The Art of Not Breathing (8 page)

“Why him?” my father said. “Why did it have to be
him?”

15

ON SATURDAY I HEAD STRAIGHT TO THE HARBOR. I HEAR THE
boat boys before I see them. Their voices rise and fall with the waves, a clash of different tones, all trying to be the loudest. When I turn in to the harbor, I see one of them—Rex, I think, judging by the amount of hair—dive off the harbor wall. His legs fly straight up into a V as he tucks his head down. He seems suspended for a second, a black star shape against the white puffy sky. Then he falls with a soft splash, and there’s a dull whoop from the others. Someone shouts, “Me next!”

The sky is so bright, I have to squint, but I see two more people on the wall. Tay is definitely one of them—I recognize the slope of his shoulders—and the other one looks like Joey. Danny, the mean one, isn’t there, thank God, unless he’s already in the water. I bury my chin in my jacket to shield my face from the wind and follow the mud path down toward them. I glance over at the clubhouse, but the door is closed and I can’t see in.

“Elsie!” Tay shouts as I climb the steps up onto the harbor wall. His wetsuit is shiny, his cheeks are flushed. “Watch this.” He flicks his cigarette away and launches himself into the air. I hold my breath as he twists and turns, spinning again and again before disappearing down into the water.

Joey is next. He steps off and dive-bombs straight down, sending a flurry of waves crashing into the side of the seawall. “Knob,” I hear Tay call. They climb up the ladder, and their rubber booties make wet footprints on the wall.

“You can be our judge, Elsie. Whose jump was best?” Tay sprawls out on the wall and lights up.

I take one of his cigarettes and sit next to him.

“Help yourself,” he says sarcastically, shaking the water from his head. His hair puffs up, and I try not to laugh.

“Are you not going out on the boat?” I ask, wondering which boat is theirs.

“In a wee while. We’re waiting on Danny to finish in the cellar,” Tay says.

Damn, that’s bad news. I bet as soon as he sees me, he’ll tell me to get lost.

“You gotta judge on who made the biggest splash,” Joey says, stretching. “I think I’m the winner.”

“Eejit,” Tay says.

“Twat face,” Joey responds.

I suck my cigarette, playing for time as they rib each other.

“I’m not sure. You’ll have to do it again,” I say.

As they line up, Danny emerges from the clubhouse wearing a white T-shirt and heads toward us. I pretend not to see him. Rex goes first again, leaping into a star jump, tucking himself into a ball at the last minute.

“Fuck, yeah!” he shouts when he eventually resurfaces. Joey and Tay go together in a synchronized back somersault, landing almost at the same time, Joey with a loud crash and Tay hardly making a sound at all.

Rex shoots water from his mouth. “Your turn,” he shouts up to me.

It’s okay to go near the water; just don’t go in it. I shake my head. “No fucking way,” I yell, but my words get swallowed by the wind.

“Chicken!” Tay calls. “Come on—it’s fine. I’ll catch you.”

I take a step closer to the edge and watch the white foam swilling around the base of the wall. The drop must be three meters. I imagine myself falling, belly-flopping. I try not to think about all the seaweed down there—it’s kelp, the worst kind, thick and slithery.

“Come on, Elsie! Don’t be such a girl.” Rex makes chicken noises and flaps his arms, making the sea froth up around him.

“Well, she
is
a girl. What do you expect?” Tay shouts back, and then holds his arms out as if to catch me.

Danny is climbing the steps up to the wall. I’m sure he’s going to stop me.

“Don’t even think about it, Elsie,” he calls. “It’ll hurt.”

What does he know about pain? The others keep calling me into the water, hollering and clucking. They don’t think I can do it.
Loser,
I hear in my head.
Loser.
Danny is up on the wall, his footsteps getting closer. It’s now or never.

“All right! Move out the way, then.” I can’t believe I’m doing this. My hands shake as I unzip my jacket and kick my trainers off. I leave my socks on, hoping they’ll protect my feet from the cold. Below, they are cheering—Tay the loudest.

“Don’t . . .” I hear Danny call from behind. But it’s too late, I’m already running to the end of the wall, and then I’m flying, falling, the surface rushing toward me.

The cold rides up my body as I go down, piercing my bones like a thousand glass splinters. The liquid swarms around my head, pushing me down and down, the cold chilling my brain. My eyes feel as though they are being pulled from their sockets, and the salt stings. The water looks black in every direction as I fall headfirst into the immense space below. I kick and try to pull myself up with my arms, but the water slides through my fingers. It’s like crawling through iced gel. My rib cage heaves and shudders, my whole body goes into spasm. I’m dying. Let me breathe. Let this be over.

Then there’s a silence in my head, a quiet that seems to grow and grow, and I let the current take me. My body wavers gently like a stray piece of seaweed floating out into the unknown.

There’s a flash like a light bulb exploding, and
boom,
I’m back there on the day Eddie went missing, searching for him, the icy water nearly up to my waist. Dillon’s frantically swimming back toward the shore. Then he gets to his feet and wades in my direction, his cheeks bright red with exertion as he fights against the current. But then I see he’s not looking at me. He’s looking over to his left, past the lighthouse.

“Dillon,” I call. My words are tiny in the huge mass of water.

“Dillon, he’s over here, this way.” I point to the water, right where Eddie was standing.

“Not now, Els,” he calls back. He pushes hard against the breaking waves with his thighs. What can he see? Is Eddie over there?

“Can you see him?” I shout, moving toward Dillon. The waves knock me about.

“I’ve got to find her. Did you see her?”

“What? Dillon, is Eddie there?” I ask again.

