Breathing Under Water

by Sophie Hardcastle

  As he kicks off the back of the wave, I stand and wade through the shallows toward the sandbank. When I’m close enough, Ben throws his board aside and starts shouting.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? Look what you’ve done to the house! You spat on Mia! Jake just got arrested, for fuck’s sake!’

  A wave smashes between us, knocking me down.

  ‘You’re an idiot, Grace! An absolute IDIOT!’

  ‘FUCK YOU!’ I shout, struggling to my feet. ‘You left me! This is ALL YOUR FAULT!’

  I push past him, kicking, swimming and punching through waves toward the line-up, leaving him behind. I swim until I can’t touch the ground.

  For months, I’ve trodden water. Now, beneath a swollen moon, my heart softens, my limbs go limp, one final exhalation and I sink. My back touches the seabed, the sand a pillow for my head.

  On the surface, fractured moonlight and broken stars.

  I close my eyes and my tired body comes to rest.

  I’m out of my mind, and yet so present, breathing under water. It’s everything and nothing.

  For a moment, I feel as if I’m truly with him, in that absent moment between night and day.

  Then I hear her, the ocean – singing. My body sways in purple sea currents, as her melody, a cradlesong, serenades me. I feel my heartbeat, though weak, ripple through the deep. I feel blood pulling in my chest like the tides and remember I am still alive. I exist.

  Gently touching my feet to the seabed, I push to the surface, rising, reborn.

  My lungs expand. And though my heart aches, my inner rhythm is loud and real, and that is worth fighting for.

  Thirty-Four

  TO SWIM AGAIN

  The house looks like someone left every door and window open in the middle of a hurricane.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Dad roars.

  I’m dripping wet with slick hair, muddy feet and bleeding skin. ‘Are you serious?’ I scoff. ‘Where have you been?’

  Backup police have arrived, driving the rioters out of our yard. I see one girl, a goon bag in hand, giving a policewoman lip. The girl is given two warnings before she’s loaded into the back of a paddy wagon, already packed with disorderly teenagers.

  ‘You’re a disgrace,’ Dad says. ‘Piss off. I can’t stand to look at you.’ He goes back to the living room, just out of earshot, to talk to the police. I wonder if he’ll tell them he hasn’t been living here, that he couldn’t have possibly foreseen all this, making it impossible for them to fine him.

  In bed, naked and covered in mud and salt, I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling, an empty sky, remembering the glow-in-the-dark stars Ben glued to the roof. Why had we taken them down? Did we think we were too grown-up?

  My pupils are dilated, my heart racing. I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, so I reach into my dresser for the plastic bag Jake stashed in there a few weeks ago. Rolling a joint, I crack open my window and light the end, inhaling and exhaling until one drug counteracts the other and I can close my eyes and escape.

  I hear a car mount the kerb, the crunch of bottles and the screech of its handbrake as it comes to an abrupt halt in our driveway. Rolling onto my side, I sit up. Sunlight splits my head open and I wince. I see my desk pushed up against my door and start to remember.

  My limbs are encased in dry mud. It cracks as I stretch my arms and roll my wrists in slow circles. Knees buckling, I hobble to my mirror. Smoky eye make-up has smudged my cheeks black and there are clumps of seaweed in my hair. I hear the front door fly open, slamming into the wall. I wonder if she’s broken the hinges.

  Mum barges straight down the hall to my closed door. ‘GRACE!’ she screams, rattling the doorhandle. ‘God damn it! Let me in!’ She throws her weight against the door again and again. A framed picture of Ben and me on our first day of school topples off my desk, the glass shattering.

  I slide the desk away from the door just as she charges it again, and she crashes through onto the floor. I stand there, immobile, as she clambers to her feet and slaps me square in the face.

  She stares me right in the eye. ‘How dare you,’ she says, and stomps out.

  I feel as if I’m lucid dreaming, aware of my surroundings yet paralysed.

  Finally, I wake up.

  I trudge out into the kitchen to see Sasha standing with her hands on her hips, wearing yellow gumboots, a violet polka dot apron and an orange bandana. I burst into tears.

  ‘Now, now,’ she says, striding toward me. ‘No point crying over spilt milk.’

