Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

‘I’ll give them their fucking ball,’ Uilleam hissed, and he stuck it firmly under his arm and went marching off towards the water.

Aunt Rita called after him, ‘Uilleam, don’t be silly. Let it pass now.’ She had no idea just how strong the language was, but the tone of it was a powerful clue. Me and Seonag and Anndra jumped to our feet and went chasing after him. Ruairidh stood seething for a moment, before turning and running past us to try to wrestle the ball away from Uilleam. But Uilleam put a hand in his face, for all the world as if fending off a tackle on the rugby field, and ran on right up to the water’s edge. There he released the ball from his hands and kicked it with all his might. Caught by the wind, it went sailing over the incoming waves to land with a splash in the bay, a good thirty yards out.

I remember groaning at the stupidity of it. ‘Uilleam. Jesus, what an idiot!’

One of the other boys detached himself from the group and came running up to the rest of us. ‘That’s my ball!’

Uilleam turned on him, and I remember thinking he was old enough to know better than this. ‘Go and get it, then.’

‘I can’t swim!’

‘Awww, that’s a shame. Looks like the game’s a bogey.’ This in English. Pure Glasgow slang that he must have picked up at university.

I glanced towards the ball. It was riding the incoming swell, and seemed to be drifting even further out, drawn by the currents.

Aunt Rita joined us at the water’s edge, then, hands on hips. ‘Well, that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.’ She turned to the group of village boys. ‘Whose ball is it?’

The boy put his hand up.

‘I’ll buy you another one,’ Aunt Rita said.

Uilleam snorted his disapproval. ‘It’s not that far out. Any decent swimmer could go and get it.’

‘Aye, like you?’ Ruairidh said. He knew perfectly well that Uilleam couldn’t swim.

Uilleam bridled. ‘Why don’t you go and get it, then, big-mouth? You won the swimming championship at the Nicolson, didn’t you? Or maybe you’re a chicken.’

Ruairidh glared at him, and I saw his eyes flicker just for a fraction of a second in my direction, before he turned and without another word went plunging out into the water.

‘For God’s sake, lad, what are you doing?’ Aunt Rita shouted after him, and was almost drowned out by a chorus of voices imploring Ruairidh not to do it.

‘Stop it!’ I screamed after him. ‘Stop it!’

But by now he was already out of his depth and windmilling his arms in strong steady strokes to break through the incoming swell and set a course for the ever-diminishing ball.

We all watched, then, in silence, barely daring to breathe, as he got further and further away. It took an interminable time for him, finally, to reach the ball. I don’t think any of us had realized just how far out it really was.

Even from where we stood on the edge of the water we could hear him fighting for breath. Big, deep, barking gasps. Having reached the ball, he clung on to it now to keep himself afloat as he tried to control his breathing, but we could see that all the time the current was drawing them both further out.

Real fear stalked among us then, and I could see from his face that even Uilleam was starting to panic.

For two or maybe three very long minutes Ruairidh clutched the ball to his chest, floating on his back as he slowly regained his breath. Then, without letting it go, he started kicking with his legs and setting a course back towards the beach. But even as we watched, he seemed to make no progress at all. The pull of the current was stronger than the kick of his legs. If anything, it seemed to me, the swell was growing, the waves breaking a good twenty yards out where the seabed fell away and the undertow dragged everything down.

Ruairidh’s friends were screaming encouragement at him, but not one of them could swim, or at least weren’t admitting to it.

‘You idiot! You stupid idiot!’ Aunt Rita shouted at Uilleam. I had never seen her so angry. She hoisted up her skirts and went wading off into the water, waist-deep, as if by somehow getting closer to him she could reel him in. But she must have realized the futility of it and stopped, her dress floating on the surface of the sea, and spreading out all around her like ink from a squid.

Suddenly, Anndra went sprinting past me, legs pumping as he pulled them up out of the water to plunge forward, and then launch himself past Aunt Rita and into the sea. Everyone, almost in unison, called him back. But Anndra had made up his mind and nothing was going to change it. He was a strong boy, my brother, with muscular shoulders and a ripped chest and stomach. A good swimmer, too, and the courage of a lion.

Our protests tailed off as we watched him power his way through the incoming waves, fear nearly choking us. For a moment he vanished, and no one dared breathe until we saw him again breaking the surface of the water beyond the swell. Long, elegant strokes of his arms took him quickly out towards Ruairidh, and he reached him much more quickly, it seemed, than it had taken Ruairidh to get out there himself.

Now we could hear him gasping for breath, too, and both boys clung to the ball, dipping beneath the surface then emerging again with water streaming down their faces. Anndra was shouting something to Ruairidh, but it was impossible to make out what. Then, of a sudden, they both struck out for home. Ruairidh was still on his back, one arm crooked around the ball for buoyancy, the other arcing through the water as he kicked frantically with his feet. Anndra remained on his belly, his left arm making arcs through the water in sync with Ruairidh’s, the other hooked around the arm that held the ball.

With both sets of legs kicking against the current, it was with relief that I saw they were actually making progress towards the shore. Until they arrived at that point where the incoming swell reached its peak and broke in furious white foaming spume. Both boys vanished from view, and with a shock, like a punch to my chest, I saw the ball shoot up into the air and go skidding back across the surface of the water in the bay.

Still no sign of either Ruairidh or Anndra.

And now it was Aunt Rita who went plunging off into the ocean, still fully dressed, her hat whipped from her head to bob momentarily on the crest of a wave before being washed, spinning, back up on to the sand.

I remember feeling immersed in the strangest silence. Even though the sound of the sea breaking all around us and the howl of the wind was very nearly deafening. It was as if time had stood still, or at least slowed to the merest crawl. Almost exactly as I would experience so many years later in the Place de la République.

Aunt Rita had vanished now into white water, and I saw only a flailing arm, before she re-emerged, pulling one of the boys behind her, fighting to keep her head above water as she sought to find some kind of foothold below it. And then, when she touched down, emerging head and shoulders from the water, dragging Ruairidh in her wake. I heard him coughing and choking, gasping desperately for a breath that wouldn’t carry more water into his lungs. He was alive, and I almost collapsed with relief.

All of the boys went wading then into the water to grab him from my aunt and pull him up on to the beach where he lay retching and vomiting seawater. But there was no sign of Anndra.

In the moment before she turned to go back for him, I saw the fear in Aunt Rita’s eyes, but also the courage that it took to risk your life for a loved one. Or maybe it takes no courage at all when you love a person. You just do what your heart demands, even though your head is calling you a fool.

By this time I was in tears, howling uncontrollably as Seonag stood staring out to sea, her face whiter than I have ever seen it. Uilleam was rooted to the spot, his feet sunk in the soft wet sand, rabbit eyes scanning the waves as panic filled and emptied his chest in a series of rapid shallow breaths.