‘Hey, birdy babe…You got nice feathers, birdy…’
‘Sorsha.’
My head jerks back from the window as I come out of the dark dream.
A warm callused hand pushes my shoulder. ‘Sorsha, wake up, we’re coming into town.’
‘M’kay, I’m up.’ I press my knuckle into my cheek, which is sore from where it was lying on the door edge. I scrub my face with both hands and push back my hair.
‘There’s coffee in the thermos,’ Colm says.
White-walled houses flash by out the car window. Neat weathered gardens and salty red sand line the road shoulder. ‘We’ve made the coast?’
Colm nods, both his hands back on the wheel.
‘Coast. Okay.’ My throat is still muddy. I fumble the pannikins, get the thermos lid unscrewed. ‘How far have we come?’
Colm waits until we’re past the bend before taking his mug. ‘Not far enough,’ he says.
Steam condenses on his upper lip as he blows on his coffee. It looks just like nervous sweat.
The first night after fleeing, we sleep in the car.
We’ve locked the car from the inside, so it’s safe. Colm reclines the front passenger seat and worms deeper into his sleeping bag. I cocoon myself in blankets in the back. The upholstery doesn’t retain heat, though. Mosquitoes hum in the confined space, and we’re too aware of each other, squeezed in like pickles in a jar.
Colm keeps turning, trying to find a position that works. I jerk awake three or four times, shivering, but that’s not just from physical discomfort. By morning, I wake up exhausted, and Colm hasn’t had enough sleep to drive.
‘You’ll just have to crack out the tent tonight,’ Morry says. She sounds younger over the phone, when I can’t see her wrinkles. ‘Just pick a spot and camp. You’ll have to go hard today, though. Get a bit of distance.’
I feel maudlin all of a sudden. ‘Do you miss me?’
‘It’s only been a day and a half, love.’ Morry’s grinning, by the sounds of it. ‘Of course I miss you. We all miss you. Oona and Rionach send their love. Alby and Ceilidh, too. Niamh was whinging about being over-worked last night, which is her way of sending love, I suppose.’
‘Who’s gonna do trapeze aerials in March? Ceilidh’s on light work already…’
‘Let us worry about that.’ Morry’s tone is firm. ‘You just worry about getting south.’
Homesickness slaps me with sticky hands. Suddenly I want organ music, sawdust, a confusion of fire, audience noise…I want these things more than I ever have before. I want my own bed, in the van Aunt Morrighan and I share.
My voice wobbles. ‘Morry, am I doing the right thing?’
‘Yes, Sorsha,’ she says, firmer this time. Rock solid. ‘You did the right thing. Don’t you believe otherwise. Don’t you believe it for one second.’
Colm comes back from the roadside kazi block, his face damp. He dries his fingers in his hair, tugs his tank back on. ‘What’d Morry say?’
My eyes are prickling; they feel burnt dry. God, I’m so tired. Colm looks worse–drawn out, stubbled, pure grey-blonde. In his jeans, with his boots on, he looks like a six-foot-five farm boy after a late night on the sauce.
I put the phone back in the glove box. ‘She said we need to make more distance.’
‘You feel that, birdy? Got me all razzed up…’
His beery slobber, his squeezing hands.
My head gasps up so fast I knock it on the headrest. Colm grips the steering wheel grimly; he looks as if he’s only staying awake by force of will. Outside the car windows is a monotonous view of green hills, with the occasional cow.
‘You all right?’ Colm asks.
I check the clock on the dashboard–it reads two forty-one–and rub crap out of my eyes. I shouldn’t be snoozing while he’s driving. ‘You want to let me have a go?’
‘Of driving?’ He looks at me. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘I can drive.’
‘Illegally. You can drive illegally.’
‘I drove the van last time we broke camp, when Morry had the flu.’
‘Yeah, thanks, but the last thing we need is to be pulled over by the mingers.’
‘We won’t get pulled over, Colm.’
‘Put money on that, would you? Why didn’t you just get your learner’s permit last year? You’re seventeen already.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
We travel in companionable irritation for a moment.
Colm eases the car through the road bends. ‘Anyway. Makes me a bit useless, doesn’t it, if you can drive yourself.’
