11. A Dip in the Sea

11

A Dip in the Sea

Josie felt certain Hilda would lend her a chainsaw, but not if she had lost her expensive petrol strimmer. Giving the treehouses one last withering glare, she headed down the switchbacks of the path towards the shore below.

It was lucky no one had been on the intersecting coast path when the tumbling strimmer came bouncing past. Perhaps Josie now had grounds to call the local police, get the squatters thrown out of the campsite once and for all.

By the time she had negotiated the private section of path, her thighs ached from the steep descent. She climbed over the rope on to the public coast path, paused to catch her breath, then tentatively peered over the crumbing section of cliff to see how far the strimmer had fallen.

To her dismay, the strimmer had fallen all the way down into the water some fifty yards below. Josie let out a long sigh, wondering what she would tell Hilda. Her friend would likely forgive her for the strimmer’s watery demise, but it was a matter of principle. She glanced back up the slope and saw a line of faces peering over the edge of the clearing, watching her.

Josie gave a small shake of the head.

You won’t win.

In the divorce court she had fought Reid with everything she had, refusing to let him push through his bogus claims that she had restricted his earning power, that she had held him back in his career. Utter lies, the lot of it, yet somehow the judge, spotted at one point during a break humming one of Reid’s songs, had fallen for every last lie and sob story. Reid had got his way in every single decision, and what little Josie had retained went to pay for her lawyer. When their old family house did eventually sell, she would be left with too little to buy a place of her own, perhaps just enough to fritter away on rent for a few years before she was destitute enough to apply for social benefits.

He had comprehensively ruined her, but if defeat in the greatest battle of her life had done anything, it had made her reluctant to lose again.

You will not win.

There was another path that descended to the cove below. Josie made her way down, finding herself on a pleasant but secluded beach. Tiny waves tickled the shoreline, the sea all but becalmed. The grey sand stretched around the inlet until ending at some craggier slate outcrops that backed up against the cliffs, their angles creating a series of narrow inlets.

The strimmer had fallen over there somewhere. Josie marched across the beach, determined to retrieve it, then climb back up to the campsite and give the treehouse people an ultimatum. Either they get out of the trees and leave the campsite, or there would be trouble.

A jagged outcrop of slate stood between her and where the strimmer must have fallen. Josie pulled off her wellington boots and socks, then climbed up onto the rock, wincing as the barnacles and limpets poked into the soft soles of her feet. It must take practice, she realised, to negotiate the rocks on a beach, the way she had seen kids down at Porth Melynos harbour doing it. Her feet were like delicate fairy wings being smashed by a mace, each step bringing fresh agony as she clambered up the steep side of rock.

Reaching the top, she peered over, dismayed to see how it just dropped away into the sea fifteen feet below. The water rose and fell, the swell that didn’t seem to bother the beach quite apparent here, lifting and falling like the lungs of some impossibly large machine. With each dip, seaweed-covered rocks were exposed, while each rise brought sprays of white water increasingly close to Josie’s face.

The strimmer lay half in and half out of the water on the other side of the gully, its petrol tank caught on a jutting platform of rock. With each swell it shifted; one decent pull and it would drop into the water, perhaps never to be seen again.

Unable to get down without literally jumping into the water, Josie began to shimmy along the top of the slate ridge, hoping to find some way down on the other side, where hopefully it would be shallow enough for her to wade across to the strimmer. The slate ridge only got steeper, though, rising up to join the cliff, the sea sloshing in and out of a cave carved out of the rockface. Aware she might have to swim across, Josie found the flattest section of rock that she could, then pulled off her jeans and jumper.

The sun was warm on her bare skin as she stripped down to her underwear, but each gust of wind brought a chill that covered her skin in goose pimples. Crouched on top of the ridge, she peered down into the water. There was a ledge below her on the other side, low enough that from there she could slide into the water. The strimmer was no more than a couple of feet away on the other side, perhaps within arm’s length from the water. And with each pull of the swell, a triangle of stones appeared to her left, meaning the water couldn’t be that deep.

It just looked so cold. Josie found herself shivering just at the thought of it. The sensible decision would be to find a way across to the other side and grab the strimmer without going anywhere near the water. As another swell rose, though, the strimmer twisted. One more decent tug and it would be in the water, sinking to the bottom. If the current dragged it out, she would never see it again.

Hilda could afford another; that wasn’t the point. She had lent it to Josie in confidence, and Josie had let this happen. She had let a group of weirdos get the better of her, and she’d had enough of being pushed around.

Heart thundering, she climbed down onto the ledge.

The water rose and fell, a gentle pulsing. It looked inviting but terrifying at the same time. Josie lowered her feet over the edge. If she timed it right, perhaps she could get the strimmer before she got too wet—

‘What the hell are you doing?’

The voice came out of nowhere. Josie flinched, lost her grip on the rock and plunged like a stone over the edge.

The cold shock was like a hard slap all over her body. Her head went under before she could figure out what was going on, then her feet mercifully touched pebbles and she kicked upwards with all her might. As she broke the surface, she twisted around and saw she was already several feet further out than where she had jumped in. The swell rose, lifting her off the bottom, and she felt the drag of the water as it receded, pulling her out.

‘Grab my hand!’

She bobbed again, a few feet further out than before. She couldn’t see any hands, but as she twisted around, she saw a tiny fishing boat bobbing in the water. At first, the figure in the boat was nothing more than a silhouette against the sun, then the water pulled her again, and she recognised Robinson, leaning over the side, one hand outstretched.

‘Come on, I’ve got you,’ he called.

