snakes,’ Aaron said, deadpan.
She snorted. ‘I’m swimming back.’
The others joined Kitty, but Lana said she’d catch up, wanting a few moments alone. She floated on her back, letting the dark sea bear her weight. She felt a surge of freedom, a sense of possibility, a feeling that she and Kitty were part of something bold and wonderful that was so much more than the life they’d left in England. She wanted to seal this feeling in her heart. She closed her eyes, suspended in the sea, the voices of her friends slipping further away.
She became aware of a shift in the water, a new vibration in the liquid stillness. There was the brush of something against her skin, as if a hand was sliding down the length of her back and over the rise of her buttocks. She kicked out in surprise, waiting for whoever it was to surface laughing. After a while … thirty seconds, then a minute … there was no one.
She turned in the water, glancing about her, a trail of goosebumps spreading down her neck. It looked as though the rest of the crew had reached the stern and were pulling themselves out of the sea, although she couldn’t clearly make out if they were all there.
Had she imagined it? If one of the others had been fooling around, surely they would have grabbed her ankle or leg, pretending to be a shark – whereas this was insidious, just the breath of a touch, like a dark eel slithering against her skin.
Lana shivered. She swam hard towards the yacht, and scrambled up onto the stern, scraping her shin on the metal edge in her hurry.
Kitty had fetched a towel and, when she saw Lana, she wrapped it around them both so their cool bodies were pressed together.
‘Kit,’ she whispered, ‘did you see anyone just swim over to me?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Just now it felt like … like someone ran a hand along my back underwater.’
‘You sure?’ Kitty said, looking bemused.
Glancing about her, Lana could see all of the crew – Shell, Heinrich, Denny, Aaron and Joseph – drying off on deck. Had one of them managed to swim back here before her?
She looked out across the dark water. But the sea was eerily still, not a ripple in its surface.
‘Some of us don’t have legs that can stretch that far!’ Kitty yelled.
Lana paused, glancing over her shoulder at Kitty, who was standing barefoot on a boulder, arms folded over her chest. Her cheeks had pinkened and there was a gleam of sweat across her forehead. ‘Want a leg up?’
‘No, I bloody don’t!’
Lana grinned. Then she watched as Kitty hauled herself up the rock, puffing and cursing.
They climbed the last part together, finally reaching the others who were at the top of the rocky cliff face, standing on a wide ledge that jutted out above the water. A warm breeze stirred the air, carrying the chalky scent of the rocks.
‘Guess I’d better test out this dive board,’ Denny said, moving to the edge of the cliff face and peering down. A 40-foot drop ended in a still blue lagoon, where he’d been snorkelling earlier to check the depth.
Denny removed his T-shirt and knotted the string on his board shorts. His body was lean and tanned and Lana’s gaze followed the contours of his wiry muscles, imagining how she’d sketch him, where she’d shade, and which lines she’d follow. He was fit and seemed to have boundless energy; every morning he swam before breakfast, and if Lana sloped into the saloon before dawn for a glass of water, she’d find Denny awake, a coffee and his laptop in front of him as he worked on a translation.
Denny turned his neck from side to side, then performed a series of elaborate leg stretches.
‘Get on with it!’ Aaron called.
Denny took a few steps back from the cliff edge and then ran forwards, launching himself into the air. Lana was expecting something impressive, but he bunched his knees up towards his chest and bombed downwards, a boulder of limbs. There was a thunderous white splash as he hit the water. A moment or two later, he erupted through the surface to whoops and cheers.
Lana heard the flick of a lighter and turned to see Joseph smiling in the shade, lighting a roll-up.
‘Do me one, Joe-Joe?’ Kitty asked.
‘Thought you only smoked when you were drinking?’ Lana said.
‘How do you know I haven’t been drinking?’ Kitty said with a wink.
Kitty reached across as Joseph passed her his lit cigarette. ‘Thanks, honey.’
They spent the day hanging out on the cliff top where the breeze was at its coolest. The dives became more ambitious, with Denny and Heinrich trying to outdo each other with somersaults, inelegant back flips, and swallow dives – landing with slaps that seemed to echo off the rocks.
Lana noticed the competitive edge to Heinrich, who sought out the others’ praise when he returned to the cliff top after a successful dive. Shell teased him that his formation was a little off, losing points for bent legs on entry. He looked genuinely disappointed by her verdict, until Shell’s face broke into an easy grin.
When the heat became too much for Lana, she jumped from the ledge too, enjoying the burst of adrenalin that pumped hard through her veins in that moment when her feet left the rock. When it came, the smack of water was an exhilarating white burst that filled her nose and mouth with salt water, and she surfaced coughing and laughing.
Around lunchtime, Shell took the dinghy back to the yacht, and returned with a bag full of sandwiches, fruit, and bottles of chilled water. They ate looking out over the incredible view. Not a single boat was sighted and, apart from a plane flying overhead, they were entirely alone.
As the sun began to lower, one by one the crew made their way back to the yacht, until only Joseph, Aaron and Lana remained on the cliff top. Joseph wandered to the edge with another cigarette, peering down at the drop. The breeze flattened his shirt against his body and Lana noticed for the first time how thin he was. She could see the sharp jut of his shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine.
‘Going to jump?’ Aaron said from behind him.
Joseph just shrugged, his gaze on the water.
‘You’re not going to give it a go?’ Aaron asked slyly.
Joseph turned to face Aaron, his back to the cliff edge. Very slowly he drew the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag. He blew the smoke upwards to the sky, then he dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his bare heel. He placed his glasses carefully on the ground and took a step back so that his heels were at the lip of the cliff.
‘Careful,’ Lana said.
Joseph crouched down, and then in a shock of movement, he flung himself up and back, his body arching. His arms were outstretched at his sides and he seemed to float silently through an inverse world. His shirt filled with air, rising away from his chest and exposing the pale skin of his stomach. As he neared the surface, he brought his arms together in a neat point, piercing through the blue water.
Lana gasped. White water bubbled on the surface, cloaking Joseph from view. Then suddenly there was a rush of movement as he surfaced.
‘Yeeaaah!’ Denny bellowed from down below, his voice echoing off the rock. The rest of the crew, who were still in the lagoon, whooped and cheered, too.
Joseph trod water for a moment, his blue shirt clinging to his body – and Lana was certain she could