Swimmer (30 page)

The wave was so huge that he was completely disoriented. One second he was being washed against the window of a swimwear store, the next he was being whirled around and tangling with a row of bicycles. He was bruised and battered and his ribs hurt like splintered glass, and the noise all around him was shattering.

Almost as quickly as the wave had rolled over the beach, however, it began to draw back. Jim felt an overwhelming suction. His glasses were pulled off his face and he grabbed the cast-iron leg of a bench to try to stop himself from being dragged out to sea. But then a girl tumbled into him, and another, all arms and legs, followed by a heavy, wet Labrador dog, and he lost his hold. Immediately the water pulled him away from the boardwalk and back across the beach toward the ocean. He was swirled into deeper water, his lungs aching, his eyes tight shut, just praying for the maelstrom to stop.

Gradually, however, the waters began to calm down. He doggy-paddled up to the surface, his ribs giving him agonizing stabs with every paddle. When he emerged, blinking and spitting, he saw that he was less than thirty yards from the shoreline. People on the boardwalk were screaming and shouting and running around, and he could hear the warbling sound of sirens. He looked around for Susan and Michael, but although there were twenty or thirty other people in the water, he couldn't see them anywhere.

Slowly, painfully, he paddled his way toward the shore. As soon as his feet touched the bottom he was able to wade. He was still up to his knees in water when he heard Susan calling him. ‘Jim! Is that you? I thought you were drowned!'

He tried to cough but it hurt too much. ‘Think I've broken a couple of ribs. But it didn't get me this time.'

Susan came splashing through the shallows to help him. ‘Here,' she said, holding out her hand. ‘Michael and I held on to a telephone booth. He's sprained his ankle, but otherwise he's fine.'

Michael was sitting on a wastebin that had been washed right down to the water's edge. He raised his hand and called out, ‘You okay, Mr Rook?'

‘I've felt better.'

Susan said, ‘We'd better go back to my place and try to decide what we're going to do next. This thing is far too powerful for us to fight it without any help.'

The night was clamorous with the noise of fire sirens wailing and car horns honking and people shouting and crying. Jim stopped for a moment, and looked back at the ocean. ‘You know something, I never really understood until today that we're nothing but guests on this planet. Look at it. All that strength. All that secrecy. All those millions of years of nurturing life.'

Michael called, ‘Jim!'

Jim took hold of Susan's hand and together they started to walk along the waterline. The waves had receded now, and did nothing more than lap at their feet.

‘
Jim!
' shouted Michael, more urgently.

‘What is it?' said Jim, turning around.

‘I can't be sure, but – there! Look!'

Jim peered short-sightedly along the beach. He couldn't see anything at first, because of all the people milling around on the sands and the flashing of red emergency lights. But then he saw a shining figure running toward them through the surf … the Swimmer, and she was approaching them fast.

‘You go that way!' Jim told Susan, and pointed toward the boardwalk. ‘I'll try to lead her someplace dry!'

He pushed Susan away from him and then he started to run. His ribs were hurting him so much that he could only manage a kind of limping trot, as if he were taking part in a one-man three-legged race. But he had to coax the Swimmer away from Susan and Michael, and if he could take her well away from the ocean and into the sand,
he
might stand a chance of getting away from her too.

As he ran, he could hear himself gasping, as if somebody else were jogging beside him. The ocean seethed softly on his right; the lights of Marina Del Rey sparkled up ahead of him. He could hear footsteps splish-splashing in the water close behind him, but he was determined not to turn around, not yet.

He was about to veer off to the left, toward a wide stretch of bone-dry sand, and a volleyball court, when the Swimmer suddenly jumped on his back and brought him thumping to the ground. It was like being knocked down by a high-pressure hose, and his broken ribs jabbed into him so painfully that he screamed out loud.

Without any hesitation, the Swimmer took hold of his legs and began to drag him into the water. A wave splashed directly into his face, forcing salt water into his nose; and then she dragged him even deeper and he swallowed a mouthful of it. He tried to kick out against her but he was far too weak, and she, in the ocean, was immeasurably strong.

