I have been invited to go for a swim with Brendan Behan. It’s a little after 8am. It’s not an invitation I would usually accept, given the red flags on the beach this time of year, but I was bored, and the flights were cheap and Brendan Behan is very persuasive. The sky is whitening.

        The concrete walkways of the bathing place aren’t busy; a few sinewy older men exchange pleasantries in the changing area, delicately shake out their clothes, hang them up on the pegs provided so they don’t get wet. The tide is high, brimming around the rocks. Waves spill, now and again, across the grey plateau.

             The invitation stated, clearly, that offerings must be made to Brendan Behan. There are the usual items from Duty Free (two bottles of whiskey, one bottle of champagne, one bottle of sherry, three cartons of cigarettes). Then a list of further requests, easy enough to source: a stopwatch, a sand-timer, a length of rope, a mirror. Last time I came to visit, Brendan Behan insisted on meeting me at 6:45am in arrivals. He had a bunch of flowers–anemones, hellebores, love-in-a-mist –and a packet of black permanent markers. He’d been up all night. Brendan Behan is often up all night. Later he gave the markers to people at the packed, dark bar we were drinking in, asked them each to draw on his arms and legs. I drew something, but then covered it up with something else. The next morning, in the tiny hotel room, the drawings were smudged across my face, neck and shoulders.

             A group of older ladies, with brightly coloured hats and brightly coloured floats attached with brightly coloured chords to their waists, are bobbing and chatting near the peninsula. I can’t see Brendan Behan in the water. Perhaps he’s overslept. Perhaps he won’t come to meet me here at all. My swimsuit is underneath my clothes. I take off my coat and sweatshirt and skirt and tights and shoes. It’s cold, but I like that. I open my bag and check my face in the mirror. I notice the neck of the whiskey bottle poking awkwardly at the folds of my clean underwear. I take out the bottle and drink some. Brendan Behan won’t mind.

             It’s slippery underfoot, so I use the steps with the handrail. Last time I was here with Brendan Behan it was summertime, and I slid right into the water without hesitation. Although, remembering that day now, it occurs to me I might have just thought about sliding right in. I might not have done it like that at all. I might not have been here. I might not have even been myself. It might have been–could well have been, actually, come to think of it– some other woman that Brendan Behan was here with, at this bathing place. If you google it, we all look pretty much the same. Either way–whether myself or not–I had swum in the green sea, with the voices of the people washing over me, feeling serene, knowing I looked beautiful, enjoying those feelings. That day last summer, Brendan Behan had a script to finish editing, and lots of things to say to other people. As I swam, he’d sat on the wall with his trouser legs rolled up to mid-calf, feet dangling in the water, shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his pale stomach. He’d smoked an entire packet of cigarettes by the time I was done, his laptop resting on his knees, too many tabs open.

             Today the water grabs me firmly at my feet, my knees, my thighs, in between my legs. I like the hard, sharp gasp of it. I know that the longer I stay like this on the steps, half in and half out, the worse it will be. But I like how the water feels kind and cruel at the same time. I like how the upper half of my body starts to detach from the top. I like how the water forces me to start paying attention. But then I’m in and my head is under and I open my eyes and they sting, and this is why I do it; this is why I come here. Right now, I don’t care where Brendan Behan is, or where my clothes are, or my duty free purchases or my passport, or any of the other things I was instructed to bring. I am touching all of the water in the whole world, all at once. There is no sun; just grey above and below.

             When I hear him call my name, his voice comes across the open water, beyond the curve of the headland that encases the bathing place. His slick, black and white head could be that of a seal. I swim out towards him, past a group of bobbing, colourful ladies who are politely ignoring him. When I get to him, he’s on his back, staring up at the sky. It has started to rain; a fine white mist. Today the water temperature is seven degrees, which means you can swim safely for seven minutes. But now I’m in, time stretches ahead, becomes a glass tunnel. It is obvious, now that I’m close to him, that Brendan Behan has been in the water much longer than seven minutes. His lips are pale and bloated, and there is a network of scabs–a weird pattern of open sores like flourishing anemones–that bloom across the skin on his shoulders and back. He doesn’t care. Brendan Behan is vigorous when he grabs me by the wrists. He speaks softly, soberly.

