After school, Dillon is himself again. His exam must have gone well, or perhaps it’s the relief of the first one being over. I’m glad mine haven’t started yet.
“What are you going to do about Ailsa?” he asks. “You should’ve done the same back to her.”
“I would’ve done, but I didn’t have any chewing gum. Anyway, I thought you were friends with her.”
“Not really. She just follows me about,” he says, then scratches his head. “Hmm. I might have a plan.”
He disappears into his room and comes back with a bag of something really rotten.
“Fruit,” he explains. “I forgot about it until there was a funny smell.”
“Thanks.” I step back and turn my nose from the stench. “But what do I do with it?”
I follow Dillon into the kitchen, and he wraps the almost-liquid fruit in several layers of foil and then puts the bundle into a plastic sandwich bag.
“Here you are. When you get near her, unwrap it and chuck it in her bag.”
“Okay, thanks, Dil. I didn’t know you were such a rebel.”
“Never underestimate the Dilmeister.” He winks at me, and I catch the sparkle in his eye, something I haven’t seen for a while.
I place the parcel on the table and my stomach growls.
“I wonder if Mum’ll let us get takeaway.”
“She called to say she’d be late.”
In the fridge I find only sausages and a half-full tin of ravioli. I can’t be bothered to cook the sausages, so I eat the ravioli cold, standing over the sink in case it drips.
“Want some?”
“No. You really are gross.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I say.
As I put the empty can in the bin, Dillon comes up behind me.
“This new hobby of yours, it hasn’t got anything to do with that boy, has it? The one you were with at the party?”
“No,” I lie. I’m worried he’ll tell Dad and that Dad will ground me for the rest of my life.
I feel a slight rush at keeping something from Dillon. It’s like I have power. If he can have secrets, then so can I.
Later, while I’m in the bath, I hear Dillon grunting through pushups in one room, and my parents arguing in another.
“What should I do, Celia? Leave you in bed to rot?” The floor creaks as he paces up and down.
“It’s hard for me, Colin. You don’t understand how hard.” Her words are slurred.
“Bullshit. How hard is it to pick up the dry cleaning from two streets away? And how hard is it to buy a carton of milk?”
“I thought you’d get milk on your way home,” she replies.
I feel bad about drinking it all, but there was nothing else.
“I need that fucking jacket for tomorrow!”
I wince when my father swears. It doesn’t suit him. I reach up and turn on the cold tap. The water thunders down by the side of my head and I start to shiver. When the whole bath is freezing cold, I roll onto my stomach, take a deep breath, and plunge my head down. My chest spasms, but I fight it and fight it, keeping myself under by pressing my hands into the side of the tub. After thirty seconds, the pain subsides. There are no groans or grunts, no arguments. I’m only thinking about one thing—soaring along the seabed in a silver wetsuit.
12
Tay dives down into the clear water, and I watch him glide with his arms locked together out front. He looks beautiful and elegant. I feel like a cumbersome whale in the water. We are at a place called Sandwich Cove, up the coast past Rosemarkie beach, where no one will find us. To get here, you either take a boat from Rosemarkie pier or you trek across fields and through brambles. The seabed here is made of rocks, not sand, which is why the water looks so clear. It has a reddish tint when you look into it.
“You make it look so easy,” I say when he resurfaces.
“That’s because it is easy.”
I put my mask on and try again. I struggle against the current for a few seconds, then bob back to the surface.
“Stop fighting the water and just go with it. You’ve got to let it take you.”
“But I can’t go down.”
“Who says anything about going down? As soon as you’re under, that’s it.”
