I sat at the stern and looked into the empty sea. It was still grey, but the sun was beginning to strike other colours in it now: a sombre green, and, deeper, a hint of blue-purple. Below the boat I could see strands of kelp and Maiden’s Hair, toys to the tide, swaying. It looked inviting: and anything was better than the sour atmosphere on the ‘Emmanuelle’.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t, love,’ Ray replied.
‘Why not?’
‘The current that threw us up here must be pretty strong, you don’t want to get caught in it.’
‘But the tide’s still coming in: I’d only be swept back to the beach.’
‘You don’t know what cross-currents there are out there. Whirlpools even: they’re quite common. Suck you down in a flash.’
I looked out to sea again. It looked harmless enough, but then I’d read that these were treacherous waters, and thought better of it.
Angela had started a little sulking session because nobody had finished her immaculately prepared breakfast. Ray was playing up to it. He loved babying her, letting her play damn stupid games. It made me sick.
I went below to do the washing-up, tossing the slops out of the porthole into the sea. They didn’t sink immediately. They floated in an oily patch, half-eaten mushrooms and slivers of sardines bobbing around on the surface, as though someone had thrown up on the sea. Food for crabs, if any self-respecting crab condescended to live here.
Jonathan joined me in the galley, obviously still feeling a little foolish, despite the bravado. He stood in the doorway, trying to
catch my eye, while I pumped up some cold water into the bowl and half-heartedly rinsed the greasy plastic plates. All he wanted was to be told I didn’t think this was his fault, and yes, of course he was a kosher Adonis. I said nothing. ‘Do you mind if I lend a hand?’ he said. ‘There’s not really room for two,’ I told him, trying not to sound too dismissive. He flinched nevertheless: this whole episode had punctured his self-esteem more badly than I’d realized, despite his strutting around.
‘Look,’ I said gently, ‘why don’t you go back on deck: take in the sun before it gets too hot?’
‘I feel like a shit,’ he said. ‘It was an accident.’
‘An utter shit.’
‘Like you said, we’ll float off with the tide.’
He moved out of the doorway and down into the galley; his proximity made me feel almost claustrophobic. His body was too large for the space: too tanned, too assertive. ‘I said there wasn’t any room, Jonathan.’ He put his hand on the back of my neck, and instead of shrugging it off I let it stay there, gently massaging the muscles. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, but the lassitude of the place seemed to have got into my system. His other hand was palm-down on my belly, moving up to my breast. I was indifferent to these ministrations: if he wanted this he could have it.
Above deck Angela was gasping in the middle of a giggling-fit, almost choking on her hysteria. I could see her in my mind’s eye, throwing back her head, shaking her hair loose. Jonathan had unbuttoned his shorts, and had let them drop. The gift of his foreskin to God had been neatly made; his erection was so hygienic in its enthusiasm it seemed incapable of the least harm. I let his mouth stick to mine, let his tongue explore my gums, insistent as a dentist’s finger. He slid my bikini down far enough to get access, fumbled to position himself, then pressed in.
Behind him, the stair creaked, and I looked over his shoulder in time to glimpse Ray, bending at the hatch and staring down at Jonathan’s buttocks and at the tangle of our arms. Did he see, I wondered, that I felt nothing; did he understand that I did this dispassionately, and could only have felt a twinge of desire if I substituted his head, his back, his cock for Jonathan’s? Soundlessly, he withdrew from the stairway; a moment passed, in
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