Medusa

I got her up and put her foot in the looped end of the rope, passing it round her body under the arms. I was just pressing her hands on to the standing part of it, imploring her to hold tight while I was hoisting her up to the scaffolding above, when she began to giggle. ‘The barrel …’ she murmured.

‘Barrel?’ I had been on the point of putting my weight on the tail end of the rope, but now I hesitated, letting go of it and shining the torch on her face. Her eyes looked enormous, the whites catching the light, and her mouth was open, bubbling with uncontrollable laughter.

It was reaction, of course. Not hysteria, just reaction from the strain of all she had been through in the last thirty-six hours or so. ‘Don’t you remember? That record. And then the barrel …’ She had deepened her voice, tears welling in her eyes, tears of laughter.

And suddenly I remembered. ‘Hoffnung. Gerard Hoffnung.’ The silly saga of that barrel full of bricks.

‘And then I met the barrel coming down.’ Her laughter became a giggle again. ‘For a moment I thought I was the barrel. If I pulled you off your feet … We could be yo-yoing up and down …’ She put her hand to her mouth, stilling her giggles. And after that she gripped the rope again. ‘When I get to the top, don’t let go, please.’ She smiled at me, both of us remembering what had happened when the bricky had hoisted the barrel back up to the top of the chimney.

I hesitated, not sure whether I could trust her to reach for the scaffolding and haul herself out. But she seemed to have steadied herself. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’re the barrel and you’re going up.’

She was more of a weight than I had realised, and when her legs finally disappeared into the blowhole I began to wonder if I could hold her. Then suddenly I was on the floor, the rope slack in my hands. ‘You all right, Mike?’ Her voice, remote and strangely hollow, seemed to come from the roof of the cavern.

‘Yes, I’m all right.’ I got to my feet and stood there for a moment, letting the rope end down and getting my breath back. The height I had to hoist myself looked further than I had reckoned and if I couldn’t make it … I swept the beam of my torch over the rock roof of the cavern where it came down to meet the water. Not a nice place to spend hours waiting for rescue, plagued by the thought that a gale might spring up from the north-west and the sea level rise. I knew then what it had been like for Soo, and she had lowered herself down on to the beach with no torch and no certainty that anybody would ever find her there.

I tied the end of the rope round my chest, put my foot in the loop and hauled down on the other end of it. For a moment I didn’t think I would ever get off the ground, then suddenly I was swinging free, and after that it was a little easier. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Soo was hauling too and it was her weight that made the difference.

It was when we were back in the first expansion chamber that she said, ‘You know about Miguel?’ The whisper of her voice trembled on the dank air.

‘Yes.’

‘You saw him?’

It wasn’t something I wanted her to dwell on, so I didn’t answer.

‘I only had matches. Book matches from the Figuera Restaurant. I used five of them. Poor Miguel. He looked terrible. After that I had barely half a dozen left. I used the last after I’d lowered myself into the cave. I think if you hadn’t come … It was so dark and damp, and the sound of the water … I think a few hours more and I would have gone for a swim. I couldn’t have stood it much longer.’ Her words came in a rush, her body trembling again. The smell was there in our nostrils and I think it was that more than anything that had brought back her fears.

We had reached the rope hanging from the hole in the cellar floor and when I had hauled her up the trembling had stopped. I took her back the way I had come and out through the door in the villa’s top level. She stopped there, staring up at the stars, breathing deeply. I shall never forget that moment, the ecstatic smile on her face, the tears in her eyes. ‘My God!’ she whispered, her hand gripping my arm. ‘I never realised what life meant before, not really. Freedom and the smell of plants growing, the stars, being able to see. And you,’ she added, looking up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Oh, God, Mike!’ And she was in my arms and I was kissing her. ‘Let’s go somewhere,’ she said. ‘Not home. I’d have to cook something. I’m hungry. My God! I’m hungry. Let’s pretend we’ve only just met. Let’s go out somewhere and celebrate, Just the two of us.’

I knew she couldn’t settle now, she was too keyed up, so I drove her to Fornells, to a favourite restaurant of ours that stood back from the waterfront. We knew the people there and she was able to clean herself up, telling them we had been exploring a cave and she had fallen down a hole.