Chapter 43Lifeguards Do Not Leave the Flags

Midnight. The ship was still over the sea, climbing.

There was no one in the cabin but him. The seat was grey, and the harness was buckled up to his chest. The text on the instrument panel was white, jumping upward line by line. Andrew did not look out of the porthole. He looked at the altimeter. The numbers climbed from sea level, three hundred, one thousand, three thousand, each step jumping just as fast as the last. In the lower right corner of the panel a line of small print appeared. He recognised what it meant: not on the list. He did not stop to think who had written that line.

The engine was pushing. The sound of the thrust pressed in behind him, low, steady, not once breaking off. He laid both hands on his knees, palms down. He was waiting.

In New York, too, it had stayed off-frame, hanging above the water off Liberty Island, and it had never come down. Back then he had been on the ground. This time, he was inside. It was the ship in his name; it had been his since the New York tower was undone.

The altimeter reached nine thousand one hundred and twelve and stopped.

It did not slow down. It stopped. The engine was still pushing, and the needle of the thrust gauge did not move by a single mark. The number stood there. The next second it was the same number, and the second after that, still the same.

A voice spoke in the comm. Level, with no breath taken, every word the same length. It read out a serial number:

“LM-1-05. Not to be let through.”

Andrew answered once: “Received.”

When he had said it, he waited a long time before he drew the next breath in. The comm said nothing more.

The ship did not explode, and it did not hit anything. It drew back down. The numbers on the altimeter dropped back step by step, nine thousand, five thousand, one thousand, three hundred, twenty, eleven. At eleven they stopped, and the ship hung above the north end of the beach.

The hatch was open. A rope ladder hung from the doorway, its end resting on the sand, swaying gently. The light inside the door was white, and it picked out a rim around the doorframe.

Andrew unbuckled the harness, stood up and went to the door. The wind came up from below, a north wind, carrying salt. He climbed down the rope ladder, and when he was about a man’s height above the sand, he let go and jumped.

As he landed, his left knee made a sound first, dull, old. He crouched for a moment, waited until it stopped, and only then straightened up.

Behind him, the hatch closed. As the rope ladder drew in, it made a very soft sound. The ship rose and drew back over the sea, back out beyond the bay.

※

The sand was cool, cooler than in the daytime. The surface was covered in small hollows, trodden in by people during the day and not yet smoothed away by the waves in the night. The tide was coming back in, and the edges of the wet sand shone one strip after another, shining as far as his feet and stopping there. His shoes sank in a little, and when he pulled them out, sand fell from the uppers. He steadied himself and looked south first.

He wore a dark coat, zipped up to just under his neck, and its hem lifted in the wind and fell back against his legs.

The flagged area was to the south, thirty-odd paces from him. White poles stood in the sand one after another, each a man’s height. The flag cloth at the top of each pole had been bleached greyish white, with only a thin strip of red left along the edge, and the cloth was full of small holes, worn through by the wind. The north wind blew across, and the flag cloth lay flat against the poles and did not move. A white rope ran from pole to pole, pressed down on the sand, and that was the line. Every pace along it there was a knot, and round each knot was wound a short strip of white cloth.

He counted the white poles once. Seventeen. The foot of each pole was set in concrete, and a ring of white paint had been brushed round the edge of the concrete, and the paint had peeled too, showing grey. Every one was the same.

The wind passed between the poles, and each pole made a different sound, thick or thin.

The northernmost one stood at the end of the line. He walked over and stopped beside it. The white rope between the poles was the same length in every section. To the north of the pole, there was nothing on the sand.

Where he stood was north of the line. The sand under his feet was sand outside the flags.

The north end had no flags. That afternoon at the mouth of the lane, that man had said it: Between the flags. There are no flags to the north.

At the south end of the flagged area, the place where a vehicle had been parked was empty. There were two tyre tracks on the ground, sand had blown into them, and the wind had swept them flat. They had been left by the lifesavers’ patrol vehicle during the day.

