The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

  He drags me to the spare seats at the back, and all I can do is sit down before I fall down. I have a few tissues in my pocket, so I give them to him. He nods thank you and holds them up to his nose. He’s got a black eye, too. That was some punch.

  “What just happened?” I ask.

  “Your crazy brother punched me in the face.”

  “I wasn’t asking for a literal explanation. And don’t call him crazy.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Seriously, what just happened?”

  Tay inspects the bloody tissue and frowns. “I have no idea. One minute I was talking to you, the next I was in a fight.”

  I catch sight of our reflections. We look ridiculous, Tay all bloody, and me all hot and sweaty. I can’t help but laugh.

  “What?” Tay asks. He folds the tissue in half and puts it back to his nose.

  “Great night, huh?”

  He takes my hand. “One of the best.”

  The boathouse no longer smells of weed, just damp wood and moss. We sit in our usual corner on one of the blankets. The bleeding seems to have stopped, and Tay’s face is now caked in dried blood. I try not to wince every time I look at him. His eye socket is a deep purple and all swollen.

  “Let’s get one thing straight here: I’m not on your side. You hit him, too. I’m only here with you because you kidnapped me.”

  “Did I force you to come to the boathouse?”

  “Why did my brother hit you?”

  Tay doesn’t answer the question for a long time. He breathes deeply and picks at his face, his hand trembling. It must be the shock.

  “Maybe he thought I was someone else?” he says. “Or he really doesn’t want you to have a boyfriend.”

  “But I haven’t got a boyfriend, have I?” I reply. “I’m so confused, Tay. I don’t know what you want from me. You disappear and then just turn up again, and what? You want to pick up where we left off? Pretend that you didn’t leave?”

  “No, it’s not like that, Elsie.”

  He’s back to calling me Elsie. It feels so cold, so impersonal.

  “I left because I had to. I’m messed up—I do bad things. I came back because I miss you.”

  “You miss me? What do you miss, exactly? Having a quick grope every now and then?”

  “That’s not fair. I missed being with you, Noodle Girl.”

  He leans in and lifts my chin with his fingers. When I look into his eyes, I feel all floaty.

  We kiss. It’s gentle at first, and then he pulls me onto his lap and neither of us can stop. Even when I accidentally bash his nose with mine and he yelps, we can’t stop. He holds me tightly and all my bad feelings disappear. We are just in the moment, with each other. Until he tries to undo my trousers.

  “Stop,” I gasp, still kissing him.

  He pulls away.

  “Sorry. I got carried away. It’s okay if you’re not ready.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to leave again?”

  “I won’t leave,” Tay says desperately. “I can’t. Mick gave me my job back at the diving club. I don’t want to leave again.”

  “I filled in for you, while you were away.”

  “I know,” he says. “I wish I hadn’t gone. We’ll just have to come up with a plan. You’ll have to tell Dillon that I’ve left again. We’ll have to keep this a secret.”

  “Forever?” I ask, horrified.

  “Not forever. Just until we’ve worked it all out.”

  “Worked what out? Why did Dillon react like that? And what’s the deal with you and Danny? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “No, El. I swear. I’ll talk to them both, tell them I’m serious about you, that I won’t hurt you again. Just give me some time.”

  Back to “El.” The way he says it makes my chest burn.

  “Okay,” I say. “Just fix it, and fix it quickly.”

  11

  The next day, Mum fusses over Dillon. She brings out the whole first-aid kit just for one tiny cut.

  “Who did this to you?” she asks, rifling through the bandages. I scowl at Dillon.

  “Just a misunderstanding,” he says. I silently thank him.

  Mum slathers antibiotic cream all over Dillon’s face. I will her to say something about how skinny he is. Surely she must notice that his cheeks are hollow. She must feel how tiny he is when she holds his face. If she notices, then she can be the one to help him.

  “Why don’t you lie down, Mum? You look tired,” Dillon says. He wants her away.

