She was choking, drawing in great gulps of breath. She could feel herself being scraped over sand and pebbles, tiny stones digging into her back, buttocks and thighs. Someone forcing her to sit up, wrapping her in fabric, wiping away her salty vomit.
Dazed, she watched Hector struggling to pull Jon up the beach towards her. She was puzzled. Why was Hector here? She didn’t think he’d been with her before. And if he was saving Jon, someone else must have rescued her. But who?
The person with her was now prising her arms into a T-shirt and fleecy sweatshirt, stretching them down over her head. She was shivering so much, she could hear her teeth clattering together.
‘Here, let’s get these on.’
It was a male voice. Familiar. Comforting. He’d walked round to her other side and was crouching by her feet, pushing them clumsily through the legs of some jeans that weren’t her own.
She blinked a few times, thinking it was Al, her husband, but it couldn’t be. He was in Cornwall. With Sasha. She must be hallucinating. Perhaps that happened when you almost drowned.
‘Can you stand up?’
She tried but was too weak, and she let him lift her off the ground like a child, hooking her arms round his neck while he wrestled her into the trousers.
They were much too big, so he set her down again gently before tightening them round the waist with the belt and putting her in socks, too.
The whole exercise must have been quite an effort with her so feeble and useless, but he didn’t complain.
‘Al, is it you?’ she heard herself ask, bewildered. She was still shivering, but a little less so, and her breathing was becoming easier. ‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t answer but told her to wait, before hurrying over in just his boxers to help Hector get Jon into some clothes, too.
Jon was making odd moaning noises and she heard him repeat ‘I’m sorry’ over and over. He was alive, thank God. She must have done something right. But she still didn’t understand about Al. Perhaps it was all a dream. Maybe she was dead.
There was a lot of shouting and strange voices. A group of men was running towards them, carrying things – blankets and stretchers. She felt herself being lifted onto a soft bed and wrapped tight in crinkly foil, so she could hardly move. Soon, the men were jogging back the other way with her, taking care not to bump her around too much.
‘Al?’ she whispered piteously, frightened she’d imagined him.
‘I’m right here, Star,’ he replied, coming alongside.
A warm, fuzzy feeling enveloped her, and her skin tingled. Star was his nickname for her. She hadn’t heard it in such a long while.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, fighting back the tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. ‘For everything.’
He touched her cheek, one of the few bits of her that was still exposed.
‘Shh. Don’t talk now. We’ll speak properly later.’
* * *
The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur. They were airlifted by helicopter to the nearest hospital, where they underwent medical tests. After around eight hours of observation, they were declared fit to go home.
Medics advised getting checked over by a local doctor in two to three days, unless the condition of either of them deteriorated, in which case they should return to the emergency department without delay.
Stella was exhausted but slept fitfully, jerked awake by her own screams. The events of the evening kept replaying in her mind, bringing back hideous memories of her time in the black water, fighting to keep Jon alive, gasping for air.
She was aware of Al’s comforting presence beside her, but didn’t try to have a meaningful conversation. She did ask why he’d come to Crete, though, and how he’d managed to find them.
‘You sounded weird on the phone when we spoke yesterday,’ he explained. ‘I was worried, so I rang Hector. When he told me what was going on with Jon, I decided to catch the next available flight.
‘Neither of you were at the villa when I arrived and Hector said you’d told him you wanted to stay close to the sea for some reason. It sounded odd. Then I read Jon’s letter and heard about the artist’s warning. Basically, Hector and I put two and two together and ran here as fast as we could.’
Stella’s eyes widened and she tried to sit up. ‘You read Jon’s letter? What did it say?’
Al shook his head.
‘Lie down. You need to rest. Jon’s fine. You did an incredibly brave thing. Try to sleep. We’ll discuss this another time.’
