which Jonathan said he loved me, then I heard Angela’s laughter begin again as Ray described what he’d just witnessed. Let the bitch think whatever she pleased: I didn’t care.
Jonathan was still working at me with deliberate but uninspired strokes, a frown on his face like that of a schoolboy trying to solve some impossible equation. Discharge came without warning, signalled only by a tightening of his hold on my shoulders, and a deepening of his frown. His thrusts slowed and stopped; his eyes found mine for a flustered moment. I wanted to kiss him, but he’d lost all interest. He withdrew still hard, wincing. ‘I’m always sensitive when I’ve come,’ he murmured, hauling his shorts up. ‘Was it good for you?’
I nodded. It was laughable; the whole thing was laughable. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with this little boy of twenty-six, and Angela, and a man who didn’t care if I lived or died. But then perhaps neither did I.
I thought, for no reason, of the slops on the sea, bobbing around, waiting for the next wave to catch them.
Jonathan had already retreated up the stairs. I boiled up some coffee, standing staring out of the porthole and feeling his come dry to a corrugated pearliness on the inside of my thigh.
Ray and Angela had gone by the time I’d brewed the coffee, off for a walk on the island apparently, looking for help.
Jonathan was sitting in my place at the stern, gazing out at the mist. More to break the silence than anything I said:
‘I think it’s lifted a bit.’
‘Has it?’
I put a mug of black coffee beside him.
Thanks.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘Exploring.’
He looked round at me, confusion in his eyes.
‘I still feel like a shit.’
I noticed the bottle of gin on the deck beside him.
‘Bit early for drinking, isn’t it?’
‘Want some?’
‘It’s not even eleven.’
‘Who cares?’
He pointed out to sea. ‘Follow my finger,’ he said.
I leaned over his shoulder and did as he asked.
‘No, you’re not looking at the right place. Follow my finger – see it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘At the edge of the mist. It appears and disappears. There! Again!’
I did see something in the water, twenty or thirty yards from the ‘Emmanuelle’s’ stern. Brown-coloured, wrinkled, turning over.
‘It’s a seal,’ I said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘The sun’s warming up the sea. They’re probably coming in to bask in the shallows.’
‘It doesn’t look like a seal. It rolls in a funny way – ‘
‘Maybe a piece of flotsam – ‘
‘Could be.’
He swigged deeply from the bottle.
‘Leave some for tonight.’
‘Yes, mother.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Just the waves on the beach. Slop. Slop. Slop.
Once in a while the seal, or whatever it was, broke surface, rolled, and disappeared again.
Another hour, I thought, and the tide will begin to turn. Float us off this little afterthought of creation.
‘Hey!’ Angela’s voice, from a distance. ‘Hey, you guys!’
You guys she called us.
Jonathan stood up, hand up to his face against the glare of sunlit rock. It was much brighter now: and getting hotter all the time.
‘She’s waving to us,’ he said, disinterested.
‘Let her wave.’
‘You guys!’ she screeched, her arms waving. Jonathan cupped his hands around his mouth and bawled a reply:
‘What-do-you-want?’
‘Come and see,’ she replied.
‘She wants us to come and see.’
‘I heard.’
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘nothing to lose.’
I didn’t want to move, but he hauled me up by the arm. It wasn’t worth arguing. His breath was inflammable.
It was difficult making our way up the beach. The stones were not wet with sea-water, but covered in a slick film of grey-green algae, like sweat on a skull. Jonathan was having even more difficulty getting across the
beach than I was. Twice he lost his balance and fell heavily on his backside, cursing. The seat of his shorts was soon a filthy olive colour, and there was a tear where his buttocks showed.
I was no ballerina, but I managed to make it, step by slow step, trying to avoid the large rocks so that if I slipped I wouldn’t have far to fall.