Chapter 23
Circling predators
I wait impatiently at the Predator Exhibit tank located smack in the centre of the aquarium. I’m suited up, with my diving mask perched on the top of my wetsuit hood and my feet in their flippers. I’ve tested my breathing apparatus and need only strap on my tank before I’m ready to go. Logan, however, is nowhere in sight.
On the drive over from the lot, he’d insisted that I go on the shark dive with him.
“I never did fancy dying alone. Besides, this was your bright idea — and those who have the vision …” he’d said, still looking irritated at Cilla’s switch of plans.
“I had a very different vision,” I said. But I said it quietly so Cilla wouldn’t hear.
She was muttering instructions to the photographer. “And for God’s sake, don’t get her in any of the shots. Try to make some of them look like he’s out in the wild. And you, Thabo,” she addresses the bulky bodyguard, “make sure you’re not in any of the pictures either. If the Rushers are there, I want them to have access to Logan for autographs and such, but no touching. I don’t want him losing chunks of hair again. Not before we’ve wrapped filming.”
“Cilla, I’m touched by your concern,” said Logan.
Every time the minibus stopped at traffic lights, Mindy, the make-up artist, made adjustments to Britney’s face. Britney was bubbling with excitement over her upcoming shoot.
“I’m so pleased we’re doing this in the same place, at the same time! You’re going to be right nearby, and I can keep an eye on you.” She spoke to Logan, but her eyes flicked to me on the last phrase. I was tempted to tell her to be sure and pet the sweet, harmless penguins, but I bit my tongue.
Now I climb onto the elevated walkway above the top of the predator exhibit. Sunshine streams through the glass roof above, down to the massive circular tank below. We’ve been told that it’s six metres deep and holds over two-million litres of water, as well as a couple of turtles, several mantas and stingrays, and a variety of predator fish — yellowtail, garrick, giant kob, mussel-crackers and stumpnose.
And of course, five ragged-tooth sharks.
Dave, the divemaster who’ll be going down with us, joins me on the walkway. He holds a long-handled, two-pronged fork in one hand, and a flip-lidded bucket of food for the fish in the other.
“Is Rush still not ready?” he asks me.
“I’ll go see what’s keeping him.”
Walking like a cross between a duck and an astronaut in the large flippers, I go in search of Logan and find him in the changing room, just strapping on his tank.
“What are you …?” I begin, but my voice dwindles to nothing as I switch from verbal to visual mode.
Logan’s wearing his low-slung denim cut-offs again.
“She who must be obeyed forbade me from wearing a wetsuit,” Logan says. In an exaggerated imitation of Cilla, he continues, “If you’re in a wetsuit, nobody can see it’s you. It could be anyone underneath that. They’ll say we faked it. Besides, if no one can recognise you, if we don’t give them a show that’s worth seeing, then what’s the point of doing this?’ I told her I thought the point was for me to study the sharks to improve my acting, but she told me to shut my pie hole and be sure to come right up to the glass for the close-ups.”
“Right,” I say.
“She wants me on full display in a goldfish bowl.”
My fingers itch to touch him — they actually twitch, but I disguise the movement by grabbing his diving mask from the counter and handing it to him. “Well, whether you’re going in a suit, shorts, or buck-naked, it’s time to get this show on the road. Follow me. The divemaster’s waiting for us.”
For a moment, he looks mutinous.
“Can’t you get me out of this, Romy?”
He sounds serious, and I want to help him, I do, but his problem is bigger than this rigged photo-op. And there’s nothing I can do. I try to lighten the moment.
“Fwightened of the big fishies?” I taunt.
“Trust me, they’re the least of what scares me. It’s the predators outside the tank that’ll eat me alive.”
“Look, Logan, there’s no escaping today. Cilla’s already got the whole juggernaut in motion. You need to suck it up. Time to put on your big-boy panties.”
He grins. “Big boys wear panties? For sucking up?”
“And put on your mask and flippers already,” I order and march out, hoping that Logan follows. Actor-wrangling for public appearances is definitely in my contract.
“You’re so bossy,” he mumbles from behind me.
“You’ve told me that before.”
When we get to the shark tank, Dave, the divemaster, gives us final instructions while we strap on our oxygen tanks, adjust our diving masks, and insert our regulator mouthpieces. Then we slip into the water and I can hear only the loud sound of my own breathing. At once, we’re surrounded by shoals of glittering tiny fish. Then the bigger predator fish swim right up to us, knowing that the presence of divers means food is on the way.
Dave opens the flip-lid on his bucket, pulls out a large, dead fish, carefully spears it onto the end of the feeding fork, and passes it to Logan. An enormous black fish, big as a bathtub, swims right up to the fork, pulls the fish off the prongs almost delicately between its sharp teeth, and cruises away.
