Crossing the Line (14 page)

‘I don't feel guilty about anything. I don't even feel that guilty about being alive. I just feel really, really bad that he's dead. And that makes me feel a bit guilty. See? That's it. Don't know why. See?'

No, Orla, not really. ‘Yeah.'

‘It's still August,' she said.

Whatever that had to do with anything. ‘Uh-huh …'

She smiled at me, very suddenly and disarmingly.

‘Fancy a swim?'

If Orla had not been there, I'd never have taken off my clothes.

Those are thirteen lovely words. Unfortunately it was a lot less exciting than it sounds, and a great deal more uncomfortable, because all it involved was getting mad-bugger cold and wet. First of all we sat on the sea wall for a while, leaning our arms on the rusty handrail till our backsides were numb and pockmarked from the lumpy bits in the concrete. I was hoping she'd start to shiver, so I could yawn and stretch and put my arm round her shoulder, but it wasn't cold enough to carry that off, and I vividly recalled what had happened to Kev. She was kind of preoccupied, anyway, texting her mother for the umpteenth time to say she was all right. After a bit she snapped her phone shut and put another bit of gum in her mouth. The old bit, wrapped up in a bus ticket, she
flicked down on to the hard-packed sand beyond the shingle.

The tide was quite far out, the sea calm and glossy black. Sluggish waves thumped on to the shore fifty metres away, lacy foam just licking the end of the breakwater. Out towards the harbour, light glowed white and orange, but in front of us all was blackness. There were no stars reflected in the sea. If there were any in the sky, you couldn't see them for the glare of the town.

In the winter, I remembered, when the north-east wind was whipping ice crystals across the esplanade, you could put your bare hand on this railing and it would stick. You'd have to pull it off and leave skin behind. What made me think of that?

I risked a sideways glance. ‘See that nose ring?'

‘Uh-huh.' Orla didn't turn.

‘Well. When it's cold. I mean really cold. Does it, like, give you ice burns?'

Her body sagged against the railing, world-weary. Resting her head on her arms, she flopped it sideways to give me a look of withering disbelief.

I guess that was a no, then.

‘Nice night,' she said.

‘Water'll be freezing,' I said.

‘Tough guy,' she said. ‘I thought you were going to swim?'

I thought you were going to as well.
I just said, ‘Yeah,' and pulled my T-shirt over my head, then pulled myself
up by the railings and toed off my trainers. Then I yanked off my socks one at a time. I was switched on enough to know that it's socks before jeans, to avoid looking a complete prat. After the jeans, though, that would be the tricky part. That would be the moment of decision, so I left them on for the time being.

I ducked under the railings and lowered myself down with one hand. The sea wall was about four metres high and kind of steep, with stones set into the concrete. I could push myself away, try to run down and probably smack face-first into the shingle. Or I could let go and drop. It would have been smarter and cooler to go round to the steps, of course, but too late to think about being smart. Instead I chose the lesser of two evils, letting go of the rail and half sliding, half falling to the beach. It was relatively graceful, I suppose, and I managed not to howl when the sea wall took a layer of skin off my ribs.

I looked up. Orla was looking down. I could see her mouth moving round the gum.

‘You coming?'

‘In a minute,' she said. Taking her gum out of her mouth, she stuck it on the railing. A light flared, casting a glow across her face, and the tip of a cigarette burned fierce and bright.

Peeling off my jeans, I stood for an uncertain moment. It would be cooler and harder to take off my underpants too. It would also be that tiny degree more painful when I went in the sea.

I decided I did not look nonchalant enough, standing there in my underwear; in fact there was a touch of prissiness about it. What the hell. With a last quick check for passers-by – I didn't want to be arrested – I took off my underpants too. Best to get this over with quickly, then. Without a backward glance at Orla, I bolted down the sand and into the water, plunging through till the depth and the temperature finally slowed me down.

Mustn't squeal, I thought, gritting my teeth. How girly would that be?

