a while, figure on getting down there in about an hour's time.
Y'all take care now!'
This last simply meant 'Cheerio'. I replied with the con168
ventional 'You too' and, putting on our masks, we swam
across to the mouth of the creek.
It was shallow - in places almost too shallow to swim:
you had to mind your chest on the bottom - and at first, too
narrow for both of us to swim side by side. The water was
alive with tiny, brilliantly-coloured fish, which seemed quite
unafraid of our intrusion. Fifty yards downstream I stopped,
lying still on the clean, sandy bed, hardly a foot under, while
shoals of peacock-blue midgets and fluorescent tetras hung in
the current or darted back and forth outside the glass panel,
not three inches from my eyes. I became so much engrossed
that I forgot to go on until Kathe, behind, gripped my ankle,
pulled herself forward and wriggled neatly past me. I followed
her downstream, among dense shore-tangle above and
coloured weeds below, watching the rhythmic, easy beat of
her legs ahead of me as the water gradually deepened to
four or five feet.
A few hundred yards below its source the little stream
joins another, flowing down from the Jug Spring, to form
the Itchetucknee river. Reaching this confluence we entered
broader, deeper water and began swimming in earnest, borne
on a faster current. It was wild country - what we could see
of it for the close vegetation. There were no clearly-defined
banks to the river, which simply disappeared on either side
into reeds, swamp and trees. Kathe dived and I followed her
under, to see the light-coloured bed below littered with logs,
sunken branches, shells and patches of black, decayed leaves.
As we surfaced I caught up with her, turning on my back,
and she slipped her snorkel out of her mouth, put her arms
round my neck and kissed me, her lips cold and sliding on
my watery face. 'Under!' she said, laughing. 'Under!' and
dived again.
Fifteen feet down, with the first hint of pain in the sinuses
of my forehead (later I could tolerate more depth), she embraced
me again, twining her legs about mine and holding
me so close that I could not swim; and thus we drifted on,
rising slowly with the buoyancy of our bodies, until I, breathless
sooner than she, was forced to struggle free and break
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for the air. She followed me up, splashing and laughing, and
I clasped my hands behind her neck.
'Dear heart, how like you this?'
'Oh, Alan, never anything so nice! I could swim for ever! I
hope it's miles down to Lee, don't you? Oh, look, look!'
Ahead of us a great turtle, black against the light, was
sitting motionless on the thick, horizontal branch of an overhanging
tree about ten feet above the river. It never moved
as we swam across and floated by almost directly beneath it.
Below, on our left, we came upon a little inlet, out of which
we could feel cooler water flowing. Kathe, leaving my side,
swam up into it and here, at no great depth, we found
another spring, in which tiny, whorled shells and coloured
fragments were dancing and circling in spirals in the cold
boil. We touched bottom and stood side by side, bending
our masks forward into the water to watch the miniature
turmoil below. Kathe stooped for a handful of shells and
looked at them one by one before letting them sink back.
They wavered down slowly, reminding me of the grape pips
in the champagne.
'Alan, I'm going to take these silly clothes off. I hate wearing
anything in the water. Can you look after them - tie
them round your leg or something?'
They would almost have gone into a matchbox. I pushed
them inside my trunks and we set off again down what had
become a broad flood between marshy, high-grassed shores.
In spite of Lee's assurance I was hoping not to meet a
gator. We saw none, but two or three hundred yards further
on I suddenly caught sight of a white-headed, blue-grey
heron, a good four feet tall, wading among the shallows.
Turning to point it out to Kathe, I saw that she had vanished
again, and dived myself.
At first I could not make her out anywhere, for though the
water was still clear it was now deeper than ever and there
were any number of indistinct rocks and sunken logs. Then,
coming upon a thick, black tree-trunk resting, on its own
branches, across the current and clear of the bottom, I
caught sight of her naked body, pale-brown and supple in
the green gloom, twining in and out, above and below,
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wriggling between the sunken tree and the bed of the river
and emerging on the other side. We came up together, but
the heron was no longer to be seen.
