After the End of the World - the Next Day(16)
That first night I slept on deck, with a blanket and a sleeping bag. I couldn’t stand the cabin again. I showered and went on deck without any anti-sun cream in the late evening as the sun set. I watched the coast approach the bow of the yacht. We changed course and began to run parallel with the shore. I could see the little ports that made up the beginnings of the slide drifting by one after the other. The coast was as dark as it had been the night before. What had been ports and tourist towns with strings of lamps in the streets and boulevards lighting up the sea were all dark. Paul could make out flickering candles and the smouldering barbecues cooking, but all I could see was the dark outline of the coast against the sky. After a while I went to sleep. I felt I was no longer capable of thinking about anything. Only the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman who was asleep in her cabin, stopped me from lamenting the passing of the information society. But I could do nothing but think of her below me. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hold out against my desire for her much longer. I’d have to speak to her soon. I woke around dawn. We were a couple of kilometres from the shore. Different towns were passing by. Smoke drifting up into the sky the only signs of the re-commencement. The sun was beginning to rise above the horizon.
I went back to my cabin. Collecting some hot chocolate to drink on the way. She was there. Beside her a half empty bottle of white wine. She must have waited for me a long time and then fallen asleep. I sat down on the chair and pulled a blanket over me. I couldn’t bear the thought of waking her. And slept. I woke before she did and went up to the dining room and drank coffee and ate some fresh rolls for breakfast. When she came into the dining room I gave her some hot chocolate. She smiled at me as her glasses misted up. She asked me whether I thought things would recover. I told her to drink her chocolate and to stop romanticising the past because she used to be rich. She laughed and told me that she still was.
She said later. “I always liked waves, change and difference. And hated the way the that coastal waters were turning into pea soup… look at it… I always like the bigger animals, fish. The worst affect of that system was the way life was shrinking.”
“ That’s crass Darwinism isn’t it ?” I said.
She looked puzzled.
“… And besides it makes it harder to eat doesn’t it ?”
“You could say that.” She laughed. “Never got this far south then ?”
“Don’t think so…” Seeing the look she gave me I explained. “Don’t know where I am you see.”
“Disorientated ?”
“No, just gone nomadic and given up worrying about where I am..”
She didn’t tell me that the coastline used to be Italy, later that day we anchored at Sete to collect fresh water and provisions. We stayed for three days helping rebuild a local power plant and a water wheel before sailing south.
