The Night Swimmer (14 page)

I put on latex gloves and slathered myself with lanolin, getting it extra thick in my underarms and neck area, where the chafing was worst, with a healthy dose between my legs. In the open ocean the sea lice would try to burrow into your warm parts, and heavy lubricants kept them from attaching. I slipped on a Hothead insulator cap and then a latex cap over that. Most people who drown on long ocean swims, such as the English Channel, die of hypothermia because their brain temperature drops. They feel fine; their minds are telling them they are okay, there isn't much pain, and so they stay in the water until their bodies shut down and they go under. I knew that my arms and legs would go numb as the blood retreated into my chest, but if I kept my head warm I would be less likely to suffer such dangerous delusions. It would take a lot longer for me to become hypothermic than most people, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen. There is a reason why far more people have reached the summit of Everest than have swum the English Channel. A dying mind is a strong magician, especially in the water. When I swam I paid attention.

I hit my wristwatch chrono and dove into the harbor. O'Boyle and Dinny would lead the way, staying a bit off to my left so that I could see them in my normal left-side breathing pattern and so that I wouldn't spend the whole swim eating diesel fumes.

I stroked out while Dinny drew the boat up ahead of me in position. At the harbor mouth I stopped for a moment and fixed Fastnet in my sight line. The sky over the lighthouse hung low with cirrus clouds, swirling like a river, heavy with rain. The swells were perhaps up to two feet, and I could feel the gentle tug of the northern current. The water was cold enough that I would need to keep moving, so I motioned the boat on and started stroking, going into a five-stroke breathing pattern, stretching it out and rolling my shoulders.

As I swam away from the island, the water moved from soft jade to forest green. A quarter mile out of the harbor the visibility was shot, the water murky black speckled with particle matter, krill, and the occasional drifting wrack or other seaweed, solitary circular jellyfish doing their slow convulsions. I did the first mile in twenty minutes, which was a bit quick but I felt strong. I hit a few heavy patches of floating weed, and at one point I had to climb up and crawl over the stuff, my body out of the water, shuffling along on my elbows and knees. On the boat O'Boyle was sitting in a folding chair drinking a can of beer. Dinny had a transistor radio tuned in to a mainland pop station, and the baleful anthems of Robbie Williams floated across the water, alternating with the crackling of the sea and the rushing sound of my own body.

When I reached the mile-and-a-half mark, I knew something was wrong. A warmth in the pit of my stomach, intestinal churning, and at first I thought I may have to endure the humiliation of an open-ocean defecation with O'Boyle and Dinny circling nearby. I wasn't fatigued, but my arms felt wooden and disconnected, I started losing my stroke count and my breathing became lopsided. I looked at my hands, and they were still fleshy and pink. Flaming red meant the body was struggling to fight the cold, and white meant numbness and real danger. The lighthouse didn't look any closer, but that was a common optical illusion for open-water swimming. The weather was good, the water conditions decent, I knew I wouldn't get many chances. There was a gentle tug that pulled through the center of me, a subtle current that kept my arms moving, my eyes on Fastnet. I just had to keep going.

I passed into the second mile and over the deepest part of my swim and my underwater visual perspective flattened out, making it nearly impossible to judge distances. Occasional specks moved and darted in a way that suggested they were alive, but I had no way of knowing how close they were. My hands entered in front of my face like desperate white fish springing into the darkness. Despite this I knew the floor of ocean was dropping away, the spaces opening up, I felt it in my skin, in my heart. It even seemed like I could
see
that depth. It was a glorious feeling. I felt absurd, like a spider crawling across the back of an elephant.

The boat was still up ahead, though a bit too far away and fading to the left, the diesel engine chugging softly. O'Boyle and Dinny had their backs to me, looking over the other side, leaning over the gunwale, pointing at something in water. The boat continued on, now heading southerly, away from Fastnet. I couldn't fathom what they could be looking at in the water, but to see them in that crappy little boat, bobbing on the sea, slowly tailing off to the south as the wheel spun freely, suddenly struck me as extremely poignant and sad. I clutched my knees and let myself float, head back, rising and falling with the swells.

