Breathing Under Water Read online

  I fold my arms, ‘How is being mean protecting me?’

  Mum comes to a gentle stop at the only set of traffic lights in Marlow. ‘Like I said honey, he cares so much. He just doesn’t know how to react sometimes.’ The light turns green and Mum leans on the accelerator. ‘Your dad has never been good with his emotions.’

  I shrug. ‘I guess so … Can you tell me the story of what happened after?’

  Mum chuckles and I realise that I probably didn’t need to ask.

  ‘Mrs Walker, the nurse said to me, we have a minor problem … Maybe I was being over the top but I thought I was going to have a heart attack when she said that!’

  Mum pulls into the parking lot at the edge of the sports fields where the local farmers markets are held each week. She finds a park, puts on the handbrake and turns off the ignition, but I leave myself buckled in, patiently waiting for her to reach my favourite part.

  ‘They told me Ben was crying and that none of the nurses could calm him,’ Mum says, ‘and so I told them to bring him in. It was motherly instinct,’ she boasts. ‘I had them put you in the same crib.’ I unfold my arms as Mum describes the way Ben’s wails silenced as soon as he was brought to my side.

  ‘Just remarkable,’ Mum says. ‘A little boy yearning for his sister – a tiny wolf, howling for the moon.’

  I unbuckle my seatbelt; hop out of the car and with Monty waddling at my feet, think of all the steps Ben has taken before me. But then, I consider that he has stopped, each and every time, looking back over his shoulder with a dimpled grin, patiently waiting for me to catch up.

  At the markets, I drift in Mum’s brilliant, colourful shadow as she sails between fruit stalls and clothing racks. She is barefoot, in a cotton dress that loops around her neck, hugs her slim waist and thighs and then falls loose around her ankles. A pashmina scarf with iridescent orange stitching draped around her shoulders makes the blue water in her eyes ripple.

  I’m still while she contemplates cherry or grape tomatoes, eventually buying both. I linger while she presses an index finger and thumb to avocados to judge their ripeness. I smile when she introduces me to someone who then asks, ‘Where’s Ben? How is Ben?’ I hold open the hemp bag for her kale and celery stalks, and I blush when two young girls with braces and sparkly lip gloss point and giggle, as if the very idea of seeing a teacher outside of school defies one’s imagination.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Walker!’ one of the girls says before they both burst into laughter and duck behind a stall of organic marmalades and jams.

  Soon we run into neighbours, Nicole and Pete, whose daughter, Jess, two years older than me, has just flown to England to see the sights and nanny for a young family for the summer. Mum rubs Nicole’s arm, comforting her, and says, ‘I know how you feel. This is my babies’ last year in school. I can’t believe it! You know Ben is expected to make the circuit next year, if he keeps performing like he is – fingers crossed – but I don’t know how I’ll go next year, when he’s halfway around the world. How do you manage having Jess so far away?’

  ‘We miss her, that’s for sure,’ the woman says.

  Her husband chimes in then. ‘But she’s on an adventure.’

  My mum nods. ‘Of course. We can’t hold on to them forever, right?’

  I wonder if Mum has forgotten I’m at her hip.

  Nicole rests her temple on her husband’s chest, saying softly, ‘It helps to know she has a return flight.’

  By noon, when we meet Mia at the gelato stand, we have filled a mere three bags in three hours. ‘Oh!’ Mum giggles. ‘I didn’t even notice the time.’ It’s her catchphrase, yet I don’t think it is so much that time escapes her. Rather, my mum melts time.

  I think that’s why Dad fell so hard for her, because suddenly he felt there was not enough time.

  Mum puts her bags on the grass and wraps her lean arms around Mia, blanketing her shoulders with the pashmina scarf. ‘How are you, my little sunflower?’

  Squished, Mia mumbles a reply into Mum’s armpit. Mum holds her a fraction longer than usual, until Mia’s limbs, rigid, finally slacken.

  Walking into a tent that sells infused olive oils, Mum dips a cube of sourdough into an oil, then into the small dish of macadamia nut dukkah on the sample plate. Popping it in her mouth, she closes her eyes and the muscles in her face soften. She licks her lips, compliments the lady behind the table, and turns to Mia. ‘Have you eaten?’

