They are both thirteen and it’s the last summer holidays before they are due to start their separate schools. Fran is the leader and Jake her follower and within a few seconds she is off again, running lightly along the fence line, through the first field, over the stile and heading across the second field towards the cliffs.
Reaching the top of the cliffs, Fran waits for him to catch up; they will need to stick close together with only the small torch to guide them down the steep descent to the beach. Trying not to fall and muddy his pyjamas, Jake slithers after Fran; they called it a path, but it was more of a natural gully in the stone and clay of the cliff face that he and Fran had always used to avoid the half-mile walk to the wooden steps.
Now they are at the bottom and without hesitation Fran is stripping off her clothes. Cautiously he removes his hoody but already he can see the outline of her naked body, silhouetted against the dark sea. He takes off his pyjamas and follows her. It is not the first time that Jake has crept across the wet stones towards the heaving black water, but familiarity has not increased his confidence. A small glow in the sky where a crescent moon struggles to shine through low clouds is the only source of light. Everywhere the roar of the sea fills the night air as the waves break and pull back on the steep shingle bank. Behind him, a pinprick of light from the small pocket torch marks the spot where they have left their clothes; ahead, only a soupy darkness. Naked and shivering, Jake feels the cold water wash over his ankles.
‘Come on, Jake.’ Fran’s voice already sounds quite distant against the noise of the sea. Jake moves a little forward then stops, feeling an icy wave wash up his thighs. For a few seconds he remains immobile, alone in the darkness and noise; then, as the moon emerges briefly and projects a sliver of pale light onto the water he plunges forward. As he swims away from the shore he is conscious of nothing but a gripping cold; slowly, though, his body adjusts to the temperature of the water, merges with it, fluid and weightless; a disembodied presence surrendered to the infinite sea.
‘Over here,’ he hears her call.
‘Where? I can’t see you…’
‘I am swimming further out. Are you coming?’ How does he respond? Seemingly he says nothing.
On days following their night-time expeditions, when he had ambled down to the sea to swim with his family – as they did most afternoons in that warm spell in late July – it would seem strange to Jake that the same beach and the same sea, so serene and familiar in the afternoon sunshine, could appear so daunting on his nocturnal visits with Fran. It had started a few weeks earlier. Lying on the springy grass at the top of the cliff, warming themselves in the afternoon sun, Fran had raised the idea with Jake. Reluctant at first to agree, he had eventually given in and that night they had crept down, across the fields and onto the beach and experienced for the first time the delicious thrill of night swimming.
Now he is beginning to feel the cold. He can see no sign of Fran, but looking towards the shore he senses that a current has taken him down the beach and he can no longer see the light from their torch. Suddenly, he is feeling frightened. The darkness around him seems physically oppressive and he is swimming as fast as he can back to the shore. Once back within his depth he half swims and half wades towards where he believes the light to be. Hauling himself up the shingle bank and shivering violently he sees the pinprick of light and stumbles towards it, wincing with pain as the stones bruise his feet. Drying himself as best he can with the small towel that Fran has brought with them, he peers back towards the sea. The moon has now retreated behind heavy clouds and he can see almost nothing. He waits in the darkness for Fran to emerge.
Perhaps he should have kept closer to her but she is always so quick, always three steps ahead of him. Why is she never afraid, he wonders; is this quality true courage, or simply the absence of fear? Whatever it is, he knows that he doesn’t possess it and this makes him love her all the more. Without her, the colours are dimmer, more monochrome. Her absence hurts him like the ache of a phantom limb. Is it permissible, he thinks, to feel like this about your sister?
He wonders if she is further down the beach. He waves the torch around and calls her name. He hears nothing. Holding the towel around him with one hand and the torch in the other he moves back to where the sea is breaking on the shingle bank, and waves the torch in the direction of the sea. The beam shines only a few yards and is quickly swallowed up by the night.
‘Fran? Fran?’ His voice sounds feeble against the noise of the sea. For a few moments he stands indecisively on the shore, peering into the darkness, and then takes a few steps down the bank and into the breaking waves. His mistake is immediately apparent. Losing his footing as the undertow pulls the shingles down the bank he stumbles and drops the torch. Immediately the light has gone. Putting his hand into the sea he feels for the torch but there is nothing but the stones moving back and forth with the dragging swell.
‘Fran?’ he shouts at the sea. ‘Fran? Where are you? I’ve dropped the torch. Can you hear me, Fran? I’m over here.’
The clamour of the sea drowns his words. All he can hear is the noise of the waves. He calls again and again, but there is nothing except the wind and the waves mocking his reedy voice. A memory comes back to him. It’s a holiday in Cornwall three years earlier; they are watching two children play on that treacherous flat rock that they know to avoid on an incoming tide. It’s the day a ten-year-old Fran dived into the rough Cornish sea to try to save the girl who had been swept off the rock. It isn’t Fran that he remembers, though, it is the body of the other girl when they finally pull her out.
Shaking now from the cold, he stumbles back up the beach and with difficulty puts on his pyjamas and hoody. He walks to the shore and again calls out for her, but the noise of the sea seems to have a physical density that his voice cannot penetrate. He sits on the stones to put on his trainers and a terrible nausea moves up to his throat. Should he run back to the house for help? But how long would it take him, and surely if Fran is in trouble any help would come too late? Should he go back into the sea? But what can he do in the dark? And anyway, Fran is a far better swimmer than he is. For a small seductive moment, he thinks that he might just return to the house and go back to sleep as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he would wake up and find that this had all been a bad dream. Perhaps he could pretend that he knew nothing of Fran’s disappearance. Perhaps no one need ever know that he had been here.
How long does he sit on the beach that night in an agony of indecision? Probably no more than a few minutes elapse before he becomes aware of the spectre-like figure of his twin sister, a child who is now almost a woman, her body glistening palely in the emergent moonlight only a few yards in front of him. Entirely unconcerned at his relief, she shakes her hair over him like an overfriendly Labrador, castigates him mildly for losing the torch, rubs herself down, dresses quickly and together they make their way back to the house and the warmth and security of their respective beds.