Page 52 of Summer in Greece

Harry shook Shelly’s shoulder, tapped his watch, and made the sign to ascend. Shelly shook her head. She could not leave the turtle to die. She pointed to Harry’s dive knife, then tugged at the net above the turtle. He got the message and started cutting through the strands of nylon.

Shelly slashed at the net below the turtle, terrified that one of them would become entangled and the nightmare of her past repeat itself. The turtle stopped struggling, whether dying from lack of oxygen or sensing they were helping it, she couldn’t know. Seconds ticked by, their tanks becoming more depleted. Shelly willed herself to stay calm, to slow her heartbeat, to save oxygen. They had to have enough air to rise slowly. Finally, the last strands of polymer broke away and keeping hold of the turtle, they hauled it between them as they started their slow ascent.

Keeping one eye on the time she clipped herself to a loop in the shot line and hung there for her decompression. Harry came alongside, and they both worked on cutting away more of the punishing net from the turtle’s flipper. All the time, she hoped the turtle had enough air to hold on a while longer. Harry clung on to the front of the shell. Everything depended on the turtle not making a race for the surface to breathe. If it did, they would have to let it go or suffer the fatal bends.

Her blood boiled. How could fishermen be so careless? Why couldn’t manufacturers go back to using cotton, hemp, or wool nets? At least those materials would eventually rot away. The net they were cutting off the turtle may have been hanging off that shipwreck for over half a century, and killed countless marine mammals in the most horrible way.

The dive apparatus impeded an urge to scream angrily, as loud and hard as she could. She diverted her thoughts and concentrated on drawing the last nylon filaments from the creature’s wounded flipper. After swapping places with Harry, she started freeing its head. Cautiously, she looked into the turtle’s eye. One snap from that powerful beak could cut through her airpipe, which would certainly kill her.

As the last clump of net came away, Shelly gave the turtle one last look deep into its eye, made the OK sign to Harry, and gave the enormous carapace a gentle shove towards the surface. Great joy blossomed in her chest. Harry reached for her hand and together they watched the turtle’s silhouette rise through the lighter water above, pale turquoise light bouncing off the dark amber shell. Shelly was overcome by euphoria, made more intense because she couldn’t smile with an air-hose gripped between her teeth. Her elation was not just because the pressure against her dive suit had lessened, or because the turtle now swam free, but because she had realised the truth of the situation and come to terms with her nightmare.

The details of what happened that awful day were there all along, but they always hid behind Shelly’s self-blame. Uppermost in Shelly’s memory of her holiday with David and Simon, was that she had caused a string of events that led to a tragedy. The suppressed reason why she absolutely had to dive now was to prove to herself that if she had been able to dive then, she would have saved him.

However, in truth, if she had managed to dive, she may well have also become entangled in that same net and it could have been a double tragedy. Even if she hadn’t gone on that holiday with David, he would still, most probably, have investigated what was in the bottom of that old sunken boat, and the tragic outcome would have been the same.

All this time, subconsciously, Shelly had been searching for a way to prove that if she could, she would have rescued David, she would have cut the fishing net away from him, as she had with the turtle, and he would have escaped his awful fate. But she simply didn’t have the skill to dive. What happened to David was not her fault! It had nothing to do with her precious bangle, or her obsession with her mother’s death. It was an accident that may well have happened whether she had gone on holiday with him, or not.

Her sense of relief was so intense, she almost floated to the surface without the essential decompression stop.

She squeezed Harry’s hand. He couldn’t know what this dive meant, that something so significant had happened.

They pulled themselves up the boat ladder, feeling the force of gravity dragging at every muscle and limb, and the weight of their equipment making their emergence from the sea almost impossible. Harry’s sons stood either side of the dive ladder and hauled them up until they eventually plopped onto the bench, feeling almost unbearably heavy now that they were out of the water. The boys relieved them of diving gear and then they wriggled out of their dry suits, too exhausted to speak.

Sometime later, partly recovered, they sat side by side as Harry’s sons dealt with the chores to close the dive. ‘That was magical, thank you,’ Shelly said, hardly able to raise her voice above a murmur. Harry nodded and smiled.

*

‘Are you going to tell me what happened down there?’ Harry asked over dinner that evening.

‘Ah, on the Burdigala?’

He nodded.

‘Hm, yes, sorry about that.’ She hesitated; she never spoke to anybody about David, but somehow she found herself longing to open up to Harry. ‘Something catastrophic took place when I was sixteen, before I’d learned to dive, and it all came back in a similar scene.’

‘You seemed traumatised.’

‘Traumatised? No, it was just a recall. I was only sixteen, my first boyfriend, David. Someone I loved . . .’ She battled to keep calm. ‘Well, he got into trouble, tangled in a fishing net. I saw it all but couldn’t help.’ She had to stop and take a breath in order to say the essential words that she knew would help her to heal. ‘It ended in tragedy. So, you see, when your face lit up behind that net, it gave me quite a start.’

‘Must have been awful. You were sixteen?’

She nodded, suddenly realising she had no appetite. ‘Please, it was such a wonderful day today, I’d rather not spoil it by recalling that nightmare. If you don’t mind, Harry, I’ll tell you about it another time.’ He nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, feeling the memory of David take a respectful step back.

Harry reached across the table and touched her wrist. Shelly offered her hand and he took it, silent for a moment. ‘I lost my friend, too,’ he said simply. ‘Narcosis. It was many years ago, yet sometimes it’s like yesterday. I always remember him and use extra caution when I’m organising my tanks for a dive.’

She nodded again. ‘Like yesterday, yes, I understand that. Was it on a dive?’

‘It was, just a week after his wedding. I was in the boat,’ Harry said. We were very young; I was only eighteen. Though he was three years older than me, we’d been friends all our lives, through school, everything. He was my hero. That day, we high-fived then Spiro went down. I never saw him alive again.’ He stared at his plate. ‘Two and a half years later, I married his widow, Anita. It was such a mistake. Grief and love are not the same thing. Our break-up was a mutual decision. We’re still friends and see each other because of the boys. You must meet her when she comes over, she’s a great woman and you’d get on very well, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sorry, Harry. What a tragedy. You never quite get over it, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘He simply had a heart attack brought on by the narcosis. You prepare so carefully, it seems impossible, but when a man gets dive-drunk, it’s difficult to get some sense into him. His dive buddy thought he was filming something close up and wasn’t concerned when he didn’t move for a few minutes. When they were due to start their ascent, he realised something was wrong . . . but it was too late.’

‘Until now, I’ve found that I must keep diving, like I’m doing it for David,’ Shelly explained. ‘It’s like every experience under the water, every sensation, I’m sharing with him. Does that sound crazy?’

Harry shook his head.

‘But diving with you has been different, Harry. Something’s changed, and I’m not sure why?’