  When Mia shakes her head, uncharacteristically quiet, Mum suggests a picnic. ‘I’m almost finished up here. Why don’t we buy some extra things, whatever you like, and have a picnic lunch, just the three of us. How does that sound?’

  She caresses the nape of Mia’s neck, her touch gentle.

  ‘Sure.’ Mia gives Mum the biggest smile she’s managed all week, though even this one looks like it could slide off her face in a heartbeat. ‘That sounds good.’

  We decide to have our picnic at the base of the grassy hill at home because the clouds have parted a little. Sunlight falls through the small opening, a drop of blue ink in a grey sea.

  Mum and I unload the fruit and vegetables from the old Range Rover with Mia in tow, then gather some cups, plates, cutlery and a rug from the house and wander down the hill.

  We settle ourselves on a patch of level earth and spread the rug. It’s thick, with colourful ribbons and little copper bells sewn around the border. Beneath the fabric, the grass is dark and lush, thriving after the rain we had at Easter. Mum draws from her bag a collection of small plastic containers and arranges the garlic-stuffed olives, marinated button mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes on a platter with a handful of homemade crackers in the centre. I slice banana and chop the green tufts of hair off the heads of strawberries on a wooden board, offering one to Mia but she shakes her head. Mum empties a bag of honey-roasted macadamias into a cup, then opens a pot of eggplant dip. Taking a loaf of spelt sourdough out of a paper bag, she pulls off chunks and lays them on a platter, as I settle the fruit in a bowl.

  ‘I hadn’t bought this dip before,’ she says, taking a piece of bread and plunging it in the pot.

  After consuming the whole thing in one mouthful, Mum reaches for another. ‘Mmm! Delicious! Try some.’

  Again, Mia shakes her head, so I reach across and grab some. The eggplant is smoked and seasoned with garlic, paprika and cumin. A hint of chilli hits me after I’ve swallowed.

  ‘That lady by the bread stand … the little round one …’ Mum looks a bit embarrassed at what she’s just said, but she goes on. ‘She had a plate with some of the dip, told me what it was, said it’s Moroccan inspired and that I simply had to try it. I’m so glad I did, it’s divine!’

  I reach for another piece of bread and scoop up dip. ‘Yeah, I like it.’

  ‘Gorgeous woman. Can’t believe I didn’t recognise her. Nila … you remember her? Nila Mathews.’

  I nod, picking up my drink and biting on the end of my straw, jiggling the ice floating in the cup.

  ‘She said this was the best Moroccan dip she’d had in Australia, just like her grandfather’s.’

  Slurping up the fresh lemonade, I wait for, hope for, Mum to continue.

  Did her grandfather smoke the eggplant himself? Was there a secret to his recipe, some slight alteration that made all the difference? A family secret, passed all the way down the line, to her sons, to Harley?

  Mum says she’s invited the Mathews around for dinner next week.

  I shake the ice again, gulp my drink down.

  ‘The way someone nourishes their family, it says a lot about their character,’ Mum says.

  I suck the cup dry.

  ‘What’s her boy’s name?’ Mum asks. ‘She showed me a photo on her mobile … He was always a bit odd, wasn’t he, but hasn’t he grown up! Very handsome.’

  ‘Harley,’ Mia says, biting on a slice of banana.

  Mum nods. ‘That’s it!’ She’s silent for a moment, pondering. ‘Funny, she remembered Ben, said Harley had mentioned him.’
r />   A weight in my abdomen draws me into the earth. Everyone knows Ben.

  Mum pours kombucha into a cup, ‘Would you like some?’

  I turn to Mia, watching her politely decline as she picks another slice of banana from the bowl. Her nail polish is fading, flaking off. I notice water diluting her blue eyes, the slight puff of her eyelids, the wash of pink skin at the base of her throat, the way her limbs seem to hang. Her breasts are flattened, cupped tight in a sports bra, concealed beneath a plain white top and green cardigan. Her spine curls.

  It’s as if Eric set foot on her red earth and dug a gaping hole.

