Underwater Breathing

by Parkin, Cassandra;

  “No I’m not.” In the half-light of the kitchen, it was harder to see the traces of the little girl she’d been. She could simply be any other girl of her age, pretty and sweet and with the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. “But you are. You’re lovely. You’re so lovely. I still can’t believe you came back. I love you so much and I missed you so much and then you came back and even though my life’s a ridiculous mess I don’t care, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Is that weird?”

  Her hand reached out again for the separated-ink bruise on his chest. “This is awful.”

  His breath was short. “Forget it. I was just being dramatic.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. Yes. No.” It didn’t hurt, but he found himself shiv-ering beneath her touch anyway. Her fingers were so gentle. The kitchen was cold and he was shivering, but his skin felt delicious. “I should be looking after you.” Reaching out for her felt strange, as if he was crossing a boundary that should not be breached, but they were allowed to hug. He put his arms around her. She looked so small and soft, but then felt lithe and muscley, like a weasel. He kissed the top of her head.

  “I’m so sorry she left you with him,” she whispered.

  “I’m so sorry she took you away,” he whispered back. He could smell the scent he’d been noticing for days now, the faint sweet blend of cosmetics and body-spray and the lightest mist of tobacco.

  Time to let go, his brain reminded him. His body refused to co-operate. Instead, he kissed the top of her head again. Her arms tightened around him. He could feel the press of her fingers splayed out against the skin of his back. Her hair was tickling him. He stroked it smooth. She turned her face up towards his and he brushed her cheek with the ball of his thumb. His heart drummed. Could she feel it too? There was a flutter in her neck where her pulse-point lay close to the surface of the skin. Her sweet, tender skin.

  He was the older one. It was his job to stop this now. He was projecting something strange and dreadful onto this moment, imagining a tension that didn’t exist, letting a dark secret impulse he didn’t even want to name take over his body. This was nothing, nothing that could ever happen, it was something that belonged only in the darkest places in his head, even though it felt pure and strong and irresistible. He had to stop this now. He was the older one. He had to stop this. He lowered his head a moment. The shape of her mouth was so perfectly sculpted to fit against his. Her lips parted a little. That sweet electric feeling. Did she feel it too? Please let her feel it too. No, please let her not feel it too, let this just be him, because if she felt the same then how would they ever stop?

  “Ella,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Ella.” He could feel her fingers against the line of his spine, the short-bitten nails with their raggedy edges. When his hand slipped beneath the back of her t-shirt, the warmth of her skin was astonishing. “Tell me to stop. Tell me you want me to stop.”

  “It’s not you. It’s me as well.”

  “Tell both of us to stop, then. Say the word and we’ll stop this right now.” His body, rebellious, was ahead of him. Her t-shirt was up around her neck, the smooth curve of her belly pressed against his groin. “Oh God. Ella, we can’t. I love you. I love you. I love you so much and that’s why we’re not going to do this. We have to stop now.”

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s –” he bit back the words it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me. “I don’t want to stop but we have to. We have to.”

  Moving slowly, he let her go and took a reluctant step back. Ella pulled her t-shirt back down. He reached for the jumper he’d discarded, not trusting his fingers with the buttons of his shirt. He could feel every place on his skin where she had touched him.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I know what this is. I’ve read about it. When close relatives are separated as children. There’s a name for it, I think –”

  “Does it go away?”

  “Yes, of course.” He had no idea how that could ever happen. How could this feeling disappear? This was why he’d made such a mess of his almost-date with Donna. His true love, his real love, was waiting for him in the dark. “I mean, I don’t really know, I didn’t pay that much attention, but it surely must, it just –” he was reaching for her again, taking her hand, letting his fingers stray over her wrist. He had to keep talking. If he stopped talking he would kiss her. “It must do. We won’t always feel this way. We’ll just have to wait until it passes and then –”

  – and then the most perfect thing that had ever come into his life would be gone, and he would be alone again –

  “ – and then we can get back to normal.”

