I sat in the comfortable sand. I couldn't say where my thoughts were. Anne jerked them back to the moment.
"Geoffrey," she said, "can you manage another couple of steps?"
The use of my Christian name made me roll on to my elbow and gaze at her in astonishment.
She looked at me levelly.
"From that hill we might see the sea."
"It's not far away," I agreed cautiously. "A few miles as the crow flies, maybe."
"Shall we have a look-see?" she persisted. "One never knows."
I nodded and rose stiffly. I called to Stein, for I didn't want a bullet following us. "We're going to have a look at that hill over there."
He grinned and waved his hand in a wide gesture. He's damn sure of himself, I thought. I knew myself that we couldn't get far. The only escape road was the way we had come. Even if I made a break for the beach, he'd find me there before the next tide revealed the causeway.
Anne said nothing. We trudged together across the deep sand. Before we reached the western edge we were blowing like two spouter whales. We lit a cigarette each to still the pounding of our hearts and climbed up the gnarled flank of the hill. We reached the top. There, about five or six miles away, was-the sea. There seemed to be a bank of cloud far out.
I waited. She fenced for her opening.
"So near and yet so far," she said, twisting down the corners of her mouth.
"Very far indeed," I said. She'd come to say something. She'd kept up magnificently all day, despite Stein's blow. There was a faint mark under her cheekbone. Let her make the opening herself. I pointed to the jagged fret on. the seaward side of the hill. "Those projections are like razors. All summer the south-westerly gale eats away at the solid rock, and then in winter the easterly wind comes scouring down from this side. It's quite remarkable, really — it's not a high altitude wind. It sticks close to the desert, picking up the warmth of the sand as it goes. I've felt the grit in my mouth miles out to sea. When it hits the cold sea — fog, nothing but fog. You saw for yourself."
"Geoffrey Peace," she ruminated. "Those two names go well together. Peace is ironical for a man of war and violence, though."
I said nothing. She came up close to me.
"You saved my life this morning," she said, almost accusingly.
I laughed it off. "It was one of those things," I said.
"It was not ' one of those things '," she retorted vehemently. "Take it as read that my life did not matter one way or another. I'm looking at it from your point of view. You had nothing to gain at all by doing it. In fact, if Stein had shot me, it would have given you the moment of diversion in which to cope with him — and Johann. You wouldn't be here now. You would have been sitting pretty. You could have made both of them prisoner…"
I remembered our first encounter.
"No gain but my gain," I said ironically.
"No, Geoffrey," she said. She repeated it as if the sound pleased her. "No, Geoffrey."
It sounded good to me.
"A person can do many wrong things for right motives, but eventually they get so caught up in the doing that the Tightness of the objective gets lost sight of," she said. "That's the way it is with you. The U-boat, the old freighter, your secret landing-spot — it all fits into the pattern."
"Anne," I said. "You're just trying to excuse me. You're trying to rationalise away a whole past — and a present — which doesn't bear looking at under a spotlight. It's not very pretty. You may be right about motives. But the means I have used would outweigh the ends."
"If you'd run true to the general picture you're trying to paint of yourself, you would never have done what you did down there on the beach," she argued. "I refuse to accept it."
"You're just grateful to me for saving your life," I rejoined. "The confessional makes allowance for the pendulum swinging too far the other way. That's the way it is now. There comes an inevitable levelling-out. But it was nice to know."
She shook her head.
"In fact, I'm curiously ungrateful for your having saved my life. I might be a little resentful about losing it if I had something to care about which would make it worthwhile not losing. Even Onymacris has its shortcomings, you know. Does that sound terribly mixed up? But I am curiously grateful for what that incident has shown me of you."
"I thought you'd seen quite enough," I mocked.
She rounded on me angrily.
"What are you — doing wasting yourself — a man like you, chasing some will-o'-the-wisp you won't confide, and some resentment from the past you won't concede? What are you doing here on this isolated coast when, in the great world outside, things could be so full, so complete… " Her voice trailed off and she threw the cigarette butt away savagely.
"I've adapted myself — like the blind beetle."
"Oh, for God's sake stop quoting the rubbish I said then!" she snapped. "I still believe you are tough, but you're not 'evil, like Stein. I believe in you, that's what I'm trying to say… " She broke off suddenly and smiled. I saw that the rumple of her eyelid was quite smooth. She came right up close to me and looked up into my face. "You wanted analogies from the great world of nature," she smiled. "I suppose one of those wingless flies down on Marion or Heard would find it damned hard to understand if someone put their wings back again."
She slipped her arms through mine and ran her fingertips up my shoulder-blades. "I wonder how one sticks wings back on to flies full of prickles?" she asked.
Her lips brushed mine; as they did so she stiffened as her eyes went seawards.
"Look!" she gasped. "Either I'm drunk, or seeing double — do you see what I see, Geoffrey?"
She slipped out of my arms and pointed at the setting sun. There were two. There was a thick layer of cloud, although there was a very narrow band of clear sky between it and the sea's horizon. As we watched in amazement, one sun dropped slowly from the layer of cloud, while the other sun rose out of the west towards it. Like lovers who cannot wait for each other's arms, the two suns, the male sun reaching down and the female reaching up ecstatically, melted together, merging along their lower rims first, and, in passionate embrace, merged wholly together. Then only the one, descending, remained, and it hastened towards its sea-grave, throwing out great bars of triumphant reds, russets and purples.
"There's pure magic in this Skeleton Coast of yours, Geoffrey," she said. All the tiredness had gone from her face. "No wonder you love it. But how on earth…?"
"It must be something to do with the temperature and humidity layers," I replied. "I've never seen anything like that before. I suppose I have seen more magnificent sunsets off this coast than anyone has the right to claim, but never two suns, one rising and the other setting."
"It's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," she replied, radiant. "I can forgive your Skeleton Coast, Geoffrey, its brutality, its primitive cruelty — like that killing this morning." She dropped her eyes. "I might even rationalise the whole situation and forgive — you."
I turned and faced her, but the moment was gone.
"Look!" she cried. "It's becoming more beautiful still. Look at the sea, there out beyond the surf! It's the loveliest yellow I've ever seen! Where can that shade of lemon come from a red sun?"
She was on her feet now, smiling like a girl.
I smiled too.
"That isn't light, even refracted light," I said. "That's fish."
"What!" she exclaimed. "I simply don't believe you!"
"Well," I grinned back, forgetting all about Stein and the unholy adventure we were engaged on. "Not exactly fish, but bloom on fish."
"You're just teasing me," she replied. Her face had caught something of the afterglow; I never saw it lovelier.
"If you want science to step in and ruin beauty, well then, here it is," I said. "You know the plankton — the minute things the fish live on — come up with the cold current from the Antarctic. In autumn and in early winter they bloom, just like grapes. It's called gymnodinium, and it's deadly poison. The plankton get that exquisite lemon-flush on them — I think someone told me once that the gymnodinium organism is five thousandths of an inch long. But when you get millions of plankton together…"