After some time I opened my eyes and discovered I was closer to the lighthouse; the surf was pounding on the rocks and etched stone blocks of Fastnet, maybe a half mile off. I figured I would just go on without O'Boyle and Dinny, get to the lighthouse and back on my own. The nausea was gone, and rather than fatigued I felt explosive and strong, and I powered up and over the swells. I felt like I was flying out of the water, my body rising, the fierce winds whisking under my belly and legs.

The clouds roiled in formations over Fastnet, the beacon shining like an opening eye. The lighthouse, now the height of my forearm in front of me, seemed to move; the light wasn't rotating anymore, rather the sea and all of its contents, including me, were rotating around
it,
as if the lighthouse was some kind of pivot around which the world turned. I spun around, but the boat was nowhere in sight. I checked my watch and found that another hour had gone by, which
was impossible. A sudden feeling of vertigo struck me, like I was standing at the edge of a great height, and when I looked down into the water I saw streams of light erupting from the bottom of the sea, like long strands of golden seaweed, thousands of feet down, pulsing with energy, winding their way up around my feet. I hung facedown in the water like a limp marionette, watching. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Then I began to gag, and when I lifted my head I vomited a heavy gush of fluid, which spread around me on the water like a golden moat. I was treading in a sparkling stew of light and shadow, wavering forms wending their way around my legs like ribbons of fluorescent life. This was when I became afraid.

Then the boat was there, bobbing like a toy just off to my right, two silhouettes on the rail, watching me, one holding a long pole. I felt a tug under my arms, and I was being pulled through the water to the side of the boat. Dinny's twisted face gazing down at me, the mottled thrust of scars skittering across his visage like some kind of segmented cave dwelling insect, his eyes swimming disks of black.

Christ, he said. Completely buggered I'd say.

Then O'Boyle had his arms around me, a rough blanket, and I was sitting on the floor of the boat, cross-legged, looking at my hands in my lap. They were fleshy and pink. I pinched my palm, still warm and full of feeling. O'Boyle was apologizing, the sound of tears in his voice.

It isn't your fault, I said. I just got sick.

I
told
you it was dangerous, O'Boyle said. Listen to me next time, eh? Will ya?

The engines throttled to life as Dinny steered for Clear. Empty beer cans rolled across the deck and tumbled over my legs. I was angry. I shouldn't have had so much trouble. That had never happened to me before.

I'm okay, I said. Just take me back.

*  *  *

By the time we got back to the harbor I felt steady enough to get up the hill to Nora's. O'Boyle insisted that Dinny would go get his
Renault from the North Harbor and would run me up there, but I wanted to walk. The world still seemed wispy and bright, the edges of things streaking as I moved through space, but I took this to be the effect of seasickness and the pressure of my goggles.

That was quite a scare, O'Boyle said. Really thought you mighta had it.

Yeah, I said. Thanks for fishing me out.

I remember that look on his face, how strange and tortured it was. O'Boyle was many things, but he was an honest man at heart. Deception didn't come naturally to him.

Just before I reached Nora's gate, I saw a glinting flash of light farther up the road, near the wind turbines. It was a man balancing a large camera lens on a monopod, pointing in my direction. Behind me glowered Fastnet, and I figured he was likely getting shots of the lighthouse in the oddly lit afternoon. After a moment he turned away, shouldering his camera and disappearing behind a hedge.

I took a long hot shower at Nora's, then caught the afternoon ferry back to Baltimore. At the Nightjar I found Fred holding court with a small crowd of young people at the bar. It was the woofers, Gus the German, Akio, Magdalene, Patrick, and two young women, wearing jeans and rag wool scarves, with headbands and healthy straight teeth. They sipped colorful drinks through tiny straws.
American girls.

Fred followed me into the kitchen. I asked him what they were doing here.

The woofers?

I didn't know that Fred even knew about the woofers.

They've been coming here for a while, he said. Cool people.

Those two American girls woofers?

Stacy and Sara? Yeah. They're nice. You'd like 'em.

*  *  *

I went up to the apartment, intending to lie down and sleep, but spent most of the time staring at the pulsing ceiling and the wavering bars of light through the window. The muffled sounds from the bar
sounded like a subterranean language, and I began to sort and translate the sounds that rose through the floor like spirits of the dead.