Dillon turns to me, breathing hard. He stops and scans the water. Then he scans the beach.

“Where’s Eddie?” he asks urgently.

I point to the water, and the color drains from his cheeks. He dives straight toward me and thrashes about. Our arms and legs tangle as we both plunge down trying to find Eddie. I can’t stay down for long. When I come up for air, I’m alone. I search the surface of the water, and then I search the beach. Dad isn’t where we left him. There are a few people clustered near the lighthouse looking out at the dolphins, but he isn’t one of them. I call for him. I call for help.

“Drag her in,” I hear. It’s Danny’s voice. And Tay is saying, “It’s okay, we’ve got you.” There’s an arm around me, someone’s cheek against mine, their breath in my ear. Another flash of an image—my father running toward me, something blue in his hands.

I open my eyes and see only the sky.

“My legs,” I murmur. I can’t feel them. The pebbles rotate underneath my spine as the boys drag me up onto the beach. Dried, spiky seaweed digs into my head when they lay me on the ground. I shiver violently.

I’m on fire.

16

INSIDE THE CLUBHOUSE, WE SIT AROUND THE TABLE BY THE FIRE.
My skin is hot, but I keep shivering. Mick brings a blanket and drapes it across my shoulders. A steaming cup of hot chocolate is on the table just in front of me, but I’m too tired to reach for it. The boys are quiet, muttering among themselves, glancing at me.

“How long was I under for?” I ask, looking at no one.

It’s Tay who answers. He coughs first. “Not long. Maybe ten, fifteen seconds. We got to you quite quickly.”

I look at him and he’s frowning. I’m taken aback by his answer; it felt like so much longer. Just like when Eddie went down and the seconds seemed to slow to minutes, and the minutes felt like hours.

Danny pokes a white contraption in my ear, and it makes a beeping sound. I flinch.

“Relax,” he says briskly. “I’m just taking your temperature.”

Tay watches me the whole time.

“You’ll be okay.” Danny scrapes his chair back, and the noise makes my teeth tingle. “You haven’t got hypothermia. Where do you live? I’ll drive you home.”

My mouth is still not working, my jaw feels numb, and I can’t form the words.

“McKellen Drive,” Mick says. “The house by the cemetery.”

My body slumps down in the chair, and a feeling of dread passes over me. I have been stupid to think that Mick doesn’t know who I am. Everyone knows who the Mains are. Our house was on the local news during the search for Eddie. My face, too—my parents gave the police the first photo of Eddie they could find. It was a slightly out-of-focus picture of the two of us on the beach, my arm around him, Eddie holding a pebble out to the camera, grinning with his wonky smile, his face ghostly white in the overexposure. At first they showed the full picture on the news, but after a few days they cut me out. All that was left of me were my fingers, pressed tightly into Eddie’s arm.

I see a flicker of fear in Danny’s eyes. He storms over to the bar and rubs his face, as though he’s trying to work out what to do. I’m confused. Most people go quiet when they realize who I am, but then they’re immediately nice to me, as though I might break if they raise their voices. They don’t usually seem afraid or angry.

I want to close my eyes and disappear, but I can’t help glancing at Tay. His mouth is slightly open, like he’s thinking too hard. He can’t possibly know. He wasn’t even here when it happened. Or was he? Danny marches back over to us and grabs my arm. It hurts, but I don’t say anything. I guess he’s just annoyed that he’s got to deal with me.

“Come on, Elsie,” Danny says. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I’ll come with you.” Tay stands and moves around the table, but Danny pushes his palm firmly into Tay’s chest.

“You’ve done enough damage.”

“Sorry, Elsie,” Tay says. “Get home and warm up, eh?” He smiles, and I feel a hot rush of blood. Already, I forgive him.

Danny drives smoothly and slowly, both hands on the steering wheel. He’s like an older, stronger version of Dillon, with a long neck and blond stubble on his chin. He even sounds like Dillon as he lectures me.

“You could’ve got yourself into some serious trouble.”

“I’m fine.”

“Look, I don’t think you should come back to the harbor. I’m guessing your parents wouldn’t be too happy if they knew you were jumping into the sea.”

“Well, they don’t have to know about it, do they?” I say.

He purses his lips. “It’s hard to keep secrets around here.”

It sounds like a threat. I run my hand through my frizzing-up hair in a way that I hope shows him I’m not bothered by empty threats. It’s not like he would have the guts to turn up at my house and tell my parents that he let me jump off the harbor wall into ice-cold, life-sucking water, right?

“Why have I not seen you around before?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Maybe you just weren’t looking.”

“You didn’t go to school here?”

“Inverness. I lived with my mum before but spent most weekends here. Only moved to the Black Isle when my dad decided to open the diving club.”

When we pull up outside the house, he stares at our front gate for a while. Then he unbuckles my seat belt for me and reaches right over me to open the car door. It makes me feel claustrophobic. He stares at me as I gather the strength to move.

“Stay away from the harbor, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

My eyes feel heavy and I fight sleep. I don’t tell him that for a few seconds down there, for the first time in five years, I stopped feeling any pain at all.

COLIN:
What did one tide say to the other tide?

CELIA:
I don’t know, what
did
one tide say to the other?

COLIN:
Nothing. It just waved.

1

I PAINT MY MOTHER’S NAILS MOCHA TO MATCH MINE.
We sit at the kitchen table, both glancing at the window, waiting for my father to come home from his Saturday meeting. Lots of people want to discuss loans on Saturdays, but I’m pretty sure most banks close at two p.m., and it’s already five. Beads of sweat break out on Mum’s forehead every now and then. I’m still feeling hot and cold after idiotically hurling myself into the North Sea.