Wings of the Storm

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Dare say Stella agrees with you.’

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘The wife. She lives there all the time.’

  The path followed a bend in the cliff. The island, the house set amid the rocks, were gone.

  ‘It could be lonely, I suppose,’ Kathryn said. ‘But if she’s got the sea for company …’

  ‘She makes out all right,’ Cal said.

  They came to a headland; beyond it, the path ran down to the beach, tawny, tide-rippled, deserted.

  ‘You need to be careful here.’

  They found their way down a slope where wild flowers painted the cliff in patterns of red and chrome. They ran the last few yards, feet slipping in soft sand, and came out on the beach.

  ‘It’s a lot bigger than it looks from the top.’

  It was big, two hundred metres wide and a kilometre long. The retreating waves had left a sheen of water, slick as oil, on the shelving sand, in which the reflections of clouds shone like the uncertain images of half-remembered dreams. The sand ended in a jumble of dark rocks against which the sea dashed in a welter of foam, even on a day as calm as this.

  ‘You don’t want to go in the water here,’ Cal said. ‘There’s a tide rip just off the beach. Every summer people get drowned.’

  ‘Despite the signs?’

  There they were, all along the beach, warning people not to swim.

  ‘They take no notice.’

  They found a place among the rocks, stripped off shirts and shorts, lay on the sand in the sun. It was hot.

  ‘Make sure you use plenty of sunscreen,’ Cal said.

  Kathryn lay on her back, eyes closed, skin shiny with cream.

  ‘Bliss …’

  He lay beside her, listening to the sounds of the sea, conscious of her at his side, the pleasant weight of the sun’s rays on his body.

  Suddenly, without knowing it, he fell deeply and completely asleep. It seemed only for a matter of seconds; the first thing he heard when he came to was the sound of the surf, exactly as it had been before. He opened his eyes. Kathryn was watching him. He reached out and took her hand.

  ‘I’ve been sleeping.’

  ‘You certainly have.’

  ‘A minute. Two.’

  ‘Try half an hour.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘You were snoring.’

  He was confused by the idea that he might have slept so long. Would not have credited it, but looked at the sun and saw that it had indeed moved, was now appreciably lower than when they had first arrived on the beach.

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  She laughed at his crestfallen expression. ‘You must have needed it.’

  It was true. For months he had felt close to exhaustion, yet now was alive, full of renewed energy, as though he had never known the meaning of fatigue.

  ‘Come on!’

  They walked side by side along the water’s edge. The waves reached towards them, licking their bare feet with cool white tongues. Once a bigger wave came charging, soaking them almost to the waist. Kathryn shrieked at the sudden impact of the cold water. Like a ten-year-old, she kicked up her heels and ran, her laughter cast upon the air like a skein of bubbles. For a minute he let her go, watching the supple brown body, the long legs wet with spray, and felt the ache of desire deep in his belly. He set out across the sand after her, caught her easily, seizing her hand. She stopped, laughter ebbing like the surf, and turned to him. He kissed her and her arms went around his neck. He ran his hand down the long, silky flow of her back, feeling the structure of muscle and bone beneath the tender flesh, and turned slightly, cupping her breast, slipping his hand under the flimsy triangle of cloth that covered it. Her nipple was hard against his palm. She freed her mouth from his.

  ‘Someone will see us.’

  ‘There’s no-one.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  He turned and saw a group of people coming down the dunes towards the beach. Four adults, two children swirling across the sand like blown leaves; the same boys he had seen tormenting the octopus.

  ‘Damn.’

  And stood back from her.

  She smiled brilliantly up at him. ‘Lousy timing.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Hand in hand, they walked back to the rocks. Once again they stretched out on the sand. Kathryn turned on her front, face pillowed in her arms.

  ‘Please put some cream on my back.’

