Nathan considered, once again, the ways in which Louis would always be one of the youngest people he would ever know. “Is she waving now?”
“Precisely now? Well, I couldn’t be certain, of course. She had fallen still when I left the cliff.” He turned to Mary. “My dear, would you mind? I left some blankets in my house. If you rushed ahead and had them ready . . . ?”
Mary glanced at Nathan and then nodded, pushed on and took Eckless with her.
“Well, well . . .” Louis breathed, happy. “Together again. Mm, Nathan?”
“Precisely now? No. You’ve just sent her off.”
Louis gave a glancing flap at Nathan’s arm. “But together again, all the same.” He beamed—Louis was like that, happy with other people’s happiness. Nathan, on the other hand, always found it vaguely threatening: as if the good fortune of strangers would leave even less for him.
“Yes, all right. Together.” He thumped on, the Head now clearly visible, a huge thumbnail of shadow, rising from the sea. “This business with Ruth—was she trying for it . . . taking another step, or just . . .”
“I wish I knew, Nathan. The risks are very high.” He snatched in a breath. “Beyond the currents and the tide . . . is the danger from exposure. Which is why we’re running to—”
“Save her.”
“Yes, to save her.”
“Even though we wouldn’t have stopped her swimming out . . .”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Nathan.” He waved to Mary, who was standing in his doorway, arms round a bundle of blankets. “More and more, I’m of the opinion that death comes soon enough.”
“Told Joe that?”
“Of course.”
“Of course.” Louis, Nathan knew, would never think to lie, would never even try to tuck just a touch of the truth aside for private purposes. “Tell me something.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a toasting fork? I bet you have a toasting fork, don’t you?”
“A toasting fork?” Louis studied him briefly. “Well, yes, I do.”
“And you actually use it? Muffins in front of the fire and all that?”
“Yes, Nathan—and all that.”
“They really don’t make them like you any more, Louis. Maybe they never did. You’re like . . . a different species.”
Louis peered at him, benevolent. “No, I simply try to live a comfortable life. Certain ways of behaving make for comfort, certain others do not. It’s only common sense.”
“A different species.” Nathan would have said different fucking species, but swearing at Louis, even in fun, was always remarkably hard.
Louis laughed, gulped for air and laughed again. “Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. First it was the children, now it’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep the mind busy. Keep me young.” Louis grinned at him without a trace of irony. Nathan could only shake his head.
The two men juddered to a halt in front of Mary while Eckless bounced around them, delighted by his unexpected outing and—perhaps—by the chance to be with Mary and Nathan, both at once.
Louis bent forward with his hands on his knees. “Dear me, I can’t do this too often—not built for rushing about. You go on now, Nathan, and I will feed your dog—I’m sure he’s had no breakfast. Then Joe should be alerted.”
“Yes. Good. Yes.” Nathan kneaded one of Louis’s shoulders in a way that he hoped suggested affection and then faced Mary, much of him anxious to hug her, rub her arm, shake her hand, make contact. But, of course, he only angled his head very slightly, looked at the cliff edge and told her, “Come on.” A slim breeze snuffled round them as they walked.
And there it was.
Shit.
The evil little ladder pinned and bolted to the lip of cliff and then darting straight over it.
I’ll be sick.
Straight over and down to the shifting, speckled black of the sea. Ruth must have used the same ladder last night, climbed the same way in the dark.
She’s got more bottle than I have. Or more despair.
The rungs, the uprights and their restraining fixtures all seemed corroded beyond any reasonable doubt and down below, apparently several miles away, there bobbed the minute and elderly boat that Louis kept moored to the ladder’s final sea-gnawed foot for other, less pressing, offshore jaunts.
How the fuck he gets down here, I’ll never know—just drops and bounces, probably, giggling all the way.
Nathan knelt and turned his back on the mercifully calm, but still horribly distant, sea that breathed and waited below him.
“OK.” On his knees, he raised his face to Mary and lifted up his hands, hoping that nothing about him would seem to shake. “Give me the blankets now and I’ll go down.”
“No. I’ll bring them. I’ve tied them up properly, it’ll be easy.”
He fought to sound reasonable: respectful, but firm. “Look, I’ve been down here before, it’s tricky and the blankets will be heavy. I may seem indecently old and feeble, but I am still stronger than you. Come on now.”
She looked down at him, completely and quite naturally concerned. Her attention clamped his breath and he focused on not feeling dizzy all over again.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“I’ll manage, it’s not a problem.” He almost believed himself. “No bother at all.”
He went down on all fours and then backed unbravely towards the ladder’s start, fear oiling out from his kidneys, vertigo painting the backs of his legs, his armpits, feet.
You will do this, because you are a father and a good father can do anything, anything at all. Any fucking thing. ALL RIGHT?
He moved himself over the edge and on to the ladder, got his one hand firm on an early rung and then eased his load of blankets down. The weight of them yanked at his shoulder joint and whipped through him in a way that made his whole surface slither with horrors. But he steadied himself, thought of Mary, began his descent.
Should be easy, really easy—after all, you’ve never had any problem sinking, only with getting back up again.
