Finding my way more by touch than sight, I stumbled upon a path that seemed to lead away from the huts, dribbling first along the edges of the dunes and then shelving steeply down onto the beach. For the last few yards the path became a tunnel, sand dunes topped with marram grass rising high on either side; I had to stop for a minute because the narrow space constricted my breath. At the back of my mind was the fear: suppose he comes back, suppose he wants me again and I’m not there? Moonlight shifted on blades of grass as they bent and swayed in the wind. I came out onto the beach beside a stream of brackish water that trickled between rocks and pebbles, widening as it reached the sea.
There was a new noise now, louder than the waves: a frenetic thrumming that sawed at your nerves. It took me a while to identify it as the sound of the ships’ rigging slapping against the mastheads. The ships, most of them hauled clear of the tideline and supported on cradles, were a dark mass on my left. There were other ships anchored offshore—but these were little, fat-bellied cargo vessels as different from the lean warships as ducks from fish eagles. I knew the warships would be guarded against the possibility of a Trojan attack, so I backed into the dunes again and cut across a spur of scrubby heathland to the open sea.
Here, the dominant sound was that sword-on-shield clash of waves. I walked down to the sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lyrnessus where I guessed the fires that had destroyed the city would still be burning, but the closer I got to the water the thicker the mist became. It seemed to have come from nowhere—a dense fog, cold and clammy as a dead man’s fingers, turning the black ships into spectral shapes that no longer seemed entirely real. It seemed odd that such a mist should form and linger on a night of high wind, but it freed me, making me invisible even to myself.
Out there, beyond the roiling waves, in the calm place where the sea forgets the land, were the souls of my dead brothers. They’d been denied funeral rites and so would be forbidden entry to Hades, condemned to haunt the living, not for a few days only but for all eternity. Again and again, behind my closed lids, I watched my youngest brother die. I grieved for all of them, but particularly for him. After our mother’s death, he’d crept into my bed every night, seeking the comfort he was ashamed of needing by day. There, on that windswept beach, I heard him calling me—as lost, as houseless and beyond help as I was myself.
With no idea in my head except to reach him, I began wading into the sea—ankles, calves, knees, thighs, and then the sudden, cold shock as a bulging wave slapped into my groin. Standing there, splay-footed, the sand shifting under my feet, I put my hand down and washed him out of me. And then, clean, or as clean as I would ever be again, I stood, waist-deep, feeling the swell of waves lift me onto my toes, and set me down again, so I rose and fell with the sea. One huge wave picked me up and threatened to sweep me out of my depth and I thought: Why not? I could feel my brothers waiting for me.
But then I heard a voice. I thought for a moment it might be my youngest brother’s voice. I listened, straining to hear above the roar of the waves, and it came again—definitely a man’s voice, though I couldn’t make out the words. And suddenly, I was afraid. I’d been frightened for days—I’d forgotten what it was like not to be frightened—but this was a different kind of fear. The skin at the back of my neck crawled as the hairs rose. I told myself the voice must be coming from the camp, somehow bouncing off the wall of mist so it seemed to be coming from the sea, but then I heard it again and this time I knew it was out there. Somebody, something, was churning up the water beyond the breaking waves. An animal—it had to be, couldn’t be anything else, a dolphin or a killer whale. They sometimes come in very close to land, even beaching themselves to snatch a seal pup from the rocks. But then the drifting veils of mist momentarily parted and I saw human arms and shoulders, the gleam of moonlight on wet skin. More heaving, more splashing—and then, abruptly, silence, as he turned and lay facedown on the water, drifting backwards and forwards with the tide.
Men on this coast don’t learn to swim. They’re sailors—they know swimming serves only to prolong a death that might otherwise be quick and relatively merciful. But this man had been playing with the sea like a dolphin or a porpoise, as if it were his real home. And now he lay spread-eagled on the surface, staying in that position for such a long time I began to think he could breathe water. But then, suddenly, he raised his head and shoulders and floated upright, like a bottling seal. Seeing his face came as a shock, though it shouldn’t have done, because I’d guessed already who it was.
I began to wade fast towards the shore, in a hurry now to get back to the hut and dry myself, because how on earth was I going to explain this? But in the shallows I was forced to slow down because I didn’t want to splash and attract his attention. As I stepped onto dry land, I felt a quick, sharp stab of pain in my right foot. Something—a stone or a fragment of broken shell—was sticking into the sole of my foot and I had to bend down and pull it out. When I looked up again, I saw Achilles, not swimming now, but wading knee-deep onto the shore. I squatted down, held my breath, but he passed by without seeing me, both hands raised to wipe salt spray from his eyes. I let myself breathe again, thinking it was over, that he’d go back to the camp, but he just stood on the tideline, facing out to sea.
When he spoke I thought he was speaking to me and I opened my mouth, though I’d no idea what I was going to say. But then he spoke again, words bubbling from his mouth like the last breath of a drowning man. I understood none of it. He seemed to be arguing with the sea, arguing or pleading…The only word I thought I understood was “Mummy” and that made no sense at all. Mummy? No, that couldn’t be right. But then he said it again: “Mummy, Mummy,” like a small child crying to be picked up. It had to mean something else, but then “Mummy” is the same, or nearly the same, in so many different languages. Whatever it meant, I knew I shouldn’t be hearing it, but I didn’t move and so I crouched down and waited for it to stop. On and on it went, until at last the glutinous speech faded into silence.
The mist was beginning to burn off as the sun rose. I saw the first golden gleams of light find his wet arms and shoulders as he turned and walked along the beach, disappearing into the shadow of his black ships.
As soon as I was sure he’d gone, I ran as fast as I could through the dunes, but once inside the camp I was lost. I stood there, wet, bedraggled and terrified, with no idea of what to do or where to go. But then a girl came to the door of one of the huts and beckoned me inside. Her name, she said, was Iphis. She took care of me that morning, even filling a bath with hot water to wash the salt out of my hair. As I put my mantle to one side and prepared to step into the bath something fell onto the floor and I realized I’d brought the stone with me from the beach. My foot was still bleeding where it had cut me. It lay in the palm of my hand and I examined it minutely as people in shock will sometimes do, focusing their whole attention on a trifle. It was green, the bilious green of a stormy sea, but with one diagonal streak of white. Nothing remarkable about it, except that it was sharp. Very sharp. I raised it to my face and sniffed: seawater and dust. I licked it: felt grittiness, tasted salt. Then I ran my finger along the jagged edge: no wonder the cut was so deep. When I drew it across my wrist—exerting scarcely any pressure—it left a weal, beaded along its length with pinpricks of blood. There was a relief in that, making blood flow out of my numbed skin. But when I went to cut myself again, curious to know whether the relief would be repeated, something stopped me. I didn’t know why the sea had given me this gift, but I knew it wasn’t to hurt myself with. There were knives all over the camp if I wanted to do that. So I rested it again on the palm of my hand and looked at it, thinking of nothing else at all, just the colour and feel and weight of it. So many pebbles on that beach—millions—all of them worn smooth by the sea’s relentless grinding, but not this one. This one had stayed sharp.