  Mia hadn’t let me tell her mum until Sunday night.

  At the hospital, the counsellor said that it was up to Mia to decide if she wanted to involve the police. Mia couldn’t have legally given Eric her consent while she was intoxicated, the counsellor explained, and if she wanted to report the incident to the police, she would have the full support of both the counsellor and the hospital. She also said, in some cases, even though it’s wrong, young girls experienced more trauma when they pressed charges as the rumours were exaggerated, and the slander intensified. The counsellor had taken her hand and assured her that the choice was hers and hers alone to make – that she would be safe and supported either way.

  Mia drops a strawberry in her lap. The juice bleeds into her grey leggings. She doesn’t bother to pick it up, instead reaching for another.

  Mum and I are quiet now, staring into this hole, desperate to know how we can fill her back up.

  Ben stops to say hello on his way back from the beach, wetsuit peeled to his hips, revealing a snail trail and pronounced V-lines. He fishes in a shallow pool for something appropriate to say. It’s a rare sight, Ben Walker strangled by silence. He manages a smile but I know he is kicking himself for the times he teased Mia for waiting for the one. Where’s Prince Charming tonight? You should invite him to the party …

  It was different for him. The girls at school wished they’d been the one to go with him into the sand dunes. With childish notes and cards, texts, wall posts and late-night phone calls, they made themselves available. He had been somewhere no other boy our age knew how to take them.

  Guys in grades above nodded at him casually, as if he’d been received by some secret society. In our own year group, boys gravitated toward him, envy in their eyes. Ben was seen as a hero. Like the sun, they bowed down before him, with subtle but regular offerings of beers, attention and respect.

  And although my mum didn’t silently congratulate him the way Dad did, realising there was a part of her child that didn’t belong to her anymore, she didn’t mourn what she had lost by spoiling him or tiptoeing around the void. She didn’t buy him freshly squeezed organic lemonade, choosing the only coloured straw left in the tin like she did for Mia. She didn’t caress the skin between his shoulderblades. She didn’t take his hand for the fourth time in an hour and say, ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’ because unlike Mia, he’d been proud. He’d made a choice – hers was stolen.

  I think about Ben and Mia and their cool distance this past week. I think about how he kept an eye on her from across the circle of friends under the pine tree, from down the hall, but did not dare to tread too close. I think about how he snuck out of my bedroom last weekend before Mia woke me up at eight o’clock for pancakes. How maybe they’d thought it would shock or upset me to know they’d lain together, half-naked, beneath a feathered quilt. Maybe they had shocked themselves. I think about how in reality I had woken first, around five-thirty, to soft white light that was neither night nor day.

  I had seen the way her pale cheek fit in the groove beneath his collarbone. I had seen the way his torso cradled hers. I had seen the way her palm rested on his heart. I had seen the rise and fall, their bodies breathing together.

  I think about how in the few minutes before I fell back asleep, I had seen a girl and a boy, perfectly conforming to each other’s skin and bone, yin and yang. I think about the way they looked together, the way in which they fit, and wonder if this is something even they have not yet realised, or come to understand.

  Seven

  THE SHADOW IN BETWEEN

  We’re picked up from school at midday because the surf is pumping, boards already in the back of the Rodeo. This is what being grounded looks like for Ben. After all, it’s hard for Dad to discipline Ben for smoking weed when the boys discovered Dad’s stash just last summer.

  With no job, I am free on Wednesday after school, so I skip lunch, maths and history as well, and follow Dad and Ben out the side gate. Already this term, blue autumn swells have granted us two visits to the orthodontist and now an appointment with a chiropractor. Although Dad would kill us if we were to leave school early for any other reason, surfing has never fallen into the ‘truancy’ category. Perhaps he sees it as an investment in Ben’s professional career.

  I am sure the woman at the front desk knows we aren’t on our way to Port Lawnam to align our postures, but Dad’s sinking green eyes are enough to persuade her. That is the effect he has on women.

  We drive north as sunlight falls and shatters into a million gold pieces on the sea. Waves curl and crack. White wash tumbles against the foot of the cliffs, spitting foam high into the sky as we round headlands in search of the perfect peak. Ben suggests we check Boulders, a rock shelf ten minutes further north.

