Chapter 42
The Afterwards
The dog runs the wide curve of the beach, a black and tan blur racing for the tip of the bay, kicking up dirty white gouts of sand behind it and barking furiously in the way only a terrier can.
There’s a body floating in with the tide, on its back, arms and legs spread wide in what could be the abandonment of sleep or something deeper.
There’s no movement other than a vague bobbing of the head as the breeze-blown wavelets move past it across the surface of the water, racing the body to the shore.
The dog reaches the point of the beach that’s closest to it and bounds right into the sea sending up fans of spray until it bounces to a halt chest-deep, its rough-haired fur beaded in water and redoubles its barking.
The body can’t hear the barking, not here in the real world, not in this place.
She’s lost in her long dream, like she hoped she would be, but she’s still searching, still waiting.
And in that dream, there is also barking but it is somewhere far in the distance and it’s something she can’t be distracted by in case she misses who she’s looking for.
Then there is a furious splashing and it’s far away too, but then very quickly it isn’t, it’s almost too close to ignore though she tries hard, and then she is grabbed and dragged through the water and though she scrunches her eyes up to stay in the dream where she might still just find him waiting she cannot then ignore the fact she has been lifted from the water and is being carried at a stumbling run through the shallows on to the dry sand where someone puts her on the ground and shakes her shoulder and says:
“Hey!”
And she relaxes her eyes because it’s OK, she’s still dreaming because he is here and so she opens them and there he is, looming over her, panting with exhaustion but smiling at her in relief.
And it is him, but a different him, a weather-beaten, thinner him with a beard and hacked-about hair and a livid scar that starts on one cheek and angles up to the bridge of his nose, where it forks into two smaller scars, one of which disappears into his hairline.
And he looks at least half as starved as she does.
But it’s him.
She feels the sting of salt cracking her lips as she smiles into his eyes and lets herself fall up into them.
He’s dragged her onto a big coat and is using it to rub warmth into her.
She wants to say something. She needs to say everything. But she’s too groggy to say anything more than:
“Hey…”
Like it’s nothing.
He keeps furiously chafing at her with the rough material. Doesn’t pause, just smiles wider and shakes the wetness out of his eyes.
“I thought you were dead,” he says.
“We are,” she says. “We’re in a dream. Or just the Afterwards…”
“No,” he says. “We’re here. And I’ve spent a very long time trying not to be dead so I could get here. I’m so sorry it took so long—”
“… maybe the Afterwards is heaven after all,” she says.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “I’d be better-looking in heaven and the water wouldn’t be so bloody cold.”
And now she has strength to reach up and grab him, clinging on to his wet neck to make sure he’s there and won’t slip away.
“I don’t mind,” she says. “Now you’re here I don’t mind anything. I don’t mind being dead a bit, as long as we’re together.”
It’s the right moment to kiss her, so he does. Both their mouths taste of salt. So do their faces. The dog barks and he stops kissing her and looks at her. The scar hasn’t spoiled his slow smile.
“We’re not dead,” he says. “But the dog’s right. You might have hypothermia. Let’s head back to the house and get you properly warm.”
He pulls her to her feet and helps her into the sweater and then wraps her in the long coat.
She’s unsteady and shouldn’t be able to walk.
She can see her arms and legs have gone blue with the cold.
But her heart is so light it feels like it’s holding her aloft like a balloon.
She smiles as he zips the coat around her.
“We are dead,” she says. “But it’s really OK…”
“You’re not dead,” he says.
She nods at the dog.
“Then explain him,” she says. “He is. Long dead. Still lovely though.”
She reaches down and scratches the dog behind the ears. The dog allows it.
“See,” she says. “How can he be here if we’re not dead too?”
“Her,” he says. “She’s she.”
“He’s he,” she says. “Always was, always will be…”
He grins and stops rubbing her for a moment.
“She’s not him. She’s a she. I wrote you about her. She was smaller then, but she still looks just like him, doesn’t she?”
She stares down at the dog again. And now she can see that it isn’t quite the same dog, though it does have the same happy smile on its face as it pants up at her, bright-eyed and expectant.
“So… this isn’t a dream?” she says. “The one you fall into after you die?”
“Does it feel like a dream?” he says.
“It feels cold,” she says.
“Think you can run back?” he says. “It’ll get you warmer quicker, getting the blood moving. Can you run? If I hold you in case you fall?”
She nods, and then something vast cuts loose inside her as a great weight plummets away and she can’t help but rise to kiss him again and then he grabs her hand and pulls her up the dune and through the marram grass and over the top.
And there, for just a moment, in a place that she had already noticed was both in and out of time, even though they are now woman and man, they are also a Boy and a Girl – and a happily barking dog – running hand in hand down the back-slope, smiling through eyes bright with tears, headed for the welcoming warmth of home.
And as they run down off the dune on to the machair, if there had been someone with a camera and a fast shutter, they could have caught the moment when they were all suspended in mid-air, neither flying nor falling, and captured the strangely hopeful smile on the Girl’s face as she realises she was only half right.
Because now there may be more love songs and, while there are still no more happy endings, they have been granted as many happy nows like this one as they can manage to join together, and so she holds on tightly to his hand as they run towards a future that will never be certain, but will now be shared, come what may.
And that is more than OK.