In At the Deep End

by Penelope Janu

  Mum’s wetsuit fits me reasonably well. If she had lived I’m confident we would have been able to wear each other’s clothes. Slim build, long legs and medium height. I’m not sure why I kept her wetsuit for so many years. It’s not like it’s been useful to me. Maybe it was because—besides the books and photographs she kept on The Watch, and her pearls—she didn’t leave many personal items behind.

  We were at Farnando de Noronha, a mountainous archipelago off the north-east coast of Brazil, the week before Mum died. She and Dad had joined other environmentalists lobbying the UN to declare the region a UNESCO heritage site. There’s a lot of footage of Mum and me proudly wearing our matching wetsuits—black neoprene with yellow zips—and diving with hammerhead sharks.

  In an attempt to keep the cold out I tighten the voluminous yellow beach towel I’ve wrapped around my shoulders. My teeth are chattering. I turn my head when I hear a rustle of leaves at the side of the house. The lilly pilly hedge has taken over the path and it’s hard to get through, especially in the dark.

  Per walks to the foot of the steps and stands feet apart in front of me. Action hero personified. His wetsuit is matt black and fits him like a glove. It shows off the muscles in his chest and his six-pack. His quad and calf muscles are clearly delineated too. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder. I suspect it holds the wetsuit Kat tried to give me last week. He’s wearing black sheepskin boots—they should look ridiculous because he has a wetsuit on, but somehow they don’t.

  I focus on his boots as I stand and walk down the steps. As I pass him I say, ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  His hand shoots out. It’s like a vice on the top of my arm and stops me in my tracks. I must be imagining the warm imprint of each of his fingers because it would be impossible to feel them through Mum’s wetsuit.

  ‘Like I said in my text,’ Per says, ‘we need to talk.’

  I wrench my arm away. My shoulder pulls a little. ‘What about?’

  He steps in front of me. ‘To start with, you look like a bumblebee.’ His hand finds a route through the folds of the yellow towel. He flicks the wetsuit zip tag that lies at my throat. ‘And this is too big.’

  I gather the towel tightly around my shoulders again and step out of his reach.

  ‘I want to wear it. It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s old, and off the shelf. This one is custom made.’ He drops the bag at my feet. ‘Put it on.’

  ‘No.’

  The neutral expression he’s been wearing evaporates. He clenches his jaw. His nostrils flare. ‘It will keep you dry, and warm. You’re already freezing and pale and you’re not even in the water yet.’

  The words ‘dry’ and ‘warm’ don’t match up with the word ‘water’. Before I went to Antarctica I was happy to sail on The Watch whenever I took a break from school. Rough seas didn’t bother me too much. I avoided the bridge in stormy weather and stayed below deck. Getting to shore in an inflatable boat was manageable—even when I got splashed. And I could watch the surfers and swimmers at the beach without my heart rate increasing. If my feet got wet in the surf I walked up the beach to a safer stretch of sand.

  In the past few months just thinking about the water has taken me back to where I was years ago. I clear my throat.

  ‘Thanks for telling me how I’m feeling. I repeat, let’s get this over with.’

  He blocks my path when I try to walk around him.

  ‘Can we get this over with? Please sir?’

  ‘Stop it, Harriet. Put on the wetsuit.’

  I throw the towel on the steps and spread my arms wide. ‘I’m wearing one already. See? It’s not custom made, but I can’t think how your wetsuit is either, since I’ve never been measured for it.’

  He takes a giant stride, and grasps my shoulders. Then he looks me up and down. He spits his words at me.

  ‘Your weight,’ he narrows his eyes, ‘is about 54 kilos. You’re a little over 172 centimetres tall. Waist diameter,’ he spans it with his fingers, ‘roughly 70 centimetres. BMI 22 per cent. Do you want to hear the rest?’

  I’m too surprised to answer. I don’t know my waist measurement, but the other things are spot on. He’s still staring at my body but when I lift my hands to his chest to push him away they freeze. His wetsuit fabric is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. It’s soft, pliable, and silky against my fingers, like the skin of a dolphin. Per slowly inches closer until my hands, palms flat, are splayed on his chest. He’s still firing statistics at me. He tells me what my arm span is, and my hip measurement, and makes a calculated guess about the breadth of my shoulders.