  Mum is sitting at the dining room table, on one of the three chairs that aren’t broken. With her head in her hands, she grunts; the sound is unnerving. ‘Yeah … spilt milk.’

  ‘Melinda,’ Sasha says, stern now. ‘Nothing is going to get better when you’re being a sourpuss.’

  ‘Mum …’ Kate says. She is wearing rubber gloves, garbage bag in hand. ‘Ease up, would you?’

  Sasha takes two garbage bags, handing one to me. ‘No time like the present, ay,’ she laughs. The sound is as out of place in this depressing room as her vibrant outfit, and yet somehow it makes me relax.

  We pick up bottles, broken glass, squashed cans and cigarette butts for over an hour before Dad emerges from the shed. Noticing Kate’s car in the driveway he freezes mid-step on the lawn.

  ‘Oh god,’ Mum utters under her breath, her whole body tensing. She looks to Kate. Has he seen me?

  Dad pivots and turns back toward the street.

  Suddenly, Mum looks fierce. ‘No fucking way,’ she says, and rises from her chair, marching out into the yard. ‘HEY! Come back here!’

  Dad’s face is white as he turns to face her.

  ‘You’re supposed to be my husband!’ Mum screams and when he says nothing in return, just stands there in devastating silence, she rips off her wedding ring and throws it at him.

  The ring bounces off Dad’s shoulder. As Mum falls to her knees, Kate and Sasha rush to crouch beside her. I’m the only one who sees him pick it up before he takes off down the street.

  Mum sobs into the trampled dirt. ‘That’s it, Ray. Walk away. Walk away from your family. Walk away from me …’

  Kate rubs Mum’s back.

  ‘The only thing worse than loving someone who doesn’t love you,’ Mum says, her voice hoarse, ‘is loving someone who used to love you.’

  Sasha removes her headband and uses it to wipe tears from Mum’s eyes. ‘You know, honey, the first time your dad didn’t recognise me, I walked straight out of the room. I got in my car and I drove and drove until I didn’t know where I was.’ She pauses to brush Mum’s hair from her face. ‘I pulled into a shopping mall car park and I just sat there. The nurses, the doctors, they all told me he’d forget sooner or later, but I hadn’t really believed it. Your dad loved me, and I thought that was enough. Maybe that’s why it was such a shock.’ She takes a deep breath, as if trying to remember the next part of the story. ‘So anyway, I just sat there, sat there in the car, for hours, trying to remember the last time he’d said I love you, and I couldn’t figure out if it was when we’d lain in bed the night before, or if he’d said it that morning as I’d poured milk onto his cereal.’

  I see tears welling in Sasha’s eyes but she holds on to them.

  ‘I wanted to remember so I could look back and know he still loved me in that moment.’

  Kate gazes over Mum’s shoulder to Sasha, ‘Mum, why haven’t you ever talked about this?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt,’ Sasha says curtly, and Kate looks hurt.

  Sasha takes Mum’s hand and gives it a squeeze. ‘You’re right, Mel. Knowing they used to love you, it’s the hardest thing in the world. But I still go in there and hold his hand. And I’ll pour milk onto his cereal even though he’s lost, because sometimes his heart wanders back.’

  By midday, we’re sweating in the summer sun, and as Mum goes inside to fetch some water, I follow. She fills a jug, adds ice cubes she cracks from the freezer tray and lemon sliced into quarter
s.

  Pulling up a stool at the breakfast bench, I watch her move around the kitchen as if this is someone else’s house, as if she’s guessing what is in each cupboard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, too quiet for her to hear me. I try again, speaking louder now. ‘Mum, I’m sorry.’

  Turning to me, her face softens, and although she doesn’t find the words to forgive me, I know she is trying.

  Mum carries the jug out onto the verandah, calls out to Sasha and Kate in the yard, then takes a fresh garbage bag from the packet, closes her eyes and inhales air deep into her lungs. As she exhales, it is like the first breath of wind to touch the earth each morning, a new day. Opening her eyes, Mum walks back into the house, her confidence slowly building with each step down the hall.

