Sunrise Over Pebble Bay

by Della Galton

  Olivia thought frantically. There must be another way. But she was going to have to work out what it was bloody quickly. They were running out of time fast.

  27

  Olivia’s mind raced desperately as she looked down at Phil’s trapped fin once more. It had gone in through the gap in the plates in the first place. Maybe there was a way she could manoeuvre it out again. She just needed to keep calm and let the sand that had been stirred up again by their efforts to move the plate settle so they could see.

  She tapped his shoulder, indicated her torch and, with a series of gestures, got him to understand she was going to take a closer look.

  He nodded, understanding immediately. Then he gestured to the gauge on his air supply. It was on red and the dial had just moved down to 10 bar left. Oh shit. Either he naturally used much more air than she did or he’d used it up while he’d panicked. It took no time at all to gulp through air underwater.

  There was no time to mess about. Phil’s computer was now beeping an alarm too, which did not help. She wondered if this was how the bomb-disposal guys felt when they were defusing a ticking bomb. The countdown to certain death if you made a mistake.

  Don’t overreact, she told herself, as she dived back down to Phil’s trapped foot, taking care not to kick up the sand, and shone her torch back through the gap. This time, she could see the strap on the quick-release clip of the fin. It would be so much better if she could cut that. Quicker and easier than cutting through Phil’s drysuit. But it meant reaching inside the wreck. How sensible was that when it was clearly so unstable?

  Making a split-second decision and praying that the plates didn’t shift again, she reached into the hole. At least the conger eel had made itself scarce. That was all she needed, a bloody sea snake lunging out with its snapping, sloping backwards teeth. She was terrified of snakes.

  Oh crap. Focus. Focus. Thinking about malevolent sea monsters was definitely not going to help. It wasn’t a snake anyway; it was a harmless eel.

  That’s not what Tom had said. Maybe he’d exaggerated.

  Focus, Olivia, focus.

  Gripping the knife firmly in fingers that were going increasingly numb with cold and fear, despite her neoprene gloves, she hesitated. She felt like a surgeon making the first cut. She could not get this wrong or she’d hurt him. And she’d need to be quick. The quicker she was, the less chance there was of them getting into any more trouble.

  She steadied herself with one hand on the wreck and then gingerly stretched out with her other arm towards the fin. She could reach, but it was awkward. The rubber was thick and tough. It wasn’t designed to be easily cut through and the job was three times as difficult when you were underwater and upside down and only had the use of one hand.

  Olivia persevered, sawing at the rubber, and suddenly she felt it give. Still moving as slowly and as carefully as she could, she eased Phil’s boot out of the fin and he must have felt the shift because he helped her until she could guide his foot out through the gap and then suddenly, they were both free. And they were vertical once more beside the wreck.

  The adrenaline had sharpened her thoughts into icy clarity. She knew that Phil’s impulse would be to shoot to the surface as quickly as possible, it was the survival instinct, but going up too quickly could kill a diver just as surely as being trapped with no air. Burst lungs, and the bends – caused by nitrogen trapped in the tissues – were just two ways you could die. Thanking God once again that she had done her training over several weeks and had the basics drummed into her so thoroughly, she looked at her air gauge. Still a quarter full.

  Following her lead, Phil did the same thing. He shook his head slightly and pointed at the surface. Thankfully he seemed to realise he couldn’t just go up.

  If they’d ended this dive as they’d planned, they’d now be finning back to the anchor line that came down from the boat. That was the easiest and safest way to get back to the surface in a controlled fashion. But Olivia knew they didn’t have enough time for that – or air.

  They had never planned to do more than a one-minute safety stop on this dive. If they’d gone up at the right time, they wouldn’t have needed to do more, but now it was critical that they stopped for a longer time to allow the nitrogen bubbles in their bodies that built up at depth to leave slowly and safely.

  Free ascents were harder to control than having the steadying rope to hold on to. Olivia had only ever done one free ascent and that had been in training. But that’s what they would have to do now.

