He kicked off his shoes, fetched his flying boots from beside the wardrobe and sat on the bed while she helped him on with them. Even at this distance from the beach he felt safer once she had zipped them up. She got him into his anorak, too. Not that he couldn’t have managed alone, but it would have taken him five times longer to get everything fastened.
For his bandaged hand he’d bought a large sheepskin mitt — Jane’s idea — which covered it completely, while on his right hand he wore an ordinary leather glove.
‘Hope it’s not necessary, all this!’ Jacqui said, surveying him. ‘I don’t intend any of us to get too close to them.’
But her own outfit covered her just as well, leaving only her face and untidy blonde hair exposed.
‘If I weren’t so shit-scared of them,’ Tim observed, taking one last look from the window, ‘I’d say they’re beautiful. Both from far off and near to.’
‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever?’ Jacqui quoted at him with a grimace. ‘You didn’t say that when they were chewing pieces out of you.’
‘No.’
Unexpectedly, she slipped an arm about his waist and hugged him. ‘Oh, you are daft, Tim,’ she said. ‘But you’re a great comfort.’
They went down to the hotel lobby to find Jacqui’s assistant, the willowy Dorothea, emerging from the glass-fronted telephone kiosk. She’d managed to get through to Alan Brewer’s office and learned that several coastal resorts had reported the same mass jellyfish invasion. Colwyn Bay, Blackpool, Pwllheli and Bournemouth were among those she’d scribbled down, but there were others.
Jacqui drove them down to the promenade. On the way she explained briefly what she wanted: a general shot of the beach with commentary from Tim in the foreground; more close shots of jellyfish; and bystander interviews. The cameraman was already down there getting some footage for News, just in case they were in the market.
The atmosphere when they arrived at the promenade was tense. An ambulance pulled away, its sirens screaming; a police officer with two silver pips on his epaulettes stood at the open door of a patrol car, speaking urgently into a radio microphone, while two constables attempted to persuade the twenty or thirty sightseers to move further off.
On the beach lay the body of one of the victims, probably the old man Jacqui had mentioned. A jellyfish obscured his face, all but the eyes.
She pulled up and wound down her window for a word with the tall cameraman.
‘Got all we need here, Jacqui.’ He eased the Arri BL off the shoulder-pod and let Jamie, his assistant, take charge of it. ‘Your lorry’s arrived. He’s up at the far end of the prom — can you see him? — and I’d suggest we join him to get those shots on the beach next before the police cordon off the whole area. He was a bloody mess, that copper they’ve just carted off. Only a kid, too. You know him, Tim — he’s the one who pulled those jellyfish off you an’ Arthur down by the harbour.’
‘Is he still alive?’
‘Just about.’ Wally rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked exhausted. ‘Christ, what a shambles. No one’s got any idea what to do about it. Not as far as I can judge.’
‘We’ll meet you down there, Wally.’ Jacqui’s voice was steady. Only the way she gripped the steering wheel — so tightly that every bone of her knuckles was sharply outlined — betrayed her nervousness. ‘Let’s go.’
Not until they arrived at the lorry did Tim begin to understand what she had in mind. It was a battered old Leyland truck which she’d hired from a gardening firm; it smelled of compost and a leaky sump. On this the crew were to ride out across the beach in order to get a few shots with the jellyfish all around them. He felt sick in his stomach at the thought of it; but then so, probably, did she.
The driver had no qualms. He was a cheerful young man with tattoos up his arms who obviously welcomed this change from his usual routine job. He’d been a gunner in the Falklands campaign, he explained as he let down the tailboard; they needn’t think he was going to stick around in this dead hole much longer; another few months, and he’d be off to South Africa.
‘You’ll find bigger jellyfish down there,’ Dorothea informed him sweetly as she climbed up with a helping hand from Jamie. ‘Not forgetting giant squid to liven up your beach party. And the odd scorpion in the bathroom.’
There were still some gardening tools on the back of the truck, but they pushed them out of the way to make room for their own gear. Terry, the sound man, sat himself firmly on his little folding stool and began to fiddle, frowning, with the take-up spool on his Nagra. That Nagra should’ve been sent to a museum years ago — a standing joke with the Gulliver team — but Terry always managed to nurse it through. He probably wouldn’t have been happy with a new one.
‘Are we all set, then?’ Jacqui demanded, looking around the crew.
‘Ready when you are.’
She banged the side of the lorry and leaned precariously around the cab for a word with the driver. ‘OK now, take it easy. We don’t want anybody falling off.’
At the end of the promenade a stone slipway led down to the beach. The lorry took the slope gently and then set off across the sands with Jacqui still leaning over the side to give directions. Tim placed himself where he could grab her if anything went wrong. Everyone else was silent. Above the throbbing engine an unsavoury squelching sound could be heard as jellyfish were flattened by the heavy tyres. It set the teeth on edge.
Tim gazed down at them. On the back of the truck he was well out of their reach, yet he felt far from safe. They were biding their time, that’s all. And there seemed to be no way of defeating them, he brooded despondently; kill one, and more arrived by the next tide.
For what reason, no one knew. The ancient Israelites always blamed themselves when disaster overtook them: Jehovah was punishing them for their evil ways. Was that so far-fetched today? Perhaps — but who could tell?
‘Hold it! This’ll do!’
Jacqui slapped the side of the lorry again and it slithered to a halt, its tyres failing to grip at first on the highway of jellyfish slime. Immediately, she began discussing with Wally the sort of shots she wanted, all to be taken from the safety of their present perch well clear of even the longest tentacles. A top shot of one of the largest, tilting up and zooming out to a long shot of the entire beach as far as the headland, then…
‘I could do my commentary from here,’ Tim heard himself offering.
Jacqui glanced at him quizzically. ‘How?’
‘Oh, not on the lorry,’ he explained. In for a penny… ‘No, I meant I could stand with them all around me. Make a good shot, and I’m dressed for it.’
Terry looked up from whatever he was doing to the tape recorder. ‘You’d be on your own, then. I’m not going down there.’
‘It’s not a bad idea.’ But Jacqui still hesitated.
‘Oh no!’ Terry repeated firmly. ‘If that’s what you want, Tim’ll have to hold his own mike. We’re staying here.’ He turned to the sound assistant. ‘Stick mike, Bill.’
‘If you’re sure, Tim?’
She was offering him a way out, but now he’d made the suggestion he had to stay with it. This could be the key shot of the whole film; they both knew that.
Maybe, too, there was some other reason half-formed in his mind. A reluctance to cede territory to this jellyfish army. Let them once be convinced they were winning, and there would be no telling what might happen next.
No, that was ridiculous. Surely that would mean the jellyfish thought like humans, which they didn’t — did they?