Books Of Blood Vol 3

'Funny isn't it - ' began Jonathan.

'Hilarious,' said Ray.

' - there's no fog-horns. Mist, but no horns. Not even the sound of a motor; weird.'

He was right. Total silence wrapped us up, a damp and smothering hush. Except for the apologetic slop of the waves and the sound of our voices, we might as well have been deaf.

I sat at the stern and looked into the empty sea. It was still grey, but the sun was beginning to strike other colours in it now: a sombre green, and, deeper, a hint of blue-purple. Below the boat I could see strands of kelp and Maiden's Hair, toys to the tide, swaying. It looked inviting: and anything was better than the sour atmosphere on the 'Emmanuelle'.

'I'm going for a swim,' I said.

'I wouldn't, love,' Ray replied.

'Why not?'

'The current that threw us up here must be pretty strong, you don't want to get caught in it.'

'But the tide's still coming in: I'd only be swept back to the beach.'

'You don't know what cross-currents there are out there. Whirlpools even: they're quite common. Suck you down in a flash.'

I looked out to sea again. It looked harmless enough, but then I'd read that these were treacherous waters, and thought better of it.

Angela had started a little sulking session because nobody had finished her immaculately prepared breakfast. Ray was playing up to it. He loved babying her, letting her play damn stupid games. It made me sick.

I went below to do the washing-up, tossing the slops out of the porthole into the sea. They didn't sink immediately. They floated in an oily patch, half-eaten mushrooms and slivers of sardines bobbing around on the surface, as though someone had thrown up on the sea. Food for crabs, if any self-respecting crab condescended to live here.

Jonathan joined me in the galley, obviously still feeling a little foolish, despite the bravado. He stood in the doorway, trying to catch my eye, while I pumped up some cold water into the bowl and half-heartedly rinsed the greasy plastic plates. All he wanted was to be told I didn't think this was his fault, and yes, of course he was a kosher Adonis. I said nothing. 'Do you mind if I lend a hand?' he said. 'There's not really room for two,' I told him, trying not to sound too dismissive. He flinched nevertheless: this whole episode had punctured his self-esteem more badly than I'd realized, despite his strutting around.

'Look,' I said gently, 'why don't you go back on deck: take in the sun before it gets too hot?'

'I feel like a shit,' he said. 'It was an accident.'

'An utter shit.'

'Like you said, we'll float off with the tide.'

He moved out of the doorway and down into the galley; his proximity made me feel almost claustrophobic. His body was too large for the space: too tanned, too assertive. 'I said there wasn't any room, Jonathan.' He put his hand on the back of my neck, and instead of shrugging it off I let it stay there, gently massaging the muscles. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, but the lassitude of the place seemed to have got into my system. His other hand was palm-down on my belly, moving up to my breast. I was indifferent to these ministrations: if he wanted this he could have it.

Above deck Angela was gasping in the middle of a giggling-fit, almost choking on her hysteria. I could see her in my mind's eye, throwing back her head, shaking her hair loose. Jonathan had unbuttoned his shorts, and had let them drop. The gift of his foreskin to God had been neatly made; his erection was so hygienic in its enthusiasm it seemed incapable of the least harm. I let his mouth stick to mine, let his tongue explore my gums, insistent as a dentist's finger. He slid my bikini down far enough to get access, fumbled to position himself, then pressed in.

Behind him, the stair creaked, and I looked over his shoulder in time to glimpse Ray, bending at the hatch and staring down at Jonathan's buttocks and at the tangle of our arms. Did he see, I wondered, that I felt nothing; did he understand that I did this dispassionately, and could only have felt a twinge of desire if I substituted his head, his back, his cock for Jonathan's? Soundlessly, he withdrew from the stairway; a moment passed, in 1 which Jonathan said he loved me, then I heard Angela's laughter begin again as Ray described what he'd just witnessed. Let the bitch think whatever she pleased: I didn't care.

Jonathan was still working at me with deliberate but uninspired strokes, a frown on his face like that of a schoolboy trying to solve some impossible equation. Discharge came without warning, signalled only by a tightening of his hold on my shoulders, and a deepening of his frown. His thrusts slowed and stopped; his eyes found mine for a flustered moment. I wanted to kiss him, but he'd lost all interest. He withdrew still hard, wincing. 'I'm always sensitive when I've come,' he murmured, hauling his shorts up. 'Was it good for you?'

I nodded. It was laughable; the whole thing was laughable. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with this little boy of twenty-six, and Angela, and a man who didn't care if I lived or died. But then perhaps neither did I.

I thought, for no reason, of the slops on the sea, bobbing around, waiting for the next wave to catch them.

Jonathan had already retreated up the stairs. I boiled up some coffee, standing staring out of the porthole and feeling his come dry to a corrugated pearliness on the inside of my thigh.

Ray and Angela had gone by the time I'd brewed the coffee, off for a walk on the island apparently, looking for help.

Jonathan was sitting in my place at the stern, gazing out at the mist. More to break the silence than anything I said:

'I think it's lifted a bit.'

'Has it?'

I put a mug of black coffee beside him.

Thanks.'

'Where are the others?'

'Exploring.'

He looked round at me, confusion in his eyes.

'I still feel like a shit.'

I noticed the bottle of gin on the deck beside him.

'Bit early for drinking, isn't it?'

'Want some?'

'It's not even eleven.'

'Who cares?'

He pointed out to sea. 'Follow my finger,' he said.

I leaned over his shoulder and did as he asked.

'No, you're not looking at the right place. Follow my finger - see it?'

'Nothing.'

'At the edge of the mist. It appears and disappears. There! Again!'

I did see something in the water, twenty or thirty yards from the 'Emmanuelle's' stern. Brown-coloured, wrinkled, turning over.

'It's a seal,' I said.

'I don't think so.'

'The sun's warming up the sea. They're probably coming in to bask in the shallows.'

'It doesn't look like a seal. It rolls in a funny way - '

'Maybe a piece of flotsam - '

'Could be.'

He swigged deeply from the bottle.

'Leave some for tonight.'

'Yes, mother.'

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Just the waves on the beach. Slop. Slop. Slop.

Once in a while the seal, or whatever it was, broke surface, rolled, and disappeared again.

Another hour, I thought, and the tide will begin to turn. Float us off this little afterthought of creation.

'Hey!' Angela's voice, from a distance. 'Hey, you guys!'

You guys she called us.

Jonathan stood up, hand up to his face against the glare of sunlit rock. It was much brighter now: and getting hotter all the time.

'She's waving to us,' he said, disinterested.

'Let her wave.'

'You guys!' she screeched, her arms waving. Jonathan cupped his hands around his mouth and bawled a reply:

'What-do-you-want?'

'Come and see,' she replied.

'She wants us to come and see.'

'I heard.'