  Her skin was warm, dusted lightly with sand. He rubbed the sand away with his shirt, undid the cord of her top and worked the cream gently into the smooth skin. He was careful to touch neither the side of her breasts nor the taut buttocks but in his mind he touched them, hoping that the pressure of his fingers would convey his feelings to her. He continued to work the cream into her skin until she sighed and turned to face him. They lay with noses almost touching, looking into each other.

  ‘You’ll be all sandy again.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  And kissed him again, lingeringly.

  Her top had slipped as she turned and now hung loose. He touched her breasts, very gently, then bent and kissed them. Her hands cupped the back of his head and pressed him against her.

  He felt himself respond, grow enormous beneath his bathers.

  He smiled at her. ‘I won’t be able to stand up.’

  She felt. ‘Oh dear.’ Felt some more. ‘What do you do about it?’

  ‘Nothing I can do. Not here.’

  ‘It might be a bit public.’

  He sensed laughter beneath her solicitousness, said crossly, ‘All very well for you …’

  ‘You think I don’t feel the same?’

  ‘At least you don’t show.’

  The screeching children were very close, now. He kissed her again, briefly; she re-fastened her top. He turned on his back and soon things were back to normal.

  He raised himself on one elbow, smiling ruefully. ‘Bloody hell …’

  She had no sympathy with him at all. ‘Maybe it’s just as well.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’ And reached for her once more.

  ‘Do that,’ she warned, ‘you’ll just get in a state again.’

  There was another scream from behind the screen of rocks. It took a minute before he realised that this time the sound differed from what they had been hearing before.

  He stood, abruptly.

  The holidaymakers were clustered in a knot at the edge of the surf, halfway along the beach. In the water, twenty yards out, a head. One arm raised.

  Cal was running. Kathryn was somewhere behind him, but he had no time to think of her. As he ran he counted. Four adults, three up to their knees in the surf, one woman a little further out. One child, silent now, hanging behind what was probably his mother. The woman in the sea was screeching, thigh deep. Her outstretched hands implored the waves. Cal arrived as she took another step, tentatively, and almost lost her footing. The water swirled, clutching at her.

  Another yard and we’ll be having to drag her out, too.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Cal bawled.

  He dashed into the water. The boy was further out now, arm no longer raised, but head still clear of the waves. Yet even as Cal watched, a breaker reared and buried him.

  He made a running dive through the surf. At once the current wrapped its python length about him. He knew at once there was no chance of reaching the boy, who was already much further out, beyond the cavalry charge of the waves. The problem was going to be how to save himself, never mind the child. Even close inshore the current was terribly strong. There was no way he could fight it. His one chance was to surrender himself to it, let it carry him where it would and pray there was no undertow. Any undertow and he was finished.

  A toppling wave fell upon him, and he went under for the first time.

  The world became nightmare: terror and darkness and bubbles, the bitter tang of salt. He was blindingly angry. All these months looking for death and now, when his life had regained
its purpose, it had come for him and for the wretched boy who meant nothing to him, who had got into difficulties because of stupidity. Now he would die, as would Cal, who wanted so much to live.

  The wave passed. Sunshine and light came back. Opening his eyes, Cal saw that the beach, with its imploring, frantic knot of people, was further away than ever.

  The water dragged at him, another wave buried him. It passed in its turn and, when he returned to the light, he heard the sound of spluttering, gasping breath and knew that it was himself, that already, beneath the sun’s bright eye, a sky full of light and life and promise, he had begun to drown.

  Something bumped against his leg. He thought Shark and, for the first time since entering the water, knew panic. He convulsed, trying to thrash away from this new threat. An arm struck him limply across the face and he realised that it was not a shark but the boy, that somehow the waves had brought them together, after all.

  The child’s body was inert. Cal wrapped his arms around him, knowing there was little he could do to save either of them. Neither sun nor light would make any difference now. Kathryn, the anguish of the boy’s parents, life itself, had no bearing on whether they survived or not. The sea would kill them or release them. Nothing else was relevant.

