heard the flick of a lighter and turned to see Joseph smiling in the shade, lighting a roll-up.
‘Do me one, Joe-Joe?’ Kitty asked.
‘Thought you only smoked when you were drinking?’ Lana said.
‘How do you know I haven’t been drinking?’ Kitty said with a wink.
Kitty reached across as Joseph passed her his lit cigarette. ‘Thanks, honey.’
They spent the day hanging out on the cliff top where the breeze was at its coolest. The dives became more ambitious, with Denny and Heinrich trying to outdo each other with somersaults, inelegant back flips, and swallow dives – landing with slaps that seemed to echo off the rocks.
Lana noticed the competitive edge to Heinrich, who sought out the others’ praise when he returned to the cliff top after a successful dive. Shell teased him that his formation was a little off, losing points for bent legs on entry. He looked genuinely disappointed by her verdict, until Shell’s face broke into an easy grin.
When the heat became too much for Lana, she jumped from the ledge too, enjoying the burst of adrenalin that pumped hard through her veins in that moment when her feet left the rock. When it came, the smack of water was an exhilarating white burst that filled her nose and mouth with salt water, and she surfaced coughing and laughing.
Around lunchtime, Shell took the dinghy back to the yacht, and returned with a bag full of sandwiches, fruit, and bottles of chilled water. They ate looking out over the incredible view. Not a single boat was sighted and, apart from a plane flying overhead, they were entirely alone.
As the sun began to lower, one by one the crew made their way back to the yacht, until only Joseph, Aaron and Lana remained on the cliff top. Joseph wandered to the edge with another cigarette, peering down at the drop. The breeze flattened his shirt against his body and Lana noticed for the first time how thin he was. She could see the sharp jut of his shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine.
‘Going to jump?’ Aaron said from behind him.
Joseph just shrugged, his gaze on the water.
‘You’re not going to give it a go?’ Aaron asked slyly.
Joseph turned to face Aaron, his back to the cliff edge. Very slowly he drew the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag. He blew the smoke upwards to the sky, then he dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his bare heel. He placed his glasses carefully on the ground and took a step back so that his heels were at the lip of the cliff.
‘Careful,’ Lana said.
Joseph crouched down, and then in a shock of movement, he flung himself up and back, his body arching. His arms were outstretched at his sides and he seemed to float silently through an inverse world. His shirt filled with air, rising away from his chest and exposing the pale skin of his stomach. As he neared the surface, he brought his arms together in a neat point, piercing through the blue water.
Lana gasped. White water bubbled on the surface, cloaking Joseph from view. Then suddenly there was a rush of movement as he surfaced.
‘Yeeaaah!’ Denny bellowed from down below, his voice echoing off the rock. The rest of the crew, who were still in the lagoon, whooped and cheered, too.
Joseph trod water for a moment, his blue shirt clinging to his body – and Lana was certain she could see him smiling. Then he turned and swam calmly back towards the yacht.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Aaron said, shaking his head. He looked at Lana for a moment and said, ‘Did that actually just happen?’
‘It did.’ She grinned.
Without another word Aaron walked to the cliff edge, then dived forward, his chest expanded, arms stretched out. It looked for a moment as though he was suspended in the air, offering himself to the sky. When he landed, he didn’t come up for breath but swam underwater, his dark shape visible below the clear surface as he ploughed hard in the direction of the yacht.
Lana picked up Joseph’s glasses from the cliff edge and gathered her things. Before beginning the climb back down, she stood on the cliff edge watching the rest of the crew swimming towards the yacht, Joseph at their centre. She found herself smiling, pleased for him.
Standing there, she felt a strange longing, as if she were watching the scene, not part of it. Somehow she knew these golden moments couldn’t stretch out endlessly. She yearned to press ‘pause’, to freeze this exact point in her life and hold onto it tightly.
*
Later that evening, the crew sat in the cockpit in the glow of a few candles, the cliff casting a dark shadow in the background. The wind had changed direction and small waves shivered through the bay, making the yacht rock. It was a rare, almost perfect evening, conversation moving fluidly from topic to topic and laughter rippling out over the dark water.
Up at the bow, Joseph was sitting alone again, writing in his notebook by head torch. Lana picked up her beer and moved along the deck towards him. ‘Mind if I join you?’
As he turned, the beam of the head torch swung over her face. She squinted, holding a hand up to her eyes.
‘Of course,’ he said, turning off the torch. He closed the notebook and slipped it away into the breast pocket of his shirt.
‘Impressive dive you made earlier,’ she said, lowering herself down beside him. ‘Where did you learn?’
‘Paris. Years ago I join a diving club. Many nights’ practice on the high board.’
‘Do you do any diving now?’
‘No. Not now.’
They sat in silence, the noise and laughter of the others drifting towards them. Lana was comfortable in the absence of words, having grown used to it in her own home. She felt a strange allegiance to Joseph – perhaps because she sensed his isolation from the rest of the crew and knew what it was to be an outsider, often wondering how lonely her teenage years would have been if she hadn’t met Kitty.
She watched the water, noticing how the tops of the waves glinted silver in the faint light of the moon. After some time she turned to Joseph and said, ‘Do you mind me asking what you’re writing?’
He thought for a moment, and then answered, ‘Poetry.’
‘Poetry about what you see, or what you feel?’
It was his turn to look at her. ‘That is interesting question.’ From the pocket of his shorts he took out a tin of tobacco and some rolling papers. His fingers were long and nimble, practised at evenly packing down the tobacco. ‘I write about what I feel.’
She nodded.
‘I see you with an art pad sometimes, yes?’
‘Yes. Sketching, mostly. Out here there’s so much I want to draw.’
Joseph lit his cigarette and took a long drag. As he exhaled, he asked, ‘You have fun on the boat, then?’
‘A lot. We’re very lucky to be part of this.’
‘It
