Underwater Breathing

by Parkin, Cassandra;

  “But it might have been. It’s closer to the edge than ours.”

  “Look, it wasn’t Mrs Armitage’s house. Mrs Armitage is fine, Mum and Dad are fine, we’re fine. Now it’s time to go to bed.”

  “But should we wait and see –”

  “Stop arguing. Bed.”

  “Will you carry me?”

  “No! You’re too heavy.” Ella’s face crumpled. “Oh all right then, but no more messing around, okay?”

  When he lifted her, her towel unravelled and fell to the floor, shortly followed by the one around his own shoulders. The draught from the rattling window was like a cold mouth moving over his bare skin. With his sister in his arms, he staggered awkwardly down the corridor to the relative warmth of her bedroom, where a plug-in oil-filled radiator created a small unmoving patch of dry air and her discarded pyjamas lay like a shucked pink skin at the end of her bed.

  “Come on then. Cossie off. Pyjamas on.”

  “I don’t want to, I’ll sleep in my costume…”

  “No you won’t, it’s soaking wet. You can’t get into bed in wet clothes. Hurry up.”

  She looked up at him hopefully. “Can you take it off for me?”

  At moments like this, when she tried to take them both back into the years when she was small enough to pick up and put down at will like a downy little pet and he was her hero, he both loved and resented her. Resented her because he was a boy of sixteen and he was cold too and he didn’t want to be responsible for her, he only wanted to go back to his own room and shut the door and pretend everything was fine in his family, and their house wasn’t too big and too old and their parents were downstairs watching a box-set and the storm wasn’t bringing the North Sea ever closer to their back doorstep and when he woke the next morning it would be to a bright and ordinary day. Loved her because he couldn’t help but love her. He sighed, knelt down and peeled the costume from her shoulders and torso in a single brutal movement like tearing off a plaster.

  “There. Now get your pyjamas on. And your socks and dressing gown. And then get into bed.”

  “Can you read me a story?”

  “God, can you let me go and get warm first, please! Okay, yes, I’ll read you a story, but only if you’re in bed when I come back.”

  He closed the door on her quivering lip and retreated to his own room to shiver into his nightwear. He’d thought he wouldn’t need this again until winter, but the storm had stolen all the heat from the air. Long-sleeved pyjamas, thick dressing gowns, socks and slippers, clothes for children from old-fashioned storybooks to go with their old-fashioned storybook house. He thought again of Mrs Armitage in her scuba suit, of her body disappearing beneath the waves to find the quiet places beneath the churning brown water. When the waters closed over her head, did it feel warmer than the air?

  Somewhere downstairs, a door banged in the wind – once, twice, three times. Was that his parents coming home? Was it really possible his father hadn’t noticed that he and Ella were dressed in their swimming costumes? Perhaps if he was quick enough he might get the bathroom cleared up before they saw any evidence. Or were his parents already on their way upstairs? He listened hard, but the house remained silent. His feet slithery because of the slippers, he hurried down the corridor to the bathroom.

  A few minutes of frantic effort, and the evidence of their crime was as gone as it was going to be that night. The bath was drained and empty, the pools of water mopped from the floor, except for the one by the window which was not bathwater but rainwater, and which he left as a small reproach to his parents for complaining about the water they spilled from the bath when the house itself was so far from weatherproof. (As he thought this, the downstairs door began banging again.) He stole the clothes-horse from the junk-room, set it up in his room by the radiator and hung the towels out to dry. He hid their wet costumes at the back of the airing cupboard behind the boiler, then opened Ella’s door a cautious half-inch. Perhaps she’d have drifted off to sleep and he would be free? He peered in. Ella was cocooned in the heavy duvet, but her eyes were wide open and her gaze was fixed on the door.

  “Do you want some hot milk?” he asked her, to make up for being cross earlier.

  “Yes please.”

  “Hang on then.”

