Breathing Under Water Read online

  ‘Exactly,’ Ben adds. ‘So hurry up, I want to beat the crowd.’

  I pull my zip right up to the nape of my neck with fingernails already lavender, chilled by the first day of winter. In the shed, Ben pushes a couch against the wall and climbs onto the arm to reach the top shelf. He passes down the ‘guns’ – longer, narrower boards with hard rail lines, saved for swells that punish the shore. Mine is sprayed silver like the moon, and I walk with it into the yard as Dad hops down the verandah stairs. He stops, and his eyes dart from my board to me, back to my board. I shiver, charged.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he says, shaking his head.

  Saliva sticks in my throat.

  ‘It’s triple overhead.’

  ‘I know it is.’

  My dad repeats, ‘It’s triple overhead.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘I think you ought to take that wetsuit off, Grace. Wait till tomorrow, when the waves are smaller.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait till tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll get hurt.’

  Jake interrupts. ‘Where are you going, Ray? I thought you’d be the first one out – it’s pumping!’

  ‘Mick just rang, that wind last night took half the roof off the factory.’

  ‘Shit … Good luck.’

  Dad jumps into the Rodeo, slamming the door, but before he turns on the ignition, he cracks the window. ‘Grace, get out of your wetsuit.’

  I glance at Ben, glance back to Dad.

  ‘I mean it.’

  Slowly, I unzip the wetsuit, my body quaking as the icy air hits my skin.

  Gravel crunches and as he pulls out of the driveway, I feel Ben take my wetsuit string and pull the zip tight. He fastens the velcro around my neck. ‘He can piss off … he worries too much,’ Ben assures me. ‘You’re just as capable as us.’

  Jake nods with a smile and though I’m gripped by the cold, I feel a warming in my chest.

  Waiting for Harley at the base of the grassy hill I don’t know what I’m more nervous about – seeing him again or the size of the surf.

  Waves chomp on the reef, the sound deafening.

  When Harley arrives, Jake bounces like a child. ‘Let’s go!’ The four of us hop and skip over slimy rocks, wet emerald. With surf as big as this, paddling out from the beach is near impossible. Instead, we make our way to the edge of the rock shelf, where we will jump into the murky tide. As we wade along the perimeter of the pool, up to our thighs in foam, I spy a dead seabird washed into the pool and fathom that I am well beyond the point of return.

  Ben is the first to jump. I study his movements, which rock he takes, his stance, his timing. A wash of grey tumbles to his feet, he compresses, he leaps, landing on wax, paddling ferociously as he races away from the suction zone around the rocks.

  ‘You should go next, Grace, so we’re behind you … just in case,’ Jake says. I barely manage a reply.

  There’s a slight lull between swells. ‘Go now!’ he says.

  I skip across three rocks, landing where Ben took off with my gun under my arm and my heart thrashing in its cage. In the distance, a monster bares its teeth and I prepare myself for battle. The wave breaks, sprays and spits.

  ‘You have to jump!’ Jake yells over the thumping swell. White wash thunders toward me, I swallow, save a breath, and with only a moment to spare I spring up and over, the monster nipping at my heels.

  It’s not until I land that I realise my timing was off, too late, and I don’t clear the wave fully. Huge bubbles rise from the underwater shelf, pushing my board sideways as they rupture the surface. Struggling through the frothy mess, I can hear the boys screaming, ‘Paddle! Paddle!’

  I glance up, and there it is, another mountain of white wash. With only a few metres of water between me and the rocks behind, I flog the sea with panicked strokes, grip the rails and push underneath. Still in shallow water, my knuckles graze the reef before I’m shot to the surface. Adrenalin now fuels my every muscle and I move through the water faster than ever before. I clear the next wave, and the three beyond that, arriving out in the line-up starved of oxygen with a smile splitting my face in two.

  Ben paddles up beside me. ‘I saw you get pinned! That was heavy! You all good?’

  I look down at my fingers, strips of skin flapping from my knuckles, blood dripping onto a blackened sea. ‘Looks worse than it is.’

  Ben winks. ‘I’m glad you’re out here.’

  Jake howls as he makes it to the line-up with Harley close behind. Together, we rise and fall with the mighty swells, our skin burning in the icy tides. Sitting up, Jake hurls a clump of seaweed at my head, scratching my cheek raw pink.

