felt dizzy, jelly-like, could hardly believe there was firm sand for her feet to stand on. Wilfred half-dragged, half-carried her, Flora almost bent double, until they reached his bicycle, still propped up against the boulder where they had left it what now felt like a very long time ago.
They were both shaken and bewildered. They walked quickly, almost ran along the road, Wilfred pushing the bike, Flora hunching her shoulders forward self-consciously. The day was now broiling and the road was blistering on their bare feet, and small gravel stones dug into their soles.
Within ten minutes they had reached the other side of the cove. Wilfred headed into the foliage of the wooded hill and began to lead the way through the bushes to where he thought the cottage was; he hadn’t waited till they reached the path, wanting for them to leave the road as soon as they could. Thorn bushes, nettles and sharp sticks brushed against their bare skin and Wilfred held back branches for Flora to pass, to save her being scratched and stung.
In the copse and further from the sea Flora began to feel safer and more grounded; her bare feet on the cracked mud was comforting to her. It was the firm, solid earth; it was where she belonged. The leaves were providing shadows from the brilliant sun overhead, which had burned down on them on the beach and the road.
Wilfred shoved the cottage door open then led Flora in. He pulled the green tablecloth from the three-legged chair and gave it to her. She wrapped it around her shoulders, making a shawl of it. Then he took her in his arms. This time, for the first time, there was no awkwardness in Wilfred’s touch, no hesitancy; he held her with strength and ease. This was the body of the woman he had dragged through the sea, had held on to hard and tight while she flailed behind him. When her head went under the water he had found a resolution within himself – one he hadn’t known he had. It was as if a force had risen up inside him and it was absolute. She would live – he would make her live, he would not lose her. His grasp was iron-like, welded to her: the muscles of his arm, his knuckles and her wrist were made of iron welded into one piece and he would do anything, everything, before he let go of this woman. His body had never been stronger, his resolve never firmer. He knew a less determined man holding a lesser woman would have loosened his grip. And when she stood slightly beyond the river, in her liberty bodice, vomiting, the nakedness and the physicality of her body were nothing to him, not even a revelation. His decision was made, it had formed within him, was strengthened, then finally forged as he had dragged the nearly drowned body of this woman, Flora, through a river that had almost, almost, engulfed them. So, in the cottage when he took Flora in his arms, it was different. He stroked her damp hair, her small shoulders and then ran his hands down her bare arms.
Flora leaned against him, her arms hanging by her side. She had swallowed so much water and vomited so violently, her drenching had been so complete, that she felt as if the water had taken everything out of her. She felt purged: physically, emotionally. In those seconds, or minutes – that timeless space when she could no longer touch the bottom of the sea – Wilfred pulled her forward. When everything around her was water, when she no longer knew which way to find air, against the endless waves was the hard grip of Wilfred’s fingers. He had had his hand locked on to her body. Looking down she saw an imprint, an emerging bruise on her skin from his four fingers and thumb, a mark of Wilfred’s commitment to her. Wilfred, noticing it, put his hand gently over the darkening skin. He had held on. Wilfred enfolded her, unafraid, then pulled her even closer.
They were alive, they were both alive, he thought. And that was all that would ever matter to him again.
‘Come here,’ he said, that’s all, but the words were spoken with such openness that Flora could feel the warmth within them. No, they weren’t married and yes, Wilfred was married to someone else. They lay down on their sides, Flora with her arms folded across