42
Tobias breathes heavily into his phone, trying to stay connected to the emergency services operative on the line while hobbling across the stony beach towards the small party.
He can see his daughter kneeling down, swaying beside the long, gangly figure of his son stretched out on the ground, where he must have been dragged from the sea.
She is cradling Drew’s head in her lap. There are a few people with her, soaking wet, a couple of lads and another girl, but they all peel away into the shadows and make their escape when they see him coming towards them on the shingle.
The calm, almost monotone voice in his ear, is reminding him of what he should do; check the airway is clear, tilt the head back, pinch the nostrils closed and blow into the mouth, watch for the chest to rise.
Find the right spot, careful of the ribs, hands laced together, one on top of the other, thirty compressions and then two rescue breaths.
He drops to his knees, elbowing Bella out of the way.
Putting the phone on hands-free speaker, he throws it to the floor beside his son.
He will not think of him as a body, a corpse.
Not yet. There is still a chance. Didn’t he watch a programme about cold water victims, how the lower temperature helps to keep the brain alive longer, the body chilled?
God, he can’t believe he is even contemplating such things and a small part of him wants to give up already, to keen along with his daughter, to allow his son to lie in peace.
But then Tobias gets to work, in the same way he has tackled everything else, all his life: as if it is a challenge he must rise to, a competition he cannot lose. Death will not get the better of him. They are a family of winners, not losers, and he will not, cannot, countenance defeat.