The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

  “All right, Dad?”

  “This is my son, Danny,” Mick says proudly. “Boys, this is Elsie. Elsie, this is Danny, Rex, Joey, and Tavey.”

  “Elsie,” Danny repeats, looking from me to Mick and back to me, suspiciously.

  His eyes are strikingly blue, the same color as my mum’s Bombay Sapphire.

  “Bit young to be a barmaid, aren’t you?” he asks.

  I blush and come out from behind the bar.

  “That’s your job,” Mick says to Danny. “There’s a delivery in the storeroom that wants sorting.”

  From a shelf behind the bar, Danny grabs a dry T-shirt and slips it over his head. He gives Mick a little head wiggle that I’m sure means “get her out of here.” Then he disappears through the swinging doors. I’ve seen his type before. He’s the kind of guy who thinks he’s better than everyone else. The kind of guy who looks through people like me.

  Rex is the one with extremely curly hair. It’s out of control like mine, but his is sandy, not dark. He’s odd looking, with a torso that’s too long for the rest of his body and one arm covered in moles. I can tell he thinks he’s the funny one of the group when he goes to hug me. I duck under his arms. Joey is the smallest out of the four—he also looks like the kindest, with long hair down to his chin, and enormous brown eyes. He’s the only one still wearing his full wetsuit. “Hi,” he says shyly.

  Mick puts an arm around Tay.

  “Tay’s my best diver,” he says. “He could be Scotland’s deepest boy if he put his mind to it.”

  Tay shrugs Mick off and steps forward. “Hello, Elsie. Nice to meet you.”

  He’s smirking, like he’s sharing a private joke with someone. My mouth dries out. Even though he’s a few feet away, I feel like I’m right up against him, and I need air. “Excuse me,” I mutter, and push past him and the two other boys to get to the door.

  Outside on the veranda, I lick my chapped lips, which are salty from the spray. I wonder if I dreamed our previous meeting in the boathouse. I jump when someone touches me lightly on the shoulder.

  “Want one?” Tay is next to me holding a pack of Marlboro Gold. I fumble, trying to grip one of the cigarettes. In the end he takes one and lights it for me. The tiny hairs above his knuckles brush my hand as he passes me the cigarette, and I get goose bumps on my neck.

  “I was just leaving,” I manage to say eventually.

  “Me too. I’ll walk with you.” He points to the path and walks down the steps and away before I can answer.

  “Aren’t you cold? Where are your shoes?” I ask when I catch up with him. I’m almost running to keep up with his long strides.

  He looks down at his feet. “Nah, shoes are for losers,” he says. “You give up school yet?”

  So I didn’t dream it.

  “I’m working on it,” I say, still running, wondering if he’s aware that I can’t keep up.

  When we reach the grassy strip at the top of the harbor by the road, he suddenly stops and I crash into him. He holds my arms to steady me, and he’s so close, I feel his breath. All I can do is stare up at him.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Your cigarette’s gone out,” he whispers.

  He takes it from my mouth and lights it again. Then he steps away and looks out across the harbor. The lights on the bridge to Inverness twinkle across the night sky. I look around: we’re alone.

  “Erm, can I ask you a question?” I want to draw him close again.

  “That was a question,” he says, still with his back to me.

  I’m stumped for a second. This guy is not very good at communicating.

  “Why did you pretend that you didn’t know me? Are you embarrassed?”

  Tay turns back to me and inhales and exhales, slowly. The whole time, I stand there wondering if he heard me or if I should repeat the question.

  “Don’t want anyone to know about our secret place, do we?” he eventually says, with the same smirk that he had inside the clubhouse. Either he’s embarrassed to be seen with me in front of the boat boys, or he’s hiding something. Maybe he’s on probation after leaving prison. Maybe he’s not supposed to be out on his own. I picture him sitting in a cell, scratching his name on the floor.

  “Hey, Mick said you were asking him about diving and stuff,” he says.

  “No,” I reply. “He was telling me about diving. Freediving, or whatever you call it.”

  “You got a wetsuit? You should come out on the boat with us. I’ll have a word with Danny. I’m sure he won’t mind. You don’t have to dive or anything—just watch. It’ll be fun. The water’s pretty cold this time of year, but once you’re under, it’s well worth the pain.”

  He talks really fast, like he’s nervous or something. I’m so busy thinking about myself in a wetsuit, thighs and backside wobbling, and thinking that Danny probably would mind, because he clearly already hates me, that I miss something. Because the next thing Tay says is, “See you tomorrow, then?”

  “Huh?”

  “Come out on the boat with us tomorrow. We’ve got a boat. It’s called the Half Way.”

  “I’ve got school tomorrow.”

  He laughs, showing me his perfectly straight teeth.

