Chapter summaries Our Wives Under the Sea Julia Armfield

Chapter 9: Leah — Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 9, narrated by Leah, opens with a meditation on the absence of a natural horizon underwater. The submersible has been sinking for hours, and the crew has passed beyond any depth from which recovery is possible. Jelka has stopped praying and instead hums, which Leah finds more unsettling. Leah briefly considers speaking but decides against it, acknowledging that she is in the same position as her crewmate. There is nothing to fix, and so no way to fix it.

Matteo continues to strike the console in frustration, and Leah helps him even though it is not her job and would have little effect. At one point Matteo catches his elbow on the comms deck, curses, and swears he could break his neck in such a toy-box craft. Leah tells him to stop before he breaks something worth money. She reflects on how little they actually do as they fall, noting that no alarm sounded for the battery failure, that they have no way to release weights to slow their descent once they reach thirty-five thousand feet, and that a hard landing could rupture the hull with six miles of water above them. These thoughts occur to her only at a remove, like realizing she left a light on at home. She does not remember thinking they would die, only that they would not be able to come back up.

Matteo brings out four electric torches and places them around the main deck, restoring some light. Leah surveys the craft as if playing a Spot the Difference game: the console is dim, the machinery silent, and Jelka hunches at the base of her chair picking at her nails. Certain objects remain unchanged—Matteo’s Cthulhu bobblehead on the ledge beneath the main window, and Jelka’s rosary looped around the console stand. Leah idly thinks they should have brought air freshener, hanging the little pine trees like talismans.

She asks aloud whether they ought to do something. Neither crewmate responds, though Matteo begins to whistle a sea shanty, “Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.”

Leah then recalls her childhood. At age seven, her father taught her to swim by wrenching her knuckles from the poolside and hurling her into the deep end, yelling that if she had breath enough to scream, she was not drowning. The lifeguard’s whistle was ignored. Before this, Leah had feared the water, imagining dark places and ocean floors that dropped away. Her father treated her fear as a pathology and used aversion therapy. His refrain became a family motto. Her mother later explained the divorce by saying that living with a man whose problem-solving was the psychological equivalent of a Wile E. Coyote–shaped hole in a canyon wall was impossible. Leah enjoyed her parents more once they stopped pretending to share a common goal beyond her. Her father taught her to swim and later to scuba-dive; her mother bought her chlorine-removal shampoo. Leah grew used to the water, then fell in love with it, reading books on deep-sea exploration and dreaming of squid and silverfish.

One of her favorite stories was about Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian adventurer who sailed five thousand miles across the Pacific on a hand-built raft with five men. Heyerdahl had nearly drowned twice in boyhood and did not take easily to water, which is why Leah liked him. She returns to a particular account from his writings: at night, and sometimes in daylight, small squids shot out of the water like flying fish, gliding up to six feet above the surface before falling helplessly. One live squid flew into a crew member and landed on deck. Leah loves this story for its slapstick and for its suggestion that deep things routinely rise to the surface, sometimes higher. Heyerdahl also described dark nights when strange, phosphorescent beings, some larger than his craft, reeled up toward the ceiling of the sea and bumped heads before descending.

As the submersible sinks, Leah tries to soothe herself with this story. It works to a certain extent: she thinks of deep things moving upward, of the ocean’s escapability despite its depths. She holds her breath and thinks about screaming, imagining the ocean coming to an end.

Key Events

  • The submersible continues sinking beyond diveable depths; the crew has no means of stopping or slowing the descent.
  • Jelka stops praying and begins humming; Matteo batters the console and injures his elbow.
  • Leah reflects on the battery failure, the inability to release weights, and the risk of hull rupture on landing.
  • Matteo places four electric torches around the main deck, restoring partial light.
  • Leah observes the darkened craft, noting the dim console, silent machinery, Matteo’s Cthulhu bobblehead, and Jelka’s rosary.
  • Leah asks if they should do something; neither crewmate answers, and Matteo whistles a sea shanty.
  • Leah recalls her father teaching her to swim by throwing her into a pool, and later scuba-diving lessons.
  • She remembers Thor Heyerdahl’s Pacific raft voyage and his account of flying squids and phosphorescent creatures rising from the depths.
  • Leah attempts to comfort herself with this story as the craft sinks.

Character Development

Leah is the narrator and focal point. Her reaction to the crisis is marked by emotional detachment. She describes her own thoughts as occurring “at a kind of remove,” comparing the disaster to leaving a light on at home. This detachment is not callousness but a coping mechanism, one she has likely developed over years of exposure to the ocean’s dangers. Her childhood memory of being thrown into a pool by her father reveals a pattern: she learns to survive by controlling her breath and by reframing fear as a problem to be solved. Her love of Heyerdahl’s story about deep things rising to the surface shows her tendency to seek comfort in narratives that promise escape from the depths. Even as she sinks, she tries to believe that the ocean has an end.

