‘Do you both live there?’ asked Alicia.
‘More or less,’ Roland answered. ‘Over time I’ve built myself a hut down on the beach. I’d almost say it’s my home now.’
‘Your own beach hut?’ Alicia asked, trying to spot it.
‘You won’t see it from here,’ Roland explained. ‘It was an old fisherman’s hut that had been abandoned. I fixed it up and now it’s not too bad. You’ll be able to see it in a minute.’
Roland led them onto the beach, where he removed his sandals. The sun was already quite high and the sea shone like liquid silver. The beach was deserted and a salty breeze blew in from the water. Roland pointed towards the shoreline and the larger stones glowing beneath the surf.
‘Mind these stones. I’m used to them, but it’s easy to trip if you’re not.’
Alicia and her brother followed Roland along the beach to his hut. It was a small wooden cabin painted blue and red with a narrow porch. Max noticed a rusty lamp hanging from a chain.
‘That’s from the ship,’ Roland explained. ‘I’ve brought up a whole pile of stuff from down there. What do you think of it?’
‘It’s fantastic,’ exclaimed Alicia. ‘Do you sleep here?’
‘Mostly in the summer. In winter it gets too cold, and anyway I don’t like leaving my grandfather alone up there.’
Roland opened the door and let Alicia and Max go in first.
‘Welcome to my palace.’
The inside of the hut was like some old bazaar filled with nautical antiques. The booty Roland had pulled out of the ocean over the years shone in the dark like a mysterious hoard of treasure.
‘It’s mostly cheap nonsense,’ said Roland, ‘but I like to collect it. Maybe we’ll find something today.’
The hut also contained an old cupboard, a table, a few chairs and a rickety bed. Above the bed were shelves, with a few books and an oil lamp.
‘I’d love to have a house like this,’ said Max.
Roland smiled sceptically.
‘I’m open to offers,’ he joked, clearly proud of the impression the hut had made on his friends. ‘Right, let’s go.’
They followed Roland to the water’s edge and he began to untie the bundle containing his diving gear.
‘The ship lies about twenty-five or thirty metres off the shore. The water gets deep very quickly; three metres in and you can’t touch the bottom. The hull is about ten metres down,’ Roland explained.
Max and Alicia exchanged a look.
‘Yes,’ said Roland, noticing. ‘It’s not a good idea to try to reach the bottom the first time you dive. Sometimes, when there’s a heavy swell, the currents can be dangerous. Once I nearly scared myself to death.’
Roland handed Max a mask and a pair of flippers.
‘There’s only enough equipment for two. Who’s coming down first?’
Alicia pointed to Max.
‘Thank you,’ whispered Max.
‘Don’t worry,’ Roland reassured him. ‘You just have to get started. The first time I went down I nearly had a fit. There was a gigantic moray eel in one of the funnels.’
‘A what?’ Max jumped.
‘Nothing,’ Roland replied. ‘I’m only joking. There aren’t any strange creatures down there, I promise. Which is odd, because usually sunken ships are like a kind of fish zoo. But not this one. I suppose they don’t like it. You’re not going to get scared now, are you?’
‘Scared?’ said Max. ‘Me?’
Although Max was busy putting on his flippers, he noticed that Roland was having a good look at his sister as she removed her cotton dress, revealing her white bathing costume – the only one she had – and waded into the sea.
‘Hey,’ Max hissed at him. ‘She’s my sister, not a piece of cake. OK?’
Roland threw him a cheeky grin.
‘You’re the one who invited her, not me,’ he replied with a cat-like smile.
‘Let’s get in the water,’ said Max quickly. ‘It will do you good.’
Alicia turned and when she saw them in their masks and snorkels she grinned.
‘You should see yourselves!’ she said, unable to stop herself from laughing.
Max and Roland looked at one another through their masks.
‘Before we go,’ said Max. ‘I’ve never done this before. Swim underwater, I mean. I’ve swum in swimming pools, but I’m not sure that I’ll know…’
Roland rolled his eyes.
‘Do you know how to hold your breath underwater?’ he asked.
‘I said I didn’t know how to dive, not that I was an idiot,’ replied Max.
‘Well, if you know how to hold your breath, you know how to swim underwater,’ Roland said.
‘Be careful,’ Alicia said. ‘Listen, Max, are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Roland assured her, turning to Max and patting him on the shoulder. ‘You first, my captain.’
*
For the first time in his life, Max submerged himself beneath the surface of the sea and a whole universe of light and shadow – more amazing than anything he had imagined – opened up before his eyes. Sunbeams filtered through the water in veils of nebulous light that swayed gently with the motion of the waves, and the surface was transformed into an opaque dancing mirror. Max held his breath for a few more seconds, then re-emerged for air. A few metres behind, Roland was watching him attentively.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
Max nodded enthusiastically.
‘You see? It’s easy. Swim next to me,’ Roland advised him before diving again.
Max took a last look at the shore and saw Alicia waving at him. He waved back then swam off next to his friend, heading for the open sea. Roland guided him to a point which seemed quite far from the beach although Max knew it was barely thirty metres away. At sea level, distances seemed to grow. Roland touched his arm and pointed towards the ocean bed. Max breathed in and put his head underwater, adjusting his diving mask. His eyes took a few seconds to get used to the submarine gloom. Only then was he able to admire the spectacle of the sunken shell of the ship, lying on its side and enveloped in a spectral light. The ship must have been about fifty metres long, perhaps more, and had a large crack all the way from the bow to the bilge, a gaping black wound inflicted by the sharp claws of the rocks hidden in the shallows. On the bow, under a layer of copper-coloured rust and swaying seaweed, Max could make out the ship’s name, the Orpheus.
The Orpheus looked as if she’d been an old freighter, not a passenger ship. Her splintered steel was covered in algae but, just as Roland had said, there wasn’t a single fish swimming around the hull. The two friends swam over her, keeping to the surface and stopping every now and then to have a good look at the remains of the wreck. Roland had said the ship was lying about ten metres down, but from the surface the distance seemed vast. Max wondered how Roland had managed to recover all the objects they’d seen in his hut. As if he’d read Max’s thoughts, his friend signalled to him to wait on the surface and then dived down, kicking powerfully with his flippers.
Max watched Roland descend until he could touch the hull of the Orpheus with his fingertips. Then Roland slowly crept towards the platform that had once been the ship’s bridge, holding on to anything he could grasp. From the surface Max could make out the wheel at the helm and other instruments that were still inside the vessel. Roland swam towards the doorway of the bridge and went in. Max felt a pang of anxiety as he saw his friend disappear into the sunken ship. He kept his eyes riveted to the entrance while Roland moved about inside the bridge, wondering what he would do if anything happened. A few seconds later, Roland emerged and swam quickly up to him, a garland of bubbles rising behind him. Max lifted his head out of the water and breathed deeply. Roland’s face appeared just a metre away, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Surprise!’ he yelled.
Max saw he was holding something in his hand.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to the strange metal object Roland had salvaged from the bridge.