His right hand began to twitch against the blistering cold of the rungs, the emptier cold of the air, and his left tried to manage the blankets. His mind showed him good and bad visions of falling. No: bad and worse visions of falling. But he still kept his grip and kept his feet and kept on going, working beyond his palsied confidence, his watery bone.
An unexpected ring of motion clattered his arms. “Now what the fu—?” Mary was following him down. “No. You stay up there.” This was not in the plan, this was the kind of bone-marrow terror with which he could not deal: the fear of the fall of his daughter, far worse than any drop that he might take. “Get back up—go on. It’s not safe.” He was yelping, he could hear it.
“You’ll need me. To help.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I’m not going back.”
Jesus, woman, don’t make me proud of you now. Not this way . . .
But, of course, she did, while his nerves pitched and yawed with the need to keep her safe. He fixed his eyes on the wet rock ahead of him and went on, rung after rung: the catching and loosing, the sickening moment of balance and then the catch again. Below him the water clopped and hissed and the deep, sea cold began to rise and seize his legs. The ladder shuddered as he moved and his daughter moved and both of them edged their way down.
Jesusfu—wha—?
An ugly tap came at his heels.
Bastard, bastard, bastard.
Calm. Be calm. Look round. Look down. It can’t be anything bad.
The tap came again and a little creak with it this time.
It was the boat, already nudging him. He must have come down faster than he’d thought. Not that he wouldn’t have shifted even faster if he could.
Not that I wouldn’t have clamped the old ankles to the outside of the uprights and then slid down the whole fucking ladder like a fireman if I’d thought it would impress.
(And not kill me.)
Not that I want her here to watch me. But I’ll not argue, not now—it’s bad when we argue and I can’t bear it being bad.
“Mary? Stay where you are for a bit, love, I’ve come to the boat. And don’t look.”
“I’m not scared of heights.”
“Well, don’t look anyway. I’ll just get in and then I’ll give you the word. And be careful. Because I can’t be careful for you.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“Yes, well, OK. OK.”
He tried to position himself to board the wobbling boat.
Have I offended her, did she sound offended, is this going—fuck.
He put his foot neatly through the aged tarpaulin that covered what was, he had to admit, a glorified sodding punt and not in any way a convincingly sea-going craft.
But we’ll give it a try, in any case.
Mary stepped aboard with such quick and easy neatness that he had no time to feel sickened on her behalf.
Out on the water, the morning was icy still. Nathan hauled the outboard to life and then pressed them out over a deadened sea. They slid forward insubstantially across a dense, silvered surface, leaves of black turning across it in long, patient rolls: sinews of motion and light. Locked above them was a layered sky, nothing but blades of colour, horizon upon horizon, slicing away. Try as he might, Nathan couldn’t find this calming. The tranquillity seemed watchful, impatient: the nervous futter of their engine and the furrow of their wake struck him as incautious intrusions above a swell of intelligent emptiness.
And alongside his unease, there oozed something equally familiar— the knowledge that he was being ludicrous. Hand on the tiller, reading the tug of nasty currents, eyes intent over the prow, his daughter looking on, perhaps admiring . . .
My Errol Flynn phase. Ha, ha, ha. And all too late in life. Ha, ha fucking ha.
Ruth was huddled on the thin gravel beach, a few feet between the rock face and the sea. She was wrapped in the kind of foil insulation sheet beloved of marathon runners and outdoor types.
Must have folded it inside her swimsuit—I presume she is wearing a swim-suit? Please, God.
Good thinking on her part—it would keep off hypothermia for a while— make it a more even bet that someone would find her alive. Body weight would be in her favour, of course: tubby wee seal that she is.
Ach, Nathan—just hush and leave the poor woman alone. She’s harmless.
And I have a daughter and she does not.
Ruth watched them beach the boat with the intoxicated smile of a person still very pleasantly surprised by her own continuance.
Mary sprang impressively ashore while Nathan sucked his teeth, trying to fix on the proper remark.
What would be appropriate? Well done? How was it for you? What were you thinking of—you could have been killed? Although, of course that was, quite precisely, what you were thinking of. And give me a clue, Ruth, were you going for enlightenment, another step forward to the Grail, or were you just paddling off to eternity? Suicide or sanctified risk? Hm? Do tell.
Not that she will—we never do. We all keep our Russian roulette wheels muffled here.
Ruth stood, revealing herself to be unsteady but apparently sound and dressed in a businesslike one-piece costume. University colours? College? Surely not school? Nathan saw—and at once regretted seeing—the prickle of inch-long hair at her inner thighs, the unmistakable harsh regrowth after bikini-line shaving. And there was the scar of shark teeth on her arm, the other on her thigh, from earlier salt-water jaunts. She’d got off lightly this time, apparently.
As Mary swaddled her with blankets, he wondered how Ruth had thought she would be found, how she’d wanted her body to look, why she’d decided that this was the way she would offer herself to death.
Making her mind up and then rushing here before sunrise, stroking out across the dark water for the fuck of her life, the deepest one we ever get, the one that leaves us slack-jawed, comprehensively gaping, without breath.
