Breathe

'This is why you've brought me down here?' She holds a perfumed silk kerchief to her delicate, upturned nose. The emphasis on the word this is not subtle. This, I assume, is intended to leave the object of our attention, No Name, with no doubt as to the yawning gulf that exists between his station in life and hers. I am appalled by her derision and, at the same time, I am utterly complicit.

We are side by side. Cheek by jowl. Hip to thigh. I stand beside my nemesis and my queen, out of control and breathless. Why is there no air in this fetid place? I'm acutely aware of a tightness in my throat, a rank permeating smell, the awful gloom. We're in the riveted iron guts of a grotesque factory expelling effluent through chimney stacks high above. We are in the bowels of a beast. We're sunk in the stomach of a whale. Jonah squats before us.

I listen for her breathing and, for an exquisite moment, it is the only sound. An intake and an exhale, as sonorous as rolling surf on a sandy shore. I consider the foul air. I imagine it passing into her lungs and out again, into the hold and then, that same air, no longer foul, is drawn into my mouth, into my lungs. I hold my breath as long as I can endure and then expel, producing from my tight lips an unexpected whistle. For no purpose I can reasonably fathom, I'm blushing. Blushing!

I feel her eyes on me, like burning coals, and I bluster and twitch, thankful for the gloom at last. 'Um, well you see, I wanted you to meet him. He's rather an interesting sort, if you come to think of it.'

'Whatever do you mean?'

'Well, if you consider what he's done.'

She looks at me as though I'm a vile prawn-like creature crawling through the slime on the banks of the Thames. 'Oh ... and what is it he has done?'

'Well ...' I feel the sentence slipping on my tongue. 'Well he's managed to run away. He's left it all behind. All for what? For this? This boat, this sea, this prison.' I'm surprised by the fervour in my voice.

She snorts into her silk. 'In my experience, those that run have a reason to run.'

'You mean they are not wanted where they are?'

She gives me an icy stare. 'I mean to say, they are usually, inevitably, villainous ... they have blood on their hands.'