Kaiser and her father moved aside a little, turning slightly away from Thom, who might have been close enough to overhear their conversation but was so busy repacking the scrubbers on the rebreather units that he didn't pay them any attention. They made it seem casual as they murmured to each other under their breath. It was a private conversation — they were sharing a secret, but Flea could lip-read. She could understand every word they were saying.
Is it strange? Dad said, looking up into Kaiser's face.
Is what strange?
You know. To be back. In Africa.
This is South Africa. Not Nigeria. This isn't the place it happened.
Flea could read every word — it was like having her memory scrubbed clean and bright and replayed at high definition. Every pixel was brilliant in its clarity and the picture stayed quite still, undisturbed by water eddies and silt.
Even so — it must be odd after all these years. Do you think you could come back and live here?
No, Kaiser said, and his face was momentarily sad, old. You know the answer to that. You know how they tried to show me up — make an example of me.
The two men continued what they were doing, cleaning masks, checking cylinders, and for a while there was a companionable silence. Dad checked the straps on his buoyancy compensator and, satisfied, put it to one side. Then, empty-handed and finished with his tasks, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure Thom wasn't listening, then leaned forward to Kaiser. Listen, he whispered. This is important.
Kaiser seemed surprised by the tone. What? David? What is it?
Dad leaned closer, and spoke. But this time half of his mouth was obscured and all Flea could make out were the words down there… promise… be sure… experience…
She stared at him, her heart thumping, but just as she was about to swim nearer, to ask him to repeat what he was saying, something in her peripheral vision made her stop. Moving cautiously because she felt that if her head rocked she'd be sick, she turned towards it.
A long spit of sand lay in the gloom to her right. Slowly, slowly, as her eyes adjusted, shapes began to appear out of the dark. First a skeletal hand, raised up and splayed in the frigid water, the neoprene suit ending at the bony wrist. Then another hand, light lasering eerily between the fingers. Her heart thumped. Another shape was dissolving out of the gloom near the first: the hunched and awful figure of a diver, stiffly jackknifed, its head buried face down in the silt, the word 'INSPIRATION' stencilled on the cylinders. Two bodies — only ten metres away — she could almost touch them. Her throat tightened as she swam towards them, looking at the terrible positions, knowing she was seeing Mum and Dad.
'No,' she tried to say, but no sound came. She moved her arms back, panicked, trying to cry out. Mum and Dad, in their graves. But before she could cry, another sound started. It was like a wind rushing through a crack in mountains, deafening, and then came a swirl of water and a flash of light, like a door opening, and then, in no time, the bodies were gone and there was silence in her head.
She opened her eyes and lay motionless, registering what she could see. In front of her there was a curtain lit from behind, dirty windows, a flask of coffee on the table, the cupboards on the walls that were always locked. Kaiser's masks, his family's masks, the ones he'd let her play with as a child, looked down at her from what seemed a great distance. There was the noise of a single-engined plane droning overhead and light in her eyes, and she saw how stupid she'd been and that she wasn't in Bushman's Hole, but lying on a sofa in Kaiser's house.
Somewhere she could hear a fly buzzing and Kaiser tapping on the computer keyboard. But when she turned in that direction her head spun and she thought she'd be sick, in spite of the Kwells. So she carefully shifted position and, when she was comfortable, kept very still, trying to focus on the flask. When she was sure her head had stopped spinning she closed her eyes again. Instantly colours bubbled from the corners, like oil on water spreading under her eyelids, pulsing bigger and bigger until they filled her head and ballooned into her nasal passages, suffocating her as if the pressure would make her skull explode, it was so enormous.
She half raised a hand, moving it weakly towards her face, trying to wipe away the colours, making a little noise in her throat, a begging sound, wanting it to stop. Then, just when she thought she couldn't take any more, they popped, like a bubble, leaving nothing. Just cold, clear darkness. It took her a moment or two to realize she was back in the freezing water of Boesmansgat.
'Mum?' She tried to speak but her tongue was heavy. 'Mum?'
She moved her arms in the water, wanting to see her mother's face through the mask, wanting to see her eyes.
'Mum?'
Without warning a face appeared inches from hers. It was partly skeleton, wearing a diver's mask, and round it floated blonde hair and something white and diaphanous — a white shirt billowing like a cloud in the water. Startled, Flea pulled back.
'Oh, Flea…' said the voice. 'Is that you, Flea? My baby… where are you?'
'Mum?' She reached out her hands despairingly, opening and closing them in the darkness in case she might feel another human hand in hers. 'Mum, I'm here. Over here. Mum, please, I've been trying for so long. Oh, Mummy, I miss you, Mummy, so much.'
In spite of herself, in spite of the fact that she was in the water, trying not to tumble backwards, Flea knew her corporeal self was crying. It wasn't happening down in the cave, but up where her body was lying on Kaiser's sofa. There was wetness on her cheeks.
Silt billowed round the awful ruined face. A wave of nausea overcame her, and Flea tilted her head to compensate. Then the picture stopped seesawing and Mum spoke again: 'Flea. Don't cry.' Her voice was odd — not the same as before. It was soft, low and a little flat. 'Don't cry, Flea.'
'Mum, what were you trying to tell me? What did you mean, "We went the other way"?'
'Look down, Flea.' She pointed downwards with her skeletal hand. 'Can you see?'
Heart thumping, Flea, sculling her position to keep stable, peered in the direction Mum was pointing. Now she could see that they weren't at the bottom of the hole at alclass="underline" they were on its gently sloping sides. And there, lit eerily in the gloom, she could see it — the bottom. It must be more than twenty metres further down.
'You didn't get all the way. That's why we couldn't find you.'
'Now listen, Flea. They didn't find us last time, but this time they will. This time they're going to find us…'
'This time?'
Flea reached out again, into the silt. She couldn't see her mother any more and that made her panic.
'It's important, Flea, so important. Don't let them bring us to the surface. Can you hear me?'
'Mum? Mum?' Tears were backing up in her throat. 'Mum? Come back. Please.'
'Don't let them bring us out of the Hole, whatever happens. Leave us. Just leave us.'
'Don't go, Mum. Mummy…'
But the silt blocked out everything, even the voice, and there was mud in her mouth and dirty water washing through her body and the nausea came back. It sent her spinning round — it was worse than any narcosis or CO2 overload she'd known, and she had to open her eyes and grip the sofa. Above her the ceiling was whirling out of control, the grubby yellow light-fitting twirling like a centrifuge, the daylight flashing in and out of her eyes, and she could hear a strange noise, a high-pitched whimpering coming from her mouth. She tried to sit up but as she did so she knew she was going to be sick.