These underwater tree-trunk acrobatics proved great sport,
safe enough for sound swimmers, and we began to emulate
each other, catching hold of the branches sticking up from
the big logs and pulling ourselves down to pass backwards
and forwards, over and under, peering into unexpected holes
and venturing beneath overhanging shelves of rock. Kathe
could go deeper than I, and several times, thrusting herself
upward at the last breathless moment, shot past me in a
stream of bubbles to shatter the bright, translucent ceiling
above. Once, five or six big garfish, swimming slowly together,
each as long as my arm and smoothly sinuous, approached
her, exactly like cows in a meadow, to see for themselves
what this intruder might be. She was not in the least
afraid, but paused for them to come round her; and as she
swam on, arms by her sides and webbed vans beating
smoothly behind, they turned and went down with her for
a few yards, so that she seemed like some naiad in a painting,
attended by a grotesque shoal of piscine companions.
We were now, I saw, coming to a reach where the river
narrowed again. On our right lay an overgrown bluff of
rock about twenty feet high, with a little, sandy beach, no
more than a few yards wide, at its foot. I thought it would
be pleasant to stop here for ten minutes before going on to
finish the swim, and as Kathe surfaced again, in a kind of
bay of almost still water about twenty yards ahead, I was
just about to call to her when suddenly she screamed, 'Alan!
Alan!' in obvious terror.
I was alongside her in seconds. She seemed utterly beside
herself. I had to support her or she would have sunk. She
clutched my shoulders, breathless and trembling, and for a
few moments I thought she was going to faint.
'Kathe, for God's sake, what is it? Have you hurt yourself?
Is it cramp, or what?'
Heaven send it was no worse than that, I thought. Once, in
the shop, an elderly customer had been seized with an
attack which turned out to be kidney stone. I had always
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hoped never to see anything like that again. And we were
in the middle
of a roadless, pathless swamp.
She only clung to me, crying with what seemed to be fear
rather than pain.
'Kathe, tell me! Come on, tell me what it is! Did you see
a gator? Lee says they're perfectly harmless.'
With an effort she collected herself, pressing one fist beneath
her jaw.to clench her chattering teeth. Then she
gasped, 'Body, Alan!'
'What?'
'There's a body down there! A little - little - 0 God!
Save me!'
Oh, hell! I thought, foreseeing all the dreary business that
this would mean. We'd have to report it. And we'd have to
give evidence, presumably. How long would they keep us?
Could they keep us? Probably they could.
'Well, darling, I'd better go down and have a look, I suppose.
Just straight down here, is it? I know it's nasty, but
try not to upset yourself. I tell you what - you go across to
that little beach there and lie in the sun, and I'll be over in
half a minute.'
I hoped it wouldn't be too horrible, but was afraid it probably
would be, for as I had learned, Kathe had a pretty
strong stomach and wasn't easily upset. As soon as I had
watched her pull herself out on the sand, I dived.
Although the river was deep, I could see all round me
fairly plainly; but could make out nothing except the sunken
trees, the rocks and weeds. Yet how could she have been
mistaken about a thing like this? I came up, swam across a
few yards and went down again.
Almost at once, I saw what she must have seen. It certainly
gave me a turn for a moment. Close to the bottom a
large, yellow log, stripped of most of its bark, was lying
caught in a tangle of darker twigs and branches. It was perhaps
three feet long and, seen from above, bore a distinct
likeness to the naked body of a child. Some of the larger
knots in the wood even resembled features. I went lower and
tried to shift it, but it was stuck fast.
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Filled with the greatest relief, I swam over to the bluff
and came out.
'Kathe, it's all right! Listen, darling, I saw it and it's not
a body, it's just an old log. I promise you. You can come with
me, if you like, and have another look for yourself. But there's
no doubt about it at all. Absolutely none, so don't worry any
more.'
