Old Albert disappeared for a minute, and then reemerged, staggering, and carrying one of the women. Her hair still hung in a tight, neat ponytail, and it brushed loosely against the side of Old Albert’s leg as he clambered up to the rail of the boat. Her shrunken, wasted legs and arms were unnaturally yellow, whether from the effects of the sun, or some kind of dye in the carpet. Her limbs protruded awkwardly, stuck now in the angle in which she’d been lying. She did still look human, but it was more like the impression of being human, like a scarecrow, or a cardboard cut-out of a woman.

She was almost past the stage of being repulsive, and more into the stage where it would be OK to put her in a museum like they did sometimes in the olden days. And I think people would have been interested because I know I found it difficult to stop myself from staring at her. I did feel sad, and wondered what sort of person she’d been. But I sort of had to force myself to feel that, because she just didn’t look like a real person any more.

‘Wait!’ Carol shouted. ‘A prayer!’

She muttered a few quiet words while Old Albert rested the body on the railings. Even he looked unusually respectful, and not too obviously impatient.

But when it was over, he tipped the body straight into the sea towards the stern of the boat. She bobbed immediately upwards, resting on the swarming, writhing short tentacles. They seethed below her, stroking and feeling in blubbering waves. Then with a hiss, they seemed to relax, releasing her, and disappearing again, far below the surface.

We watched, breathless, as she slowly floated out away from the Jellyfish. One of the longer tentacles emerged, slowly stroking and touching her. It stuck to her for a few seconds, lifting her by her torso, but then it, too, let go and disappeared back beneath the surface.

‘What do you think?’ said James.

‘I think it can tell that she’s human,’ I said. ‘But I think she’s too dead. I don’t think it likes her very much.’

Beneath her now, the tentacles had cleared and parted, leaving a channel for her to travel through. They rippled gently behind her, creating small waves which pushed her through, away from the Jellyfish, and out towards the shore.

Chapter 22

22

The sun was high overhead, and the wind had stilled so that the sea was mostly calm. Only short, occasional gusts blew across the water, sending gleaming trails of shivering waves towards the shore. It was one of those days where you could see for miles across the endless water between us, and whatever was out there. Apart from the bobbing white of resting seagulls, there was nothing behind us until the blurred line of the horizon.

And the corpse raft was going well.