  With his acceptance of that reality came stillness. Now he could hear neither the roar of the surf nor the screams of the boy’s mother. He had entered a realm of utter silence. He sensed the waves, the froth of bubbles exploding over and around him, but heard nothing. Peace, like the water, enfolded him. Mind and body grew still and he felt himself go under for the third time.

  When he returned to the surface, Cal was aware of a change. For a moment, dazed and half-drowned, he could not work out what it was. The waves still rose and fell, the fiery salt still burned eyes and throat, the golden beach was no nearer. Then he realised that the current had relaxed its grip, that he was free to regain the land. If he could.

  Now the beach seemed a million miles away. The figures were still clustered at the edge of the surf, but far away, indescribably remote, and he knew he would never be able to make it back on his own.

  He thought, Can’t they see it’s safe to come in and get us?

  The figures did not move, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He gave a few feeble kicks with no discernible result. That, too, did not matter. Realisation brought lightness, like laughter. You were, or you were not. Either way was the same.

  A wave surged past. Another. In his arms, the boy’s body was absolutely still. He could not tell if he were alive, but that, too, no longer mattered. He, too, was or was not.

  It was a moment of total surrender. To the sea, to life, to death, to everything and everyone that ever was or would be — all focused in the single, burning instant of acceptance and unity and peace. It had been what he had been trying to achieve in all his work, the place that was and would be forever.

  Another wave.

  His eyes were closed. He surged with the water, with the golden reality that had come to him. He no longer knew or cared if he were alive or dead. It was the same.

  Something bumped gently beneath him. Again. The water ran bubbling on either side of his body. The sunlight was brighter, hotter. Sound returned: the faint, distant screaming of gulls, of people. A rush of feet, thudding on sand. Voices laughing, crying.

  Somehow, out of eternity’s golden peace, the silence of the universal, the sea had returned him effortlessly to land.

  With the return came brilliance — of light, heat, sound — amid confusion. Arms dragged him up the beach, the sand abrasive beneath his body. He was afraid that somehow, in those last moments before coming ashore, he had lost the boy. The idea that all the effort and danger might have been for nothing was unbearable. He tried to sit up, but could not.

  Kathryn was looking down at him. Her skin burnished by the sun, she was warm, alive, was life itself. He wanted her with an intensity beyond anything he could have believed possible. Every sense was sharpened to a point of exquisite pain. His body was a furnace of salt, blazing beneath the sun.

  Through the pain, a weariness that was like death, he said, ‘The boy …?’

  ‘He’ll be right.’

  Nausea shook him. Just in time he turned his head. A scalding spasm spewed seawater. His eyes, throat, mind were ripped raw by the sea. He wanted to drag himself away to a quiet place, far from noise and people, to lie with Kathryn’s arms warm about him, her body warm to cover him. He wanted her and life, the awareness and texture and glory of life. He wanted sex and fulfilment, the heat and blaze of being.

  ‘Lie there,’ she said. ‘You’ll be better in a minute.’

  Eventually strength returned. He was able to move. The corrosion of salt remained, but the peace and golden glory of eternity were gone. He crawled up the beach, a yard, maybe two, collapsed again, head down in the sand. Arms turned him, he felt the roughness of a towel on chest and legs. There was life in that, too.

  A harridan voice assailed him. ‘It ain’t right. They oughta fence the bloody place off …’

  The boy’s mother. Her hot eyes accused him.

  He tried to say something in the teeth of her rage, but could not. He lay beached upon the sand. He could hear Kathryn’s voice, as angry as the woman’s, telling her to shove off. Kathryn: nothing else mattered.

  Somehow she must have got him off the beach and into the car. Somehow she had got him home and to bed. Memory was fragmentary, a haze that afterwards seemed more like a dream. He knew and did not know. Only that he woke in the morning, mauled and aching, but alive — gloriously, exultantly alive. He turned his head painfully to look about the room but she was not there. He had no idea where she was.

