The Invitation(48)

‘Cigarette?’ Aubrey asks.

‘If you’re having one.’

Aubrey passes him one, and lights it. When Hal inhales he coughs at the peculiar taste.

‘Sorry,’ Aubrey says. ‘Should have warned you. They’re Turkish: perfumed. I won’t be offended if you hate it.’

Hal sniffs it, dubiously. ‘Perhaps they take some getting used to.’

Aubrey takes a long drag on his, and gives a little sigh of pleasure. ‘I discovered these on a job in Istanbul. Never looked back – the normal stuff tastes ever so boring now.’ He waves away the cloud of smoke between them. ‘Where was I?’

‘Your sister – the garden.’

But now Aubrey is distracted, looking towards the water. ‘Oh look. Mrs Truss is going for a swim.’

They watch as Stella wades through the shallows, with only a momentary hesitation at the shock of the cold, and then begins a steady crawl directly away from the beach. His thoughts return inevitably to the walk. How different she had briefly been, before the inevitable retreat into herself. He wonders how he could have thought her two-dimensional. And remembering her on the path, quick and nimble, watching her now, swimming steadily, he wonders how he could have thought her weak.

He looks up and finds Aubrey watching him, curiously, realizes that he is vaguely aware of him having said something.

‘What?’

‘I said you’re rather pensive. Penny for them?’

‘Oh,’ he says quickly, ‘I’m a little tired, from the hike.’

‘Goodness, I can imagine.’ Aubrey takes a drag of his cigarette. ‘She doesn’t appear to be tired, though. One might almost think she were attempting to swim to Corsica.’

Hal follows his gaze. Stella is a long way out now, and still swimming hard. He can see the occasional flash of her limbs, her golden head.

‘Perhaps she is.’

‘Can it be safe out there?’ Aubrey says. ‘It looks rather choppy. Oh look – he’s wondering the same thing.’

Truss is standing at the edge of the beach now, almost in the shallows, one palm shading his eyes. He makes what appears to be a beckoning motion with one hand – but Stella would be too far away to see it, even if she were not facing in the opposite direction. He might do better to try shouting, but Hal is certain that he will not. He knows enough of the man now to understand that Truss would consider this a sign of weakness: a lapse of control.

Hal watches as he walks across to the beach lifeguards, and says something. He turns to Aubrey, who is watching too. ‘Did you hear that?’

Aubrey is frowning, confused. ‘It’s odd, but I thought that I heard him say … no, but then why would he?’

‘What is it?’

‘Well … I thought I heard him tell the man that Mrs Truss was in trouble … that he thought she might be struggling to stay afloat.’

‘She looks all right to me,’ Hal says.

They watch as Stella’s arm rises, just as surely as before, to propel her through the water.

‘Well,’ Aubrey says, ‘perhaps he can see something that we cannot.’ Hal remembers the riptide that had so surprised him in the Gulf of the Poets. It is possible – but then Stella isn’t making any sort of attempt to swim back to shore: rather the opposite.

The lifeguards, finally, seem convinced, and have snapped into action. They are pushing a small motorboat down the shingle, into the shallows. Truss follows them and, at the last minute, steps into the boat too. The craft takes off across the water with an oily gurgle, listing wildly before levelling.

Hal stands, to get a closer look. They are almost upon Stella now – her distance from the shore is only significant in swimming terms. They are slowing, drawing nearer. Truss is leaning over, gesturing to her, and some sort of discussion appears to be taking place. Then one of the men – and Truss – lean over the side and hoist Stella into the boat. There appears to be a brief struggle. She falls into the craft with an audible thump.

Aubrey winces. ‘Gracious.’

The boat makes a swift U-turn, and returns to the beach, one of the men leaping out to guide it towards the shore. Truss steps down with a single, elegant stride. Then he turns and lifts Stella out of the boat, as though she were a child. She has a towel wrapped around her, and her face is expressionless. She does not appear grateful, or relieved. And Hal is certain that what they have just witnessed was not a show of husbandly concern so much as a demonstration of power.

They moor for the evening in the bay. Stella has not left her cabin – and does not appear for supper.

‘My wife would like me to pass on her apologies,’ Truss tells the assembled party. ‘She is not well, this evening.’

‘I suppose it must be the shock,’ Aubrey says. ‘Of getting in trouble like that, on her swim.’

Truss turns to Aubrey, and smiles. ‘Indeed,’ he says, languidly. ‘I believe you could be right. And there was the exertion of the walk, too. My wife is a delicate creature.’

Hal thinks of her stepping nimbly in front of him along the path, of the strength and speed with which she had cut through the water, and thinks it is almost as though they are talking of different women.

Later, Hal remains on deck with Aubrey, watching as the last of the light dissolves into the water.