'Bist DM sicker - ganz sicker?'
'I am absolutely sure. I touched it.'
With a sob, she stood up and flung herself into my arms,
crying, 'Oh, Alan, I'm so glad! Oh, thank you, thank you!'
Her wet shoulders were smooth under my hands, her
breasts pressed against my chest as she kissed me. Without
reflection or hesitation I drew her down on the sand and
within moments, unthinking and unpausing, thrust into her.
No words passed between us, Kathe only crying, 'Ah! Ah!
-' close to my ear at each movement. I could feel her
nails, like a spray of bramble, but blunter and harder, across
the flesh of my back. There was no caressing and no control
on either part, but at the end Kathe pressed her mouth to
mine, arching upward and shuddering until I could barely
keep her beneath me. I came to myself to feel her thighs
falling away from me, falling apart, subsiding gently like a
deep drift of leaves as my body sank down between them.
She kissed my forehead and then, whispering, drew one
finger gently down my spine. 'See what I mean?'
I was in tears, and answered only, 'Yes. Yes.'
'Do stay where you are. It's so nice.'
A little time passed. The river flowed on beside us. I became
drowsy and had almost forgotten Florida and the swimming,
when suddenly we were both startled by a sound of
splashing and voices quite close at hand. I rolled quickly
over, sat up and saw, about forty yards upstream, two young
men floating down on inner tubes, in which they were sitting,
arms and legs hanging over the circumferences, as
though in hip-baths. They had seen us, and as I turned on
my belly one of them, a big fellow with a bushy moustache,
made a remark to his companion which - though I don't
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think he meant it to be - was audible across the intervening
water.
What happened then might seem a shade hard to believe;
but happen it did. Kathe, unhurriedly and deliberately,
stood up, legs slightly apart and arms at her sides, facing
the river, her thighs streaked with sand and her body still
flushed here and there, and gazed at them with a kind of
grave, contemptuous assessment. In their ridiculous position,
wedged into the ugly black tubes, they seemed to dwindle,
staring up at her literally open-mouthed. Then the moustached
one said, 'I sure am real sorry, ma'am. I apologize'
(actually, he said 'apolojars') and, willy-nilly, they drifted
on and out of sight.
It put me in mind of the porters at Heathrow. These unlucky
young men had done us no harm and spoiled nothing.
I felt sorry for them. Getting to my knees, I rinsed the sand
out of Kathe's mask and handed her her bikini.
'Did y'all have a good time?' inquired Lee Dubose when
we reached the lower park twenty minutes later.
Kathe kissed him on both cheeks. 'You are a nice chap,
Lee,' she said, 'bloke - guy - Bursche. Thank you so much! I
am looking forward to dinner, aren't you? Let's make it a
really good one!'
She lay asleep in the humid, sub-tropical night, eyes and
lips lightly closed; her breathing inaudible, gentle and
rhythmic as the ripple of a calm sea fringing a beach. In
sleep, I thought, her beauty acquired a new quality. When
she was awake it subsisted, like that of an ash-tree or a
kestrel, not only in her appearance but also in her whole response
to the surrounding world - to sun, wind, sounds and
other creatures. Asleep, she resembled rather some marvellous,
antral mineral - topaz or amethyst - no longer possessing
her waking function of response, yet involuntarily
returning beauty to another's gaze as the mineral, glittering,
displays its secret colour when light is shone upon it. Yet
for some reason her sleep - this personal sleep of hers was
not like that of ordinary people, since it seemed not
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J
oblivion, but rather a kind of inward contemplation. What
lay within that still sea whispering along the sand? She had
descended into the sea-garden of sleep to be by herself, like
a queen who has dismissed her companions the better to
ponder, alone, upon high matters in which - for the time
being, at all events - they can play no part. Awake, she was
a tumbling, sliding stream, sometimes clear and revealing
what lay beneath its surface, sometimes concealing it by
reflecting what lay without. But her sleep hid her as green
ivy covers a stone - still, mantling, tenacious. My passion, I
knew, contained an element - of fear? of awe? - which, because
I did not myself understand it, disturb
ed even while it
excited me.