  He got out of bed, so stiff he could hardly move. He was naked. She must have taken care of that as well. No surprises left, he thought. And grinned. My God, I must be feeling better.

  He staggered to the bathroom, found a towel, wrapped it around his waist. Looked in the mirror. Shadowed eyes the colour of strawberries looked back at him out of a white face.

  My God, he thought again.

  He went through the house, seeking her. Nothing. Perhaps she’d dumped him here and taken off. Spent the night at her uncle’s place. For all the use he would have been to anyone, she might as well have done that, yet he found himself hoping she had not.

  There was only one other place she could be. He went out into the cutlass blow of daylight and opened the door of the studio. Surrounded by the glow and clamour of colour, the piled racks of paintings, wrapped in a blanket, Kathryn slept.

  As he watched her, he felt his head running over with tenderness. This woman who had come into his life … This healing miracle …

  He could think now of Gianetta and what had happened; with pain, yes, but without the hideous self-hatred that had weighed upon him for so long. Always he would regret her, but now it was a clean sorrow without any of the bitterness he had felt before. This was indeed a miracle, and Kathryn had brought it about. He thought that he would never be able to repay her for what she had done.

  There was a pad of drawing paper and some crayons in a drawer. Moving quietly so as not to disturb her, he got them out, sat there in the stillness sketching her asleep. When he had finished he propped the drawing beside her and added a note:

  Out on the cliffs.

  He went outside with the pad and crayons and walked up the path. He found his granite chair among the rocks. He sat and watched the sea waving its blue flag far beneath, heard its voice — muted, now, deceptively gentle — and thought how yesterday it had nearly taken him, as over the years it had taken so many others. Countless thousands. Millions, maybe. Of their bones are corals made. But not mine, he told himself, not yet. I still have a lot of living to do.

  He thought of Kathryn asleep in the studio, of everything he had done and still hoped to do; all the work, the concerts to hear and places to visit, the mountains and deserts and oceans, the heat and cold, rain and snow. With her be
side him, all things would be possible, a celebration of life. Now that he had come so close to losing it, he had learnt to value it all over again.

  He thought of what had happened yesterday, what had so nearly happened. Like revisiting a dream, he remembered through mist the sense of serenity and acceptance that had come upon him, the idea that death and life were the same and that nothing that could happen mattered.

  Life was a dream within a dream; he had read that somewhere. Yesterday, on the brink of death, he had understood what it meant. Now, thinking of Kathryn and all the things he wanted to do in his life, he understood no longer.

  Life, he thought. Ultimately, that is all that matters. Let me celebrate living.

  And began to work, trying to capture on paper the thoughts and feelings that had come to him in the water and since.

  What he was trying to do was so hard. He had one go; dissatisfied, put it aside; tried again, put it aside; was deeply engrossed in the third effort when he became aware, returning from a great distance, that he was no longer alone.

  He looked up. Kathryn was sitting on a rock a few yards away from him, staring at the sea.

  She sensed his movement and looked up, smiling at him, this man who had come from nowhere into her life, had so nearly left it. A man whose vitality burned like a dark and dangerous flame. Before sleeping she had examined the paintings stacked about the studio, felt the anguish and anger and self-hatred. She could understand why the New York gallery had turned them down. All the same, she thought they were wrong. These paintings plumbed the depths from which Cal, God willing, had now emerged. The intensity of the emotion was a measure of the man. The idea that yesterday the sea had so nearly swallowed him was unbearable.

  Two weeks ago I had never met him. Now he has become my life.

  Five years earlier she had paid a visit to the snows, had gloried in the white peaks blazing against a cerulean sky. Closer to the mountains, she had seen the roughness of the scree that made up the lower slopes, the huge boulders, many times the size of a man, over which it would be necessary to find a way before coming out on the flank of the mountain, far above, where the snow began. How she had longed to do that, to force her way up to that purity, to the electric glare of the ice, the deathly cold of the wind that could invigorate and kill.