  “Well, anytime. We’re always about. Saturday, maybe. Unless you’re too afraid?”

  A car horn makes us both jump.

  “I have to go,” he says quietly, suddenly all serious.

  I look at the car. The driver stares straight ahead, his hands firmly holding the wheel.

  “Is that your dad?”

  Tay nods. “That’s him.” He stamps his cigarette into the ground, then jogs soundlessly over to the car. All I can hear is my own heart thudding. The car squeals away even before the passenger door is closed. My brain says his name over and over again. Tavey McKenzie. Tay McKenzie. Tay. McKenzie. Elsie McK— I stop myself just in time.

  12

  Alone in the school library at lunch, I Google “free­diving.” I discover that it’s also called breath-hold or apnea diving. There are so many sites, I don’t even know where to start. It’s amazing, the stuff you can find on the Internet—a few days ago I’d never even heard of freediving, and now I know that there are several different types, depending on whether you go down deep or stay just below the surface or if you have flippers or if you use weights to get down and balloons to get back up. There are forums, too. I scroll through the comments:

  scubasam69: Hey, I really wanna try freediving! Is it safe?

  Freer-diver1: Depends on what you mean by safe. It’s safe if the person doing it isn’t a complete moron. Don’t post stupid comments on this forum. Do some research and then ask proper questions if you’re really interested. Happy to help. Freer-diver.

  Poseidon_Seagod: Hey, scubasam69! It’s totes safe, man. I tried for the first time last year, and now I can go to about fifty meters. Never blacked out.

  Pixie2Pink: Don’t do it! Freediving is NOT safe. I urge you: do not do this dangerous sport. People die every year. EVERY year. You people are so stupid. Can’t you just think of the poor ones who have to go and get your body from the bottom of the friggin’ sea!?

  Freer-diver1: Pixie2pink, get your facts straight. Freediving is no more dangerous than football or rugby. It’s less dangerous than cycling or mountaineering—if you are measuring by deaths. Freediving is as safe as you make it, like any other sport or activity. Follow the rules. Know what you’re doing. Never dive alone. Freer-diver.

  scubasam69: Thanks, Freer-diver1 and Poseidon_Seagod. None of my mates are up for doing it, so I don’t have much choice about not going alone. I reckon I can practice in my local pool, though. The lifeguards will save me! Ha ha! Happy diving.

  Freer-diver1: scubasam69, don’t make me swear on a public forum. Read this link: Rules. Thanks, Freer-diver.

  I don’t click on the link—rules are for losers, like shoes. I think of Tay’s bare feet in the cold, the way the pebbles must have dug into his soles.

  Eddie wriggles abou
t inside me. His vibrations are gentle at first, but they become heavier and louder until it feels like he’s pounding on the inside of my skin for me to let him out.

  I close everything down. Not now, Eddie, I plead with him silently. He is under the table, grabbing my legs, begging me to play hide-and-seek with him. But he doesn’t want me to find him—he wants me to hide too. “No one will find us in here,” he says. Even though lunch is over, I stay for a while—until the librarian finds me and gives me a detention for missing my English class.

  13

  “How’s your girlfriend?” I ask Dillon when he sits down at the kitchen table that night. I’m cooking dinner, and we’re alone—a rarity lately. Instead of waiting for me after school, he wandered off with Lara and left me to deal with Ailsa and her sidekicks, who spat at me and called me poodle face. It’s not fair that Dillon gets to go and have fun without me.

  Dillon looks sulky and picks at a stain on the table.

  “Spending a lot of time with her these days, aren’t you?”

  My father comes in and interrupts us.

  “You’ll burn the sauce,” he says to me as he scoops a bit of macaroni from the pan to test it. He sits down next to Dillon, fanning his mouth.

  “You’re not wasting your study time, are you, pal? I know you’re an adult and you can do what you want, but you don’t want to throw your life away on a wee lass.”

  Dillon looks up at him apologetically. It makes my blood boil. Dillon should just tell him where to stick it.

  “She helps me study,” Dillon says. “She’s more mature than other girls in her year,” he goes on, looking right at me. Lara is actually nearly a year younger than me, due to me repeating a year. I roll my eyes, probably entirely proving his point, but I don’t care.

  “Well, as long as you keep on top of your schoolwork. I trust you,” my father says.

  He says it in that way that means, “I’m saying I trust you, so you must obey me.”

  Time to play a game. I want to wind Dillon up, but I’m also testing the water for myself.

  “Where do you go with Lara? To her house? Doesn’t she live right on Rosemarkie beach?”

  Dillon glares at me. My father gets all jumpy.

  “But you stay inside the house, right? You don’t go to the beach, eh?” he asks.

  “Yes, Dad. Don’t worry. I don’t go to the beach.”