  When he laughs, Ben scowls at him. ‘Piss off, Jake, leave her alone.’

  Harley props himself up beside me, glances at my hands resting on a glass sea. ‘You’re a tough little nut, aren’t you?’

  I shrug and he laughs. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.’

  My gaze touches his, and I don’t know if I will ever get used to the wild stroke of blue in his eyes.

  ‘Quit the flirting!’ Ben taunts. ‘There’s a set coming!’

  Dark waves rally, marching toward us. I hang back, watching Ben pull into position. He paddles, pushes up and disappears down the face. A glorious throw of grey spray clouds the sky as he whacks the lip and I watch his shadow through the wave as he drops again. Jake takes the one behind and Harley the one after, leaving me floating in their wake.

  Ten or so minutes pass before they are all back in the line-up.

  ‘Your turn now, Gracie,’ Ben says, but all I hear is my heartbeat.

  ‘This one is yours!’ Jake yells as another set approaches. I fill my lungs and begin to paddle. The wave builds beneath me, lifts and carries me. I slide to my feet. The boys’ cheers are drowned out by the crack of the lip and white wash tumbles down the face as I descend. At the base, I grab the rail, driving through my bottom turn and flying back up to smack the head of the wave. My fins slash, foam flies. My stomach lifts into my throat as I swoop down like a seabird from the cliffs.

  By the time I kick off the back of the wave, I am laughing.

  As I paddle, Harley takes off behind the point. He sails, effortless, his hand touching the wave’s smooth, dark skin.

  I duck-dive the white cloud. Behind, a clean break in the swells allows for a quick return to the line-up, where Ben and Jake sit, now joined by two other locals. Ben high-fives me.

  I beam. ‘I wish Dad saw that!’

  ‘Oath!’ Ben laughs. ‘But screw him … I saw it.’

  With a fire now blazing in my eyes, I look to the horizon.

  Mere minutes pass before it disappears. Out of the ocean, a wave, deep indigo, grows bigger than any we have seen this morning, and before I really have time to think, I am paddling. On the inside, closest to where the wave is breaking, which gives me priority. The wave picks me up on its shoulder, and in the split second before my feet touch the wax, I hear Jake’s voice. ‘OH. MY. GOD!’

  It jacks up, and I’m too deep. I ride down the jagged face, slide over a step in the wave. My board sticks and I fly, landing face first on a slab of water. The sea shoots up my nostrils, into my ears. That is just the beginning.

  Above, the wave breaks, a ton of water, its weight heaving down, squeezing the life out of my lungs. I’m dragged by the hair. Tossed like a rag doll. Blind, I kick until my head grazes the seabed and I choke; I’ve swum in the wrong direction. I pull on my leg-rope, but it’s snapped clean.

  I remember the training, all those hours spent in the pool at the high-performance camps. Don’t fight it. Save your energy. I let my limbs go limp, and I hang there, at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for the remaining air in my body to deliver me to the surface. Then I hear it, a second wave, breaking metres above me. I’m flung, spun, twisted and yanked, my body annihilated by the turbulence.

  Ben begins to panic, I can feel it, hear it, the beating of his heart.

  I scream for him, salt wate
r stripping my oesophagus, filling my stomach.

  The arms of the ocean hold me on the black seabed until I am neither alive nor dead.

  A torrent of sea water, acid and bile scalds my throat, turns my teeth to chalk. I cough and splutter, hot vomit dripping off my chin. Two warm hands grip my head. Another set grips my hip and shoulder.

  Sand is everywhere, like a thousand shards of glass embedded in my flesh, stuck beneath my eyelids.

  ‘She’s going to be okay, right? She vomited – that’s good, right?’

  I gag. A second wave spews out of me.

  A gloved hand takes mine as a man speaks into my ear. ‘Grace, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.’ It’s a foreign voice, older, calmer.

  I manage some pressure.

  ‘My name is David. I’m an ambulance officer from Port Lawnam. You’ve swallowed a lot of water but you’re okay. We’re going to give you some oxygen.’

  Wet hair is swept off my face and a mask is fitted. I feel my next breath in my veins.

