The Japanese Girl by Winston Graham

sand, she would go back into the cave and take off her clothes and slip into the bathing costume she had made and would turn quickly and plunge into the sea. And the cold rush of it would catch at her throat and she would give little crows of anguished delight. It was the best thing in the day.
    Although hardly anyone ever passed even when the tide was out, she never bathed when there was any way round from the larger bays, and she never got over a half-attractive sense of doing wrong and a fear of being seen. For a few minutes each day she was a child again.
    And sometimes on very hot days when the tide was very high she would creep, after putting off her things, to the mouth of the cave and stand naked for a moment just within the eye of the sun, her hands pressed to her temples, shivering with happiness like a flower in the warmth and the light.
    After the bathe she would sit and comb her long silky hair until it slithered and shone. Then, very soon, it was time to braid it and pin it up and go home.
    She did not bring much on these visits, for she had found a high ledge in the cave where she left the things she needed from day to day. No one took much interest in her absences. Susie was a dull girl and courting. Mr Cotty was short-sighted and gouty and thought only of his own ease. He had long since come to look on his daughter’s liking for lonely walks as a queer habit he could do nothing to check.
    One day something took place that changed Miss Cotty’s life. The vicar had been to call and had stayed on and on talking of the over-grown churchyard and the failing-off in the collection, so she had not been able to go for her jaunt at the right time. It was too bad, as the weather had been rough for a week but was now broken and smiling: intense sunshine, brilliant skies and islands of cloud. She hurried down just before seven, knowing she must be back soon for supper. It was June and the days at their longest, but by now the tide would have been ebbing an hour. The sun was full on her cave.
    As she reached the last slope of the path she let her weight carry her and reached the sand with a rush of feet. But she stopped there because someone was in her cave.
    A man. He was lying there sunning himself, impudent and at ease. She was angry at once. For years she had been undisturbed; people just didn’t come here; it was Cotty land right to the cliff edge; everyone knew that. In this state of the tide the man must have trespassed.
    She coughed. He took no notice and made no move. She walked nearer and stopped again. Something wrong. He was asleep – or unconscious – or …
    His clothes were wet; round him the soft sand was still dark with it. A young man in blue drill trousers and the rags of a white shirt hanging. His feet were bare. He had a great mane of fair hair all clotted with sand, a straight nose, a young mouth. Hair grew low on each cheek but he had no beard or moustache except for a day or so’s stubble. He was breathing.
    Miss Cotty took a step back. Then she turned and looked out to sea, but there was nothing there; nothing but the waves like great white cities and the sun shining on the wet sand.
    A sailor? Cast off … living. She looked back at him, and his twisted attitude touched her pity. She knelt on the sand beside him and gingerly, after a close look, pulled his head up to rest on her lap.
    It took strength, for he was a big, solid man. The muscles of his shoulder gleamed white through the torn shirt. His head was heavy and the yellow hair clogged and matted and dank. Like the head of a young lion. Flotsam. Something stirred in her. Poor boy … She’d heard of a wreck at Padstow, but surely that was too far. Why was she sitting here? She should run and bring help.
    And then the young lion began to stir, and at once she wanted to get up and stand away primly watching. But to drop his head with a thump on the sand would not be the act of a Christian, so she stayed