Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 11

your first positive impression, which still stops you from seeing her as a person.’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Jasper said. ‘I hate it when people comment on my looks, because I know they’re saying nothing at all about me. Absolutely nothing.’

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, not an uncomfortable silence, but one rich with the promise of future possibilities. Finally, however, Jasper yawned and stretched. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to put out the fire, or are you staying up?’

‘I’ll stay up,’ Leo answered. He sat gazing into the coals for another half an hour, as though he would find the answers to all questions there.

Chapter Nine

The convoy of wagons and caravans moved slowly, at the pace of its slowest member, so that it took two more days to reach the coast. Leo was impatient, yet he passed the time profitably enough. Mayon taught him how to juggle and Parara, the more extroverted of the conjoined twins, told him many stories of their lives in sideshows and fairs. Lavolta interjected occasional comments, usually sour ones, and Leo came to realise that the taunts and blows they suffered had deeply wounded one twin while leaving the other virtually unscathed.

The land was becoming flatter, the ground sandier and the breeze saltier. On their third day out from Ifeka they pitched camp at about four in the afternoon, in a sheltered spot that Mayon said was as close to the sea as they would be for a while. Leo hurried through his jobs, then obtained permission to go off on his own. With his heart beating he set out for the long line of sandhills in the distance, jogging and walking, his face pointing up as he sniffed the surf like an overjoyed dog.

When he reached the line of sandhills, about an hour from the camp, he found there were more dunes concealed behind them. His enthusiasm slowed a little as he climbed them, and then more hills. Sinking in and out of the sand at each step was tiring; it reminded him of times at home when he and his sister had played on the mud floors of dams that were drying up. When he did reach the final crest it came as a surprise: he had ceased to think about his reasons for ploughing through the endless sand.

But suddenly there it was — the wonderful ocean, fretting at the edge of a wonderful beach. Leo felt mad delight. He did not know what to look at first: the infinity of beach curving away to his left and

right, or the infinity of flecked blue stretching out in front. He had never known before how something so empty could contain so much. He laughed and laughed. Making wild chortling noises, shedding his clothes and inhibitions, he ran down towards the edge of the water some distance away.

When he had thrown off his last piece of clothing he turned and ran backwards, pissing as he ran, wetting the sand in a pattern of huge zig-zags. A series of untidy somersaults then brought him to the ocean itself, and he stood with his feet in the water, watching the exhausted waves froth around his ankles. ‘Fantastic!’ he laughed excitedly. ‘Fantastic! Fantastic!’

There was plenty of heat left in what had been a hot day, and Leo advanced a little further into the water, pushing against it with his shins. He looked around anxiously to make sure that he still had the beach to himself. Reassured, he waded on, gasping as waves broke against him, until he was up to his waist. ‘Amazing,’ he muttered to himself. He was now at the crucial point in the surf. Ahead of him the waves were breaking in agitated crashes; beyond was the calmness of the big swell. Behind him the breakers that had spent themselves in orgiastic climaxes were regrouping and surging again, in weak imitation of their earlier thunder; but Leo stood in the calm between the two lines of surf, exulting in the power of the water that broiled around his body.

Then, with a triumphant whoop he flung himself forward, lifting his knees and trying to run, charging at the roaring madness of white ahead of him. He reached it and flung himself into it; but he knew instantly, before his feet had even left the sand, that he had made a mistake, that here was a power beyond his experience and beyond his imagining. Suddenly, for the first time that he could remember, he had no control at all over what happened to him, no control over his body. The wave tossed him and rolled him and threw him around as though he were a rabbit held in the jaws of a dog, shaken furiously in all directions.

Even in the middle of the worst of it all, he knew that it would only last a few seconds, but those few seconds seemed never to end. And he failed to realise how quickly the next wave would be on him. As the maëlstrom passed he found the ocean floor with his feet again and stood up, gasping for breath and wiping the water from his eyes. No sooner had he done so than the next breaker exploded over him before he could see it. His lungs were still empty of air, and he found himself caught in another cauldron of white violence.

