Breathing Under Water

by Sophie Hardcastle

  I swing open the door and step off wet tiles onto cool floorboards. The sun has set since I’ve been in the shower. I catch a whiff of cumin seeds, sizzling and popping in a pan of oil. I hear Nila laughing. They’re already here. A hot cloud of steam rolls out of the bathroom, a summer storm cloud, engulfing me. I tiptoe down the hall toward my room but in the final few feet before my bedroom door, Mum calls out to the boys and Harley emerges from Ben’s room.

  I look at Harley, the flare of his blue iris brilliant even in the dim hallway, and wrap my arms around my abdomen, the towel suddenly too small, too thin to possibly conceal me. I shrink back against the wall.

  ‘Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to …’ Harley’s usual cool air is hot, he’s flustered, his confidence has evaporated.

  My breaths are shallow, incomplete, as if oxygen is no longer enough. Warm droplets drip from my hair at the nape of my neck and run down between my shoulderblades. They tickle and tease, pooling on the floor between us.

  A moment later, Ben wanders out of his room, takes one look at me and laughs. ‘Wow, Grace, go put clothes on – we have guests!’

  Later, lying on the couch with my legs draped over Dad’s lap, I catch myself again staring over Dad’s shoulder to Harley sitting at the dining room table. Beside me, Dad is describing a new line of longboards he’s designing for a Japanese shipment next summer. Steve Mathews rocks forward in his wheelchair, elbows on knees, palms cupping his chin, keen and attentive. A fine patch of silver hair sprouts from the open collar of his shirt.

  On the floor, Ben and Ryan, Harley’s older brother, talk about Ryan’s plans to travel down through Europe to North Africa. Ryan says he’s spent the year working, saving up. Moving down from Ivory Point meant he had to leave his old job. It’s taken him the past few weeks to secure one down here but he’s working as a labourer now in Port Lawnam and says it’s paying enough. He’ll be leaving Australia early next year.

  Ben rants, telling Ryan he can’t wait to travel, that he can’t wait until graduation at the end of the year, when he’s old enough to qualify for the pro surfing circuit. ‘I’ll be out of here in a heartbeat!’

  Leaning back, chest tight, I think of languages I wouldn’t understand. I imagine the rules, recipes, roads – how would I get my bearings?

  Ryan edges forward as Ben brags about the places he intends to visit in between competitions.

  ‘Yeah?’ Mum laughs, almost teasing, as she crosses the lounge room to place another log on the fire. ‘With what money, my love? I doubt your sponsors are going to cover a leisurely trip to Amsterdam.’

  ‘Drug money, Mum. Filthy drug money.’

  Mum asks him to stop showing off in front of our guests, and our fathers chuckle.

  As Mum takes a seat at the dining room table next to Nila and Harley, pouring Nila and herself a glass of red, I can see the faint smile rounding her lips.

  ‘Well, I’ve always got my savings,’ Ben taunts.

  ‘Oh no you don’t – that’s for university. You can’t stay on tour forever.’

  Ben rolls his eyes, murmuring something to the boys. Dad winks and nods in agreement.

  Propping myself up on my elbows, I peep over Dad’s shoulder. Sitting with our mothers at the dining room table, Harley takes a sip of Nila’s wine, his eyes cruising around the room. I follow his gaze as it skips from a Star of David pendant on the bookshelf across to rosary beads hanging from the mantle, down to a framed picture of Ganesh on the wall and back to Mum’s buddha in the centre of the table. Nestled between a candle and a bouquet of acacia and bottlebrush flowers, the tiny buddha is frozen in bliss. Harley picks him up, cradling his bone belly, smoothing the buddha’s bald head with his thumb.

  The fire crackles and spits, and Harley looks at me, bands of orange and purple light dancing on his cheek. There’s a foreign warmth between my thighs.

  ‘Mel?’ he begins, elbows resting on dark wood. ‘What do you believe in?’ He knows Mum is a science teacher at a Catholic school, and he’s trying to make sense of all these religious artefacts.

  Mum loops her arm around the back of her chair and twists to face him. ‘Do you want to know why I love science, Harley?’

  ‘Oh, now you’ve started her!’ Ben jokes. ‘Get ready to have your ears chewed off!’

  Mum ignores him, swirling the wine in her glass.

