The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (20 page)

Matthew looked through the window of the police car. This could not be happening; it simply could not be happening. He could not be in a police car, here in Perth, being treated by two policemen as a raving lunatic. It simply could not be happening.

And it was while he was thinking of the complete impossibility of his situation that the radio in the police car crackled into life. There was an incident on Cottesloe Beach, the voice reported. Further help was required to co-ordinate the search for a missing swimmer and could cars report back in if in the area. The policeman in front of Matthew turned round and looked at him. When he spoke, his tone had changed.

“What’s your name, mate?”

Matthew told him, and the policeman reached forward for the radio handset and muttered a question into it. There was
a short pause before a voice came back over the speaker. Matthew recognised his name.

“That’s me,” he said. “That’s me. I was the one washed out to sea.”

The policeman frowned. “You should have told us that, mate! Jeez. You should have told us that. We thought that you were mad as a cut snake. That dolphin business …”

“Please just get me back there,” interrupted Matthew. “My wife will be worried sick.”

The car slowed down and then made a swift U-turn. The policeman at the wheel now concentrated on his driving while the other one spoke briefly and urgently into the radio. In the back seat, Matthew was no longer concerned about the feeling of stickiness; his clothes had now started to dry and were clinging less to his skin. And he felt, too, the relief that comes with waking up from a nightmare.

Within ten minutes they were back at the restaurant. A small knot of people was standing at the top of the path that led down to the beach, several of them holding torches; there was a man in a swimming costume with a curious belt-like apparatus around his waist – a lifeguard prepared for rough seas; and there was Elspeth, standing a little bit apart.

Matthew tried to open the door of the car before it came to a complete halt, but the door would not budge.

“Kiddie-locked, mate,” said the policeman in front. “Just calm down. You’ve had enough accidents for one night.”

“I have to see my wife,” said Matthew. “I have to see her.”

“Strewth,” said the policeman. “I know a lot of blokes who’d willingly be washed out to sea just to get away from their old ladies.”

Matthew said nothing. This was not a time for such comments. He was going off Australia quite quickly; how odd, he thought, that one can rather like a country and then not like it quite so much, all within the space of a couple of hours. Mind you, how would an Australian visitor feel if he were to be washed into the sea off Gullane beach? Cold, thought
Matthew. And would one be carted off to a psychiatric hospital quite so quickly, just for claiming to have been rescued by a dolphin? Probably not, Matthew thought. There would be waiting lists for that.

Matthew’s return had a strange effect on Elspeth. When he ran up to her, she barely registered his presence. “Is there any news?” she asked, barely looking at him. “Is he …” And then she realised that it was Matthew standing in front of her, bedraggled, still damp, but undeniably her husband. She screamed, and flung her arms about him. He held her, supporting her weight, calming her as best he could.

Witnessing the reunion, the small crowd of onlookers – the restaurant staff, a couple of lifeguards, the police, looked away or turned to talk to one another, though some sneaked a glance. They knew, though, that they were seeing somebody find another believed to be dead, a human reunion surely more moving than any other.

Elspeth could not talk at first, but soon recovered. “What happened?”

“I was washed out to sea,” Matthew said. “It was a rip tide. I didn’t stand a chance. I tried to swim back, but I couldn’t even see you.”

“It was so quick,” Elspeth whispered. “One moment you were there and then …” She shuddered; he had disappeared so quickly. “There was one wave in particular. It came right up the beach.”

“They call them rogue waves,” said Matthew. “And yes, that was the one.”

One of the policemen stepped forward. “Well, it looks as if you’re all right,” he said. “Sorry about that misunderstanding, mate. But all’s well that ends well, as they say.”

Matthew turned round and shook hands with the policeman; he had only been dong his duty. “Thanks very much for …” For what? he wondered. For arresting him? “For bringing me back here.”

“No worries, mate. But take care in future. The sea here is not like your sea over in England.”

