Breathing Underwater

by Julia Green

  ‘I’m trying to work it out,’ I tell Danny. ‘That’s why I keep going over and over it in my head, what exactly happened, remembering everything bit by bit, trying to make sense of it all. Kind of looking for clues. It’s like there’s a piece missing.’

  Danny fiddles around with a piece of seaweed. He chucks pebbles at a rock. He gets up and wanders down to the sea and stands staring at it for the longest time.

  I shiver. ‘Shall we go back?’

  He nods. When he turns round his face is in the shadow. I can’t see his expression.

  ‘I’m sorry I landed all that on you,’ I say. ‘I know it’s pretty heavy stuff.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ Danny says. He sounds almost fierce. ‘I’m glad you told me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Listening.’ I shrug. Now it’s me who’s embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry if I didn’t say the right things.’

  ‘You did fine. There aren’t any right things, in any case.’

  We start the climb back up the rocks. ‘You won’t tell anyone about any of this, will you?’ I say. ‘Not about the secret beach, and not about Joe, either.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  As we clamber over the rocks and along the ledge, through the passage between the wind-carved boulders, it seems as if each twist and turn takes us back into something more ordinary and everyday. It’s a relief. The heavy feeling in my heart begins to shift. By the time we get back to Wind Down we are talking about the usual things: having another barbecue, and whether or not to go snorkelling on Bryluen. We go through the wicket gate into the top field. His sister Hattie waves from their tent.

  ‘Want to come back to ours for tea?’

  I nod.

  The kitchen stinks of fish.

  ‘There you are!’ Evie says. ‘I was beginning to wonder.’

  ‘I had tea with Danny’s family,’ I say.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Yes. What are you cooking?’

  ‘Crabmeat. Sorry about the smell.’ Evie lifts a pan from the stove and puts it on to the table. ‘Gramps has been asking for you.’

  ‘How is he?’ I feel bad that I’ve hardly thought about him all day.

  ‘Much better. Still needs to rest, but he looks brighter. Go up and see him.’

  He smiles when I put my head round the door. ‘Hello, stranger!’

  His face still looks grey against the white pillow. I go right in and take his hand.

  ‘You’re all wind-blown,’ he says. ‘You smell of the sea.’

  ‘That’s the smell from the kitchen!’ I say, wrinkling up my nose. ‘So, are you better?’

  ‘Getting there.’

  ‘Do you want anything?’

  ‘You could bring me up some honey,’ Gramps says.

  ‘What, on toast or something?’

  ‘By itself, with a spoon.’

  ‘Hang on, then.’

  Jars of honey from Gramps’ bees are lined up along the shelf in the kitchen cupboard. They glow in the evening light, as if each pot is full of sunshine. I take out one that’s already been opened and carry it up to Gramps.

  He takes sips of it from a spoon. ‘Like medicine,’ Gramps says, smacking his lips. ‘It’s healing, that honey. Those bees know a thing or two.’

  I stay there a bit longer, to keep him company. He closes his eyes after a while and I’m about to tiptoe out when he says, ‘This fine weather won’t last.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Make the most of it, while you can.’

  ‘I am. I might go snorkelling with Danny.’

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘One of the boys camping this year. The one who looks a bit like Joe.’

  Gramps opens his eyes. They’re all pale and rheumy. ‘You be careful.’

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned Joe. Gramps’ voice sounds shaky and old, suddenly.

  ‘It’s not natural, breathing underwater,’ he says.

  ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ I say. ‘You don’t go deep, like diving. You have the mask and tube. You know that, Gramps.’

  He tuts.

  ‘But I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.’

  Gramps dabs his hand in the air, trying to catch at a fly that’s buzzed in through the open window. He sighs. ‘Don’t take any notice of me,’ he says. ‘I can’t keep you wrapped in cotton-wool for ever.’ He sits up a bit more against the pillow. ‘I think about him every day, you know,’ he says. ‘I go over everything I said to him, those afternoons I was teaching him to sail.’

  ‘Oh, Gramps!’ I’ve a lump in my throat.