  The kitchen was like a freezer with a gale blowing through it and the back door threw itself back and forth as if it was trying to beat its own brains out against the wall. After a few attempts, he caught it and forced it to shut. Their father must have left it open when he went out. How long had their parents been out there now? He poured milk into two mugs and put them in the microwave. He despised the taste of hot milk, but it would give him something warm to hold while he read to Ella. Please let her not pick one of the Rainbow Fairy books. The back door rattled and tried to break free. He gave it a kick as punishment.

  Back up the stairs to Ella’s room, where Ella was growing sleepy beneath the duvet. When she saw him she reached out a warm little hand and took hold of his arm, trying to draw it under her chin.

  “Hang on, let me put the milk down first.” He balanced the mugs on the drawers by her bedside, orange pine and as ugly as sin. They were supposed to contain her socks and knickers, but she’d filled them with an assortment of dried-up felt-tip pens, empty Kinder Eggs and plastic giveaway gifts from the fronts of magazines. “Right, what am I reading you?”

  “Can you sleep here with me tonight?”

  “No I can’t, there’s no room. Am I reading you a story or what?” Ella held up something thin and mauve and glittery, watching his face to see if she was pushing her luck too far. “Oh come on, no, I’m not reading that, forget it. Right, I’m picking.” Rummaging through the pile of books, he found the Ladybird King Arthur he’d inherited from his father and loved fiercely for years. “We’ll have this one.”

  “I don’t like that one, it’s silly.”

  “It is not silly. Why is it silly?”

  “Because the sister, the one who can do magic I mean. What’s she called again?”

  “Morgan le Fay?”

  “Yes, Morgan le Fay. She says her son is the King’s son. But he can’t be, because the king’s her brother. So why does she even say it?”

  “Never mind that. Look, it’s this one or nothing, so which is it going to be?”

  “Can I hold your arm while you read?”

  “As long as you let me have it back when we’ve finished.”

  Crammed awkwardly into the spaces where his little sister wasn’t, Jacob propped himself up with the pillow and began to read. Ella yawned widely, exposing the clean pink of her mouth and tongue, and snuggled against his arm. He could smell the cooling milk on the bedside table. Ella began to twitch and fidget, a sure sign she was about to fall asleep. He made his voice as low and boring as he could. Ella’s eyelids fluttered shut, then open, then shut again. Her breathing grew slow and heavy. He shut the book, watching her carefully to see if she would wake when his voice stopped. She sighed, muttered something and squeezed his arm tight. He waited a minute longer, then slid off the bed and pulled his arm out from Ella’s sleeping grip. His little sister was asleep. He was free.

  The storm was beginning to blow itself out at last. The rattle of the windows was gentler, and the rain on the glass no longer sounded like handfuls of flung gravel. His room was foggy from the drying towels and his bed was cold, but at least he was alone now, his responsibilities over for another day.

  Just another two years and he would be entirely free. What would happen when he left home? Did Ella have any idea how close he was to escape? Did she even realise yet that such a thing was possible? Her whole universe was contained in the brown sea, the frowning sky, the flat fertile fields, the sunshine that lit up the landscape like a torch and turned everything briefly beautiful. When he left, would it be enough for her?

  Never mind. As much as he loved Ella, she was his mother and father’s responsibility, not his, and they’d surely be back soon. It was strange that they we
ren’t back already. Perhaps he should go out and look for them. But that would mean leaving Ella in the house on her own, and besides, he was finally growing warm now, the heat from his body spreading out in the bed so that he no longer had to lie rigid and unmoving for fear of touching a chilly patch. He’d done enough for today. He was allowed to go to sleep and let his parents take over.