  They were about six metres off the seabed, very calm, very controlled, when Phil touched her shoulder again and then made the slashing motion across his neck. No air.

  Sweet Jesus, that was all they needed.

  Olivia grabbed his arm. Pointed to her own regulator, and then took it from her mouth and offered it to him. This was something else she had only ever done in the safety of either a swimming pool or very shallow waters. She had never dreamed she would have to do it for real.

  Phil took it, breathed twice, handed it back. Textbook stuff. All divers were taught it. All divers hoped they’d never need to do it.

  She did the same. It wasn’t ideal, but it would work. The one saving grace was that she had plenty of air. And Phil was no longer panicking. Be grateful for small mercies.

  Somehow in the elation of realising that they could actually do this though, Olivia had taken her eye off the ball. Something touched her feet and she realised with a sickening sense of shock that they were back on the seabed once more.

  It was almost impossible to know, when you were neutrally buoyant in the water, how deep you actually were. Or even if you were going up or down. The only clue were the figures on the depth gauge of your computer. For a moment, they both stayed where they were, sharing her air, steadying themselves.

  Then Phil signalled to her that they try again. Their positions were slowly reversing, Olivia realised. In the beginning, she’d been the one who was in control. The one who knew exactly what to do. Now Phil had conquered his fear and he was ice calm. She could feel it, even through the wall of water that was between them. She could see it in his beautiful eyes that were so very close to hers. There was a sense of calm purpose in them now, as if he were urging her on.

  They ascended very slowly, back up to ten metres. Stopping every thirty or so seconds to share her air, holding on to each other tightly. Holding on as though their lives depended on never letting go. Which, of course, they did.

  Nine metres, eight metres, seven metres, six. The surface was only just above them now. The last safety stop was at five metres and it was standard that this one should be for three minutes if you had gone into decompression time. Today, they’d unintentionally overstayed their diving time, so more would be better.

  Phil held out his dive computer where she could see it and then held up five fingers. Five minutes then.

  It was the longest five minutes Olivia could ever remember.

  Breathe, breathe, swap. Breathe, breathe, swap.

  And then, finally, the waiting was over and they moved, in unison, back towards the surface until it was shining brightly above them and they shot out once more into the world of air. For a second, they looked at each other over the slight swell. A mix of relief and elation.

  Olivia had thought in her darker moments beneath the sea that the boat may have left them behind. Somehow forgotten them and headed back to shore. But, of course, it hadn’t. She could see the dark bulk of it not far away. The welcome solidity of its hull in the water. The skipper would, of course, be waiting for them to come up on the anchor line as the others would have done. On board, the other divers were busy peeling off their wetsuits and chattering excitedly. Olivia realised that although it had felt like an eternity to her and Phil, they were probably only a few minutes overdue. Only Stephen was scanning the sea, looking for them.

  ‘Divers up,’ he shouted, and a few moments later, with the anchor safely heaved up from the depths, The Katherine began
to move in their direction. ‘Hey, you two,’ Stephen called as the skipper manoeuvred the boat so the dive platform was in swimming range. ‘You took your time. We were about to send out a search party.’

  ‘No you weren’t,’ Olivia said, as they reached the safety of the ramp.

  ‘No we weren’t.’ He grinned.

  Both she and Phil knew enough about diving to know that it would have been dangerous for anyone to come back down and look for them. They had been totally on their own.

  ‘You’ve lost a fin,’ Stephen observed as he helped them up on deck. ‘Did you have a problem?’

  ‘Nothing we couldn’t handle,’ Olivia said.

  Phil glanced at her with an expression in his eyes that she couldn’t quite fathom. ‘I managed to get my fin stuck inside a couple of plates. So, if you do happen to be down there again in the not-too-distant future, I’d appreciate it back.’

  ‘I’ll get you to fill out an incident form,’ Stephen said, his voice sobering. ‘For our records.’

