The Invitation(80)

‘Well,’ the Contessa turns to them. ‘Who will go first?’

There is a nervous silence. Then Stella says, ‘I will.’ She stands, and shrugs off her shirt and shorts to reveal her black bathing suit. It is the one she wore on that first day, when he spotted her on the jetty. He tries harder than ever not to look. The memories of the previous evening crowd in upon him now, demanding attention.

The Contessa helps her fit her feet into the rubber. Then she is sliding into the water, gripping the tow rope. Slowly, the Conte manoeuvres the boat away from her until the tow rope has fully unfurled. Now Hal looks. And suddenly she appears very small, with the vastness of the ocean surrounding her. It is too familiar. The tightening of fear in his chest is involuntary. He ignores it.

Stella raises her thumb to the Contessa’s shouted enquiry. Then the engine thrums, and the line tugs taut. There is no way that Hal can look away now. He feels that if he did so, even for a second, she might disappear from view. He is gripping the metal rail of the boat so tightly he is surprised it doesn’t come away in his hand. On the first few tries her balance falters almost instantly, and she collapses back into the water. Hal finds himself hoping that she will call it a day. But every time, she nods her head: yes, she wants to go again. Finally, the miracle happens. She lifts out of the water and stands, and remains standing, the muscles in her legs taut, her arms straight out in front.

‘Bravo,’ the Contessa shouts, delighted.

Hal is no longer watching her in fear, but awe. She is magnificent to him. How could he ever have thought her weak? She doesn’t fall again. Eventually, when they have made several circuits and figures of eight with her following, poised as a ballet dancer, she makes the sign for them to stop, and drops gracefully back into the water. When they pull her in, she is laughing, and Hal feels again that tightness in his lungs, looking at her, though it has a different cause this time.

‘Well,’ Aubrey says, ‘that’s done it for the rest of us. How can we have a hope after that?’

*

Back at the castle, the rest of the day stretches before him. Will it be the same? They seem to have moved further apart than before any of it happened. It is hard to believe now in the intimacy of the night, in the confidences she made to him.

But later, in bed, it is simple again. They might have known one another for centuries. When they are together like this they fit so perfectly that their two bodies might be the archetypes from which all others are but imperfect iterations.

It is only afterwards, with the clumsiness and misunderstanding of speech, that the distance grows once more. He feels a kind of hopelessness. They are too polite, too cautious, feinting towards one another. Until she turns onto her side, and says, ‘Tell me about your writing.’

‘I don’t know …’

‘I’ve told you everything. And I know almost nothing about you, in return. You told me you stopped after your friend died.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

He knows that he doesn’t have to tell her; that he has a choice. It is the thing that he could not tell Suze, the thing that she refused to hear. He could choose not to tell Stella now, and continue just the same. Not quite the same, perhaps, because the unspoken thing would force yet more distance between them.

He has to tell, he understands this. She has to know. ‘It was my fault.’

She makes no answer. It is a relief: if she were to interrupt him now he might never find the courage to keep talking.

‘We were up in the Arctic, above Norway. The ship was covered in ice. I’d been tasked with clearing some of it off the main deck – me, and a few other men. Morris was one of them.

‘I saw it coming before anyone else. This wave was huge, much bigger than the ones before it. Something had happened to my brain. I can’t explain it, but it was so cold. It was as though my thoughts were slowed down. I didn’t say anything until it was too late. Morris and I – we were right next to the rail. It swept us off our feet and over the side.’

The confusion of seeing only water where before there had been solid metal. How it had seized the breath from him. Unbelievable cold – though it didn’t feel like cold so much as the opposite, like a searing heat. He couldn’t get his breath back, no matter how hard his mouth and lungs worked. The ship, suddenly, seemed an Everest of steel, sheering unscalable out of the water. A row of tiny heads had appeared above the rail. Probably they were shouting, but he couldn’t hear anything except for the wheeze of his own tortured breathing.

He had heard a shout – or not so much a shout, more a cry, like that of an animal in pain. He turned and saw Morris, some ten yards or so further away, fighting to stay afloat. Really struggling.

He managed to pant out the words. ‘Are-you-all-right?’

And the answer had come back in agonized gasps: ‘I-think-my-leg’s-bro-ken.’

The ship wouldn’t turn, he knew this. They couldn’t: they were in convoy. Such things went to the highest level; a misstep could endanger the entire fleet. They were the last ship in the formation, too. There was nothing coming for them.

It came to him. They would die here, surrounded by miles of frozen emptiness. Not by the hands of the enemy, but by random bad luck. His mind became oddly clear and calm then, even his breath seemed to come more easily. Let it be quick, then.

And then a miracle: a tiny object against that pale polar sky, growing gradually larger. A black hoop. He had seen it in its snug compartment on deck; but never thought much about it. It had always looked more ceremonial than functional, with the name of the ship embossed in gold lettering. Now, it was everything. It was life itself.