             Was your flight OK?

             Yes. What's that on your–

             I want to ask about the sores but there’s a dark thing, suddenly, right by us; a cormorant. It’s close enough that I can see the folded primary feathers on its wings. Its beak looks like it could pierce an eyeball. It looks like a sarcastic question-mark. If I were the sort of person who worried about things when submerged in water, I’d be worried right now, but Brendan Behan is strong and buoyant and brave and there’s a first aid box somewhere ashore, I'm certain. The cormorant quavers on the surface for a moment, then curls its thin head and dives.

             What if it comes up right beneath us? I am holding tightly to Brendan Behan’s arms.

             It’ll be grand, he says, holding me still.

        The back bird surfaces a few feet away, and Brendan Behan laughs, swimming after it. The cormorant watches us, absently, side on. Then it dives again. Brendan Behan is telling me about a plan he came up with this morning. He wants to write a book which is also a movie and also, somehow a late-night bar, and also an eight-piece jazz band. He starts to laugh. He laughs so much that his face looks as though it’ll unhinge at his jaw and crack open. Some sea water gets into his mouth.

             The trick, he says, is not to swallow any.

             He spits it in a bending flume towards the space left by the cormorant. I can’t feel my feet.

            I can’t feel my feet, I tell Brendan Behan. He grabs my ankles, pulls himself underwater and kisses my feet, comes up spluttering, then dips his head under the water, trying to find the bird again.

The wind picks up, the waves are swelling larger and larger. We are drifting further and further away from the shore, but I can see, even from here, that a crowd has gathered on the edge of the bathing place. It might be that the waves–which must now be mounting, frothing, tipping around the steps and the handrails, spewing closer to the changing area–are causing distress to everyone who can see that we are still in the water. It might be that they’ve noticed that this man here with me is Brendan Behan, who is, after all, very famous. I still can’t feel my feet. Or my arms, my hands, my legs. My body is now a neat, smooth lump of marble, held easily – loaf-of-bread-like, projectile-like – in the crook of Brendan Behan’s right arm.

             Droplets tremble on his long eyelashes. When people ask me what the hell it is that I see in Brendan Behan I say: I like how his eyes are darker than the water. I like the way he moves his body. I like the way his mind works, late at night. He holds me close and the sea swells and we rise and fall with it. The rain comes harder, but we’re wet already. We are the only people still swimming. The ladies from earlier have got out and are on the rocks with the crowd. They clump together, waving, scooping their arms in an exaggerated semaphore, trying to summon us back to shore. A couple of the ladies in their bright swimming hats and Dryrobes are making phone calls. More people are gathering, surging; too afraid to get close to the edge, but too curious to leave. Brendan Behan rolls onto his back. I am behind him now, with his head cupped in my hands. I think about telling him about the crowds, but he won’t care. The waves drag and shudder, our bodies are light and invisible, negatively buoyant, upside down and bigger and smaller, and the rain comes faster and I love him. I love him, even though this, admittedly, is all very dangerous. You can’t just make up a version of someone in your head and then pretend that’s who they are. You could get yourself drowned that way.

             Shouts echo over the water, chucked-up sentences jettison past our heads.

             Remain calm!

             Keep still!

             Tread water slowly! Stop kicking your legs!

             Help is coming!

             He opens his eyes, looks up at me, smiling, and says: Nothing will help.

             I stop kicking my legs, and it does help. We are being dragged further from the bathing place.

I think you need to see someone, I say, holding on to his shoulders, touching the sores, about these.

His sores are puffy and bright in the cold water. In the waves it looks as though they are opening and closing like mouths. I peer inside one of them, which appears to be opening wider than the others. It expands into the foyer of a hotel. Sunlight pours in through the huge windows and there are flowers everywhere. Hellebores and ranunculus and tulips. Flowers within flowers, all glistening with something, and all moving–blinking very slightly–like they’ve just woken up. It’s springtime, and the flowers are all for me.

