Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  At any rate, he had reached the end of his bottom time. He should return to the entrance. But he was frustrated. He was hovering above a passageway that angled down to unknown depths. He longed to know where this shaft led but he was already facing over an hour of decompression time and, if he didn’t leave soon, he would not have enough air left. Besides, he had no idea how deep this tunnel went.

  He gave the enticing passageway a longing glance. Just another few minutes, perhaps…

  No. There was no sign of the passage levelling off—he could not chance it.

  After tying off the line to a suitable rock projection and cutting free his reel, he started to make his way back. Fortunately, the profile of the cave was such that he could decompress partially as he journeyed to the entrance. At nine metres he retrieved the stashed cylinders he had dropped on the way in. With ample supplies of air ensured, he slowly ascended to his next stop for an hour’s wait.

  The sound of his breathing as he drew air from his regulator and then exhaled was rhythmic, hypnotic. He found himself watching the floating silver bubbles with profound concentration. Decompression was time-consuming and, with nothing to do but wait in the water, there was no escaping your thoughts. You could suddenly find yourself in the dark of night, in another time, where two brothers were fighting each other, their hearts filled with hate. And behind them a house loomed gracefully in the darkness; the house which had brought them to this moment.

  Paradine Park. A gift, but also a curse. The house left to him by his father had turned out to be a poisoned chalice. It hadn’t taken him long to bring himself up to date with his father’s financial affairs and to discover just how precarious the position was. The upkeep of the estate was shatteringly expensive and his mother and Richard were spending money like water. Richard, especially.

  The ensuing battles over money between him and his brother were bitterly fought, but he was fighting a battle he could not win. Richard had a devastating trump card. Louisa Buchanan would never deny her youngest son even his slightest wish. Nothing Adam might say could sway her. She would listen to him pleading with her, warning that if they weren’t careful, they would have no choice but to open the house to the public and have gawking sightseers traipse through their private rooms. They could even end up losing the house altogether. Nodding her head, she’d agree that they needed to be more frugal, that it was time to get serious about the financial situation. But her eyes would slide free from his gaze whenever he mentioned Richard and his extravagances. Even though he was nominally the master of Paradine Park, Adam found himself becoming irrelevant; if not shut out by a physical wall, then by a psychological divide far more formidable than any built of brick and mortar.

  The situation came to a head one warm summer night. He was working late at his desk when he discovered yet another staggering bill. He could still remember the sense of hopelessness descending on him, followed swiftly by blinding anger. Storming out of the office, he decided to have it out with Richard once and for all.

  He finally tracked Richard down to where he was smoking in the garden. The sight of his brother made him shake. His tongue felt clumsy, his mouth awash with saliva. And Richard looking like a blond angel, completely calm. He didn’t say a word. He continued smoking, his slender body relaxed, listening quietly to his brother’s stammering, trembling voice.

  And then he smiled.

  A smile. That was all. Just a smile. But a smile filled with contempt and triumph. A smile that said, No matter what you say, I will prevail. No matter what you do, you will always be the outsider looking in. And in that moment, memories of the slights, the insults, the tiny cruelties of years collided in Adam’s mind with an almost physical blow.

  Rage. He had never felt such rage. It triggered in him an impulse to violence that was utterly devastating. A red mist sifted over his mind. He rushed at Richard and his shoulder hit his brother’s body with sickening ferocity. The force was such that he lost his own balance and sent both of them sprawling onto the grass.

  He could see the white of Richard’s eyes and the gleam of his teeth. He could smell his own sweat and that of his brother’s. They were struggling together in near perfect silence, an unspoken pact between them not to wake the inhabitants of the dark sleeping house. And the scent of the grass was strong and the snowy blooms of the wisteria made it look like a ghostly bride.