  Eucalyptus logs blacken in the grate. Harley, twiddling the tiny buddha between his fingers, nods and smiles. ‘Sure’.

  ‘Well,’ Mum beams, ‘I love knowing what plants need for photosynthesis, what they need to turn energy into matter. It’s so simple – just water, carbon dioxide, sunlight and chlorophyll. That’s why I love science. But even more special is knowing we can take those things, put them in a test tube, shake it up and still can’t replicate it! I know how we came to be, but I don’t know why.’

  Harley’s hand grips the buddha and he edges forward. ‘Science can only explain so much …’ he offers.

  Mum nods and takes a sip of her wine before continuing. ‘Religion fascinates me, for obvious reasons – the traditions, culture, it’s all very beautiful at the core. Religious doctrines, though – they’re what I find most interesting. They claim to have the answers, but faith is not answers. Faith is the shadow in between.’

  Mum sets her glass down on the table, her red wine lips spread into a smile. ‘I believe in the sun and the moon,’ she says.

  The sun, radiant and alive.

  The moon, a mere reflection of his light.

  Eight

  TANDEM

  I am at the kitchen bench, half-dressed, stuffing my face with toast and eggs, when Harley walks through the door with Jake and Toby. I smile with closed lips – in case I have something in my teeth – and quickly excuse myself. In my room I put on one of Mia’s hand-me-down bras and then pull a spaghetti strap singlet over the top so the white lace bra straps are obvious.

  In the weeks since Harley plucked the buddha from the mantle, Mum has taken a particular liking to him, roping him into conversation as soon as he sets foot in the house. When I return, he is sitting at the breakfast bar, chatting to Mum as she pours blueberry banana pancake mix into a skillet. The scent of coconut oil liquefying in the pan drifts through the house.

  I sit down next to Toby on the couch and he shifts his lanky limbs, making sure I am comfortable. He is acutely aware of his body, always making room for others – unlike Jake, his cousin, splayed across the Afghan rug on the floor as they watch the Saturday morning cartoons.

  I catch snippets of Mum and Harley’s discussion during lulls in conversation on the TV.

  ‘So easy,’ she explains. ‘The mix is egg, banana and blueberries … Then I add some flax seeds, almond meal, vanilla – whatever really!’

  I hear the splat of a pancake landing back in the pan after a high flip.

  Harley admits he’s already eaten. ‘But it’s the most important meal of the day, or so my mum says … I’m sure I have room for seconds.’

  ‘She’s a wise woman,’ my own mum laughs. ‘It’s the first thing we bless our bodies with each day … breaking our fasts, a new sun rising in the sky … something to celebrate, no?’

  Harley agrees, and Ben calls out to Mum to stop annoying our guest.

  On the couch, I arch my neck back, trying to see past Toby’s bony shoulder as Mum serves a pancake from the skillet. ‘Try it,’ she beams, offering Harley a knife and fork.

  ‘Mmm,’ he nods, speaking through stuffed cheeks. ‘Delicious!’

  ‘My dad,’ she says, crossing back to the stove, ‘had his days. Called it the dark cloud, said it would descend, black and heavy … that the ocean would turn a dense blue. Some days he didn’t get out of bed. Then my mum, Sasha – you’d love her – the genius that she is, started making him breakfast every day, and not just any old jam on toast. She’d make scrambled eggs and marinate a side of mushrooms in chilli, garlic, herbs and olive oil. Other days she’d make granola from scratch, even soaking nuts and seeds
overnight before baking, then she’d go and buy goats’ yoghurt or fresh milk and honey from the growers.’

  Mum offers Harley some blueberries. He takes a few and sprinkles them on his pancake.

  She shakes the punnet. ‘Oh, come on! Take a proper handful.’

  Blushing, he reaches back for more as she cracks another egg into the bowl and whisks it into the mix.

  Harley swallows a mouthful of pancake and clears his throat. ‘When my dad finally came home, after his accident and everything, he didn’t talk, barely ate … so Mum got up one morning before sunrise and went as far as the fish markets, almost two hours from Ivory Point, bought him a fresh piece of swordfish, seared it on the barbecue in the yard with sesame seeds and served it with dill sauce. Ryan and I carried him outside to sit in the sun. Our yard was really cool, heaps of plants. It wasn’t everything, like it didn’t just fix Dad, but it was something, you know?’