‘I guess.’ I look out the window. ‘But you needed to get away as much as me.’
‘Yeah.’ He sighs out deeply. ‘So am I a witness or an accessory? I keep mixing them up.’
My whole body tenses in an instant. ‘Witness. You’re a witness. An accessory is someone who helps commit the crime.’
‘Right.’
There’s a long silence. Green hills and cows blur equally in my vision.
Colm clears his throat, changes down a gear as the road starts climbing. ‘It’s not gonna be forever, Sorsha. Six months. Twelve, tops. You know that, right? You know we can still go home.’
I close my eyes, wishing I was asleep again.
We find a place to camp in a public culvert. It’s grassy, dotted with trees and coastal greenery and a few other tents, their owner’s cars parked a little off-side. Everyone seems to be over-stocked with camping stuff: tarpaulins, and beer coolers, and folding chairs from fishing supplies shops. We’ve got a tent, which is canvas and looks like it was sewn from old wailings, and two sleeping bags and the billycan. Oh, and a few eating things–frypan, cutlery, tin plates, pannikins. Our food is in recyclable shopping bags.
I’ve got my pillow from home. Colm uses his sleeping bag cover stuffed with his spare clothes as a pillow. We’re both used to tough conditions, but this is thin. And we’re already feeling thin.
As I set up the tent, Colm stands to one side near the sleeping bags. ‘This is your tent?’
‘Aunt Morry’s.’ I spread the flattened tent out on the ground, shaking it like I’m laying out a picnic blanket. ‘That’s why it’s so old.’
‘Right.’ He shifts from foot to foot. ‘I’ll sleep in the car, then.’
‘What?’
‘The car.’ He jerks his head towards it. ‘I’ll sleep in the back. You can have the tent.’
‘Why?’
‘Bit small.’
‘It’s a three-man.’
‘Still.’
I snap the canvas, grab the nearest big rock to beat in the tent pegs. ‘Don’t be stupid. Your eyes have been hanging out of your head the last two days of driving. Get some proper sleep.’
Colm’s shoulders twitch. ‘People around.’
‘So?’
He looks really uncomfortable. ‘People get the wrong idea.’
I grimace. ‘Then stuff ‘em. We can pretend to be brother and sister or something.’
We’re only two years apart. He’s corn-fair and my skin is pale, my hair spun red-gold, like fairy floss. We could pull it off.
‘But we’re not brother and sister,’ he points out.
I’m too tired to care. ‘Colm, would you please chill? I’m not gonna snuggle up in the night or anything. We’re in our sleeping bags. I don’t sleep in the nude.’
‘You sleep in your clothes?’
‘T-shirt and underwear.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Besides, you’ve seen me in the wings, changing costumes for shows. Nothing you haven’t seen before, is it?’
He sucks on his lip, scuffs holes in the dirt with his boot.
I don’t have enough energy for this. I zip, I clip. There’s another reason I don’t want to be on my own in the tent, but I don’t want to say it.
Colm says it. ‘You get bad dreams, yeah?’
I shrug. Bad dreams, yes. Check. Big tick for that one.
He looks at me. ‘All right, then. I’ll sleep in the tent.’
I just nod. I should say thanks, but I don’t want to. Colm’s doing all the driving, he’s done enough already–too much. I don’t like the feeling of owing someone.
But I can’t think like that. We’re in this together. I did what I did, and he did what he did. We’re just helping each other out–until we get to the southern troupe, anyway. The southern troupe is our ticket. We can get out of this mess.
Both of us.
After dinner, three little girls from the next site over all sit in a circle, brushing their hair by their campfire while their parents chat. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I mean, sure, as a kid I used to sit and have my hair brushed by Morry, when she was trying to get rid of knots. Ouch. Since then, I’ve sat and chatted with Oona and Rionach hundreds of times, but it’s not the same. They’re both ten years older. I’ve never hung around other girls my own age. There were never any other girls my age in Desmond’s troupe.
I sit on a log by our campfire and brush out my own hair, just to borrow a bit of the feeling.
‘You look more like you when it’s tangled.’ Colm’s leaning back against his own log, holding his pannikin and staring into the fire. He seems half-comatose, so I’m surprised he even noticed.
