Renée lay on the beach and belched a great flood of lake water into the sand. Stephen was just clambering off her, and she was dimly aware that he had saved her life. She lay still, her breathing shallow and irregular, as she heard other voices now – American, loud, concerned – saying they were going to call an ambulance.
‘No, no, I’m OK,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m fine, I don’t need one.’ And she tried to sit up and found that she could, in fact she felt surprisingly normal, just a little giddy perhaps.
‘Well, let’s get you inside and fetch you a drink, and see how you are then,’ said one of the voices, and she looked up to see that it belonged to a man with a fierce-looking face, like a wrestler’s, and he had long, straggly hair untamed by a baseball cap. He was wearing huge hitched-up jeans and an open shirt, and a gold medallion shone through the hair on his chest, like treasure.
Stephen and the stranger helped Renée up and wrapped her in a towel – even though it was still so hot she felt shivery, which must have been shock, she supposed. A little, sinewy woman in a tiny skirt and cut-off top, with deeply brown tattooed skin, as if she were wearing her hurt on the outside, quietly gathered up the rest of their belongings. Stephen held Renée under one arm whilst the burly man took the other and, as she was propelled between them, she felt like she was floating now, not drowning any more. They walked her one block back from the beach, helped her up some concrete steps and into a big empty bar that looked out over the tops of buildings and the main lakeshore road, towards the drabness of the water. They sat her on a vinyl bench seat, but she was still so cold and shaky that someone turned the air conditioning off and Stephen gave her his T-shirt, which she put on over her bikini, keeping the towel wrapped around her like a skirt. A drink got shoved into her hand, and when she took a sip the liquid was warmly brown and strong-tasting, and instantly the blood in her veins felt a little livelier, as if it were being chased around her body rather than creeping reluctantly.
‘Stephen, I’m so sorry,’ she said, as he came back from the restrooms, involuntarily half-naked still, towel draped over his brawny shoulders. ‘I don’t know what happened, I just got such excruciating cramp I must have panicked.’
‘That’s all right, you don’t need to apologise. I’m just relieved I wasn’t towing a corpse. I honestly thought you were about to die on me.’ He smiled, looking young and nervous, his mid-brown hair beginning to curl at the ends where it was drying, and she thought again that she must have misjudged him. She was still aware of him in a way that she recognised with a shock as maybe the reason why she hadn’t liked him much before, and she pushed that thought aside. After all, he was her best friend’s boyfriend – they might be on a break but she was sure Juliette would have him back, once they were both home; and she was also sure he would go back, he adored Juliette, who didn’t? And why the hell was she even thinking like this after what had happened just a few hours earlier with the stranger in his kitchen? Renée shivered again and took another swig of her drink, a larger one this time, as she tried to process the events of this unimaginable day, tried to work out precisely what impact they had had on her, what she should do. When finally the solution came to her she couldn’t believe she hadn’t done it. Of course! She needed to go to the police – that’s what she should have done in the first place, as soon as it had happened.
Why hadn’t she gone to the police?
She stood up, ignoring Stephen’s protestations to take it easy, and walked unsteadily to the bathroom where she gazed at herself in the mirror, shaking with cold, or perhaps fear. Her mind was racing. There would be no evidence now, only the faintest of marks on the left side of her neck – it would be his word against hers, and she’d already sussed what the local police thought of booksellers, she’d been moved on enough times, despite having her licence. They probably wouldn’t believe her, and even if they did it could just prolong the ordeal – they might want to keep her there, for the court case or something, she might even have to miss her flight home. No, there was no way she was going to risk that.
Renée continued to stare in the mirror, barely recognising herself, hardly believing she was here. She had escaped death twice in one day. She was lucky to be alive. Surely that was enough? She washed her hands again, holding them for ages under the dryer, and then she made her way unsteadily back to the bar, just as Stephen was coming to check that she was all right.