  ‘Sure,’ Phil said, as he took off his empty air bottle and stab jacket.

  Then they all gathered round, keen to hear more, and Phil told them the story of the conger and the lobster.

  ‘Seriously though, guys,’ he concluded, ‘I was a total muppet. If I hadn’t kicked out when I saw that conger, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have dislodged those plates, and if I hadn’t lost my knife in the first place, I’d have been better equipped to get myself out of trouble.’

  And if Tom hadn’t stirred up a viper’s nest of emotion with whatever he said to you on the quay, Olivia thought, but didn’t voice.

  ‘Luckily Olivia was on the ball,’ Phil was saying now. ‘She saved my life.’

  ‘Well done,’ said the girl, her eyes on Olivia. ‘It sounds like you did an amazing job sorting it. I’m not sure I’d have coped so well.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Captain Birdseye. ‘It’s surprising how many divers don’t have the wherewithal to get themselves out of trouble. They all learn to dive in the Caribbean and they think the English Channel’s going to be as forgiving as a crystal-clear, warm, tropical ocean where you can see for ten metres, but it’s not.’

  This set off a big discussion about stories of divers who’d got into and out of trouble in the English Channel with varying degrees of success.

  ‘I read this article in Dive Magazine about it once,’ Stephen told them. ‘The odds of getting out of trouble after a serious incident underwater are quite low. Ninety-four per cent of divers don’t make it. Six per cent survive. Just six percent.’ He whistled through his teeth. ‘I’ve never forgotten that statistic.’ He shuddered dramatically.

  They moved on to stories of other divers they’d heard of who had and hadn’t managed to crawl out of the incident pit.

  Olivia was glad that the spotlight was off her and Phil. He’d seemed happy enough to share his story, but now he seemed quite subdued. She thought maybe for the same reason that she was, as they sped back over the glittering sea towards Weymouth Harbour. It was only when they’d got safely back on board The Katherine that the full shock of what had happened had really hit her. Things could have ended very differently today.

  28

  They were back at the quay by late lunchtime. They’d got changed out of their drysuits and back into jeans and trainers on the way back and now they unloaded the boat amongst the buzz of Sunday morning shoppers and tourists, and locals out getting the papers. Then Olivia and Phil said their goodbyes to the other divers who were going off to have a pizza.

  ‘You’re welcome to come along,’ Stephen offered.

  ‘I think we’ll give it a miss thanks, mate,’ Phil told him.

  And then finally they were back at Phil’s car and a few minutes later back in the car park at Olivia’s house.

  Neither of them had said a word. Phil turned off the ignition, but he made no move to come into the house. All of that peaceful closeness that Olivia had felt between them when they’d been trapped beneath the sea, sharing each other’s air, had gone.

  Was he embarrassed because of what had happened? She touched his arm. ‘Phil, are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK.’ There was a deep sigh in his words. ‘I made a right pig’s ear of that, didn’t I? I put both our lives at risk.’ His dark eyes held hers. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t believe I was so stupid.’

  ‘I don’t think any of what happened was your fault.’ She struggled for the words to reassure him. ‘It was just unfortunate.’

  ‘It wasn’t unfortunate. It was careless. A series of careless incidents right from the beginning. I didn’t make sure my knife was secured. Then when I did lose it, I didn’t look for it. The batteries in my torch weren’t working.’ She hadn’t known that bit. ‘I shouldn’t have freaked out when that conger put in an appearance. I should have been keeping a closer eye on my air – I always use a lot of air.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, hating hearing him beating himself up like this. ‘We both made a decision not to look for your knife, I seem to remember. This isn’t all on you.’

  The heat of the sun felt hot on her face through the windscreen of the car. In the opposite corner of the car park, she could see a traffic warden putting tickets on windscreens.

  ‘The fact is, Olivia, that if you hadn’t been there, that would have been it. Game over.’

  ‘But I was there. That’s the whole point of the buddy system—’

  He cut across her. ‘I put your life at risk too.’ There was something in his face that was hard, almost cold. She had never seen him like this.

