A Boat Called No
It was a rickety, creaky old wooden dive boat with an even more rickety engine that stopped and started like a dog growling at a mischievous squirrel. Even in the deep, moonless dark, it was clear the paint was peeling like scabs, so much so that only the last two letters of its name—Neptuno—were visible. If I was a believer in signs from the universe, a boat called ‘no’ would have been a further reason not to have boarded it. But there I was.
The sea was calm. Water gently lapped the hull of the boat, a quiet and strangely disconcerting sound, as if the whole Mediterranean had quieted itself, waiting for something to happen. Lights glowed from the island we had just left behind, and one or two flickered from the other island, Formentera, that lay on the horizon.
Alberto had stayed at the helm—steadfastly staring out to sea, like a determined buccaneer—while I stripped off down to the tie-dyed swimsuit I had purchased at the hippy market. The dim light of the lantern gave my flesh an almost blue-green hue, and even with his back to me, I felt self-conscious about my old exposed flesh, even with my newer, smoother legs, and he hardly an Adonis himself. I think actually that was one of the first things I resented about Alberto: the ease he had with his own form. The way he let it all hang out. The pot belly, the body hair, the open shirts, the ridiculous denim shorts. I don’t know if it was because he was a man or because he was just him, but he really didn’t give a toss.
Whereas, by contrast, I cared far too much. My simmering disquiet about my own existence had always found its focus in my physical form. I had spent a lifetime hating my appearance in the present and then appreciating it in retrospect. No doubt there was a ninety-year-old Grace in the future who was wondering why I didn’t like the way I looked at seventy-two. If only we could always have the perspective of the future with us as we live that present.
Sure, in each moment we have never been so old, but we are of course also the youngest we will ever be. I had never liked my body very much, and even now the lumpiest veins had been removed, I still felt quite ashamed of it. Being English—particularly the condensed form known as East Midlands English—was to be raised to have self-consciousness as a virtue. But it was also being old, being a woman; it was how I was conditioned to be.
It is such a ridiculous thing, isn’t it? The way we judge our bodies. The way, as we become increasingly invisible with age, we still clutch tight to that self-consciousness. The way we curse the thing that has kept us alive all this time. I doubt a sparrow resents its wings, even when its feathers are dried and withered.
I had often wanted to be a bird. A bluebird. Like the one Daniel had drawn for me decades ago. But there I was, more human than ever. And the thought that Alberto—already in his wetsuit—could turn around and witness me at any time added urgency as I grappled awkwardly into mine. Grappling into a wetsuit, by the way, is one of the all-time challenges in life. It requires the strength of an ox and the limbs of a contortionist. If wetsuits had been around in ancient times, Hercules would have had to get into one as part of his twelve labours. At the end, when I was mostly covered, I even had to ask Alberto to help me a bit.
‘Sí, sí, of course … por supuesto …’
Then he switched the engine off and fastened an air cylinder to my back and talked me through other pieces of equipment, including the torches strapped to our heads. For a moment or two, he seemed like quite a normal diving instructor. He told me about the regulator I was going to breathe through. Another device—a kind of vest—that was to control my buoyancy underwater so that I didn’t have to keep kicking my legs. A weighted belt. A mask, which he said was very important because I needed to keep my eyes as open as possible. And fins. I didn’t know whether to feel ridiculous or terrified, so I decided to feel both. He then went back to the helm and continued heading further out.
I had no idea what I was doing here. Yes, I desperately wanted to find out what had happened to Christina, but I think there was another reason I was on that boat, and it certainly had nothing to do with Alberto’s animal charisma. Maybe, at some subconscious level, it was a kind of death wish. Maybe I wanted something bad to happen. Maybe, after discovering I was unable to feel anything at all towards such a beautiful island, I realized that I had nothing to lose.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was also the opposite. Maybe I had a sense that I needed to break the pattern. And by doing it, I would break out of the limbo I was in. I would die. Or I would find a way to truly live. That is to say, maybe something was calling me. Either Christina. Or something else. Something to do with that strange glowing water in the olive jar.
‘People say she could see into the future,’ I said at one point when the sound of the engine lowered.
‘She could,’ said Alberto, staring out at the dark low outline of Formentera ahead of us. ‘She saw her life was in danger. But I don’t know who was endangering it. Who wanted to kill her. And nor did she.’
‘People don’t see into the future.’
‘Of course they do. People do it all the time. Meteorologists, economists … Well, they try to.’
He laughed. He thought he was funny. He thought it was a good place to drop a weak joke, right there after talking about Christina’s death. He had an unseemly admiration for himself.
‘You know exactly what I mean. You are a man of science. You must surely realize you are speaking nonsense. Clairvoyancy is an illusion, a magic trick; it has no evidence to support it,’ I said.
‘There are many things that people have thought were not real that turned out to be very real. Up until near the end of the nineteenth century, every marine scientist on Earth was convinced that life couldn’t exist more than five hundred meters below sea level. Then they discovered it went all the way down, and it was a shock. A big shock.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Is it? Everything looks obvious after history has tamed it. But at the time, it was like finding proof of alien life. We are never at the end of history. And we are not at the end of science.’
‘You believe in alien life, don’t you? You wrote a book about it.’
‘Yes. Can you imagine believing in Earth if you were someone who had never been there? Can you imagine believing in the elephant, the turtle, the clownfish, the zebra shark? It would be crazy, crazy.’
‘I try to believe in known reality,’ I said.
‘And what about the glowing seawater in the olive jar?’
I froze. I was sure I hadn’t told him about that. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a miniature bottle of rum. Only it wasn’t rum. It was seawater, very faintly glowing seawater. ‘I carry this with me everywhere. Ever since I quit drinking. I like to be near it.’
‘It? What is it?’
‘Something you will understand very soon. Reality is merely an illusion. A very persistent one. I think that is what Einstein said. Sometimes the illusion is the reality we don’t understand yet.’
‘If she could see into the future, then why did she die?’
He frowned, smilingly. ‘Who said she died?’
‘Everyone,’ I said. ‘That is why I am here. She died.’
‘She didn’t die. She just saw she was going to. She knew if she stayed someone was going to harm her. She just went away.’
‘Where?’
‘I am about to show you.’
I had no idea what to say. ‘I’m seventy-two years old. Isn’t there a health check I need to do?’
‘Are you in good health?’
‘Not particularly.’ I didn’t feel like giving him the full list. The problematic veins, the bad hip, the swollen ankles, the tinnitus, the osteoarthritis, the erratic blood pressure, the occasional depression, the anhedonia … The audiobook of War and Peace would have been shorter.
‘Well, then. That is perfect.’
‘Perfect? For what?’
For blaming my death on natural causes?
‘You will see,’ he said. Which wasn’t exactly reassuring.