  ‘Your legs are about ten centimetres shorter than mine,’ he says.

  We both look down and compare. From our knees to our hips our legs are only a few centimetres apart. I have the same tingling feeling at the tops of my thighs that I had the last time he held me. I try to think of something else.

  ‘Maybe it’s less than that.’

  ‘It’s not.’ He’s so close that when he speaks, his breath ruffles my hair. It’s loose; I still can’t put my hands behind my head to tie it back.

  A kookaburra, the young male that Liam feeds, flies above our heads and perches on the railing. He looks at us and we look back at him. Behind me the sea roars; I hear the waves as they crash against the sand. I’m sure Per would let me go if I pushed against his chest but I don’t even try to get away. I’m even more afraid of what’s on the other side of the dunes than I am of the way I feel whenever we touch. I think it’s me who leans in closer.

  ‘Harriet?’

  Our eyes meet. He runs his hands up my arms and over my shoulders. He touches my chin. The cut I got on the rock shelf barely shows now, and the grazes have healed. I like the feel of his fingers.

  ‘You’re always so cold,’ he says, coming so near that our noses almost touch. When I close my eyes he softly growls my name. And then he says something in Norwegian, like he did when he was in my room. I recognise one word. ‘Trøbbel.’

  ‘You’re not saying I’m troubled, are you?’ I ask.

  He takes a breath. ‘No. I’m saying you are trouble.’

  ‘Oh.’ I turn my head to the side so my ear is resting against his chest. His heart thumps. He wraps his arms around me. I should move away but he’s so warm.

  His thumb moves to my bottom lip, and he presses down on it. He runs a finger along it, back and forth, and whispers. ‘Don’t clench it.’

  Which reminds me of when I bit his lip in my bedroom, and the argument we had. It suits him and the Professor to get me back in the water at a time that’s convenient to them. When I jerk away I hit beneath his chin with the top of my head. He releases me and I stagger, and then we’re far apart.

  I get my balance, and cross my arms over my chest.

  He rubs his chin, looking at me suspiciously.

  ‘I didn’t mean to headbutt you.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No. But,’ I take a breath, ‘please stop touching me.’

  I turn my back on him and neither of us speak for a while. I listen to his breathing. He probably listens to mine. Now it’s my heart that’s thumping. I start blowing out breaths like smoke rings, and watch as the white condensation forms gossamer circles in front of my eyes. It’s getting lighter now. It must be six thirty. If I can delay him for another hour maybe he’ll leave me alone.

  It’s like he’s read my mind. ‘I’m not leaving, Harriet. And we may as well deal with this before we start.’

  I turn around and face him. ‘With what?’

  ‘I’m attracted to you.’

  I close my eyes for a moment to gather my thoughts. When I open them again I’m just as flustered as I was before. He doesn’t seem to respect me in any way that matters. He thinks I’m incompetent. So surely he wouldn’t want to be attracted to me physically. In which case, why bring it up? The silence is never-ending and I have to say something.

  ‘I’m sorry I bit your lip! I don’t know why I did it.’

&nb
sp; ‘Because you’re attracted to me.’

  This is excruciating. He’s just standing there.

  ‘You made me a sandwich,’ I say. ‘And before … I was cold. And anxious. I don’t like you. I mean, why would I?’

  He blows out a breath. Then he shrugs. ‘Have it your way. If you’re too immature to acknowledge the attraction, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.’

  Immature? That’s what Grant called me, though it didn’t seem to worry him when we were having sex.

  The kookaburra is still on the railing. He’s looking through the glass to the kitchen, waiting for Liam to appear with his breakfast.

  Per picks up the wetsuit bag and throws it on the deck. ‘We’ve still got an hour,’ he says. ‘I won’t take you out of your depth. Not today.’

  He doesn’t respect my strengths, or understand my weaknesses. I’ve let him touch me, and allowed myself to feel safe in his arms. My teeth are chattering again. I’m light-headed. He’ll tell me I’m pale any moment.

  He frowns and holds out his hand. ‘Harriet?’