Matteo is shown as physically reactive and frustrated. He batters the console, curses, and whistles a shanty—actions that suggest an attempt to impose order or at least to make noise. His Cthulhu bobblehead is a small talisman of superstition or dark humor, contrasting with Jelka’s rosary.

Jelka has stopped praying and now hums, which Leah finds worse. Her rosary remains looped around the console stand, a static symbol of faith that no longer seems to offer active comfort. Her silence and nail-picking suggest withdrawal.

Leah’s father appears in memory as a forceful, even ruthless teacher. His refrain, “If you’ve got breath enough to scream, you’re not drowning,” becomes a survival mantra that Leah echoes at the chapter’s end. Her mother is mentioned only briefly, but her comment about the father’s problem-solving style adds a note of wry humor and suggests a family dynamic where Leah learned to navigate between two very different approaches to difficulty.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

  • The ocean’s hidden danger: Leah’s childhood fear of “preying dark places” and ocean floors that drop away is realized in the submersible’s uncontrolled descent. The ocean is not a passive backdrop but an active, crushing force.
  • Coping rituals under pressure: Jelka’s humming, Matteo’s whistling, and Leah’s internal storytelling are all attempts to manage fear. The shift from prayer to humming suggests a loss of faith or a change in how the crew seeks comfort.
  • Talismans of faith and superstition: The Cthulhu bobblehead and the rosary are objects that carry meaning but offer no practical help. Leah’s wish for air fresheners as “talismans” underscores the human need to create symbols of safety even when none exists.
  • Deep things rising to the surface: Heyerdahl’s story of squids flying and phosphorescent beings rising is a motif of hope and escape. Leah tries to believe that even from the deepest ocean, things can move upward.
  • Breath as survival metaphor: Her father’s refrain equates breath with life. Leah holds her breath and thinks about screaming, using the idea of breath to keep herself from drowning in despair.
  • Technology failure and helplessness: The battery failure, the inability to release weights, and the silent machinery highlight the limits of human control. The crew is reduced to passive observation.
  • Emotional detachment in crisis: Leah’s “remove” is a psychological defense that allows her to function without panic, but it also distances her from the gravity of the situation.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 9 deepens the novel’s exploration of how people respond to catastrophe. It shifts the focus from the external event—the sinking—to the internal experience of one crew member. Leah’s narration reveals that the crew’s survival is not just physical but psychological. The chapter also establishes a crucial thematic link between childhood and adulthood: the way Leah learned to swim becomes a template for how she faces the ocean’s threat now. Her father’s harsh lesson about breath and screaming is echoed in her final act of holding her breath and imagining the ocean ending. The chapter also introduces Thor Heyerdahl as a real-world figure whose stories of deep-sea creatures rising to the surface provide a counter-narrative to the crushing pressure of the depths. This contrast between the imagined escapability of the ocean and the actual, inescapable descent creates a powerful tension. The chapter’s ending, with Leah trying to soothe herself with a story while the craft sinks, encapsulates the novel’s central concern: the human need to find meaning or comfort even when none is available.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Leah’s childhood memory of learning to swim shape her response to the sinking?

Leah’s father taught her to swim by throwing her into a pool, with the refrain that if she had breath enough to scream, she was not drowning. This lesson frames drowning as a failure of breath, not of circumstance. In the chapter’s final lines, Leah holds her breath and thinks about screaming, directly applying her father’s logic to her current situation. The memory also establishes her pattern of confronting fear through controlled action—learning to scuba-dive, reading about deep-sea exploration—which she now tries to replicate by recalling Heyerdahl’s story. Her detachment in the crisis mirrors the way she learned to compartmentalize fear as a child.

2. What role do the objects—the Cthulhu bobblehead, the rosary, and the imagined air fresheners—play in the chapter?

These objects function as talismans, items that carry symbolic weight but no practical power. The Cthulhu bobblehead and the rosary are remnants of the crew’s personalities and beliefs, unchanged even as the craft fails. Leah’s wish for air fresheners as “talismans” suggests a desire to create new symbols of safety, even though she knows they would be useless. The objects highlight the human tendency to cling to familiar items in crisis, and they contrast with the silent machinery and dim console, which represent the failure of technology.

3. Why does Leah find comfort in Thor Heyerdahl’s story about squids flying and phosphorescent beings rising?

Leah loves the story because it suggests that deep things can rise to the surface and even above it. The squids shoot out of the water, and the phosphorescent beings “reel up toward the ceiling of the sea.” This narrative offers a counter-image to the submersible’s descent: instead of sinking, things move upward. Leah tries to apply this idea to her own situation, thinking of “the ocean’s escapability, even despite its depths.” The story also appeals to her sense of humor—the slapstick of a squid flying into a crew member—which provides a moment of lightness in an otherwise grim chapter.

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