‘Right. So much for that, then.’ I throw the brush down. ‘Maybe I should dye it. Like Morry said–it’s too distinctive.’
Colm frowns. ‘Don’t dye it.’
‘Then…I don’t know. Maybe I’ll let it grow. Give myself dreadlocks.’
‘Don’t do that either. Dreads are a pain. You have to keep fiddling with them so they don’t turn messy.’
‘When have you ever had dreadies?’
He pushes back against his log and sighs. ‘My mum. She had ‘em.’
‘Oh.’
‘She had to twist them every week to keep them neat. Took ages.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. It’s funny, cos for whities, dreads are like, the ultimate hippie hair-do. No muss, no fuss, natural and free, some shit like that. But they’re heaps of work. White folk gotta be kinda vain to have dreadies.’
‘Are you saying your mum was vain?’
‘Yeah.’ The side of his lip quirks. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’
I only know the barest threads of this story. But I want to know more. Colm’s voice has an edge that makes me tread cautiously. ‘What was she like? Your mum?’
‘She was a carnie.’ He looks at me with a humourless grin. ‘You know how most show people you meet, they hate to be called carnies? Yeah, well, she really was a carnie.’
I’m not sure how to reply. I choose a stick and poke at the fire. ‘Sounds like you didn’t get on with her.’
‘I guess. She’s gone now, it doesn’t matter. Speaking ill of the dead and all that.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, watching the flames. Sparks fly up like an offering to the sky. ‘My mum and dad died when I was little. I can’t speak ill of them, I didn’t know them well enough.’
Colm gives me a sideways glance. ‘How old were you, when Morry took you in?’
‘I was three. So I kind of have some memories, but they’re so faded now…’ I twirl the stick between my fingers. ‘It’s like looking through the bottom of a Coke bottle or something. Everything cloudy and distorted.’
‘I wish my memories of my mum were cloudy and distorted. That’d be all right, I reckon.’ Colm tosses the rest of the tea from his pannikin into the fire. ‘Come on, we should get some sleep.’
I’m still in my bird-of-paradise spangles from the tightwire act. When I step out of the kazi, he’s there. He pulls my tail feathers, yanks me into his beery breath.
‘Hey, birdy babe…’ His grip is insistent. ‘You got nice feathers, birdy.’
Doesn’t matter what I say, how I pull away. He pulls harder.
Harder.
When I scratch, when I squeal and bite, he punches me in the stomach. He frog-marches me to a dark place.
“Babe, you’re gonna love it…Here we go - no, just turn around and shut up…Jesus, this fucking outfit glued on or what?”
He rips my sleeve, and I only have one chance. I run.
He chases me.
I wake up running, smelling beer and my own fear-scent.
Colm’s voice sounds out in the dark. ‘Sorsha? You all right?’
I don’t answer, just rip the tent open, fight my way free of the canvas in time to throw up into a saltbush a few feet away. It’s blue outside, just on sunrise.
‘Sorsha?’
‘I’m fine.’ I gag, spit into the bush, trying to keep my voice down. I don’t want to disturb other campers. ‘I’m fine.’
Colm doesn’t say anything about how stupid that statement is. He hands me the water bottle so I can rinse my mouth.
‘It’s okay, Sorsha.’ He pats my back tentatively. ‘It’s okay. It’s normal.’
God, I hope not. I really hope not. That makes it sound like it lasts forever.
Colm’s still half in his sleeping bag, the bottom half. His top half is bare-chested, like a centaur in the dawn. I want to throw myself in there, just to feel some warmth. Just to hear his heart beat. To settle my own heart, which is thudding like a kettle drum.
I wipe my face and fingers on my T-shirt–it’s soaked with sweat anyway, I’ll have to wash it–and get myself back in order.
‘Gotta piss,’ Colm says, and clambers out properly to go to the kazi.
While he’s gone, I strip my T-shirt off and change into a dry one, pull on my jeans. When he returns, I go out to rekindle the fire.
I sit quietly, cross-legged, and watch the fat, grey-and-white native quail pock around in the grass nearby. Native quail are everywhere here. After the last two days of cheap takeaway, I can’t help but wonder what they’d taste like. Pretty good, I reckon, especially in a nice gravy, with buttered potatoes. Squab, they used to call it. Probably a pain to eat, with all those little bones.