Frustrated, I push away from him, slightly out to sea, and launch myself down to the bottom. It’s not that deep, but as soon as I get to the seabed I grab a rock and hold myself, belly down, on the floor. The seconds tick by. I brace myself for the memories to flood my mind. The rocks down here are jagged and dig into my hands, but I grip them tight. Some of them are covered in a wispy kind of seaweed that looks like parsley, not at all like the big bits of kelp along the shore and in the harbor. The parsley swishes about in the current. There are shells, too, stuck to the rocks, purple ones, black ones, and white speckled ones. The images don’t come, and I’m annoyed but also relieved. Down here, I’m not a loser. I’m also a lot lighter. I move my head from side to side, swishing my hair about. I pop a couple of bubbles from my mouth and watch them float up.
When I burst through the surface, Tay is there, clapping.
“Two minutes. You’re almost as good as me.”
We swim out a bit farther. I’m starting to get cold, but I don’t want to leave.
“What’s the deepest you’ve gone?”
Tay tilts his head back into the water. “I don’t know. Why is everyone so obsessed with how deep?”
“Isn’t that what it’s about?”
He lifts his head and flicks water in my face on purpose.
“No. Not at all. Come on—let’s dive.” He grabs my shoulder.
“How deep is it here?”
Tay sighs. “About twelve meters, but we’re not going to the bottom.”
From here I can see the lighthouse on the Point. I can just about make out small dots on the beach. Dolphin watchers.
“What about out there?” I ask, pointing toward the bit of water just away from the lighthouse, where Dillon used to swim, where the dolphins show off.
I feel Tay’s fingers tighten around my shoulder.
“Deeper,” he says. “There’s a drop-off. It goes to about forty-three meters.”
I shiver. “Ever been?”
“Nah, nothing to see down there. Right—enough talking. Let’s go under.”
The drop-off. The very bottom of the bay. I picture the seabed gently sloping away from the shore and then suddenly falling away. That’s where I need to go. That’s where Eddie would have gone.
“Elsie, come on.”
I notice I’ve been holding my breath. I let it out and tear my eyes away from the Point, refocusing my attention on Tay. It’s not that hard. I could look at him all day.
I take three deep breaths, like Tay does, then dive down. I kick and kick, but I seem to move only horizontally. I give up and wait on the surface for Tay. I watch his shadow dart about and count three minutes, and I don’t even know how long he was down before I started counting. When he surfaces, he looks like he’s been on some kind of magical experience. His eyes are glazed and shiny. He puts his arms around me and kisses me on the mouth. He tastes of salt.
“Come on, El,” he says into my neck. “Let’s go to the boathouse and warm up.”
I love how he just called me El—I feel so much older.
On the way back to Fortrose, I try to ask Tay for diving tips, but he ignores my questions and tells me about all the different rocks that can be found on the Black Isle.
“Did you see all the different-colored layers?” he says, pointing to the shoreline. “There’s sandstone, black shale, limestone. Sandstone is what the Pictish people used to carve their sculptures. If you look carefully on the beach, you can sometimes find bits of their artwork. You can find fossils, too.”
“Why are there so many layers?” I ask, feigning interest.
Tay kicks a pebble. “The passing of time, I guess. Earthquakes causing the land to shift. Do you ever think about all the people who’ve walked a
long this beach before you?”
“Not really,” I say. “Isn’t that a bit morbid?”
“No. It’s history. It’s amazing what you can find on the beach if you look hard enough.”
“And under the water?”
“Yes, but most of the interesting stuff ends up on the beach.”
He bends down to pick up a small flat black rock. “See? It’s a fossil.”
“Why don’t you like talking about diving?” I ask him. “Especially when you’re so good at it.”
Immediately I feel annoyed at myself for giving him a compliment, but at the same time I want to know.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Tay says. “I don’t need to talk about it. It’s just something I do, like breathing.”
I grin. “You mean it’s like not breathing.”
He smiles slowly at me, like he’s just realizing something.
“You’re right. And I’m glad I get to not breathe with you.”
Later, I lie on my bed with my palms facing out. I slowly breathe in over five seconds and hold, then breathe out over ten seconds. After five goes, I feel dizzy and sleepy but it passes. I take a big breath in and count to a hundred and twenty. It was easy. I do it again; I count to a hundred and forty. I do it again; I count to one fifty. I do it again; I count to one forty. I do it again; I count to one thirty-nine. I lose count. I wonder how many seconds it would take to get to forty-three meters.