  ‘I’ve gone over and over it in my mind that many times. It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t work out why it went so badly wrong. How he could have forgotten everything, like that. What made him so . . . so careless.’

  Evie comes in with a tray. She takes one look at Gramps. ‘You’ve worn yourself out, Bill! Better let him get some rest, now,’ she says to me.

  I lean over to kiss his papery cheek.

  Gramps smoothes my hair. ‘Life’s precious, remember,’ he says. ‘Make the most of it. Don’t take any notice of me.’

  Instead of going to my room, I sit in Joe’s, writing in my notebook. It sort of brings him closer, sitting with his things round me. My pen scratches a tiny figure in mid-jump from one rock to another. Did I see him, this morning? And if I did, what does it mean? Is he really here, on the island? Not a ghost exactly. Not just a memory . . .

  I was so sure at the time, but already it’s beginning to seem like something else I might have imagined. I’m glad I didn’t tell Danny about it.

  I think about all the things I did tell him. I don’t know what came over me. But it was OK, really, how he reacted and everything. It’s weird to think how just one summer later there’s a whole new set of people here who never knew Joe. Matt and Izzy as well as Danny. Life goes on. It just does. There isn’t any other way.

  But the mystery is still there. Why Joe made all those mistakes. Like Gramps said.

  Did he do it on purpose? Is that possible?

  It can’t make any difference to him now. But I really, really want to understand what happened that night. To find the missing piece in the jigsaw.

  There must be something I’ve forgotten, even though I’ve gone over and over it all, bit by bit, what happened last summer.

  I look round the room, as if it might be hiding something. If only Joe had kept a notebook, like me, with all his feelings written down. Or written letters or something, anything, to show me what he was feeling like, last summer. There aren’t even emails or texts or anything. Nothing left behind. No words at all.

  So who might know? Who might he have talked to?

  The answer is staring me in the face.

  All the times I’ve come in here, and yet I’ve never noticed it before. I only see it now because I’m lying on Joe’s bed, where he’d have lain, seeing as if through his eyes. Above the door frame there’s a tiny photo propped up, like one you get from an instant photo booth at a station or somewhere.

  Samphire.

  Twenty-one

  That night I dream about Huw. He’s holding this girl in his arms, and of course it’s Samphire, her long hair spilling over his tanned arm, but as I watch, she changes and becomes Izzy. He’s holding Izzy, bending over her, kissing her open mouth. I want to call out a warning to her, but my voice is frozen over and I’m helpless, speechless, and then someone’s pulling me away from the window. It’s Matt, and I’m filled with longing for him to hold me like Huw’s holding Izzy, and that’s the moment I wake up, hot and thirsty in the early hours when it’s still dark.

  My heart’s pounding. I push back the covers and lean out to the window, push it open a bit wider. In the stillness of a windless night the sea’s voice calls loud and insistent, repeating itself, relentlessly pounding the shore.

  Someone else is awake: I hear
Evie and Gramps’ door open; feet pad along the landing and down to the kitchen. The back door squeaks as it’s pushed open. I can’t see the back garden from here, but I imagine Evie standing on the lawn in bare feet, looking up at the stars. I hear the kitchen tap being turned on, and then footsteps back up the stairs, along the landing. The door shuts again.

  Cooler now, I turn on my side and let the sound of the sea lull me back towards sleep. Just as I’m dropping off, it comes to me as a revelation, what I need to do next. It’s obvious, really.

  Talk to Huw. Ask him about Samphire. Find her. Track her down.

  Do I dare?

  I try not to think about it, the next few days. I decide I’m just going to be on holiday like everyone else. So on Thursday I go with the kids from the campsite on the boat trip to Bryluen. It’s the best place to snorkel, in the calm water of the east bay, and this will be Danny’s first go. I’m going to teach him.

  I show him how to clear the mask and blow water out of the tube, and how to go backwards with the fins.

  ‘You shouldn’t really hold your breath for more than a few seconds,’ I say.