“Scotland, actually,” said Matthew. And our sea, he thought, was every bit as dangerous, if not more. But this was not the time to argue about that.

“Yes, whatever. But just remember, Australia’s a big place. You’ve got to be careful.”

Matthew smiled. “I will.”

One of the lifeguards now produced a form that he handed over to Matthew. “Do you mind signing this just here?” he said, pointing to a dotted line. “It’s just the paperwork.”

Matthew glanced at the form. “What’s it about?”

“Oh, it just says that it was your fault,” the lifeguard said cheerily. “And that you went into the water at a time when the no-bathing flag was up. Otherwise people blame us, you see.”

“But it wasn’t my fault,” said Matthew. “I didn’t go swimming.”

The lifeguard exchanged glances with his colleague. “But you must have, mate,” he said. “Otherwise how could you have been swept out?”

Matthew shook his head. “No, that’s not the way it happened.”

Elspeth agreed with him. “No. He’s right. I was there. He didn’t go swimming.”

Matthew returned the piece of paper to the lifeguard. “Thank you anyway,” he said. “I’m very grateful to you for your attempts to rescue me. But I can’t sign something that says it’s my fault. It wasn’t. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

The lifeguard took the form reluctantly. “So you’re not going to sign?”

“No.”

“Even though you entered the water voluntarily?”

Matthew sighed. He was beginning to feel cold, although the air was still warm. Being in the water for some time, he remembered, can lower one’s core temperature, which can take some time to recover. “I didn’t enter the water voluntarily,” he said. “I was swept out. I’ve told you that already.”

“But how did you get swept out?” the lifeguard said truculently. “You don’t get swept out unless you’re in the water in the first place. Not in my experience, at least.”

Matthew rolled his eyes upwards. “I didn’t go swimming,” he said, his voice edgy with irritation. “I went in, just a few inches, to pick up a piece of wood. Then …”

“Hah!” said the lifeguard. “You went in voluntarily to get something out of the sea. Voluntarily.”

“A couple of inches,” snapped Matthew. “Up to my ankles – no more.”

“That’s enough. I’ve seen people just getting their toes wet, mate. Then, bang, they’re in up to their knees and then they lose their footing and that’s them in deep trouble.”

“Yeah,” said the other lifeguard, who had been silent up to that point. “We seen that. A bloke the other day. Remember him, Merv? That fat guy.”

“Yup. Almost a goner. Took a lot of resuscitation.” There was a pause. “He signed the form.”

“Well, I’m not going to,” said Matthew.

The lifeguard folded the form up and tucked it into a small kitbag at his feet. “Well, in that case, we’ll have to report you for prosecution.”

Matthew gasped. “What for? For getting swept out to sea?”

“For endangering life by entering the sea voluntarily,” intoned the lifeguard, “in circumstances where a rescue could have been anticipated.”

“That means for endangering our lives, mate,” interjected the other lifeguard. “For endangering Merv and me’s life.”

“Oh really!” exploded Matthew.

“Why do you become lifeguards if you don’t want to rescue people?” asked Elspeth.

The lifeguards both turned to stare at her. “Who says we don’t want to rescue people?”

One of the waitresses from the restaurant now decided to enter the conversation. “They like to stand on the beach and chat up girls,” she said. “Yes, you do, Merv Andrews! Don’t deny it. I’ve seen you.”

Matthew decided that it was time to act. “Look,” he said. “I’ll sign if it makes you feel any better. Give me the paper.”

Merv reached down to extract the paper. “Good on you, mate,” he said. “You sign this – it keeps the paperwork regular and we forget about the whole thing.”

“So I won’t be prosecuted?”

“No, of course not. It’s just these forms. We have to get them signed or we get into trouble. Nobody ever looks at them. All they want to know is that the form’s been signed.”

Matthew took the piece of paper and scribbled his signature along the line. “There,” he said, handing it back to the lifeguard.

“That’s beaut,” said the guard. “Now we can forget about the whole thing.” He paused. “But tell me one thing – how did you get out of that rip?”