  And as he had this thought, he heard the kitchen door opening and closing, and footsteps clattering into the house. So they were safe and well, and not at the bottom of a cliff. It was a good thing he hadn’t gone out to look for them, they’d have killed him if they found he’d left Ella alone…

  Later, his sleep was dimly broken by small sounds that told him his parents had not yet found their own rest. Footsteps in the corridor outside. A door opening; a small whimper of protest from Ella. They must be checking she’s asleep, he thought blearily, and then, as Ella’s voice, made young and soft with sleep, came to him through the wall, he thought, just let her sleep, will you? I’ve done all the hard part for you. The sound of footsteps retreating again, heavier and slower this time. Silence. And the peace that came from being in one of the few warm spots in a cold world.

  I should go and make sure she’s okay, he thought. Some-times they wake her up and she doesn’t go back to sleep because she’s scared. But he was finally warm, and Ella was seven years old and it was time she learned to settle herself, and in the end he closed his eyes and let sleep reclaim him.

  In the years that came after, he wondered what might have happened if he’d done everything differently that night. If he’d gone out into the storm to search for his parents. If he had given in to Ella’s request and slept in her bed instead of his own. If he’d got up to check she wasn’t lying awake and petrified, staring into the dark. But when he woke the next morning to the sight of his father looming over him, pale and gaunt and reeking of alcohol, a dreadful artificial smile stretched out across his face like scar tissue, his first thought was simple resentment. I wish you wouldn’t come into my room when I’m sleeping, he thought. I wish you’d stop coming into our rooms and frightening us like that.

  I’ve been thinking lately about becoming someone else. I haven’t decided quite who I might become yet, but whoever she turns out to be, she will be someone quite different from me. She will be small where I am tall. She will be sturdy. Not fat, but stocky like a farmer’s wife, where I am waify and lanky and underfed, like a weed grown in the dark. Apparently, I am beautiful. So, when I become whoever it is that I am going to turn into, I will have to stop being beautiful.

  The woman I am going to become will be cold and strong where I am warm and feeble. It’s too easy for someone to charm their way into my bed. I like it too much when they’re there. But when I put on my new skin, no one will ever come near me in that way again, and I will no longer crave it because I will have learned at last how dangerous love is. I will love nobody and nobody will love me. I think perhaps that will be better for everyone.

  The hardest part, I think: she will be someone who can leave behind people who she cares for, and who care for her. She will be completely free.

  Chapter Two

  2007

  On the third morning in their house at the end of the world, Jacob woke to sunshine and silence and a sky that stretched out and out like a flat blue sheet.

  He lay in bed for a few minutes, listening to the small sounds of the house as it moved and settled. He was still learning the personality of this new home. The warm places and the draughty ones. The spots where you could walk freely and the ones where the boards would shriek like mandrakes. The welcoming rooms and the ones that brimmed with darkness. After so many years of smallness and making do, the emptiness and light made him feel as if the top of his head might come off.

  So far, this house seemed worn but welcoming, the way he imagined it would feel to visit grandparents. He won-dered if the house knew it was destined to fall into the sea eventually, or if it believed it would stand for ever, as solid and permanent as the day it was first built. In the corridor outside, a small sound like a mouse told him Ella was there. After a minute, the door moved slightly and half of her face peered cautiously in.

  “It’s too early,” he told her, not because it was too early but because he wanted her to start learning that it wasn’t okay to come into his room without being asked. Then, because her face looked so resigned and sad as she turned away, he added, “but you can come in anyway. As long as you don’t fidget.”

  A scurry of feet and a glad little hop and his bed was full of Ella, smelling of clean childish sweat and strawberry shampoo. At six, she was getting too big to do this; her sharp little toes scratched against his leg as she wriggled beneath the covers. He’d been exactly the right temperature when he woke up, but with Ella beside him the bed was like a superheated prison. He’d have to get up soon.

  “Do you like our new house?” he asked. To his surprise, she immediately shook her head. “You don’t? Seriously? Why not?” She whispered something, but he couldn’t make it out. “Don’t whisper, I can’t understand you. Talk to me properly.” She looked at him silently. “Fine, don’t talk to me properly, that’s up to you. Come on. It’s breakfast time.”