Half an hour later, the sun on my face is warm enough to bring the blood to my cheeks. Colm crawls out of the tent when he hears the hiss of the billycan over the fire. Neither of us is in a fit state to talk until we’ve stretched and shaken ourselves loose.
I wish I had a pack of cards, something easy for first thing in the morning. But I’m not a fingersmith and neither is Colm–our bodies are our only instruments. I roll my wrists and shoulders, bend over one extended leg and then the other. Colm yawns and opens his muscled arms wide, unfolding like a big cat. He pulls his hands down behind himself, and I hear his joints pop.
‘Coffee’s ready.’ Our two pannikins sit in the dirt to one side as I pour.
Colm walks to the campsite faucet to sluice his head. When he comes back he looks more solid, less like the silk-pale boy of sleep I watched in the tent darkness last night.
‘So.’ He rubs his giant’s hand together. ‘We’ll hit town before we get to the highway. Pick up a few supplies and gas up the car.’
‘Toilet paper.’ I sip my coffee, sitting cross-legged again. ‘We need toilet paper. And fruit.’
‘Steak,’ Colm says wistfully.
‘We can’t afford steak. Sausages. Eggs. Tea.’
‘I’m losing condition.’ Colm grimaces. ‘I need protein.’
I reach over and pinch his cast-iron bicep. ‘You can’t lose condition on a diet of sausages and eggs.’
‘Fat,’ Colm says. ‘All this work, it’ll all go to fat.’
‘In about thirty years, yeah. You’ll look like that guy from the western troupe. Luigi Giovanni.’
Colm grins into his coffee. ‘That was his ring name. Stan–that was his real name. Stan Lewis.’
‘God, he had the biggest gut I’ve ever seen. You and Lorcan had these worried faces.’
‘Nah, Stan was a good bloke. Sat us down and gave us all these lifting tips. Over a drink or two, of course.’
‘Of course. A drink or two. Or three. Or four.’
‘He could drink like a fish, Stan. Good craftsman, though. Jesus.’ Colm scratches his chest through his T-shirt. ‘Christ, he was fat.’
I snort.
We sit for a minute until Colm looks over, cup half-raised. ‘You feeling a bit better now?’
I poke at the fire, and the pause gets too long.
‘Time to make breakfast,’ I say.
I pack up the tent while Colm picks up everything else. He chucks it all in the boot, except for my sleeping bag. The bag lies in the sun under the back window, my fear and sweat and panic drying into the fabric as we drive onward.
We’re passing through coastal areas, now. Sunny country, painted mackerel jumping on blue signage. We turned off the radio because we got bored of weather reports and pop songs.
‘So what’s this southern troupe like?’ I ask, looking for a distraction.
‘They’re okay.’ Colm’s left hand rests on his thigh while he’s driving the long stretches. ‘More commercial. It’s a bigger operation. They’ve got a proper permanent site on the edge of town, so they don’t need to follow the rural show days. The acts aren’t that different, though–bit of juggling, acrobatics, dancing ponies. Bouncy castle, that sort of shit.’
‘Aerials?’
‘Just the usual stuff. Nothing like you and Alby and Ceilidh. You’ll be a breath of fresh air.’
‘And no dog fights out the back of the Spiegeltent?’
‘Nope.’ He looks at me. ‘You’re not in the north anymore. No dogs.’
I consider this, looking out the passenger window. ‘What about strength work?’
He shrugs. ‘They’ve got a bloke, does lifts and muscle stuff. He’s got an apprentice–don’t know him. Actually it could be a her.’
‘A female strong act?’
‘Yeah, I think.’
That news distracts me from the subtext, but it registers now. ‘So if they’ve already got two strong acts, what are you gonna do?’
Colm looks at me, looks back to the road, shrugs.
I press harder. ‘Well you’ve gotta do something.’
He shrugs again. ‘Dunno. Guess they’ll put me to use.’
‘But you’ve been building up for lifting work.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe this older guy is getting on, maybe he’s shifting into concessions.’
