Breathing Under Water

by Sophie Hardcastle

  ‘Mia?’

  I nod, playing with the food on my plate. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t have an answer.’

  My forehead creases. ‘You’re the adult. You’re meant to know.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how old you are. You’ll never know all the answers.’

  I fold my arms in my lap, watching wax drip down the side of the candle, pooling at the base, hardening.

  ‘I think you have to figure this one out for yourself.’

  I sigh, resigning myself to the fact that at least her last point is true.

  Jackson answers the door and I step back as Oatley comes charging out, tail wagging, jumping up to my waist. Grabbing the dog’s collar, Jackson pulls him back and apologises. I tell him I’m surprised to see him.

  ‘Uni holidays,’ he says. ‘I’m down for the summer.’

  Wiping my hands on my skirt, I glance around the yard. Mia’s bike is on the grass, her shoes by the door.

  ‘Do you want something?’ Jackson asks in a tone I’ve never heard before.

  I wipe my hands again, swallow and ask if Mia is home, but before Jackson has time to open his mouth, I hear her call out from down the hall, ‘Tell her I’m at the shops!’

  The afternoon heat is suddenly unbearable and I feel my body start to wilt.

  Before all this, the longest a fight ever lasted between us was an afternoon. She had a tantrum when I mixed her playdough colours together and they turned brown. Her anger was amplified tenfold when Jake started eating the rest.

  We were three, and if it weren’t for Mia’s dad continually retelling the story, I probably wouldn’t even remember it.

  As I make my way home, I take her photo out of my pocket. With tears running down my face, I apologise to him, promising I’ll try again tomorrow.

  Nearing the holiday season, stalls pop up at the markets with chocolates and candy canes, handmade gifts, cards and hampers, but it is hard to be excited about Christmas when half our family is missing. I point out a tray of fresh mangoes to deflect Mum’s gaze and take her hand as she does her best to smile.

  By the lemonade stand, I break a carrot in half and am feeding it to Monty as Nila Mathews strolls up to us.

  Embracing us both, she asks how we are, saying she’s so happy to see us. I leave Mum to do the talking. Nila’s brilliant blue eyes are so much like her son’s I find it hard to look at her.

  ‘And what about you, Grace?’ she says, roping me into the conversation. ‘How are you? How did the exams go?’

  I wonder if she asks Harley about me. I wonder if he’d even have answers.

  ‘I’m good,’ I shrug. ‘Not too sure about the exams.’

  ‘She sat them,’ Mum says. ‘That’s the main thing.’

  I should ask her about Harley, what he is doing now that school is finished, but I can’t, so instead I change the subject.

  ‘We really should thank you,’ I say. ‘For your gifts these past few months and the time you must have spent on them.’

  Nila raises one eyebrow. ‘Sorry, honey?’

  ‘All the platters.’

  Her brow furrows.

  ‘You know …’ I say. ‘The food, all the dips and bread …’

  ‘Oh!’ She laughs. ‘He’s a modest boy.’

  I cock my head to one side. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I didn’t make those,’ Nila giggles. ‘Harley did.’

  I catch a glimpse of strawberry blonde locks as we’re loading the car with fresh fruit and vegetables. ‘I’ll be back in a sec, Mum,’ I say, and dart across the field.

  Standing against her dad’s car, Mia sees me coming and immediately opens the passenger door, scrambling inside, slamming it shut behind her. As I come to a halt by the window, she locks the car from the inside, crossing her arms and turning away from me.

  Oatley comes bounding up, pleased to see me.

  ‘Hey,’ Jackson says, strolling up behind him. He glances into the car and knocks with two knuckles on the window. When Mia doesn’t respond, he turns to me with sunken eyes. ‘Time, Grace, you got to give it time.’

  Mum’s Range Rover pulls up, loose dirt clouding the air as she winds down the window and calls for me to get in. I buckle my seatbelt, then let Monty climb onto my lap, clumsy and heavy, as we drive off the oval onto the street.

  With our birthday and Christmas only six days apart, not only did we often receive one big present to loop the two celebrations together, we frequently received one big present to loop us together – a trampoline, our Nintendo, a cubbyhouse …

  Kids at school always said we were unlucky, only getting one big present, but when the decorations were strung up in the Port Lawnam shopping centre each year, it always felt like they were for us, for my twin and me.

