Underwater Breathing

by Parkin, Cassandra;

  At some time between midnight and dawn, she made her decision, and finally fell asleep for a brief uncomfortable interval. She dreamed of her husband, and took this to mean he approved of her plan. She made herself toast with the last of the bread, and then, growing impatient, noisily vacuumed the hallway until Jacob finally woke.

  “I’ve called the hospital,” she told him, as he stood blearily in the doorway and stared at her in bafflement.

  “What did they say?”

  “I’m not telling you yet, you’re not awake properly and you won’t take it in. Go and have a shower and make yourself presentable. And wash your hair, it’s disgusting. I’ll be out in the garden.”

  She was prepared for protests, but he nodded meekly and headed for the stairs. Perhaps she reminded him of his mother. She had none of Maggie’s ethereal prettiness, but perhaps she too had been stern with her stepson. Of course, he would have known that Maggie’s sternness was tempered with love.

  The last twenty-four hours had contained more effort and human interaction than she’d experienced in years. Outside smelled beguilingly of salt and summer. It would be another beautiful day, and tonight she would ignore all other claims on her time, take her boat out and tip herself backwards into the water. A clump of thrift grew from a scrap of soil collected beneath a rock that might once have marked out a flowerbed. She would never understand people who bought gardens, then neglected them. She picked the bloom and began shredding it, enjoying the tough resistance of the stalk and the thin dry petals. Perhaps Jacob would forget her, and she would be able to escape without having to talk to him. Then she heard the back door shut and the rustle of someone coming towards her through the long grass, and sighed. A moment later and Jacob was beside her, carrying two mugs of tea.

  “I made tea,” he said.

  “I should think so too. I’ve been here all night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not. You asked me to come so I came.”

  He was too young to know how to argue with someone older than him. He blinked miserably until she took pity on him and took the mug from his hands. The cliffs were closer than the last time she’d been here, and would grow closer still as the autumn gales took their toll.

  “So,” she said. “Your father has something called – actually, I can’t remember what it’s called, I wrote it down but I can’t remember it. But it’s caused by drinking. He’s in a coma, but they think he’ll come out of it.”

  Jacob nodded blankly.

  “When he does, he’ll probably have some brain damage,” she continued. “He won’t be able to look after you, or even himself. He’ll be brain damaged for ever, but the rest of him could well be all right. So, as long as he’s got someone making sure he eats and washes and doesn’t burn the house down, he could live a long time.”

  Was he taking this in? She wasn’t sure.

  “So,” she continued, “you need to decide what you want to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had your exam results yesterday, yes? And you passed them all?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You told me yourself, when you came to get me.”

  He looked mystified. “Did I?”

  “How else would I know? So, is that right? You passed them all? You weren’t making it up?”

  “Yeah, I passed them.”

  “Good. So now you can do anything you like.”

  “I’m sixteen and now my dad’s ill. What can I do?”

  “Anything at all. You just need to decide.”

  She’d hoped he’d be clever enough to understand, but he stared at her with those big cow-eyes of his, waiting patiently for her to start making sense.

  “Your father’s in hospital,” she said. “That’s your window of opportunity. If you leave now and don’t look back, they’ll never track you down.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Or you can call Social Services and tell them you’re on your own without a carer. You’ll end up with a foster family probably, I think that’s what normally happens, and they’ll look after you while you do your A-levels. That’s a possibility too.”

  “But what about Dad?”

  “Did you read the notes I left?”

  He took a sheet of paper from his pocket. He’d folded it clumsily, the creases uneven across her lines of neat, careful handwriting. She forced herself to concentrate on the bigger picture.

  “Did you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you understand it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Do you understand your father’s never going to be the same person he was, ever again?” He swallowed and looked away. “Good. So, do you want to spend your whole life until he dies looking after him? Or do you want to get away? And you need to think about this right now because you won’t have long. Have you heard of holding the baby? Right now the hospital have the baby. But if you let them ship him back home, he’s your problem.”

  He was looking away from her and out towards the sea, but she could see from the tremble of his jawline that he was about to cry.

  “This isn’t fair,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Mum should have bloody been here. She shouldn’t have left him. Why would she do that?”

  “Because she didn’t love him enough,” said Mrs Armitage. “Your mother’s left you, and your father’s damaged his brain with drinking. None of that’s fair. But it is what it is. Now what are you going to do about it?”

  She was trying to light the fires of rage in him, so that in the simple directness of his anger he’d find the strength to walk away from his crumbling house and his crumbling father and his crumbling life, and start again somewhere new, in a large city far away from the sea. But instead she saw a swallowing-down of childish emotion and a straightening of the shoulders that told her he was going to do something entirely different. For a moment, she was reminded of her husband.

  “I’m not leaving him,” he said.

  “You have to. What are you going to live on? Who’s going to take care of him?”

