What I Was by Meg Rosoff Page B

chance that there was substantially more Roman fort just under the surface.
    It sounds like one of those horrible clichés, but this barely visible construction of two-thousand-year-old stone made the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Ever the romantic schoolboy, I suppose I’d been expecting something pristine: light grey walls carved into tidy castellations like a plastic play-castle in the bath. But the reality of it was heavy and dark and shaped like a thing from a nightmare, covered in barnacles and seaweed, and so low in the water that it was nearly invisible except when the sea parted between waves and the light caught it a certain way.
    Fantasies I’d nursed about tossing a rope over a tower and stepping out of the boat to explore were laughable. The treacherous surge of the sea against those massive walls made such thoughts absurd. The only form of life that might cling to them belonged to limpets and mussels.
    Finn had removed us to a safe distance and now we drifted, the sail soft and luffing, spilling wind while we mulled over our position.
    He cocked his head at me, eyes sparkling with reflected sunlight. The corners of his mouth rose slightly, and if he could have leant back and crossed his arms over his chest, I think he would have.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s your fort.’
    There it was indeed. I strained for some sign of St Oswald’s monastery, the tiniest remnant of cloisters and arches perched on top of the leviathan. But if such a thing had ever existed, there was no sign of it now.
    Finn looked at me and shrugged. ‘What next?’
    Back at the hut that morning, safe in my warm bed, I had imagined slipping over the side of the boat and diving down, feeling my way along the smooth stone sides to the bottom, miraculously holding my breath until I neared the bottom, where a golden goblet and a crown would lie wafting softly in the sunlit sea, waiting for me to pluck them out and deliver them to Finn. I could see myself breaking back through the surface, spouting water like a whale and tossing the priceless treasure casually into the bottom of his boat as an offering.
    But only a serious death wish could get me into the water now. With no clouds to muffle the wind, it flew round us, smashing waves against the ancient walls with a deep hollow boom. It was hard to believe those walls still held up against the sheer weight of cold black sea. The sea had been hurling itself at the masonry minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, for more than a thousand years and it made me wonder about the Romans, how they had managed to build walls so strong. And how had the barbarians breached the defences so easily? ‘Easily’ was how the history book described it, and I wondered if the person writing those words had ever seen a Roman fort close-up.
    ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough.’
    Finn swung the boat away. The wind was behind us now, and he let the sail out all the way, cleating the mainsheet, and sitting back with the tiller under one arm. We flew over the water; our speed wonderful and terrifying. ‘Changed your mind about exploring?’ He had to shout to be heard.
    ‘It wasn’t what I expected.’ I was glad the wind made conversation difficult.
    ‘Do you want to have a look at the lost city? It’s still early.’
    I nodded and watched the smooth muscles in his arms as he brought the boat about. He was neither big nor particularly muscular, but agile and deft, able to convert the power of the sea, the wind, and the momentum of the boat into acceleration. Physics made easy.
    I stared down into the water, hoping to catch sight of a fish swimming past. Finn slowed again and pointed at the shore. Through the scrubby trees growing out of the cliff, I could see the remains of what had once been an abbey perched high above the beach.
    ‘We’ll have a look around here,’ he said, leaning over with his face a few inches underwater. Half a minute later he surfaced, spluttering. The water