  His room and Ella’s were at one end of a short corridor that terminated in a rounded turret. When they first looked at the house, he’d seen the turret from the outside and hoped it might be his bedroom. As it turned out, the turret room was a cavernous bathroom that his parents had instantly told them both they were never to use – a rule Jacob took great secret pleasure in ignoring. He shut the bathroom door on Ella’s hopeful face. He wasn’t going to have her watching him pee. When he opened the door again, her expression reminded him of a dog waiting for its owner.

  “I waited for you,” she said, and took his hand confidingly.

  “You did.”

  “Are we going downstairs now?”

  “We are.”

  “Shall we have breakfast now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Mummy and Daddy aren’t awake yet?”

  “I don’t know.” It was still strange to find himself in a space where every action of every person in the household wasn’t instantly telegraphed, not just to everyone in their own home, but to everyone in the homes on either side and on top of them as well. “We’ll go past their bedroom and listen.”

  “Did they argue last night?”

  The sudden question pierced him. He’d wanted to believe that, with this new home, the shouting would stop.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Lying to his little sister felt wrong, even when it was for her own good. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t have done, you were asleep. You must have dreamed it.”

  “I woke up and I couldn’t sleep again because I was frightened. I don’t like it here. The sea’s too close. It’s going to come and take our house away.”

  “Don’t be silly, the sea’s not going to take our house away.”

  “Yes it is, that’s what the man said. It’s going to come in the night when it’s raining and take our house away and we’ll all go floating in the water and never see each other again.”

  “Stop it. That won’t happen. Well, it might happen in the end, but not for years. Now come on, we’re going to find some breakfast.”

  The door to their parents’ bedroom was closed as they passed it. He paused a moment in case he could hear anything, get a measure of the emotional temperature of the household, but there was nothing. The acoustics here were another mystery he was still exploring. Sometimes you could stand by a half-opened door and hear almost nothing of what was being said on the other side. Sometimes you could be three rooms away and a voice would come to him with startling clarity. (“My head’s like a beehive,” his mother had said yesterday as he stood in the tiled room by the front door, idly contemplating the patches of damp that bloomed across the bare walls, and he was so convinced that she was be
hind him and speaking to him that he turned to ask her what she meant. “And you’re like a beekeeper. You keep the bees in order and stop them from swarming too far.” And it was only when his father replied, “So do the bees like it here?” that he realised he was standing beneath their bedroom and eavesdropping on their private conversation.)

  They left their parents’ room and went downstairs. The flowing wooden curve of the bannister beneath his hand felt like an old friend. He had to stop himself from laughing out loud as the hallway came up to meet him.

  The kitchen smelled of last night’s dinner – a chicken curry that had been delicious at the time, but now just smelled gross. He wrestled with the back door for a while, until finally a gust of warm clean air rushed in. Another glorious thing about their new home: the garden that came with it. He still couldn’t quite believe it was all theirs.

  “Do you want a picnic?” he asked Ella.

  She was rummaging in the cupboard where she’d insisted on stashing her own special plastic cups and plates. Her face looked at him doubtfully over the top of the door.

  “Come on, let’s go outside and eat. It’s warmer outside than in here.” The breeze tugged at his hair and the legs of his pyjamas.

  “My feet will get cold.”

  “Put your wellies on.”

  “It’ll be all wet.”

  “No it won’t.”

  “I don’t like it outside, I’d rather eat inside –”

  “I’ll get your wellies for you. Don’t try and make breakfast, I’ll do it.” He crammed the toaster with bread, then sprinted to the tiled room by the front door, which his mother had now declared to be the cloakroom. If he wasn’t quick enough, Ella would think he wasn’t coming back at all and would start assembling her own breakfast, which was unlikely to end well. Ella’s wellies – purple and white with a unicorn face moulded into the toes, a magical charity-shop discovery – lay at rest between his father’s muddy work boots. As he picked them up, he heard his parents speaking in the room above, and paused a moment, holding his breath so he could hear more clearly.