‘Not particularly.’ I didn’t feel like giving him the full list. The problematic veins, the bad hip, the swollen ankles, the tinnitus, the osteoarthritis, the erratic blood pressure, the occasional depression, the anhedonia…The audiobook of War and Peace would have been shorter.
‘Well, then. That is perfect.’
‘Perfect? For what?’
For blaming my death on natural causes?
‘You will see,’ he said. Which wasn’t exactly reassuring.
Nolletia chrysocomoides
I sat on the fitted bench on the deck and waited.
The engine failed and Alberto headed to the stern and kept cursing in Spanish until he got it working again.
We headed south, past Es Vedrà. It was quite an intimidating sight, close up, in the dark. The rock seemed to go on for ever, merging into the night. Its edges frayed with vegetation. It was hard to imagine anyone living there. Even goats. I thought it was quite conveniently sized, that rock. You could do anything behind it, unseen. My nerves got worse.
I practised putting the mouthpiece in and breathing through it.
It was a relief when I heard the buzz of my phone. I scrambled around in my pile of clothes to see that I had a WhatsApp message from Sophie, Karl’s sister. She was responding to the photo I had sent of the plant with yellow flowers.
It was a long message. Or a long series of messages. This was unusual. Sophie was explaining that she didn’t recognise the plant at all, so she had shown it to her partner, Sarika, the botanist. Sarika had apparently had a strong reaction to the photo:
She was very VERY confused.
She thought you must have taken the picture from the internet. Some AI thing.
The plant you sent us has the fancy Latin name Nolletia chrysocomoides – (cut and pasted that!) – it is officially extinct in Europe!!! Not been anywhere near Spain for 10 yrs. And Sar knows all about this kind of stuff…plant nerd…expert on endangered and extinct plants and flowers. So – yes – very weird!!
She’s going to send the photo (if that’s OK) to her mate at UWA (the uni here in Perth) to see what she makes of it. Anyway, hope you are well and enjoying life in Ibiza. I know you can find it hard sometimes to socialise and to throw yourself into things. But I think Karl would want you to. Speak soon. xxxx
I clicked off WhatsApp, and even though Alberto was still talking to me, I was hardly listening. My heart was racing faster than I knew it could and my mind was darting into formerly cordoned-off areas, full of notions and ideas I’d have once dismissed as fantastical. One of the thoughts that was entering my head was this: the plant hadn’t just randomly appeared in front of the door. It had appeared where I had tipped out the water. The water that had been in the olive jar. The magic water. The glowing water.
I stared up at Alberto. I needed to concentrate.
‘The ocean is very much still unknown,’ he was telling me. ‘People talk about the universe being unknown, but our planet is the same. More people have been to the moon than to the deepest part of the ocean. The Mariana Trench, man. You have heard of it? Very hard to reach. Most of the ocean has not been seen by humans, let alone mapped. We genuinely know more about the surface of Mars. Even in shallow seas like this one, much of it is mysterious. It will help to keep that in mind…’
I could tell this was very much his subject. He got quite animated about it, moving his arms around as much as the tight wetsuit allowed. He talked about the things that have been discovered and how magical they are – underwater mountains, valleys bigger than the Grand Canyon, a sub-aquatic river in the Black Sea – larger than the Thames – with trees beside it. I wondered, if he was about to murder me, would he be going to this much effort to educate me on marine life?
‘And then we get to the seagrass,’ said Alberto. ‘The most amazing thing. Posidonia oceanica. It goes right from Ibiza to Formentera – one single self-replicating organism that has like a special miracle been preserved for many, many, many centuries…Millennia, in fact.’
‘So why didn’t you want me to see it in the daytime? Won’t it be dark down there? Even with the torches?’
He laughed. And he echoed my question. ‘Won’t it be dark down there? Man, quite the opposite. You’ll see.’
‘If this underwater meadow is everywhere, why do we need to go so far out?’
He turned away from the helm. Spoke loudly above the motor. ‘Because you want the answer, right? You want to be precisely where the picture was taken. You want to see the necklace you gave her…’
The necklace you gave her…
That was a lot of information in very few words. ‘You know I gave it her?’
‘Sí, sí. Por supuesto! Of course, of course. She told me about it. She said you were the kindest person she ever met. Not only kind, but strong. They are the two essential qualities, Grace. They are what’s needed. Mental fortitude and emotional sympathy. Let me tell you something about kindness. I was raised by my grandmother here in the village of Santa Agnès de Corona. She was an artist. But she was kind to everyone. Before I was born she helped lots of artists fleeing Germany to find a safe haven in Ibiza. Our home was small, but I had an almond tree outside the window and it reminded me when it blossomed that this is a world full of overwhelming beauty. We were poor but Ibiza was rich in other ways. In those days we were so close to nature. There were only two paved roads and hardly any electric light but there was always music and interesting conversations and the sea. Grandma took me everywhere and wanted me to enjoy life. I remember dancing as a child to jazz on the beach at Ses Figueretes I owe everything to her kindness, and when I see kindness I want to reward it. Thanks to her, I always had three things. A love of nature, strength and sympathy. She had those qualities. You have them too.’
‘Your grandmother sounds like a fine person.’
‘She was. So was Christina. And she saw those qualities in you.’
‘But Christina didn’t know me,’ I said. ‘Not really. We didn’t stay in touch.’
‘Oh, she knew everything.’
Alberto switched off the engine and shook his head all the way to the bow, where he lowered the anchor. I looked over at the water. Inhaled the cool briny air. And I saw something. Something glowing amid the dark depths. Just for a moment. Before the ocean went dark again.
‘There is beauty in this sea unlike any other,’ said Alberto, with a squinted smile. ‘Yet only a few people ever get to see it. A light in the water. It is special but it can be mesmerising. Be careful. Don’t swim towards it…It will come to you.’
I put the regulator in my mouth and stood on the small platform ready to follow Alberto into the sea.
What am I doing? What is going to happen?
Most of life, I realised, was mystery. Even mathematics is full of mystery. We can know that every even number above two is the sum of two primes, but we don’t know why. There are mysteries everywhere. In the mind of every sentient creature and beneath the surface of every sea. Sometimes the only thing to do is to dive in and find things out for ourselves.
Half of me was scared. But then I thought of that empty bungalow back in Lincoln, full of its sad memories, and I lifted my leg and stepped into the water, reminding myself to keep my eyes wide open.
The Sudden Dark
Alberto swam in front, which was comforting, as I could see him with my torch beam and make sure he wasn’t secretly tampering with my oxygen. We headed at a gentle angle down towards the seagrass.