‘Maybe.’
‘But they’ll give you strength work, right?’
‘Like I said, I dunno. Three strong acts is a bit of an over-supply, don’t you reckon?’
‘But you’ve got the skills for it already. You’ve been working with Lorcan. They won’t just make you roust or something–’
‘Sorsha, I don’t know, okay?’ Colm makes a grimace. ‘I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when we get there.’
There’s a pause while I take this in, then there’s nothing much to say. He’s driving me all this way…I thought there’d be a job waiting for him, the same as there will be for me. And now he’s saying maybe there’s not. Maybe there’s nothing, no reason for Colm to have left the security and routine of Desmond’s troupe, except that I needed a ride, needed an alibi, needed a way out.
I’m leaving a bad situation and moving towards something better. He’s leaving a good situation and moving towards uncertainty.
It’s shitty. It’s more owies, and I hate owies.
I’m desperate to stretch. My hips ache. ‘D’you want me to keep reading aloud?’
‘Nah. Just makes me sleepy.’ Colm rubs the back of his neck with his non-wheel hand. ‘What about I-Spy?’
‘Are we really that bored?’
‘Yes.’ He sees the roadside marker before I do. ‘Hang on, here we go. Eden, five kay.’
It doesn’t take long. The sea appears in the windscreen, looking like something out of a luxury resort brochure. I’ve seen nice beaches. This is damn nice.
Colm’s eyes glow at the sight. ‘Geez, look at that. I could live here, I reckon.’
‘Serious?’
‘Sure, why not? Work boats. Surf every day. Sounds awesome.’
I grin at him. ‘Know how to surf, do you?’
His eyes are still on the sea. ‘I could learn.’
We drive up the hill towards the main drag, past the whaling museum, which has crab pots and old anchors out front. Fish and chip shops display advertising hoardings with painted letters: Block Ice Sold Here, Streets Ice Cream–Share the Happiness, Prawns Mussels Oysters.
Outside the Marine Discovery Centre, there’s a bone-white shark’s jaw–bleached fangs gaping wide in the sun.
Tadgh’s traps, for the feral dogs that lurk around the beast wagon at night, are just the same. Like a mouthful of iron fangs. Tadgh treats them like live electric wires–cautious, respectful.
A flower of nausea suddenly blooms in my gut. ‘Stop the car!’
‘What? We’re nearly at the–’
‘Stop the car!’
Colm pulls over. I hit the door release and stumble onto the road shoulder, holding my knees. I’m breathless. I gulp air, close my eyes to keep my vision from spinning.
Colm has slipped out of the car and around the bonnet to touch my arm. ‘Sorsha–’
‘Don’t.’ I flinch away.
‘Come on out, little birdy…I ain’t gonna hurt ya–hey, babe…’
I hide. The air is humid with my panting, downy feathers stick to my sweat. I can’t bang on the van door, because Tadgh is rousting the fights. I edge past the pens, and a dog’s howl gives me away.
He comes on fast. ‘There you are, ya little bitch–‘
I’m shaking all over, I can’t stop shaking.
‘Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.’ Strong arms go round me, and I sag into them, just like before. Like before, the curly hairs of Colm’s chest rub on my cheek. ‘Hush, now. It’s all right, Sorsha. It’s all right, now.’
‘Oh god, it’s not!’ I can’t get enough air. I’m gasping, clinging to Colm’s shoulders. ‘What did I do? What did I do? Oh, Jesus–’
‘Sorsha, look at me.’ Colm’s eyes are hazel, dark-flecked, steady with intent. ‘You didn’t do nothing. Not one goddamn thing, okay? It’s gonna be all right. Just hold onto me. Get your breath back, come on.’
I make a sob, burrow my face into his neck. We stand there on the road shoulder like that for a while, until some arsehole coming up the hill toots his horn. Colm gives him the finger.
‘We’re all fine,’ Morry says. She sounds snappy and tired. ‘Mingers came round again, of course. Last visit, final questions, all that. Not for you to worry about. Everybody here knows what to say.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ I juggle my plastic grocery bags into my other hand while holding the phone between ear and shoulder. ‘Great.’
‘So how are you two holding up?’