Matthew hesitated. He could not tell the truth – that was obvious. Telling the truth was an option, but only if one’s version of the truth was consistent with that which other people were prepared to accept as the truth.

“Washed back,” he said.

“A miracle!” said the lifeguard.

“Yes,” said Matthew. “It was.”

Bruce left the party at Watson Cooke’s flat without saying goodbye to Julia. From his point of view, the whole thing had been an unmitigated disaster.

For a short while Bruce had toyed with the idea of talking to the woman who had looked at him invitingly, but he found that he simply could not face it. It would have been a way of reminding Julia that she was not the only one and that he could get anybody – anybody – at the flick of his little finger. But somehow that was not what he really wanted. He wanted Julia herself, that infuriatingly stupid, gormless girl; he wanted her. He wanted the woman who was bearing his baby.

So he prepared to slip out of the flat while Julia was still in the kitchen, where he now glimpsed her talking to a dark-haired woman and the tall, rather thin man whom he had earlier on seen with Watson Cooke in the sitting room.

Watson came across him just as he was about to open the front door. “Leaving already, Duncan?” asked Watson.

“Bruce. It’s Bruce. I told you three times. Bruce.”

“Yes, sure. Leaving?”

“What does it look like?”

Watson smiled. “Looks like you’re leaving.” He paused. “Do you want me to tell Julia?”

Again Bruce felt his heart beating hard within him. He wanted to punch this man, with his supercilious, superior manner. He wanted to reach out and punch him on his … on his Watsonian chin. It would be so easy. Then he could slip
out of the door and run downstairs before his host had the chance to react.

Bruce took a deep breath. “Oh, Julia. Yes, well I’m sure that she’ll come home in her own good time. She’s obviously enjoying herself. What with the dinner you had. Now the party. It’s been a great evening for my fiancée.”

He stressed the word “fiancée” and watched the effect on Watson Cooke. It registered. Watson’s mouth twitched slightly at the edges.

“Oh yes,” said Watson Cooke. “You should take her out a bit more yourself, you know. Women like to be fussed over. Did you know that?”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. Does he think that I don’t know about women? Does he really think that? How many girlfriends has this stupid … stupid hunk had? Two?

“I have to go,” said Bruce suddenly. “Thank you very much for the party.”

He opened the door and went out onto the landing, slamming the door behind him. On impulse, he stopped for a moment and detached the note from the neighbour that he had found stuck to the door. To the message which the neighbour had written, he added two brief, scrawled scatological words, addressed to Watson. Then he pinned the note back on the door and went downstairs, out into the night.

He walked straight home, mentally rehearsing exactly what he would say to Julia when she came back that night. He thought that for a few minutes at the outset he would refuse to talk to her at all; the cold shoulder always registered with women. She would approach him, of course, and come up with something about not knowing why he was being so cold, and that would be his signal.

“Cold?” he would say. “So I’m cold, am I? Well, that’s not something that you suffer from, is it? Particularly when it comes to other men. Nobody would describe you as cold.”

Her jaw would drop. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh don’t you? Little Miss Innocent? Well, I refer to your
habit of dining tête-à-tête with other men when you’re meant to be engaged. That’s what I mean. Dining with that Watsonian gorilla and lying about it. Yes, lying. Oh, I can tell all right. Don’t think for one moment that I couldn’t tell that you were lying.”

Her face would crumple. “Oh, Bruce, don’t! I beg you! I love you so much. I worship the ground you tread on, I really do. I’d do anything for you, Brucie, anything. Oh, Brucie, please forgive me. It was madness, pure madness. And he’s such a creep, Watson Cooke. I hate him. I really hate him. He’s useless. And he’s impotent. Did you know that? Something happened in a rugby scrum and he’s impotent. You should feel sorry for him, Brucie. You should. You’re so … so … and he’s so … so … Really, Brucie, it’s true. Please forgive me. I feel wretched.”