  “Okay. You’re right.”

  He wasn’t right. He was wrong, every part of him was wrong. Wrong for what he’d done. Wrong for what he felt. Wrong for denying it. Wrong, wrong, wrong. All he could do now was try for redemption.

  “I’ll take Dad his drink,” he said, and left the kitchen.

  They sat as far apart as the living-room would allow them to, Ella curled in one chair, Jacob at the furthest end of the sofa, their father in his own chair in the middle. Their father glanced between them and raised his eyebrows.

  “You two had a row?” he asked.

  “What the hell are you –” Dizzy and sick with longing, Jacob found it hard not to smack his father’s face, with its knowing/not-knowing leer. What would he think if he knew? Thank God he would never, ever know. “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “No need to sit in separate chairs. Curl up on the sofa if you want, I don’t mind.”

  “We’re fine where we are, thanks, Dad.”

  His father yawned. “I’ll probably be asleep soon anyway. Can’t seem to stay awake in the evenings these days. I must be getting old.”

  Of course he’d be asleep soon. Nobody could stay awake with the amount of Diazepam he’d swallowed. Another reminder of all the ways he was failing as a human being. He could hardly look in Ella’s direction. His father flicked restlessly through the channels.

  “Nothing on, is there?” He sighed and laid the remote down by his chair. “Shall we watch a film instead? Jacob, how about that Die Hard DVD we got the other day? If that’s all right with you, of course,” he added, smiling at Ella.

  “That’s fine, I love Die Hard.”

  “Sort it out, then, Jacob, will you?”

  He had to pass Ella’s chair to get to the television. He was grateful for his dad, unknowing chaperone to his unremembered children. He knelt in front of the DVD player, going through the pantomime of taking the disc out and putting it back in again. His father became agitated if he thought they’d watched the movie recently. Back in his chair, he let the dialogue wash over him and waited for his father to begin to nod and twitch.

  “I’ll take Dad upstairs,” he said, as the sounds of the terrorists storming the party echoed around the living-room.

  “Can I help?”

  It would be so much easier with Ella’s help. But afterwards, they would be upstairs, alone. He could already picture how good it would feel, how treacherously right – “It’s okay, I’ll manage.” His dad, yawning and beyond speech, was swaying in the doorway. “Look, I’ll take him upstairs and get him ready in the front bathroom, so if you wouldn’t mind using the one in the tower – I mean, I know it’s early, but –”

  He didn’t want to say but we can’t be alone together in the same room, but he knew he didn’t have to. She nodded and gave him a crooked little half-smile that made his heart leap. He wanted to kiss her, to feel her kissing him back. Instead he put his arm gently around his father’s shoulders.

  He was almost hoping for a night where the tablets would fail him and his father would refuse to settle, shambling around in a drunken zombie state that would leave them both tattooed with bruises afterwards. Instead, his father went through the ritual of getting into his pyjamas, cleaning his teeth and using the toilet with
the willingness of a tired child. He’d been so much better since Ella came. Had her presence somehow healed something for him? Or was it simply that Jacob himself was more patient, more gentle, because he was happier too? He stood for long minutes in the doorway, watching his father breathe because he didn’t trust his own body. Ella must be out of the bathroom now, must be safely beneath the covers with the door closed. Now he had to do the same. Perhaps in the morning the madness would have passed. When he cleaned his teeth, he could hardly meet his own gaze in the mirror.

  “Stop it,” he said out loud. “Stop thinking about it, you’re only making it worse. It’s nothing, it’ll pass.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, he crept past Ella’s door to the bathroom in the tower and filled the bath with cold water. Then, still wearing his jeans and t-shirt, he climbed into the bath.

