‘Please help us to look!’ said Alex, red-faced and stooping in an awkward position as she used to when she cried ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ with the dustpan and brush.
‘We ought to get Zed. You remember he found that pack of sandwiches once.’
‘Alex’s watch doesn’t smell,’ said Brian.
‘For a dog, anything smells.’
‘Ruby’s gone off again, blast her,’ said Alex. ‘She went to stare at Maryville. Sometimes I think she’s mental.’
‘Ruby will find it,’ said Tom. ‘She’s got second sight. It’s the gipsy blood.’
‘Just search over there, will you? We haven’t done that bit. I’ve got to go and find Gabriel. Have you seen Adam?’
‘No. All right, all right!’ Tom went over to the rock and looked about vaguely, thrusting at the coarse gritty sand with his foot. Then he sat on the rock and looked at the sea which was dark blue with a glittering crusty look like broken enamel. The tops of the waves were white with crisp creamy foam whipped up by the wind which had become stronger and colder. The sunny sky, where a few white puffy gilded clouds now sailed, was gleaming with a cold northern blue which Tom loved. He felt so happy all of a sudden. He thought, I’ll write a pop song about that. ‘Jesus was here, he was here, he was here, didn’t you know, oh, didn’t you know.’ The combination of the child Christ in England, the familiar poem, Emma’s beautiful strange high voice, and the blue-enamel sea made a huge complete perfect present moment.
It had been a wearisome run for Gabriel on the loose sand to reach her handbag and she had been sweating and panting. She took out the two pounds and threw off her cardigan. She ignored Alex who called to her, and ran back, climbing up again on to the higher rocks. The boys were still there. Then it proved very difficult to catch the fish, and Gabriel kept crying ‘Let me, let me!’ because she was afraid the boys would hurt its fins or pick it up roughly and drop it on the hard rock. At last one of them got hold of the slippery darting fish and somehow (Gabriel closed her eyes) stepped to the rock edge and dropped the fish into the deep water. Gabriel saw it enter the water and swim away and a great burden slipped from her heart. The boys laughed and said, ‘If we catch another, will you buy it?’ Gabriel began to walk back, happy, but feeling cold without her cardigan.
Adam was swimming round and round in circles and calling and calling. He had lost Zed. In the end he had swum out quite a long way from the shore, it was such fun playing with the dog in the water, he had never done this before, watching him swim, then carrying him on his shoulder, then swimming ahead and calling to him. Zed swam so well, it was a joy to watch him. The waves were becoming a little higher and more rough and developing sharp ridgy crests. They showed darker against the sky, a cloud was crossing the sun, the wind was blowing a stinging white spray off the crests of the waves, Adam swallowed a lot of water; then suddenly Zed was nowhere to be seen. Adam cried out, screamed with fear, called and called, swam and swam. The little dog was nowhere. A moment ago he had been swimming near. Now he was gone. The waves rose now like high hills, cutting off any view. Adam could only try, as he swam over the crests, to survey the empty hollows beyond, hideous and dark and without dog, while the spray blinded his eyes. Exhaustion gripped him in the form of misery, remorse, terror, agony of longing for the precious lost being. Hope deceived him with white curly patches of foam between the waves. He began to scream hysterically. He thought, I must get help, I must get them to come, and he began with hideous hideous slowness to swim back toward the distant shore.