  Turning off the juicer, Mum fills each of our glasses with juice – ginger, carrot, beetroot and lemon. ‘Any idea what you want for your birthday?’

  She knows she can’t give me what I want. She can’t just pop down to the shops, pick him off a shelf, swipe a credit card and bring him home.

  ‘Ah well,’ she shrugs. ‘Still got two weeks to think about it.’

  My phone buzzes. Let’s go to the Palms. I’ll pick you up in fifteen?

  Caramelised onions make my mouth water as I climb onto the kitchen bench, sitting between vegetable scraps and the chopping board. My phone buzzes again. Grace?

  Mum wipes her hands on a tea towel. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Jake.’

  I read his third and final message. Okay then. Fuck you.

  Eating an early dinner of watermelon, mint and goat’s fetta salad on the verandah, I look out to sea. The sky is pink with patches of grey cloud, lingering after this afternoon’s rain. The sun pours through the gaps in the cloud, glittering on the surface of the water like finest fairy dust. As a rainbow stretches across the horizon, I think of Mia.

  I think of her as I wash my plate, as I brush my hair, as I change into my pyjamas. As I climb into bed, I slide her picture beneath my pillow. Looking out my window into purple night, I tell him not to worry. I have an idea.

  ‘We only have one banana left … and I went to the markets yesterday,’ Mum says, dripping wet in her paisley swimsuit, with her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

  Promising I’ll explain later, I skip down the verandah steps, place the shoebox in the front basket of my bike, then ride out of the driveway and pedal through the morning light, kookaburras laughing and chatting in the gum trees that line our street.

  Cicadas hum in bushes, neighbours water their plants and check their mail. As I sail down High Street, I smile at shopkeepers opening roller doors to their stores. Passing the bakery, I catch a glimpse of Margie, filling the shelves with fruit scones and finger buns, and remember the last Fat Friday we had before he was thrown through a windshield. I turn onto the Avenue, recalling how Mia had giggled, leaping onto Ben’s lap, wriggling her bony bum; how he’d laughed, flipping her onto the floor, pinning her down, squishing his jam doughnut in her face. I remember him licking sugar and strawberry off her cheek and how her body relaxed when he smiled and kissed her.

  I glance at the shoebox in my basket and pedal that little bit faster.

  In her front yard, I tiptoe toward the side gate, carrying the shoebox under my arm. Her family are early risers, but I am cautious not to wake anyone, just in case. Mia is lying in bed, book in hand, when I peer though the glass doors that lead from her bedroom to the backyard. This was a stupid idea, I think, but as I turn to step away, I feel the crinkle of her picture in my pocket and I raise my knuckles to the glass. My first knock is barely audible, even to me. My second grabs her attention and her head spins.

  ‘Can I come in?’ I squeak.

  ‘No,’ she says, but before I really know what I’m doing, I have opened the door and pushed through.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ I say, offering the shoebox.

  She just scowls at me, her eyes cold and hard
.

  ‘Mia,’ I say, tears welling. ‘Please.’

  Her lips wobble as she pulls her knees to her chest, tucking herself into a ball. ‘I don’t sleep, Grace. I can’t,’ she says, closing her eyes. ‘I am hurting too.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, yet as the words slide off my tongue, I realise they are empty.

  Shaking her head, Mia looks away, and I think of all the text messages I ignored, all the times I lied to her face, all the times I brushed her off.

  She’s so far from me because I pushed her there.

  ‘You know,’ she says, face to the wall, ‘I sat in that courtroom and it was packed, like fucking packed … There were so many people you could hardly move, and yet I have never been more alone.’ Mia turns and stares me right in the eye. ‘I hated you for that.’

  My tongue dissolves in my mouth and so I do the only thing I am physically capable of in this moment. I place the shoebox on the mattress beside her.

  As Mia shifts toward me I catch a sudden whiff of Ben’s musky scent and sway back against the wall. I catch sight of one of his jumpers wrapped around her pillow. Suddenly off balance, I slide down to the floor, my arse landing between a stack of books and some dirty washing, but she doesn’t notice.

