‘One point two billion litres …’ the woman with the microphone was saying.
Frank Bland leaned towards me until his mouth approached my ear. ‘Quite a body of water,’ he said, and then he nodded again and made his way down to the stern where he collected the surfboard he had brought along.
Once through the main door, we found ourselves in a large draughty area with a concrete floor. The air smelled of brine, and also, faintly, of disinfectant. I felt I had been taken to a down-at-heel municipal swimming-pool, or a brackish and slightly depressing stretch of coast.
Near the turnstiles we were met by a lifeguard. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, both blue, and his long hair was drawn back in a ponytail. In honour of our visit, the ocean had been closed to the general public, he told us. We would have the entire place to ourselves. He had a languid, absent-minded way of talking. I couldn’t envisage him reacting quickly enough to save someone from drowning, but perhaps he was faster in the water than he was on land. Like a seal.
We followed him down four steep flights of stairs, then through several sets of double-doors, the last of which delivered us into a room where there was no light at all. We were standing on wooden slats — a boardwalk, presumably. When I lifted my hands in front of my face, though, they remained invisible. The lifeguard’s voice floated dreamily above us. Any second now, he said, the scene would be illuminated, but first he wanted us to try and picture what it was that we were about to see. I peered out into the dark, my eyes gradually adjusting. A pale strip curved away to my right — the beach, I thought — and at the edge furthest from me I could just make out a shimmer, the faintest of oscillations. Could that be where the water met the sand? Beyond that, the blackness resisted me, no matter how carefully I looked.
‘Lights,’ the lifeguard said.
I wasn’t the only delegate to let out a gasp. My first impression was that night had turned to day — but instantly, as if hours had passed in a split-second. At the same time, the space in which I had been standing had expanded to such a degree that I no longer appeared to be indoors. I felt unsteady, slightly sick. Eyes narrowed against the glare, I saw a perfect blue sky arching overhead. Before me stretched an ocean, just as blue. It was calm the way lakes are sometimes calm, not a single crease or wrinkle. Creamy puffs of cloud hung suspended in the distance. Despite the existence of a horizon, I couldn’t seem to establish a sense of perspective. After a while my eyes simply refused to engage with the view, and I had to look away.
‘Now for the waves,’ the lifeguard said.
He signalled with one arm, and the vast expanse of water began to shudder. At first the waves were only six inches high, unconvincing and sporadic, but before too long a rhythm developed and they broke against the shore, one after another, as waves are supposed to. The lifeguard suggested we might like a swim. I rented a towel and a pair of trunks, but stopped short of hiring a surfboard.
Choosing a bathing-hut, I changed out of my clothes and then climbed down to the beach. I had assumed the sand would feel abrasive, like pulverised shingle, or grit, but much to my surprise it had the softness of real sand. Many of the delegates were already swimming, and the lifeguard was looking on, hands splayed on his hips.
He nodded at me as I passed. ‘Enjoy your dip.’
The water was warmer than I had expected. Up close, though, it had a murky quality, and even in the shallows my feet showed as pale, blurred objects. I wondered how exactly one would go about cleaning one point two billion litres of water. I sensed the lifeguard watching me. Taking a breath, I dived through a wave, swam a few blind strokes, then let myself rise to the surface.
Once I was fifty yards out, I turned over and floated on my back, lifting my head from time to time to look towards the beach. At a glance, the sea-front looked convincing, with icecream kiosks and bathing-huts in the foreground and white hotels behind, but I knew that most of it was fake, a carefully contrived illusion. While I was still out of my depth, however, it seemed important to suspend my disbelief. When I started to doubt what I was seeing, a shiver veered through me — a strange, forked feeling that had nothing to do with being cold.
Later, as I dried myself at the water’s edge, I saw Frank Bland again. He raised a hand as he ran past, his surfboard tucked under the other arm. He wore a pair of green-and-yellow trunks which emphasised the stocky pallor of his body. Plunging into the water, knees lifted high like a trotting pony, he threw himself face-down on his board and began to paddle with both hands.
On the basis of our brief acquaintance, I would have expected Bland to be an enthusiastic surfer, but not necessarily a gifted one. When he caught his first wave, though, he rode it all the way to the shore, showing a lightness of touch, even a kind of grace, which seemed at odds with his bulky physique. A group of delegates had gathered near me on the sand, and we all clapped and whistled as he stepped down into the shallows. Bland looked at us and grinned self-consciously. Then, furrowing his brow, he turned the board around and paddled out to sea once more.
As he came in again, he appeared to be travelling much faster than before. Knees bent, one arm extended, he cut across a wave’s steep inner curve, the water tearing in his wake like ancient silk. Abruptly, he swivelled and sped off in the other direction. At the same time, a dark-haired man who was surfing near by lost his balance and toppled backwards into the ocean. Bland didn’t see him until he surfaced, and by then it was too late. The leading edge of his board caught the man on the temple, and I saw the man go under.
The lifeguard rushed past Bland and hurled himself headlong into the breaking waves. Only seconds later, he was hauling the man up on to the beach. Blood spilled from a gash just above the man’s hairline and slid over his face, the colour so intense, so vital, that it seemed to question the authenticity of everything around it.
Laying the man flat on his back and tilting his head, the lifeguard opened the man’s mouth to check the position of his tongue. Just then, the man’s chest heaved. The lifeguard turned him over, on to his side. The man coughed, then vomited some water on to the sand. I noticed a new silence and, glancing round, I saw that the ocean was quite motionless. They must have switched off the waves.
Frank Bland stood close by, head bowed. ‘I didn’t see him,’ he was muttering. ‘I just didn’t see him.’
I went and stood beside him. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Frank.’
‘He came up right in front of me. There was nothing I could do.’ Bland’s teeth began to chatter. I fetched a towel and wrapped it around his shoulders. Still looking at the ground, he nodded in thanks.
Meanwhile, the lifeguard was pressing a rag against the man’s head to staunch the bleeding. At last the man’s eyes opened. Rolling on to his back, he let out a groan, as though he suspected something might be wrong. He closed his eyes tight shut, then opened them again. They flitted across the bright-blue of the artificial sky.
‘Where am I?’ he murmured.
I arrived outside the Concord Room at ten-past six, but the party was already in full swing, people talking and laughing as if they’d been there for most of the afternoon. Large crêpe-paper models of our national emblems hung from the ceiling, each in the appropriate colour — red peacocks, yellow salamanders, and so on. I glanced down at my name-badge, making sure it was still securely fastened to my lapel, and then moved on into the room. I had just accepted a glass of wine from a passing waiter when Walter Ming walked up to me. He was wearing the same unusual pale-blue suit.