When I came downstairs a couple hours later Fred was showing the woofers how to shotgun beers. There was a small crowd of empties on the bar. Fred was punching holes in the sides of the cans with his keys and handing them out, the jukebox jamming old tunes from Supertramp and the Smiths, part of his nostalgic set. The Japanese girl stared at the punctured can, beer spilling on the floor, clearly baffled by not only the method but the purpose. Patrick waved to me and when I walked over he introduced me to Stacy and Sara. I stood close so I loomed over them while we exchanged greetings.

*  *  *

I just have to keep moving, Fred said that night in bed.

Sometime after nightfall the dizziness abated and things generally dimmed, a great heaviness settling on me as I lay in bed. I read Cheever's journals until Fred stumbled in later, reeking of cigarettes and lager.

As long as I'm moving, he said, I'm all right. It's when I stop, relax for a moment. It creeps up on me.

What?

The feeling. I don't know. It's like, some kind of malaise. I feel like the world is continuing on without me and I'm just here, standing still.

And drinking helps this?

Yeah. And smoking. Something to get me out of my head, to stop thinking.

Is it your book? I said.

Yes, he said. And . . . not. I mean maybe that is just part of it. Sometimes the book seems like a physical manifestation of this thing, whatever it is.

Fred turned on his side, putting his broad back to me. His voice cracked and wavered.

I feel like, he said, I feel like I'm groping around in the dark.

He sighed and went quiet. The wind howled outside the window,
the faint clicking of sailboat stays. I could smell the cigarette smoke in Fred's hair. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Roaringwater Bay, and the ocean. Even the golden light in the water by Fastnet, that terror bubbling up in my throat. But I kept coming back to the woofers in the pub, Stacy and Sara, their plastic smiles and smooth skin.

*  *  *

My mother had the habit of digging her thumb and first finger in the square of my back, grinding her knuckle between my shoulder blades.

Straighten up, she said. For god's sake, Elly, stand up straight.

I have caught myself as I passed a mirror in the hall of a house or the reflection in a storefront window, wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, with my head forward and my shoulder blades jutting out like fins. I have always tried to make myself smaller. In childhood pictures with my girlfriends, I'm always in the back, hunkering down.

*  *  *

You know what that sounds like to me? I said.

What?

You really think you are doing this to stop your overproductive mind? Maybe that creeping feeling is something else.

He raised his head and shifted toward me.

Like what?

The shit you
should
be doing.

We lay there for a while, both of us motionless, as if we were afraid to move.

Well, he said, what should I be doing?

You could start, I said, by drinking less. And by just paying attention.

To what?

Do you have any idea of what I'm doing? What I'm thinking?

Yes, he said. I do.

L
ater that week Bill picked us up in
Ceres
to sail to Clear and have tea with Nell. Bill was constantly on the move, in and out of the harbor, around the islands, and so it struck me as odd that his wife was so stationary, spending all of her time out on Clear. By this time Fred was comfortable sailing with Bill, though I could see his face tighten up when he was handed the wheel. The wind was always brisk, and the sails had to be reefed and worked with a strong hand. A J/105 is a ten-thousand-pound boat, thirty-five feet long with a seven-foot lead keel, and is not easy to knock down, as Bill said, but occasionally a gust would heel the boat over to a point where I was hanging on to the shrouds, my feet dangling in space, Bill whooping as Fred worked frantically to release the mainsail. They wanted to scare me, watching me expectantly as they brought the boat to near capsize. They should have known better. I wasn't afraid of going in the water.

We brought the boat around the Ineer and got her settled in. Bill's place was the southernmost house on the island, set behind Nora's on the high mesa above Pointanbullig. A long cement-block-style building with bright green shutters, a flagstone patio in back and steps leading up to the bluff. Nell was waiting for us outside in the front, smiling and holding her hands together like a young girl. She was a small woman, a little hunched with age and frail of bone, wearing a polyester sheath dress, stippled with faint flowers, a fat string of fake pearls. Her white hair tossed in wisps around her face. She immediately latched on to my arm and took me inside to allow me
to “freshen up” while Bill took Fred out back to the patio. A black box stove stood in the middle of the main room, which was neatly decorated with Bill's military mementos, framed photos of him in uniform, standing on a beach somewhere in Southeast Asia, a set of Japanese-style swords, commendations, plaques, unit photos of hard-chinned young men in battle gear. A large bolt-action rifle on a rack was placed over the door, the parts oiled and gleaming.