“You all right, ma’am?”
Olivia was crouched, her arms wrapped around her head, against a low building which was shielding her from the docks and the OceansApart. She looked up into the face of a firefighter.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
The traffic had stopped on the highways and bridges. The air was filled with the sound of sirens and helicopters.
He pulled out a water bottle. She took a small mouthful and handed it back.
“Keep it.”
“No, you keep it.” She nodded back towards the ship. “You get out there. I’m fine.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
She leaned back against the wall and looked down at herself. She was black. The back of her left hand was burnt, although it didn’t seem to hurt at all. She felt her hair gingerly. It was on the crispy side but still there—a miracle the peroxide hadn’t combusted. Her eyes were smarting. There were hunks of torn metal and debris everywhere, and fires burning in dozens of places. It’s absolutely fine, she thought. It’s perfectly simple. I’ll just go into the water and find Edward and Elsie and bring them to shore.
Olivia moved round the edge of the building, glancing for a moment out towards the open sea, the yachts in the marina, the blue sky. Then she looked back at the OceansApart and remembered how life can be such different things all at once: it was like switching from a TV holiday program to a disaster movie. The vertical half of the ship was sinking fast, the water boiling around it. The other half had a vast blackened hole in the hull and was listing. Smoke and flames were still billowing from it. Fires were burning all over the channel. The firemen were starting to pour foam on the flames. In between the flames floated debris, the corpses of sharks and barracuda and, Olivia realized, human beings, some of them still alive.
The paramedics had arrived and were setting up a help station. Olivia could see a man in the water close to the shore. Only his head was visible, his mouth wide open. As he looked in panic towards the shore, he went under. Olivia kicked off her trainers, took her sweatpants off and stepped into the water. Hot mud belched up between her toes. The water was hot too and dirty and thick. When she was close to where the man had disappeared, she took a big breath, steeled herself and plunged beneath the surface. She couldn’t see a thing and she groped around in the foul murk for what seemed like an agonizingly long time until she finally felt him. He was barely conscious and he was a big man. She dived down again, put a hand on either side of his waist and pushed him upwards until he broke the surface. Then she let go for a second, burst into the open air beside him and took hold of his head. She held his nose and started rescue breathing, but it was too hard to keep them both buoyant. She turned to the shore and waved, then tried again. He took a huge, rasping breath. She put her arm around his neck as she’d been taught, and started to drag him towards the shore. The paramedics came out to meet her in the shallows and took him from her.
She looked back at the channel. It looked as though more people had been washed from the wreckage. A team of divers had arrived on the bank. She walked unsteadily over to where they were setting up. No one took any notice of her. She asked for a mask and some fins and a buoyancy-control jacket.
She walked back to the water’s edge, putting on the jacket, blowing into the tube to inflate it until it felt tight against her rib cage, then letting the air out. For a moment Olivia felt nausea rising in her throat again. She thought she would find Elsie and Edward because they had been on their balcony on this side of the ship facing the shore. And although she had only just met them, they had brought with them all the comfort and familiarity of home.
Olivia brought back quite a few people, she didn’t know how many. She felt as if she was on automatic pilot and none of it seemed quite real.
She sat down by a tree, suddenly exhausted. One of the paramedics came over with some water, got her to put her sweatpants back on, put a towel round her shoulders and rubbed her hands. He said she should go to the medical center and helped her to her feet. The mobile phone in the pocket of her sweatpants rang as they walked along.
“Hey, Olivia. Listen, the OceansApart . . .”
“Hi, Barry,” she said bitterly. “The OceansRippedApart, you mean.”
“Listen, are you down there? What have you got for us?”
She gave Barry what he needed between his interruptions: what she had heard from the paramedics and divers and police, the fragments of recollections people had come out with as she brought them to the shore.
“Good. Any witnesses? Come on, where are you? Can you get me someone there? On the scene?”
She caught the eye of the paramedic who had brought her in. He took the phone, listened for a few seconds then said, “You sure sound like one hell of an asshole, sir,” clicked off the phone and handed it back to her.
Olivia let the paramedics take her vital signs and cover the burns on her hand. She ate a piece of bread and took some rehydration salts. Then, with a blanket round her shoulders, she got up and walked around. She saw a woman with auburn hair being brought in on a stretcher. Olivia stood there, bewildered, melting down, the pain from the last few hours reawakening the pain from the past—like hitting an old bruise. She found an empty corner, pulled the blanket over her, and curled into a ball. After a long time, she straightened up and wiped her fist across her face.
A voice said, “Are you all right, love? Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Ooh, that looks too strong for her, love. Put a drop more milk in.”
She looked up and there, holding out a tray, were Edward and Elsie.