In the brief pause between dry and wet, eight of them travel out beyond the black rock, and while Dom carefully records the markings, Grace and Storm travel down, down on the sled together until the water above them is the height of two football fields. Grace does not think about that; she thinks about his hand beside her, the fact that she said yes, the fact that she will never say no. She will not say no. They are deeper and darker than she has ever been. Her breath is halted. Water presses on her and in her and Storm is the only one who is with her, who knows her, who pushes her. After, there is this: the dance of oxygen through her blood and through her bones, the deep release, the thrill, her whole body opened, changed. Dom jubilantly shows them the panel: they have gone deeper as a married couple than anyone ever before. When he leaves the next day, flying back to Fort Lauderdale with his beloved cylinders and screens, Dom kisses Grace on both cheeks and holds her in a warm hug, whispers in her ear, ‘You’re a natural, Grace, a star.’

They all say she’s a natural, not just Dom, not just Storm. Other divers, the press. And she is, she feels it. Each tandem descent calling her further, showing her more. She has seen her father at a wedding dressed in a seal suit. She has seen herself, dancing with a sea lion, swinging from a trapeze upside down, underwater.

Like dreams, these moments seem more real to her than the stultifying heat of the walk into town, the above-sea-level world that she inhabits only partly. When she comes back, she is slightly dazed, wondering where she is. Before each dive, Storm kisses her deeply, his hand on the back of her head. And when she returns, he is there, absorbing her.

The rain comes suddenly one afternoon, the sky opening with the force of a jet. She’s been warned, expects it even, but still when it comes she is caught out. Across the island, doors slam shut, window slats are angled together, chickens run squawking. Even the youngest children look up to the now-grey sky, frowning. There is a gasp across the island, a pause as the sky breathes in. And then the downpour comes, full and heavy, swinging beneath stilted houses, turning dirt tracks to rivers, making bloodless ponds of red hibiscus petals.

Grace is dragging a bag of gauges from the boat into the shed when she hears the rumble above, a god shaking its fists. Her hands strain with the weight of the gauge bag, the regs rattling against each other as she lifts her head, peering into the chasm of sky. One moment, she is gasping for air, her throat sticky with heat, and then there is the tear of cloud, water pounding onto the crown of her head, cascading down. Shocked at first by the weight of the water, the sheer volume of its sudden arrival, the bag slips from her hand, clattering against the concrete. Somewhere through the rain she can hear Storm shouting her name. Drenched and chilled, she gives into it, the slide and slap of rain. She puts her arms out, laughing, battered as though beneath a waterfall. She smiles through the sleet, imagines herself as a nymph, hair plastered to her head, breasts poking through the wet cloth, her laughter mixing with the downpour. She has to squint to stop the water smacking against her eyes, peering through the rain-curtain to see Storm, his hands waving, his voice punching across the concrete, mixing with the rush of rain. He’s shouting something – she can’t make it out, though it could be her name.

She opens her eyes, her mouth. Hazy through silvery curtain, Storm is a shape against the doorway. She calls to him, waving. ‘Come out and dance in the rain. It’s wonderful.’ Does a little soft-shoe move, splashing, puddle-jumping.

He shouts something else but she can’t hear him through the smashing against the concrete, the thunder now tumbling across the sky. She twirls again, almost trips over the bag at her feet.

‘For fuck’s sake, how stupid are you?’ He’s beside her then, his hand on her elbow, his voice shaking the rain out. ‘Get the bag out of the rain.’ He swings the bag onto his shoulders, knocking against her shins.

Water keeps falling, into her mouth, down her legs. It was stupid, too. She is stupid, she must be, though she can’t quantify it. How stupid? She’s been a diver for half her life, has spent years carefully drying and caring for gear. To leave a bag sitting in tumbling rain, running the risk of destroying valuable equipment – she can’t imagine what she was thinking, what stupid parade of half-felt joy led her there. The watery elation seeps away into the muddy grass. After a moment, she follows him meekly into the shed.

Inside, with the roar of rain on the tin roof, she works silently beside him, drying the dust caps, hanging the now-sodden bag. He is silent, only the rain providing talk. Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow the sun will be back and it will be better again; for a moment, she considers humming the song, but Storm is grim beside her and she reconsiders. Silence, after all, is better.

And, anyway, the sun does not come out tomorrow. Instead, there is a dismal grey, then another split sky, another lurch of rain, Storm pacing around the narrow table while Grace makes endless cups of weak tea. For three days it rains, so solid and constant that Grace expects the earth to slide away. In the town, three trees do fall, one sliding into the water, another covering the potholed road near the brightly painted shed that serves as a cinema. And then, on the fourth day, as the season settles, there is a trickle of golden warmth, solid heat snaking across the island. Grace hangs damp sheets across the deck, hoping to rid them of a slight mildew that has already begun to set in. The morning shimmers. In the weeks after, it stays that way: mornings full of cloudburst, the heat steaming up, sucking the sky down to the earth. By mid-afternoon, the sky opens, the deluge begins. A new pattern emerges, training while the steam settles on the windows of the Hibiscus gym. They dive while the rain pelts down or while the sky waits for the condensation to come on up.

