The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

  “Hey, why don’t we go back and get ice cream?” I say, and we retreat.

  “So, how about this night out?” Lara asks again.

  “Maybe,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”

  When we get to the end of the beach, Frankie releases the crabs back into the water. Some of them swim away, legs spinning round and round, and some of them are definitely no longer alive.

  9

  When I get to the harbor the following day, I immediately sense something is wrong. Even though it’s boiling, Danny stands on the jetty with his arms folded tight across his white T-shirt as if he is freezing. Joey and Rex are climbing aboard the Half Way, swaying, waving their arms about. The tide is low, and the boats nearer to this end of the harbor are already grounded in mud. I’m only a few minutes late. I overslept but still wanted to make time for breathing practice. Three minutes and twenty seconds.

  “Hurry up,” Danny snaps. “Or we won’t get out of the harbor.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Even if the boat was stuck in the mud, Danny would have us dig it out before we gave up on a dive.

  “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  He grabs my arm and pulls me toward him. Rex hands us both a beer as we climb on. Danny refuses to take one.

  “They’re meant to be for after,” Danny says.

  I put mine aside. The last thing I want is to be drunk right now. I need to be on the ball. Danny starts the motor before I’ve even sat down, and my neck jolts.

  As the boat speeds up, I close my eyes and pretend I’m flying. For a few minutes I am alone, the wind caressing my face.

  I feel a hand on my leg, and when I open my eyes, Rex is grinning at me.

  “Are you ready for your surprise?”

  “Where are we going?” I ask, leaning away from Rex. We’re heading around the Point, but too far out to be aiming for the cave.

  Danny speaks slowly. “We’re going to the drop-off.”

  “Fuck, yeah!” shouts Joey.

  “Really?” I try not to show my nerves. This is not how it was supposed to be.

  It’s then that I realize I’ve forgotten my mask.

  Danny cuts the engine. We drift.

  “I’m not ready,” I blurt out. “I forgot my mask.”

  Danny cracks a small smile. “We’re not going to the bottom,” he says, almost sneering. “Not anywhere near it.”

  I’m relieved but still feel uneasy. Why are we here if we’re not going to the bottom? Joey and Rex are already clumsily pulling their fins on. Danny chucks me a mask from the bag of spares. I know it won’t feel the same.

  “There’s a line,” Danny says. He’s in instructor mode now. “We’re going down twenty meters. It’s cold, dark, and miserable down there. You won’t want to go any deeper.”

  I wait for more instructions, but he doesn’t say anything else. There’s a slight breeze out here, and it skips across the water, making the ripples travel in a steady line farther out to sea.

  Rex and Joey jump off the boat on the opposite side to where the buoy is. Usually I see which direction they travel in, but today I can’t see anything. The water is too dark. I’m guessing they swam under the boat to find the wire.

  “Where did they go?” I ask Danny, breaking the silence. He is fiddling with a weight belt. Sliding the weights on, tightening it, sliding the weights off again.

  “Over there.” He points a little way back toward the harbor.

  “They didn’t go down the wire?”

  “Told you—there’s nothing to see down there.”

  “Then why are we here? We don’t have to go down today,” I say. “We could go another day.”

  The weight belt clangs onto the floor of the boat.

  “I thought this was what you wanted. To go deeper. It’s good prep for the wreck dive.”

  It is what I want, I remind myself silently. But now I’m here, it doesn’t feel right. I’m not ready to see it. I’m not ready to do this without Tay. My eyes prick, and I wipe them quickly before the tears come.

  The boys surface a few meters away and swim back, whooping and swearing about how damn good the water is. They seem more alert than when they went down, and this reassures me.

  “Ready?” Danny asks. He puts his weight belt on and sits on the side of the boat with his fins in his hand. I start to fasten my weight belt, the one he was fiddling with, but my fingers are shaking too much. He reaches over and fastens it for me. His hands around my waist make my breath quicken.

  “Ready?” he asks again.

