from my trailing legs, so close that I feel the tug of its suction. And then the boat has passed. I hang underwater for a second or two, then shoot to the surface, pulling my goggles off to peer after the vessel. It’s turning in a short, tight arc to go through the arch, in the opposite direction to how I swam through, the engine at what sounds like full throttle. I have only the briefest of moments to catch a glimpse of it. A shabby-looking long-nosed craft, of what I would guess is traditional design, where it seems as if the engine has been added as an afterthought. Two on board, the driver and one other. The driver had a baseball cap on and was looking back at me; I could swear he was laughing. And suddenly I’m afraid they’re going to circle round and mow me down again.
How to Kill Your Best Friend Page 6