They fall into a routine of sorts. The local divers return to their lives, Storm and Grace return to each other. There are odd weeks of teaching, when Grace delivers snacks and good cheer, holds the hands of people lying face down in the pool, counting the seconds of breath-hold. Storm is bored with them all, the tourist puppets who want to be like him. They pay good money, beautiful money, to travel to the island and learn to hold their breath underwater. First, he says, you have to abandon your ego. He tells them stories of his own dives, of tapping on the door of Russian submarines, of touching the floor of the ocean. Once, maybe twice a month, they have these groups of strangers who come together for five days. Dougie has set up a projection room so that the groups can gather together to watch footage of Storm’s dives, counting the minutes, watching the sea call him, hoping they will become like him. They sit at Storm’s feet and fall into the water at his command. They leave jubilant, with signed T-shirts and photographs of themselves and Storm. Most of them are young men – they come from America, mostly, where Storm’s name has such sway; sometimes they come from France, or Germany, or Australia.

One woman, just out of medical school, comes from the Czech Republic. She comes, like Grace, because she saw the photos, read the stories, of Storm. Ivana. Heavy red lipstick, which she reapplies whenever she climbs out of the water. Mirrorless, she pats her own lips, pouting up at Storm. She spends the week untying her bikini and asking Storm to lather her up, running squealing when the afternoon storms break. She glares at Grace over meals and doesn’t manage to dive past fifteen metres. The day before the young Czech doctor leaves, when they go out for their boat dive, Grace sits between Storm’s legs, resting her arms on his knees, leaning back against his chest, her eyes locked with Ivana’s. The Czech doctor, sitting right in front of them, cross-legged on the deck, a bottle of beer in her hand, says, ‘Oh, get off him.’ It’s under her breath, but loud enough for Grace to hear. We hear it, too. We hear everything, listening as intently as we do. We are full of intent, though we will not speak of hope. It is too late for that.

So there are some like that, some who interrupt their lives, Grace’s new life. When the young Czech doctor finishes her course, still unable to dive further than a baby, she leaves a card for Storm: It’s been amazing. You are amazing. Thank you for all the individual attention. It’s signed with a smiley face and three kisses. She leaves it on the reception desk. Grace tears it up, doesn’t show it to Storm.

When the groups depart – after the obligatory departure photo, thumbs in the air, the backdrop of the jetty, and the boat, and the reef – there is only the sound of the rains. Storm, without a record to work towards, unravels slightly, sleeping late, his muscles softening, a slight round pouch developing on his gut. Mud is tracked constantly through the house, the smell of mould infesting the sheets, the towels, everything.

The dress shop in the town sells second-hand books, old paperbacks left behind weeks, months, years earlier by divers and backpackers. Titles with gold lettering abound, and pastel covers with blurred photographs of headless women, their bodies shown in movement or supplication, the faces somewhere offscreen and irrelevant. Some have images of dark shadows or slicked city streets, stilettoed legs, black lettering and the promise of fear or thrill. With enough thrill in her life, and no need for fear, she tends to leave these aside, choosing instead the stories of love and adventure. Last week, a book about a man who learns to cook; this week, the story of a girl who goes to Paris to find herself and instead finds the love of her life.

Sighing loudly, clattering cups in the kitchen, Storm watches her read. Three weeks after the Czech doctor leaves, Grace finds an envelope sticking out of the rarely used letterbox, one end of it so soggy that it tears when she lifts it out. Inside, an invitation. Pale card with gold edging, dust-marked, as though it has sat in a drawer for years, untouched by the rain on the letterbox. Handwritten in scratchy pen across the centre: Please join Mr Patrick Fitzsimmons & Buster the Chameleon for tea on the terrace. She struggles for a moment to think who on earth Mr Patrick Fitzsimmons could be. Above the writing, there’s a clumsy hand-drawn picture of a chameleon, its mouth open midway between a smile and a snarl, a teacup in its extended claw. A speech bubble coming out of its mouth implores: pleeeeease.

She shows Storm the card, says, ‘It’s from Pat. It would be nice to go, wouldn’t it? To make friends with some people on the island?’

‘Friends?’

‘With locals.’

‘He’s not a local. He’s a blow-in.’ Storm squints at the writing, turns the card over, holds it to the light as though inspecting a counterfeit note. ‘Do you want to be the best?’

‘Best at what?’ She wants to say: No. I want to be beneath the water, and with you. That was your promise, to live deep. That’s it. That’s all I want.

‘Do you? I can make you the best. If you want it.’

‘You’re the best. I want to be with you.’

‘You’re part of me now. You have to step up. Do you want to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we don’t have time for tripping about having tea with people. That’s a life for other people. Not us. We’re different. We’re special. You knew that, Grace. You knew how it would be when you came to me.’

He’s right. She doesn’t want the ordinary life, the vanilla life. She doesn’t want a regular man, a yes man, a man willing to follow.

There are other notes from Pat, every few weeks, sometimes in an envelope, sometimes slid under the door. She does as Storm says, ignores them all. From Sydney, Matt sends her an email, attaching the article she wrote for Dive. Unable to bear the thought of reading it, of looking at what she wrote before she knew who Storm was, before he knew her, she deletes it without looking.

Sydney seems like another life, another world. Further away than Athens, further than Dubai, further than the grief-heavy house in Banbury. She can barely remember why she was there, what it was for. Everything before now, before Storm, seems shadowy and faded.