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Ben tightened his hold and whispered into his ear, ‘Please, baby,please. Go. Save yourself.’
Aleksey sighed and twisted in Ben’s arms. ‘I cannot swim that far unless you are with me, Ben. Maybe we can make it. Together. But I willnotleave you. I promised you I would never leave you again, and I am keeping that promise.’
Ben’s jaw dropped open. ‘Now! Now you decide you can’t leave me! I didn’t mean you couldn’t leave me to take a piss! Have a shower! Save your own bloody life! For fuck’s sake, you are such a fuckingwassock.’
Aleksey just shrugged this off. So be it. Then he muttered mutinously, ‘Still not going though.’
Ben was quiet for a long time, just the sound of the frustrated breakers, and one or two wheeling, screeching gulls, attracted possibly by the smell from the strange slick on the water.
‘Okay then. We both go.’
Fuck.
Aleksey put a hand on Ben’s leg to still incipient departure: Ben Rider-Mikkelsen, spark to the flame of action, ‘I do not know whether we should wait here through the night and go at dawn, or go now.’ As if it would make any difference.
Ben squinted up at the sun. ‘It’s what, about two o’clock?’
‘I don’t know. My watch is at the bottom of the ocean, apparently.’
‘How long will it take us?’
An eternity, Ben, that’s how long. ‘I’m not sure. It’s about twenty miles, so…’
‘Really! Shit.’
‘Yes. Shit. That is what I have been trying to tell you.’ He began to play with the fingers laced across his chest. ‘Ben…?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You know when we take Molly to Plymouth Hoe for her to ride on the train?’
‘Yes…is this relevant to—?’
‘Very, so be quiet and listen. When you hold her up to see if she can see the lighthouse on the very horizon? The Eddystone? And sometimes she can because the light is just right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That is twelve miles, Ben. From there to that tiny speck that you can only see when thunder clears the air. That is only twelve miles. We are possibly twice that from Light Island.’
Ben was very quiet at this, so Aleksey thought he’d add to the misery. ‘The English Channel is about the same distance as we have to swim, and the very best swimmers who attempt it take a whole day and a whole night. Twenty-four hours Ben, and they have trained for many years for these feats of endurance and have equipment and…lard.’
‘Lard?’
‘Yes, I think they smear themselves with it. I’m not sure. Perhaps they eat it before they leave. But you are missing the point, it—’
‘No, I’m not. It’s a long way. I get it. So we’d better make a start, yeah?’
‘But if we are swimming through the night in the dark we will have no idea…we will not be able to see…fuck.’
They couldn’t see the island now. Swimming, they would be able to see almost nothing anyway. They would have to swim at night whenever they left. These facts were undeniable. Nothing they did mattered.
Ben extricated himself from his position. They’d both stopped shivering. It was actually blessedly warm up on the rock now, in the sun, but there was a vast cloudbank looming in the west, moving closer.
Stay or go?
Stay or go?
The waters here were warmed by the Gulf Stream—sub-tropicalislands.
