Free Deep Water by Tim Jeal

last. Then I met James and fell head over heels, so I stopped seeing all the rest. And now I’m terrified all the bloody time in case he’s killed.’
    ‘Does your husband know about him?’
    ‘He suspects. But he’s got his work, and he’s got our son. They’re all he really cares about.’
    ‘Where is your son?’
    ‘Staying with a school friend till next week. Mark’s sixteen and wonderful in spite of it.’
    ‘Don’t you miss him when he’s away at school?’
    ‘I did when he was little. But now I’m thankful he’snot around to cramp my style.’ She turned to Andrea and grinned in the darkness. ‘Aren’t you sometimes secretly pleased your lad’s miles away?’
    Andrea looked out at the passing trees. ‘Never. I often wish I could care a lot less.’
    Sally touched her arm. ‘I love the way you don’t get prim with me even when you don’t see eye to eye. If only more people were like you down here. I could cope with a scandal myself, but Mark would hate it. As the doctor’s wife I’m meant to set an example to the lower orders. The irony is that Mark’ll soon be grown up and gone, and I’ll probably lose James by not going off with him now.’
    Andrea felt a lurch of panic. She’d thought herself quite different from ‘good time’ Sally – in some ways she didn’t even like her – but their situations were disturbingly similar: both having husbands whose work mattered more to them than anything except their sons. Fellow-feeling swamped Andrea as they sped towards the river.
    The water was black as ink as they crossed the bridge over Polwherne Creek. Across it, the road sloped upwards and the trees thinned to reveal a panoramic view of the estuary. Sally stopped the car and they gazed in silence at the bar of moonlight stretching across the sea.
    At first all they could hear was the tick-tick of the cooling engine and the gentle whispering of oak leaves overhead. Faintly at first, a new sound became audible: a low droning that grew louder. Instinctively, Andrea reached for Sally’s hand. Twofighters dipped down out of the darkness and swept seawards, leaving the estuary behind.
    *
    Leo woke with a start. Someone was speaking to him.
    ‘I’m off now.’
    Justin’s face loomed darkly in front of him. Leo glanced at his luminous watch. The hands pointed to quarter past one.
    ‘Can’t you forget about going?’ he faltered.
    ‘Course not, espèce d ’idiot , fou. ’French was Justin’s best subject.
    ‘You’re the one who’s fou,’ muttered Leo. ‘I’ll tell my mother if you’re not back by four. I ought to tell her now.’
    ‘Stop moaning and come too.’
    ‘No thanks. What’ll you say if mum catches you pushing a bike through the hall?’
    ‘That I’m sleepwalking.’
    ‘Ha, ha.’
    ‘Anyway it won’t happen. She went to bed half an hour ago. Ta-ta for now.’
    Leo watched Justin tiptoe down the garden path with his bicycle and then disappear from view into the lane. He felt relieved and ashamed at the same time, and wished he had Justin’s courage; but he sensed that, if he did, he might also suffer from Justin’s moods. He lay down and tried to sleep but whenever he closed his eyes he imagined Justin swimming and getting cramp. Instead, he forced himself to visualise Justin walking back over the rocks on the shore where they had first seen the naval ships. Againand again he told himself that his friend’s swim was over and that he was coming home. But though Leo’s waking dream was remarkably real in every detail, he wasn’t fooled by it.
    Being realistic, Leo knew there was little chance that his friend would be back until four or four-thirty . So when he looked out at the garden, where the leaves of a large tree were moving like a shoal of grey-green fish in the moonlight, he did not really imagine he would see Justin creeping through the gate. After all he had only been gone an hour, but fear was already tightening its grip on his mind, making him long to