Jago didn’t believe that Consolata did anything by chance. He barely knew her, hadn’t seen her face in daylight, had endured long silences beside her, but felt sure of her. The story she had told him was about choices. The chance of him spinning on his heel and taking transport to the north had diminished. In five hours the first of the bank’s team would be at their desks, charging up their screens; in six the FrauBoss would be in her chair, and his place would be empty. A ‘die has been cast’ moment. He thought Consolata subtle and softly manipulative. She would use him as a vehicle to go where she hadn’t travelled before – it was obvious to him, and he accepted it. For now it was about mutual reliance.
Music wafted to him softly over the sounds of the sea and the whip of the wind in the awnings of the cafés behind them. Jago followed her. She kicked off her shoes. So did he. The sand had a chill and there were islands of smooth shingle that they avoided. Further down the beach, towards a castle built on a rock beyond the stranded boats, a couple lay on a rug or a towel with a radio playing, the source of the music. It didn’t break the mood of the beach. She walked him to the edge of the tide line, with its fringe of seaweed.
She said, ‘I smell and you smell. It is necessary to be clean.’
He had swilled his face with cold water in the toilets at the airport in Rome, and he had a washbag in his holdall, but that was in the little car. The darkness gave a sort of privacy. He had learned to swim at school, splashing clumsily in a public pool. Twice he had been down to an apartment in a complex between Málaga and Marbella when he was in the City, sharing it with a gang. They’d spent time in the pool, less on the beach.
The moonlight was bright enough to prohibit modesty. She settled on a place where the sand was dry. She pulled off her coat, then her T-shirt, and bra. She undid her belt and took off her jeans and pants, then her wristwatch. The light played on her back and he saw the shape of her pelvis, the narrowness of the waist and the strong muscles at her shoulders. She turned. She had covered nothing and challenged him.
He took off his coat, sweater, shirt, vest, trainers, jeans and socks, then his watch. He hesitated.
She chuckled softly. ‘If you wear them, they’ll get wet and you will not be able to dry them.’
Jago dropped his pants. There was her untidy pile and his, neatly folded. Between them lay the towel.
She defined the moment, calculated, clever. She didn’t run into the water, dive, surface and lie on her back to wait for him. Instead she walked into the water and waded out until the ripples were against her chest. She never looked behind her. He walked where she had, sometimes over shingle or broken shells. He joined her where the water was deeper.
Consolata had begun to wash. Her hands went from her neck, scooping water there, to her armpits and then she dipped her head under. No gasps at the cold water, no squeals. She stood and watched him. He did the same. It was a funny way to come and fight a war. She incubated his certainty and brought it to life. She eyed him, didn’t turn away. A little piece of weed had snagged on her breast and she let it lie there. She was no more than a foot and a half from him. In the movie version the gap would have closed. Now she put up her arms, stretched to her full height and water dribbled off her skin. The weed was dislodged by a wave. He did the same. He couldn’t read her. So close and their arms high above their heads. He didn’t know whether he would make the move – as in the film – or she would. Neither did.
They hadn’t touched. He wondered at what stage of the night she had choreographed the situation. It would have been after he had retorted about winning, and before they had taken the taxi to her parents’ home. It would have been easy to believe she came here most weeks, with different guys, and skinny-dipped where, legend had it, Greek sailors of centuries before Christ’s birth had drowned. He didn’t think she had done it before. He reckoned it had been a fast decision, taken on the hoof.
She leaned forward, imperceptibly, then seemed to screw up her nose. The moonlight hit the water on her skin and hair, brighter than diamonds. She sniffed, then nodded as if she were satisfied. Jago Browne dropped his hands. It would have been so easy to touch her, but he didn’t.
‘Do you want to swim?’
‘I don’t think so. It is time to go to work.’
Jago grimaced. She began the tramp back to the beach. It was an idyllic place, and he felt a sense of renewal. He was thought to be bright and intelligent. He was paid to look into people’s faces and read their minds, whether or not they had small breasts, fine hips and skin without wrinkles. He thought he had read her now. His shyness was gone, his hesitation past. He had the certainty. It was about winning. Why had she gone to the trouble? She must have thought that the experience would challenge and harden him, take him further from what was familiar. Too bloody right. And that was important because, where he was going, nothing would be familiar.
She started to dry herself. He watched. Then, she threw him the towel and began to dress.
They turned their backs to the sea, the moonlight that dappled it, the castle high on the rock above the bay, the shuttered bars where the canopies flapped, and went to the car. They had not touched. There had been no discussion on why each needed the other in a relationship of convenience. It was recognised. No explanations, none needed. She drove up the hill towards the dark mass of the mountains where, soon, the dawn would come.