  My brain is still hesitating, wondering how quickly I can pull the motor cord and drive us back to the harbor, but once again I find my body doing the opposite of what my brain is thinking. My body moves closer to the edge of the boat, my hands adjusting my mask and pulling on my fins. Then I sit on the side next to Danny.

  “I’m ready.” I’m ready to go to the bottom, and you can’t stop me.

  “Let me get a head start, okay? Feet first. There’s a bit of a current just below the surface. Three minutes max, okay?”

  As Joey reaches the boat, Danny drops off the other side and I follow him. I cling to the buoy and wait for him to go down. My weight belt is so heavy, I struggle to stay on the surface. When I can’t feel Danny’s movement below me anymore, I fill my lungs, then stomach, and let go of the buoy. In the darkness, fighting the current, I grip the wire and follow it down, desperately trying to bring my body in close to it, but my legs float out behind me. The pressure in my head builds, but my ears won’t pop. Danny’s face is right up against mine as we descend. Every now and then he lifts one hand and motions for me to relax, slow down, stay calm. I focus on his face as the water around us gets cooler and darker.

  Finally, my legs no longer feel as though they’re being pulled out. We settle our bodies so we are vertical again, and I hold the wire with one hand. I dare myself to look down, following the cone of light from my flashlight. The water is muddy brown with white bits floating in it. A dust cloud billows below us. Small gray fish emerge and then disappear. My watch says forty-five seconds, then forty-six, then forty-seven. My ear pops with a loud bang. I groan, but the water muffles the sound. The pain is excruciating for a second, but then the pressure in my head is gone.

  It’s now or never. Danny is turned away, shining his flashlight on some kind of flatfish—a flash of orange in the darkness. I let go of the wire and sink toward the dust cloud. As soon as I hit it, water seeps in through the bottom of my mask. The salt stings and I can’t stop blinking. I resist the urge to swim back up and instead let my weight pull me down. A high-pitched voice tears through the water.

  “Over there,” the voice cries. The voice is mine. I’m on the beach that day, yelling to everyone to look at the spot where Eddie disappeared. I make my way to the edge of the water but fall down onto the pebbles. Shaking, murmuring, I try to work out if I’m looking at the sea or the sky. There’s a loud crack of thunder, and it keeps on going, vibrating through my head, and then I see my father’s feet moving across the pebbles, toward me. In his hand he has my mother’s blue coat. He throws it over me.

  “Help, someone! I need help,” he cries. “She’s fainted.”

  Danny grabs my arms and pulls me up toward him. I kick as hard as I can for the surface, and lactic acid burns in my thighs.

  The air above the water is cold, but I suck it in and wait for the dizziness to pass. All this time, I thought the blue haze that tinged my memories might be significant in working out what happened that day, but it turns out it was just Mum’s coat.

  “What the fuck was that?” Danny growls. His blond hair is skewed to one side, and he has red marks around his eyes where his mask was pressed against his skin. I yank my mask down so it sits around my neck.

  “I slipped,” I lie, trembling.

  “You mean you let go on purpose. Damn, Elsie—why do you always have to take risks?” Danny’s lips are pursed again. He brushes a clump of seaweed from his hand and tries to sh
ake the water from his ears. “I nearly didn’t find you,” he says.

  “How was it?” Joey calls from the boat, oblivious to Danny’s anger.

  “She let go of the wire,” Danny says, glaring at me.

  Rex and Joey help me out of the water, and I slide over the side ungracefully, landing on the bottom of the boat with a thud.

  “What happened?” Rex asks, handing us beers. Now I really want that beer. I sit up and drink nearly half of mine in one go, hoping it will stop the shakes.

  “I slipped. But I didn’t go very far. It’s not really a big deal.”

  Rex smokes and looks at Danny, confused.

  “How deep did you go, then?”

  Danny coughs and presses a button on his watch.

  “Thirty-two meters,” he says neutrally.

  “I was just following something. A fish, maybe. I didn’t notice I was going deeper.” I smile to show them I am fine, and it works. It makes me feel at ease too. I almost believe this is the truth.

