Final Cut(87)

‘You wrapped up? It’ll be freezing on the water. You can swim, right?’

I look up at the feathery clouds that hang over Bluff House. There’s no point in telling the truth.

‘I can swim, yes. I just don’t like the water. If I fall in, you’ll just have to jump in and rescue me.’

He examines me warily; he’s not sure whether I’m joking. But there’s something in his gaze. He’d do it. If it came down to it. He’d haul me to safety; I know he would.

But how can I be so certain? I stare into his eyes. I recognise their metallic glint. I remember them from way back, from the time before. But if that’s true, then why is every other memory of him lost?

‘Shall we?’

He grabs a rope and heaves the boat closer to the slipway. The sea is flat, almost still. The birds have gone.

‘Hop in.’

I do so, and he follows me. I sit at the back of the boat as he unhooks us and starts the engine. We head out into the open water, and every now and again he glances at me to see how I’m doing. I smile weakly. I’ve begun to shiver, half with the cold, but mostly through fear. I can’t help it. A nameless dread has infused every part of me. All I can see is the water, its hugeness, salty and cold. All I can think of are the endless depths beneath me, waiting to suck me down. The creatures that hide in the dark.

He accelerates a little and we begin to bounce over the water, faster than I’d thought possible, faster than I’d like. Is he showing off? After a minute I can’t bear it any longer. Nausea stirs in my gut.

‘Can we slow down?’

‘Sorry?’

I shout louder, over the noise of the engine. I pat my camera, now in its waterproof case.

‘I want to film!’

He cuts the engine to a dull thrum and I focus the viewfinder. I record The Ship, the slipway, the groynes that cut into the beach. Material that may well prove useful, but that’s a secondary consideration. I’m going through the motions. I look up at Bluff House. It seems further away from down here, the cliffs higher.

‘Can we go over that way?’

‘Aye,’ he says. He steers us towards the cliff, increasing speed once more. My heart beats as loud as the engine’s roar, I can’t look down at the water as it parts beneath us and neither can I look out at the cliff from which my best friend threw herself. I look up instead, at the blue sky, the thin cloud beneath. Way in the distance a single bird appears, too far away to be identifiable, circling like carrion.

I think of Daisy, here in the water, looking up at the night sky. What did she glimpse? The moon, perhaps, or the stars of Orion, of Pegasus and Andromeda. Deep, red Betelgeuse, so distant and already dead. The endless black, above and below.

But then what did she do? Did she swim, after all? Did she find safety?

Bryan glances back.

‘Here okay?’

‘Can we get a bit nearer?’

We leave the shelter of the bay. The water is choppier here; a fine, freezing spray soaks my face. My stomach turns with the cloying stink of petrol. We’re approaching the house now. The cliff is jagged, striated, layered with time. There’s an overhang; I see her fall, straight down into the water.

‘Any good?’

My camera is limp around my neck and I lift it. I film the house, the rocks. I film Malby in the distance, its blinking lights. Why didn’t we go there? Daisy and I? Why didn’t we take off together? What did I do to you that meant you had to jump? Again, I try to work out whether it might’ve been possible to survive the fall, then swim round the bay, to the slipway, perhaps, or in the other direction, to the nearest beach. It looks too far, even for a strong swimmer like Daisy.

‘Bit closer?’

We continue, and then I see a shape, under the surface of the water. Nothing more than a dark shadow carved into the cliff; a jagged, shimmering hole. A cave, just a yard or so across at its widest point, but still it’s a cave. A place to hide. I imagine Daisy there, trapped below the waterline, squirming like a worm caught on the hook. Waiting to be rescued, but by whom?

Bryan cuts the engine.

‘You know,’ he says, ‘it’s been ten years?’

I look blankly at him, but he’s not stupid, he can see what it is I’m filming, that I’m focused on Bluff House and the cave beneath it. He knows this isn’t about background footage for a film examining the everyday life of Blackwood Bay, a film I no longer think I can finish. He knows exactly what this is.

‘Today, I mean. Ten years since she jumped.’

I look back to where he sits. We’re bobbing in the water in the shadow of the cliff. He’s staring at me. His face is calm, his voice quiet, but there’s something deliberate about it, as if he’s more upset than he’s letting on, having to make an effort to appear this together.

Suddenly, it makes sense.

‘You knew her,’ I say. ‘Better than you told me.’

‘You don’t understand,’ he says. ‘Do you?’

I don’t answer, and he makes no move. His eyes are hard, black as pebbles. I feel afraid, though I can’t say why. All I can think of is the water beneath me, still beneath the squall. Déjà vu.

He shifts his weight and, crouching, moves up the boat.

‘You shouldn’t have come back here.’