‘Yeah. Hanging in there.’ I bite my lip, look at the pavement. ‘He’s got no work, Morry. When we get to the southern troupe. Did you know that?’
She knows who I’m talking about. ‘He’ll be fine, Sorsha. That’s not for you to worry about either.’
‘But did you know?’
She avoids the question. ‘He’s a good craftsman, Sorsha, they’ll give him something. And he’s young. Wouldn’t hurt him to learn a few side skills.’
‘It’s just that he’s driving me all this way…’
‘He’s not your concern, Sorsha. He needed to go as much as you did. He’s not such a good actor that the mingers couldn’t get something out of him, even Lorcan said so.’
‘I feel bad.’ There it is, I’ve said it.
‘Stop worrying,’ Morry says. ‘The southern ringmaster is called Terry, all right? And he owes me. He’ll look after Colm. You just deal with you.’
‘Okay.’ I swallow, swap the bags again.
‘And Sorsha? No funny business on the way down, d’you hear me?’
‘What?’
‘You know what I mean.’
I do know, and my cheeks pink up. I’m glad Morry can’t see me.
By the time I’ve ended the call, Colm’s back from the hardware store. ‘Got those replacement tent pegs,’ he says. ‘You all done?’
‘Yep. Morry says hi.’
‘No she doesn’t.’ He grins, unconcerned. ‘Mate, your cheeks. You get a bit of sun through the car window or what?’
Come nightfall, we camp in the national park, right by the sea. Waves keep me lulled safely all night.
Now it’s past eight a.m. and we should be packing up, getting ready to move. Instead, we’re limbering on the sand. I stretch backwards until my hands touch ground behind me–one, two, three times. I draw a line on the pristine wet foreshore and do flick-flacks, trying to keep myself in shape. I’ll be no good to anyone if I reach this new troupe and I’ve lost skill. I stretch, do some flexibility work. Then I do pirouettes, jump-and-catch, hand-walking.
Colm looks bemused. ‘You’re kicking up sand.’
‘Luigi Giovanni,’ I say.
Colm sighs. ‘Oh shit, all right then.’
He does fifty push-ups, while I sit on his back. Then he does squats. Then he balances me on his hands and lifts me, ten times, until I start laughing.
‘You don’t weigh anything,’ Colm says, frustrated. ‘It’s no challenge.’
‘I’ll eat more sausage and eggs,’ I say.
‘Buckets of water.’ He frowns out at the ocean. ‘That’d work. That’s almost as good as lifting buckets of cement.’
At the end, five people–a couple with two little kids, and a guy in a wetsuit–give us a round of applause.
Colm snorts. ‘Free shows we’re giving now.’
‘Better than doing nothing.’ And it’s true. I feel better.
‘We shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves,’ Colm says darkly. ‘What Morrighan said.’
‘Only a few more days on the road,’ I point out. But it sours it a bit.
Then I’m half-packed up when Colm comes back with the bad news.
‘Forget the tent.’ He’s wiping his black fingers on a rag. ‘We’re not going anywhere. Starter motor’s rooted.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘Yeah, oh shit.’ He grimaces, tosses the rag on his rolled-up sleeping bag. ‘Gimme a push and I’ll go into Eden, try to find an auto-electrician. But I don’t reckon it’ll be done by today.’
‘So when’s Terry expecting us?’
Colm makes a face. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll call him from Eden, it should be okay.’
While Colm is gone, I wash some of my clothes by hand in the campground laundry, and air out the sleeping bags and the tent. With any luck, we won’t need them for more than another night or two.
Colm returns from Eden with a cheap pair of mirrored sunglasses. ‘No worries. The auto-guy is solid. But the car won’t be ready until tomorrow lunch.’
‘Okay.’
‘One more night.’
‘Well, then.’ I bounce on my haunches. ‘I guess we’re staying here. By this lovely beach.’
‘I guess we are.’
We look at each other. Break into grins.
Now I’m sitting near the rocks on the beach, watching Colm work two buckets of water–he borrowed the buckets from another camper. He’s barefoot, in his tank and jeans, standing in the late afternoon sun. Lift one bucket. Lift the second bucket. Lift both at the same time. Twenty litre buckets.
