‘All right?’ came Fiona’s voice over the radio.

‘Yes, it’s so beautiful,’ she said eagerly.

Nobody who knew Celia would be surprised at her saying beautiful. She had her own notion of beauty that had nothing to do with eyes. Everything that reached her through the pressure of the water-the coolness and the freedom-all this was beauty.

‘You can let me go,’ she said, and felt Fiona’s hand slip away.

With Ken still holding the other end of the line she wasn’t completely free, but she could rely on him to back off as much as possible, and give her the illusion. Francesco could learn so much from him. But Francesco would never face how much he didn’t know.

She kicked out with her flippers and powered through the water, relishing the sensation of it streaming past her. Suddenly she was at one with the water, part of it, glorying in it.

‘Wheeeeeeee!’ she cried.

‘Celia?’ Ken sounded nervous.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, laughing. ‘It’s just me going crazy.’

‘No change there, then.’

‘Nope. Wheeeeeeee!’

‘Do you mind?’ he complained. ‘That was my eardrum.’

She chuckled. ‘How far down am I?’

‘About a hundred feet.’

‘Let me have another forty.’

‘Twenty. That’s the limit of safety.’

‘Twenty-five,’ she begged.

‘Twenty,’ he declared implacably.

The line loosened and she sank farther, reaching out at plants and rocks, anything and everything in this marvellous world.

There had been another time when she’d thought the world was marvellous, when she’d just met Francesco. He’d walked into her workplace and stood talking to the receptionist. Celia had been alerted by a soft, ‘Wow!’ from Sally, her young assistant, who was sighted.

‘Wow?’ she queried.

‘Wow!’