  I watch her make her way through the shadows. I watch her hand reach out, watch her fingers coil around the doorhandle. I watch her enter Ben’s room, and then, before my mind has time to register what’s happening, my feet are carrying me down the hall. The thought of going in there horrifies me, but it’s even more horrifying to think of her in there alone.

  As I step through the door, I see my mum, her slight frame and bony shoulders, and I think of all the cakes, all the muffins, all the times she stayed back late at school. I think of how she turned this place into a museum. I think of all the nights she didn’t even notice I was missing, how I’d thought of her as such a coward. Now she has dared to tread where I couldn’t bear to.

  In silence, we collect party debris and sweep up broken glass with a dustpan and brush. We strip his bedsheets, and as I carry them out to the laundry, Mum ties a knot in the rubbish bag and puts it out on the verandah.

  Next she finds three flattened cardboard boxes. Taking them into Ben’s room, she stands them up and I help her tape the bottom flaps together. Opening the cupboard door, I’m greeted by his musk. I close my eyes and it’s as if Ben is stepping right out to embrace me. I’ve got a lump in my throat, but while it burns a little, it doesn’t choke.

  Mum and I pull jumpers and shirts off their hangers and empty his drawers, folding the clothes neatly, taping the flaps together when the first box is full. We then move to his desk, where we collect his alarm clock, pencils, notepads, lamp, magazines and schoolbooks. Mum saves a novel with a bookmark parting the pages close to halfway through and a framed picture of us on the beach after our first surf comp, setting them aside from the rest. All the while, we move to nothing but the sound of our breaths, and I think that’s because there aren’t any words that can fill this moment.

  From under his bed, I pull out his shoes and skateboard and wonder if Ben was ever scared when he checked under my bed for monsters.

  And then I empty Ben’s bedside table drawer. I find a picture of Mia.

  Her hair is loosely plaited like a forest fairy and she’s wearing a pale green dress, off the shoulder, tight around the bust, loose and flowing over her hips. I look at the way the sunlight kisses her collarbones and recall how we’d all posed by the rock pool as Mum took pictures of us in our year ten formal dresses for the family album.

  Sitting back now on his stripped mattress, I remember how Ben had bagged her that afternoon for not having a date, how she’d said there was no one worth taking and how he’d boasted of all the girls he’d had practically begging to go with him.

  I pocket the photo.

  Mum tapes a box shut and takes a moment to breathe. I follow her gaze through the shattered window to the yard where we see Sasha has found a bottle of tequila, half-full, at the edge of the flowerbed. Unscrewing the cap, she swirls the yellow liquid around a few times, sloshing it against glass walls, then sniffs, shrugs and takes a swig.

  Mum looks at me and I look back at her, neither of us saying a word, then we burst out laughing. We laugh so hard that Mum collapses beside me on the bed. We laugh until we are limp, until our lungs ache, heaving for breath, until our cheeks are wet with tears. Finally, when we are both exhausted, Mum takes me in her arms and holds me to her chest, tucking my head into the nook between her collarbone and breast. As she cradles me in her arms, I realise I have forgotten how this feels. I have forgotten how it feels to be loved, to be cared for.

  Squeezing me tight, my mum whispers, ‘Baby, I forgive you.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry too, so sorry. But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.’

  Though I’m the one who caused last night’s ruckus, Mr Brown from across the road comes over to help us tape a sheet of cardboard over the shattered window, a makeshift fix until a professional can come tomorrow to replace the glass. I see his hands shake as he strains to pull the tape and ask, ‘Is there anything I can do to help you or Mrs Brown at your place?’

  A smile touches his lips. ‘We’re just glad you’re okay.’

  Sasha and Kate leave for the city just after two o’clock with the sun stretching into the afternoon. With them, they take several of the garbage bags to deposit at the tip just up the coast.

  Inside, Mum unties her hair, tresses tumble down her back. ‘You hungry?’ she asks, opening the kitchen pantry. ‘Whoa,’ she laughs, eyeing off the remnants of caster sugar, two-minute noodles and potato chips. Opening the fridge, her laugh deepens. There’s a single carrot, a slab of butter, wilted spinach, a stalk of celery turned brown, cheese, a half-eaten bar of chocolate and some eggs.