I don’t talk to him while he’s working, I just watch. Sun washes his face, pills off his shoulders. His muscles bulge, sweat dewing the fine hairs on his chest. He’s puffing a little. I’m sitting in the shade, but it’s making me warm just looking at him. He’s like a Viking god, with his corona of wheat-field hair. I would never tell him that in a million years.
Once I realise how stare-y I’m getting, I concentrate on watching the sea, and digging little mounds of sand with a stick. I don’t notice when Colm tips out the buckets, I only look up when he’s standing in front of me, shoulders burnished–he’s had maybe a touch too much sun.
‘You wanna go for a swim?’
I blink at him. ‘What–now?’
‘Yeah, now. Come on, it’ll be warm.’
I press my lips together. ‘I don’t have bathers.’
‘So?’ He strips off his tank, starts unbuttoning his jeans. He grins at the look on my face. ‘You’ve got underwear, right? Beach is empty.’
I look around quickly. It’s true, there’s no one. ‘Oh, geez. Fine.’
There’s something very sexy about seeing a boy in his underwear. They could be bathing trunks, but they’re not. Definitely not. Colm folds his jeans carefully before putting them on the sand. That makes me laugh.
It’s hard not to look at his body. It’s not like I haven’t seen his body before–in tights, in lycra straps, his feet in the traditional ballet flats or the non-traditional boots. Always the skin-hugging costumes for him and Lorcan, to keep the ladies in the gallery happy. So yeah, I’ve seen him half-naked before. But not this way. Not undressed-looking.
I keep my eyes on the sand and strip down fast, before I lose my nerve.
He holds out a hand. ‘Not too deep, okay? Just a paddle.’
‘Can’t you swim?’
He glances away. ‘Well, yeah. Not great.’
I stop in my tracks. ‘Are you kidding me? You can’t swim?’
‘I can swim a bit.’
‘So all that stuff about working boats, surfing…’
He tugs on my fingers. ‘You coming in or not?’
I remember that I’m standing on the beach in my mismatched sports bra and panties. ‘Fine. But don’t sink to the bottom.’
‘I won’t sink.’ He grins. ‘I’m naturally buoyant.’
The water is incredibly warm; there’s just a touch of delicious coolness down in the sand under my toes. The undertow is distinctly stronger around my ankles. Waves slap our ribs. We squirt water through our hands, walk in up to our chests, duck dive to wet ourselves all over. I’m nervous, because my sports bra is white, and everything about me is a lot more perky all of a sudden.
Colm comes up sleek, dripping. He snags a clump of seaweed and drapes it over his head. ‘Like my new hat?’
I laugh. ‘Classy.’
He floats further. ‘Keeps me cool in the summer.’
‘And stylish.’
‘You could try this instead of the hair dye. No brushing necessary.’
‘Sounds practical.’
He’s a body-length away, two. I step closer to him, and the sand falls out from under my heels. I scramble, and my foot slides down into nothing. Right. I bob in the water, scissoring my legs. We must’ve been on a sand bank, but now we’re in proper ocean.
Colm’s grin falters. ‘Sorsha, can you touch bottom there?’
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Just swim towards me.’
The seaweed has floated off, heading for deeper reaches. Colm ducks, comes upright, dog paddles in my direction.
‘No, towards me,’ I say.
‘I am.’ His face is losing its cheerfulness by degrees.
I strike out for him, even breaststroke. It’s too easy. I get it now–we’re in a rip. Colm’s dog-paddling hard but only getting pushed further out. ‘Okay, Colm, it’s all right, just go sideways. You’ve got to go sideways, across it.’
‘Sorsh, I can’t touch bottom.’ The ripple of fear in his voice gives me goosebumps.
I glance back at the beach, get a shock when I realise how far we’ve drifted. I can’t say that, though. ‘Colm, it’s okay. Just go sideways. Come on.’
‘I can’t.’
He’s fighting it, he’s trying, but it’s not working. God, he’s a shit swimmer.
‘Colm–’
‘Fuck, I can’t touch, I can’t–’ His head dips, disappears.
My heart lurches in my chest–I stretch, splash to reach him. The afternoon is still and the light is fading fast. His head bobs up, eyes gasping, and I’m so relieved my breath stutters.