  He gets the hang of it quite fast, and we swim together, parallel to the shore. Maddie and Lisa and the others don’t stay in long: it’s freezing cold even with wetsuits. But I don’t want to stop swimming. I love the way the light filters through the water and makes patterns on the wave-ridged sand. A shoal of tiny silver fish dart in front of us: we reach out our hands and the shoal parts like liquid mercury.

  Danny stands up, spluttering. ‘Had enough!’

  I leave him behind and swim out deeper by myself. Spider crabs scuttle along near the deep shadow of rocks under a fringe of waving red sea-anenomes. I love the feel of my hair streaming out behind me and the speed with which I can glide below the surface with just a flick of the fins. And then the pressure in my lungs begins to build and I’ve got to breathe so I arch my back and fin gently up towards the sun. As I reach the surface I pull off the mask and take a huge shuddering breath.

  I swim slowly back to Danny.

  ‘Wow!’ he says.

  ‘I love it. I’d forgotten how much!’

  ‘You stayed under ages.’

  ‘You can survive longer without oxygen underwater than on dry land, you know.’ I can practically hear Joe’s voice telling me all this. Your heart-rate slows and most of your blood goes to the brain, rather than the feet and hands. Oxygen-saving mode. Even if you’re unconscious. But never ignore the desire to breathe. That’s how people drown.

  Joe knew all this. Like he knew about boats, and currents, and navigation. My question about the accident won’t go away; it’s gnawing away at me, the invisible maggot at the core of a windfall apple. He knew all this, and he still let it happen. Why?

  Maddie and Lisa wave from the beach. They’re already dressed, making their way towards the café.

  ‘Come on, then, show-off! Hurry up!’ Danny says, teeth chattering. ‘I’m totally freezing.’

  Bryluen is bigger and busier than St Ailla. It has hotels and pubs and its own campsite and a sailing school, and at least five shops. You might think it’d be a relief to get off our tiny island and go somewhere else where there’s more to do, but it’s not like that for me at all. I feel unsettled all the time we’re there. Even though I love the snorkelling, and it’s fun larking about on the wide sandy beach with everyone, and watching Will and Ben try windsurfing, a bit of me can’t help longing for it to be five o’clock so we can go and wait on the jetty for the Spirit to pick us up and take us home to our own island.

  The first thing I notice as the boat comes round into the bay is that instead of Matt, it’s Huw crewing and doing the tickets, just like he did last summer. My heart gives a lurch. It’s as if I’m not being allowed to forget. Not that I can talk to Huw right now, of course. He’s at work. There are too many people. But even so, I’m going to have to do it sooner or later.

  ‘Where’s Matt?’ Lisa asks Huw as we climb on board.

  ‘Getting things ready for tonight,’ Huw says.

  ‘Why? What’s happening tonight?’

  ‘Izzy’s having a party,’ he says. ‘On the beach. You’re all invited, of course.’

  The boat’s packed with day trippers. We stand together at the front of the boat, and even after the last load of holidaymakers have got off at Main Island and we’re the only passengers left on board, we stay there, rather than sitting on the empty benches. As we come out of the sheltered harbour into the Sound, Dave revs up the engine. Huw and the others egg him on. Going against the current, the boat makes a huge wash that sprays over the bows and over us. Everyone laughs. We’re wet through by the time we’re back at St Ailla.

  ‘Don’t forget tonight,’ Huw announces as we pile off again at our jetty. ‘Eight o’clock on the beach.’

  All the time I’m getting ready to go out, I’m working out what to say to Huw. He’s bound to be there. It’s a golden opportunity. But it’s scary. For a start, I’ve hardly said two words to him this summer: I’ve been avoiding him as much as possible. I’m still too angry. Then there’s the way he is – older, arrogant, a bit aloof – and that’s all before actually thinking what to say, and how to begin.

  You remember that girl last year? Samphire. Did you keep in touch? Have you got her address?

  It sounds too weird.

  Remember that girl last year? Did you know how much Joe liked her?

  Weirder still.

  I’ve been trying to work out something about my brother Joe . . .

  Evie looks up from her paper as I come into the kitchen. ‘That blue top suits you,’ she says. ‘Better than all those dark colours you’ve been wearing.’