  And then Richard’s outstretched fingers found the garden shears, the pair his mother had used only that morning to prune the roses. Why they had been left behind, Adam did not know. An oversight on her part, a twist of coincidence. The curved blades ripped across his arm and even in the darkness his own blood was easy to see. But he managed to twist Richard’s hand holding the shears away from him.

  Had Richard said something? Had he, at last, cried out? Adam could never remember. All he recalled was the feel of the shears in his own fist, the dull gleam of the blades. Was he fighting for his life at that moment? He was stronger, more powerfully built than his brother. Surely there was that one split second when he could have stayed his hand?

  He had not stayed his hand. He had brought it down and felt the blades shudder as they hit first the rib cage, then found the heart below. And all he felt was anger.

  Anger. His alter ego, the shadow at his elbow. The violence of that night had been years in the making. Ever since he was a child, he had cultivated his anger assiduously—and this may have been his greatest crime. Instead of fighting it, he had allowed it to grow. The fights over money, the battles over the survival of Paradine Park—these were merely symptoms of a festering rage with its roots many years in the past. And even now, after all this time, there was within him the fear that anger might one day cause him to lash out in violence once again. There was no greater fear than this; the fear that you cannot trust yourself.

  You can change, Mark once told him. Everyone has within him the possibility to change. He had watched his friend’s earnest face, had looked into his kind eyes and he had wanted to believe, but he could not. Was it really possible to change yourself fundamentally? Past experiences were hidden tripwires lying dormant within you, ready to sabotage actions still in the future. Character is destiny, and thus fate is set.

  Except for love. Love was the wildcard. Love—not the power of will—could cut the shackles of conditioning and stop the past from intruding on the present. The woman in his dreams, the woman whose essence he sensed whenever he sat down to write his letters—in her presence he might find grace. The day she placed her hand in his would be the day he found himself at peace. He needed to find her. She was the healing rib in his aching side.

  And suddenly, just thinking about her, his mind felt calm and completely clear. His blue rose. At once a symbol of the impossible and a way out of the labyrinth. She was waiting for him, somewhere, holding the key to freedom.

  But did he deserve freedom? Did he deserve happiness? He had killed his brother and, though he regretted what had happened with all his heart, he had never been able to find within himself the desperate desire for forgiveness his crime demanded. Would this disqualify him from finding his soul mate? From finding the woman who could make him feel whole?

  He placed one hand over his wrist and in his mind’s eye he saw the tattoos marking the soft skin on the inside of his arm; the head of a wolf, and a black-and-white serpent swallowing its tail. The snake, Ouroboros, was a water element and a mythical, ambivalent creature. A destructive force but also a regenerative source of birth, rebirth and immortality connected with the Wheel of Life. Maybe, like the serpent, he would be allowed to shed his skin, attain a second chance. Maybe…

  Ssssh went the sound of his breathing as he inhaled. Ble, ble, ble and the bubbles left his mouthpiece in blobs of blurry noise as he pushed the air from his lungs. He was starting to feel the cold now; it crept through the seals in his suit. Finning slowly upward, he ascended to his last decompression stop. Turning his arm, he glanced at the dive computer.

  Another thirt
y-three minutes to go.

  • • •

  BREAKING THE SURFACE water after a long dive was a disorienting experience. Within the honey-tinted water, shapes were soft-edged. Suddenly emerging in a world of coloured light and sharply delineated objects was a shock. But today the feeling of disorientation was even worse than usual.

  The noise. The noise was wrong. Slipping off his face mask, he blinked his eyes against the sun that was now beating down from a cloudless sky. He pulled back his hood and there it was again; voices. The sound of human voices intermingling with the shrieks of the birds and the high-pitched, panicked bellows of seals in distress. They came from the shore behind him. He turned around, bobbing in the water, and the sight that met his eyes was such that his brain had difficulty processing the image.