It wasn't so bad. Not once I was in. It was August, and anyway there comes a point when you're too numb to feel it any more. I did a few frantic strokes to warm myself up, then trod water, rubbed seawater out of my face and stared back at the distant glow of Orla's fag. Now that I wasn't feeling the cold so much, I could feel the salt stinging the lovely new scrape down my side. That was going to look great in the morning.

I floated on to my back and stared up. Honestly, I was beginning to enjoy myself now. The waves were soothingly small, rocking me, splashing my face, so I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I saw there were stars after all. You could see them from out here, or maybe my eyes had adjusted. I could make out Orion's left foot, maybe, and something that might or might not have been a Plough or a Bear – I'm not good with stars – and there was a broad arc of lighter darkness. It might have been the Milky Way; it might have been the reflected
glow of a million street lights. I stared up into the darkness, contemplating the universe, needing Orla suddenly like I needed to breathe. How else could anyone stand being so small and transient? Only by being alive and shouting your head off at the gods and reproducing your genes when you got a chance.

Um. But maybe hold the reproduction for a bit …

Splashing upright, I faced a shore that seemed a lot further away. I could have been floating in space at that moment, trying to breathe in a vacuum, and I was terribly lonely.

Scared, too. I could no longer see the bright burning tip of a cigarette; I could no longer see a hunched silhouette against the street-lit glare of the esplanade. Was she too far away, or was she gone? My limbs felt heavy and numb, as if they might grow waterlogged and drag me under, and I could no longer feel the sting of my scraped side.

I took a few strokes into the lapping waves, thinking I might drift back towards shore, but I didn't. The sea was calm but wasn't there an undertow in this bay? What was going on beneath the surface? I started to shiver again as the cold reached my bones, and then I started to panic. And I still couldn't see Orla. What had happened to Orla?

Treading water furiously, I tried to warm myself up so I could swim. Of course there was a sodding undertow. I couldn't feel it; it simply drew me out and further out. Some student drowned last summer, I remembered. Some guy who was too stupid to know any better …I tried not
to think about it. Instead I peered up and down the beach, screwing up my eyes into the white glare above the sea wall and the contrasting dark shadows beneath.

Now I could see a different shape of darkness moving. She had come down the concrete steps, like anyone sensible would, and was crouching down to something on the beach. Her shape was all wrong and it took me a bit of time to make out that the stick figure held an armful of clothing. My clothes. She'd come down to the beach to get my jeans and my underpants. I thought I could see my trainers, hooked into two fingers of one hand.

She stopped and looked out towards me. At least, I think she did. She seemed to do that, but no way could I see the expression on her face.

My legs were flailing in the water now. I was cold, and scared, and ragingly angry, not so much with her as with myself. It's the oldest one in the book, Nick. The oldest one in the book. How are you going to get home now? Make that, how are you planning to get home assuming you avoid both drowning and hypothermia? Furious, I was furious. How could you imagine she wanted you for your scintillating company? Oh, why not just drown, Nicholas, and avoid the humiliation?

The darkness that was Orla moved, turned, headed for the steps. She didn't even dignify me by giving me the finger; for Orla Mahon, as she climbed the steps and left me to sink in my own stupidity, I no longer even existed. Her shadow moved, onwards and upwards, up towards
the esplanade, leaving me in the lightless starless sea.

At the railing she hesitated and turned to me again. I think she did. It was hard to tell.

Laying down the armful of clothes, she stood up, a normal shape again in the white glow of street lighting. She walked back down the steps and then all the way to the water's edge, till I thought I could make out her features once more. Still couldn't read them, but at least I could see black-rimmed eyes in a pale hard beautiful face. I thought I caught the tiny glint of a nose ring in the light of what might have been the Milky Way. But she was far away, so far away. I probably imagined how she looked. My imaginary girlfriend.

‘You OK?' she called.

‘Yes.' I couldn't say more for my chattering teeth, and I didn't want to betray myself. I decided I had better die with dignity. Water slapped innocuously at my shoulders as the gentle sea pulled me ever further out into silence and space. It was so quiet I could hear waves hitting the shore, so far away.