  Checking the clock above the empty flower vase, I say, ‘The markets are on till three.’

  Reaching into the cupboard beneath the sink, she grabs a few of her tote bags, smiling. ‘Best get a wriggle on then, ay?’

  We take Monty for the trip and I think guiltily that this is the furthest he’s been from the house in weeks. Despite his grey fur and achy joints, his tail still wags as we near the markets. A lot of the stock has already been sold when we arrive, but the upside is that whatever is left is heavily marked down. We fill every bag for half the price of a usual shop and have one of the boys working the fruit and veg tent carry a box bulging with fresh produce to the car for us. As we leave, I buy a strip of beef biltong and break it into pieces, feeding them to Monty on the drive home.

  Filling the vase with the waratahs we purchased from the flower stall, I position them in a beam of sunlight and stand back to see them come alive. Monty lies on the kitchen floorboards between our feet as we stock the pantry and fridge until each is bursting with rich greenery and coloured fruits as vibrant as an Australian summer. On the shelves between, we stack grass-fed meats, fish fillets and organic butter. The last things Mum unloads are a bag of spelt flour, wild rice, spices and some macadamia nuts – ingredients I haven’t seen in this kitchen since Ben died – and as the sun comes to rest on distant mountains, Mum rolls up her sleeves and creates.

  We eat on the day bed outside with Monty beneath us and stars above. The night breathes like a sleeping baby as I take pleasure in the flavours of the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and cloves in the raw carrot cake we’ve made for dessert.

  Our meal nourishes our bodies like the sun nourishes the earth, and as I lie in bed, pulling a thin, clean sheet over my body, Mum leans down, brushing my hair off my face. ‘Sweet dreams, honey,’ she whispers softly and kisses my forehead.

  The sweet scents of coconut oil and caramelised banana entice, gently drawing me from my slumber into the light of day.

  The ocean gleams, a magnificent deep blue, as I change from my pyjama singlet into a T-shirt and pull my hair into a ponytail. Strolling out into the kitchen, I find Mum in front of the stove with a spatula in hand, standing in her paisley one-piece swimsuit. Her tresses are wet with the ocean and there are sandy, salty footprints on spotted gum floorboards.

  ‘You went swimming?’ I say, a smile rising like a wave out of the deep.

  Mum nods. ‘The water was beautiful.’

  Thirty-Five

  TIME

  ‘They let me off for all charges,’ Jake says, drawing back on a cigarette. ‘Sympathy, probably.’

  Sitting in the tray of his ute, fa
cing the ocean by the beach at Tarobar, I tuck my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my knees. ‘That’s lucky.’

  He laughs, and immediately starts coughing on the smoke still in his lungs. Spluttering, he finally catches his breath. ‘Nothing about this is lucky.’

  I look out at the water, cobalt waves breaking on grey rocks, gulls chatting by the cliff. ‘Mia isn’t talking to me,’ I say at last.

  He looks at me, his brow furrowed. ‘And you care why?’

  I shrug, thinking of the cold shoulder I’ve received from her at the shops and by the rock pool in the week since the party. Knowing that I deserve it doesn’t make it any easier.

  ‘She’s a bitch,’ Jake sneers. ‘I thought we agreed on that point.’

  ‘I found a picture of her in Ben’s bedside table,’ I say and Jake drops his cigarette into his lap.

  ‘Fuck,’ he stammers, flicking it away. There’s a burn mark on his leg. I don’t know if he’s pissed off at me, or devastated by the weight of my words.

  I rummage through a drawer in the laundry in search of candles. ‘How long do you reckon the power will be out for?’ I say, taking cautious steps back through the dark living room.

  Mum finishes setting the table and hands me a lighter. ‘Not long, I hope.’

  As we eat, light flickers on her honey skin, bending around her cheekbone. Mum’s lips are sunburnt and her eyelashes crisp with crystallised salt.

  I wonder if Dad thinks of her.

  ‘This is delicious,’ I say. ‘Especially the mushrooms.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Her smile stretches a little wider with each day that passes.

  I swallow, wipe my mouth on my sleeve and listen to her complain about the stain it’ll leave, the way she always has.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘she won’t even look at me.’