overtakes her, and she is lost in her own sleeping depths before she is aware of it.
What happens next is part dream, part memory. It is 1986, and Desi is thirteen years old, arms whirling through the water, her shoulders burning. Each time she turns her head to the right, she sees two men gawking at her from a boat in the distance. The shorter one holds a stopwatch, frowning. The taller one is grinning like an ape.
Desi is going as fast as she can. She doesn’t mind swimming, but there are many things she dreads about the ocean. For a start, there are rip-tides that carry you stealthily away from shore. On more than one occasion, her father has taken pity and pulled her aboard spluttering when she has almost given up fighting the current. But what really makes her stomach drop is the endless blue beneath her, extending well beyond her vision. Who knows what might be down there.
However, it is her father’s idea that, when he takes her out on his crayfishing boat, Desi should swim the last kilometre to shore. He is encouraging her natural talent, or so he had sniped at Desi’s mother when Hester complained. ‘It’s how my dad taught me. If she’s fast enough, she could be an Olympian. Think of that.’ And the thought had seemed to stall her mother’s objections.
She hears her dad and his deckhand Rick begin to shout encouragement. They haven’t done this before. She can feel she is going well, though. This could be her best time.
Then she registers the tone of their voices. Urgent. She flicks a glance towards the boat, to see them leaning over the side, pointing. She sculls with her hands to get upright, and into her line of vision comes a flash of grey fin, almost in touching distance.
Her veins run cold with terror. Any moment there will be a bite, and unimaginable pain. She will be swimming in her own blood; she will be yanked under to drown. The shark has appeared between her and the boat, but she has to swim that way to safety. In her panic, she begins to move that way anyway, but she doesn’t seem able to swim properly any more. Her strokes are too frantic; she is just churning up water, not going anywhere, waiting for the strike.
Time arrests. Until, to her surprise, her father begins shooing her towards the shore. ‘Keep going!’ he shouts.
There is no time for questions. She turns and starts to swim, kicking like her feet are on fire.
And then the water breaks again, only an arm’s length in front of her, and out flies a slick gunmetal torpedo. It arcs over her, then the water explodes into spray as it neatly cleaves the sea on re-entry, leaving only bubbles in its wake.
Not a shark at all.
A dolphin.
She loses all momentum, so relieved that she is instantly laughing while choking back tears. The fin flashes past again, and this time she puts her face down into the water. For a moment the dolphin is right there in front of her, regarding her with a small, alert eye, the curve of its jaw fixed in a smile.
And then it is gone.
She twists around, searching in every direction, trying to see where the dolphin went, but there is no sign of it.
She has forgotten her father and Rick for a moment, until she sees them leaning on the rail. ‘Come on, Desi, get moving,’ her father is shouting, all impatience now.
Both encounters were over so quickly she is glad she has witnesses, or she might not have believed her own eyes. She turns and has a quick look at the beach, before beginning to grind out the strokes. Within the fog of water, the dolphin comes into view again, swimming directly under her body. If she reached out, she could touch it, and its steady pace matches hers. They are synchronised for what can only be a minute, but to Desi it is as though time is suspended. Then the dolphin disappears, and shortly afterwards she is staggering out of the surf, walking around to wait while her father moors the boat.
Rick comes down the pontoon first. ‘We thought you had a shark sniffin’ at you for a second there,’ he laughs.
The dream begins to break, and she doesn’t want it to. In her lightening sleep, she ignores Rick, rewinding the memory until she is back with the dolphin, swimming in tandem again. She