Pieces of Sky

by Trinity Doyle

  First published in 2015

  Copyright © Text, Trinity Doyle 2015

  Copyright © Cover illustration, Paula Bonet 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76011 248 6

  eISBN 978 1 92526 748 8

  Cover design by Sandra Nobes and Trinity Doyle

  Cover and internal type by Bianca Cash

  Cover illustration: Neopreno by Paula Bonet

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  For Ben, who read everything

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  GRATITUDE

  1

  Mum painted my brother’s coffin.

  It was beautiful, if such a thing can be—the waves of the ocean, gradients of green to blue mixed with the white of sea foam. Despite the grim irony that the ocean which smothered his lungs should cover him in death, it suited him.

  Cam was made with more water than most.

  That was eight weeks ago and Mum hasn’t painted a thing since. The longer she leaves it, the longer the coffin will remain the last thing she painted.

  Eight weeks.

  Eight.

  Cam was caught in a rip off the coast of Byron Bay. It was night, all his mates were drunk, and nobody noticed my brother take his board into the dark ocean—and nobody knows why he did. It was a stupid thing to do and sometimes my brother was stupid, even at eighteen.

  Eight weeks.

  I prefer weeks over months. A month is a long time.

  Eight weeks since I’ve been in the pool. I’ve never tapered more than a few days before. I’ve heard it’s hell getting back in: your body drags like lead and the water turns to mud.

  I guess I’ll find out this morning.

  ‘Big day,’ Auntie Deb says, flicking the indicator and turning onto Lake Road. I dig my fingers into the edge of the seat. Through my window the sky lightens to a dirty pink. Even without the pool these past weeks I can’t shake the sunrise out of my days. I’ll probably wake up at 5am for the rest of my life.

  ‘Excited to be going back?’ Deb continues to fight for conversation.

  I grunt a response and hope it’ll satisfy. There’s a sharpness in my stomach I can’t explain. It’s a similar feeling to race days, but this is training, not competing. I let go of the seat and stick my hands under my legs. Must be excitement.

  ‘You got your school bag?’ I give her a hard look. She saw me carrying my mesh swim bag and backpack. ‘God, Year Ten.’ She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t believe you’re almost sixteen. Feels like just yesterday you were calling me Beb and stealing lollies from my bag.’

  I roll my eyes at her reminiscing.

  Auntie Deb is my dad’s sister. She’s a nurse or something and lives down in Newcastle. Before now I only ever saw her at Christmas. And I guess it was around Christmas when she came up to help my parents with paperwork and processes and whatever else they needed help with. And somehow she’s still here, helping.

  I turn the radio on, but she still hasn’t programmed in any local stations and I’m met with country music or static. I switch it back off.

  I don’t want Deb here. She’s a constant reminder things are wrong. I can look after Mum and the house—was doing just fine before.

  This is the first morning, since Cam died, I won’t be there to get Mum up.

  Deb reaches across me, leaving one hand on the wheel, and fishes around for her handbag at my feet. She hoists it onto the centre console, finds a cigarette, sticks it between her teeth and lights it—all without taking her attention off the road.

  ‘I reckon I might go for a swim later myself,’ she says as I crank down my window. ‘Need to get in the water more.’

  ‘I left Mum’s green smoothie recipe on the fridge,’ I tell her. She can’t just swan off to the beach. ‘Make sure you use the frozen banana or it’ll taste crap.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Try to get her to shower early or she’ll just be in bed all day.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And if you’re gonna clean the bathroom again there’s a chart on the wall to follow.’

  ‘Lucy,’ she huffs, cracking her window and flicking out ash, ‘I know.’

  I lean into the cool morning air, away from her smoke cloud. ‘Whatever.’

  We pass the welcome sign for Port Christie and the sharp feeling in my stomach grows. Deb turns down the empty streets and pulls into the swim centre car park. Without me at home it’s likely Mum won’t eat anything or leave her room. I’d just gotten her into a routine of sorts: eat, shower, sit in the sun. I’m sure she’ll be fine again soon. Right?

  ‘Oh, almost forgot,’ Deb unlocks the glove box, pulling out a stack of flyers for the Meredith to South West ocean race, ‘can you leave these at reception for me?’

  A few weeks ago Deb decided we needed to do something, give back, honour Cam—something to help out the surf lifesavers—and she came up the idea of an ocean race. Dad said it was a worthy cause and normally I’d agree with him but I can’t bring myself to like anything that came from Deb.

  ‘I’m late,’ I say, getting out of the car and grabbing my stuff. She holds the yellow flyers out the window at me. I groan and snatch them off her.

  ‘Have fun,’ she calls after me as I push open the centre doors.

  I dump the flyers at reception and stalk down the long hallway. The centre is half lit and quiet; the gym won’t open for another hour. I breathe in the familiar air but it does nothing to ease the twisting in my stomach.