  Rex and Joey laugh and pull fish faces.

  “That’s what happens when you go that deep. It messes with your mind,” Danny says.

  “Nice one, Main,” Joey says.

  “You’re a true mermaid now,” Rex says.

  Thirty-two meters. I shiver because I realize that I was only eleven meters from the bottom. If Danny hadn’t grabbed me, I might have got down there.

  “I bet Tay could’ve got to the bottom.”

  Even before I’ve finished saying his name, I know I shouldn’t have. They all eyeball each other and go silent.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing, mermaid,” Rex says.

  “Have you heard from him? Has something happened to him?”

  “I’ve not heard anything,” Joey says defiantly.

  “God! Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Where is he?”

  There is more silence, and I grab the oar and hold it out in front of me as though I’m about to defend myself against a tribe of warriors.

  “If you don’t tell me, I’ll jump off and I’ll go to the bottom and you won’t be able to stop me.”

  I don’t know why I’m acting so crazy. Maybe the depth really has messed with my mind.

  Danny flinches. Then he speaks in a whisper. “He’s back.”

  I drop the oar and it lands on Joey’s foot. He bites his lip but doesn’t say anything.

  “Since when?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  So that’s why Danny is in a mood. The boys all hang their heads guiltily. Joey looks up and shrugs.

  “I didn’t know until this morning,” he explains, thinking that it matters to me.

  “Right—let’s go back, then.”

  I don’t let the excitement or fear show on my face. So he’s back. And he owes me an explanation. I reach over Rex and start the motor. The boys all fall to the floor, but Danny scrambles back up and drives us back to the harbor.

  I glance at the black water. I picture Eddie’s body tumbling down into the drop-off, and I let out a sob.

  “Are you okay?” Joey whispers.

  I nod. These last few weeks, I’ve imagined that Eddie might have been at peace in his last moments—the bright colors, the sense of freedom, the lightness. But the water here is cold, dark, and creepy. He would have been terrified. My stomach starts cramping. For the first time, Eddie’s death is starting to seem real to me. I’m even surer of my plan now. I’ve got to get to the bottom, to say goodbye, to tell him that I’m there, to tell him that I’m sorry.

  10

  Lara sneezes right after I’ve put blue mascara on her, so she has to wash it off and we start over again. We are locked in the bathroom so my mother doesn’t interrupt us. Every time a floorboard creaks in the hallway, Lara whispers, “Is that Dillon?”

  “I told you, he’s not here.”

  It’s hot today, and I feel horrible and sticky. I wipe my sweaty hands on a towel.

  “What’s the deal with him?”

  “You tell me,” I say. “You spend more time with him than I do.”

  “Not anymore,” she says sadly.

  I feel a bit sorry for her. She obviously really likes him.

  I don’t want her to wear my Ruby Red, so I search through my makeup bag and find a pink one that I think will suit her better. When I’ve finished, she pouts in the mirror.

  “He won’t be able to resist me,” she says, running her fingers through her perfect straight hair.

  She’s wearing skinny jeans and a top that she borrowed from her mum, and tries to make me change out of my combat trousers.

  “I don’t have anything else. Isn’t it enough that I’ve agreed to come with you?” I ask.

  Especially when all I want to do is find Tay. I’ve been to the boathouse several times, and there’s been no sign of him.

  “Your turn,” Lara says, waving the mascara wand at me. “If you wear makeup, maybe no one will notice your clothes.”

  “Not much you can do with this face,” I say.

  When I look in the mirror, though, I’m reminded of how much I’ve changed recently. My cheeks have thinned, and I no longer have a double chin. Danny’s workout sessions are responsible for this. I’m not sure I like the way I look, though—older, more grown-up. I don’t have Eddie’s round baby face anymore.

  The bus drops us in the center of Inverness, and Lara leads us straight to a bar.

  “Head up, look confident,” she whispers as we join the queue.

  I can’t believe it when the bouncers let us in. I had my fake birthday in my head just in case.