I talk quickly as I tread water. ‘Colm, look at me. No, look. I’m gonna grab your arm, okay? Don’t push on me or we’ll both go under. It’s okay–’
I get close enough and our legs tangle. I clutch his arm, but his eyes are rolling; he’s in the grip of something deep now, something primal. He climbs my body for air.
I gasp, push against him, choke on seawater. ‘Colm–’
But he can’t stop panicking, and I go down, down, down.
The world is murky green below the surface. I struggle under Colm’s weight. Air bubbles out of my mouth. I thrash against the feeling of being held down.
‘You probably like it like that, dontcha? You gypsy freaks love it nice and hard, eh? Well, here it comes, birdy, I’m gonna make ya scream–’
I scream underwater. I push away wildly, then I’m floating free. Bubbles stream upward, I follow them to the light.
I break the surface, heave air into my lungs, look around fast. Colm is floating a few feet away, face down in the water. I swim over, my arms trembling. He’s limp. I turn him like you’d turn a big log going downstream.
His lips are blue. I grab his arm–it’s slippery. I grab his hair. The beach is too far away. We’re out of the rip now, but my legs churn to no effect. My arms are soggy and I can only stroke one-handed.
Oh god, the beach is far. Waves smack me in the face. The beach is close, closer. There’s sand under my feet. I shove my hands under Colm’s armpits and drag, trip on my own feet, drag again. He is so heavy, he must be three times my weight. My breath comes out in wet gasps. I get him up onto the foreshore, out of reach of the water’s return. I can’t get him any further.
His hair is plastered to his forehead in a salty cowlick, water drips out his ears. I press my hand to his chest–slow thuds, but no lift. No gentle rising and falling, like in the tent in the dark. I sob out a lost-sounding noise. His black underwear is clinging, peeling off his hips, but it doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter now.
I know how to do this. No, I don’t. Yes, I do, I have to.
I tilt his chin, pinch his nose shut, blow into his mouth. I count–one elephant, two elephants. Five elephants. I blow again. His open lips are enclosed in mine. My hair is hanging down in wet rat’s tails. I’m crying, but it mixes with the salt water. COME ON! My breath hitches. I blow again with my eyes closed.
I’m hiding near the pens, but a dog’s howl gives me away. I’m shaking, I can’t stop shaking. The guy has two tattoos on each bicep, and his arms are muscled like skinned chicken drumsticks.
Five elephants. Blow.
I stand in place, improvising. I let him get close, almost close enough to touch. And when he grabs for me, I slide away, and push him as I slide.
Five elephants. Blow.
And he goes down, down, down, and the metal jaws of the dog trap snap around him like an embrace. The sound of the fight in the background is loud, and he’s the one screaming now, I made him scream–
Five elephants. Blow.
‘Sorsha!’ Strong arms go around me, I sag into them, and I can feel the curly hairs of Colm’s chest on my cheek as he picks me up, light as a bird’s wing…
There’s coughing, a spewing sound. I come out of four days ago to see Colm rolled on his side, vomiting up sea water.
‘Ungh.’ Colm retches, tries again, can’t make words come. ‘Ungh–’
‘Shh.’ My fingers flutter over him. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay now. We’re all right now.’
‘Sorsh–’ He coughs, spits. ‘Ah, fuck.’
I lean over his shoulder and scrape his sandy hair away from his eyes. When he’s finished spitting I get an arm around him, help him sit up.
‘Throat hurts,’ he whispers. ‘Fuck.’
‘You’re okay,’ I say.
‘Jesus,’ he rasps. ‘Your panties are completely see-through.’
I laugh, it comes out shaky. Colm puts his arm around me. We sit in the afternoon sun, covered in sand, shivering together.
‘How’d you do that?’ Colm’s voice is a croak.
I wobble my head. ‘Don’t know. You weigh a ton.’
‘Fuck.’ He swallows. It looks painful. ‘You saved me. You totally saved me.’
I’m still shaking, crying now. ‘I didn’t do anything. I’m a murderer.’
He tucks me into his neck. ‘Don’t say that, Sorsha. Never say that. It’s not true.’