  “Won’t he get money or something if he’s not able to work? There isn’t any mortgage. And won’t he be able to have a nurse? While I’m at college?”

  “A nurse?” She laughed scornfully. “An actual nurse? In your house? So you can take yourself off to college twenty miles away? You’ll be lucky if you get twenty minutes a day from some untrained teenager. And you’ll have to pay for that, I should think, so you’ll have even less money than you’re imagining.”

  “I don’t know. But everyone else has left him. I’m not going to.”

  “Then you’ll starve,” she said calmly, and took a long drink of her tea.

  They stood side by side and gazed out at the water. Mrs Armitage was comfortable with silence, but most people were not. Whoever spoke first, lost the battle. Eventually, Jacob would feel compelled to fill the void. If she kept quiet, she would force him to do what she told him, and find some other future in some other place. Then this house would be empty, and the cliff-top would be hers alone. She would never walk this way again, and she would be able to forget that small girl in unicorn wellington boots and a pink-and-blue flowery coat. Why wasn’t he speaking? She was stronger than he was, she was older and wiser and more ruthless.

  “Or else go mad,” she said. This didn’t count as her speaking first. She was simply finishing her sentence. She still had the upper hand. Seen in profile, Jacob resembled his father. She suspected she could see Jacob every day for the next ten years and never glimpse his sister. Not that she’d see him ever again after today, unless they met by chance in a shop somewhere and looked at each other for a minute, and then looked away. She still had the upper hand. My God, he looked like his father – to her irritation she realised she was repeating the same thoughts over and over.

  “You can’t look after him,” she said at last. “What on earth makes you think you can?
Why would you even want to? He’s a dreadful parent and you don’t owe him a thing. Why do that to yourself? Get rid of him and start a new life.”

  “What if they come back?”

  “Your mother and Ella? They’re not coming back.”

  “Ella might, one day when she’s older. This is where she’ll look. If I’m not here, how will she find me?”

  “But –”

  “She left him,” Jacob said, and from the bitterness of that she, Mrs Armitage guessed he meant his stepmother. “But I won’t.”

  Damn it, she thought to herself. Love was always the hardest enemy to conquer.

  “The house won’t last,” she reminded him. A rear-guard action, but one with potential.

  “Then I’ll stay until it’s gone.”

  “And what happens after that?”

  “I’ll worry about it when it happens. Until then, I’ve got to stay here.”

  “You’ll only keep the house if you take on your dad. And if you’re stuck with him, you’ll have nothing else. No A-levels, no university, nothing. There aren’t even any jobs around here for you to do.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “How? How will you actually manage, Jacob? You won’t have time to earn money, and you won’t have money to pay for anyone’s time. If you can answer that, I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I –”

  She wanted to say I don’t care, but it stuck on the end of her tongue. She knew then that he’d won, and all that was left for her to do was to salvage as much as she could from the wreckage.

  “All right,” she said grimly, to the universe in general. “Here’s what we’ll do.”

  “You don’t have to do anything, I’m not asking you for –”

  “Be quiet, please, I’m talking. I’ll help you with your father. No, don’t start telling me I don’t have to, clearly I do. But there are some conditions.”

  “You don’t have to, I never asked you to –”

  “Last night, Jacob, whose door did you knock on? Well, then. Now listen. I’ll look after your father when you abso-lutely can’t, and no more. That means I’ll be there when you’re getting an education or earning a living. For everything else, he’s your responsibility. Now, here are my conditions. I expect you to go to college and do your A-levels. I expect you to do well in them too. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar. Never mind. What do you want to do afterwards?”

  “I. Um. I’d like to be a teacher, I think, I don’t really know –”

  “A teacher.” Of course, he had to choose a career he could actually pursue while still living here. She’d been hoping for something less universally useful. “You’ll have to do your degree living at home, but at least you’ll have one. That’s the second condition, by the way. I expect you to choose a goal and work towards it.”

  “What if I’m not good enough?”

  “Then you’ll have to choose something else. And the third condition. Each morning, you and I will come down here and you’ll tell me one thing you remember about Ella.”

  “What? Why?”

  “If you’re going to live this ludicrous life, you’re going to remind yourself each day why you’re doing it. Maybe one day you’ll realise how stupid you’re being and stop. Until then, you’ll confront it. Every morning, you understand? That’s my price.”

  His eyes were wide.

  “Yes, I know. It’s going to hurt, isn’t it? Memories always do. Well, that’s your choice, Jacob. Do you accept, or not?”

  She wanted him to argue, but of course he wasn’t going to. He was built not to rebel, but to endure.

  “Okay.”

  She looked at him mockingly.

  “Thank you,” he added, as helpless as a bleating sheep.