  ‘Three, two, one.’ I’m rolled onto my back and hear the crinkling of foil. As I open my eyes, a sudden wash of light scorches my retinas and I squeeze them shut again. My head pounds, my bones ache. I try to sit up but I’m stopped, held, lowered back to the ground.

  ‘Easy now …’ the paramedic says. There’s a sharp ringing in my ears and he sounds far away.

  Opening my eyes again, I catch a flash of the silver space blanket. The hands roll me onto my side and back down onto hard plastic. My eyelids droop, as I’m lifted, carried. A new hand takes mine, only this one is ungloved and cold. It doesn’t lose grip, even as I’m loaded into the ambulance.

  As the truck pulls out of the driveway, Ben bends over and rests his head on my shoulder, sobbing. ‘Gracie, don’t ever do that again, holy shit, never again. Gracie, I thought you were dead. You hear?’

  I try to nod, movement sending pain down my spine, as tears stream freely across my cheeks.

  ‘Don’t ever leave me, okay?’ Ben’s warm tears seep into the skin of my wetsuit.

  ‘I promise.’ My words are barely audible. Still, he hears me.

  Curtains are drawn when I wake. The tiny monitor on my index finger has a light at the tip that glows pink in the cool shadows.

  There is a knock. ‘Come in.’ My voice is raspy and weak.

  Harley walks in, stopping at the foot of my bed. I pull the sheet over my hospital gown. There is sand in my hairline still, sand beneath my nails. The slow, steady beep of my monitor quickens. Harley glances at the machine, smiles, gaze dropping to his feet. He takes a seat beside me.

  ‘I think they’re letting Ben have a shower here somewhere. He was still in his wetsuit in the ambulance. Jake and I drove down – he’s just gone to the cafeteria to grab some lunch for us – and your parents are on their way. Sorry … too much info? How you feeling?’

  I try to speak but my voice cracks.

  ‘Have some water,’ he says, unscrewing the lid to the bottle on my bedside table and holding it to my lips, as I lift the oxygen mask to take a sip.

  ‘I’ve been better,’ I tell him, ‘but I’m here, right?’

  Harley’s gaze falls into his lap and he twiddles his thumbs.

  ‘Honestly, Grace, when I pulled you out …’

  ‘You pulled me out?’

  ‘I was paddling back out when I saw you stack it. I was the closest.’

  I fix my mask and draw back heavily on the oxygen.

  ‘You were so cold … You were blue.’

  ‘I’ve been told blue suits me.’ I try a joke but it is as itchy as the sand in my bed.

  He looks up at me now, fixing his eyes on mine. ‘Grace, I think you’re beautiful, but that blue isn’t pretty on anyone.’ Harley takes my hand. ‘Seeing you like that … Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared.’

  He intertwines his fingers with mine. My eyelids, heavy with fatigue, begin to sag.

  ‘It’s okay.’ He smiles. ‘I’ll wake you when your parents get here.’

  ‘I told her! You heard me tell her and you still took her out with you! And now look where she is, in hospital! She nearly drowned, god damn it!’

  A woman interrupts him. ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘Oh, bugger off!’

  The commotion in the hallway rouses me from my nap. Still in the chair beside me, Harley squeezes my hand. ‘I think your parents are here …’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  He offers me some water and we listen to the argument.

  ‘You’re an idiot, Ben, a bloody idiot!’

  I hear Mum pleading, ‘Ray, stop it!’

  I gaze across at Harley but I’m so exhausted I begin sinking back into a pool of dreams … a pool so shallow that when he kisses my hand, I’m not sure if I really felt anything at all.

  Ten

  A FAIRY BREAD SANDWICH

  I’ve always marvelled at how quickly the sky can change. An amber sunset burns out in an hour and a half, a charcoal smudge on the horizon. Two days ago, clouds had thundered across the sea, turning a glimmering strip of white sand into the pallid flesh of someone who is dying. Today is pale light, mist on the sea. The ocean’s dying swell strokes the sand. The colours we see, the way we perceive the world, all determined by lighting. The sun, it changes everything.

  Curled beneath my quilt, I listen to Mum chatting in the kitchen, her words carried down the hall on a breath of salty air.

