Breathing Under Water

by Sophie Hardcastle

‘My birthday has never been mine,’ I say. ‘But because Ben’s not here to share it with me now, I figure he’d want me to share it with you instead.’ I tell my guests that I’ve been given Ben’s savings account and hold up the three envelopes. I pass one to Mia and one to Toby, congratulating them on their results.

  As everyone applauds them, Jake pinches Mia on the arm with the tongs. ‘Well done, fairy.’ Mia yelps, giggles and pounces on him.

  As he breaks from her grip, I hand him the third envelope. ‘Jake has started working again for Dad at the factory,’ I announce.

  ‘Don’t embarrass me,’ he says but he’s already blushing.

  ‘And I have a proposition,’ Dad says, stepping forward. ‘Next year I’m pulling back. I’ll only be working one or two days a week.’ He pauses, wraps an arm around Jake’s shoulder. ‘I want you to come on full time. I want you to take over when I retire.’

  Jake swallows. He nods, hesitant at first, then deliberate. ‘Does that mean I can change the name? Jake LEGEND Surfboards has a nice ring to it.’

  Dad laughs.

  ‘That wasn’t a no,’ Jake says.

  ‘It wasn’t a yes either,’ Dad chuckles.

  Mia opens her envelope. ‘A thousand dollars! Are you serious?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say as Toby and Jake rip open their envelopes to find cheques of equal sums. I tell them they can use the money to set themselves up next year and all three come bounding up, tackling me to the ground. Toby’s two youngest sisters cannot resist the activity and throw themselves on the pile.

  When everyone is back on their feet and dusting grass from their skin, Mum lights the candles and I watch flames flicker as they all sing happy birthday to me, their voices out of tune. I find myself singing with them, like I always have, singing happy birthday to Ben.

  I blow out the candles, make a wish and slice the cake, pulling out the knife. ‘It’s dirty!’ Mia squeals. ‘Kiss the closest boy!’

  As I glance over my shoulder, Jake, the closest boy, steps back with his hands raised, as if to say, Don’t shoot! He laughs and points to Harley, who is standing with a shy grin across the circle from me. ‘He’s the closest boy,’ Jake says, and as if no one else is here, I stride toward him, take his face between my hands and kiss him like there’s no tomorrow.

  When everyone is laughing and yahooing, I step back, unsure if it’s Harley or me who is more surprised.

  Mum slices the cake and serves giant portions on paper plates, topping each serving with fruit from Mia’s salad. I sit beside Harley and he laughs at the sand on my olive skin. ‘You look like a lamington.’

  I giggle, inhaling a mouthful of cake.

  ‘I have a question,’ he says. ‘Ryan is leaving in a few weeks for his trip. He was the main person driving the van, so my parents are gonna sell it.’

  I fork a piece of chocolate icing.

  ‘I asked if I can take it on a road trip … a last hoorah.’

  My pulse is as thick as the rich dollop of chocolate.

  ‘My parents said I can go for a few days. And, uh …’ He stutters, then spits it out in a single breath. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  All I manage at first is a nod, as chocolate icing coats the walls of my mouth, my throat. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’ I joke.

  Harley laughs. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I’ve never been asked out on a date,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve never asked anyone out on a date.’

  ‘You asked Maddie to the formal.’

  ‘She invited herself. She wanted to make George Collins jealous.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, blushing a little. ‘Should we go north or south on this road trip?’

  As we pack up the picnic rugs and Dad folds up his portable barbecue, Jake remains sprawled in his camping chair with his feet kicked up on an esky. With a mouthful of food, he says, ‘Do you ever wonder where he is? Like if there really is a heaven?’

  I turn and gaze across the beach. Soft pink clouds float on the sea.

  There’s a warming in my chest. ‘I know where Ben is,’ I smile. ‘He’s in the water.’

