A Twist of Sand

"I've adapted myself -- like the blind beetle."

"Oh, for God's sake stop quoting the rubbish I said then!" she snapped. "I still believe you are tough, but you're not 'evil, like Stein. I believe in you, that's what I'm trying to say... ." She broke off suddenly and smiled. I saw that the rumple of her eyelid was quite smooth. She came right up close to me and looked up into my face. "You wanted analogies from the great world of nature," she smiled. "I suppose one of those wingless flies down on Marion or Heard would find it damned hard to understand if someone put their wings back again."

She slipped her arms through mine and ran her fingertips up my shoulder-blades. "I wonder how one sticks wings back on to flies full of prickles ?" she asked.

Her lips brushed mine; as they did so she stiffened as her eyes went seawards.

"Look!" she gasped. "Either I'm drunk, or seeing double -- do you see what I see, Geoffrey?"

She slipped out of my arms and pointed at the setting sun. There were two. There was a thick layer of cloud, although there was a very narrow band of clear sky between it and the sea's horizon. As we watched in amazement, one sun dropped slowly from the layer of cloud, while the other sun rose out of the west towards it. Like lovers who cannot wait for each other's arms, the two suns, the male sun reaching down and the female reaching up ecstatically, melted together, merging along their lower rims first, and, in passionate embrace, merged wholly together. Then only the one, descending, remained, and it hastened towards its sea-grave, throwing out great bars of triumphant reds, russets and purples.

"There's pure magic in this Skeleton Coast of yours, Geoffrey," she said. All the tiredness had gone from her face. "No wonder you love it. But how on earth. . . .?"

"It must be something to do with the temperature and humidity layers," I replied. "I've never seen anything like that before. I suppose I have seen more magnificent sunsets off this coast than anyone has the right to claim, but never two suns, one rising and the other setting."

"It's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," she replied, radiant. "I can forgive your Skeleton Coast, Geoffrey, its brutality, its primitive cruelty -- like that killing this morning." She dropped her eyes. "I might even rationalise the whole situation and forgive -- you."

I turned and faced her, but the moment was gone.

"Look!" she cried. "It's becoming more beautiful still. Look at the sea, there out beyond the surf! It's the loveliest yellow I've ever seen! Where can that shade of lemon come from a red sun ?"

She was on her feet now, smiling like a girl.

I smiled too.

"That isn't light, even refracted light," I said. "That's fish."

"What!" she exclaimed. "I simply don't believe you!"

"Well," I grinned back, forgetting all about Stein and the unholy adventure we were engaged on. "Not exactly fish, but bloom on fish."

"You're just teasing me," she replied. Her face had caught something of the afterglow; I never saw it lovelier.

"If you want science to step in and ruin beauty, well then, here it is," I said. "You know the plankton -- the minute things the fish live on -- come up with the cold current from the Antarctic. In autumn and in early winter they bloom, just like grapes. It's called gymnodinium, and it's deadly poison. The plankton get that exquisite lemon-flush on them -- I think someone told me once that the gymnodinium organism is five thousandths of an inch long. But when you get millions of plankton together. ..."

"I just don't want to hear any more of your dull scientific stuff," she said smilingly. "All I see is that it is lovely beyond description." She came close up to me so that I could smell the sweet sweat of the day's march, mingling with the acrid tobacco. She ran one hand inside my reefer jacket.

"If I'd never met Geoffrey Peace, I would never have seen such beauty," she said.  "You'll remember that, won't you?"

I didn't touch her. She seemed as intangible as the bloom on the plankton.

"Yes," I replied slowly. "I'll remember that. I'll remember that you forgave Curva dos Dunas and the Skeleton Coast. I'll remember, some future day at sea when the plankton bloom, that you forgave me too."

She stepped back and looked long and quizzically at me.

"Food!" she said with a complete change of mood. "I need food if I'm going to tramp all day tomorrow again." Then she stopped impetuously and came back to where I stood, for I had not moved.

"No," she said. "To hell with food. I want to know about this great secret love of Geoffrey's, the Skeleton Coast. Give me another cigarette."

She sat down and blew a burst of blue smoke seawards. She pulled me down by her side.

"Come on," she said. "Wave your magic wand. Make your plankton bloom for me again. Make one sun into two."

I caught her mood.

"It's really all very simple and easy to explain scientifically," I said. "You see, this is the only place in the world where the Antarctic and the Tropics meet."