Stupid to do this in January. Brainless. Foolhardy.
I hear a cry above me. Con’s pale face, like a coin. I can see her running down towards the harbour, the gangplank, where she might try to reach me. But by that time, it will be too late for the man.
I dive down, kicking out. Under the surface, a vice of icy water clamps around my skull. I surface, gasping, then plunge down again, reaching out. Nothing.
I come up for another lungful, then flip and dive steeply, deeper than I feel I should, until my own chest is alight, the air bubbling from my lips. My thoughts are screaming.
Three minutes. Three minutes.
And still nothing until – something soft. A hand? Clothes? I grasp the fabric, yank and pull, flicking my body upwards, tugging something to the surface – heavy, like some sea creature dragged up from the deep.
God, oh, God. He’s dead and I’m too late.
The bone-breaking cold of the water squeezes me as I slap him across the face. Again and again I shout at him, some wordless cry. This will be what the islanders talk of later – this moment when I pulled a drowned foreigner from the water and screamed life back into him.
They will agree that it was unnatural I’d dived for him, uncanny that I’d saved him. And that shriek I’d given – Good Lord, but did you hear it? Echoed off the cliffs, it did, as if it was some beast screaming, not a woman.
But that is all later.
Now, the man in my arms coughs and heaves and splutters. I turn him in the water and strike his back, keeping his head out of the sea with my other hand.
When he has stopped choking, I pull his face close to mine and put my hand under his chin. His skin is chill, but I can feel the rasp of his stubble, can feel the heave of air in his throat and down into his chest. His hair brushes my cheek. I rest for a moment, panting, counting the hammering beat of blood under his skin.
I swim slowly, turning my face from the waves that keep filling my nose and mouth. A heaviness creeps into my limbs and I am suddenly aware of the yawn of water beneath me, the way my body is slowing, pulling me downward, as if towards some invisible rope attached to the sea bed.
I am so tired. Saltwater fills my mouth.
I could let him go, this man, this foreigner. I could let him sink and I could swim to the ledge. I could rest.
No! I keep my eyes fixed on Con’s face; she is waiting for me near the gangplank, her hands outstretched. I kick my legs, my muscles screaming as I reach out and clutch the ledge. The guards shout. Hands reach down and grab the man around the arms, lifting him from the water and dumping him on the ground.
A wave buffets me, water filling my nose and mouth. Everything is dark and indistinct. I flail, trying to swim, to surface – but which way is up? Again, that heaviness in my limbs, that downward tug towards the sea floor.
Suddenly, hands are on mine in the water, and then I’m dragged upwards towards light and air. I splutter as Con, in the water next to me, heaves me out of the sea.
We both lie panting on the ledge, then Con puts her arm across my chest.
I grip it.
Heat. Life. Home.
Dimly, I am aware of the guards calling to us, and the Italians muttering, but all of it is a blur of sound.
‘You stupid fool! You could have died,’ she gasps.
‘But I didn’t.’ I smile shakily. ‘You saved me.’
‘I could have died too.’ She pulls away. A finger width of chill between us.
The prisoner is being half lifted, half carried by the guards as they walk up the hill towards the camp. He is still coughing and unsteady on his feet.
As he approaches the barbed-wire fence of the camp, the wind yanks a damp piece of card from his hand. It flutters through the air.
I run forward to pick it up. It is a tiny picture of Mary and Jesus and a blood-red heart. Crumpled and grubby, and now sea-soaked, but clearly much-loved.
I can feel eyes upon me, can feel warmth travelling through my chest, into my cheeks. He is staring at me, the prisoner. His hair is wet and his eyes wide.
You’d be dead, I think, if it wasn’t for me. It is a strange thought – it makes him seem more present and more real than any other person there. More, even, than Con.
The prisoner nods at the card. ‘For luck,’ he says.
I hadn’t expected any of the prisoners to speak English. His voice is lilting – there is music in the words and I’m suddenly dry-mouthed, wanting him to speak again.
And he does. ‘For luck,’ he repeats. And then his face breaks into a smile, and he inclines his head towards the sea and shivers; his dark hair falls over his eyes and he pushes it back. I think of how close we had both come to drowning and I grin too, heat travelling through my limbs, a pulse beating in my chest, in my stomach, on the surface of my skin.
The sensation is almost as though I know him already, this man – as if something in my body recognizes him. It is something in the span of his shoulders, but it is mostly in his eyes, in his smile.
He watches me, with the card in my hand, and his head tilted slightly to one side. His shoulders are broad, although he is thin; his stance is upright and proud, even though he is shivering. I am used to people looking at me and Con together, as one, their gaze shifting between us, but this man looks only at me. And, as I gaze back at him, I feel again there is something in this stranger