  “Okay, good.” He scratches his ear. “I mean, it’s okay, that stretch of beach, but the water there can still be treacherous. Not quite as bad as Chanonry Point, I guess.”

  He winces when he says “Chanonry Point.” There’s a short but very deep pause before Dillon replies.

  “Dad, I haven’t been swimming for years.”

  “Yes, I know,” he says. “Right. Where’s that macaroni, Elsie?”

  I place the macaroni on the table as Mum comes in, and my father dishes up. Dillon hardly eats anything, stirring the macaroni and scraping the sauce off it onto the plate. It’s not actually burnt, so I don’t know what his problem is. He can’t seem to take a joke these days. It’s not like I would have actually told our parents that he goes to the beach. The message from my father is clear, though. Rosemarkie beach is okay, as long as we don’t go in the water. And if Rosemarkie is fine, then the harbor must be too. And aside from that, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him.

  14

  The day after Eddie disappeared, Dillon and I went down to the Point to look for him. Dillon told me to wait on the beach, but I followed him into the water. He swam so fast, I couldn’t keep up with him, and we were against the tide. I was afraid of how deep it was farther out, but I didn’t want to stop until we found Eddie.

  “Can you see anything?” I kept calling to Dillon, but he was too far away to hear me, and the rain was creating a mist on the surface of the water, making it even harder to see.

  Every time I got out to the big waves, they dragged me back and I had to start again. My hands were numb and useless at pulling me through the water, and I became so exhausted, I couldn’t keep my head up. Large bits of kelp drifted around my neck, and every time I brushed a piece away, another would attach itself to my skin. The water closed in around my head, and it was so cold, I felt like my head was being crushed. For a few seconds I thought I’d never come back up, and I thought to myself, I deserve this. But then the water pushed me up and I tumbled onto the beach. When I looked up, I saw my father running toward me, shouting, his face raging with anger. He grabbed me around my neck and pulled me back onto the beach. My fingers were blue.

  “He might be down there,” I croaked.

  “What did you do?” my father screamed.

  Then Dillon was there too, screaming for Dad to let go. The three of us were drenched from the sea and the rain, and we howled together for what seemed like forever. I remember the grayness of my father’s face when he looked at me that day—it was like the color had been washed out.

  “You’re not to come back here on your own, either of you. Do you hear? You’re not to come here again.”

  “I just want to find him,” I cried as my father dragged me up the beach to the car park. “I need to say goodbye.”

  From the warmth of the car, I watched Dillon run back down onto the pebbles. He scrabbled around on the stones like a dog searching for a bone until our father wrestled him back to the car too.

  Later, the police came around. Dillon and I hid in the closet under the stairs, listening to our parents talking to them. We caught only a few words: “called off” and “too dangerous.” Then I heard my name and more murmuring. I opened the closet door slightly to hear the rest, and Dillon put his hand over my mouth.

  “No, I’m sorry. You can’t talk to them. They’re too upset,” my father said. His voice was high-pitched. “We’ve told you everything. It happened so quickly, there was no time . . .”

  Dillon pulled the door closed, and everything was muffled again.

  “Aren’t they looking for him anymore?” I asked Dillon.

  “Shhh.”

  “He’ll be so scared.”

  “He won’t be scared now,” Dillon replied.

  “He will.”

  Dillon put his hand over my mouth again and said that we couldn’t let them hear us. Then he whispered very quietly that an angel would guide Eddie back to us. After a few minutes, I said, “Dillon, I’m not four. I know there aren’t any angels. And Eddie knows it too. He also knows that there is no Santa or tooth fairy.”

  “You told him?”

  I shrugged, even though it was dark and Dillon couldn’t see.

  “Dillon?”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t see Dad anywhere.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Dillon, where did he go?”

  “He was there. You looked in the wrong place.”

  A cloud of dust made me choke, but Dillon wouldn’t let me get out of the closet, even though I needed the loo as well and was really hungry. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before.

  “Dillon?”

  “What?”

  “It’s my fault. I was the one who lost him.”

  “No.” Dillon shook my shoulders so hard, I almost cried out. “This wasn’t your fault. You mustn’t ever say anything like that to anyone. It was an accident. Promise me that you won’t say a word to anyone.”

  I promised and drew an imaginary zip across my lips. I didn’t know then that our silence would last for a year. I followed Dillon’s lead—he would let me know when it was safe to talk again. When, after a few months, we still refused to speak, Mum started telling everyone that we had chronic laryngitis. We drank a lot of cough medicine that year and had frequent trips to see doctors, who kept asking us how we felt.

  After the police had gone, we crawled out of the closet, but our parents were still talking.

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

  15

  On Saturday I head straight to the harbor. I hear the bo
at 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.