A line of footprints came down the steps from the Esplanade and went on north, paused beside this pole, went round it, and went on north again. The wind had half flattened the edges of the footprints. Further north, two shoes were still on the sand, one tipped over, one upright, the opening facing the sea.

He did not go over.

Inside the line, not far from it, there was a white-painted chair. The paint on the chair had peeled off in patches, showing the grey underneath. On the armrests were two pale marks, where hands had rested for many years. Beside a front leg a shell was pressed into the sand, half buried. The four legs were sunk deep and had not been moved in many years. The sand under the chair was harder than elsewhere. From the pole beside the chair hung a white ring buoy, its rope hanging down, not swaying when there was no wind. On the white pole next to it, the flag cloth at the top was the oldest, bleached the whitest, so white you could hardly tell it was cloth.

A man sat in the chair. People around here called him the flag keeper.

A grey vest. The old base colour was greyish white, and the letters on the chest had been bleached to a pale grey, with only a little of their outline left. Both hands lay on his knees, and he faced the sea. On his knees lay a white-covered roll book, the edges of its pages curled up, curled very evenly, and a patch of white had worn off its corner. On his chest hung a white cord, and on its end hung a silver whistle. One of the ties of the vest had come loose and hung at his waist. When the wind blew, that one tie moved.

Andrew stood outside the line, three or four paces from the chair, and looked for a long time.

He knew how far three or four paces was. In New York, between one shelf and the next in the pharmacy, it had been the same distance.

The chest of that vest was flat. The wind came in gusts. Each time one passed, the hem lifted and fell back. The patch over the chest did not move.

The mouthpiece of the whistle was clean. The night wind was cool, and there was nothing on the mouthpiece, no mist, not a trace of moisture.

To his right, the tower stood at the far end of the Esplanade, its body very tall. The glass was lead grey, and the white window bands rose one after another, up to a height where they could no longer be made out. A ring of lights was on at the seventy-seventh floor, white. The streetlights stood one, then another, far apart, and did not reach the foot of the tower. At this hour there was no one on the Esplanade, and no one standing under the streetlights.

Higher still, white poles reached out from the edge of the tower’s top, drawing in towards the sky and weaving into an opening. That was the crown cage. In the middle of the crown cage stood a needle, the mast, with a point of red at its tip. There was no flag cloth on the poles of the crown cage, only the poles. They were arranged the same way as the ones on the sand. He counted upward from the northernmost one, and at the seventeenth it matched the ones on the sand.

Inside the crown cage there was something very large that did not move, under the needle.

He did not look at its shape. He knew it was there. The hum overhead was always there, low, pressing on his shoulders, not heavy, never changing.

In the sky south by east, the disc hung.

It was more than twenty times wider than the full moon. Its edge was pale violet. The bright side was a little larger than the dark, and on the bright side there were white clouds, in clumps, pressed against the edge of the disc, not moving. A little above the disc, towards due south, a black mouth stood open. Around its edge ran a fine white ring. The stars outside the ring were all twisted out of true.

Andrew’s throat was a little dry. He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple moved once.

※

In the water, beyond the third rock, a white board was rising and falling. The sea was ink black, the rocks were black in the water, and the only white was the crests of the waves, coming in row after row.

North of the rock, a dark channel of water reached out from the shore. The water in the channel was flatter than on either side, with no breaking waves, like a piece of cloth pressed flat, slowly being drawn outward. On either side of the channel, the waves broke row after row on the rocks, breaking very bright. In the channel, they did not. The white board was right on the channel, being carried out by it a little at a time.

A layer of black mussels grew along the edge of the rock, struck by the waves so many times that the edges of their shells had been worn to a shine.

On the board lay a dark shape, in black swimming trunks. Two legs trailed in the water, hardly kicking, and two hands gripped the edge of the board. That was Kai. Someone on the sand had shouted the name, shouted it twice. The one shouting was his friend, standing at the edge of the wave line, holding up a bottle of water. The cap was off, and water was running from the neck of the bottle onto the back of his hand, and he did not shake it off.

Kai’s legs kicked once, stopped, kicked again. The pull of the channel was stronger than his legs. The board kept going out. Kai turned his face towards the shore and looked. He was looking at the one at the edge of the wave line who had shouted his name.

