The mutant trainers had been abandoned in Madrid and I was singularly lacking in beachwear, so I untied the laces of my brogues and performed the contortions required to pull on the offensive trunks beneath a towel, a fiddly procedure that recalled tying up the end of a balloon, then lay somewhat self-consciously on the hot sand. For all his enthusiasm for the sea, Albie seemed reluctant to swim, but the afternoon heat was like a salamander grill. I was becoming aware of my scalp’s vulnerability and when I could not bear it any longer, I sat, up sprayed my head with sunblock and said, ‘Egg, can I borrow your goggles?’
The water near the shore was cloudy with suntan lotion, greasy as the sink after a Sunday roast and dense with people standing still, bemused, hands on hips, as if trying to recall where they’d put their keys. Fish darted between our shins, but this close to the shore they were drab and unhealthy looking, scavengers feeding off God knows what. I waded out further, and as the coastal shelf deepened, the water cleared and turned a startling blue and I began to enjoy myself once more. I settled Albie’s goggles on my eyes and dived, and immediately the last of the previous night’s vermouth was washed away. I am a strong and confident swimmer and before long I was pretty much on my own, looking back towards the city, its radio towers and cranes and cable cars, and the hazy hills beyond. How strange to have stumbled, clambered and barged all over Europe and only now to have reached the ocean. From here Barcelona looked fine, handsome and modern, and I looked forward to exploring it with my son. Somewhere in that mass of bodies on the beach he was safe and well. The journey had reached its natural end and in two or three days’ time, I’d return to Connie and make my case, whatever that was. Don’t worry about it now. I closed my eyes, rolled onto my back and turned my face to the afternoon sun.
What happened next remains something of a blur, though I distinctly recall the shock of the first sting on the bridge of my foot, an extraordinarily painful sensation like being slashed with a blade. The cause should have been obvious, but my first idea was that I’d kicked against broken glass and it was only when I immersed my head in the water, saw the sand far, far below and all around me the pink and blue clouds of jellyfish — a swarm, there really was no other word — that I realised the trouble I was in. I tried to steady my breath and reassure myself that, if I took my time, it should be perfectly possible to pick my way through these mines and reach the shore. But had there really been so many? I inhaled, and sank beneath the water once again, and blurted out the air. It was as if I were the first witness to some alien invasion, a beach landing, and here I was far, far behind enemy lines, an impression underscored by a sharp pain in the small of my back like the blow of a whip. I reached around, felt something as soft as sodden paper tissue and then the sting of the whip once more, on my wrist this time. Bobbing up, I examined the wound, which was already raised in a lurid pink, the outline of the tentacles quite clearly branded on the skin. I swore and tried not to move but my stillness caused me to dip underwater once again, vertically, like a fisherman’s float, inhaling when I should have exhaled as I saw another of the vile creatures just inches from my face as if deliberately intimidating me. Absurdly, I punched it because nothing hurts a jellyfish more, nothing affronts their sense of dignity, than an underwater punch in the face. Escaping a sting, I pushed backwards and steadied myself, staying afloat by swirling my hands and feet in little circles. I scanned the surface of the ocean. The nearest swimmer was some fifty yards away, and as I watched he too yelped with pain and began to pound towards the shore, and I was alone.
I opened my mouth to shout. Perhaps I should call for help, but that word, ‘help’, stuck in my throat. It suddenly seemed like such a silly word. ‘Help!’ Who really cried for help? What a cliché! And what was ‘help’ in Spanish, anyway — or should it be Catalan? Would ‘