  “I want to look after you,” she says. “I want to look after both of my babies. You’re growing up too fast.”

  “Why don’t you both go and lie on the sofa and I’ll bring you some lunch?”

  “Elsie, my darling girl. My sweet children, who want to look after me when their father has gone and deserted us. Look! Look how beautiful it is outside. How can I go to bed on a day like this?”

  She grabs her handbag. “I’m just popping out to get us some ice creams.”

  “Chocolate for me,” I call.

  When she’s gone, I shove the first-aid kit out the way and sit on the table with my feet on Dillon’s lap so he can’t move.

  “Does it hurt, poor Dilbil?” I ask nastily.

  “You should see the other guy.”

  I grab his face, and for a split second he looks frightened, but then he starts laughing. I let him go.

  “I have seen the ‘other guy,’ and you’ve probably broken his nose.”

  “Good,” Dillon says. “He deserved it.”

  “Why? I don’t understand. Did you really mean to do that? For God’s sake, we were just talking.”

  Dillon stares at me, like he can’t believe what I’m saying.

  “He’s the one who got you into all the diving.”

  “So?”

  “Can’t you see how dangerous it is? It’s messing with your head, making you think that you’re remembering things that aren’t true.”

  “What is it you’re so afraid of, Dil? What do you think I might remember?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing to remember.”

  “Yes, there is. I need to remember where Dad went, and I think you already know and you’re covering for him. I remembered that you were looking for someone that day. Not Eddie. Some girl. Who was it?”

  Dillon shakes his head. “You’re crazy. You’ve turned into a fish. And I’m going to tell Dad everything. He’s asked me to keep an eye on you—one word from me and he’ll be straight down that harbor putting a stop to all this.”

  It takes all my effort not to grab him by the throat. Instead I grit my teeth.

  “You tell Dad anything, and I will tell him all about you starving yourself to death, about the laxatives. He’ll drive you to the nearest hospital, and they will lock you up and force-feed you.”

  “That’s not allowed these days,” Dillon says. “Force-feeding is torture.”

  “It is allowed. It happened to someone in my year.”

  Dillon starts to cry. “Please don’t tell Dad. I’ll start eating again.”

  “If you eat the sandwich I’m about to make you, and keep your mouth shut about the diving, then I’ll keep quiet.”

  “Okay,” he says, defeated.

  He whimpers quietly as I sit next to him watching him break up the sandwich into tiny bits and force them into his mouth as though they were pieces of poison. I think Dillon’s bluffing about Dad. The phone hasn’t rung in ages, and Mum says he doesn’t pick up when she rings. But what if he’s not?

  “What did you do with my pills?” he asks. “I need them—I get all blocked up when I eat.”

  “I threw them away,” I say. “They’re dangerous.”

  He chucks a bit of sandwich on the floor, like a toddler having a tantrum.

  “Why were you at the bar last night, Dil? I thought you were too sick to come out.”

  “I’m not sick, and I don’t need to eat. I went to make sure you were okay. Lara told me where y
ou were going, and I was worried about you. You don’t like going to the city.”

  “I was fine. I was doing you a favor by keeping her away from you.”

  “No more diving, Elsie. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Eat the sandwich,” I say. “Please, just eat.”

  Later, after Mum and I have eaten two ice creams each, I remove Dillon’s laxatives from under my bed, along with my Superdrug stash, and hide them in my cupboard in the boathouse.

  12

  A week after Tay’s return, we shore dive from Rosemarkie beach. Tay follows me along the seabed as I twist and turn and run my fingers through the parsley seaweed. I put on a show for him and he laps it up. Bubbles trail from his open mouth as he laughs, and the minutes we spend under the surface feel like hours. And when our bodies collide against each other, our wetsuits feel invisible and we are just two creatures writhing around in our natural habitats. Dillon is wrong, though. I have not turned into a fish. I am turning into water, fluid and ever changing. I am not a visitor to the ocean; I am part of it.