Emma let the girls go on ahead. Without Tom, their company embarrassed him and his clearly embarrassed them. As if let out of school, they ran on ahead laughing, probably at him. He wished he hadn’t come. The place didn’t really remind him of Donegal, the sea here was a dull navy blue, the land a pallid yellow and grey, Donegal was full of all sorts of colours. But he would never see Donegal again. He had noticed Brian noticing how much he drank. He thought, I scarcely drink at all for ages, then suddenly I drink like mad. Perhaps it’s being Irish. Curse it, why do I have to think about being Irish, as if I hadn’t enough troubles. And what possessed me to talk to that girl in that familiar way. I don’t know anything about her; she must have thought me a complete oaf. And among all those McCaffreys did he not cut, thought Emma, an absurd figure; even worse, a pathetic one? No doubt he figured in their eyes, as he did for the moment in his own, as a lonely man, with no connections, no relations, no friends, who had attached himself forlornly to a family group. It was true that the whole group, with all their bonds and problems, interested him, not only as an extension of Tom. He had never before seen a family at close quarters, and their oddities and quarrels and misunderstandings and loves and hates and imperfect sympathies and impossible yet inevitable togetherness fascinated him very much. George fascinated him. But it was all a sort of hoax. He couldn’t ever belong to the McCaffreys. He wouldn’t ever, even if his friendship with Tom were to endure. He recalled how Tom had said ‘I love you.’ That scene seemed like play-acting now. How weak love is; it cannot push aside the big ordinary structures of life which divide different private individuals from each other. Then he thought of his mother, and how disappointed she had been because he had only stayed two days. However, as Emma began to walk down the yellow Meld he realized that something was very wrong on the beach. Someone was shouting, they were all running. He began to run too.
‘What is it?’
Tom passed Emma running along the sand and tearing his jacket off as he ran. ‘Zed’s lost. Adam took him out into the sea and lost him.’
Pearl and Hattie ran hitching up their skirts, Alex ran bare foot, stumbling, Brian and Adam were ahead, Ruby, who had turned up, ran too. Emma ran after Tom. When they reached the long sandy gully which led down to where Adam had entered the sea they all began tearing off their clothes.
‘Won’t Zed swim to the shore?’ said Emma.
‘He wouldn’t see the shore. Anyway look at those waves and those rocks. He’d never get in.’
Emma had not gone swimming with the others in the morning. He felt no wish to enter that cold sea. But he began to undress, putting his coat and his waistcoat and his watch and his trousers on to a ledge of rocks. No one bothered with bathing costumes which were all left somewhere behind at the base camps. Tom was rushing into the sea in his underpants. Emma followed him. The two girls, showing no hesitation, pulled off their dresses and kicked off their shoes and ran into the sea in their petticoats. Ruby, who could not swim, watched monumental with folded arms. Adam stood near where the waves were breaking and wept with an absolute abandonment of wailing and gushing tears, his mouth open, his hands raised up.
‘What’s happened?’ shouted Gabriel running over the sand. And when she saw Adam crying so terribly, she began to wail herself.
‘Zed’s lost in the sea,’ Alex cried. She had jumped out of her slacks and was unbuttoning her blue shirt. ‘Stay with Adam.’ She scuttled down the sandy shore and into the breaking waves. Weeping Gabriel ran to Adam and fell on her knees and clasped him in her arms, but he resisted her, flailing his arms and screaming with terrible woe.
Time passed, and they came back one by one. Alex returned first. She was used to long swims in the warm pool, but only to a brief dip in the sea. Clouds now covered the sun and the wind was sharper. Ruby had sensibly fetched the rugs, clothes, towels and other gear from the various camps. Alex, her teeth chattering, pulled off her wet underwear, dried and put on her slacks and shirt and woollen sweater belonging to Brian and wrapped herself in a rug. She had left her warmer clothes in the car. She did not approach the weeping pair. Hattie and Pearl came in next and seized their bundles and dressed fast. Emma felt it his duty to swim and search for a long time. He was very upset about Zed and so much wanted to be the one to find him and kept seeing little white phantom dogs in the sides of the sullen green waves. At last he gave up. Brian came in next and Tom last. There was no longed-for cry of ‘There he is!’ Ignoring each other and shivering with cold, the would-be rescuers searched for dry towels and dry clothes. Brian looked for his big jersey and took some time to realize that Alex had it. He put on Gabriel’s mackintosh. Ruby had started to distribute mugs of hot tea out of the picnic thermos flasks, and everyone stood or sat about in silence. Hattie was crying quietly. Gabriel was weary of crying and sat with her wet mouth open and her face disfigured, staring out to sea. She refused her mug of tea. Beside her Adam sat hunched up, his face invisible, as if he had become himself a little diminished animal. Someone had to think of something to say. Tom thought of a number of possible things but rejected them.