  ‘That’s beautiful.’ I hear the splat of another pancake. ‘Who else wants one?’ Mum calls.

  In the living room, hands shoot up, and she laughs. ‘Breakfast is an incentive …’ she says. ‘A reason.’

  Joining Harley at the worn breakfast bar, Mum serves us each a plate of moist, fluffy pancakes. Her hair is still matted and damp from her early morning swim, her eyelashes crusted with salt. Mum washes her hands and dries them on a tea towel. ‘Enjoy, boys!’ she says, and I cringe, just a little, as she heads off to take a shower.

  Enjoy, boys. She doesn’t mean to blot me out, erase my presence. When I was younger, I hated being singled out. I wanted to be one of the boys. I was a part of them, a part of Ben. So why was my body shrinking now when her words looped me into the male pack?

  As hot, sour blueberries burst in my mouth, I edge forward on my stool into Harley’s peripheral vision, a little closer to the window, and that’s when I see them – a collection of retro surfboards, one even from the sixties, decorating the lawn outside.

  ‘Whoa! Look at those,’ I say, pointing to them.

  ‘Epic.’ Harley says, a smile reaching across his cheeks.

  ‘I say we take them out,’ Ben suggests.

  Jake agrees instantly, but Toby sounds doubtful. ‘Do we know who they belong to? Maybe they’re not meant to go in the water.’

  ‘They’re surfboards, idiot.’ Jake snickers.

  ‘But maybe Ray has refurbished them, for a museum or auction or something?’

  No one listens to him, and within minutes it is settled.

  When they’ve scoffed their pancakes, Ben rinses the plates and skillet in the sink while Toby and Harley dry and Jake climbs into the pantry to reach a box of pink icing biscuits, saved for when my younger cousins visit.

  In the yard I pull my steamer wetsuit off the Hills Hoist and stretch it over my limbs beneath our towering fig tree. Flecks of sunlight fall through the gaps between leaves, gold dances on the grass. I choose a yellow board with a black lightning bolt on the deck and a fin set in fibreglass with rainbow resin on the bottom. Along the stringer, in pencil, it reads, For Mark, 1974. I wonder how long it has been since this board has tasted the ocean. Is it thirsty?

  The morning is unusually warm for late May. Waves with sparkling faces spill behind the rock pool, sweep over the sandbank, lap on shore. White wash caresses the sand. I leap from ankle-deep water, landing on my stomach, gliding, stroking, and duck-diving a tumble of foam. The sea combs through my hair. It peels back the layers of my life on land, peels back the hours. For all I know, it could be 1974.

  When we reach the line-up, we sit higher out of the water than usual, and it makes us laugh. These old-fashioned boards are more buoyant than the ones we’re used to. Riding without a leg-rope, my feet sway freely with the tides. I wonder about Mark, what he knew about this board, what wisdom he’d acquired. Wisdom, of course, that only mutual experience could have granted him. Getting to know a board is like getting to know a person, a deep impenetrable friendship with secrets and shared memories.

  Ben finds his feet first. His board drags him back in time, warping his technique, yet his power, fluidity and precision prevail as he slashes the lip with a single fin. When Harley takes off on a wave, I steal my eyes away from the swell to watch. He slides down the face of the wave, his timing so cool his movements blend with that of the water. I watch his silhouette move through the back of the wave, rising up to its shoulder, painting the blue sky with a fine spray of white.

  We surf as the sun melts hours into the sea, until my arms ache and my ribs are bruised, but I don’t want to stop. I paddle onto a wave, rise to my feet and fly down the face. As I throw my back into a bottom turn, I hear someone whistle, then call my name. ‘Grace!’

  I glance over my shoulder to see Harley riding down the face on my inside, hand outstretched, gaping smile. I lean on my back foot, stalling the board, allowing him to catch up and ride beside me.

  ‘Jump on!’ He beams, and before I really know what I am doing, he’s taken my hand. I leap from my board, landing on his wax. His free hand finds my hip and I find my balance.

  We ride, rising and falling on the wave’s turquoise face until it closes out and we fall together into the frothy soup, still holding hands. It isn’t until he pulls me to the surface that I realise I’ve been holding my breath the entire ride.

  Feet on the sandbank, he wipes my hair from my face and I open my eyes. The glare burns. My knees buckle slightly.

