Quiller Barracuda

Stopped again. I still didn't say anything. She was poising a short chopping-knife vertically above the peach-stone on her plate, holding it carefully and taking little stabs, trying to split it, I suppose; but then if I'd asked her what she was meant to be doing with it she wouldn't know, would even wonder who I was, what I was doing here. She looked psyched out, robotic.

That area, the area of consciousness I was afraid of touching, exploring, was making demands on me now, moving right into the forefront of my mind, and I almost recoiled physically.

Stab with the knife, chipping at the peach-stone. 'His understanding of the internecine struggle for power inside the Kremlin is infinitely deeper than we've seen before in any US president, thanks partly to the partial lifting of the veil by glasnost, sure, but Judd isn't missing a trick.'

The short sea lapped at the sides of the boat, and a lanyard fretted in the wind. I didn't know if the launch had gone from the reef, wanted to know but didn't want to turn my head or do anything to break the silence, because I was into the zone of consciousness now, the one that made me afraid, and I lost the sense of time – the past and the present overlapped, leaving me in an eerie wilderness of the mind.

Then the knife split the stone and she looked up at me with her eyes blank for a moment; then she focused, and said, "They're not ripe, are they?'

'I don't know.'

Glancing at my plate, 'You haven't tried.'

So I made a gesture, and when I spoke again it was with the feeling of pulling the pin from a grenade. 'George Proctor feels the same way.'

She frowned. 'I wouldn't know.'

'He didn't talk to you about Mathieson Judd?'

'God no.' With a hurt smile, 'that wasn't our relationship. Just heavy sex and… what I thought was love.'

'Lucky escape,' I said. 'Think of it that way.' I got up and helped her clear the rest of the table.

'Yes, but it's not so easy. Do you like my sharks?'

'I was looking at them earlier.'

'There's a special one out here somewhere.'

'That you want to catch?'

'That I want to kill.' She ran the tap in the small metal sink, brushing against me sometimes, still in the bikini, her skin tanned, copper-coloured in the light from the portholes, with a powdering of dried salt on her shoulders.

'Isn't it the same thing?' Catch, kill.

'No.' She looked up at the photographs on the bulkhead. 'It's one of those, a thresher. It took my father, here in these waters. I was there.'

'When?'

'Eighteen months ago. Eighteen months, a week and two days.'

'How did it happen?' Talking about the tug, she'd said it had been the one great love of her father's life, except for me.

'We were just off the reef over there. The anchor got fouled and he went overboard to free it. The shark saw him.'

'I'm sorry.'

'A whole pack. We hadn't seen them.' She dropped the last plate into the rack and dried her hands and turned away, padding on her bare feet to the shade of the awning, looking across at the launch and waving, turning back to face me, 'maybe they'll stop gawping now,' her green eyes wet as she said, 'have you ever seen anyone eaten alive?' Before I could think of anything to say, 'I'm sorry. It's okay now, really. We've come to an agreement.' She came towards me slowly, her face hard now. 'They won't come for me until I find him, the male thresher, and kill him, or try.'

In the glare of the sun on the sea behind her she stood in silhouette, her short legs braced to the motion of the boat, her feet splayed a little and her arms hanging loose, her eyes alone catching the back-light from the portholes, glimmering in the dark of her skin. She looked primitive, naked, as she stood there speaking of primitive things.

'I go to meet them, you see, whenever they're in these waters. I go and swim with them.'

In a moment I said, 'Alone?'

'I took a friend once, with a camera.'

'This is you?' I was looking at the blow-up near the gallery, under the swinging lamp. 'In this one?'

'Yes.'

I'd noticed it before, and had meant to ask her about it because it looked unreal, surrealistic: the figure of the swimmer wasn't perfectly clear; it could be another shark, because of the surface reflection.

'They won't attack, you see, if you swim the right way – unless of course they're hungry and then it doesn't matter what you do. But my Dad was making a lot of fuss with the anchor – we'd got no idea they were anywhere near the reef or he wouldn't have gone down. Oh Christ -' I went to hold her as she broke suddenly but she shook my hands away – 'I'm okay now, but sometimes I've got to talk about it to someone and it's your bad luck today, you see – because there was my Dad down there fooling around with that fucking anchor and then there was just a lot of blood on the surface, a lot of threshing about and then the blood, Christ, it was a beautiful red -' shaking and with her breath moaning – 'he was a beautiful man, he coloured the whole sea like a flag, like a banner,' sobbing now but still standing straight with her arms hanging by her sides, refusing to bring her hands to her face, 'and that was all I could see of him, all that was left, a sunset on the sea in the early morning light, and you know what I don't understand? I don't understand why in God's name I didn't just go over the rail into all that beautiful red, so he wouldn't be alone.' The tears bright on her dark face, 'so I wouldn't be alone.'

The waves hit the boat and the lamp in the galley swung; the door of a berth creaked. After a time I said, 'A wonderful man.'

'How do you know?' on a sob.

'For you to have loved him so much.'

She swung her head, her hair flying out – 'Love isn't enough, is it, not powerful enough, however big it is, it can't guarantee anything.' She turned and leaned her back to the bulkhead and the tension went out of her and she looked across the sea, across to the reef. 'A wonderful man, yes. It was just over there.'

Where the short waves broke along the reef, tossing up flotsam. 'You can't keep away?'

She turned her head quickly. 'I don't want to.' Looking across the sea again, 'that's where I swim with them, and that's where I'm going to find it, and kill it.'

'How will you know which one it is?'

'I'll know. We think words are all there is.' She came back into the shade. 'Writing, speaking, we think it's the only kind of communication. We talk about vibes, but we don't really understand how deep they go, how strong they are. When I see that one, touch it, I'll know.' She went and found some tissues.

'Is this your father?'

'Yes.'

Laughing, in the photograph in the centre of the bulkhead, holding up a big fish, a tuna or something. A handsome man, not young but youthful, lean, tanned.

'I'll make some coffee,' she said.

'What time do you want to be back?'

'Whenever you do.'

'As soon as you like, then.'

She came and leaned her head against me, closing her eyes. 'It was nice of you to listen to all that. Not that you could help it, captive audience.' Moving away, 'D'you know how to get an anchor up?'

'Yes.'

'Okay, I'll put the coffee on and start the diesel. You look after the winch.'

More gulls now, and the din of a donkey-engine on the quay, the wail of a siren from deeper among the streets.

'I'll try and find George Proctor for you,' she said, 'if you like.'

'It'd be a great help.'

'How much does he owe you? Or maybe I shouldn't – '

'More than I'm ready to lose.'

'I can't promise anything.' She brought the engine down to slow and span the helm; she'd put on the khaki shorts again, with a sweater over the tee shirt; there'd been a cool breeze off the sea. She was easy in her movements, capable, in charge of herself, not the sort of woman who'd try killing a man-eating shark out of revenge.