  I rest my skull against the wall, smooth and cool on my neck, as I watch Mia, in silence, sit up and lift one of the fairy wands out of the shoebox. She bites into the skewered banana, and as rainbow hundreds and thousands pop and crunch between her teeth, the faintest smile blossoms on her lips.

  I slip my fingers into my pocket, drawing out the picture.

  ‘What’s that?’ she says, lowering the fairy wand into her lap.

  I offer it to her with a slight tremor. ‘I found it in his bedside table.’

  As Mia takes it in her hand, she flushes a soft pink – the most colour I’ve seen in her face since she left Marlow with Ben to pick up the hampers for the raffle. And though the sun does not kiss her collarbones like it did in the picture, there is an inkling of magic in the freckles on her skin.

  Thirty-Six

  HOME

  The night is black salt, clear skies, tiny stars and balmy air. I sleep beneath a thin sheet with my window wide open and an old, rusty fan on my bedside table. It clicks as it blows on damp skin.

  Woken by a full, white moon, I lie, swathed in dreamy light, until a summer breeze drifts through the window and I think of Ben. I wonder if he’s still out there, rising and falling with the warm, silver swell.

  If I was insane, am I now sane enough for the delusions to have stopped … for him to have finally disappeared?

  I rummage through my drawer to find a bikini, sneak out of the house, dart across the yard, then collect my board and make for our rickety gate. I fly down the hill, sprinting across sand, coming to a halt at the shoreline, suddenly unsure if I even want to know the answer.

  Perhaps ignorance is bliss. Blindly believing he is out there may well be better than paddling out to find out he’s not.

  Yet I hold my rails and leap over white wash, stroking through currents as smooth as silk, propelled by the slight hope that he’s out there, waiting for me.

  ‘Hey, Gracie,’ he says and I burst into tears.

  Splashing water on my face, he laughs and tells me to stop being such a baby.

  ‘Shut up …’ I mumble and splash water back. ‘I thought you were gone.’

  ‘I told you,’ he says, smiling now. ‘I’m here for you.’

  ‘And you love me?’

  ‘Of course. Now quit being so corny,’ he jokes. ‘You’re making me sick.’

  I laugh as a wave climbs and I paddle over its lip, eyes closed, rising to my feet, swooping down the face, flying, free.

  Returning to the line-up, I have a grin painted from cheek to cheek. Ben compliments my ride, and I sit up on my board, chuffed.

  As we float with the swells in the brilliant moonlight, I try to savour every moment with him, afraid this magic may soon wear off. Ben looks me in the eye, his stare seeping through from the world of the dead into the world of the living, like the sky seeping into the sea after sunset, when the horizon disappears.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says.

  My legs dangle. ‘For what?’

  ‘Mum swimming again.’ Ben’s gaze rests on the ocean as he adds quietly, ‘And for reminding Mia the world is an enchanted place.’ Ben makes small swirls in the water with his hands. ‘She fell asleep tonight.’ He smiles. ‘She’s sleeping.’

  I surf in dark bliss, returning to Ben in the line-up at the end of each ride. We joke about the fart Monty did at dinner earlier tonight, my attempt to flip pancakes with Mum the other morning, and Sasha’s swig of the tequila. ‘Classic,’ he laughs.

  On shore, the first birds are waking and fluffing their wings. Their squawks are subdued, weary whispers. I tell Ben how Jake is pissed off at me for not going with him to the Palms and how I haven’t heard from him since.

  Ben’s voice softens. ‘Jake needs you. He won’t admit it, but he does.’

  ‘I know,’ I say with a wobbly smile, and promise I’ll find him.

  A swell builds and I drop down its face, sailing down the line as stars fade in the sky above. When I return to the line-up, Ben’s silhouette is purple.

  Propping myself up on my surfboard, I draw a lungful of air. ‘What really happens when you die?’

  Ben rests his hands on the sea’s silver skin. ‘You go home,’ he says.

  The sky grows pale and his silhouette fades until I find myself alone in the absent moment between night and day.

  I close my eyes, draw a deep breath, feel my lungs expand and when I open my eyes, I see her, a girl with soft cheekbones and smooth round shoulders.