The board passed the rock, thirty paces from its foot. Kai lowered his head again and gripped the edge of the board tighter with both hands.

Another person’s head was in the waves, rising and falling. That head was further out than the board; a row of waves came, the head was lifted, the wave went, the head dropped again. The strokes were very slow, each one reaching to the same place, drawing back, reaching out again. That head was counting the waves. Andrew was counting the waves too. They were counting the same stretch of water.

A row of waves came down and covered the head. A hand showed on the back of the wave and sank again. Andrew counted to four before the head came up out of the back of the wave.

Andrew knew that head. Apart from Kai, this was the only other person in the water. He remembered the mouth of the lane by the back door that afternoon, the badge pinned over that man’s left pocket, printed DAN. On the inside of his left forearm there was a small patch of red, raised in a clear blister. The man had said his name was Dean. Andrew had not asked about the badge then.

The man in the chair spoke.

The first line, on the shore. The voice was clear, like someone calling across the beach. His face was towards the sea, but the voice came this way. His lips moved once, and he did not stand. That line came out: “Into the water only between the flags.”

The voice landed on the sand. The sea wall did not send it back. Neither did the sand.

Andrew did not move. Above his left forearm, that very fine warm-coloured line circled his arm, turning slowly. He stood outside the line and waited.

Before he spoke, Andrew always drew a breath first, a long one. As he breathed in, his chest rose, rose to its highest, and only then came down. He had picked up the habit at roll call. Back then there was roll call every morning, whoever was called had to answer, whatever was counted had to match the list, and if it did not match, you counted again. He counted people, and he counted feet. Now he was counting white poles, and waves. He never rushed in ahead of the first word.

The second line, in the waves.

Across a row of waves, when the voice reached this side, the words were still there, blurred over, as if through a sheet of wet cloth. It was one degree thinner than the first. The line was: “Those outside the flags belong to the sea.”

That line was spoken to the water. Whether the people in the water heard it, there was no telling from here.

The flag rules had no hold on him. He stood outside the line; he was not between the flags to begin with. He did not cross the line. What he used was counting.

A row of waves came in, struck the rock, broke, and drew back. The second row came in. The third was the biggest, much whiter, and when it struck the rock its sound was the dullest. The dark shape on the board did not move. The head in the water rose and fell, and when it fell, it stayed down longer than it stayed up.

The friend on the sand shouted again. He put the bottle down on the sand, the bottle fell over, and the water ran into the sand. He cupped both hands round his mouth. The voice struck the rocks and bounced back, bounced back in pieces. It was a human voice, broken, and you could still make out which two words they were.

The friend on the sand saw Andrew, waved to him once, and let his hand drop. Andrew did not respond, and did not go over.

He counted.

He reported it once: “Two. North, outside the flags.” He matched the two against the white poles: the end of the line was the last pole, there were no poles to the north, and both people in the water were north of the poles. It matched.

He moved half a step towards the sea and stopped again. Where the tide had reached, a thin film of water lay on the sand, and the grains under the water could be seen very clearly. He pushed his right hand into his coat pocket; the pocket was empty, his fingertips touched the cloth lining, and he drew the hand out again.

The friend on the sand set the fallen bottle upright. It took him two tries to screw the cap on, and halfway through the second, his hand stopped. He put the bottle back on the sand, cupped both hands round his mouth again, and held them there, without shouting.

The white board turned half a circle in the channel, its nose pointed at the rock for a moment, and then it was carried back round. The white foam in the channel broke off and joined up again, and the joined stretch was a little shorter than before.

The waves broke on the rock, the water piled up in a layer, climbed to a certain height, and drew back, drew back very slowly.

The knots every pace along the line were tied tight, and the strips of white cloth on them did not lift.

Andrew’s left hand hung at his side, his fingers touching the seam on the outside of his thigh. The wind came from the side and made his eyes dry. He did not rub them, only blinked twice.

He glanced at the comm. The time on it was four minutes past midnight.