  In the hour and a half since he had entered the water, the bay had been turned into a place of slaughter. The rocky beach was littered with the corpses of baby seals. Men, dressed in gaily coloured anoraks, moved between the heaving mass of fur, shouting and prodding the mature seals with poles ending in long, curved hooks. A big motorized boat with the name Andrea stencilled on the side was moving gently on the swell, only yards away from him. Above his head, high in the sky, birds wheeled and cried at one another in warning.

  The sealers were so focused on their task that they did not notice him as he emerged, dripping, from the water. A few steps away, a giant of a man, tall with a broad back, was leaning forward. His eyes were on a baby seal that was screaming, its tiny flippers scrabbling furiously against the rocky surface. As Adam watched, the big man drew back his arm lazily and brought the club in his hand crashing down. The impact of the club as it splintered the animal’s skull was strangely muffled. The baby seal made a sick sound and its eyes died.

  The man slowly straightened. He must have caught sight of Adam in his peripheral vision because he turned his head and smiled. His teeth were even and very white. His skin had a reddish tint and even his scalp where it showed through the fine, flaxen hair was pink. His eyes were startlingly blue and his lashes so fair they seemed almost non-existent. Yuri Grachikov.

  Intruder. As their eyes met, Mark’s description of the man flashed through Adam’s mind. It was an apt word. Standing there with the bloodied club in his massive fist, his skin showing the effects of a sun far stronger than ever shone in his native land, Grachikov seemed out of place, like a dangerous, transplanted form of animal life about to wreak untold havoc on his new habitat.

  Grachikov smiled again. ‘Mr Williams, yes?’ His accent was strong, making his words sound as though they had been dipped in grease.

  Adam nodded slightly. He lifted his one foot up on a ledge to unfasten the weights around his ankle and pull off his fin. He wanted to get away from here. The stench of fear and blood made his stomach turn. The harvesting of seals was perfectly legal, but it was a sickening business. There were some activists—Mark, of course, was one of them—who had tried to get the practice banned from Giant’s Castle; so far without success. But this was not his fight. He should be on his way.

  ‘I recognise you. We meet at the Purple Palace. You are the friend of Doctor Botha?’

  Adam paused. Straightening slowly, he looked at the grinning man opposite him. He nodded again, warily.

  ‘Good, yes. I know you. Maybe you can give your doctor friend a message?’

  ‘Message?’

  ‘I try to speak to him but he does not speak to me.’ Grachikov pulled up his shoulders in a gesture of mock surprise.

  ‘Maybe you should try again.’ He had to stop himself from mimicking the man’s accent. And he’d better watch out; it wouldn’t do to underestimate Grachikov. Just because the Russian talked with an accent didn’t mean he thought with one. Adam removed his second fin and started to walk toward his boat, dragging his gear behind him. This conversation, as far as he was concerned, was over.

  But Grachikov was following him. ‘No, Mr Williams, you must help me. You must talk to the doctor.’

  Grachikov was obviously not going to allow him to get away easily. Adam carefully placed the cylinders in the boat before turning around. ‘So what is the message?’

  ‘A man has to make a living, yes?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘A new hotel. It will be good for business. It will bring much work for the people here.’

  Adam found himself suddenly fascinated by the scar that ran across Grachikov’s chin, ending just underneath the jawbone. The wound had healed untidily and the flesh appeared as though it had been folded over and then stitched together by a clumsy hand.

  ‘Dr Botha. He is making things difficult. It will cost me much money if I am not allowed to finish my hotel. You see what I say?’

  ‘No doubt you’ll have the opportunity to state your case when the inquiry gets under way, Mr Grachikov.’

  ‘We have to wait a long time for that, yes? And the machines, they rust. And soon I must start paying back money I borrow. You must talk to your friend. Tell him, he is making trouble for me.’

  ‘I’m sure he knows that.’ This was a ludicrous conversation.

  ‘Tell him, he does not want me making trouble for him.’

  Adam suddenly registered the cold animosity in those heavy eyes. Grachikov was swinging his club gently to and fro, to and fro. Sunlight flashed off the two diamond rings he wore on his pinky and middle finger.