  ‘I love you and I’m here for you, Grace. I always have been … I’m a part of you.’

  In an empty moment, stars burn out and I find myself sitting in still waters in the company of a girl I’ve known all along.

  Staring into eyes as dark as the sea at midnight, I tell her I love you too.

  Washing onto shore, I collect my board on wet sand and wander back across the beach, my shadow walking beside me, with me.

  When we reach the rusty gate at the top of the grassy hill, I sit with her and watch night turn into day, and as the sun catches fire on the horizon, I look across the sea and I smile.

  Thirty-Seven

  SOUTHERLY CHANGE

  Summer’s first northerly rips down the coast. Whitecaps race across the sea like wild horses across azure plains, and as the wind whips the ocean, a fine salty mist rises above the earth. I can taste it, smell it, feel it – tiny salt crystals on my skin.

  ‘Hey, honey, would you mind going to the fish shop? I need snapper for tonight but I’m giving Monty a bath.’ Mum steers Monty out onto the verandah by his collar. ‘There’s some cash in my wallet.’

  In the yard, I mount my bike and pedal down the street. Riding through the mist, flecks of sunlight fall through the trees like rain in a sunshower. On High Street, neighbours smile with warm eyes and wide lips, nodding as I sail past. With the wind combing through my hair, I smile back for the first time since he left.

  The bell above the door rings as I enter the fish shop. The fishmonger, Rob, looks up and beams. ‘Grace, how you doing?’

  There’s still a lump in my throat, but with every day, words seem to find their way around it with less strain. ‘I’m good, thanks. I’d like some snapper please, if you have any. Mum’s making yellow curry.’

  He slips his hands into plastic gloves, reaches into the glass cabinet and draws a fillet of fish office. ‘Ah, she’s a great cook, your mum. Maybe she could drop in her recipe. Some other customers might like a crack at it,’ he says, wrapping the fillet in paper then popping it up on the bench.

  ‘I’ll let her know, I’m sure she’d be happy to.’

  ‘Here, complimentary,’ he says with a wide grin. ‘Some tiger prawns, fresh catch.’ Rob winks. ‘Will make for a great entree.’

  I
pay for the snapper, thank him and wander out to the street, popping the paper-wrapped package in my basket. Cycling back up Marlow’s main road, I drop the fish off to Mum before pedalling back down the street, south to Tarobar Beach to check on the surf. Tucked behind the headland, I know it will be protected from the northerly.

  Gentle, glassy waves peel around the rocks as I ride into the car park. I prop my bike against a signpost, stroll toward the grassy dune at the beach’s edge, and then I see a familiar van is parked by the shower block. Gravel cuts into the soles of my feet. Turning to the line-up, I catch a glimpse of Harley rising to his feet, gliding down the face, as beautiful as ever. But then I think of flatbread, dips and daisies, all rotting at the bottom of a bin, and suddenly I am climbing onto the bull bar and up on the roof of Harley’s van.

  From the roof of his van, I watch him gliding, swooping, rising. He rides with his wetsuit top unzipped and hair loose. I feel my throat narrow, my breath becomes shallow.

  When he glances back to shore after a wave he’s caught right to the inside, Harley double-takes. Noticing me on the roof of his van, he paddles onto the next roll of foam, washing to the beach.

  His steps across the sand are measured, coming to a stop a few metres short of the van.

  ‘You all right up there?’

  Ignoring him, I bite on my tongue as his brother wanders up behind him. Ryan glances up to me, then to his brother, and stutters, ‘Uh … A few of the boys are over there, Harley. Um, I’m gonna go say hi.’ He retreats to the opposite side of the car park, where a group of older guys, wetsuits peeled to their hips, are gathered around a Kombi.

  ‘So, you just gonna stay up there?’ Harley says, stripping off his wetsuit top, cocking his head to one side to get water out of his ear.

  I shrug. ‘Good view.’

  ‘You’ll probably fall off when I start driving.’

  His words tug at my heart. ‘Would you care?’

  Harley drops his gaze, combs his fingers through wet hair.

  The sun, creeping across the sky, burns the nape of my neck. All around, in the car park, people chat about the surf, about their last wave, about their plans for the weekend. Mundane conversation. Trivial.