13
The boathouse is my second home. I meet Tay most days after school to dive or just hang out. Now that summer is well on its way, it stays light late into the evening, and it’s hard to remember to go home. Sometimes we see Danny, and I wave to show he can’t get to me. He never waves back, and Tay moves me along and tells me to ignore him. Sometimes we pop in to see Mick, but he’s usually too busy to talk to us. He still makes the best hot chocolate, though, and there’s always a good selection of diving magazines to thumb through.
Every time we go into the water, I push myself to go a little bit deeper, and the thrill of it fills me with adrenaline and makes me want to go deeper still. Ten meters, then twelve, then fourteen, then sixteen, and finally eighteen. Sometimes Tay comes down with me; other times he hovers near the surface and then comes down to pull me up when he thinks I’m down too long. If he can’t meet me, he leaves me little notes about diving. They’re amazing, full of tips on how to increase my lung capacity, drawings (of me!) demonstrating how to do dolphin kicks and frog kicks, how to reserve my energy. What to do in an emergency—release my weights and kick for the surface. A list of things to remember: 1. Be confident. 2. Never dive alone. 3. Let your mind control your body. There aren’t any tips on how to go deeper, though. I don’t understand why Tay isn’t interested in that. Especially as Mick told me that Tay can go the deepest out of anyone. At school I create my own bubble to hide in. I barely listen in my classes. I hide Tay’s notes inside my textbooks and read them instead. I haven’t done any studying for my exams, but I don’t even care.
I’m smiling at a picture Tay has drawn of me in the lotus position with a speech bubble coming out of my mouth saying, “Tay is the best teacher,” when I feel something hit my ear. Then an elastic band flies past me and falls by my feet. I do my best to ignore it, but when the bell goes, I am surrounded.
“What you got there?” Ailsa grabs the drawing and shows everyone, then tears it into tiny pieces.
“None of your business,” I say.
Ailsa grabs my hair, and one of her sidekicks stamps on my foot.
“I know you put the rotten fruit in my bag,” she hisses. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with it.”
When she pulls her hand away, she takes a clump of my hair with it. It hurts so much, I want to cry, but I do not cry at school. It’s Lara who comes to my rescue.
“Leave her alone,” she says. “Find someone else to bother.”
Ailsa stares at Lara, open-mouthed, and then pushes her to the side.
“Well, you would stick up for your pathetic little boyfriend’s sister, wouldn’t you?” And she marches off with her sidekicks in tow.
Lara doesn’t move. I don’t want to, but I force myself to say thank you to her because it’s polite. Then I realize she only did it because she wants to talk to me about Dillon.
“I’m worried about him,” she says. “He seems really distant. Is everything okay at home? I know he’s got exams, but so have we.”
“Yeah, fine,” I say, wondering how much Dillon has told her about Mum’s drinking and Dad’s disappearing acts.
“I guess you guys have a lot to deal with,” she says. “If you ever want to talk . . .”
She looks genuinely concerned, and I feel sorry for her. I hope my brother isn’t the shag-then-leave-them type.
“I think Dillon is okay,” I say. “He’s just a bit stressed over his exams.”
But she’s right. Dillon is being very weird. He keeps having nightmares, and he never eats the food I cook, even when it’s healthy. I need to take him to the beach to cheer him up and get him away from his books. I also want to ask him again who he was looking for on the beach that day. I haven’t had any new memories, and now that I’m comfortable in the water, I’m starting to think I might not have any ever again.
14
There is a huge swell, and the wind churns up the water so it looks like frothed-up egg white. Tay isn’t in the boathouse, where we’d agreed to meet. After a few minutes, I hear the door to the clubhouse slam, and then voices. I crawl outside and peer around the corner.
