‘I’ll go first,’ he said, and went down the steps. He waited on the bottom step, his hands ready to help guide Iris in if sheneeded him to, but she confidently came down the steps, and he moved to the side to allow her into the water next to him.
‘This is amazing,’ she said, treading water as she scrabbled to find the end of her snorkel.
‘It is amazing,’ he said, ‘but it is important to make sure that you do not get cold. As soon as you feel a chill, it is time to get out. It may be only a few minutes.’
She nodded earnestly. He knew she was used to working with risk and that she’d take him seriously.
‘Let’s go.’ He settled his snorkel into his mouth, then reached for Iris’s hand again, and they floated onto the top of the water, face down.
He looked over to her but couldn’t see her expression since she was busy looking down into the fissure below them. Some people freaked out at this point and got straight out, unable to cope with the unknown depths beneath them, but Iris’s grip on his hand didn’t waiver and he took that as a sign that she was in her absolute element. He pointed ahead of them and gently kicked away from the edge, further into the stretch of water. The water was always crystal clear and you could see around a hundred metres down because of it. The colours of the rocks mesmerised Siggi, and he knew Iris would know how they came to be those colours, what their composition was, and everything about how the fissure had come to be. And that excited him.
In the end, they spent around fifteen minutes in the water, floating along near the surface for around the two hundred and fifty metres’ length between the entry and exit platforms. Siggi climbed up the steps and waited as Iris continued to float for another minute or so before she climbed out too.
‘My face is numb,’ she said, trying to lift her goggles up. ‘But it was worth it.’ She was glowing.
Siggi grinned and helped her to take the goggles off. She mirrored the action with his goggles and they stood for just amoment, their hands either side of each other’s faces, before Iris leaned into him and kissed him. On his mouth.
‘That is not fair,’ Siggi said, softly. ‘My lips are too cold to feel that kiss.’
‘I’ll try again later, then.’
He knew it was the intensity of the moment that had led to the kiss. That Iris’s emotions were heightened by the adrenaline of what they’d just experienced. But he wanted to believe she meant it.
He bent down to undo her flippers, helping to take them off before he did the same himself. They carried the goggles and flippers in one hand while they held hands with the other on the short walk back to the car park.
‘Siggi. That is the most amazing thing I’ve ever done,’ she said, once they’d got their suits off, dressed and were sitting in the jeep with the heater on.
Siggi poured hot chocolate into two cups from a flask that he’d retrieved from the boot.
‘Here. I think you are the only person I have ever met that I knew exactly where you would love to go the most.’
‘It was so incredible. To think that even while we were swimming in the fissure, the plates were moving further apart.’
‘Incredible,’ he echoed, watching the look on her face of sheer joy.
‘And the colours of the rocks. I mean, I’ve never seen anything so clear underwater before. There was almost no sense of there being anything between us and the bottom of the fissure.’
‘I know,’ he grinned.
‘I’m sorry. I’m going on,’ she said with a bashful smile, looking down at the drink in her hand.
‘Don’t be sorry, Iris. It is wonderful that you enjoyed it so much. That is why I wanted to bring you, to make you feel like this.’
She brought her gaze up to meet his and reached for his hand. ‘Can we have another go at the kiss?’
He could see in her eyes that it had taken a lot for her to ask him that, and he wanted to reassure her that there was nothing he’d rather do. He touched her cheek with one hand, resting his thumb gently on her bottom lip. Their eyes were on each other all the time, the intensity between them building.
‘Just checking that you have warmed up,’ he said.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod.
He leaned in and kissed her softly, moving his hand to cup the nape of her neck as they kissed more deeply. This was it. Everything he’d been hoping for.
They kissed for what felt like hours, neither of them wanting to pull away, except for the briefest time to exchange a smile, their eyes glinting just as they had after they’d swum the fissure, but now for entirely different reasons.
But where it would lead, and what they had started by giving in to the kiss, Siggi had no idea. And right at this minute, he didn’t care.
11
