George cried out with surprise and distress. He saw clearly now the little white muzzle held high, the eyes staring, the paws weakly moving. The next moment the dog was gone, lifted with swift force over the crest of the wave. George followed quickly, his eyes desperately fearfully straining to see the little helpless thing. He was suddenly distracted, aware of the huge sky above, the huge ocean round about, full of fast-moving heights and hollows and dazzling flashes of foam. He perceived Zed again and caught him up, then treading water lifted him. The bedraggled creature hung limply in his hands, but Zed’s blue-black eyes gazed with conscious intelligence, at close quarters, into George’s eyes. George thought, I can’t climb the cliff carrying Zed. Besides they must be in a fair state by now. However did the poor little beggar get here? I’ll swim on round the point; if I get in close to the rocks I’ll be out of the current. It was not easy, cold and now tired, in a strong-running sea, to swim with one hand while holding Zed clear of the sea with the other. But as George paused to rest and tread water, Zed slid as if on purpose on to his shoulder and clung on against his neck (as Adam had just this day taught him to do). George understood, and now holding one strand of the dog’s coat and keeping one arm against his chest he could more vigorously make way. Tom was the first who, when George had reached the rocks on the other side and felt shingle beneath his feet and lifted his head up, heard the triumphant shout.
The unhappy group had struggled away slowly over the sand. Alex had looked once more perfunctorily for her watch but had not mentioned it to anyone. Gabriel packed the last few scattered things, Adam’s socks, Zed’s lead, dropping her tears over them, into a bag. Brian, who was leading, had just reached the inland rocks that led up to the field when Tom cried, ‘There’s George.’ They had forgotten George. At first Tom did not understand George’s signals. Then he heard him shouting, ‘I’ve got him! He’s all right!’
Tom shouted too. They all turned round and began running back. ‘What is it?’ shouted Brian, also running.
Tom reached George and took the dog from him. ‘Oh George, you hero! But he’s cold, quick, find a towel, poor Zed!’ For a terrible moment holding the dog Tom thought the little thing was dead, so limp and cold and motionless it felt. Then a pink tongue licked the back of his hand.
Gabriel ran up and seized Zed and wrapped him in a dry towel and sat on the sand and rubbed him. Adam, transfigured, leaned against her shoulder wailing with joy. Brian stood behind them holding out his hands in an incoherent gesture and thankful helpfulness. (Tom said later they looked like the Holy Family with John the Baptist.)
‘I’m bloody cold too,’ said George.
George, rather plump, stark naked and pink with cold, stood there like some weird manatee. They all ran at him armed with towels, rugs, garments. George sat on a rock, his back hunched, like a big wet sea animal, and they surrounded him and stroked him and patted him as if he were indeed a beneficent monster. Tom tore off his shirt and hopped out of his trousers. Alex handed over Brian’s jersey. Brian found an extra pair of socks in Gabriel’s bag; Gabriel always packed extra socks. Ruby handed over a mug of whisky. George told the story of the rescue among many exclamations of amazement and praise. Then everyone had hot tea and whisky and felt extremely hungry and ate up all the remaining sandwiches and cheese and veal-and-ham pie. Tom ran in record time in his underclothes all the way to fetch George’s clothes, which he put on himself to run back in, looking very comical. It was some time, however, before poor Zed was quite himself again, and Brian felt an anxiety which he did not impart. The little dog, though he wagged his tail, continued to shiver and tremble, though Gabriel opened her blouse and held him against her warm breasts. At last when he seemed to be warm and dry and lively she gave him into Adam’s arms. Then Gabriel went to George and kissed him, and Alex kissed him and Tom kissed him too, and Emma and Brian clapped him on the back, and Hattie and Pearl, who had been standing a little in the background of the family scene, waved him a very special wave. Then Tom and George exchanged clothes and they all decided to go home.
The last act was less edifying. As they went along, Alex paused again (in vain) to look for her watch. George and Ruby led the way up the field. Brian ascended more slowly carrying Zed and holding Adam by the hand. He squeezed Adam’s hand at intervals, but Adam would not look up at him. Gabriel followed. She suddenly felt mortally tired as if she might fall on her face, and kept stumbling on the slippery yellow grass. Hattie and Pearl, who had somehow become very separate and alien, climbed by a different route, often pausing to look back at the sea and point things out to each other. Tom and Emma came last, having waited for Alex who was complaining that no one would help her to find her watch.
As Brian neared the top of the field he heard a car start. The others were catching up. Ruby stood waiting, surrounded by bags. Bill the Lizard’s big Rover began to bump up the track, reached the tarmac, roared round the corner and disappeared. George had disappeared too.
‘My God, the Rover’s gone. Where’s George?’
Ruby pointed toward the now empty road.
‘Alex, George has taken the Rover!’
Gabriel said, ‘I can understand his not wanting to go back with us after all that.’
‘Oh you can, can you! Alex, did you leave the key in the car?’
‘I always leave keys in cars.’
‘Typical you, typical George!’
Pearl drove Ruby and Alex with Hattie in the Volkswagen. As soon as the car started. Ruby handed Alex her watch. In the Austin, Gabriel sat in the front beside Brian, holding both Adam and Zed in her arms. She and Adam cried quietly all the way home. Brian kept gritting his teeth and murmuring, ‘Typical George!’ In the back, Emma fell asleep with his head on Tom’s shoulder.
‘Have they all gone?’ said Stella.
‘Yes.’ said May Blackett. ‘I watched the cars go.’
‘When is N arriving?’
‘He should be here in half an hour or so.’
Stella had moved downstairs to the big first-floor drawing-room at Maryville, with its wide bow windows overlooking the sea. One casement was open and a white curtain blew in and out. The sea was pale grey now, sheened over by a dimming pearly light. From the upstairs corner room, which was her bedroom, Stella had at intervals watched through long-distance glasses the various antics of the McCaffreys on the beach. Hidden, she had seen Ruby come and stand like a totem portent gazing at the house. And she had watched George coming walking along the road and pass by. After George disappeared she stopped looking out and came downstairs. May Blackett checked at intervals to see if the cars were still there.
‘He can’t have known?’
‘George? No.’
‘Ruby stared so at the house.’
‘Just curiosity.’
‘She has second sight.’
I should explain that I, N, the narrator, am about to intrude (though not for long) into the narrative, not to exhibit myself, but simply to offer an unavoidable explanation. People in Ennistone had been wondering whither Stella had fled, where she had so mysteriously gone to. Well, she had gone to me.