Leo was close to panic. He was thrown heavily into the sand. With no breath left in him he felt that he would not survive; if his first dumping had seemed to last a long time this second one was interminable. He was desperately tempted to open his mouth but still had enough reason left to resist. He knew he was in danger but did not know how to begin getting out of it. A vague instinct told him that someone would come and rescue him, but he also knew that the deserted beach could not suddenly grow people.

When the second wave had finished with him he had the sense to gulp some air before the onslaught of the third. To his relief it seemed less turbulent than the other two; he did not realise for a few moments that it was because an undertow was carrying him out to sea, but he understood what was happening when he tried to stand again in the wave’s aftermath. He had a moment’s sensation of slipping and thought he was going right under, but the water came to his neck, lapping under his chin as he desperately tried to keep his head up. Distracted by this, he did not think to gasp a proper breath again, and started to panic as he felt himself swept off his feet. This time it was not the cascading surf that was his enemy but the savage back-pull of the rip. Leo was helpless as it carried him, kicking and struggling, well out beyond the line of the breakers, so that he was floating in the big undulations of the swell. His head was an insignificant dot in the vast green movement of water.

Leo could swim; he and Sunday had swum many times in the dams and creeks of the farm, but this situation was very different. One of the dams at home — their favourite one — had been too deep in the middle for them to stand, but a few lazy strokes had always been sufficient to carry them to the shallows. And the water had always been passive — the swimmer was in control. Leo knew that he could float and tread water for a time, but he did not know if he could defeat the undertow, and he did not know how he would get through the surf again, assuming he could get that far.

As one of the swells lifted him Leo twisted around to get a glimpse of the beach. He was horrified to see how far away it was. He was also amazed to realise that he was being carried along to his left, and was now quite close to the headland. For the first time he became aware of cold, and could feel his limbs begin to tremble, not only with cold but also with fear. The boy strove to think clearly. What was he to do? Again his mind came close to being overwhelmed by panic. He had a momentary vision of his parents’ faces when they heard the news that their other child was gone, and he recalled his father’s voice, as clearly as though the man were at his shoulder now. And he remembered his father’s favourite saying, one that had irritated the boy on many occasions in the past. ‘Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions,’ his father would say when Leo tried to tell him of a sheep that had got out onto the road, or a tree that had fallen on a fence, or a heifer that had sunk into the mud of a drying dam.

Now Leo summoned up the last shreds of his fragmented mind. What was the solution here? He tried a few experimental strokes towards the shore but knew he was making no progress. Then he tried swimming at a less direct angle and found that he was able to make some headway. But his body was shivering so much it was hard for him to make his limbs move vigorously again. He started yelling at himself through chattering teeth, abusing himself in an effort to get a response, trying to tap the reserves of energy that he knew would be there. His arms and legs slowly began to function, and even as his chest and muscles cried out in protest he began to make some progress.

After about ten or fifteen minutes Leo was drawing close to the wall of breaking waves again, but new problems were looming on his left, as he drifted steadily closer to the rocks at the end of the beach. By now he was swimming in a kind of fog of pain and weariness, in which his mind continued to function but was unable to motivate or inspire him. He was aware of the need to get through the breakers before he was carried onto the rocks, but it was his reflexes rather than his will that made his arms move faster and his legs kick harder.

In the event it proved to be easier than Leo had anticipated. The point at which he was attempting to come in had little undertow and, when he swam into the surf, his heart riddled with fear, the waves picked him up and carried him, so that he involuntarily became a bodysurfer, if a rather awkward one. He spoilt the ride quite quickly by attempting to stand up; he went sprawling on his knees, then rolled over in the froth and foam, but so great was his relief at feeling sand again that he did not mind its abrasive texture. He staggered to his feet and ran out of the water, still afraid of the way it pulled and strained at him, even though he knew that the danger was over.