  The water was so cold he thought his heart might stop, but he forced himself beneath the surface anyway. As the water filled his ears and took the warmth from his flesh, he felt everything in his mind settle into stillness, like silt on the sea-bed. All he could hear was the thrum of his pulse and the occasional drip of water and, from somewhere very far away, a memory of his sister counting: “Eleven… twelve… thirteen…”

  He reached a count of two minutes and five seconds when he heard the faint creak of the back staircase. He erupted from the bath in a great wave of cold water and ran down the corridor.

  “Dad. Are you there? Are you –”

  But his father was fast asleep still, breathing slowly and steadily. It took him a moment to realise what he must have heard instead.

  He knew before he opened the door that Ella’s room would be empty, but he had to check anyway. The bed was still faintly warm.

  Why had he got in the bath with all his clothes on? He lost precious minutes stripping himself bare and finding new clothes. Then he began his search, the same methodical route he had taken with his father over so many nights. Room after room after room, empty. The back door was closed, but unlocked. She’d gone out. But not long ago. He rummaged in a drawer for a torch, then ran out of the back door and frantically scoured the garden. But there was no sign of her.

  Could she possibly be out on the cliff-top? Surely not. He made himself check anyway, not wanting to admit that she might have taken the other path, down into the village and away from him, where he couldn’t follow because he couldn’t leave his Dad.

  He wasn’t going to lose her. There had to be a way. He floundered furiously around the kitchen for a while. Could he risk waking his father up, forcing another tablet or two into him somehow? No, it was already too dangerous. If he could be sure where Ella might be – if he could somehow find her and make her come back…

  “Dad.” He was back upstairs, standing by his father’s bed, shaking him gently by the shoulder. “Dad, it’s Jacob. Can you hear me?”

  His father half-opened one eye.

  “Bad dream? S’all right. Get in w’me, son.”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m going out for a little bit.”

  “Get in w’me,” his father repeated, and patted Jacob’s hand.

  “Dad, please listen. I’m going out, but I’ll be back soon.” Was this true? He could only hope. “I won’t be long. Promise.”

  The tide of sleep was too powerful. His father was gone again. He ran to his room, found a pen and paper, wrote a hasty note. The chances were tiny that his dad would read it, but at least he’d tried. When he left the house, he felt as if he was pressing forward against a powerful elastic restraint trying to pull him back again. Should he take the car? No, because she might hear him coming and hide. He would have to rely on his longer legs and hope he could catch up with her. If only he knew where she was going.

  And then he knew exactly where she was going, and he broke free of the restraints that bound him to his father and ran through the dark to the place where his sister would be waiting for him.

  The track down to the secret beach was just as he remembered, right down to the felled sign-post. Ella was sitting in the lee of the dunes, her face turned towards the ocean. The wind was beginning to rise, and the sand blew in tiny eddies along the tops of the dunes. Until he saw her, he was tired and sweaty with half-walking, half-running, but then she looked at him and he felt as if he could run for ever, as long as she waited for him at the finish. Over her t-shirt, she was wearing the shirt he had left in the kitchen. Her hair was damp at the ends and her mouth tasted of toothpaste.

  “I don’t know what you like,” he confessed, somewhere among the frantic fumbling movements that took them from standing to sitting to lying in the sand, unwrapping each other in the moonlight. “I mean, I don’t know what women like. I’ve never done this before, with anyone. I’m sorry if I’m hopeless.”

  “I don’t know either,” she said, “I just – I just –”

  And when he kissed her, he could taste her tears.

  Chapter Seventeen

  2008

  It was that time of year when the few tourists who were going to come would arrive, gathering in lost bewildered clumps on the thin sand that lay like a sheet over the pebbles. Sometimes the villagers themselves created a small celebration of the warmth – a potluck picnic on the sands, perhaps, or a “fun day” for the local children. But Mrs Armitage took no notice of these things, preferring to let the season pass in its own time, waiting for the North Sea to become entirely hers once more.