  ‘Honestly, it’s just like when they were kids. One gets hurt, the other knows. Bizarre, isn’t it?’ She wanders out of hearing, then back. ‘Yeah, exactly. Crazy … I mean, I spoke to Ben at the hospital, and he swore he knew the second Grace went under, he knew, he felt it.’ She pauses, and I wonder who she’s speaking with. ‘What they have, I don’t think the rest of us will ever really understand.’

  ‘Are you certain you’re up for it? The school won’t mind if you take another day off …’

  ‘It’s been three days, Mum – I’m fine.’

  Fussing as if it’s my first day of school, she hands me my lunch inside a brown paper bag, Grace written on the front in black texta. ‘Call me if you need anything.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  She hugs me, and as her breath rolls over my shoulder, tumbling down my back, I wonder about the fear that forever circulates, like blood, in a parent’s veins.

  At school, I take a seat in my biology class. Two girls from my pastoral care group stop at the edge of my desk with ‘get well’ wishes. Jake slithers up beside them, brushing his hand against one girl’s arse. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, blushing a little, flashes a cheeky smile and says, rather unconvincingly, ‘Hey, don’t …’

  Harley and Ben stroll in, chatting. I lean down to my bag, unpacking my books and pencil case as the chair beside me is pulled out. As I look up, Harley sits down beside me. Ben stands in the aisle, searching for another seat, his usual one now taken. His eyes flick between Harley and me, his smile faint but ever present.

  Mr Johnson waltzes into the room and stands in front of the whiteboard. Jake pulls out the chair beside him, motioning to Ben. ‘Sit here, bro,’ he says.

  ‘Good morning, class. Hope we are all feeling well? Today we will be moving on to our next organ, the heart.’

  Unlike Ben, who only takes this class so that Mum can help with his assignments, I love biology, and I’m usually attentive in class but today is different. I think about the cells that make up my arm, resting beside Harley’s on the smooth, cool tabletop and the muscles that tense as he touches the back of my hand. My skin tingles, my breath shallow. He takes my hand and our fingers entwine. A hot river pours down my arm. A current of electricity heats my bones.

  ‘The heart is one of the first organs to grow in the womb,’ Mr Johnson says, then directs his attention to Ben and me, explaining that, being twins, by the time we first heard outside voices, we would already have been listening to each other’s heartbeats.

  Mr Johnson instructs us to
flip to page 150 of our textbooks. Harley lets go of my hand, opens his book and slides it into the middle of the desk for us to share. Leaning over the illustration, shoulder to shoulder, I can almost feel his own heart pulsing in his temple.

  ‘Although it is common knowledge that the heart is constantly responding to orders from the brain, what most don’t know is that the heart is actually sending far more signals to the brain!’ Mr Johnson explains that the rhythm of our heart changes according to our emotional state and affects cognitive function. With a heart that races, my mind wanders.

  Harley nudges me. ‘What kind of lab partner are you? Have you even been listening?’

  ‘Sorry, I think I missed the last bit.’

  He smiles and turns the page. ‘We’re doing this exercise.’ Harley reads out the instructions, but I am caught on one word, we.

  I meet Mia at her locker before our lesson in ancient history. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since Sunday afternoon when I got back from the hospital and found her waiting for me with her mum on the verandah. She had hardly said anything; she’d just hugged me for a really long time.

  As we walk off to class, she tells me how she’s finding Greek history to be such a bore and how much she’s dreading the class. Never before has she seen learning as a chore. I swallow hard, wishing I could have foreseen the future, like an oracle at Delphi predicting the attack on a great warrior, wishing I could have stopped us from going that night.

  At lunch, Ben finds us in the crowded hallway. Mia is clutching a huge pile of papers she’s picked up from the school office and books, her bag slung over one shoulder. ‘Want me to carry some of those?’ he asks, stretching out his arms, but she shoves him out of the way.

  ‘Stop feeling sorry for me. Pity looks ugly on you.’

  He stands in front of her, blocking her exit from the building. ‘I brought you something.’ Ben holds up a paper bag with a fluffy kitten sticker on the front.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A fairy bread sandwich.’

  ‘Fine,’ she sighs. ‘You can take these.’ Mia off-loads the pile onto Ben in exchange for the paper bag. Stubborn as anything, she purses her lips to suppress a smile.