Breathing Underwater (13 page)

His clothes rustle as he turns towards Izzy to kiss her. I know that's what's happening without seeing any of it. I seem to feel it, almost. The brushing of fingertips. Lips.

I'm totally still, silent, bathed in starlight.

‘Shooting star!' Izzy says. ‘There!'

‘A comet, more like,' Matt says.

‘No, shooting star: rock, hurtling through space towards earth. One day there will be a huge one, big enough to obliterate Earth completely.'

‘Cheerful, aren't you, Izz?' Matt says.

‘It's the truth. Everybody knows it.'

‘But right now, scientists round the world are busy working out ways to deflect it, change its course or blow it up before it gets here.'

‘That's what they like to think,' Izzy says. ‘Some people like to think they can control everything. It terrifies them if they're not in control. What do you think, Freya?'

‘I don't know. It's complicated. I guess no one likes to think about all this ending – this planet, I mean. But we all do have to end, sometime. Like, individually. We're all going to die one day, whether we like it or not.'

‘Not,' Matt says. ‘Not yet, not for a long, long time.'

‘You don't know,' I say. ‘No one does.'

We're all quiet for a bit. I imagine Izzy nudging Matt in the ribs, to shut him up.

‘What if we die, but it's not the end? What if we just change?'

‘Into what?'

‘I'm not sure. Not ghosts, exactly. More, like, a spirit you, which doesn't need a body.'

‘Your soul?'

‘Yes. Something like that.'

‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Everyone's made of stardust, did you know that?' Matt says. ‘All matter originally comes from the stars. So you, and me, and Freya, we're all made of stars really.'

Stardust.
I like that.

That dust to dust stuff comes from the funeral service. They make you think about it, in the church, and afterwards too, for the burial. I swallow hard, blink back the tears that come like an automatic reaction when I remember back to that horrible day. Sometimes I wish it had been at the little island churchyard rather than the bleak town cemetery back home. Joe's friends, sixteen-year-old kids from school, in tears, standing around awkwardly.

Izzy stands up, starts walking away across to the edge of the field. For a few precious minutes it's just Matt and me lying on the wet grass, side by side. I hardly dare breathe. I keep totally still and stare at the stars. Matt moves his hand, ever so slightly, towards mine. Touching mine, even. Although afterwards I can't really be sure. In any case, it was just by accident. It didn't mean anything.

So why do I keep thinking about it, as the three of us walk slowly back to the campsite? And when I get home, and climb into bed, why do I put my other hand on the place he touched, as if he's left a mark there? Why do I hold it all night?

I lie under the faded quilt, my body burning with new feelings, aching with longing for something I can't have . . .

Was it like that for you, Joe? With Samphire?

Eighteen

 

 

Sand trickles on to the floor when I pull on my jeans the next morning. I peer at my face in the mirror: freckles all over my nose, hair sticky with salt, frizzy from last night's damp air. I stick out my tongue at my reflection. No one is ever going to look at me the way Matt looks at Izzy. Why would they? Stupid me, getting all worked up like that. Matt belongs to Izzy. Izzy is my friend. End of story.

I wonder what Mum and Dad are doing right now. It's about nine; they could be waking up together in their big bed, drinking tea, planning a day out, just the two of them . . .

More likely Dad left early for work, and Mum's listening to Radio 4 in the kitchen, staring at the walls and trying to summon up some energy to unpack the boxes still untouched in the empty rooms in the rented house. Perhaps they've already decided to part: that's why she let me come here for the summer, so she and Dad can sort it all out, and when they see me at the end of the summer they'll tell me it's all decided and there'll be nothing I can do about it. Perhaps she's leafing through house details, small poky houses in the cheap end of town near the station, which is all she'll be able to afford with her share of the money from the house sale. And Dad . . .

Just a difficult patch,
Izzy said.
Everyone has those. It might not be as bad as you think . . .

Miranda says I have this habit of exaggerating things. It is true that sometimes I do imagine things so vividly I start to believe they must be true. And I have been spectacularly wrong in the past. But the opposite is also true: that I see what I hope to see, sometimes, and convince myself that things are better than they actually are. Which leaves me precisely where?

Nowhere, of course.
Stop thinking, Freya
.

I fish out the stash of postcards I keep tucked in my notebook. I choose one with a picture of the standing stone on Gara: it's important there's no sea in the picture, no boats or anything to set Mum off, and I start to write.

 

Hi Mum and Dad

Thinking about you. Hope the move went OK and you like the new house and everything. Miss you.

 

I cross out
and everything.
I re-read the rest. My words sound distant and empty. I can't begin to tell them what it's like here this summer. I wish I could tell Mum about the dreams, and the remembering, and what it's really like being here without Joe. I realise it's days since I spoke to either of them.

 

Soon as I've posted the card I start walking towards the maze on Wind Down. It's not beach weather, though it might be later, if the sun manages to burn through the sea mist. It suits my mood: soft grey light, muffled sounds. Every so often the fog horn booms out over the island. You wouldn't want to be out in a boat in this. My feet take me round, back, round, in towards the centre of the labyrinth. I close my eyes and sway, slightly.

