She went back to the huts and I walked over to the cenote and looked down into the dark water. I couldn't see bottom and it could have been anything between six inches and sixty feet deep, so I thought it was inadvisable to dive in. I climbed down to water level by means of the steps, let myself into the water and found it pleasantly cool. I splashed about for a bit but I didn't find bottom, so I dived and went down to look for it. I must have gone down thirty feet and I still hadn't found it It was bloody dark down there, which gave me a good indication of conditions if I had to dive for Fallon. I let myself up slowly, dribbling air from my mouth, and came up to sunlight again.
'I wondered where you were,' Katherine called, and I looked up to see her poised on the edge of the cenote, silhouetted against the sun fifteen feet above my head. 'Is it deep enough for diving?'
Too deep,' I said. 'I couldn't find bottom.'
'Good!' she said, and took off in a clean dive. I swam slowly around the cenote and became worried when she didn't come up, but suddenly I felt my ankles grabbed and I was pulled under.
We surfaced laughing, and she said, That's for pulling me under in Fallen's pool.' She flicked water at me with the palm of her hand, and for two or three minutes we had a splashing match like a couple of kids until we were breathless and had to stop. After that we just floated around feeling the difference between the coolness of the water and the heat of the direct sun.
She said lazily, 'What's it like down there?'
'Down where?'
'At the bottom of this pool.'
'I didn't find it; I didn't go down too far. It was a bit cold.'
'Weren't you afraid of meeting Chac?'
'Does he live down there?'
'He has a palace at the bottom of every cenote. They used to throw maidens in, and they'd sink down to meet him. Some of them would come back with wonderful stories,'
'What about those who didn't come back?' 'Chac kept them for his own. Sometimes he'd keep them all and the people would become frightened and punish the cenote. They'd throw stones into it and flog it with branches. But none of the maidens would ever come back because of that.'
'You'd better be careful, then,' I said.
She splashed water at me. 'I'm not exactly a maiden.'
I swam over to the steps. The chopper should be coming back soon. Another batch of film to be processed.' I climbed halfway up and stopped to give her a hand.
At the top she offered me a towel but I shook my head. 'I'll dry off quickly enough in the sun,'
'Suit yourself,' she said. 'But it's not good for your hair.' She spread the towel on the ground, sat on it, and started to rub her hair with another towel.
I sat down beside her and started to flip pebbles into the cenote. 'What are you really doing here, Jemmy?' she asked.
'I'm damned if I know,' I admitted. 'It just seemed a good idea at the time.'
She smiled. 'It's a change from your Devon, isn't it? Don't you wish you were back on your farm -- on Hay Tree Farm? Incidentally, do you always make hay from trees in Devon?'
'It doesn't mean what you think. It's a dialect word meaning a hedge or enclosure.' I flicked another pebble into the pool. 'Do you think that annoys Chac?'
'It might, so I wouldn't do it too often -- not if you have to dive into a cenote. Damn! I don't have any cigarettes.'
I got up and retrieved mine from where I had left them and we sat and smoked in silence for a while. She said, 'I haven't played about like that in the water for years.'
'Not since the carefree days of the Bahamas?' I asked. 'Not since then.'
'Is that where you met Paul?'
There was the briefest pause before she said, 'No. I met Paul in New York.' She smiled slightly. 'He isn't the type you find on the beach in the Bahamas.'
I silently agreed; it was impossible to equate him with one of those Travel Association carefree holiday advertisements -- all teeth, sun glasses and suntan. I probed deeper, but went about it circuitously. 'What were you doing before you met him?'
She blew out a plume of smoke. 'Nothing much; I worked at a small college in Virginia.'
'A school teacher!' I said in surprise. She laughed. 'No -- just a secretary. My father teaches at the same college.'
'I thought you didn't look like a schoolmarm. What does your father teach? Archeology?'
'He teaches history. Don't imagine I spent all my time in me Bahamas. It was a very short episode -- you can't afford more on a secretary's salary. I saved up for that vacation for a long time.'
I said, 'When you met Paul -- was that before or after he'd started on this Vivero research?'
'It was before -- I was with turn when he round the Vivero letter.'
'You were married then?'
'We were on our honeymoon,' she said lightly. 'It was a working honeymoon for Paul, though.'
'Has he taught you much about archeology?'