  Forty

  HORIZONS

  I’m about to shut the van’s back door when I notice Monty hiding between Harley’s longboard and a tarp. He whimpers as I coax him out. ‘Sorry, buddy,’ I apologise, taking a carrot from the esky and snapping it in half for him to eat. Going over the contents of the van, I tick items off the checklist in my head, yet even as I pull down the door, I’m almost certain we’ve forgotten something. I can’t remember a trip where I haven’t. Whether it’s gas for the stove, a sleeping mat or a wetsuit, something is always left behind, but no matter what it is, I’ve always marvelled at the way we carry on without it, the way we adapt.

  Dad encourages us to be safe, as all dads are meant to, while Mum kisses my forehead and both my cheeks and my forehead again. I wave goodbye as we pull out of the driveway with a box of special road trip snacks on my lap. Opening it when we turn onto the highway, I discover an assortment of Mum’s homemade treats – spelt biscuits with chocolate chips, puffy apple and cinnamon muffins and chewy honey oat muesli bars.

  ‘Reach into the glove box, there’s a CD folder. You can pick whatever you want,’ Harley says. I pass him a biscuit and flick through the folder. In a van with a sound system as outdated as this one, I am hoping we’re not going to end up stranded somewhere with a steaming engine. I chuck on a Fleetwood Mac CD because Ben loved it and used to know all the words, and I’m hopeless with music and don’t recognise any of the other band names.

  ‘I’ve never been on a real road trip,’ I admit.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Harley says, shifting into fifth gear. ‘You travelled all the time for surf comps, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but we were always going somewhere. This is different. I don’t really know where we’re going.’

  His smile is wide as he reaches one hand across the gearstick to rest it on my thigh. Warmth radiates through my leg, through bone. ‘That’s the best part about travelling,’ he says. ‘The not knowing.’

  I can feel myself blushing and let a lock of hair slide over my cheeks, hiding my rosy skin. ‘The scary part.’

  He squeezes my thigh. I turn up the speakers, winding down my window and letting the wind beat my face.

  An hour passes, his hand leaving my thigh only to change gears, returning to rest on my skin every time. Out the window, Australian bush flies past in strokes of ochre and sap green, and then I notice strokes of red, strokes of black beneath a striking blue sky.

  The road bends and opens onto a stretch of burnt forest. ‘Oh look!’ Harley says, pointing up ahead to a stall at the front gate of someone’s farm. ‘Should we get some peaches?’

  Pulling over, hot gravel crunches, kicking up clouds of orange earth. The farmer we bought fruit from all those months ago, dressed now in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, with old stains that haven’t fully washed out, hoists a tray of fruit off his wagon. While he chats to Harley, I step back and find myself in awe of the forest. Tiny green buds sprout from charcoal trunks.

  Bush always grows back … he had said, I’ll stand by it until it does.

  ‘Let’s play a game,’ Harley suggests. ‘Have you ever been down that road before?’ He points ahead to a big brown sign with an arrow that says Scenic route. I shake my head and he flicks on the indicator.

  The road weaves through national park. He slows down, the wind softens on my cheek and I hear birds chatting, bushes rustling, a stream bubbling as we cross a bridge. ‘Grab my wallet, Grace. Should have some coins,’ he says. ‘Pick one.’

  I unzip the pocket and pull out fifty cents. As we near a fork in the road he leans across. ‘Left is heads, right is tails. Flip!’

  Tossing the coin into the air, I catch it in my hand and I turn it over onto the back of my other hand. ‘Tails!’ I laugh and he veers off to the right.

  We flip at every crossroad until we turn onto a fire trail that leads us to a beach.
Parking the van on cracked earth, we wander over sand dunes, hand in hand. Tiny crabs and insects have left trails and dug holes in the sand and I wonder how long it’s been since someone last trod here.

  Clouds have gathered in puffy clumps, and as we make our way down to the wet sand, my chest expands, air cutting into my lungs. The coastline – ragged cliffs, lone seabirds, shores stripped raw – is here before me in all its mighty grace, and I revel in its glory.

