“She’s about five seven,” contributed Peggy, “with short brown hair. She still has traces of an English accent after thirty years in Canada.” I nodded to show that I was appreciative of the details.
“Hetherington is a young fellow we met that summer,” Hamp said. “He’s a student, or was one, in Niagara Falls. We met him at the marina when I was renting the Sea Ray. He had learned scuba diving on a holiday in Belize, but hadn’t tried Lake Muskoka yet.”
“I met Penny just about where I met you this afternoon, Benny. My shopping bag split and I had apples and lemons rolling all over the asphalt. She repacked her things and gave me one of her plastic bags and helped me load up the car. I brought her back for drinks. She learned her scuba diving in Alberta of all places.” Peggy was smiling at the memory.
“So, the four of you were pretty experienced?”
“I don’t know whether Penny or Jeff had ever worked at that depth or had to carry their own lights before. The waters near the reefs off Belize are very clear, Ben. You can see for miles. But here. Ha! It’s black as deep outer space down there.”
“How did you know where to dive?”
“The wreck’s had a buoy marking the spot for years now. Once we’d tied the boat and the rafts together, we lowered a long anchor line as well. We used the rope attached to the marker as our guide rope. Again, I can’t emphasize the blackness of this water once you get down a few feet.”
“And Dermot Keogh was okay all this while? No problems?”
Hamp Fisher laced his long fingers together around a knee as he picked his words. “We’d been down nearly twenty minutes before he started having trouble. We’d found Waome on her bottom, still in one piece, as I said. We did a survey from stem to stern. We located one of the open freight doors, and taking turns in pairs, we went inside. Jeff and Penny went first. When it was our turn, I followed Dermot into the ship. We went down through the freight door and through the lower saloon to the companionway leading to the main saloon. It was hard getting through the stairs, so again, I followed Dermot. When I got there, that is, in the upper saloon, I found Dermot had spit out his mouthpiece.”
“You mean there was trapped air inside?”
“No, Ben, we were both under water and at about eighty feet. You understand, for an experienced diver, the sight of your buddy with his mouthpiece out isn’t as immediately frightening as it might seem. We learn to make adjustments and to hold our breath while doing them. The air supply is always ready and waiting. But that wasn’t what Dermot was trying to do. He was trying to unhook his tank, his weights, everything. I went over to him, caught up his mouthpiece and tried to help. That’s when he lunged at me. I say lunged, it was more like fending me off, a warning to keep my distance. I swam around behind him. Again, I found his breathing tube and held it in place. This time, he couldn’t reach me with his hands, but he was wilder now, more frantic. Somehow, he pushed me away again and the diving mask came free. And he’d unhooked the main belt. Thinking there might be something wrong with his air supply, I took off my own and tried to fit it over his mouth. He beat me off again. That’s the part I never could understand. His brain must have been confused. That’s when I started to panic myself. You see, we were swimming free. Apart from the buoy line and the anchor rope, there was no contact with the diving raft. Dermot was smaller than I, but I wasn’t able to fix the mouthpiece in place again, and he was breathing out what air he still held. I couldn’t think of what to do. The other pair were at least a minute and a half away from me, if they were still hanging around the freight door. I tried again to approach him. I shouldn’t have come at him from the front. He got an arm around my neck even before I could find his air supply. Once he got me around the neck, I dropped the light I was carrying and it left us in relative darkness. Using my feet, I was able to free myself. I rescued the lamp and kept on swimming until I reached the outside of the hull. I indicated that Dermot was in trouble, gave the danger signal, and we swam back inside. By that time, Dermot had passed out. He was floating under the ceiling of the saloon. He’d jettisoned his tank and weights. At least we didn’t have to fight him any more. We got his air going again and strapped the tank back on his back. As quickly as we could, we evacuated him, got him out of Waome and back up to the raft. It could have been as much as three minutes in all. As soon as we got him on the raft, Jeff started the usual resuscitation routine. We took turns. Meanwhile, the boat crew called through to Bracebridge for an ambulance. We kept up the artificial respiration until the paramedic team relieved us. By then, we were back in harbour at Port Carling.” After saying this, Hamp was still. His eyes scanned the far side of the lake.
After nearly a minute, I asked, “He never came round?”
Hamp Fisher shook his head.
FOURTEEN
Hamp Fisher’s account of the death of Dermot Keogh quite dampened conversation for a good ten minutes after he finished. While looking at the wooded headlands alongside Wanda III, I thought of Wally Skeat, the Grantham TV broadcaster, from whom I’d first heard the name of the cellist at the end of April, the first anniversary of his death. I watched Hamp as he refilled my glass. I watched him with Peggy and got a good sense of their relationship through small things like the way he refreshed her drink and cleared away crumbs on the sundappled table with his napkin. Small things, but they penetrated to the heart of his affection for her. Peggy remained a little aloof from this, but I didn’t doubt her attachment to him. Again it was little things: when he pulled on a sweater, the way she tucked the label in at the back.
It was a big, comfortable navy blue sweater from Cornwall. I saw that much before the white tag was tidied away. I was wishing that I had brought something warm with me. A rank of dark clouds had come between us and the sun. It looked temporary, but my shoulders and back felt the chill. I began rubbing my elbows, I thought with some subtlety, but Peggy got up and returned with a white Aran sweater and another for herself.
“You mentioned the two divers who went down to the wreck with you and Mr. Keogh. Were many of his friends chosen as casually? I gather that they went on the fatal dive simply because they were in the right place at the right time.”
“What you say was certainly true of them. They just happened to be passing through. Diving that early in the year doesn’t often find dozens of enthusiasts to choose among. But, in general, you’re right too. Lots of Dermot’s friends were just ordinary people he happened to like.”
“Oh, Hamp, Dermot had other kinds of friends too. There were people he met at NTC and from Sony in the States, sure, but there were other musician friends, architects, painters, horse-breeders-you name it. But, usually they came up later in the year. About this time. Just when the weather is perfect and the last thing you want to think of is a sound stage.”
“What people from NTC?” I asked.
“There was quite a colony here last year and the year before that.” Hamp covered his chin with both hands, as though that helped him to see the faces from those vanished summers. “Let’s see, let’s see.”
“Philip Rankin came up a lot our first summer, although we didn’t see much of him.” Peggy was adding a plastic nose guard to her sunglasses. “He says he’s allergic to the sun.”
“Yes, and Ken Trebitsch comes up regularly. He rebuilt an old boathouse and lives above a small fleet. Remember, he introduced that lawyer, Ray Devlin. Dermot took quite a shine to Devlin. In the end it worked out to be an important relationship. Devlin’s firm handled all of Dermot’s contracts in the U.S. and in Canada. Eventually, Ray designed Dermot’s will.”
“When would that have been?”
“Oh, well before the spring three years back, I’d say. Yes, Ray was on the scene quite a bit then, but not here the following summer. Old Evans at the marina thought Rankin and Devlin should be banned from operating boats on the lake.”