He stood for a while, neither going forward nor going back. The sand under his feet did not move at all; only the water was slowly rising.

※

The third line sank.

The flag keeper’s lips were moving. Seen from outside the line, all that could be made out was opening and closing, closing and opening. The voice was gone. The sound of the waves was still there, and the sound of the wind, but that line did not reach this side.

His chest did not rise and fall.

Andrew counted to three. The first line he had counted, the second line he had counted, the third line had no sound, and he could only count the lips. The lips moved a third time and stopped, and from that moment the line was no longer in the air. He spoke into the gap that line left. He drew a breath first, a full one, his chest rising, and only then let the first word out. The first word was I. His voice was not loud. He never raised it.

“I’ll count to three. On your third line, I come in.”

The words landed on the sand, very lightly. The sand swallowed the sound, swallowed it quickly.

The man in the chair did not turn his head, and did not look at him. The roll book on his knees moved. His left hand opened it, the page edges curled, and that hand pressed the page flat, then lifted the roll book a little and turned it round, facing outside the line. As the paper turned, a very soft sound could be heard on the sand.

He did not look up.

The page faced outside the line. Andrew could read the writing on it.

Every page had the same boxes. In each box was a name, after the name a row of times, and after the times a tick. Some ticks were in ink, and some had faded to grey. On this page, in the name column, was the name Dan. The strokes were faint, and the last one was almost gone.

He read the name through once, in his head, without a sound. Then he lowered his head and glanced at his own chest. The dog tag was silver grey, lying against his collarbone, with no lettering on it. He had always carried this tag, and it had always been blank.

The badge on that man’s pocket in the afternoon had been printed DAN. What the man had said was Dean.

Andrew turned towards the water. He did not shout loudly, and the sentence was short.

“Dean. Not Dan.”

The head in the water paused. A row of waves passed, and the head was lifted. As the wave fell away, the head turned half round towards the shore, then turned back. It was too far away to make out the face.

The voice on the shore came again, clear, as clear as the first line. This time it was not that line.

“Those outside the flags are not entered on the roll.”

The flag keeper turned the pages. One page, two pages, the edges curled, each page giving a very soft sound as it turned. Towards the back, he stopped at a line of writing, the page still facing outside the line.

That line had only a serial number, no name. The writing was very small, every character the same size, in ink, darker than the name Dan, not crossed out.

“LM-1-09, not counted.”

Andrew read the line to the end before he raised his eyes.

On the arm of the man from the afternoon, the blister was still there. He thought of it, only for a moment.

He called out once more, his voice still not loud.

“Dean.”

At some point the roll book had turned back to the page with Dan on it. Beside Dan, a second name had appeared.

It was written in pencil. The strokes were clear, new, coming out one stroke at a time. The D of Dean went down quickly, and the n came last, closing it off. There was no pencil tucked in the spine of the roll book, and the flag keeper’s hand had not moved; that hand was still pressing on the corner of the page, pressing it very flat.

Two names. Two people. He counted once, and did not count again.

In the afternoon he had heard this name once, at the mouth of the lane. Now it was written in the roll book.

The one calling was on the shore, the one called was in the water, and between them lay row after row of waves.

The name Dan was untouched.

Andrew lagged half a beat before he spoke.

“Entered. Then he’s on the roll.”

※

The line in the waves came again, one degree thinner than before.

“Those entered are between the flags. For those between the flags, the lifeguard must go.”

He paused, his lips still moving, without a sound.

From the movement of the lips Andrew read the last line: Lifeguards may not leave the flags.

The two rules were written next to each other in the roll book, with one empty line between them. Andrew’s left knee tightened, and he waited for it to steady. He waited until the gap that line left, and only then spoke.

“Both rules are in your roll book.”

The flag keeper did not look at him. He looked at the roll book, looked for a long time. The wind blew across the line and stirred the white rope, and the end of the rope drew a very shallow mark on the sand. The wind stopped, and the mark was still there.

The voice was clear again, as clear as the first line on the shore.

“I wrote both of them.”