I check Logan’s reaction — this is, after all, more my element than his. He meets my gaze, and even through the barrier of the mask, I can see the surprised delight in his eyes. If his mouth wasn’t wrapped around the mouthpiece, he would be grinning from ear to ear.
When Dave threads another fish onto the prongs, Logan offers the fork to me so that I can have a chance, but something makes me pause and look up. Outside the glass wall of the tank, Cilla is furiously gesticulating. She points a finger at me and then swings her arm in the opposite direction. The message is clear — get the heck away from my star. Then she crooks her finger at Logan, beckoning him closer to the glass, closer to the cameras.
I hand him the fork and place a hand in the small of his back to push him gently forward, before swimming away from him. A swarm of reporters presses up close to the glass, their massive lenses like large staring eyes. A crowd of waving fans jumps about excitedly on the tiered mini-amphitheatre of seats beyond, holding up signs, phones and cameras. Flashes pop in small explosions of light from all sides.
Logan is indeed on display in a glorified goldfish bowl.
Two manta-rays the size of hula hoops, their curved sides moving like slowly beating wings, glide over to me, softly grazing the top of my head before floating down to where Logan holds out handfuls of squid taken from Dave’s bucket.
They scoop it into their wide mouths and circle back for more, gracefully pushing and shoving each other in a slow-motion fight for food. The mouth of one closes over Logan’s fingers, and he snatches them back, shaking his hand and wrinkling his face in laughing pain.
Then the sharks come, gliding towards us in their ceaseless circuit around the massive tank. Adrenaline kicks through my body, setting my heart racing. Every instinct urges me to back up and flee. But I’m frozen in place, mesmerised. Because they are extraordinary.
For a moment, I forget about the circus beyond the glass and just gaze in wonder at their alien beauty — spotted grey on top, white beneath, with vertical gills and fins, and tails that move slowly from side to side, propelling them through the water. Rows of sharp, serrated teeth splay outwards and sideways from their gaping jaws. The biggest of them is over three metres long, and its primeval eyes — blank white with a black dot of a pupil — track our every movement. Logan’s hair floats in a dark halo around his head as he turns to stare back at it, clearly awestruck.
When Cilla’s frantic hopping on the other side of the glass cues him to start his performance, Logan moves nearer to a shark, and a flurry of lights flash.
Keen to stay clear of the media feeding frenzy, I disappear into the forest of tall, floating kelp in the centre of the tank where a cloud of small fish enfolds me in a tight circling throng of flashing silver.
When the huge shark moves on, Logan returns to feeding the fish. He can’t swim properly, not more than a few metres at a time, but he doesn’t need to — the fish come to him. A fat white one, like an old man with a bulbous forehead and thick lips, keeps coming back for more. When a cream-and-tan loggerhead turtle at least as big as me approaches, Logan holds out a treat — being careful, this time, to pull his fingers away quickly before its beak snaps shut. As it sails up and away through the clear water, he trails a hand along its underbelly.
The photographers outside the tank trip over each other to get the best vantage point. One fan breaks rank and runs right up to the tank to press a hand-drawn sign against the glass.
Logan, dive MY tank!
Security escort the Rusher back to her seat before Britney descends on the scene, wearing a revealing, aquamarine dress of semi-transparent fabric. She poses for a few pics and then half turns to press her hand up against the tank wall. From Cilla’s laboured sign language, it’s clear what she wants her stars to do. Logan mirrors Britney’s movement, pressing his own fingers against hers, with only the barrier of the glass between them, and Britney gazes back lovingly at him. The photogs go wild.
The vivid white light of the popping flashes lights Cilla’s face in strange ways, giving her an almost unearthly look of feral satisfaction as she looks on, gaze riveted greedily on her star attraction. Logan’s right — she is scarier than the sharks. And not half as pretty.
After another fifteen minutes, the divemaster indicates that our time is up. Logan looks relieved but also, as we haul ourselves out of the tank and remove our masks, high on excitement.
“That was incredible!” He shakes Dave’s hand. “Thank you, man. It was awesome!”
“Out of this world!” I agree.
We rave about the experience all the way to the changing room. Logan’s face glows with a wild, free joy. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes electric blue with excitement.
“I thought it would be tame, but it was wild! I mean, not wild-wild like in-the-wild kind of wild, obviously. But still wild! How were those rays — the way they crowded over each other to get the food?”
“Are your fingers okay?”
“They’ll be fine.”
“How ’bout those sharks?”
“They were crazy-beautiful! I can see why you like ’em so much.”