  “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because otherwise my husband will never forgive me,” she said, and smiled to see the bewilderment on his face.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Now

  The sand beneath their naked skin was cool and slightly damp. When the wind blew through the stiff grasses, they rustled and shook over their heads. They were alone, in their perfect place, and the peace that flowed through his body was almost enough to drown out the throb of horror in his head. Ella was turned slightly away from him. He could see the immaculate curve of her thigh, the slight movement of her shoulder blades as she breathed, the small feathering of silvery stretch marks over her hips. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. But –

  “Jacob.” Her voice was a sob.

  “Ella.” He laid his hand gently on her back. “Don’t blame yourself.” Or me, the cowardly voice in his gut whispered. Don’t blame me, don’t be angry with me, this is the most wonderful, the most beautiful –

  “I should have said no. I should have told you no.”

  “I should have stopped too. I’m the older one, I’m supposed to –” the phrase know better didn’t feel remotely adequate for the situation. Knowing better was for not drinking too much, not parking on the double-yellow lines, not letting Ella go close to the edge of the road. What was the correct phrase to describe what they’d just done? “I’m so sorry.”

  She turned to face him, and for a moment, before she grabbed for her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, he saw the shape of her breasts, and felt sick with longing. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Are you?”

  No, his body whispered, you’re not and you never will be, that was the truest, rightest, most perfect experience of your life and all you want is to do it again. “Of course I am. I’ve hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me.” She wiped fiercely at her eyes. “It was – oh God.” She shuddered. “It was so – but – I mean, is it like that with everyone? Is that what – what sex is like?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the only person I’ve ever – done it with.” The voice in his head was far more eloquent, the words unfurling behind his eyes like the rushes of a bad romantic movie. You’re the only person I want to be with. I want to do it all over again, right now, but slower and more carefully so I can remember every bit until I die. And then afterwards, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to take us both far away from everything to live alone on an island where no one will ever know, no one will ever guess that you’re secretly my – even inside his head, he couldn’t say the words. Did Ella feel the same? He was afraid to ask.

  Without the wild magic of need and passion, he was cold. He shook his boxer shorts out of his jeans and pulled them on, then his jumper. It was still faintly warm. How had so much happened in such a small amount of time?

  “It was just one time,” he said, and reached for Ella’s hand, telling himself that this was normal, this was within the bounds of what was acceptable. His fingers were traitors. They swirled over her palm, felt out the delicate shape of her wrist, threatened to creep up her forearm. “No one will ever know.”

  “No. We won’t tell anyone. We won’t – not ever again –”

  Because she was so close to him, because they both knew it would never happen again, he risked a quick kiss. He was aiming for somewhere innocuous, her cheek or her forehead or the top of her hair, but somehow her mouth came up to meet his and they were kissing again, mouth to mouth, as if they would drown without each other, and his hands were on her again and her hands were on him and it felt as if they had found the keys to a dark kind of Heaven. There was no way this could be wrong. This was surely what the universe had meant for them both. She was so beautiful, so warm, and when she straddled his lap he thought he might die with how it felt.

  He wouldn’t think about it. He couldn’t think about it. They would have this one night and then it would be over. Or perhaps it didn’t have to be over, perhaps this one night could become the first in a precious string of thousands of nights, a secret they could keep between them until they died. This beac
h would keep their secrets, this magical place they had discovered when – when –

  And then he remembered, and forced himself to stop, and he felt the same remembrance take hold of her at the same moment, and they broke apart, breathing hard, hands on each other’s shoulders and foreheads pressed together for strength, as if they had done battle with a monster and barely survived.

  “We can’t,” Ella said.

  “I know.”

  She looked at him miserably. “But you do want to?”

  “Of course I want to! Do you think I’m faking this? Do you think guys even can fake it? Every bit of me wants to. But we can’t do this. I mean, I remember you being born. I used to get your breakfast in the mornings, I used to help bathe you. Oh God, I used to bathe you.” He felt a lurch of vomit gathering in the back of his throat. “Ella, I promise – it wasn’t – I mean, I never, ever, ever – it’s only now, since you came back, that I’ve even –”

  “In the bathroom the other night. When you found me under the water.”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “I almost wanted to be dead. I’d been so sure he – Dad, I mean – I thought he was the one in her book. I thought he’d frightened her away. I was going to tell him what he’d done, make him confess so I could get him put in prison or something. Even when he didn’t recognise me, I thought maybe he’d found her somehow and he was going to see her, during the day when you weren’t there. I mean, it wouldn’t have been his fault, but – only then I realised he couldn’t possibly – he couldn’t ever – and I wanted to die because I thought I’d never find her. I know that’s awful but I did. But then you came in and I saw your face when you pulled me out of the water and I thought – I thought – I mean, I felt so – I wanted so much for you to – but then I remembered, and I felt so disgusting –”

  “Don’t say that,” he begged. “You’re not disgusting. It could have happened anyway, we might have just met and not known who we were. It must happen to people all the time, only they never realise. We could pretend we met when we were the age we are now.” He risked a glance at her face. “No, course we can’t pretend that, I’m being ridiculous.”