  She gives me a tenner and tells me to go to the bar while she visits the ladies’ to touch up her makeup.

  “I’ll have what you’re having,” she says.

  The bar is hot and sweaty, and Beyoncé is belting out from a speaker. Everyone is really dressed up, and I suddenly wish I had tried to squeeze into one of Mum’s sparkly tops. The girls are all in high heels and tiny skirts. But even with my new appearance, I wouldn’t want to get my legs out. I put flip-flops on because Lara said they would be better than trainers, but now they are stuck to the floor and my feet are covered in beer.

  I finally get to the bar and order two shandies. I think he’s going to ask me for ID, but he eventually asks, “Lager or bitter?”

  “Lager,” I say, and give him the tenner.

  While I wait for Lara, I get jostled and spill half the drinks. I close my eyes and imagine that I am under the water and that I have all the space in the world. Tay is there, gliding beside me. And then, in my daydream, he starts to talk.

  “What are you doing, Elsie?”

  I open my eyes and he’s right in front of me. I blink. It’s weird seeing him outside the Black Isle. He looks different. His hair has grown longer too, and hangs over his eyes. He’s still wearing his black jeans, but instead of a T-shirt or hoodie, he’s wearing a checked button-down shirt. Punch him or hug him? I can’t do either because I’m still holding two pints.

  “Aren’t you going to say hi?” he asks, as though he just saw me yesterday. I tighten my fists around the glasses.

  “Danny said you were back.”

  This has the desired effect. Tay flinches.

  I sip my pint, not knowing what to say.

  “Can we talk?” he says. “Somewhere quiet?”

  “I don’t think there is anywhere quiet.” Beyoncé has turned into Katy Perry. All I want to do is get out of here. Where the hell is Lara?

  “I need to find my friend.”

  Tay looks around. “What does she look like?”

  “Skinny, long mousy brown hair,” I say, which pretty much describes most of the girls in here.

  But we don’t have to look for long. She’s at the other end of the bar, and she’s not alone. She’s with Dillon.

  Where do all these people keep coming from? Did Lara know he was here? I honestly thought he was at home in bed.

  “Shit,” I say.

  Ta
y stiffens beside me. He must recognize Dillon from the party at the Point.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tay says, taking the pints from my hand and placing them on the bar. He grabs my wrist and we start to walk out, but it’s too late.

  Dillon blocks our entrance, and Lara stands next to me. She looks upset.

  Before I can say anything, Dillon gets right up to Tay and punches him in the nose. Even with Katy Perry blaring out about how she kissed a girl, I hear the crack.

  “Fuck,” Tay says into his hands, bent over.

  I’m too shocked to move. Dillon just stands there panting, holding his fist, blowing on it.

  “Take the fight outside,” someone yells.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shout to Dillon.

  Then Tay stands up and throws a punch back. He catches Dillon under his chin, and Dillon staggers back, knocking his head against the door.

  Lara goes to him. “He’s bleeding,” she wails. “We need an ambulance.”

  This is all too surreal.

  “You just hit my brother,” I say to Tay.

  Tay’s nose is bleeding all over his shirt. “He started it.”

  We all go outside. Lara is completely hysterical, fussing over Dillon, checking his head for cuts, and yelling for someone to call an ambulance. Tay and Dillon pace about, trying to stop their bleeds, staring each other out. The air out here isn’t much cooler than the sweatbox we just came out of.

  “Christ, Dillon, we were only talking,” I explain.

  I go to him and look at the cut on his chin. It’s pretty small. It could have been a lot worse. Dillon is taller, but Tay definitely has the muscles.

  “I’m going home,” I say to all of them. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”

  “You can’t leave us,” Lara wails, indicating herself and Dillon.

  “Elsie, wait,” Dillon says. “I’ll take you home.”

  I shake my head and walk off. My flip-flops don’t make for a very dignified exit, but it doesn’t matter too much, because before I have a chance to look back, Tay is next to me, bundling me onto a passing bus.