The Girl With Glass Feet (40 page)

He let go of her jersey and wiped his eyes. Tears as transparent as Ida hung between his knuckles.

Her hands were still raised to hold his shoulders in an embrace. Feeling ponderous, he knelt in front of her and wormed back into her grip, re-entering the circle of her arms to rest his heavy head against hers.

In this way he remained, sobbing gently in time with the waves, until he saw a yellow light flash through the mist.

Reluctantly, he untangled himself from Ida to peer out across the water. An orange boat veered towards him. Lifeboat orange.

He looked back at her sparkling features and suddenly foresaw a future of interrogations. The examination and cross-examination of her body. Newspaper reports, television pictures, photographs. The glass girl of St Hauda’s Land.

Her coat hung about her now like a dustsheet. The beam of light from the lifeboat flashed through her head and found impurities, dots of curdled discoloration in the glass. He leant forward to kiss her one last time, but pulled away at the cold hard touch of her lips. Her mouth had looked moist for a moment, but it had been a trick of the light. Her hair had no depth, only the scratched surface of a block of glass. She was not, he realized, Ida any more. Which made what he had to do, with the lifeboat bearing down on him, incrementally more bearable. Just bearable enough to place his weak hands on her shoulders and shove with all his small might. She rocked, teetered, then plunged overboard, hitting the water with a splash. The momentum made the boat rock precariously, and all at once its slippery wood bucked under his feet, and Midas was tumbling after her.

The sea rushed over him and ice-cold water transplaced the air. There was an eternity of liquid below, into which Ida was sinking. A bubble trapped in the cavity of her mouth (a hot and supple mouth he had kissed) escaped like the mimicry of a final breath. He let out an involuntary roar that sent saltwater rushing into his mouth. The current whirled him on to his back underwater and he watched the trail of his own last breath chase upwards after hers towards the molten light of the surface. He tried to turn back over and swim after her as she sank, her clear body and billowing clothes becoming dimmer, dimmer. But swimming was impossible, either going up or down. He managed only to flip and
sink at gravity’s speed, with a weird quiet coming over him. His vision doubled, quadrupled. The sea was a hundred bright circles.

He missed her so terribly.

Then he was reversing, be it up or down he had no idea. All he knew was that he was being wrenched further from her, and it made him scream (but there was no air) and it made him cry (but tears couldn’t form underwater).

There was an explosion of light and a cacophony. His back hit a hard surface. His body gave a spasm and he thought he was being electrocuted. Bristled lips were at his, hot and tasting of sweat as they forced air into each alveolus like a pin. He tried to push them away but he hadn’t the strength. When they had finished with him he was rolled over on his side where he lay weeping, watching his tears drop on to the rocking deck and blur with the damp there.

He remained in this pose for some time, with blankets piled over him and his hair slopped freezing across his face. He felt the gulf that had opened between Ida Maclaird and Midas Crook. Each clapping wave on the lifeboat’s hull sounded like an apocalypse. Eventually he could distinguish voices from the overwhelming sounds of the sea and the gulls. He could feel a grip on his shoulder and hear a familiar voice.

He looked up.

Gustav was red with worry. ‘Hold on, mate,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be okay.’

Behind him various coastguards watched with professional concern. Gustav’s hand was clamped on Midas’s shoulder. After a while the numb touch made Midas reach up, hang his arms around Gustav’s neck and hold limply on. Gustav’s broad arms wrapped around him and bundled him up. Midas buried his face in the hot red skin of his friend’s throat and cried out. The noise faded on the expanse of the ocean.

On a blustering morning soon afterwards, Henry Fuwa answered the door to Midas’s knocking.

Henry’s cottage smelt stale. A damp chill in the air made Midas fold his arms tight (he could still feel Ida’s petrified grip: he had five fingertip-shaped bruises on each shoulder).

Henry returned with a pot of green tea and two china cups without handles. They drank carefully, neither man looking at the other.

‘Did you love her?’ asked Henry, his voice low.

When Midas spoke he fancied it came from his insides, maybe from some alliance of organs that didn’t have a name. ‘I didn’t think I ever would love anyone. But yes, I did.’

Henry nodded. There was honesty between them where suspicion had marked some of their previous meetings, born from the knowledge that what had happened could never really be discussed with anyone save each other, and that after today they’d never be able to bear meeting to discuss it again.

The wind cooed in the cottage walls. Midas closed his eyes. ‘I wanted to say I always hoped things would work out for you. Regarding my mother and so on. Um, and say that I’m going.’

‘Going now?’

‘Going away from St Hauda’s Land.’

‘Ah. Where to?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Although I’ve packed my bags.’

They fingered their teacups. Midas’s hands still stung where Ida’s hairs had cut him. The healing cuts were leaving faint scars like the pattern of bark.

The chair legs scraped on the floor when he got up. He held out his hand. They shook briskly and parted. Midas walked out over bog soil covered in fine snow.

Months later, the turquoise sea carried a creaking boat and Midas Crook away from an unfamiliar archipelago, away from low, sandy islands whose olive trees and noisy towns basked all summer in a heat that had turned Midas’s skin a warmer shade and his hair from black to deepest brown.

He was wearing red, for the first time in memory. The ferocious colour dazzled him when he looked down at his body. Red all over, a red wetsuit exaggerating the knobbiness of his knees.

Flying fish jumped from the water, fins flicking like moth wings before they submerged again with claps. A whole shoal leapt and landed in a ripple of applause.

The instructor clapped him on the back. ‘Are you ready?’

Midas nodded and pulled on his tight plastic mask. He plugged the oxygen tube over his lips.

They dived. He still couldn’t get over the rush, not just of the fluid world around him, but fluids in his brain bubbling to adjust to the pressure. The blue water was the home of sequined fish swishing between coral towers. He swam down farther, kicking his legs in the rhythm he had been taught, constantly forgetting he didn’t need to hold his breath. Soon, at the bottom, scudding across a seabed jewelled with shells and tickling anemones, he plucked up the courage to swim a little farther from his instructor than he had the day before.

That was his plan: swim farther and farther afield each day, until he could safely dive alone.

Until he could dive in foggier oceans. In paler, stiller corners of the world.

I’m grateful to all the good people who helped
The Girl with Glass Feet
along its way. Thanks are due to the many friends who read and reread half-formed drafts and gave their honest input, or simply understood why I wasn’t coming out to play on sunny days. Thanks, too, to Jan and Malcolm Shaw for their loving support, and everyone at Lancaster for living with the idea at its earliest stage, and to Ed Jaspers for picking it up.

I’m especially indebted to two people who understood the book instinctively, then worked hard to see it in print: Sue Armstrong for staying so dedicated to the idea, and Sarah Castleton for her perfect balance of enthusiasm and insightful editing.

Finally, endless love and thanks to Iona, who listened to every word countless times. Writing is like going underwater – thank you for being there when I come back up.