Oh, God, Sue…
‘Here, you take the mike. I can manage.’
He spoke more roughly than he’d intended, but Jacqui seemed to understand. She took the mike, handing him the hoe.
‘One more on your left boot,’ she pointed out, coiling the mike lead and passing it up to the sound assistant who had stayed on the lorry with the rest of the crew, out of harm’s way.
‘Watch out!’ he cried instinctively as he saw a tentacle wavering near her riding boot.
She stepped back and he severed it with a downward thrust of the hoe. The jellyfish itself lay partly trapped beneath the lorry’s rear wheel; one side of it was squashed to a pulp, yet the section which remained was still dangerous.
Carefully, he checked his own boots, and then hers, but they seemed to be clear. The trouble was, wherever they put their feet they could not help treading on fragments of the jellyfish she’d dismembered, while only two or three feet away lay the others.
‘Oh, for Chrissake, let’s get out of here!’ he rasped, suddenly convinced there was no way they could win, whatever they tried.
The driver had manoeuvred the lorry to a position where it was safe — temporarily, at any rate — for them to lower the tailboard and scramble up, helped by Wally and the rest of the crew. As they reached down to grab him, Tim’s bandaged hand set up an agonised aching again.
Another bloody reminder, he thought glumly. He gazed across the beach towards the spot where he’d stood for his commentary. Of the route he’d taken on the way back no trace was left. The jellyfish had re-grouped, with more of them now gathering around the lorry.
When Jacqui called out to the driver that they could go, no one felt more relieved than he did.
They had dinner in the hotel restaurant, the whole crew together. Conversation was intermittent. No one felt particularly lively, though they made the usual jokes, trying to fill the awkward silences. For once the meal was quite good — roast lamb with mint sauce and fresh vegetables done in the traditional Welsh manner — and the wine he’d chosen bucked them all up. ‘On me,’ he’d insisted, and no one had argued. But no sooner had their talk begun to take off than it flickered out and died again as each one fell back into private thoughts.
About jellyfish, of course: Tim could see it in their expressions. That morning’s experiences had shocked everyone out of complacency. Death could come at any time — well, that had always been the case, but this manner of death seemed so much worse.
The police had been waiting for them on their return to the promenade where they had left their cars, and Tim had expected trouble. Instead, a tired-looking uniformed inspector merely told them to move on; if they went anywhere near the beach again, lorry or no lorry, he’d arrest them for obstruction; the police had enough on their hands without having to deal with their kind.
White tape and crowd barriers appeared, cutting off all access to the beach. Balding men in baggy grey suits turned up — Council officials, someone said — and stood around discussing what should be done, until a brisk, middle-aged woman drove up in a Volvo to take charge. She was seen consulting with the officials, then with the police, and then with the officials again, but whatever conclusion she reached, it was not divulged to the public.
By late afternoon when the tide was coming in again, still nothing had happened. It seemed almost as if, Jacqui suggested, they were hoping the sea would carry the jellyfish away again, so sparing the bureaucrats the pain of having to reach a decision.
But no one at their table expected that to happen. The general consensus was that the jellyfish were here to stay.
‘They knew what they wanted,’ said Terry gloomily, ‘and they were determined to get it, too. Nothing’d coax me to that bloody beach again.’
The party began to break up. Dorothea and Jamie talked of trying the local disco; the others went off in search of a pub, although Jacqui opted out, saying she’d work to do on the next Gulliver script. Unless Alan Brewer changed his mind after seeing the rushes, they’d finished their part of the documentary; it was now up to him.
‘So back to Gulliver,’ Wally grunted. ‘At least that’s sane.’
‘What about the stuff in the sandhills?’ Terry challenged her suspiciously.
‘We’ve changed that location,’ she said. ‘The rest of the Gulliver unit gets here tomorrow and we’re going up into the hills. We’ll shoot it up there.’
Instead of the thug making his getaway in a boat, she explained, they’d be using a helicopter. It was all laid on — she’d spoken by phone both to Anne, the producer, and to Jackson Philips: no problem. A different extra, of course; not Arthur.
‘We’ll be off, then,’ said Wally. ‘Another hour, and they’ll be closing.’
Left alone, Tim and Jacqui remained sitting in the restaurant for a few more minutes until the waiter began pointedly to clear everything away from their table. Tim suggested a drink at the bar but she shook her head, saying she really did have to work. But outside his door she hesitated.
‘Did you say you had a bottle of scotch?’
‘That’s right.’
He slipped the key in the lock and held the door open for her. In the centre of the room she paused for a moment, then went directly to the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn. She stood there gazing out while he fetched a couple of glasses from the bathroom.
‘Tim.’
Her voice sounded timid.
He joined her. The tide had already turned, but the water had so far retreated no more than a few feet. In normal circumstances it would have been too dark to see anything, but tonight all was brilliantly illuminated. Both the surface of the sea and the strip of shore it had just vacated glowed as intensely as if it were daylight.
‘Jellyfish,’ she said, shivering. ‘It’s eerie.’
‘Have your drink.’
He poured generously, then brought the glasses over to the window. When she took hers, she raised it level with her lips, waiting for him to say something. A toast.
‘Death to all jellyfish?’
She nodded. ‘Death to all jellyfish!’ she repeated solemnly, and drank. ‘Oh, I feel I should pour a libation or something, but I can’t think which god.’
‘Nor can I. Are there any?’
‘Oh yes, there must be!’ She gulped at her drink again, then leaned against him, seeking the comfort of his arm about her. ‘I wonder,’ she mused, ‘how many of us will still be alive at the end of all this?’
‘It’s only on the coast,’ he reminded her gently. ‘Away from the coast people don’t even know what we’re talking about.’
‘So far.’
She looked up at him, her mouth puckering, and he bent to kiss her. Suddenly, her arm was around his neck and she was pulling his head down to hers, working urgently with her lips, her tongue twisting into him, then withdrawing, teasing, inviting, and searching for him again with an insatiable hunger.
Then, pushing him away, she looked at him earnestly… almost speculatively.
‘What are we going to do about you?’ she asked. But she did not wait for an answer. ‘More to the point, why are we still wearing these clothes?’
Turning back into the room, she emptied her glass, put it down on the chest of drawers, and marched over to the switch by the door. They didn’t need that yellowing ceiling lamp with its tatty shade. With that off, the full effect of the jellyfish phosphorescence became apparent. It flooded the room with a mysterious greenish light, like sunlight filtered through leaves.