One Night on the Island(58)

I jiggle from foot to foot, aware I don’t have much time before Mack comes searching for me. Brisk, I unzip my coat. I know it’s going to be freezing but this very second I don’t feel it because adrenaline is coursing through my blood, warming me from the inside as I begin to undress – coat, sweater, boots, jeans – until I’m down to just my underwear. I pause, unsure for a second. Am I brave enough? I think of Julia’s majestic galleon turned towards unknown shores and it gives me just enough courage to step out of the last of my clothes. I feel exhilarated and alive – this is the most freeing thing I’ve ever done. I stretch out one leg and dip my toes into the water. Jesus God, it’s polar cold.

‘Cleo, are you –’

I startle at the sound of Mack’s voice and turn to see him round the corner into the cavern.

‘Oh.’ He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it again, obviously taken by surprise. ‘You found it already.’

‘I did,’ I say.

‘And you took all your clothes off,’ he says.

‘I did that too,’ I say, the sides of my mouth twitching because the big, confident American is as wrongfooted and dumbstruck as a teenager.

He glances behind him. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’ he says. ‘You looked like you were having a moment.’

I consider his offer. He’s right, I was in the moment. I push my shoulders back and let the frigid air harden my nipples. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more womanly as I take the clip from my hair and shake it out around my shoulders. ‘Mack, I’m twenty-nine years three hundred and sixty-four days old today. I feel magnificent and I’m going to get in this pool now and I’d really like it if you’d stay and photograph me while I do it.’

I hear him swallow, loud in the quiet space.

‘I can do that for you,’ he says, kind of sexy but also in a tone that suggests he’s genuinely touched I’ve asked him to document this moment of my life. ‘You probably shouldn’t stay in there too long though. I don’t want to make a habit of rescuing you from cold water.’

I smile, holding his gaze for a blazing second, and then I close my eyes and draw in a deep, fortifying breath. I can feel the air settling on my skin like glitter. I’m a beam of pure magic. I psyche myself up and jump into the water, immersing all at once because I know from experience it’s the only sane way to do it.

‘Oh my God!’ I yell, opening my eyes wide to blink away the water droplets on my lashes. ‘Mack, it’s like actual ice! I think I might die!’

He’s on his haunches, camera raised, and he gives me the thumbs-up as I gasp and laugh with pure shock, chilled to my bones as I swim across the surface of the water and then turn on my back, floating, thrilled, turned on, alive. I want him to catch every stroke with his lens, to see the woman who has shed her clothes like a snakeskin on the rock, to somehow record this intoxicating feeling so I can look back on it when I’m home again and remember who I was in this very moment, because I want to be this version of me for ever.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been that cold,’ I say, curled up in the corner of the sofa with a hot chocolate.

‘Not even when you fell in the ocean?’ Mack is in the armchair beside me, his laptop on his knees. He lit a fire while I took a long hot bath and I’m finally feeling as if my inner temperature is somewhere close to normal again.

‘That was more shock than cold,’ I say. ‘Today took it to a whole new level.’

He’s been quiet, looking through the images from the cavern. I haven’t seen them yet. I don’t know if the feelings inside me translated on to film or if I just look like a crazy woman drowning in a gloomy pond. And then he turns his screen towards me.

‘This one is my favourite,’ he says.

I don’t speak for a while. It’s probably the best photograph anyone will ever take of me. I’m suspended on my back in the water, my hair floating around me on the surface, eyes closed, arms flung wide. I’m smiling, lost in the moment. I’m a cavewoman, I’m a sea queen, I’m a force of nature.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m glad you were there.’

He closes his laptop and moves to sit on the sofa with me. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘I’ve never seen anything like you today.’

I put my empty mug on the floor and we lie down together, warmed by the flames in the hearth. Whenever I look back on the final day of my twenties, I’ll remember the fire and the ice, Julia’s galleon on the cave wall, and the woman I became as I swam in that pool.





Cleo





24 October


Salvation Island


DEARLY BELOVED ME


The weather gods have decided to blow away the rain clouds in honour of my thirtieth birthday. I’ve been awake for about ten minutes, lingering in the comfort of the warm bed, in the buffer zone between sleep and my nervous anxiety about the day ahead. Mack wasn’t here when I opened my eyes, but I can smell coffee on the stove and there’s a fresh fire in the hearth. ‘Happy Birthday, Cleo,’ I say into the quietness of the lodge. ‘Love you.’ It feels weird. It sounds weird. But today is about self-acceptance, and that means it’s about love, so I’m starting the day as I mean to go on.