  ‘Grace, I practically did you a favour.’ Ben laughs and kicks his feet up on the dash. ‘Look at what you’d be missing out on if you were working this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Dad warns.

  Sinking into my seat in the back, I consider my shallow savings account, how it will no doubt run dry in a few weeks. And while Ben has made the effort to buy both Mia and me treats from the canteen at school and offered to renew my yoga class card, I will soon be in need of another job.

  It’s easier for Ben. He works at the factory on weekends and sometimes on weeknights, coating boards with resin and routing spaces for fin plugs. He gets along with the older guys who work there full time, playing practical jokes and grooving to deep house turned up so loud the speakers wobble on their hooks. And he is overpaid, tremendously. After all, I can’t remember a time when Walker surfboards weren’t in demand.

  I was offered a job there too when we turned fifteen, but the chemicals burnt my nose, and though it was unspoken, I was never really welcome. I was there only because I was Ray Walker’s daughter. I knew they were waiting for me to mess up, to coat an epoxy blank with the acrylic paint meant for a polyester board, or to mix in too much catalyst and set off the resin too early, turning it to jelly before the rails – the edges of the surfboard – were completely covered. They didn’t want a girl in the factory; it was a male space, with posters of naked women taped to the insides of cupboard doors, beers in the fridge and the toilet seat forever upright.

  What few understand is, for Ben, factory work is merely pocket money. Cash in hand, money to play with. His real savings are frozen in an account, inaccessible until he’s left school. Seven years of prize money, sponsorship endorsements and contracts, amounting to a sum even I am not privy to.

  As we pull into the clearing, loose pebbles and dirt crunching beneath tyres, clouds of orange dust rolling over the bonnet, we catch a glimpse of the point through a trough in the sand dunes. A magnificent mountain of water builds, becoming darker until it can’t grow any taller and starts to fold. White wash cascades down the face as the lip arches, splinters on the rocky shelf. Boulders is the best we’ve seen it all year. As soon as the handbrake is on, Ben decides to climb out the open window with his school shirt already off, bouncing on the dry earth. ‘Told you so! It’s epic!’

  Dad calls Ben around to the back of the ute. ‘Got a surprise for you,’ he says.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Ben says.

  ‘Nope, all yours.’ Dad’s smile splits his face from ear to ear as Ben pulls the board out of the tray, running his hands over the freshly sanded rails. Sunl
ight bounces off the surfboard, pristine and white, making me squint. Ben flips the board in his hands and Dad points to a cartoon sketch of a 1960s pin-up girl bathing in a martini that the factory artist has drawn just above the fins. ‘Mark thought you would like that.’

  ‘Shit, yeah – tell him it’s awesome! Love it!’

  I turn away, dropping my towel and pulling my wetsuit over my naked chest, the sun hot on my shoulders. I can hear Dad saying that the new board is to congratulate Ben for his big win a few weeks back, but I know, we all know, Dad has never needed a reason to congratulate his son.

  Burnt red and cracked – the backs of my hands, the soles of my feet, my earlobes and face. We spent four hours in the water at Boulders, just the three of us, and now, with thick steam clouding the bathroom, the scorching water from the showerhead almost feels cool against my skin.

  My bones had felt the vibrations of the rock shelf, pummelled every few minutes by the monster swell. Maybe I’d been too excited to think about sunblock. Had we even had sunblock with us? My skin is not as tanned as Ben’s, and certainly not as dark as Dad’s – I should know better than to let myself fry. Maybe the new board glistening beneath Ben’s arm had been our greatest distraction.

  ‘Gracie, I’ll give you a turn once we’re out there!’ he’d beamed, waxing the deck.

  Mum will kill me. I’ll almost certainly peel.

  I slide down to sit on the pale green tiles and rest my head between my knees. Water bends over and around the rivets of my spine like pebbles in a stream. I lose myself beneath the downpour, and it’s not until I catch myself thinking of him in science class on Monday, first period, just one row in front, with a bun of black hair still damp and sandy from that morning’s surf, that I stand and turn the taps off.