  He’ll force me to walk over the dunes and down to the sea. He’ll do things on his terms. I take a deep breath—and run.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Whenever we could, we’d anchor The Watch off the coast and set up camp, sometimes for weeks at a time. We’d explore the coastline, talk to the people who lived there, and stretch our legs. Drew would organise an exercise regime for the crew. We’d play games, and race each other. By the time I was a teenager the fastest of the crew could outrun me on the straight, but it was almost impossible to catch me on uneven terrain. Dad once told me I ran like a gazelle. ‘If a doe is threatened, she flies over the ground helter-skelter exactly like you do,’ he said.

  I’m not as fit as I’ve been in the past, my shoulder is sore, and my hip is stiff, but I have a head start because Per has to kick off his sheepskin boots. I hear him cursing as he does it. I’m heading for the ocean via the dunes. The twisting paths are familiar even in the half-light, and I know where the fences are lowest and easiest to hurdle. I leap over native grasses and shrubs, jump down the steps—two at a time—that lead to the beach, and land on the soft sand just before he does. I swerve, avoiding his hand by a hair’s breadth. Then I sprint as fast as Mum’s wetsuit allows towards the sea.

  My quads ache, and my lungs are on fire. Per runs alongside me once we’re on the beach. He knows I can’t escape with the water in front of me and sand all around. I pull up a few metres from the shore break and catch my breath. The wind is coming in from the east and the waves are over a metre high. There’s a rip to the south—the whitecaps are irregular and choppy. A sandbar fifty metres out appears and disappears with the swell. When I turn my back on the ocean I see a figure in the distance walking towards the pool—it’ll be one of the Amazons. Otherwise the beach is deserted.

  ‘Why did you run?’ Per says. He’s not panting like I am, and his voice carries easily over the pounding waves and the stiff breeze coming off the sea. His hair is so short that it barely lifts in the gusts. Mine is flying around everywhere.

  ‘I needed to think. I have to tell you stuff.’

  He takes a step towards me. I can’t afford to back away or I’ll be even closer to the waves, so I hold out my hand and he pauses. If I don’t take control of this situation, he will. Even though my voice is shaky, my words are clear enough.

  ‘The water. Even thinking about putting my head under. It frightens me.’

  ‘I see it in your eyes.’

  His tone is measured. Is this the voice he uses with the men and women under his command when there’s a crisis and he has to calm them down? The one that makes them do what he wants?

  ‘Quit looking at my eyes.’

  He looks at my mouth. Then he shifts his gaze to the dunes, and then out to sea. He’s breathing deeply; I watch the rise and fall of his chest. He shrugs. ‘All right.’

  ‘The fear, it makes me vulnerable. I don’t want to be like that, doing things like …’ I wave my arm towards the house, ‘like what happened back there. And before.’

  He opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but doesn’t say anything.

  ‘So if I let you help me with this water thing …’ When I point to the ocean my hand shakes. ‘You can’t touch me. Or say there’s an attraction between us, or anything like that.’

  His fists open and close, and his mouth is a thin angry line. I’ve somehow infuriated him.

  ‘Are you suggesting I’d act inappropriately?’ he says. ‘That I’d take advantage of your fear for some sort of … What, Harriet? Sexual gratification? Is that what you mean? Jesus.’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I just …’ All of a sudden I’m exhausted. I hardly slept last night. I’ve been on tenterhooks with Per for what seems like hours. I’m barely three metres from the ocean and my breathing is uneven, my head hurts, and I’m on the cusp of a panic attack. I don’t know what I’m thinking or saying anymore. And to top it all off, I was the one who bit him, not the other way around, so maybe I’m making a big fuss over nothing. But he called me immature. I don’t trust myself. Or him.

  ‘You have to promise,’ I say.

  He tips his head back and curses some more. Then he looks me up and down. His eyes are icy grey. ‘I will not touch you in any manner inconsistent with getting you to swim. Happy?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well I’m not. I’m fucking offended.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Sorry.’

