That note of fear in his voice sounded too genuine to be ignored. She turned in the water and headed for the shore. The moment she reached him his arm was about her and he hurried her out until they were well clear of the waterline. His face looked pale and drawn with anxiety.
‘Where’s the jellyfish?’ she demanded suspiciously, gazing about her. ‘I can’t see any.’
‘Out there!’ He gestured vaguely. ‘Anywhere! God, darling, don’t you realise what I was telling you last night? When I saw you swimming I had visions of them attacking you, covering you all over… It was horrible.’
‘Don’t be daft!’ She marched across the sand to pick up her bathrobe. ‘All right, so you have a shock when you were in the harbour. Well, it must have been a shock, I can understand that, seeing that poor man with a jellyfish over his face, and then finding one on your own hand. That doesn’t mean you’ve a right to stop me swimming.’
She huddled into the bathrobe, tying the sash, her teeth chattering. ‘Let’s get back to —’ she started to say, when unexpectedly he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her violently to one side. ‘Tim, will you leave me alone?’
‘Look!’
Against the groyne some three feet away from where she had left her bathrobe, in a hollow in the sand, lay a pink-and-red speckled jellyfish. Sue gasped as she saw it; then, fascinated, she stepped closer.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
In the centre, like an eye regarding her, was a deep ruby star pattern. As she watched she thought she saw the whole jellyfish pulsating: or was that just her imagination?
‘Not too close!’ Tim warned, still holding her arm to restrain her. ‘Not with bare feet.’
She noticed his feet were bare, too; obviously he’d rushed out of the house in a panic when he’d spotted her bathing. He’d been right about the danger of jellyfish, she now realised, and her annoyance dissipated.
‘Watch out for those tentacles around the edge, like fine hairs. D’you see them, love?’
‘They can’t really move while they’re not in the water,’ she objected. ‘Can they?’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he retorted grimly. ‘I’m changing my mind.’
She was shivering again from the cold breeze, and pressed back against him in an attempt to warm up. Oddly enough, she found herself reluctant to leave the jellyfish. She hadn’t imagined anything so attractive. It was like an exquisite medallion worked by the finest craftsmen. It was difficult to believe it could be so dangerous.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘there’s the specimen you were looking for, if we can find some way to keep it.’
‘A bucket?’
‘Under the sink in the kitchen!’
They ran back to the flat to change into dry clothes. Sue chose jeans and high boots, with a thick sweater and her ski jacket; she was determined to be well covered in case something went wrong. Then she hunted in the lean-to shed at the back of the house and found a spade.
By the time they returned to the beach she half-expected to discover the jellyfish had disappeared — but no, it was still there, lying close to the groyne.
Tim went down to the sea’s edge to scoop up a few inches of water in the bucket. ‘Just to keep it alive,’ he explained. Then, after considering how best to approach the task, he took hold of the spade.
‘Not with that bad hand of yours — you can’t!’ she cried out in alarm. ‘Let me do it!’
‘I can manage, love.’
‘For God’s sake don’t drop it!’
Biting her lip in anxiety, she watched as Tim eased the spade into the soft sand beneath the jellyfish. Very carefully he began to lift it up. As he tried to hold the spade level she saw how his face bore that set, stubborn look she knew so well; she realised he was probably in agony keeping a firm grip with his bandaged hand. All the wrong thoughts flooded into her head. Oh, God, why did she have to leave him? Why hadn’t it worked out?
Yet it hadn’t, and she’d only be deceiving herself to think they could go on. Not any more; it was too late for that.
And there was Mark as well.
Don’t forget Mark.
The spade was above the bucket and slowly Tim began to tilt it. Sitting — cosily, it seemed — on a bed of two or three inches of sand, the jellyfish refused to shift. Tim tilted it a little more… then more still… and only gradually did it at last start to move. Then, in a sudden rush, the jellyfish and much of the sand slithered into the water at the bottom of the bucket.
They both stared down at it as if hypnotised by the sight. The ruby centre-piece, shaped like a starfish, appeared to gaze back at them.
‘Impossible, of course,’ Tim said, reading her thoughts. ‘Jellyfish don’t have eyes. They can’t see.’
‘I wish we knew,’ she whispered.
Sue insisted on carrying the bucket up to the flat herself. At least she was wearing the rubber gloves she used for housework, whereas Tim had nothing to protect his hands. Yet, glancing down from time to time just to reassure herself, she detected no sign of danger. The jellyfish slopped around in the water, apparently lifeless.
‘I’m not having it in the flat,’ she announced firmly after they had looked into first the kitchen, then the bathroom, and decided against both. ‘It’ll have to go outside.’
To the rear of the house was a rusting metal staircase for use in case of fire, and they put the bucket out there. Tim fetched an enamel bowl from the kitchen to place on top of it.
‘Just a precaution. Can’t have it climbing out.’
‘Surely that’s not possible?’ She shuddered, her skin tingling with apprehension. ‘Is it?’
Reluctantly, she began to make a simple breakfast, convinced she had no appetite, what with that jellyfish squatting outside the window in its bucket and the knowledge that somehow — and God knew when, after all this — she had to break the news to Tim that their marriage was over; but once the coffee began to filter through she realised she was hungry after all. She fried two eggs apiece, with plenty of bacon, then dropped a couple of pieces of bread in the pan to use up the remaining fat.
‘Nothing like jellyfish for making you hungry!’ Tim grinned when he saw what she was up to.
‘I don’t believe half of what you’ve been telling me!’ she declared irritably, feeling the tension building up inside her. ‘If I discover it’s all lies, just to get me worked up —’ She left the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, sit down and eat your breakfast, will you!’
‘Hey, take it easy, Sue!’ He spoke gently, as if he understood what was nagging at her, which obviously he couldn’t. ‘Later on I’ll go out and phone Jane to find out what her sister wants us to do with it.’
‘We have to talk,’ she said.
‘We’ll get rid of it as soon as we can,’ he assured her, dabbling a fold of bacon in his egg yolk. ‘You don’t think I’m happy with it here either, do you?’
‘Not about the jellyfish.’
‘What, then?’
‘Afterwards.’ She sighed. ‘We’ll talk afterwards, Tim. But it’s important. Don’t make it too hard for me.’
When they had finished, he wanted to help her with the dishes but she packed him off to do his telephoning, preferring to get on with it alone. She needed to think. This jellyfish business made the whole thing seem so much more difficult. She’d hoped to have him completely to herself this weekend so she could choose her own moment, but with Tim nothing ever went the way she planned it.
She started to fill the sink with hot water, squirting washing-up liquid into it, and covering the greasy plates with foam. She’d eaten too much as well, she reflected. Nerves, probably. That was the way it always took her, even before a show. While other actresses could never eat anything, she was always tucking into a doughnut. Or a sandwich. Never put on weight though, luckily; by the last curtain she was always starving again.