The wind came once more from the north. The white rope moved, and this time it drew no mark on the sand. Andrew did not answer. He let that line fall onto the sand, waited until it had finished falling, and only then moved. He laid his right hand on his chest, pressed over the dog tag. The dog tag was cool, cooler than his hand.

The man in the chair closed the roll book, put it back on his knees, and pressed his palm on the cover, pressed once. There was a split in the corner of the cover, and the split was grey.

※

There was no sound in the comm.

Andrew raised his left hand and touched the comm on his wrist. He spoke to it, his voice not loud, a pause after each sentence. The comm’s light did not come on, and he did not look at it.

“The far side of the sea has lit up too. Someone should go and meet it.”

He paused for half a beat.

“I’ll go.”

There was no answer in the comm. The level voice read out no serial number. He did not wait.

The hum overhead dropped a little, then returned to its old pitch.

The sea to the east was black. The place that had lit up was not here, and could not be seen from here. He did not look for it. He glanced at the needle on top of the tower, and then at the disc, south by east. The edge of the disc did not move. The time on the comm jumped to six minutes past midnight, one digit, moving step by step.

He walked north.

Under the third rock, the white-painted steel box was still there. Half the paint had come off, and the colour of the iron showed underneath. The lid lay at a slant, not fastened. He lifted the lid, and inside was a coil of white rope, its end tied with a rubber band. The rope was folded the old way, one loop pressed on another, stacked very neatly. A white ring buoy lay on top of the rope. There was nothing else in the box.

He took out the ring buoy and put it on the sand. The rope was heavy, pressing on his palm. Every arm’s length along the rope there was a knot already tied, and he counted three. He took off the rubber band and slipped it over his left wrist, twice round. The painted edge of the box was sharp, and his fingertips touched it, paused, and were not cut.

The screw in his palm dug in once, then no longer did.

He worked it out. From the steel box to the end of the line was a hundred-odd paces. From the end of the line to the front of the chair was another dozen or so. Whether the rope was long enough, he could not work out. How long this coil of rope was altogether, no one had ever measured.

His footprints were left behind him one by one, leading all the way to the end of the line.

At the foot of the rock, the sand was wet, each step left a hollow, and water quickly seeped into it. The tide had risen a little more, up to the edge of his shoes. Over this stretch, his left knee made no sound.

He put the ring buoy back in the box. He carried the rope back in his arms. One hundred and three paces, one hundred and four paces. The head in the water was still in the waves, rising and falling. He counted once: two. Kai’s board was a little further again from the foot of the rock.

He walked along outside the line to the front of the chair. The chair’s front legs were only a pace from the line. He crouched down and pressed one end of the rope onto the line. White rope on white rope, and there was no telling which was the flag line and which was the one he had brought. He pressed it flat, pressed it a little way into the sand. The rope trailed a long arc across the sand, all the way from his hand to the line. The other end stayed in his hand, and the end of the rope was damp from his grip.

He stood up and stepped back. The ring above his left forearm came round to its second turn, and the line on the outside of his arm lit up once and went dark again. He stepped back three paces and stopped. He looked back once at the northernmost pole, and the flag cloth at its top did not move at all.

The roll book on the flag keeper’s knees was still closed, its cover facing outside the line.

The time on the comm jumped to eight minutes past midnight.

The flag keeper’s right hand lifted from his knee, the thumb pressed on the body of the whistle on his chest.

It reached out from inside the line, past the edge of the chair, across the line. As it reached out it raised no wind; the flag cloth did not move, and the line did not move. The wrist was very straight, the fingers spread. The thumb was still pressed on the body of the whistle, pressing, not letting go. Seen from outside the line, that one place was a little brighter than elsewhere. The mouthpiece was still clean. The silver whistle hung on the end of the white cord, held down by the hand, silent.

The hand stopped above the rope.

The fingers, one by one, spread as wide as each other.

Andrew’s palm was wet. He did not wipe it, and gripped the other end of the rope tight, gripping until it met the place where the screw dug in.

The flag keeper’s lips were still moving. The third line was at the bottom of the water, and had not yet passed.