One arm lay easily across her belly and below, within its
fleece of dark hair, her secret part - not secret to me pouted
gently, moist and faintly glistening from our lovemaking.
Her feet, no longer treading the ground or beating
the water for her pleasure, rested apart, one and one, the
soles and insteps still soft and puckered from their long immersion
in the warm river. The night around us had only
an imperfect tranquillity, its darkness diluted and weakened
not by honest stars but by street-lighting, its silence muddied
by the hum of the air-conditioner, by distant traffic
and the incessant croaking of frogs. Kathe's sleep, remote
and calm as moonlight, transcended this imperfection and
shed a radiance upon it - or at all events upon me, content
to lie awake and gaze at her. For I was reluctant to lay
aside my joy, even though I knew it would be waiting beside
me in the moment of waking.
After a time my desire returned and I, hesitant to disturb
her as one might feel reluctant to pursue one's own intrusive
way past an otter on the bank of a pool or a blackcap in
full song, lay down beside her, meaning to contain myself in
sleep. And I had almost succeeded - for the long swim had
tired me no less than her - when she, not asleep, not awake,
yet aware of me and my longing, turned on her side, moaning
gently and clasping me about with one arm and one leg
as we united. Thus embraced, I lay still in perfect contentment,
desiring nothing more, and so remained, unspeaking.
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This coupling, warm, wet and soft as a sponge, seeking
neither progress nor conclusion, was dream-like, timeless. I
cannot even recall whether it went its full course - I believe
it closed in sleep. Next morning I asked Kathe, but she,
laughing, replied that she could remember nothing of it.
'I think you must be what they call a sleeping partner,
darling,' she said. 'It wasn't properly explained in the English
idioms book, and I always wondered what it meant. Go
and put the shower on, nice and tepid. I feel like one of those
hot fudge sundaes!"
I dwelt now in pleasure as a fish lives in water. To fall asleep
was pleasure; to wake, to stretch, to pass the salt, to walk
down the street was to be conscious of exquisite pleasure. It
was of no importance where we went or what we did, since
merely to exist was delight. To speak was a pleasure equalled
only by silence. It did not really matter whether we were
actually making love or not, since it had now been revealed
to me that making love and not making love were complementary,
heads and tails of the same shining penny. Sometimes
I wept to express my joy, sometimes I burst out laughing
from frustration at the impossibility of expressing it.
Since wherever we might happen to be was the centre of the
world, there was no need to exercise our will in going anywhere
or doing anything. Things simply appeared or occurred
as we floated among them, buoyant, smooth and idle as
bubbles. Like babies or the very old, we slept and woke unthinkingly
by day or night, following the inclinations stealing
over us like the wind in long grass.
Yet go places we did. We swam the Itchetucknee again,
starting this time from the deep Jug Spring, where blind white
fish - so the Scuba divers told us - live in perpetual darkness
in a cavern forty feet down. We drove east to little St
Augustine, the oldest town in the States, founded by Pedro
de Aviles in 1565 (and very properly burned by Drake in
1586). We walked on the shores of Great Orange Lake, carpeted
like a tapestry meadow with strands of brilliantly
coloured phlox drummondii growing wild, and watched a
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chameleon change colour on a branch. We drove west to the
delta of the Sewanee River, a maze of green channels between
tracts of reeds and grassland, alive at dusk with little,
leaping fish; and there watched a huge, red sun sink into the
Gulf of Mexico. How long ago it seems!
One hot, still evening of early June we came to Cedar Key,
a shabby, corrugated-iron-roofed little township, lying like
a washed-ashore oil drum on the Gulf coast, where poor
whites, fishing for food, squatted side-by-side with blacks
on the jetty and a bearded, free-loading painter straight out
of Tennessee Williams chatted us up in the bar as he drank
my whisky.