  ‘They’re just my normal clothes,’ I say. ‘Everyone wears black, Evie.’

  ‘Well. Enjoy the party. Take something warm for later. I won’t wait up. Just put your head round the door so I know you’re safely back.’

  Smoke’s already curling up from a huge driftwood fire by the time I get there, and Luke’s playing his guitar. Izzy waves as I pick my way across the stones. She looks gorgeous: she’s wearing this thin, floaty orange top and a long pink cotton skirt, like a sari. Her hair’s loose down her back, straighter than usual. Matt stacks more wood on the fire and it sends a shower of sparks spiralling upwards. From the other side of the fire, Maddie waves her can at me as a greeting. Lisa squeezes herself between Maddie and Huw. I can’t see Danny anywhere. My courage is already draining away.

  Maddie leans over towards me. ‘Have you heard? Izzy’s going away.’

  ‘Back to her mum’s,’ Lisa adds.

  ‘Why? How long for?’

  ‘A level results. And her mum’s birthday or something.’ They both laugh.

  I don’t see anything funny about it.

  ‘So Matt will be at a loose end,’ Maddie says.

  ‘We’ll have to keep an eye on him,’ Lisa says. ‘Keep him busy. While the cat’s away . . .’

  It’s horrible. I don’t know what to think. Are they teasing me? Have they noticed something about Matt and me? Is it obvious to everyone?

  It’s a relief to see Danny and Hattie coming over.

  Hattie gives me a hug.

  ‘You’ve made a friend for life,’ Danny says. ‘Reading all those stories to her that afternoon.’

  ‘I should hope so!’ I smile gratefully at Hattie and she wriggles closer. ‘So how come you’re allowed to a party this late?’

  ‘It’s only for a while,’ Danny says. ‘Dad’s taking her back in half an hour.’

  We watch the fire together, and eat sausages and crisps. I try not to think about Maddie and Lisa, that look. I don’t want to think about Izzy going away. Just as I’m getting to know her. Just when I need her.

  Hattie gets hauled off by her dad soon after, kicking and going on. He lifts her on to his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t WANT to go to bed. It’s not fair! I’m NOT tired!’

  I listen to their voices as they jog
away across the beach, his jollying her along, playing at horses, her protesting all the way. A memory tugs at me. Riding like that on my dad’s shoulders, and Joe running behind, trying to catch us, and much further behind, Mum, though I can’t remember her really. I just know that’s where she’d have been: not quite part of the game, and carrying all the beach stuff, probably. Somebody has to, after all. A sudden pang of loneliness grips me. Mum. Dad. Joe. Me. None of us together now.

  The mood of the party changes once the families and young kids have gone. The fire looks brighter against a darkening sky. Matt and Izzy pile another load of driftwood on to the flames. Huw gets up to help them. It’s not a random load of wood, I see now: it’s the remains of an old boat, still nailed together at the bows. Odd, and sad, to see a boat burning.

  ‘Like a funeral pyre,’ Izzy says, as if she’s read my thoughts. ‘A Viking burial.’

  ‘We should sail it out on to the sea still burning,’ someone suggests, but no one moves. More cans and bottles are passed round. Danny hands me a bottle of beer.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘How was the snorkelling?’ Izzy asks Danny.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘I hear Freya’s a bit of an expert,’ Izzy says.

  ‘She swims like a fish,’ Danny says.

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘That’s because she’s a water sign,’ Izzy says. ‘What about you?’

  Danny hasn’t a clue what she’s talking about.

  ‘When’s your birthday?’ I prompt.

  ‘April.’

  ‘So you’re Aries, or Taurus. Fire, or Earth. Not water, anyway.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Star signs,’ I explain. ‘Duh!’

  ‘That’s just stupid,’ Danny says. ‘How can stars possibly affect people?’

  Izzy gets her dreamy look. ‘There’s more to life than we can know or understand, Danny boy. Not everything can be explained by science.’

  ‘No?’

  Izzy laughs. ‘There you go: such a rationalist. You can’t help it. You must be Taurus.’

  Danny snorts and shoves Izzy so she crumples up, giggling, on to the pebbles.