‘When you wake up on the morra after your birthday, you’ll only be forty years and one day old. That’s almost the same as thirty-nine years, eleven months and… twenty-eight days as you are now. Very little will have changed between now and then.’
‘But the fact remains I missed my chance. It’s all irrelevant without Rich.’
‘You could easily meet someone new.’
Her focus on swimming meant she didn’t see his eyes flicker or the pinched line between his brows.
‘And have you been on any dates recently, Atholl?’ she said, trying to lighten the tone. ‘Have you? The girls at the Hub used to show me their dating profiles and the men they were matched to. They were a gruesome crop of middle managers with hairy backs, halitosis and three mobile phones and ten women on the go at once. Half of them have wives!’
Breathless laughter burst from them both and they instinctively turned their backs on the wide blue horizon and the grey mountains in the far distance. They’d had enough of the deep water.
Swimming for the shore again, no words seemed necessary. Beatrice wondered why she felt so light, buoyed up by the water, yes, but unburdened too. Atholl was being quiet but he must be as tired as her, she reasoned.
That was when she realised she and Atholl had drifted apart.
In fact she was struggling to keep up with his easy pace through the water. Really struggling.
‘Atholl!’ She had called out his name before she realised she was panicking and gripped by the feeling of a hundred hands twisting around her limbs and pulling her back out to sea. In an instant she was dragged under water.
It took her rational brain a few moments to work out what was happening. She was unable to swim for some reason; pulled away from the shore by an invisible force. Was this a panic attack? No this was the water itself claiming her. She was going to drown.
Fear, animalistic and profound, overwhelmed her. Her legs thrashed ineffectually, her arms pulled for the water’s surface, but she couldn’t free herself from the strange grip of the cold ocean. She resurfaced somehow and gasped a deep breath, but it wasn’t enough to fill her lungs.
As she was about to bob under the lapping waves again, two warm hands pulled at her wrists, her head and neck cleared the surface of the water fully and she gasped at the sweet air.
‘Rip current,’ Atholl was panting, clasping her so tightly her skin hurt before they were wrenched apart again by another pull at her body, the cold water taking her again.
No thoughts came. She could hear someone trying to shout. It was her own voice, but instead of words coming out she gulped great mouthfuls of salt water that made her gag.
When she surfaced this time, Atholl was hollering from a perplexingly long distance away, his eyes fierce. They were floating further apart with every moment that passed.
‘Youmustdo as I say if you want to live.’
She was alarmed to see him struggling against the pull and his chin going under the water too. Even Atholl, with all his strength, was in danger.
‘Let yourself floatawayfrom me. Donotswim for the shore,’ he cried.
She gasped for air, barely processing his words.
‘Floatawayfrom me. Then, when you’re free, start swimming in a great curve. That’s the only way you’ll escape the current. Don’t swim against it! Floatwithit, back out to sea and away from me.’ Atholl had turned onto his back and was floating in a starfish shape on the surface of the water all the while being pulled even further away out to sea but in an unseen current that was dragging him quickly away from her in a wide arc. ‘When the current drops you again, you mustkick, Beattie. And don’t stop!’
She tried to tell him she understood but her voice was stolen by the cold water and the panic. Had he heard her? She thought she saw him turn onto his stomach and begin swimming in the opposite direction from her in a great curving arc, heading at first out to sea and then turning round towards the bay, his arms powering him in great strokes, and all the time he was shouting, ‘Go with the water until it drops you.’
Her legs had no strength left and the tide still dragged her straight out to sea. Swim away from him, she thought. In spite of all her instincts to try to follow after him, fighting the tide, she overcame them.
She flattened her body on the surface of the lapping waves and let the tide pull her away from the beach, from Atholl, and out to sea, astonished at its speed. How could calm water have such ferocity just beneath the surface? After a few moment’s floating, resting her exhausted limbs, she realised she was utterly alone in the water; she could no longer see Atholl and wasn’t aware that he was still calling to her now he’d reached the beach, but she replayed his words over and over as she felt the current loosen its grip, ‘When the current drops you again, you mustkick, Beattie. And don’t stop!’
So she kicked and she didn’t stop. She kicked with all her might, and dragged her arms through the water, fighting for every breath. She felt the current’s pull dissipate completely, and found she was able to turn in a wide arc. Swimming felt impossible now. Lead in her legs, her stomach empty – they hadn’t unpacked their picnic, wanting to cool off with a swim before eating, her eyes and her lungs burned from the salt water. There was no hope of making it all the way back to the furthest edge of the beach, avoiding the ripcurl current. There was no strength left in her body and she felt the fight leave her.
Somehow, Beatrice wasn’t sure how, Atholl was in the water again, swimming towards her, his face paler than she had ever seen and he was calling out, ‘Thank God.’
Suddenly, they were swimming together. She was on her back kicking her legs and he had his arm around her body, dragging her in a one-armed breaststroke towards the shore. After what felt like a long while spent between sleep and waking, she became aware of being carried from the water, her body a dead weight. And she was against Atholl’s chest, and she was alive.
The sharp shards of ancient bleached algae felt like her own plump bed at the inn as he lay her down on the coral beach. She could hear him through her exhaustion asking if she was all right and begging her to say something.
‘You keep saving me, Atholl Fergusson,’ she gasped out, as she brought into focus his sea blue eyes. ‘I’m supposed to rescue myself.’
She saw the relief in his face before he rolled onto his back on the shore, his chest expanding with each breath, his stomach rippling with wry laughter. They both lay back under the hot sun and faced the glare of the sky.