  He lifts his wetsuit cuff. He’s wearing a fancy black watch. ‘We’ll start tomorrow,’ he says, turning around and walking a few paces. When I don’t follow he turns again. Then he runs a hand through his hair and massages his neck. ‘I’m meeting the Chief of Navy at eight thirty. He’s kind of important. Can we get back?’

  The wind suddenly drops. I hardly need to raise my voice. ‘Just one more thing. You and Tan, now you’re best friends, are forcing me to do this, right? So that I can go on the ship.’

  He takes a breath. ‘Tan has realised it’s not safe to have you near the water. And I don’t want the inconvenience of resuscitating you again.’

  ‘Getting me to swim is not going to be as easy as either of you think. I want your word that if you can’t fix me in the next few weeks, you and Tan will leave me alone.’

  ‘If you can’t swim I won’t let you on the ship.’

  ‘I get that. But once you finish your research, I get to do what I want again, like I used to. Do you agree to convince Tan that that’s okay?’

  As I’m speaking I’m taking tiny backwards steps towards the sea. I don’t want to chicken out, so I keep my eyes on Per. The sand is increasingly wet against the soles of my feet. Then the water rises to my ankles. At any moment a wave will rush in. I was hot after running down here. Now I’m freezing again, but sweating too. I wipe the hair out of my face and feel the clamminess of my skin. My heart is racing—it feels like it’s about to burst through my rib cage.

  ‘Do you agree? Say it!’

  He’s watching me walk backwards. ‘All right. If you still can’t swim when I’ve finished with the ship, I’ll talk to Tan.’ He’s using his calm voice again. ‘You’re hyperventilating, Harriet. And so pale it’s … I think you’re about to pass out.’ He extends his arm. ‘Take my hand. We’ll do this tomorrow.’

  I look over my shoulder. There’s a wave twenty metres out. ‘You should know what you’re in for. I’m worse now … worse than Antarctica.’ The water level is around my knees. It gets lower as the wave gets closer. Words leave my lips in fits and starts. ‘I don’t only … retch … pass out …’

  The wave hits the back of my legs and whitewash froths up to my hips. It splashes my stomach and chest. There’s a drag on my lower body as the water is sucked out to sea again. I’m ready for it, and brace myself. Per stands behind me. He’s yelling but I can’t make out the words. I can see that his hands are on my arms but I can’t feel them. At first I’m conscious of the rivulets of
water that run down my body, and then all I’m aware of is the roaring in my head.

  Per pulls me out of the water and drags me up the beach. As soon as I feel the soft sand under my feet I collapse onto my hands and knees. He must suspect what’s about to happen because he twists my hair into a rope and wedges it under the neck of Mum’s wetsuit. Then his hands are on my shoulders. For a moment I freeze, then I scurry out of his grasp like a crab. I yell obscenities at him and I think he backs away but I’m not sure because that’s when the migraine really kicks in.

  Lights flash in front of my eyes. They’re brighter than I’ve ever seen them, but that’s what I always think. I count and wait, until the pressure behind my temples builds and my brain explodes into a million colliding fragments. Bile fills my throat. I gag and retch. My chest muscles cramp and my breath comes out in wheezy gasps. I vomit a stream of foul-tasting yellow. Then green. And then foamy white. Tears and snot and saliva run down my face. My teeth chatter; my arms and legs quiver and shake.

  I’m aware of voices. What’s Helga doing here?

  As I struggle to sit she wraps a towel around my shoulders. She tries to brush my hair back from my face but I twist away and do it myself. So she turns her attention to Allan and bosses him around. He gives me a bottle of water so I can rinse my mouth, and passes me Helga’s wrap, the one with bright blue and green peacocks on it. I bunch the fabric into my hands.

  ‘Use it for your face, Harry,’ Helga says.

  I rock on the sand until the pain in my head eases and I can breathe without sobbing. Then I send Helga a weak watery smile.

  ‘I’ll ruin it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It washes beautifully. So blow your nose, there’s a good girl.’

  Per stands a couple of metres away, arms folded across his chest, watching what’s going on. The sun is up. It must be well after seven. If his meeting is in Balmoral it’ll take more than an hour to get there in the traffic. And he’ll have to change first.

  ‘You’d better get going.’ My voice is croaky.