He took in another mouthful of water and tried to spit it out, but he only succeeded in swallowing more. The Swimmer kept dragging him deeper and deeper until he was completely submerged. His eyes were wide open, but he couldn't see anything except darkness and criss-cross patterns of foam.

This is it, he thought. This is really it. He even wondered if it was worth trying to hold his breath any longer. ‘To die would be an awfully big adventure.'

At that second, though, the Swimmer released him. He kicked his legs, expecting her to grab him again, but she had definitely let him go. He kicked again, and rolled himself over, and managed to stand up. The water was only waist-deep – even though that would have been more than enough for him to drown in.

‘Fffgghh! God almighty!' he spluttered.

The Swimmer was less than ten feet away, but to his surprise she wasn't paying any attention to him at all. She wasn't even looking his way. She was staring toward the shoreline, where Susan was standing, her arms upraised, her damp white dress clinging close to her body.

‘It's time for you to find peace, Jane!' Susan called, in an oddly sing-song voice. ‘It's time for you to stop taking your revenge on innocent people, and go through to the other side!'

Michael, a few yards further away, shouted out, ‘No, Susan! You can't!'

‘I have to,' sang Susan. ‘It was always my fate. I knew that it was going to end this way as soon as I saw Jim Rook. Like a real rook, he came and perched on the shoulder of my destiny, and I knew that he was bringing me the answer to everything.'

‘Susan! This isn't the way! I need you, Susan!'

‘The
world
needs me, Michael. Remember that I love you, and remember that I'll always be grateful for the years you gave me, when nobody else cared.'

Jim began to wade back toward the shoreline. ‘Susan – what are you doing? What's going on?'

Susan stepped into the surf and slowly approached the Swimmer, with her arms still outstretched. Her expression was almost beatific, as if she were experiencing a holy vision. The Swimmer stayed where she was, transfixed, her watery outline reflecting the flashing red lights from the fire trucks as if they were blood cells coursing around her arteries. But of course she had no arteries, only the ocean.

‘I call on the child within me to awake,' Susan chanted. ‘When I count to three, I want him to open his eyes and come back to life. Peter – can you hear me? Peter?'

‘No!' screamed Michael. ‘No, Susan, you can't!'

He stumbled into the water and tried to pull her back toward the beach. ‘Listen to me, Susan, you can't do it! You can't!'

But Susan lifted one hand and touched him on the forehead as if she were giving him a blessing. ‘I have to, Michael. You know I do. It had to happen one day.'

The Swimmer slowly started to wade toward them. Michael hesitated, not knowing what to do.

‘Go on, Michael,' Susan smiled at him. ‘For all of our sakes.'

Michael reluctantly retreated. Jim circled around behind Susan and joined him on the sand.

‘What's she doing?' he asked.

‘Showdown,' said Michael.

‘
Showdown?
'

‘The battle of the elements. Fire against water.'

‘Fire? What fire?'

‘Peter!' cried Susan, almost in a shriek. ‘Peter! You have to wake up now! One – two – three!'

The Swimmer was approaching Susan even faster. Her hair was running down her back like a waterfall. Her eyes shone liquidly, empty as jellyfish.

Susan stayed where she was, her arms wide. ‘Time to wake up now, Peter! Time to go to heaven!'

To Jim's alarm, smoke began to billow all around Susan, and he suddenly caught the smell of burning hair.

‘Michael – what the hell is she doing?'

‘She's bringing Peter back – the boy who was burned in the car crash. She's had him cradled in her mind all this time.'

‘But you said that she'd die, if she tried to wake him out of his hypnosis.'

Michael clamped his hand tightly over his mouth. His eyes filled up with tears.

‘Susan!' Jim shouted, hurrying toward her. ‘Susan, you mustn't!'

But it was too late. As he came nearer, the smoke poured out thicker and thicker. It spiraled out from the top of her head and twisted off into the night sky like a flag. Suddenly, she screamed at the top of her voice – a scream so dreadful that it nearly made Jim lose his balance. The Swimmer was wading toward her, faster and faster, but even before Jane could reach her, her whole body burst into flame.