  The day has already started wrong. I should’ve insisted Dad drive me to training, like he always did, but when Auntie Deb offered last night he just shrugged it off like me going back to the pool didn’t mean anything.

  ‘Lucy!’ Alix barrels me into a hug as I enter the change room.

  ‘Hi.’ I hug her back but my arms are weak and she’s all bare skin and bony elbows.

  ‘You’re back,’ she squeals, letting me go.

  I drop my bags on the bench.

  ‘We be
tter get out there,’ Megan says, coming round the corner. She stops short at the sight of me.

  I haven’t seen either of them since the funeral, not wanting anyone to set foot in my broken house, but where Alix texted and called me almost every day I’ve barely heard from Megan.

  ‘Uh, hi,’ I say.

  She closes her mouth and rearranges her features into a smile. ‘Lucy! You’re here. It’s so good to see you. We gotta, um . . .’ She gestures towards the pool.

  ‘I’ll see you out there.’

  She nods. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  Alix shoots me a WTF look as they walk out and I shrug.

  When I decided to have a break, Megan was pissed. I know she wanted to confront me at the funeral, all straight-backed and edgy, acting like she hardly knew me, but she left it another week before she called.

  You can’t just leave us like that. What the hell are we supposed to do?

  I’m not the only backstroker on the squad, I’d told her.

  You mean Alix? Megan scoffed.

  She’s getting faster. This season was Alix’s first since she lost a year to glandular fever.

  We may as well pull out of the relay now.

  I pull off my hoodie and shorts and adjust my swimsuit. My heart thuds like I’ve been double-jumped on a trampoline. I press my hand to my chest and take deep, slow breaths.

  Cam couldn’t breathe.

  I close my eyes—don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

  The stench of chlorine mixed with Dencorub envelops me as I walk onto the pool deck. My squad is squished in two lanes of the twenty-five-metre pool. Megan thinks our pool’s a joke and wants to get into the program at Coffs. I never minded it; short laps are practice for your turns. And my turns are flawless.

  Phil, my coach, comes over to me. Phil swam for Australia at the Commonwealth Games. Men’s two-hundred-metre backstroke—he didn’t get a medal.

  ‘Ready to go, Lucy?’ he asks, fiddling with something on his stopwatch and half looking at me.

  Phil didn’t think I should start back. He said I should spend time with the Dolphins squad, a holiday compared to the competitive Sharks. I’d missed too many club nights, I wouldn’t make up the points, I hadn’t been in the water for two months.

  But I wouldn’t have that.

  I stretch my goggles over my cap. ‘Yeah,’ I say, ignoring the sharpness now in my veins.

  ‘I can’t make any allowances for you.’ Translation: keep up or go home.

  I don’t care if it hurts, or if I suck, or if I need to double my training schedule to get back in form. Before Cam drowned, swimming was my life—and I want my life back.

  Behind Phil, Megan stands at the blocks pretending not to watch us. She looks away when I meet her eye, pulling her goggles down and diving off. Her stroke is effortless, gliding her to the opposite wall in seconds.

  I walk to the blocks, crouching over the edge to splash water on myself. Laughter from my teammates echoes off the pool walls and bounces around my skull.

  A tremble runs through my left arm and I stretch out my fingers to still it.

  We got the call late, around 3am. The phone rang for ages and I kept hitting my clock thinking it was my alarm. The sound my dad made when he answered, a cry I’ve never heard him make before or since, was enough to tear Mum and me from our beds.

  Cam had drowned.

  Cam was dead.

  I held onto Mum as she sobbed into the floorboards. Eventually my alarm, signalling an hour until I was due at the pool, blared out from my room. I didn’t go to training, of course I didn’t go, and the days I wasn’t in the pool stretched into weeks. Everyone knew I would come back. They just didn’t think it would take this long.

  And today should feel right—today school goes back and my routine of train, study, train can start again.

  The sticky air of the indoor pool sends my skin wet. I miss swimming at the baths, on my back under an open sky. I shake my head and step onto the block. I get back in today. I picture myself diving in and my head going under the water—just like Cam. No. No, don’t think about it. I’m fine, this is fine.

  The water overtook him, choked him. But that was out there, not in here—everything is fine here.

  My breaths go short and my vision tunnels. I pull at the straps of my swimsuit. Dive in, just dive in. My breaths come fast and shallow. I wrench my cap off and my hair pulls loose.

  No—oh god, what’s happening? Get in the water, just get in.

  I can’t—

  I can’t breathe.

  Everything bleeds together and I can’t—

  I can’t do this.

  I run back to the change room and peel off my swimmers. Sitting on the cold metal toilet, I drag air into my lungs. I gasp in and out, out and in. It’s like my chest is closing up and I’m shoving my breath through cracks.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die naked on a toilet. I need to get out. I sniff back tears and press the heels of my hands into my eyes.