Danny and Tay are on the veranda having what looks like a heated discussion. The wind is too loud for me to hear properly, but I catch the end of the conversation.
“You know what you need to do,” Danny says.
“Fuck off,” Tay replies, and then jumps down the steps two at a time. I slither back into the boathouse and pretend that I’ve been there the whole time.
Tay is agitated when he comes inside, swearing under his breath and kicking things about. After he discovers all the beers are gone, he slams my cupboard door so hard that the whole thing topples over.
“I can go and get more beers if you want,” I offer.
He sits down heavily and leans back against the wall.
“It’s fine.”
I light us cigarettes and pass one to him. Even when he’s angry, he smokes delicately.
There’s a nasty yellow bruise on the bridge of his nose. He sees me looking and turns away, so I don’t say anything, but I’m guessing what I heard wasn’t Tay’s first fight with Danny. “I can’t do the rings,” I say after a while.
Tay puts his arm around me and tells me he thinks the sideways smoke looks better anyway. I can’t help but look at the bruise— there’s a small cut, too, that’s scabbed over.
“Must have whacked myself in the face while I was asleep,” he says.
I frown at him.
“Who were you talking to just now? Danny?”
“No one.”
“Tay, I could hear you. Why did you tell him to fuck off?”
“He’s just being a twat. He says I need to help more with the diving club. He thinks I shouldn’t be spending all my time with you.”
“So? I thought you didn’t have to listen to him.”
Tay brings his knees up and then stretches out again, like he can’t get comfortable.
“He says you’re too vulnerable.”
And then I know that Danny has told Tay about Eddie. I shouldn’t have provoked him by waving all the time, and there’s a chance he saw me having a teary moment in the water the other day.
“He’s told you about my twin, hasn’t he?”
Tay is silent for a minute and just smokes. At first I panic and think that Danny was right, Tay doesn’t even care. Then I wonder if he just didn’t hear me.
“Tay?”
He turns to me and reaches out to stroke my hair. Then he puts his cigarette down and touches my forehead with his. Finally, he pull
s back and picks up his cigarette again.
“I know about Eddie,” he says. “And I’m sorry. Why didn’t you talk to me about him?”
He doesn’t give me the pity head tilt. Instead, what I read in his face is disappointment that I didn’t tell him myself. And something else. Admiration, perhaps.
“I can’t pretend to know how you feel,” he continues. “But just so you know, you can talk about it, if you want. Or not, if you don’t want to.”
I’m so relieved he’s not running away that I kiss him, on the lips, and I have to rein myself back in before I literally eat him. And he is just as hungry for me. And then, when I’ve kissed away all my fear and I feel Eddie getting embarrassed for me, I tell Tay everything: about the day Eddie disappeared, the police search, the flashbacks I’ve been having. Tay holds me against him as I talk. I can’t see his face, but I can tell he’s listening because he breathes lightly and twirls my hair. I’ve never told my story to anyone before. Everyone I meet either already knows or doesn’t need to know. I tell him about how my family is falling apart, about Dillon not eating, and about his nightmares.
“He wakes in the night shouting, ‘You let him go!’ And it’s completely my fault.”
Tay squeezes my hand.
“It’s not your fault, El.”
I sit up and look at him. His eyes are watery, but he quickly wipes them dry.
I’m ready to tell someone my biggest secret.
“It was my fault,” I say. “I was supposed to hold Eddie’s hand the whole time we were in the water. I shouldn’t have let go but I did. He’s never said it to me, but I know Dillon blames me. My dad does too.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” Tay almost shakes me. “It’s not your fault. You were only small. The water out there is so unpredictable. If you get caught in a rip tide or a strong current, it’s impossible to hold on to anything. Trust me—I know.”
He passes me a cigarette and says he wants to hear more about Eddie. We sit and smoke while I tell him Eddie stories. Tay laughs at the story about the dog and Eddie hanging on to the lead.
The Art of Not Breathing Page 10