             Blue lights are racing across the headland. A helicopter appears above us. Brendan Behan stays still, limp in the water. The crowd ashore has grown, billowing out now across the changing area and the steps; they jostle into each other, getting their clothes wet. Ambulances are wailing nearer, louder. The paparazzi are here. I spot a news van making its way along the road that hugs the coastline. We should swim for shore, but we won’t. We don’t do anything unless Brendan Behan feels like it. The gathering crowd is of no consequence to him.

             A lifeboat comes into view, speeds around the peninsula but the water is now too rough to come alongside us, but it’s close enough that I can smell the diesel of the engine.

             You like that smell, don’t you, says Brendan Behan, reminds you of your childhood.

             The helicopter is hovering above us now, working with the lifeboat. The crew, in their yellow jackets and red buoyancy aids are at a loss. Bendan Behan sees them, waving from the vessel and laughs.

             I’m already drowned, lads! he shouts to the lifeboat crew, but it’s only me that can hear him.

             Brendan Behan is a lot of things, but he’s not cruel.

             I shouldn’t put anyone at risk, he mutters

             You’ve put me at r–

             Did you bring the rope?

             Yes, I–

            Good, And the drinks? And the other stuff?  He spins onto his front and wraps my arms around his shoulders.

             Yes, but it’s all in my bag–

             He dips us under the waves and my mouth fills with water. It doesn’t matter because here it is quiet and clear and he is powerful. He kicks his legs and we speed along the seabed. The light refracts against the torpedo of his white body. I hold tight to his shoulders. In the distance, where the water starts to darken, I see the cormorant speed like a bullet towards the ocean floor. I do not need to hold my breath when underwater with Brendan Behan.

             When we surface, we are much closer to the bathing place. The expressions of concern on the onlookers faces turn to delight as our heads breach the surface of the water. A huge wave surges us forwards and upwards and he hauls himself out of the water and onto the rocks, pulls me out too. My legs are twitching wildly. We sit, heavy, for a moment on the wide steps of the bathing place, the rain spraying in on a diagonal slant, the water seething beneath us. Brendan Behan sucks in a breath, then turns his head over his shoulder. For the first time, he notices the crowd. They look at him, as one, agape. The bathing place is silent, save for the hushed white noise of the rain. If I too wasn’t staring so intently at the soft curve of Brendan Behan's jaw, or his black eyes, or the curls of his wet hair, I’d be studying the crowd, trying to figure out what they make of him–here, like this–in this place. Then, one person (she looks a lot like me) hands him a towel, another person comes forward (also very similar to me; her hair, her clothes) with a fluffy dressing gown, another with a woollen hat, another with a set of long-johns and some fur-lined slippers. Someone else has mugs of steaming coffee for both of us. I reach into my luggage, pull out the whiskey and pour some in. Brendan Behan smiles, his hands shaking a little. A space-blanket flashes around my shoulders like a fish-skin. People are taking pictures on their phones, the news reporter is shouting over the wind, her umbrella flapping wildly above her head. I look out at the water, searching for the cormorant. There is one, far away on a rock, but how could I possibly know if it’s the same one.

             It is said, these days, that Brendan Behan is weak. Bloated, out of shape, by his own admission; self-conscious, bitter, full of shame. I disagree with what people say, though; that this makes him less attractive. If anything, his letting go of himself makes him even more appealing, but whenever I say this aloud, people look at me as though I am quite mad. But I know that his self-consciousness is an act, perfected over time. Or, at least, if he does truly believe that he is past his prime, it’s something that he has talked himself into. Not quite a self-fulfilling prophecy, more of an incantation. A spiritual experience, like sea swimming.

             Brendan Behan stands up and the crowd hushes–steadies itself–then parts for him. They are all smiling, their faces wet and shining. Brendan Behan is vast, out of the water. Bigger than all the people here that are waiting to shake his hand, bigger than the cars, the art-deco houses, the shops, the pubs. Bigger than the martello tower, than the cliffs on the other side of the bay. I had forgotten that since last time.