  ‘You up for a swim?’

  ‘Our swimmers are in the van,’ I say, but Harley has already taken off his top. I feel my cheeks stretching with a smile as he steps forward, hands sliding beneath my shirt, around my waist. I raise my arms like they do in the movies, but as he lifts my shirt, his elbow knocks me in the side of the head and my sleeve gets caught on my watch. I don’t mind, though, because he’s blushing too.

  As I kick my pants from my ankles, and step into the sea with him, this moment is foreign, yet it has never felt so natural to be naked.

  I dive beneath the water and my bones chill. Rising through the back of a foam wave, my skin is fresh, my limbs slippery. Kicking, my feet touch the sandbank, and I stand with the water lapping around my hips. Looking across to Harley, I marvel at the wild blue flare of his eyes, set against a wash of grey surf. A smile curls the edge of his lips, faint but ever present, as he wades toward me through this frothy soup, and as the ocean roars, I discover love as deep as the sea.

  Woken by birds at dawn, we jump back into the front seats, drive out of the national park and north for half an hour before turning off the highway and passing through a coastal town. The houses are old and still asleep. Harley pulls up in the car park beside the local surf club and suggests we go for a swim.

  We flounder, dive and float in warm currents. Harley lifts me onto his shoulders and throws me over a white wash. I emerge, laughing and spluttering, leaping onto him. We fall back and splash beneath the surface.

  When my tummy rumbles, we swim to shore and wander back across the sand. On the grass, with not a single person in sight, we shower naked, in broad daylight, beneath a public shower. The sky is low hanging, the air quiet and still.

  ‘You’re mad!’ I say.

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  On the road again, we pass a dusty paddock. The sky is pale and sleepy.

  Alone on a hill stands a huge, dry tree trunk with branches twisting high above the earth. Time has drawn flesh from its bones. It is without foliage, and I find myself fascinated by its unruly shape.

  Gazing at the splinters of a life once lived, I finally come to see life for all that it is. We breathe, for a while, and then we come to rest. We become the earth, the clouds and the deep-sea currents – the summer swells and the winter tides.

  We weave through another national park, further north, as the day winds down behind a mountain. Harley points to an opening between spotted gums. ‘Do you think we’ll make it down there?’

  The trail is overgrown with wild grass sprouting through tyre marks, cracks in yellow earth. ‘I don’t know …’ I say, and smile. ‘Let’s find out.’

  ‘Adventure!’ His grin explodes. ‘Now you’re getting it!’

  The van bounces and jumps like it has hiccups. We struggle over rocks, fallen branches and mounds of soil until we reach a clearing where dirt and grass turn into sand. ‘Sweet,’ Harley says, eyeing off a majestic blue sea. ‘How good’s this!’

  We park at the edge of the grass and unload our esky, lay out a picnic rug and set up our camping table and chairs. Harley gets out the gas stove and boils water to make chai, which we drink while nibbling on Mum’s cinnamon and apple muffins.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say, and he puts his mug down on the table. Curls of steam swirl like tiny dancers. ‘I’m going to put the bulk of Ben’s money in one of those accounts where I can’t touch it. You know, to save for later. For uni, or a deposit or something.’

  Harley nods, approving, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘With the other bit, I’m going to go travelling.’ I pause, feeling my skin glow, proud these words have made it off my tongue, proud of my conviction. ‘Maybe Europe, Asia, I don’t really know.’ I grin. ‘But not knowing, that’s the best part, ay?’

  Harley touches his thumb to my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn’t even know was there.

  ‘I think that will be really good for you,’ he says. ‘I haven’t told you, but I’m taking the year off. The bloke Ryan is labouring for said I could take his place when he flies out. I was thinking I’d work for a few months, save up, go travelling as well.’ He draws a deep breath. ‘Maybe I could come meet you?’

  My skin tingles beneath the warmth of his palm. ‘I’d really like that.’