  Before the last storm, secret plans had come to her in flashes as she went about her business. Ella’s small confiding hand in hers as they picked their way down a path like a farm-track. A wicker pannier, lid lifted, improbably beautiful food within. Tiny bare feet seen through water. Now she told herself that she’d been no better than a broody hen sitting over a clutch of stones, and when she came across the pannier, lurking in the shed, she carried it straight through the house and through the hatch to the small loft space, cramming it into the darkness. It had been five weeks and three days since the storm and Ella’s disappearance, and she was herself again – calm and unruffled, needing no one, making no connections and leaving no footprints. She had her house and she had her boat and she had the whole silent world beneath the water. She’d let herself be distracted for a while, but now that was over.

  Everyone was allowed a year of foolishness at some time in their lives.

  The air was hot and heavy and the grass pollen made her throat itch. She craved the feel of cold salt water seeping in through her wetsuit to lie against her skin like a lover, and the slow descent into the silty twilight where nobody else would be. Did she dare go out by herself with the tourists watching? Once she’d come to the surface to find a Zodiac lifeboat crammed with grim-faced men in orange slickers, and the water ruffled by the blades of the coastguard helicopter. We had a report of someone going over the edge of a rowboat, they told her, and then, when she explained, but don’t you have a diving buddy? And when she told them she lived alone and had no friends and needed no one, thank you very much, the final humiliation: okay, so how about next time you give us a little tinkle, post your plans with us so we know where you are and how long you’re planning on being down there? And then give us another little tinkle when you get back? Just so we can keep an eye on you.

  I dive alone because I want to be alone, she told them coldly. I know these waters better than any of you ever will, and since I’m a grown woman I don’t need to give anyone a little tinkle to let them know what I’m doing. Rowing back, she made a fierce vow that she would check for other boats before coming back up, that she would rather drain her air-tank and slowly suffocate than have a conversation like that again ever in her whole life. Since then, she’d been wary of diving during the times when strangers gathered on the beach.

  It was a pity, because a dive down through the sea’s molten copper as the sun dissolved into the water would have been an entirely excellent way to end the day. Instead she took her secateurs and viciously attacked her heap of pruning waste, reducin
g each long stem to a series of two-inch scraps.

  The heap disappeared quickly; too quickly. She was still restless and unsettled. The water was calling, but she couldn’t listen. She found herself watching the empty space where the gate used to be, listening for the tell-tale shiver and rattle that would announce Ella’s arrival. The girl always struggled with the latch, but Mrs Armitage had never gone to help her. It was important for children of that age to realise the world wouldn’t always co-operate.

  The pollen was dreadful this year. There was water in the back of her throat and the corners of her eyes. She put the secateurs back on their hook and told herself that Ella was gone and that was that, and she’d barely known the girl anyway. She needed more time in the water. Everything would be better once the year had begun its slow turn back towards winter. As a substitute for the dive she really wanted, she would walk along the cliffs, tormenting herself with the sight of what she couldn’t have.

  With her fingers closed around the door-handle, she was startled to hear something panting. It sounded like a large dog. One of those dogs that looked like a tank, perhaps, chasing a rabbit or its own shadow, disconnected from its people and therefore frightened and therefore dangerous. It sounded as if it was right outside. It would be better not to look. A large frightened dog or a large excited dog could very easily become a large dangerous dog if a stranger emerged unexpectedly through a fence. She opened the gate a fraction and peered through.

  “Oh,” she said, feeling faintly disappointed. The boy Jacob was there, white-faced and sweaty and seemingly half-mad with some emotion too huge for him to contain. He looked less well-cared-for than last time – his skin dull, his hair greasy, his lanky frame perhaps a little lankier – but on the whole, he didn’t seem as bad as he might have been. Perhaps his father had been shocked by his wife’s disappearance into behaving more like a normal person? But she knew she was wrong. If Jacob’s father had begun to behave more like a normal person, Jacob wouldn’t be here. She was literally the last person he could come to.