  A flashback of him standing on the quay talking to Tom flicked into her mind. She cleared her throat uncertainly.

  ‘Phil, what did Tom say to you earlier?’

  There was a little pause. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘OK. He said that you still loved him. That the only reason you two weren’t back together was because you felt obligated to me and couldn’t bring yourself to end it between us. Oh, and he showed me a picture of the house he’d bought where you were both going to live and raise a family, as soon as you’d got round to dumping me.’ A beat. ‘He said that I was in your way. That I should let you go.’

  Crap. No wonder Phil had been rattled when he’d got back onto the boat with all of that kicking about inside him. She looked at him in horror and for the first time since the diving incident, he met her eyes.

  ‘Is any of that true?’

  ‘Phil! No! Of course it’s not true. He hasn’t bought that house anyway. He’s just renting it…’

  The traffic warden was heading purposefully their way.

  ‘So, he did show it to you then? The house.’

  ‘Well, yes, he did.’

  ‘And you were planning to tell me this when?’

  ‘Phil, I have told you about him getting in touch. I—’

  Before she could finish, the traffic warden, who had grey hair and a military straight back, reached the car and made a signal that Phil should lower the window, which he did.

  ‘Are you planning to buy a ticket, sir?’ He consulted his watch. ‘Because this isn’t a free car park.’

  ‘I’m not stopping,’ Phil said coldly and turned to her. ‘Olivia, I need to go. I’ll see you later.’

  She stared at him in shock.

  ‘You’ll need to make that now please, sir.’ The traffic warden was clearly one of those jobsworths who revelled in his work. ‘I’m sure the young lady understands.’

  Olivia got out of the car. ‘Aren’t you coming in? What about my dive kit?’

  ‘We’ll have to sort it later. I need to go.’

  ‘Once I commit pen to paper, I won’t be able to cancel the ticket.’

  ‘ALL RIGHT.’ This was aimed at the traffic warden.

  Phil started the ignition. Olivia had no choice but to step away from the car and watch as he pulled away. He didn’t even look back.

  She stood for a few se
conds, numb with shock. Then, not wanting to give the miserable little dictatorial traffic warden a second’s more satisfaction, she headed for her front door.

  Inside the privacy of her home, the shock of the last five minutes crashed in and Olivia felt like bursting into tears. What the hell had just happened? She and Phil had never even come close to a row before. So much for the amazing day they had planned together.

  Scuba diving, followed by lunch at their favourite Italian, followed by delicious lovemaking and a chilled-out night at hers. She realised she was shaking. She couldn’t quite believe he’d left so abruptly. Taking a few deep breaths, she told herself there was nothing she could do about it now. She needed to calm down first.

  She got in the shower and washed off the smell of the sea and teased out the knots in her long hair. How had a day that had begun with such promise ended up like this? Should she phone him? No, he’d barely be home. And if he didn’t answer the phone, it would be awful.

  As soon as she was dry, she phoned Ruby instead and poured out the whole story to her, beginning with Tom turning up on the quay and dripping his poison into Phil’s ear, then the change of plan from drift dive to wreck dive and ending with Phil’s abrupt disappearance.

  ‘Bloody hell, sis. That sounds pretty hairy.’

  ‘It was. But we survived and I can’t get my head around his reaction. He was so cold and dismissive.’

  ‘Do you think he felt ashamed – about the getting stuck bit, I mean, and the fact that you basically had to rescue him. You know what men’s egos are like. Maybe it was that?’

  ‘That did cross my mind. Do you think I should phone him?’

  ‘Maybe not straight away. Maybe let him cool down a bit.’ She hesitated. ‘It sounds like Tom is trying to do a hatchet job on your relationship. If you want to talk to someone, talk to Tom. That’s a pretty nasty thing to do. The poor bloke’s self-esteem is probably smashed to bits – Phil’s, not Tom’s. What was Tom even doing there anyway?’