She took a lurching step forward, stiff-legged, and then another. The Swimmer, illuminated by the leaping fire, seemed confused. But Susan didn't give her a chance. She strode forward three more paces and embraced the Swimmer in her blazing arms.

There was a piercing hiss of steam. The Swimmer tried to struggle free, but Susan kept her arms tightly clenched around her waist. The fire blazed hotter and brighter, until it began to roar, and the louder it roared, the faster the steam began to blast out of the Swimmer's body.

Jim and Michael couldn't do anything but stand on the shoreline and watch in horror.

Susan burned even more fiercely. Jim could see her skull through the flames, and her ribcage. Yet somehow she still managed to keep the Swimmer locked in her embrace, and the Swimmer began to collapse, and shrink.

Susan literally exploded. Her head tumbled into the sea, with her hair on fire. Her arms flew end-over-end like blazing drum-major's batons. Her pelvis dropped into the surf, leaving nothing but two burning legs standing for a moment on their own, a vision of hell by Salvador Dali. But the Swimmer herself had evaporated. Her substance had been boiled into superheated steam, and carried away by the wind.

Jim took two more steps into the water. In the darkness, he could see the faintest outline of Jane Tullett. She was no longer glistening with wet: she looked now as if she were wearing a white veil over her head, the way she had looked in her casket, when he had attended her funeral.

‘Jane,' said Jim.

‘Hello, Mr Rook.'

‘Jane – I hope you can rest now. I really do.'

Jane smiled behind her veil, and nodded. Then she half turned, and held out her hand. Out of the shadows came the barely visible figure of a young boy, wearing a simple white nightshirt. He stood for a moment, blinking, unsure of himself.

‘Are you Peter?' Jim asked him.

‘I've been sleeping,' whispered Peter, in a small, haunted voice. ‘I dreamed that I was burning, but I wasn't.'

‘You can go back to sleep now,' said Jim. ‘Don't forget that everybody still thinks about you.'

‘Thank you,' said Peter.

Jim stood and watched as the two young spirits turned and walked away, hand in hand, out on to the black wallowing breast of the ocean, and beyond. Their lights flickered briefly in the darkness, and then they were gone. He turned and trudged back to join Michael.

‘I told her not to,' said Michael, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. ‘What more could I do? I loved her. I always wanted to keep her safe.'

Jim laid his hand around Michael's shoulders. ‘You can't protect people from their destiny, Michael, no matter how much you may want to. Life is a risk. Death is a risk. Sometimes we just have to be brave, and take what's coming to us.'

‘I don't think you understand. Peter was my younger brother.'

‘What?'

‘Peter was my younger brother and Mary was my cousin. The driver who stood by and watched Peter burn was my uncle Ted, who was driving to the football game right behind my mother and Peter. That's why I went to look for Susan … that's why I took care of her. That's why I helped to put Peter into a state of spiritual hypnosis. I felt responsible for him and I felt responsible for her, too. After all, she risked her life, helping Mary.'

Together they walked across the sand toward Ocean Front Walk. They didn't need to talk to each other any more. They had both loved Susan Silverstone, in their different ways, and grief is often better borne in silence.

Mervyn said, ‘You're going off to Washington, then? You're really going?'

‘You didn't think I would?'

‘I thought you'd find any excuse to stay. I thought you'd dream up yet another supernatural threat, just to make sure that you had to stick by Special Class II.'

They were lounging around Mervyn's apartment, drinking sake and nibbling tiny Japanese snacks, like raw tuna on shreds of seaweed, sesame prawns and
chirasizushi
. In the far corner, Tibbles Two was devouring all the offcuts of salmon and mackerel from a rectangular lacquered dish.

Washington had his leg hooked over the end of the couch, and was swinging his foot. ‘I should have been there, man, when you blew up the Swimmer.'

‘You supported me, Washington, all the way along the line, you and Laura both, and the rest of the class. I couldn't have made it if it hadn't been for you.'

‘Still and all, we weren't there, were we?'

‘No, you weren't. You have your own lives to make, from now on. You can never go back. Jane could think of nothing else but going back, but all it ever brings you is disillusionment, resentment, and grief. Look ahead, Washington: there's a great new life out there, just waiting for you to live it.'