  Tay and I play Rock Paper Scissors, and the loser has to remove an item of “clothing.” Tay loses. When he has removed both fins, his booties, his mask, and the top half of his wetsuit, and secured them under a rock, I start to feel sorry for him. He keeps blinking as the salt stings his eyes, and he has goose bumps all over his arms, but he still smiles.

  He arches his back and reaches over his head to grab his feet. He is almost a perfect circle. I glide through him and then back underneath him, and then he breaks and swoops down on me, engulfing me with arms, legs, body. We rise together, tangled. The sun beats down on our heads as we get our breath back.

  “I need a rest,” Tay gasps. “I can’t keep up with you.”

  “Liar,” I say. I know that he’s holding back.

  “I’ve got to save my energy,” he says. “Mick’s got me working hard at the diving club.”

  Tay thinks Danny needs a bit of time, so I haven’t been there since Tay’s been back, even though Danny still owes me a couple of lessons. Not having the lessons is okay because I’ve got Tay, but I miss hanging out at the Black Fin, and I miss Mick.

  As we bask in the sun on the pink grainy sand while our wetsuits hang over a rock, I tell Tay that I want to go back to the drop-off. He turns his head away from me.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “I’m not listening, because it’s a crazy idea.”

  He tells me it’s impossible. That I’ll need extra weights, that it’s too deep, too technical, too cold. The tides aren’t right, the current is too strong. He says it doesn’t matter how long I can hold my breath for; it’s the coming back up that’s risky. He lists a hundred reasons why it’s a crazy idea. Then I tell him that I’m going with or without his help.

  He remains lying still with his eyes closed. I want him to open them and look at me just for a second so he can see how important this is to me.

  “It’s his resting place. I just want to see it. I was so close before.”

  Tay rolls over and kisses me. He’s gentle, but his weight presses down on me.

  “Rest here with me,” he groans. “We’re not otters. We’re humans. We’re meant to do other things with our time.”

  Finally, I bargain with him.

  “If you come with me, I’ll get naked for you.”

  He opens one eye lazily.

  “When will you get naked?”

  “Soon,” I say.

  “I’ll think about it,” he says, then covers my mouth with his.

  We roll around in the sand until some kids climb over the rocks that were shielding us, sniggering. As I gather our wetsuits, Tay stares at something in the water.

  “Do you see that?” He’s beaming. I have never seen him look so beautiful, with his stubble and his new long hair. The salt in it catches the light, so it looks like he is covered in glitter. I look toward the spot that he’s peering at, but I can’t see anything.

  “Look closely. Can you see that reddish stone? You can see the light coming through it.”

  “What is it?” I ask, even though everything looks red to me.

  “It’s called jasper,” he whispers. “Actually, it’s a mineral, not a stone.”

  I wrinkle my nose at him. “I had a toy frog called Jasper. It had red eyes.”

  He walks across the beach to the water, his soles stained pink from the sand. He crouches down and scrabbles around for a bit, lifting some of the rocks and throwing them back so they make a clonk sound when they land. Then he walks back, grinning.

  “For you. Jasper quartz. I hope it’s better than a frog.”

  I take the mineral and inspect it. It nearly fills my whole palm and it’s beautiful—marbled red, pink, and orange, covered in crystals. It’s smooth on one side and rough on the other and looks like a pink pear drop candy. I want to put it in my mouth.

  “Can I keep it?”

  “Of course. It’s yours.” Tay sits back down beside me, looking pleased. “We could always take it to the Grotto and add it to the collection of stones,” he says. “Did the boys show you all the rocks we’ve collected? We take one in with us each time we dive there. For luck. We definitely don’t have a jasper quartz in there.”

  “I saw the stones.”

  I remember seeing something red when I was in there with the boat boys, but I can’t remember what kind of rock or stone it was.

  I curl my fingers around the quartz, and something else comes to me.

  “What are you smiling at?” Tay asks.