“Yeah, they’re magnificent creatures.” This seems like a good moment to slip in my suggestion that he could help raise awareness for the species. “You know, you could really —”
I’m cut short by Polyp, who’s waiting with Thabo at the door of the changing room. “Logan, you need to get dressed ASAP. Cilla’s set up a Q&A with the press, and they’re already waiting. She sent me to help you.”
“From a tank to a zoo,” Logan grumbles. “I’m no freer than those fish.”
“Don’t be a drama queen, you’re hardly a caged animal.”
Polyp lays his pale, limp hands on Logan’s shoulders to unfasten the catch on the harness, but Logan shrugs him off.
“That’s okay, thanks. Romy’ll help me, won’t you Romy?”
“I am your personal assistant,” I say, following him into the changing room and nudging the door closed behind me with my hip.
Logan curses under his breath. “How am I supposed to go from that adrenalin rush to sitting behind a table, smiling and answering questions about my love life?”
“You poor thing,” I say, though I also want to ask him questions about that. “Now, if you knew more about sharks, you could talk about them instead of yourself.”
“Couldn’t you —” he begins.
“Logan, get real. Cilla didn’t set up a press conference for little Miss Nobody to talk about endangered species.”
I pull off my hood, spilling my wet hair down over my shoulders, turn my back on him, and unzip the top of my wetsuit.
“Can’t you help get me out of this?” he asks plaintively.
“There’s only one exit to this place that I know of, and Cilla’s probably got it blockaded.” I peel the wetsuit to down around my hips.
“No, I mean this harness. Well, for starters this harness.”
“Oh, sure.” I turn back to him. “But then you’ll need to stop whingeing like a wuss and go face the crowds.”
I reach forward to unclick the clasps on his shoulder harness. Logan steps back and stares at me, agog. The tank slips to the ground with a loud clang.
“Well, I’ll be … It’s you! Miss Bossy-pants from the cemetery, and with the bunnies. It’s you, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“I figured you didn’t remember much of that night.”
“I guess the details are a bit hazy, but I remember … your mermaid hair.” He waves a hand at the wet strands. “And your bikini, and your” — his gaze travels the length of my whole body — “your eyes! How the hell did I not recognise you before?”
“Well,” I hedge, remembering the plucking and high-lighting and blow-drying and make-up, “I do look a little different now.”
He lifts a lock of my wet hair in either hand and gently tugs me closer. Suddenly, despite having spent most of the last hour in a tank of chilled water, I feel hot and breathless.
“Yeah, it’s a huge improvement,” he says and before I can get annoyed, continues, “You look natural, more like yourself. Mu-uch better,” he draws out the word, and my eyes move to his lips. “I like you like this.”
“You — you do?”
He traces his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, leaving a wake of goose bumps on my blushing skin.
“I do.”
His hands move from my sides, travel along the line where the black wetsuit curls over at my waist, meet at my navel, and then continue up in a straight line until they break apart to cradle my face.
“I’m going to kiss you now, Romy.”
Yes! says my body.
At last! says my heart.
I mute the warnings of my brain, as his face bends down to mine.
My lips part. My eyes close. Perhaps they roll back into my head like a shark’s do when in danger, but the bite of his mouth on mine is warm and soft, with the slightest tang of salt from the seawater, and gentle for long moments beyond the reach of time.
Then the kiss becomes something else. Hard and fierce and hot. He pulls me against the whole of him. His hands hold me as tightly as if I’m again rescuing him from the bottomless ocean. His back muscles move under my hands. He groans deep in his throat.
I cling to his body. His chest is cool against my own, and his thick hair is wound around my fingers. I’m beyond thinking, beyond breathing — just a breathless core of here and now. I’m clicking into my place in the universe, finally finding my true element. Nothing has ever felt so good. Nothing has ever fit so right.
We come up for air, breathing raggedly. He’s gone from holding me close to holding me up. My bones are made of hot liquid, my knees of air, my head of spinning light. I stare up all the way into the blue depths of his eyes. His pupils are huge, hypnotic. He cups both hands behind my head and draws me in again. This time, the groan is mine.
There’s a sound from somewhere far away. I dimly realise that it’s a knock at the door. I drop my arms, step back reflexively, and nearly collapse without his support — I’ve literally gone weak at the knees.
“Logan? Are you coming?” Even through the door, I can tell that Polyp is peeved.
“Yeah, on my way,” Logan calls back. His voice sounds rough.
For a long time, he doesn’t move. And neither do I. We gaze at each other with speaking, searching eyes.
“I’ve got to go,” he says eventually.
I just nod. Even if I had breath to speak, my words would be drowned out by the loud gallop of my heart.
I wish that it could also drown out the tiny corner of my mind registering the fact that Polyp did not enter. Is do-not-disturbing when Logan’s behind a closed door with a female something he’s used to doing?