  ‘Amazing,’ he says, and I burst into laughter, so dizzy I can’t find words.

  ‘Sorry about your board,’ he adds. It has washed up on the wet sand nearby.

  ‘Sorry about yours!’ I point down the beach to where his has been swept into a rip.

  ‘Hey …’ he says, smile slackening, ‘isn’t that your dad?’

  I turn to shore to see a man yelling, probably swearing, flapping his arms about as he stamps across the sand.

  ‘Yeah.’ I gulp. ‘Shit.’

  It is my dad and he is furious.

  On the sand, he gives me a death glare, then peers out at the waves, shielding his eyes with his hand. ‘Ben!’ he shouts. ‘Get your arse back here NOW.’

  By the time Ben emerges from the water, Jake and Toby behind him, Dad looks ready to explode.

  ‘How dare you!’ Dad shouts.

  ‘Cry me a river,’ Ben retorts and I honestly think Dad is going to hit him.

  Toby, Harley and I hang back while Jake and Ben, being the smart-arses that they are, fuel the fire with sly comments. They are enjoying watching Dad burn.

  ‘Do you have any idea how much these boards are worth?’

  ‘Enough to leave them lying out on the grass,’ Jake says under his breath and Ben struggles to suppress a giggle.

  Dad’s balding scalp shines brilliant crimson. ‘Arseholes!’ he stammers, kicking the sand, then turns and marches back along the beach toward the house, calling over his shoulder, ‘I want them back on the lawn by three o’clock. Washed!’

  ‘I love you!’ Ben shouts, and Dad flips him the bird.

  A wave rides up the shore, cold splashing around my ankles, as Jake turns to me and says, ‘Grace, maybe you should lend him a tampon.’

  The boys cackle, and I feel myself sink a fraction in the wet sand.

  Nine

  INDIGO

  There are only a few big storms a year. The ones you can smell the day before, when the sun is still shining, yellow light draping the coastline. Dusk descends with air that is laden, damp, and the shadows are eerie and still, like the earth has inhaled deep and now holds its breath, preparing for the onslaught. When we were young, a big winter storm was one with waves so fierce they broke the barrier pool on the point, flooding the main rock pool with clumps of seaweed and sand.

  This storm, I heard first in my dream. A deep hum turned wail, as the earth tore open. A branch ripped off the fig tree and shattered a window in the sunroom at 4 a.m. Monty whimpered beneath the dining room table as Mum, in her white nightgown and slippers, swept broken glass, whil
e Dad, Ben and Jake taped a sheet of plastic over the gaping hole, a temporary fix until dawn. I went back to bed, letting Monty sleep at my feet.

  I am woken no more than two hours later by Ben sneaking into my room with his quilt draped around his shoulders. ‘Grace.’ He shakes my shoulder. ‘Wake up, you gotta come see this.’

  I step into my ugg boots and trudge out the door into silent purple shadows, following the boys across wet earth to the gate. The air is still, the rain and wind have passed. ‘Look, down there.’ Ben points across the grassy hill to the rock pool. Dark waves have breached the barrier pool. The pool chains are submerged under grey foam, and then I see what he’s pointing at. I gasp. A small fishing boat has washed onto the rock stairs.

  ‘Holy shit!’

  Beyond, the beasts that carried this boat on their shoulders roar. My breath catches as a wave cracks in half on the rock shelf. The ground shakes, deep vibrations.

  ‘Pinch and a punch for the first of the month!’ Ben taunts. ‘No returns!’

  Squealing, I lunge at him with a clenched fist, punching, narrowly missing his chest.

  ‘Hey!’ he says, laughing, ‘I said no returns!’ and puts me in a headlock.

  Wriggling free, I catch my breath and gaze out to sea. Grey, wet clouds hang low. On land, the earth’s soul lies still in the mud, beaten and breathless. Tree branches sag with fatigue.

  Only the ocean still rages, retaining the energy of the storm like charcoal retains heat in the hours after red flames have died. Enough heat to burn you.

  Enough strength to drown you.

  Jake swears. Teeth chatter.

  ‘Stop complaining, you pussy,’ Ben hisses.

  ‘You were the one who left the wetsuits on the line,’ Jake retorts. ‘It’s your damn fault they’re wet.’

  ‘You won’t even notice once we’re in the water,’ I say.