  “Just happy,” I reply. I have thought of another part of my plan.

  13

  Not long after mine and Eddie’s ninth birthdays, I came home from school one day to find my parents running up and down the stairs with boxes and plastic bags. Eddie was sitting in the hallway, inside a large cardboard box that he pretended was an airplane. “Brace, brace, emergency,” he was saying.

  My father, carrying a black bin liner under one arm and a small box in his hands, majestically stepped over him.

  “The seat belt sign is on,” he said to Eddie in his announcement voice.

  “Are we moving?” I asked, dropping my school bag by the door and kicking off my shoes. My parents were always talking about moving.

  “We’re having a rearrange,” my father explained, and nodded for me to go upstairs. All my toys were gone from my bedroom, and in their place were Dillon’s muddy trainers and smelly swimming shorts.

  “Where’s Jasper?” I asked, wanting to cry. Jasper. I couldn’t sleep without Jasper the frog and his lovely velvety fur.

  “He’s in your new room!” Mum suddenly appeared behind me with an armful of Dillon’s clothes. She dumped the clothes on my bed and danced off across the hallway to Dillon’s room.

  Dillon was sitting on his bed, arms folded, looking cross.

  I turned to Mum, confused, and she sat next to Dillon and pulled me onto her lap. Dillon said I was too old to be sitting on Mum’s lap, but I let her wrap her arms around me, making the most of Eddie not being around.

  “We think you’re old enough to have your own room now. It’s better if the boys share.”

  Dillon huffed.

  “It’s not fair,” he whined. “I’m the oldest, and I should have my own room.”

  “It’s not for long, Dil. Just a year or so until we can afford a bigger place.”

  “But Eddie is so messy. He’ll ruin all of my stuff, and I won’t have anywhere to do my homework.”

  My father appeared in the doorway and smiled at us all sitting on the bed. His long legs made angular shapes against the frame.

  “We’ll make sure that Eddie doesn’t disturb you,” he says. “You can do your homework in here after school, and we’ll keep him downstairs.”

  “But what if I want to listen to my music at night? It’s not fair!”

  “Can I paint my walls green and silver?” I asked.

  My father laughed and Dillon stormed past him, kicking
the skirting board as he went.

  “I’m serious, Dad.”

  “No, you can’t paint your walls green and silver, Elsie. But you can help me give it a new lick of white.” My father was always painting things white. He came into the room and kissed Mum on the forehead.

  “You two are gross,” I said.

  After I’d moved all my clothes, I climbed into my new bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. It was cold and drafty in my new room, but I liked it. Jasper’s red eyes rattled next to me as I tried to get comfortable. I nearly didn’t get to sleep with Jasper, because Eddie wanted to have him in his bed. Mum pried Jasper from his hands and said that he had his own toys. I still felt guilty, though. As I snuggled down, I saw a movement under the door and heard a small scratchy sound.

  “Eddie the ghost, is that you?”

  “Brace,” I heard him say softly. “Emergency, emergency, crash landing,” then something clattered down the stairs, and I heard Dillon yell at him to get back into bed. A door slammed.

  “This is illegal!” Dillon shouted. But nobody responded.

  14

  I plug my memory stick into my father’s old laptop and sit on my bed scrolling through the PDFs I’ve downloaded from Freedive.com. Eventually, I find what I’m looking for: weighting for deep dives. I write down the information on the back of a leaflet about adopting a porpoise.

  If diving over forty meters, you should have neutral buoyancy at ten meters. Check by taking extra weights down to ten meters and gradually offload until you hover.

  I feel the jasper quartz in my hand and try to work out how heavy it is. Probably not even a pound. I’m going to need quite a few weights.

  I scroll to the bottom of the PDF and read the paragraph about deep-diving ascents. The last few meters of the ascent are the most dangerous, it says. With risk of blackout. But I’m not worried about this—if I get my weighting right, everything will be okay. I note down a few reminders for myself: keep vertical, don’t tilt head, relax.