Page 58 of Deep Blue Lies
FIFTY-SEVEN
I wake late the next morning, and manage to make it to the bathroom before the anxiety catches me up. The thought of what I’m about to discover is like a shadow that’s following me wherever I go. It carries relief with it, but also a darkness that lurks ever-present in my mind.
When I get to the kitchen there’s a message from Sophia on my phone.
How are you?
I text back, trying not to make too much of it, but saying something about how it’s hard to stop worrying about things. She responds at once.
Meet me at the dive centre. 11.
I look around my little apartment. I don’t have anything else to do.
It’s a beautiful day as I walk down through the town.
Every day is beautiful, it seems, here in Alythos.
Though it’s not that every day is identical, it’s just that every variation of the weather the island seems to provide is beautiful, in different ways.
Some days there’s a fresh breeze, never enough to make it cold, but which lends the air a supercharged freshness, where the tones of salt and thyme seem to fill you with a sort of fizz.
And then there’s days like today, when there isn’t a breath of wind, which have a magical quality, as if the whole universe has reached a state of calm.
When I get to the seafront and see the bay is so still it could be a giant mirror, reflecting the sky without a ripple to disrupt the perfection.
It’s so gorgeous I have to take my shoes off and walk through the shallows down the beach to the centre.
The water’s warmed by the sun, and I see shoals of tiny fish flit away in front of me.
The centre has a relaxed feel. Two of the boats have already gone out, and I can tell they must have been filled with diving clients and their instructors because their shoes and belongings are stacked neatly in the changing area.
But Kostas is still there, this time with two children, both boys, maybe seven and ten years old.
They’re running around as if they own the place, and I quickly learn they sort of do, since they’re his sons Theo and Alex.
When Kostas sees me though he tenses up – or maybe I just sense that.
He sends the boys out to the beach to play then retreats to his office.
“Don’t mind him, he’s just old and they tire him out.” Sophia grins as the boys disappear and the centre quietens down. “But I thought you might need a little distracting this morning?”
I think about joking “ from what? ” but she doesn’t give me the chance.
“And when we’re not busy here, I get to use any of the toys that aren’t needed for the clients. Isn’t that right boss?” She calls the last part into Kostas’ still-open office door. He looks up, says nothing and goes back to his work. Sophia turns back to me.
“So how about you learn to foil board?”
I blink at her.
“Um, I’ve no idea what that is?”
“That’s OK.” She looks delighted. “Kostas doesn’t either, even though I keep telling him to learn. I’ve got this plan to give foil- boarding lessons here. It’s perfect for days like this, and the clients love it.”
She looks at him again, and I think I hear a grunt. Otherwise he studiously ignores her.
“Kostas only likes things under the water, he doesn’t understand how you can have fun on it as well.”
“I’m sorry, what exactly is foil boarding?”
I glance again at Kostas, who’s shaking his head a little.
“It’s this.” Sophia pulls me to the noticeboard and points to one of the many photos pinned up on the noticeboard.
It’s her, and she’s doing something like waterskiing, but not quite.
Instead of standing on – well, water-skis – she’s on a surfboard thing, that seems to be flying a metre above the water.
“It’s like a wakeboard, but it has a hydrofoil under the water, so it’s a bit more like flying as well. And you can ride the wake like you’re surfing.” She grins.
“And you want me to do that?”
“It’s going to distract you, I promise.”
The last few moments are pretty much the only time this morning when I haven’t been thinking about DNA results. So maybe she has a point.
“But I don’t know how to do it.”
“That’s alright. I’m going to teach you. Here.” She strides over to a rack of wetsuits and flicks past several until she finds one she likes the look of. “Put this on. Have you ever done snowboarding or surfing?”
“No.”
“Wakeboarding?”
“No.”
“Skateboarding?”
“No. I mean, I’ve tried it once, for like five seconds.”
“Wow. What exactly have you done with your life?”
“Um? Studying? My mum wanted me to be a doctor…” I stop, realising what I’ve said.
I meet her eyes. “What I mean is, the woman who brought me up, who isn’t my mother wanted me to be a…
” I stop again, feeling my head descend back into this.
If my mother isn’t my mother, how did I get to live with her? Why do I think she is?
“Stop it. Don’t worry about that for now. Focus on this. It’s easy. Sort of. Once you get the hang of it.”
I ask why I need the wetsuit as I fight to pull the grippy neoprene suit over my ankles, and I don’t really like the answer.
It’s not so much for the cold apparently, as the protection it gives you from crashes.
But even that’s not enough, because when I finally zip it up she adds a padded buoyancy aid and a helmet.
Then she walks me down the beach to where another instructor, an American named Leo, is getting the equipment ready.
She shows me the board, which has a giant “mast” attached beneath it, and connected to that something that looks like the wing of an aeroplane.
“It’s exactly like flying,” she explains. “We’ll tow you, very slowly at first, so you can get to your feet. And then a little faster, which will give you enough lift to get up on the foil. Then you lean back to fly higher. Forward to land. Lean left to go left, right to go right.”
Before we go out we do lots of drills on the beach, but eventually it’s time, and I clamber into the rib while Leo walks into the water with the board, turning it over and sinking the foil.
Seconds later we’re cruising out into the bay, not as fast as when Kostas took me, but Leo is literally flying behind us.
He doesn’t even need the tow rope. After he’s got the board up in the air it seems to stay up by magic, and he surfs up and down the wake while Sophia drives, occasionally looking back to check he’s still up.
Finally though he tries to turn too fast and falls off.
At once Sophia slows, then circles the boat around to pick him up.
“Jump in,” she tells me. “Your turn.”