Starting the engine, Enoyoshi tried putting it in forward and reverse alternately, but the yacht remained motionless. It was futile. Irritated by his powerlessness, still resentful of Minako's gross remark, Enoyoshi was beginning to feel quite angry. He also felt annoyed by how passive he'd been. He ought to show them he could kiss goodbye to their yacht if he wanted. He'd show them he had the freedom.
His withered resolve began to rear its head once more. Come to think of it, there was no other way of getting off the ship. The simplest and most effective thing to do was to swim to shore, telephone Marine Services, and have them dispatch a tugboat.
Enoyoshi took a large plastic sack from an accessory case under the galley and began stuffing his clothes and shoes inside. Making sure there was some air in the bag too, he tightly knotted the opening.
At first, Minako had been staring rudely at him as he removed his clothes, but the bizarreness of his behavior struck her all of a sudden and she began to look worried.
'Say, just what is it you're up to over there?'
Enoyoshi tied the sack to his right thigh, sandwiched it between both legs, and stood up on top of the bench.
Minako reached toward him, but sooner than her fingertips could brush against his body, Enoyoshi had plunged into the sea. Instead of swimming straight away, he began to tread water, adjusting the plastic sack between his legs. As he looked towards the yacht, the Ushijimas poked their faces over the side like a couple of puppies peering out of a cardboard box. Minako looked like she was whining but Enoyoshi couldn't hear her exact words as he bobbed up and down in the sea.
'You'll be all right, I'll call Marine Services for you.'
He tried hollering this, but he wasn't sure if they'd heard him. Minako still seemed to be wailing. It'd only be an hour's wait for the tugboat. But until it arrived, they'd have to savor the fact that hell lay just a plank's breadth under that 'marvellous' world of theirs that they so loved to force on others.
Turning round, he began to swim using only his arms, the buoyant plastic sack gripped between his legs. He'd practiced the crawl countless times with a polystyrene board between his legs and could complete twenty lengths that way in a twenty-five-meter pool. Be brave, he told himself. Yet stamina wasn't the issue. His attention was concentrated on the bottom side of his abdomen and legs. If, at that instant, a slimy thing brushed up against his stomach… His heart quailed at the thought. Why wouldn't the little boy release his embrace of the keel and come after him? Surely, if Enoyoshi opened his eyes underwater, he would see that little boy's bloated face right there. The hideous visions kept coming, disrupting his stroke. He was wasting a lot of his strength, and his fatigue grew greater with every stroke and his stomach was heaving into his mouth. As the nausea came, he sensed that his life was in danger. Panic equalled death. The night sky was cloudless and the moon shone brightly as he pressed ahead in the water. Yet the lights of Wakasu Marine Park did not appear any closer. It was maddening how ineffective he was in closing the distance to the embankment.
Enoyoshi forced himself to take a break, ceasing his strokes and turning over to float on his back. Making sure his nose and mouth were clear of the water, he took deliberate breaths to fill his lungs with air. He tried to fend off the nightmarish visions by picturing the yet-unseen naked body of the woman he'd recently started to date. Imagining tangible particulars was the only way to elude the darker fantasies.
Raising his head from the water, he saw that he was now quite a distance from the yacht. A look to the shore confirmed how much closer it was than the yacht. He reckoned that he'd completed two thirds of the distance. The strength returned to his limbs. The shore that he'd thought so far away was actually right there within reach. One last spurt and he'd reach land. Enoyoshi rolled over and began churning the water with vigorous strokes.
It wasn't until he clambered up the tetrapod blocks in front of the embankment and his body was completely out of the sea that Enoyoshi felt alive again. The lower portion of the tetrapod was submerged in water, but at the top it was dry and the grainy feel of its surface heartened him. Looking out to sea, he saw the MINAKO in exactly the same position, its mast helplessly swaying from side to side.
From below the interlocking tetrapods surged the sound of breaking waves. If he fell through a gap he'd be in some serious trouble. Judging it wise to get over to the embankment on all fours, he crouched, and caught sight of a tiny shoe wedged in a crevice in the intermeshing blocks.
There it was, where he could touch it. In the faint glow of the night-lights, it looked black, probably from being waterlogged. Enoyoshi brought his face closer to it. The tip was wedged tight into the gap and the whole shoe had probably come off the owner for that reason. The wearer must have been playing atop the tetrapods and tripped. The upper canvas bore a Mickey Mouse motif, and a closer look revealed that it was a right shoe. The name written on the heel in black felt pen was legible even in the dim light. Kazuhiro. There could be no mistake. This shoe and the other they'd found on the yacht's propeller formed a pair.
Enoyoshi looked up. It amazed him how calm he was. Calmly, he observed to himself, With the right shoe here, no wonder the boy's barefoot.'
Glancing out, he saw the yacht rocking violently on the perfectly placid surface. Enoyoshi thought he glimpsed the figure of a child with bare feet hugging the keel, playing.