She stared out to sea, while the distant thud and rush of the waves echoed in my head and made it throb. I wished it would stop so I could hear her breathing. At this distance? Stupid thing to wish for. Like I mattered a damn to a relentless sea, on an indifferent planet, in the middle of an unimaginable universe. Suddenly I felt like crying.

‘You're too far out,' she called.

‘No I'm not.'

Thud. Rush. Whisper of surf over shingle.

‘You are.'

Thud. Rush. Whisper. Thud. Rush. Whisper.

‘Swim back in a bit.'

No,
I was about to yell, but my head was pounding with coffee and cold fear. Trying to look leisurely, I took a few strokes towards shore. Then a few more, faster and stronger, fighting the tide properly. I gasped, got a mouthful of North Sea, and panicked. As luck would have it, my body's response to panic was to strike out in a flailing ungainly crawl towards Orla, instead of just thrashing around till I sank. Ten more metres, and another ten. After longer than I liked, I felt my toes sink and scrabble in sand. Two more strokes. Panic, that was all. The suck of the tide had been gentler than I deserved, and I was back in my depth.

Orla took a step back. I watched her. I was still a good way from shore. How fast could I run, chest-deep in the water? Could I reach her running before she got to the steps? Could I bring her down in the sand before she escaped on to the esplanade?

No, I decided. I dug my toes deeper in the drifting sand, but stayed in the water up to my neck, moving my arms beneath the inky surface, pretending I was still treading water even as I edged closer to her. She took another step back. She was on to me.

‘Orla,' I said.

‘What?'

I wanted to say
Please don't do this,
or
Eff off before I kill you,
but I couldn't decide on which, so I didn't say either. She just stood there motionless.

After a bit she tilted her head, gripped her hair in one fist and brought it down in front of her shoulder, then started to twist it into a long braid. And I just watched her do it, because it was fascinating.

The mad thing was, I was still fantasising about rugbytackling her and bringing her down into the sand, but not because I was angry.

When she came to the end of her braid she let it hang unsecured as she shrugged off her jacket and let it flop to the sand. Under it she was wearing a strappy top with a diamante star right between her breasts. Her bra straps showed and so did her navel, where another little metal ring glinted. Orla was not skinny or toothpicky but her flesh didn't bulge out over her belt: her stomach just looked as hard and strong and solid as the rest of her. I swallowed, got another mouthful of sea, and choked. My limbs had gone all numb again.

She kicked off her sandals and tugged off her skirt, but to my chagrin she didn't take off the cropped top or her underwear. She waded into the water, hesitated, then waded further. She didn't look at me. She didn't shiver, or gasp, or squeal. She just kept wading till the water was up to her thighs and her waist and her ribcage, and then she pushed herself forward and swam into my arms.

I almost forgot to put them round her, I was so shocked.
But I did. I felt her arms go round my back, too, and I shivered again.

‘You're cold,' she said, just as I said, ‘It's not that cold.'

Her pigtail floated out beside her head, not unravelling, staying together, a fat sleek watersnake rising and falling with the black waves. I eyed it, hypnotised, then turned my gaze back to her face. Orla Mahon's face, and it was a hand's breadth away from mine. I looked at her nose ring, and then at her black-edged eyes, and then at her mouth. Which opened slightly. I saw her tongue run across her teeth. And then she kissed me.

I'll have to repeat that. Orla Mahon
kissed me.

Oh, God. She tasted of spearmint and Silk Cut and watermelon lipgloss. She tasted like everything I ever wanted in my whole life. There was a helpless little whimper of lust, and that came from me. At least the sea was cold enough to stop me making a complete idiot of myself. If you see what I mean.

The sea. Cold! My stomach plummeted. I hoped to God I hadn't shrunk.

As I tensed, anxious, Orla drew away, studying my face bit by bit. She took my skull in both hands. I stumbled in clumsy slow motion, regaining my footing in the yielding sand just in time for her to put her lips to my cheekbone, right under my eye socket. Her lips lingered, then she licked them.

‘Salty,' she said. ‘That the sea?'

‘Yes,' I lied. It was too much to explain, all that about
being small and transient and mortal in a very big universe.