JOSEPH HAD SAILED BACK to the cove as fast as he could. He was exhausted. His arms aching. His back stiff. The storm had settled and Nefyn lay unconscious in Efa’s arms. He had run the boat aground before wading through the water, shouting her name, carrying her in his arms up to the cottage. Efa followed, her heart breaking.
‘I tried to stop her,’ she said. ‘She wouldn’t listen.’
‘She was buying them time,’ he answered. He kicked open the door, the cottage in disarray, ransacked. Joseph looked wordlessly at Efa and carried Nefyn to the chair. He told Efa to light the fire as he pulled Nefyn’s wet dress over her head, wrapped her in blankets. Joseph feeling for her pulse. In her wrist, her neck. It was weak and erratic. Efa lit the fire, still in her coat, tried to get some warmth into the place.
‘Did you see anything? Did they make it?’ Efa asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t know.’ Joseph studied Nefyn’s face as he rubbed her hands in his.
‘Come on, Nefyn … please, come on.’
He picked her up, carried her to her bed. Took off his own jumper, slid in under the covers beside her and tried to give her his warmth. Efa came to sit near by, studying them both. Their bodies together out of water. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait for Nefyn to wake. Wait for news. Wait for the boat to be brought home. Wait for Hamza to come back. Joseph looked at Nefyn. Her breathing shallow. Her skin sullen. A trembling in her neck where her pulse was. He had carried her from the beach before. In the same way. Her eight-year-old body hanging limply as he shouted for his father. His own blood running cold. Her skin tinged with blue, her tongue dumb. He pressed her to him, silently asked her to return to him. Clung to her, childlike, his words gone.
She was drowning now. In air. She could feel it. The dryness stinging her lungs, her skin. She was hanging just below the surface of consciousness. In her mind, she revisited the life she had lived. The path to the cove. The pools where she played with her brother. Her mother’s face. This way, she made an act of resurrection. She had half lived before and now, having lived fully with Hamza, she knew that she would not be able to breathe the same again. She thought of the way her mother enfolded her in her arms, the comfort she had felt in her embrace. She thought of the softness of Hamza’s stomach, the beauty of his curling hair. She thought of him breathing in the dark. The map they had made. She thought of Efa’s love, her gentle worry, and of Emrys’s sacrifice. She thought, too, of the shoebox full of objects that she had placed in Hamza’s bag for Hussein. An expression of who she was. The things that she had held dear. The magical smallness of things. Their infinite variety. She lay for a few hours and felt the warmth of Joseph close by her side, and she waited for Efa to fall asleep. When she sensed that she had, her eyes flickered open. Joseph looked up, his eyes exhausted. Her colour was changing. Joseph could see that. She was getting paler. Colder.
‘Nefyn?’
‘Shsh.’ She reached out and placed a finger on his mouth. She smiled at him, took in his face. His russet hair. He kissed her hand.
‘I need you to take me to the cove.’
He looked at her incredulously. Shook his head.
‘Joseph.’
‘I can’t.’ There was fear in his eyes again.
‘Joseph, I need you to be brave.’ Nefyn smiled weakly. She raised her arm, tugged at the side of his hair gently. ‘Come here.’ Her voice was faint as she pulled his head towards her, smiled as she felt his cheek on hers. Then she whispered, ‘He was dead, Joseph.’
Joseph turned his eyes in disbelief.
‘He was dead when I found him,’ she said again.
‘No …’
She could feel the tremor in his body.
‘And I’ve always known that I could bring someone back.’
Heavy tears fell from Joseph’s eyes. He let them fall unimpeded on the blanket that covered them.
‘But it’s not …’ he began.
‘His love … it was enough.’ Joseph’s vision was blurred; he could not make sense of the words. ‘He set me free.’ Joseph pulled back, studied her, tried to read her face. ‘Can’t you see? We set each other free. And I can’t live here any more, not like this. I have to go to the sea. I want to. I can’t live this half-life.’
Joseph nodded. His tears blinding him.
‘You can’t leave me.’
‘Please, I’ve felt … I’ve felt enough …’
They held each other in silence for a long time. Nefyn feeling the warmth of him under her fingers. He looked up eventually.
‘When?’ he asked.
She pushed away his tears.
‘Now?’
Joseph’s eyes widened.
Joseph carried her in the moonlight. She was almost weightless, her slim limbs cold in his. He walked across the stones and set her down on the strandline. She smiled, her eyes drawn to the water. Thirsting. The tide was receding and Nefyn could feel it tugging at the strandline at her feet.
‘We’re all just a collection of things. Brought together by the sea. Torn apart,’ she whispered.
Joseph stood silent, his head falling to his chest like a child’s. She rubbed his back.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Let me go.’
They held each other in their arms. Listened to the sea.
‘You’re free now, too,’ she said.
Joseph nodded. Kissed her head. Held her hand until she pulled away. Their fingers finally releasing each other. Then he watched as she walked slowly into the sea, her eyes fixed on the horizon. As the water pulled at her, she turned back for a moment, smiled fleetingly, the compass glistening at her neck, before disappearing into the dark.