My questions about Joe's accident have been in my head for so long it's wearing me out. It's building in my skull like a pressure, like a physical weight pushing down. I don't know how to stop it or let it out. I wonder if it feels like this when you're going crazy. Am I?
Crazed by grief
: I read it, somewhere. It really happens. I'm still no closer to an answer.

I carry on walking across the downs, along the cliff edge, seeing how close I can get, checking how easy it'd be to step over in a mist like this. But it's not hard to tell when you get close: the air quality changes, and there are gaps in the mist, and it's not so dense now anyway.

It's quite strange, walking into the white-grey dampness. It closes in around me. I've no sense of being on an island now: I can't hear the sea even though I'm so close. Droplets of moisture cling to my hair and my clothes. I feel separate, totally alone.

It's not exactly spooky but my senses are all on edge, maybe because the usual clues aren't there. And perhaps that leaves me wide open to what happens next. Perhaps it explains why I don't freak out or anything, when I see a figure, down on the rocks.

This time I know it isn't Danny, even though he's about the same size. This time it's a completely different feeling from before, when I thought I saw him fishing from the rocks at Periglis. It's what I've been waiting for, longing for, ever since I arrived on the island. I know, clearly and absolutely, that it's Joe. But it's not like I expected.

He's wearing his old blue jacket, the collar turned up. He's got his hands in his pockets, and he's jumping from rock to rock, going along in the same direction as me. Because of the mist, I see him in snatched glimpses. We're walking in parallel, me up here on the cliff, and him below at sea level. It's my brother Joe exactly like he was last summer before anything happened. There's nothing
hurt
or
damaged
about him.

I'm not going to ask how this can happen. I'm not going to call out, or run up and touch him, or anything like that. I just keep walking steadily on, and looking, each time the mist swirls and clears a gap, and gradually this extraordinary feeling of calm comes over me.

He is all right.

I haven't lost him for ever.

He's here, with me.

He doesn't look up. There's nothing to show he's noticed me, even, although I'm totally sure he knows I'm here. It's
why
he's there, of course. And then, the next time the mist clears enough for me to see, I realise he's disappeared again. He's not there any more.

I won't ever tell anyone else about this. I'm not going to let them say
you
imagined it
,
Freya: of course there was nothing there. How could there be?
People too easily take things away from you that
they
don't understand and can't explain.

By the time I've gone past the fishing rock, the mist has begun to lift. The sounds come back too: gulls, the murmuring of water on stone, the
chit chit
sound of a bird tapping a shell against a rock. I find a sheltered place to sit, and lean back against the wind-smoothed side of a granite boulder. I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet smell of damp grass and crushed wild thyme.

Thank you, Joe.

I sit there thinking about him for a long time. I stop feeling the cold air and the damp, even. It was him. He came. He was fine. Is that what it means? He was showing me he's all right? That I can stop worrying about him?

 

‘Hey! Freya!'

Danny's mooching along the path, fishing rod and bucket in hand. His voice breaks the spell. I've been sitting there by myself for so long I'm pleased to see him, though I don't let on. The mist has almost completely cleared.

‘You're all wet!' he says. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Just sitting.'

‘Did you hear the fog horn, earlier? Warning ships?'

‘I did.'

Danny sort of hops one foot to the other, a bit nervous. ‘Want to do something?' he says.

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know. Just hang out together, I guess.'

I shrug. ‘If you like.'

‘Where shall we go?'

I stand up. I've been hunched there for ages and my legs feel all tingly and weird. It makes me laugh.

‘What?'

‘Pins and needles.' I explain. ‘From sitting still too long.'

I get an idea, suddenly. ‘If you want,' I say, ‘I'll take you somewhere special. As long as you promise to keep it a secret.
If
I can find it.'

‘OK.' He sounds a bit wary, doubtful.

‘You'll have to follow behind me, once we find the path. It's very narrow.'

Path
is a bit of an exaggeration. You'd never find it in a million years without someone showing you. I first came here about three years ago with Joe. I find it eventually, by a sort of instinct, clambering along the big rocks, ducking under a stone arch and squeezing through the narrow gap between two huge boulders. It's a bit like caving except not underground: there are places which are so narrow you have to suck your breath in and half crawl. I was smaller – shorter – last time I came. It's more difficult than I remember.

Danny's huffing and puffing behind me, protesting.

‘Trust me,' I say, turning back to grin at him.

We come out on a ledge about halfway down the cliff, and edge along that, round the next curve, and then at last we can drop down another level on to granite rocks, just above a narrow inlet which at low tide makes a small triangular beach of silver sand, totally hidden except from the sea. And on this side of the island you hardly ever see boats close in. It's much too dangerous.

I jump the last metre or so and Danny follows. Our feet leave deep prints in the wet sand.