  Adam felt his own eyes narrowing and a deep, icy rage settled in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘That sounds like a threat.’

  Grachikov held up his hands, showing the palms. ‘Not to understand me wrong. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’ The American colloquialism sounded ridiculous coming from his lips.

  ‘It still sounds like a threat.’

  For a moment they simply stared at each other. It was as though they were alone, far removed from the noise of the dying seals, the curious glances of the other men moving around them, aware only of each other, their eyes locked in a strange battle of wills.

  Then Grachikov drew back his head and laughed, his lips pulling up above very pink gums. ‘We are like children now. This is not good. We are men, not children. We forget about this, yes?’

  Adam realised he had been holding his breath. He exhaled and consciously tried to let go of the tension inside him. He felt slightly nauseous. The swiftness of his anger had been an unpleasant surprise. He should leave. Now.

  But as he started to turn his back, Grachikov held out his hand. ‘Friends, yes? Maybe one day we go diving together, look for buried treasure?’ He laughed again.

  Adam hesitated, but then stretched out his own hand. Grachikov’s hand was cool and the palm strangely smooth. His grip was firm but not crushing.

  Grachikov nodded. ‘Good. Goodbye, Mr Williams.’

  THIRTEEN

  AS ADAM PUSHED the boat into the water, Grachikov watched him thoughtfully, the club still swinging from his hand. The Russian’s gaze took in Adam’s muscular figure, his strong back and legs, the set of Adam’s head on his shoulders.

  Trouble. Adam Williams was trouble and an unexpected complication. He had plans for Dr Mark Botha and he did not need the friend interfering. The doctor was vulnerable; he had a wife, he had patients he cared for. There were any number of ways pressure could be applied. But Adam was the joker that had suddenly popped up in the middle of his deck of cards.

  Grachikov let his mind go over what he knew of this man. A lone wolf, that much was clear. A man who kept very much to himself. A man with only one friend, as far as he knew; the doctor. So he may just be someone who has something to hide. Not that this made him unusual in a country where drifters with secret pasts were not only tolerated but even welcomed. He certainly didn’t hold it against the man; his own past would not stand up to much scrutiny either.

  But he had the feeling that he should tread warily. For one moment he had seen something in Adam Williams’ eyes that had given him pause. This was a man not to be taken lightly.r />
  The boat had reached the open sea. He saw Williams look back over his shoulder at the shore. He lifted his hand and waved merrily at the figure in the boat. Williams did not return the wave.

  Grachikov dropped his hand to his face and touched his fingers to the ridge of scar tissue on his chin. He did not like the way Adam Williams made him feel. He sensed that this man could become a serious obstacle to his plans. That was unacceptable. Things usually went the way he intended. Only once in his life had his luck deserted him. He touched the scar on his chin again.

  But on the whole he had led a charmed life. He had grown up the son of a well-placed Communist official and had enjoyed the privileges his father’s position entailed. When Perestroika came to the USSR, his father managed to switch his allegiance to Mikhail Gorbachev fairly effortlessly and the family continued to prosper. After high school, Grachikov joined the navy—a patriotic gesture expected of the son of a prominent member of government—and was trained as a navy diver. Diving satisfied his sense of adventure, but the miserable conditions under which he had to live did not appeal in the least. After four years, he returned to Moscow and found a city that had become a dangerous but exciting place for anyone with guts, cunning and the instinct for criminal enterprise. It was a place tailor-made for a man like himself.

  For ten years he lived well. And then he made a mistake. A stupid mistake that almost cost him his life. He had been overconfident, convinced he could muscle in on the territory of Fyodor Voznesensky, and his arrogance had cost him dearly. Not only did he have to flee his beloved city, but he also had to leave behind Susanna, his half-sister. Susanna Georgievna with her black hair and eyes and her ready laugh. Susanna who played the violin with a passion that could bring tears to your eyes.