The women swayed together over the stones towards him, apparently overwhelmed by one huge woollen toga. Ruth lifted her head, luminously pale and cowled in grey. “Nathan. It’s all fine. Isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong.”
Mary squeezed at Ruth’s bundled shoulder, parcelled her up more tightly. “No, nothing at all. You’re fine. We’ll get you back and you’ll be fine.”
“No.” Ruth kept to Nathan’s eyes, “It’s all right. Everything is all right,” and Nathan swallowed, understanding jigging at even his cynic’s pulse.
She doesn’t mean she’s all right—she means everything is all right. She means the universe has knelt down and kissed her on the soul and told her that every fucking thing is guaranteed to be completely fucking all right. And she believes it—she’s in the glory. For now.
Ruth stumbled aboard and swayed forward into his arms as he reached to greet her. She felt too soft for going out in the sea alone, too much alive. She shouldn’t try this kind of thing again. “Hey, Ruthie. Good morning.” He patted her somewhere near her elbow, kissed above one of her eyes.
“Morning, Nate. I’m glad it was you—that came.”
“Mm hm.”
“It’s all right, you know.”
“Yes, OK, love. I know.”
He disengaged himself then stepped into the bite of the water, delighted by this minor recklessness with his shoes and socks. He dragged the craft afloat again while Mary helped him with a shove at the stern. She climbed in and sat with an admirable maintenance of balance, and he even made a fairly agile job of boarding himself. They could all go home now.
“Mary? Sit close in the blankets with her, will you? Body heat. Don’t want anything nasty setting in.” He grinned while she did as he asked, exactly as he asked, because it was a sensible request and correct and possibly might also show that, when the emergency chips were down, he was a person upon whom one could rely. That’s what he hoped. “And no going to sleep, Ruth.”
“I won’t sleep for a week.” She beamed, post-coitally.
“Just stay awake for the journey—that’s all we’ll need.”
The motor hacked to life and he began steering round to the west, heading for the jetty. Mary kicked at his foot as he settled to his task.
“Mm?”
“You said it was nice to see me.”
Anxiety lapped between his shoulder blades. “Yes? Um. Did I?”
“You did.”
He couldn’t think where this was going, almost didn’t want to know.
“You don’t like nice. You think it’s a bad word.”
“There are no bad words.” He risked a look at her—got no clues. “And I’m never all that eloquent when I’m semi-unconscious.” But there was a growing softness about her mouth, he could see that. “And it was nice. It was—” A Calvinist tickle in his throat prevented him from completing a full confession of pleasure without a readjustment, a little break of tone. “It was—I’m sorry—very nice.”
“You’re sorry it was nice?”
“No, I’m not sorry . . .”
She was smirking. Cheeky, fucking, lovely wee woman: she was cuddling Ruth and also laughing at him. In a nice way, laughing.
“No, I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry at all.”
And the motor ran and the tide drew and together they were rocked in the sea’s lap and Nathan faced Mary and Mary faced him back, quite quickly serious, but liking him, he was almost certain, quite probably liking him.
And, in the days that followed, the island maintained the shine it had taken when Ruth was trundled up the jetty and into the surrogate grip of her Foal Island family. Joe, above all, bristled with contentment: another trial volunteered for and passed, one of his flock ascending a whisper further towards their state of grace, intact.
Nathan tried but couldn’t find all this ambient glee offensive—he currently had too much of his own to care. By the time the whole crew of them made it to the first full-complement Lunch in
more than a year, Nathan considered himself to be dangerously happy. Every time he opened his mouth, he expected an adolescent squeal to emerge like the sound of bad bicycle brakes, or of a man inclined to speak and act unwisely when under the influence of delight. It had been so long since he’d really felt this way, he suspected his condition might actually be something far less pleasant—perhaps the onset of some disease.
“Nate, don’t look so worried.”
Joe, pink-handed and generally moist, passed him another plate to dry. It was their turn for the washing-up.
“I’m not worried.” Nathan was enjoying the dewy fug of the kitchen and the pleasant strain of too much food, eaten slightly too quickly. If he stayed this jolly much longer, he’d get fat.
“Ah.”
“What do you mean, Ah?”
“You’re the only person I know who would find not worrying, worrying.”
Nathan fought not to produce the rictus with which he always seemed to receive this kind of manly wordplay. He hated male bonding, he detested the merry ribbing of hearty chums, in fact most of the elements of friendship—now he thought of it—made him vaguely sick. Or maybe it was just Joe’s particular way of being pally that filled him with the need to gag. The man was like a walking Public Safety Announcement—too much common sense and trustworthy, kindly charm.
Yes, that’s it—I look at Joe and I want to use power tools badly, take parcels abroad for strangers, smoke cigars in petrol stations and swallow chewing gum. I want to run down steps with my hands in my pockets and stare at the sun.
“Nathan. You’re not paying attention. And you’re going to dry the pattern clear off that plate.”
Nathan attempted a leer. “You know me—keen on vigorous rubbing. Made it my life’s work.” But it was no use. There was no shocking or distracting Mr. Christopher—all you could hope for was his immensely patient but slightly disappointed that you’ve let yourself down again look.
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