It was quiet.
So quiet.
For a moment, maybe even longer, I was still, the water swirling in silent bubbles around me. The transition from above water to below had been so sudden, so brutal, that for a few beats I couldn’t even comprehend it. And then I started to thrash. I moved my legs and arms so wildly that I was going around in circles, unsure which way was up or down, whether I was going deeper or rising to the surface.
I had been dumped plenty of times in Australia. Big, powerful ocean waves had left me breathless. One time the water had pushed me right down to the sand, leaving my face scraped and bloody. I had always found my way to the surface, though. The bright light of the summer sun had shown me the way, and in one particularly rough episode, a young surfer had pulled me onto his board and paddled me back to the shallows.
Not this time, though. The water around me was dark. My heavy winter clothes dragged me down, negating any natural buoyancy. And the water was cold. Colder than I could have ever imagined.
Panic set in, and I moved my arms and legs harder, my body pulsing in useless circles. I stopped. Then swam towards what I thought was the surface, trying not to consider the possibility that it wasn’t. Trying not to think about what had happened to Daphne. That these waters had form.
My chest started to hurt. I closed my eyes, hoping that would somehow reorient me. Something nudged against my shoulder, hard and insistent. Adrenaline, already rushing and strident, pulsed again. I tried not to think about sharks. It nudged again. I opened my eyes and saw dark wood. Coming from above.
I grabbed hold, and pulled. And then it pulled back. In seconds I was at the surface, the water choppy and ferocious but no match for the great mass of air above it. I swallowed, great greedy gasps that were part seawater, part oxygen. My hands stayed tight on the oar, and I swiveled to see Elizabeth, steady and strong on her feet despite the rolling ocean.
“Miranda!” she called, her voice already different. It had lost its edge, its sureness, and in their place was uncertainty and fear. I nodded to show her I was all right. It was as much as I could do.
Years of water safety training came back to me as I treaded water, waiting for Elizabeth to pull me towards the boat. To pull me back to safety. It didn’t occur to me until later that she might not have.
But she did.
She pulled me to the boat with a strength that came from years of horse riding, of rowing out to the island when boat engines failed, of climbing up the goat track to the shell house when she got there. But her power was more than physical. It was a strength that came from within—from a series of disappointments I was only just beginning to understand.
Elizabeth took off her thick woolen jacket, put it over my shoulders, and propped me at the stern. Keeping an eye on me, she started the motor and dipped her head slightly, as if trying to see something in the distance. My teeth started to chatter. Soon after, the left side of my body was twitching. It was completely out of my control.
“It’s the shock,” she said. “It will wear off soon.” Her words were comforting. “Daphne shook for an hour after she gave birth. Every time. Check the inside pocket.”
I found a small flask in the pocket of Elizabeth’s jacket.
“Medicinal.” She nodded. “Shame they wouldn’t let me give it to Daphne in the birth suite. Would have sorted her out straightaway.” My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t unfasten the lid. Taking it from me, Elizabeth quickly opened it and handed it back.
The liquid burned in my throat, but the effect was steadying. I coughed. Coughed again. A noxious mix of seawater and brandy came rushing up, and I wasn’t quick enough. It spewed up from deep within me, running down Elizabeth’s jacket and onto the floor of the boat below, where it sloshed against my boots.
“There now,” Elizabeth said. “Better out than in.” But she was looking at something else. Hoping to see Barnsley, or another boat, I turned to see what had diverted her attention from my hideous retching. A sheer rock face loomed up out of the ocean in front of me, a wall of impenetrable stone.
“It’s pretty conclusive, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said softly, turning back to me.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I don’t think anyone throws themselves off the edge of that and expects to live, do you? It’s where Gertrude died.”
Gertrude Summer. The writer. The American heiress, and my great-grandmother. “It’s hard to imagine being that desperate, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes searching the rock face as if it might reveal its secrets. “Even in my darkest days, I’ve never been tempted by that sort of thing. Have you?”
I shook my head, the shakes elsewhere in my body starting to subside. It was true. I just hadn’t been. I took a cautious sip of the brandy. My stomach protested slightly, but I registered a softening of the rough edges of my shock. Another small sip, to make sure.
“I don’t think Daphne was desperate. She had her problems, just like us. But she had things to look forward to. And that is what makes the difference, isn’t it?”
My eyes flicked nervously between the cliff and the boat. Elizabeth. I knew something Elizabeth didn’t.
“What do you think happened to Daphne?” The edges of my mouth were dry, threatening to crack in the cold. Licking them only made it worse, and besides, my mouth was just as parched. After all I had just been through, I needed water. Elizabeth laughed, but not the same way she had earlier. This time it was sad, slightly bitter.
“I don’t know, but I know she wouldn’t have killed herself. And certainly not at sea! That’s why I liked her. No complaining. She was almost like one of us.” She cast a look towards me—soaking wet and half drowned—and nodded, including me in the family resilience. I nodded back. Hating myself, because despite everything, I somehow still wanted Elizabeth to like me.
“Let’s get you home,” she said, starting the boat.