  We dive in the ocean after our chai and when we return to the van, our bodies are dripping wet, salt crystals on our eyelashes, our eyebrows and our lips. Naked, we dry ourselves, then hang our towels on a nearby tree. I wrap a sarong around my waist and sit down beside Harley at the table. He makes me another cup of tea and asks, ‘What should we have for dinner?’

  ‘Bacon and egg rolls.’

  His laugh is short, then he’s silent, waiting for me to tell him I’m joking.

  ‘Breakfast …’ I wink. ‘The most important meal of the day.’

  He tells me he likes the way I think and lays two strips of bacon in the pan. As the strips sizzle and spit, Harley cracks two eggs while I cut apart the bread rolls. When they’re ready, we squirt barbecue sauce on top of each egg and carry our chairs away from the table to the edge of the deserted beach, our feet resting on sand.

  Above, the sky is pastel pink and blue, as soft as petals. The sun has not yet set, but the moon is already rising on the horizon, a delicate white orb.

  ‘When there’s still daylight …’ Harley says, ‘that’s my favourite time to see the moon.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book is for my sister, Georgia Grace. Thank you for the bouts of uncontrollable laughter. I love you unconditionally.

  This book is also for Gemma, my second sister. You’ve been at my side since the day I was born and I cannot think of a better way to describe you. Thank you for making friends with my characters when we were thirteen and talking about Ben and Grace while riding our skateboards in your street.

  Thank you also to my parents, Lindy and Will, for giving me this life. Thank you Nanna Bunny and Nanny Margaret for your eternal love. And thank you Pa for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for challenging me. I know how much you would have loved to have seen this book on the shelves.

  I would like to thank Chloé Rymer, Alexa Kaufer and Isabella Dobrijevich for reading this book when we were fourteen and it was still called Horizons and handwritten on loose sheets of paper. Thank you Gwen Flynn-Pye for your encouragement and constructive criticism. Thank you Geoff Bentley for reading the Breathing Under Water manuscript the day I finished writing it. Thank you for believing in my characters.

  I’d like to acknowledge and thank my agent Selwa Anthony and her beautiful daughter Linda Anthony for going above and beyond for me. Thank you to Sha’an d’Anthes for bringing Grace to life on the cover, and to Chris Loutfy for helping me connect with Sha’an. Thanks also to everyone at Hachette Australia and Hachette New Zealand. Thank you Vanessa Radnidge. You amaze, inspire and support me every day. And thank you to my editors Kate Stevens and Elizabeth Cowell, your work is beyond incredible and I can’t thank you enough. Thank you Ashleigh Barton and Jackie Money for the giggles and for taking such good care of me. Thank you also to Louise Sherwin-Stark, Justin Ractliffe, Fiona Hazard, everyone else who worked tirelessly on this book in the office and all the sales staff around the country who championed it. Thank you for helping me connect Grace and Ben’s story with readers.

  Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my greatest supporter, the boy with the icy blue eyes. You balance me in a way no one else can and, for that, I am eternally grateful.

  Sophie Hardcastle is an author and
artist currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, majoring in painting. Sophie’s memoir, Running like China, is published by Hachette and was released in September 2015. Breathing Under Water is her debut novel.

  In addition to her books, Sophie has written for various magazines, including ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar and Surfing World, and has also written for theatre. Sophie is now a mental health spokesperson for Batyr. She shares her experiences with bipolar 1 disorder by speaking in schools around New South Wales.

  If you would like to find out more about Sophie you can visit her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram:

  sophiehardcastle.com

  twitter.com/Soph_Hardcastle

  instagram.com/sophie_hardcastle

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  Copyright

  Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2016

  by Hachette Australia

  (an imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)

  Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000

  www.hachette.com.au

  Copyright © Sophie Hardcastle 2016

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

  978 0 7336 3485 7

  978 0 7336 3486 4 (ebook edition)

  Cover design by Christabella Designs

  Cover illustration by Sha’an d’Anthes/furrylittlepeach.com