Josie, the cold starting to make her dizzy, flapped her feet, searching for purchase, but the seabed was gone. Out of her depth, a sudden panic set in and she began to struggle, arms flailing. She tried to shout for help, but the water rose over her face and salty water filled her mouth. She kicked again, desperate, arms flailing, wishing in her panic to remember the simple ability to swim.

Then fingers closed over her forearm and pulled. Her head rose out of the water and she coughed, spraying salty water over the side of the boat as it bobbed in front of her. Robinson, leaning down, grabbed her other arm and dragged her upwards until she could get her fingers over the boat rail. Holding on with one hand while Robinson held the other, she clambered like a blind, geriatric seal over the edge and rolled unceremoniously into the floor of the boat.

‘Well, that wasn’t the cleverest idea,’ Robinson said. ‘Are you all right?’

Josie wasn’t sure. She lay curled up in the middle of the boat, shivering with cold, feeling both humiliation at her stupidity, relief at being rescued, and embarrassment over being found in only her underwear, which was all now soaked through.

‘It’s all right,’ Robinson said. ‘Here.’

Josie risked a glance up to see him holding out a towel. She stuck out a hand and snatched it like a frightened child.

‘I’m sorry, it’s all I’ve got. I mean, you’re welcome to my shirt if you like—’

He reached up and started to pull the old polo shirt over his shoulders. She caught a brief glimpse of a toned, tight midriff before she blurted out, ‘No, it’s okay. I’m fine.’

The boat bobbed in the water. Josie slowly sat up, pulling the towel around her shoulders, trying to cover as much of herself as possible. Robinson, sitting at the stern with one hand on an outboard motor, watched her with a puzzled look. Had she not been so cold, Josie might have flushed with embarrassment. As it was, it was all she could do not to let her teeth chatter with cold.

‘Did you leave your clothes in there somewhere? I can take us in to the beach and run over to get them.’

‘St … stri … strim … strimm….’

‘I’m sorry, is that English? I’m afraid I don’t understand. You chose a really bad place for a spring swim. The rip tide is brutal on this side of the cove.’

‘Strimmer!’

‘What? I don’t—’

Josie managed to point, her arm shaking with cold. ‘My friend’s strimmer … it … it fell in the water.’

‘Your friend’s strimmer?’

‘For … cutting … cutting grass.’

‘Ah.’ Robinson nodded. ‘Ah, right. Hang on, we’ll run in and get it.’

He pulled a cord and the outboard started up. In a moment the boat was buzzing into the inlet between the ridges of slate. Josie pointed at the strimmer still hanging half in the water, and Robinson brought the boat in close enough to reach over the side and get a hold of it. He lowered it into the centre of the boat as they bobbed up and down, the swell more powerful now, making Josie only feel more foolish at her attempted rescue.

‘Come on, let’s get back to the beach,’ Robinson said. ‘I actually have some sandwiches and coffee. They’ll sort you out.’

Robinson steered the boat into the shore, then climbed out in the shallows and hauled it up onto the beach. Only when Josie felt the first sand bumping against the bottom of the boat did she think to get out, rolling awkwardly over the side into freezing cold, knee-deep water. She slipped on a rock and splashed down on her bum, soaking herself all over again, then jumped up with a gasp in time to see Robinson give a little laugh.

‘Be careful in there,’ he said, dragging the boat up onto the shore, the muscles of his powerful arms pressing through his shirt. ‘It’s a bit uneven. Not much of a swimming spot, this.’

Josie said nothing, just squeezed out the sopping towel and wrapped it around herself again. It was now wet and cold, but at least it kept the wind off.

‘I’ll go and get your clothes,’ Robinson said, jogging off across the beach before Josie could respond, bare feet moving nimbly from rock to rock. He reached the slate ridge and bounded up the steep, treacherous surface it had taken Josie forever to scramble, walked along the top of the ridge with his arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, then bent down, scooped up her clothes, and came running swiftly back.

‘I’m afraid your jeans had fallen into a rock pool,’ he said, holding them up to reveal a wet circle on the backside. ‘It’s a bit too chilly to dry them out in the sun, but if you want, I can lend you mine—’

He started to unbuckle a pair of tatty jeans, but Josie put up a hand.

‘No!’

Robinson stopped and looked up. ‘All right. Would you like a ride back to the village?’

Josie tried to speak, but no words would come. She wanted to thank him at the very least, but her neck and cheeks were prickling with shame. The best thing to do would be to make an excuse, grab the strimmer and her wet clothes and climb back up to the campsite, then gather a chainsaw or even a can of petrol and a match, and sort out the people in the treehouse once and for all, but all she could do was stare at the grey sand at her feet and wonder if it was easier to sit down than stand up.

She fell more than sat, bumping down onto the sand, the wet towel covering her legs and stomach, hiding as best she could a body that could no longer impress anyone, a body that had been divorced, tossed away, forgotten.

Abandoned, rejected, discarded—

She rolled onto her side, bringing her legs up. A strange, low wailing was coming from somewhere.

She lay there for a long time, the sand actually warm beneath her body, and something else—her jumper—lain over her other side. She wished the ground would absorb her, end her suffering, stop the slow, gradual torment.

It felt like she had been lying there for hours, when she finally found the strength to sit back up and look around. The sun appeared to be in a different place, further across the sky, as though she had fallen asleep in one world and woken up in another.

Robinson was sitting beside her, shirtless, the wind ruffling his hair as he stared out to sea, hazel-brown eyes watching something on the horizon. He looked over as she sat up, took a bite out of a ham sandwich, then held up a plastic cup.

‘Coffee?’ he said.