  ‘Lucy?’ Alix knocks on the door. ‘Are you okay?’ Her voice is soft and cautious, as if I’m a wounded animal she doesn’t want to scare.

  I stick my head between my shaking legs and fight to get my breath back. ‘I’m okay,’ I choke out.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘My clothes. Can you . . .’

  Alix slides my bag under the door. I grip the strap, close my eyes and count backwards from five in my head as I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

  ‘Want me to call someone?’

  I unzip the bag and pull my hoodie, undies and shorts on. I can’t go back out there. I can’t.

  ‘Just go away,’ I say, leaning against the wooden door, trying to keep the tears out of my voice.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Please.’ I hate that please, it twists out of me, so weak and pathetic.

  ‘Are you sure? I’m gonna get Phil—’

  ‘No! Just . . . just go.’

  ‘What are you gonna do?’

  I close my eyes. ‘I’ll see you at school, okay?’

  It takes her a moment to respond and when she does her voice is small. ‘Okay.’

  I wait until I’m sure she’s gone, then ditch my swim stuff in my locker and grab my school bag. I hurry out of the change room. Megan is standing by the door, water beading on her skin. She stares at me and I stop. She goes to say something and moves to touch my arm but I flinch back—if I talk I’ll cry and I don’t cry in front of people, especially Megan. I run out of the centre and into the street.

  Gripping the straps of my backpack, I stare up into the sky, willing the world to stop. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and walk until I’m out of sight of the centre. My legs won’t stop shaking. I sit in the gutter, then stand back up and pace in a circle, raking my hands through my hair.

  What happened just then? And how many people saw? Maybe if I try again this afternoon it will be okay—or maybe it will happen again.

  My hands shake and I tuck them in my armpits. I swallow tears. It’s still happening.

  I need to swim. I need something to be the same. No home, no Cam, no pool.

  No me.

  2

  Go, go, go, leave, leave, leave.

  I hammer a path through the streets of Port. I’ll have to go back for my swim bag at some point but not now—now I don’t want any of it near me.

  The sun is still new in the sky and with it the small town begins to stir. I pass old guys with fishing tackle, a few surfers heading for an early, determined joggers. I don’t have a direction but I find myself out the front of the service station—the only thing open this early. I take deep breaths but they come in laced with petrol fumes and I feel sick.

  Okay. I make myself stand still, holding my arms straight at my sides. Maybe if I eat something this will stop. All I packed for lunch is an apple and a cheese sandwich but that’s not what I need . . . chocolate! I need chocolate.

  I shoulder thro
ugh the servo’s plastic-ribboned door into the cramped shop and immediately duck out of sight. Two of my brother’s mates are in the next aisle. I hide near the tampons and catch snatches of their conversation.

  ‘Hey you got a dollar? I am this close to a Red Bull.’

  ‘Piss off. I’m still waiting for you to pay me back. In fact, everything you got on you, hand it over.’

  ‘Don’t be such a tightwad. I’ll get your drinks Friday.’

  Pause.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do Friday? I mean it’ll be weird without . . .’

  ‘Look, Cammo loved the cove, sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go there. The place needs one last hurrah before everyone pisses off.’

  They walk up to the counter, pay for their stuff and leave. I lean against the shelves—the cove. Cam made that place infamous. Few people knew exactly where it was, you had to be in with Cam and he loved being all dramatic about it: giving secret passwords, making it the most exciting place to get wasted.

  It will still go on without him.

  I find enough change in my bag for a Snickers, ignoring Mum’s voice in my head rattling on about healthy choices, and don’t wait until I’m even outside before I bite into it.

  ‘Mm.’ I close my eyes as the sugar hits my brain and takes the edge off my nerves.

  ‘Really satisfies, hey?’

  I open my eyes. A boy I’ve never seen before, with my school’s crest on the breast pocket of his white buttoned shirt, is half smiling at me near the packets of chips.

  ‘What?’

  He nods at my chocolate bar.

  ‘Huh?’ I blink at it. ‘Oh, um, yeah.’

  ‘I’m more of a savoury man myself.’ He shakes the can of Pringles he’s holding. On his wrist is a pink, purple and blue rubber band bracelet and two thin black leather ties.

  ‘Once you pop you can’t stop.’

  He laughs. ‘So they say.’ He’s tall and skinny with thick brown hair, adding more to his height, and heavy, serious eyebrows which contradict the smile on his face.

  ‘You go to my school.’

  He glances down at his uniform. I’m still dressed in my hoodie and shorts so it’s not apparent we belong to the same anything. ‘Uh, I guess,’ he says.

  The tension in my chest regroups and I take another bite of my chocolate bar. I think he’s new or, could be, I’ve just never noticed him around before. Our high school takes all the kids from the Lakes district, jamming them into a campus that was too small as soon as it was built, so it’s easy to get lost.